The Mirror of Zen

16

When you raise your hwa-du, your kong-an or Great
Doubt, never attempt to figure out some correct answer,
nor pursue it with thought. And do not just wait
around until you become awakened. If you arrive at
the place where thought cannot enter, your mind will
have nowhere to go. It will be for you like an old rat
that has entered the trap made of an ox horn: there is
no way for retreat, and seemingly no way forward, either.
It would be complete delusion to calculate this and
that, to wander here and there following the karma of
life and death, and to run about in fear and confusion.
These days, people do not know that this is a sickness,
and keep falling in and out of this sickness over and
over again.