When there’s a question, there’s an answer
Leland Shields – October 11, 2026
Someone once asked Master Yunmen, “Since ancient times, the old worthies have transmitted mind by mind. Today I ask you, master: What method do you use?”
The master said, “When there’s a question, there’s an answer.”
The questioner continued, “In this case, it isn’t a wasted method.”
The master said, “No question, no answer.”App, Urs. Zen Master Yunmen: His Life and Essential Sayings (p. 89). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.
The stories of Yunmen are frequently like this one, concise and immediate. In Zen generally, we are often directed to the immediacy of the oak tree in the garden, the roar of a jet overhead, and the grumbling of my stomach. Yunmen includes something deeply intimate; the longing that inspires my own question. It is easy to focus on the context and the content of a question. We can wonder how a certain word is translated by others, the history about these old worthies, and what it means to transmit mind by mind. And importantly, what is transmitted? It’s similarly easy to focus on the content of the answer. If Yunmen transmitted anything in his response it would be to our detriment, which need not prevent us from receiving something of great value.
Note that in the first line of this story is a person’s request to hear about Yunmen’s method. Yunmen’s response said nothing about dedication, crossed legs, breath, or mindfulness. What is immediate is the existence, the truth, of the question, and the existence, the truth, of an answer. This is relevant everywhere. It is relevant in joining fully with the existence of breath rather than figuring out breath practice or how to do it. Yunmen presents the simple truth of this moment with each statement. To fully recognize the simple truth requires that we release the quarrel with what is, unless what is, is a quarrel. If what is is a quarrel, then a quarrel with the truth is immediate.
Here’s another example of Yunmen’ responses to a sincere question:
Someone asked Yunmen, “Though this is constantly my most pressing concern, I cannot find any way in. Please, Master, show me a way in!” The Master said, “Just in your present concern there is a way.”
(Ibid, p.141)
Once again, Yunmen decidedly steps aside from pointing us outside of ourselves, and instead shines a light on what is most intimate. Look no further than the fire under the question – the concern itself. Look no further than the fire in your heart mind today.
Of course, these dialogues are occurring in monastic settings, where Yunmen did not drive the monks out on the street, and away from any filthy teaching. While monks lived there, it is likely there was at least one monk responsible for training everyone in the forms of practice. Perhaps Yunmen felt free to leave that aspect of training to others, or perhaps those writing down his words – which he vehemently discouraged – chose to leave out stories of his practical talks. From what we can tell of Zen monasteries of the time, sitting was rigorous, many hours a day, and there were 90-day intensive periods in Spring and Fall. The human, practical mind is and has always been strong, which is good news for our survival. To this day for most of us it takes persistence to see another way. As lay practitioners it is persistence that we build into daily life.
But whether in a monastery or not in a monastery, it doesn’t matter with respect to Yunmen’s responses passed down to us today. Whether in monastery or not in monastery, I am right here you are right here.
Returning to our original story:
Someone once asked Master Yunmen, “Since ancient times, the old worthies have transmitted mind by mind. Today I ask you, master: What method do you use?”
The master said, “When there’s a question, there’s an answer.”
The questioner continued, “In this case, it isn’t a wasted method.”
The master said, “No question, no answer.”(Ibid, p.89)
Is that all there is to transmission? A question and an answer? If so, then I can ask a question and I’m done; I can go home and have a beer. Or is it no question and no answer? If so, then I can keep my mouth shut, and abandon all curiosity. Neither of these are very satisfying. Both remain mired in their being two; transmitted and not, question and answer,
In the last two lines, the questioner told Yunmen his method was not wasted, and Yunmen said, “No question, no answer.” We could understand Yunmen as reiterating his direct response, now relevant to hearing the statement of this other person rather than a question. Even if so, Yunmen is saying more as well.
Maybe the questioner did have an eye and was telling Yunmen he understood, but what might that eye be closed to, just by presuming he sees? How can we be alert to what is before us, if we know it before looking, and if we carry away an answer after?
I had my own questions when reading this story and enlisted the help of Deedee and Jonathan to look at the Chinese characters of some key phrases. I found it helpful to learn that the character translated as “answer,” can also be “reply,” or “respond.” These alternative words don’t carry the same implication of being correct or knowing an answer. Yunmen may not have been implying knowing something and offering it, and may be offering an expression instead. Lighting flashes; thunder reverberates.
“No question, no answer” can be translated as “Not question, not answer,” wiping away the existence of question, and the existence of answer. Where does that leave the someone asking questions and making statements before Yunmen? Where does that leave you and me reading the story?
Someone asks a question. Yunmen responds. These are not two. No question, no answer; this not even one. How could there be even one when the Lee who writes this sentence is already gone before reaching the period that ends it?
