The character 無 in cursive script. See also an animation showing the stroke order for calligraphy.

The character 無 in seal script.

Mu (無^?) (in Japanese/Korean) or Wu (simplified Chinese: 无; traditional Chinese: 無; Mandarin Pinyin: wú; Jyutping: mou2), is a word which has been translated variously as "not",^[1][2] "nothing",^[1][2] "without",^[1] "nothingness",^[2] "non existent",^[3] "non being",^[3] or evocatively simply as "no thing".^{[citation needed]} In Chinese, Japanese and Korean it is commonly used in combination words as a prefix to indicate the absence of something, e.g., Chinese: 无线; pinyin: wúxiàn / musen (無線^?) / 무선 museon for "wireless".^[4]

The "Mu" koan

The word mu is central to the following well-known Zen Buddhist koan, which is also known as the Mu koan^[1]:

A monk asked Zhaozhou Congshen, a Chinese Zen master (known as Jōshū in Japanese), "Has a dog Buddha-nature or not?" Zhaozhou answered, "Wú" (in Japanese, Mu)

—The Gateless Gate, koan 1, translation by Robert Aitken ^[5]

This koan is one of several traditionally used by Rinzai school to initiate students into Zen study,^[1] and interpretations of it vary widely. Some earlier Buddhist thinkers maintained that animals did have Buddha nature, others believed that they did not.^{[citation needed]} Zhaozhou's answer, which literally means that dogs do not have Buddha nature, has been interpreted^[where?] to mean that such categorical thinking is a delusion, that yes and no are both right and wrong. Alternatively, Yasutani Haku'un of the Sanbo Kyodan maintained that "the koan is not about whether a dog does or does not have a Buddha-nature because everything is Buddha-nature, and either a positive or negative answer is absurd because there is no particular thing called Buddha-nature."^[6]

The koan originally comes from the Zhaozhou Zhenji Chanshi Yulu (Chinese: 趙州真際禪師語錄). An English translation of the koan, with the original Chinese, follows.

Chinese	English translation
僧問：狗子還有佛性也無？ 師云：無。 問：上至諸佛，下至螻蟻皆有佛性，狗子為什麼卻無？ 師云：為伊有業識在。	A monk asked, "Does a dog have a Buddha-nature or not?" The master said, "Not [Mu]!" The monk said, "Above to all the Buddhas, below to the crawling bugs, all have Buddha-nature. Why is it that the dog has not?" The master said, "Because he has the nature of karmic delusions".

- From The Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu, koan 132, translation by James Green^[7]

Cultural references

• In his 1974 novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig translated mu as "no thing", saying that it meant "unask the question". He offered the example of a computer circuit using the binary numeral system, in effect using mu to represent high impedance:

For example, it's stated over and over again that computer circuits exhibit only two states, a voltage for "one" and a voltage for "zero." That's silly! Any computer-electronics technician knows otherwise. Try to find a voltage representing one or zero when the power is off! The circuits are in a mu state.

^[8]

• According to the Jargon File, a collection of hacker jargon and culture, mu is considered by Discordians to be the correct answer to the classic logical fallacy of the loaded question, "Have you stopped beating your wife?"^[9] Assuming that you have no wife or you have never beaten your wife, the answer "yes" is wrong because it implies that you used to beat your wife and then stopped, but "no" is worse because it suggests that you have one and are still beating her. As a result, some Discordians proposed "mu" as the correct answer, which to them means, "Your question cannot be answered because it depends on incorrect assumptions."^[9] For the same reason, "mu" is generally considered to be similar to "N/A" or "not applicable," a term often used to indicate the question cannot be answered because the conditions of the question do not match the reality.

• The word features prominently in Douglas Hofstadter's 1979 book, Gödel, Escher, Bach, where it is used fancifully in discussions of symbolic logic, particularly Gödel's incompleteness theorems, to indicate a question whose "answer" is to un-ask the question, indicate the question is fundamentally flawed, or reject the premise that a dualistic answer can or will be given.^[10]

• The video game EarthBound has the character named Ness undergo a rigorous test involving Mu as part of his training.

See also

• Ma (negative space)
• Multi-valued logic
• Not even wrong
• Null
• Wronger than wrong
• Wu wei, a term in Chinese philosophy
• Wu-Wo tea ceremony

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} Baroni, Helen Josephine. The illustrated encyclopedia of Zen Buddhism, p.228. The word mu (Ch. wu) is word that can be translated as "no", "not", "nothing", or "without". Japanese Rinzai has classified the Mu Koan as a hosshin koan, that is, a koan appropriate for beginners seeking kensho, the initial enlightenment experience.
2. ^ ^{a b c} Fischer-Schreiber, I., Ehrhard, R. K. & Diener, M. S. (1991). The Shambhala dictionary of Buddhism and Zen (M. H. Kohn, Trans.). Boston: Shambhala. "Mu: nothing, not, nothingness, is not, has not, not any."
3. ^ ^{a b} Muller, A. Charles, ed. Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (Edition of 2010 July 31) page: mu (無?, "non-existent") -login required, use username=guest password= (without a password)
4. ^ WWWJDIC: 無; 无 【む】 (n) (1) nothing; naught; nought; nil; zero; (pref) (2) un-; non-
5. ^ Aitken, Robert, ed. and trans. (1991). The Gateless Barrier: The Wu-men Kuan (Mumonkan). San Francisco: North Point Press. ISBN 0-86547-442-7. 
6. ^ Grenard, Jerry L. The Phenomenology of Koan Meditation in Zen Buddhism. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 39 (2008) 151–188.
7. ^ Green, James, ed. and trans. (1998). The Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman Altamira. p. 53. ISBN 9780761989851. http://books.google.com/books?id=T4sJ5fK6_vYC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA53#v=onepage&q&f=true. 
8. ^ Pirsig, Robert M. (2000). Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. New York: Harper Perennial. p. 328. ISBN 0060958324. First Perennial Classics edition. 
9. ^ ^{a b} Mu. The Jargon File 4.4.7 (2003).
10. ^ Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1999) [1979]. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Basic Books. ISBN 0465026567. .

References

• Day, Stacey B. (1997). Man and Mu: The Cradle of Becoming and Unbecoming: Desiderata For Human Science. New York: International Foundation for Biosocial Development and Human Health. ISBN 0-934314-00-4. OCLC 45243608. http://openlibrary.org/b/OL709443M/Man_and_Mu.