Q0305

Zhaozhou Congshen

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Does a dog have Buddha-nature? … Wu (No).
Thinker Zhaozhou Congshen
School Zen Buddhism
Source Gateless Gate 1 (related)
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Gateless Gate 1 (related), within the tradition of Zen Buddhism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of philosophy, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Zhaozhou Congshen's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Zhaozhou Congshen. (n.d.). Does a dog have Buddha-nature? … Wu (No). In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0305

MLA: Zhaozhou Congshen. “Does a dog have Buddha-nature? … Wu (No)..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0305.

Chicago: Zhaozhou Congshen. “Does a dog have Buddha-nature? … Wu (No)..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0305.

Same thinker

More from Zhaozhou Congshen

  1. Go drink tea.

All quotations by Zhaozhou Congshen

Same theme

More on philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the philosophy theme