Mu 3

From Create Your Own Story

Mu (Japanese/Korean), Wu (Chinese traditional: 無, simplified: 无 pinyin: wú), and Vô (in Vietnamese) is a word which can be roughly translated as "none" or "without". While typically used as a prefix to imply the absence of something (e.g., 無線 musen for "wireless"), it is more famously used as a response to certain koans and other questions in Zen Buddhism, intending to indicate that the question itself was wrong.

The Mu koan is as follows: A monk asked Zen master Zhaozhou, a Chinese Zen Master (in Japanese, Jōshū): "Has a dog Buddha-nature or not?", Zhaozhou answered: "Wú" (in Japanese, Mu).

• Consider other Mu koans
• Choose another answer to the question of what Mu is