Ordinary Mind Is the Way
平常心是道 — Nanquan's Ultimate Answer
The Koan
赵州问南泉：「如何是道？」
南泉曰：「平常心是道。」
赵州曰：「还可趣向也无？」
南泉曰：「拟向即乖。」
赵州曰：「不拟争知是道？」
南泉曰：「道不属知，不属不知。知是妄觉，不知是无记。若真达不疑之道，犹如太虚，廓然荡豁，岂可强是非耶？」
赵州言下悟理。
Zhaozhou asked Nanquan: "What is the Way?"
Nanquan said: "Ordinary mind is the Way."
Zhaozhou asked: "Can it be approached? Can I aim toward it?"
Nanquan said: "The moment you aim for it, you deviate."
Zhaozhou pressed: "If I don't aim for it, how do I know it is the Way?"
Nanquan said: "The Way does not belong to knowing, nor to not-knowing. Knowing is deluded perception; not-knowing is blank unawareness. If you truly arrive at the Way beyond doubt, it is like vast empty space — open and boundless. How can you force it into categories of is and is not?"
Zhaozhou awakened to the principle in that moment.
Unpacking the Koan
Zhaozhou was already an accomplished practitioner when he came to Nanquan. He wasn't a beginner asking a basic question. He was asking the real question: what is the Way — the path, the truth, the thing itself?
Nanquan's answer is the most deceptively simple statement in all of Chan: 平常心是道 (píngcháng xīn shì dào) — "Ordinary mind is the Way." Not the enlightened mind. Not the meditative mind. Not the mind that has transcended delusion. The ordinary mind. The mind that eats when hungry, sleeps when tired, walks when walking.
Zhaozhou, sharp as he is, immediately spots the problem: "Can I aim toward it?" If ordinary mind is the Way, can I practice toward being ordinary? Can I cultivate not-cultivating? Nanquan's response is instant: the moment you aim, you've already left. Aiming is the opposite of ordinary. Aiming creates a gap between where you are and where you want to be — and that gap is the very thing that prevents the Way.
Zhaozhou pushes harder: "If I don't aim, how do I know?" This is the practitioner's dilemma — if I stop seeking, how do I know I've found anything? And Nanquan's answer is the deepest cut: the Way is not in knowing or not-knowing. Knowing is a delusion. Not-knowing is deadness. The Way is neither — it is the open space in which both knowing and not-knowing arise.
Why It Matters
This koan is Chan's ultimate statement about practice. After all the shouts, the blows, the paradoxes, the demolitions of concept — here is the final teaching: you are already there. Not as a philosophical proposition, but as a lived fact. Your ordinary mind — the one that's reading these words right now, without trying to be special — is already the Way.
The trap is that "ordinary" doesn't mean what you think it means. It doesn't mean mediocre, mundane, or unremarkable. It means: without artificiality. Without the overlay of "I should be different." Without the constant commentary of "am I doing this right?" The ordinary mind is the mind that hasn't added anything to experience — and hasn't subtracted anything either.
Nanquan's image of "vast empty space" (太虚) is precise. Space doesn't choose what to contain. It doesn't prefer light over dark, sacred over profane. It's just open. Ordinary mind has that same quality — it receives everything without choosing, without grasping, without rejecting.
For the entire series of 24 koans, this is the final word. After the flower, the fox, the burning Buddha, the three pounds of hemp — ordinary mind. The extraordinary was ordinary all along. You just had to look through everything else to see it.
Practice Pointer
Do nothing special. Don't meditate. Don't try to be mindful. Don't try to be enlightened. Just sit — or stand, or walk — exactly as you are, without improving anything. Notice what happens when you stop adding "and I should be doing this better." What remains? That's ordinary mind. That's the Way.