The sketch clearly had a gate, perhaps even four. There was perhaps even Wumen Huikai, himself, standing on top the gate. Smiling with a smirk looking down at me. To see if I would passes it, or would I knock it in hesitation.

Scrolling left for some new paper to sketch.

The feel of being out of the open evidently made me hunch my back and be at guard against external entities. For it is I, who now closed my gate to prevent any entry. Scrolling back right, looking the unpainted space. I drew fences along the path. And along it I erected a watchtower. Without too much thought I added some powerline to provide for air conditioning

Trying out a different composition engulfing the barrier that surrounds the gate. The gate actually turn into more of a house in a yard. Again, I am retreating into my sanctum.

Different schools of zen, introspectively are very similar. It is in the outward approach to live that is distinctively different. One simple distinction is the use of different verbs, exit 出 vs enter 入, to a singular noun “world” 世. The school of 出世, mostly stay at their monastery, meditating, reading buddhist scrolls, doing daily chores etc. I think there the duality between enter and exit isn’t precisely divided, or clearly, nor is it an accurate state of reality.

The above sketch Wumen Guan (gateless barrier), lead to me visualise another story. Kong Cheng Ji, the tactic of empty castle, bluff. In the fictional version of the story, it goes like this. The general council, Zhu Ge Liang (諸葛亮), of the Shu (蜀) was ask to defend a castle, without reinforcements coming. Zhu opened the gates, and held a party at the top of the gates. The opponent general got spooked, and didn’t call Zhu’s bluff.

There were many legends with regards to Zhu Ge liang. I’ve heard he invented the compass. There was one line in the history fiction, where the infamous line:

既生瑜，何生亮。

Zhou Yu (瑜), was the handsome and prodigal general council for the Wu state. After many battle lost to Liang, Yu spoke at the presence of no one:

If the world made me, Yu, as close to perfect as I am, why did it have to have Zhu, now.

This one line is often use for condolence to patronise the runner up. Or it is used by the runner up to express disappointment. The duality in this case is very intriguing to me.

Folding of hetu

Reusing the hetu coordinate system but scaled instead, in portrait aspect. Each triangle is the connection of 3 points, and for each triangle, constructed by rotating through a given fix integer steps within each local order states. Given the asymmetry, interesting modulo-harmonic folds happens in the composition and within chance.

In the next steps I attempt to build the scene with on the basis on these basic shape determined algorithmically . The scaling are decreasing exponential, but the positioning is fixed within the global and static hetu coordinates. The finite choices again form the basis of my composition.

I starting see landscape in abstraction. The outputs of the generation started to look like various kind of cliffs and valleys. How fitting gates are usually stationed before the entering. Cliffs and valleys are defense systems made by nature.

Next I played with carving out space, by drawing very thick arc that doesn’t complete close the circle on a given vertex of the basic hetu block. Since the basic block is drawn in order from larger ones to small ones. The small unclosed-arcs carve out space (of the bigger blocks). The effect of this gives the look of the carving out of the bigger one and a smaller building enter or leaves the void space. On chance of getting double carved, someone started stare.

In my work process, I usually start with only two palettes in composition. The above version is getting close, to something. The contrast is bold. And the building blocks pops in and out of the void created by incomplete arc, such voids are gates, whether they are gated or gateless that is up to the viewer.

In looking at the compositions, I feel they are sensible and perhap inteligible. But the lacking of sensitivity I longed isn’t filled.

Circling back to the concept of enter world 入世 and exit world 出世. There is different framework concepts in:

Kong 空 — emptiness, void, nothingness.

Jia 假 — illusory nature of things not tangible.

Zhong 中 — within, in and of it.

The gate posed in question is of nothingness, not necessary in the sense that is explicit not a gate. Just as well, our perception of the gate existential possibly illusory. The last within, is the divergence between the dichotomy entering and exiting (the world).

With a little assistance with spotify: shuffling the playlist:

Stairway way to heaven, which was close, but I wasn’t stepping on those steps. I was stationary.

That led me to tears in heaven. This was it.

I started to mix 5 or 6 palettes of colors. And as I explored through palettes in the different forms and composition, the gates had become either hearts and/or eyes looking upon us. The barrier (關 guan), a type of blockade of something, effectively became a perspective, (觀 guan), the watching over of some things with love.

I realized, it was then trivial to debate whether and how such gates exist. And whether something in the sky was flying in and out of gates or non gates, is no more significant than if they were only the teardrops of someone, watching over us, cheering us on. The answer was a simple question of love.

Teardrops flowed. But I am not stumbling in the dark.

The answer to Wumen Huikai’s posed question of Wumen Guan (無門關), is ironically in the name of the zen master, Wumen Huikai (無門慧開). 關, the barrier that ensures closure between spaces.

After seeing the whole of teardrop compositions, it couldn’t any more obvious, the gateless barrier (無門 wumen), is opened (開 kai) with wisdom (慧 hui). Not the intelligence variety, but one filled with heart. It is in the heart (心), that melts winter snow (雪 xue), and after winter have passed (彐 ji), spring arrives and grass (丰 feng) sprouts of heart.

There are infinite teardrops in this world, may we wish more bliss than not.

After mint calligraphy

I like to write lyrics and calligraphy in between or post mint. Here

無門慧開心歸雪化而花草卉

無門-wumen-gateless barrier koan

慧開-hukai-zen master

慧intelligence~=會able

open開your心heart歸to where it belongs

慧=心warmth of heart melts the雪snow so丰花草卉 flower bloom. QED the koan of wumenguan無門關is answer by 慧開

慧歸卉rhymes with🐢