Zhaozhou gouzi

Zhaozhou gouzi (趙州狗子). "Zhaozhou's dog". The title of a famous gong'an which appears as the first case of the Wumen guan ("The Gateless Gate") and the eighteenth case of the Zongyong lu.

The gong'an is stated as follows:

A monk asked Zhaozhou, "Does a dog have Buddha-nature or not?"

Zhaozhou replied, "Wu."

The complete exchange from which this gong’an is drawn continues:

“Everything has buddha-nature, from the buddhas above, to the ants below. Why wouldn’t a dog have it?”

Zhaozhou replied: “Because he has the nature of karmically conditioned consciousness.”

The Digital Dictionary of Buddhism states:

The gong'an is the whole exchange, the huatou is the word wu. The huatou is the focus of a sustained investigation, via a more discursive examination of the question, "Why did Zhaozhou say a dog doesn't have the buddha-nature when the answer clearly should be that it does?," which is called 'investigation of the meaning;' this investigation helps to generate questioning or 'doubt,' which is the force that drives this type of practice forward.

As that investigation matures, it changes into a nondiscursive attention to just the word 'no' itself, which is called 'investigation of the word' 看話 (Ch. kanhua) because the meditatorʼs attention is then thoroughly absorbed in this ' sensation of doubt.' This type of investigation is said to be nonconceptual and places the meditation at the 'access to realization,' viz. 'sudden awakening.'

The most sustained treatment of the use of huatou in Chan/Zen/Seon meditation appears in the Korean tradition and 'Keyword Meditation' (ganhwa Seon 看話禪) remains the principal type of meditation practiced in contemporary Korean Buddhism.

Title variations

• Zhaozhou gouzi 趙州狗子, "Zhaozhouʼs dog"
• Zhaozhou wuzi 趙州無字, "Zhaozhouʼs word mu"
• gouzi foxing 狗子佛性, "buddha-nature of a dog"
• wu gong'an 無公案, “the case ‘no’”

Sources

• Buswell, Robert E.; Lopez, Donald S. (2014), The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton University 
• Dumoulin, Heinrich (2005), Zen Buddhism: A History. Volume 1: India and China, translated by Heisig, James W.; Knitter, Paul, Bloomington, Indiana: World Wisdom