When there is lightning, there is thunder. A flash in the sky is not lightning. Rumbling on a stormy night is not thunder. Talk of thunder and lightning is thin without the soaking rain and echoing hills. Carrying away the answer is no more fruitful than bottling lightning. When not seeking outside, we are soaked by the underlying longing in our own question. More intimately in our bodies, the diaphragm expands and air fills lungs. No need for the vocabulary of question and answer; the dance of life is uninterrupted, without punctuation.
In another story, Yunmen expressed himself this way:
[The student of the Way] asked, “The ordinary being, because of what he is, asks questions; the Most Honored One, because of what he is, preaches. [Is this so?]” [The Master] answered, “Because of the doubt one has, one asks. So as to remove the doubt one preaches.”
App, Urs. Zen Master Yunmen: His Life and Essential Sayings (p. 32). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.
I was making a left turn onto Pike Street last week and didn’t realize until I was well into the intersection that Pike street was barricaded and blocked to traffic. Not wanting to get caught in the intersection, I put on my right turn signal, and perhaps too tightly squeezed in front of the next car in order to continue straight on the road. The car behind me honked the horn – not a short beep to tell me that what I did wasn’t nice of me, but a long, sustained beep, indicating that after 2-3 seconds he hadn’t made his point yet. He and I were both stopped at the next red light, where I could see in my rear-view mirror that he was giving me the finger.
My decision to get out of the car and speak to him was not my proudest or wisest choice, but somehow, there I was walking back to the driver’s side window of other car. I saw a man with greying hair in a late-model Rivian in good condition, and perhaps a part of me concluded he was not likely to shoot me. He lowered the window a few inches, and I said, “I couldn’t turn left because the road was closed.” With a sneer and gravely voice, he shouted that I didn’t have to get in front of his car and should have waited my turn, spittle sprinkling the inside of his window. I turned around without another word and got in my car.
My thoughts rushed first about him and how surprisingly angry he was, then about my choices of moving into his lane, and getting out my car to address him, and finally I noticed the heat of it in body and mind. His anger was now my anger, one way or another.
This is it. “Anger” is too small a word to capture the multiple thoughts, feelings, and body reactions. “Anger” also may imply an ill will or blame that I did not feel, or more fairly, I felt little of. Maybe his anger evoked a sense of danger, need for protection and defense.
Yunmen said, “Because of the doubt one has, one asks. So as to remove the doubt one preaches.” That was it during the moment of his conversation with a student of the Way. He was not primarily talking about doubt, removing it, or preaching. He was rooted in all that is right here. Driving on to my office, I was Yunmen, rooted in pounding heart and spittle on inside of glass.
Look no further.
Looking at the translation of the word “preaching” in the line:
[The student of the Way] asked, “The ordinary being, because of what he is, asks questions; the Most Honored One, because of what he is, preaches. [Is this so?]”
Similar to what I said before about the word “answer,” I find that the character rendered as “preach,” can be translated as “speak,” “say,” or “reply.” If Yunmen preaches or offers answers, he has fallen into darkness. If we take what he preaches and believe his answers, we fall with him.
Also from Yunmen:
Someone asked, “What is the eye of the genuine [teaching]?”
Master Yunmen said, “The steam of rice gruel.”(Ibid, p. 97)
Maybe it would serve practice at Three Treasures better if we had one or more people who supported the practice questions, and I or Madelon exclusively pointed to the intimate and immediate, I don’t know. But that too is a question that can be recognized for its own sake. The question is the answer.
Someone asked, “What tune do you sing, Master?” The Master replied, “The twenty-fifth of the twelfth month!” “What if I sing it?” [the person responded]. [Yunmen said,] “Slowly, slowly!”
(Ibid, p, 93)
In asking for his tune, the person may be asking Yunmen about his lineage. It would have been in keeping with the immediacy of Yunmen’s responses to think he could have been offering the very date of their meeting. In Chinese tradition, death was sometimes referred to as the 30th day of the 12th month, so Yunmen could also have been reminding us of not only mortality, but of our impending death. What’s clear is that Yunmen was in no hurry to have anyone sing his song. We may just as well ask the crow to train itself to stop its raucous CAW, and sing the song sparrow’s tune.
Yunmen had his own tune, preaching in a monastery while discouraging anyone from writing down or studying his words. He did have his way to point directly. Just as others had their tunes, such as Ikkyū who found monastic living deadening, so he sometimes fled it, and sometimes allowed himself to be talked into returning to teach. We each know our own tune, though sometimes we forget to sing it. More precisely I should say, but sometimes we don’t realize that we are singing it and couldn’t possibly do otherwise.
Look no further; this is the song.
Prayer
Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.From Collected Poems by Galway Kinnell.