Preface
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By the same author
"What is the book?"
"According to the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters ofthe title, we call it Mu-Mon-Kwan, which means 'The Gateless Barrier.'It is one of the books especially studied by the Zen sect, or the sectof Dhyâna. A peculiarity of some of the Dhyâna texts—this (story) beinga good example—is that they are not explanatory. They only suggest.Questions are put, but the student must think out the answers forhimself. He must think them out but not write them. You know thatDhyâna represents human effort to reach, through meditation, zones ofthought beyond the range of verbal expression; and any thought narrowedinto utterance loses all Dhyâna quality.... Well, this story is supposedto be true; but it is used only for a Dhyâna question...."
LAFCADIO HEARN.
"Exotics and Retrospectives," pages 83, 84.
Laurence leaned his arms upon the broad wooden hand-rail of thebulwarks. The water hissed away from the side. Immediately below it waslaced by shifting patterns of white foam, and stained pale green,violet, and amber, by the light shining out through the rounds of theport-poles. Further away it showed blue black, but for a glistening onthe hither side of the vast ridge and furrow. The smoke from the funnelsstreamed afar, and was upturned by a following wind. The great shipswung in the trough, and then lifted—as a horse lifts at a fence—whilethe seas slid away from under her keel. As she lifted, her masts rakedthe blue-black night sky, and the stars danced in the rigging.
This was the first time since his marriage, nearly two years before,that Laurence found himself alone and altogether his own master. Hismarriage was a notable success—every one said so, and he himself hadnever doubted the fact so far. Yet this solitary voyage, this temporaryreturn to bachelorhood, possessed compensations. He reproached himself,as in duty bound