What is a metaphor? In Greek metaphora means “a transferring to one word the sense of another.” For want of a better term, koans, generally speaking, are metaphorical compositions. While they have a mundane appearance, they are meant to disclose pure Mind. A mundane phrase from Zen master Joshu such as “Go wash your bowl” is a metaphorical phrase intended to point to Mind. But insofar as the Zen student has never encountered the luminous Mind he has not the slightest idea how washing his bowl connects with this Mind. His answer would only be the result of guessing. This is not good enough.

In case XV of the Mumonkan we read that Ummon asks Tozan, “Where have you come from.” What everyone is unaware of is that the entire question is one big metaphor which is really demanding of Tozan that he demonstrate is realization of Mind. But Tozan doesn’t get the metaphor. If he had, actually, awakened to this Mind he might have replied to Ummon with, “Come here you old rice bag and I’ll show you it!” Ummon may have even decided to test Tozan further to see where his mind was. And if Tozan were awakened to it, the outcome would be a draw and eternal friendship.

Looking at the next case, the question put forth by Ummon, “For what is it that you put on your seven-piece robe at the sound of the bell?” is another metaphorical phrase. The “For what is it” is pointing directly at Buddha Mind, a Mind that is totally unlike our deluded, conditioned mind. Did any monk realize it? I doubt it. I would have been more kind than Ummon asking, “What puts on this robe at the sound of the bell? Aren’t you working night and day trying to uncover it?”

Koans cannot be cracked intellectually. In fact, their development was meant to stop the intellect dead in its tracks. The attempt to answer koans intellectually is to be on a fool’s errand. Even taking a koan at face value is to be on a fool’s errand.

All koans point to the ineffable, cardinal principle of Zen which is Buddha Mind. Make no mistake, this principle points not to the simplistic act of chopping wood and carrying water. Yet, devoid of this principle we couldn’t lift an ax or a bucket of water or put on our clothes. The witless prithagjana (worldly people) might cut wood all day and carry water back from the well but the Zennist knows, first hand, the light that picks up the ax and carries the bucket of water back to his retreat cabin in the woods. This light is eternal life. It is beyond the reach and range of birth and death. To encounter it, directly, is to join the Buddha club, the invisible Sangha of light.