Passing Through the Gateless Barrier

<b>The classic thirteenth-century collection of Zen koans with one of the most accessible commentaries to date, from a Chinese Zen teacher.</b> <br><br> Gateways to awakening surround us at every moment of our lives. The whole purpose of <i>kōan</i> (<i>gong’an</i>, in Chinese) practice is to keep us from missing these myriad opportunities by leading us to certain gates that have traditionally been effective for people to access that marvelous awakening. The forty-eight kōans of the <i>Gateless Barrier</i> (Chinese: <i>Wumenguan</i>; Japanese: <i>Mumonkan</i>) have been waking people up for well over eight hundred years. Chan teacher Guo Gu provides here a fresh translation of the classic text, along with the first English commentary by a teacher of the Chinese tradition from which it originated. He shows that the kōans in this text are not mere stories from a distant past, but are rather pointers to the places in our lives where we get stuck—and that each sticking point, when examined, can become a gateless barrier through which we can enter into profound wisdom.