The Great Question of Life and Death in the Depths of the Soul

Now, amid the pandemic, the questions asked by the security guards at the entrance of the residential compound are all great questions of life and death that strike deep into the soul:

1. Who are you?

2. Where do you come from?

3. Where are you going?

Then they give you a shot in the forehead. This shot is a Zen repartee of the Chan school — if you awaken, you awaken on the spot; if you do not awaken, then go and investigate the above three questions. Everyone has lived through countless kalpas, yet does not even know who they themselves are, nor where they come from or where they are going. They live like walking corpses, no different in any significant way from animals — merely alive. Is it not time to wake up?

In the face of the great matter of birth and death, the security guards stand in place of the Chan patriarchs. That shot is like the blows and shouts of the patriarchs, and those three questions are the huatou of the Chan school, like a crowbar for the brain — whoever's mind is quick and sharp will have their brain opened up first.