In the Rinzai tradition there are three core elements that form the foundation of practice. They are the Great Root of Faith, the Great Mass of Doubt and a Great Fierce Resolve. But why are they “great”?

I have always loved the idea that the character for great, 大, features the pictographic element of someone standing with their arms outstretched. Like someone saying, “It’s this big!”

“Great Doubt”, or more literally the “Great Mass of Doubt”, 大疑團, holds further embodied imagery. The character for doubt, 疑, traditionally imagines a person leaning on a staff, uncertain about which way to go. The final character, 團, refers to something gathered, rounded and compacted into a mass. For me, this points directly to where we hold our practice, our questions, our koans: deep in our belly.

These embodied presentations come to life when we meet our teachers in dokusan, perhaps when expressing the vastness of our true nature, or in pointing out that our uncertainties are it too. Practice happens nowhere else except in this very body. This very body is the Buddha.

We might mistakenly see the vigor of our Rinzai side as a kind of gung-ho push to conquer all of our shortcomings, but the truth is that questions such as “who’s hearing?”, “What is your original face?”, or “what is mu?” create visceral conditions in our practice that will push us around, both mentally and physically. And so the container of zazen needs firm foundations.

In his commentary on the first case of the Gateless Barrier, Wumen instructs us to make Mu into a Great Mass of Doubt. He begins by asking, “Is there anyone who would not want to pass this barrier?” That barrier here is not merely an intellectual problem, but the whole existential predicament opened up by these aforementioned questions. Resolve any one of them, and the implications on our body, mind and the ten thousand things as themselves and us, entails a lifetime of integration.

Not surprising, Wumen’s technique that follows is wholly embodied: “Make your whole body a mass of doubt, and with your three hundred and sixty bones and joints and your eighty-four thousand hair follicles concentrate on this one word ‘Mu.’ Day and night, keep digging into it. Don’t consider it to be nothingness. Don’t think in terms of “has” and “has not.” It is like swallowing a red-hot iron ball. You try to vomit it out, but you can’t”.

Visceral indeed!

But as simply as Yamada Roshi once said, “Great Doubt is the condition of being one with Mu.” And Aitken Roshi writes, “There’s no need to manufacture doubt or to create it from outside. It’s right here: What is Mu?”

Great Doubt is not simply a step along the way. It is the Way itself. We will always be searching, saving, letting go and holding on. Even our greatest breakthroughs must themselves be questioned. Wumen ends his comment with, “A single spark lights your dharma candle”. Yet that candle must be blown out and rekindled, over and over again. Dahui says, “Beneath the Great Doubt, always there is a Great Awakening”. Please taste that great mass for yourselves.

These Encouraging Words were written by apprentice teacher, Peter Bursky for the August/September 2026 Newsletter