The priest Hsiang-yen said, "It is as though you were up in a tree hanging from a branch by your teeth. You hands grasp no branch, your feet rest on no limb."

Someone approaches underneath the tree and asks, "What is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West?"

If you don't answer, you shirk your duty.

If you do answer, you will fall to your death.

What do you do?"

The priest Shih-shuang said, "How do you step from the top of a hundred-foot pole?"

Another esteemed master said,

you who sit atop a hundred-foot pole
  you have entered realization,
    but it is not yet real.
      Step forward, and
manifest your whole body
 throughout the Whole Universe
                In Ten Directions

Ta-mei asked Ma-Tsu, "What is Buddha?"

Ma-Tsu said, "This very mind is Buddha."

Chao-chou went to the hermit's hut and asked, "Anybody in? Anybody in?"

The hermit lifted up his fist.

Chao-chou said, "The water here is too shallow for a ship to anchor," and left.

Again Chao-chou went to a hermit's hut and asked, "Anybody in? Anybody in?"

This hermit lifted up his fist.

Chao-chou said, "Freely you give, freely you take away, freely you kill, freely you give life," and made a full bow.

A monk said to Yün-men, "The radiance serenely illumines the whole universe-"

  Yün-men interrupted and asked,
    "Aren't those the words of
      Chang-cho?"

"Yes, they are," said the monk.

  Yün-men said, "You have misspoken."

Later, Master Ssu-hsin took up the matter and asked,

    "Where did the monk misspeak?"