HUA TOU

Examples of Hua Tou[edit]

• “What is it?”
• “What is this?”
• “Who is repeating the Buddha’s name?”
• “Who is dragging this corpse around?” (popularized by Hsu Yun)
• “Who am I?”
• “What was my Original face before my father and mother were born?”
• “What is Mu?”

When you practise in this way all thoughts of sleeping, eating and even dying will be forgotten. One just dwells single-pointedly on the hua-t’ou to which one has to awaken. Everything completely falls away — even the thought of awakening itself. If you pen­etrate the hua-t’ou with great determination, the path of words is cut off and any place for the mind to dwell disap­pears. It now becomes very transparent, bright and clear. At this time the mature person no longer has any doubts about the words of the great masters. But upon awakening in such a way, the time has come when he must go and see a realized teacher to determine whether his awakening is genuine or not. This is the moment when one has to cut and polish one’s understanding with a good teacher. Yet to people who do not know, one does not say a word. One behaves like a dumb and stupid person. Upon meeting someone else who also knows, a simple movement of the eyes is enough for each to recognize the level of the other’s understanding. In these ways such people respect one another.