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

The character 無 in seal script.

Mu (Japanese/Korean), Wu (Chinese traditional: 無, simplified: 无 pinyin: wú), and Vô (in Vietnamese) is a word which can be roughly translated as "none" or "without". While typically used as a prefix to imply the absence of something (e.g., 無線 musen for "wireless"), it is more famously used as a response to certain koans and other questions in Zen Buddhism, intending to indicate that the question itself was wrong. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... 《尋隱者不遇》—賈島 松下問童子 言師採藥去 隻在此山中 雲深不知處 Seeking the Master but not Meeting by Jia Dao Beneath a pine I asked a little child. ... Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ), commonly called Pinyin, is the most common variant of Standard Mandarin romanization system in use. ... A koan (pronounced ) is a story, dialog, question, or statement in the history and lore of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, generally containing aspects that are inaccessible to rational understanding, yet that may be accessible to intuition. ... Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism notable for its emphasis on practice and experiential wisdom—particularly as realized in the form of meditation known as zazen—in the attainment of awakening. ... This article needs additional references or sources to facilitate its verification. ...

The Mu koan is as follows: A monk asked Zen master Zhaozhou, a Chinese Zen Master (in Japanese, Jōshū): "Has a dog Buddha-nature or not?", Zhaozhou answered: "Wú" (in Japanese, Mu). Zhàozhōu CōngshÄ›n (Chinese: 趙州從諗; Wade-Giles: Chao-chou Tsung-shen; Japanese: JōshÅ« JÅ«shin) (778–897), was a Chán (Zen) Buddhist master especially known for his paradoxical statements and strange deeds[1]. Zhaozhou became ordained as a monk at an early age. ... Buddha-nature (originally in Sanskrit, Buddha-dhatu - Buddha Element, Buddha-Principle) is a doctrine important for many schools of Mahayana Buddhism. ...

Some earlier Buddhist thinkers had maintained that creatures such as dogs did have the Buddha-nature; others, that they did not. Therefore, to answer "no" is to deny their wisdom, whereas to say "yes" would appear to blindly follow their teachings. Zhaozhou's answer has subsequently been interpreted to mean that all such categorical thinking is in fact a delusion. In other words, yes and no are both right and wrong . This Koan is traditionally used by students of the Rinzai School of Zen as their initiation into Zen study (the Soto School does not use Koans).

This answer has also been interpreted in a humoristic way, as "WuuUU." In other words, the disciple laughs, and this also shows the wisdom of the ideal teacher.

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: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values is the first of Robert M. Pirsigs texts in which he explores a Metaphysics of quality. ... Robert Maynard Pirsig (born September 6, 1928, Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American philosopher, mainly known as the author of the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (1974), which has sold millions of copies around the world. ... An electronic circuit is an electrical circuit that also contains active electronic devices such as transistors or vacuum tubes. ... The binary numeral system, or base-2 number system, is a numeral system that represents numeric values using two symbols, usually 0 and 1. ...

According to the Jargon File, a collection of hacker jargon and culture, mu (here pronounced "moo") is considered by Discordians to be the correct answer to the classic logical fallacy of the loaded question "Have you stopped beating your wife?"^[1] 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, various Discordians proposed mu as the correct answer, alleged by them to mean "Your question cannot be answered because it depends on incorrect assumptions". The Jargon File is a glossary of hacker slang. ... Discordianism is a modern, chaos-centered religion founded circa 1958–1959 by Malaclypse the Younger with the publication of its principal text, the Principia Discordia. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Fallacy. ... Many questions, also known as complex question, loaded question, or plurium interrogationum (Latin, of many questions), is a logical fallacy. ...

In the manga series Death Note, Mu is said to be where all humans go after they die, and that there is no Heaven or Hell. In this case, “Mu” is considered to mean “nothingness”. Manga )   (pl. ... Serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump Arena Komik Original run December 2003 – May 2006 No. ...

The word features prominently in Douglas R. Hofstadter's 1979 book, Gödel, Escher, Bach, where it is used fancifully in the context of discussions on symbolic logic, particularly Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born February 15, 1945) is an American academic. ... Also: 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins. ... Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid: A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll (commonly GEB) is a Pulitzer Prize (1980)-winning book by Douglas Hofstadter, published in 1979 by Basic Books. ... Mathematical logic is a discipline within mathematics, studying formal systems in relation to the way they encode intuitive concepts of proof and computation as part of the foundations of mathematics. ... In mathematical logic, Gödels incompleteness theorems are two celebrated theorems proven by Kurt Gödel in 1931. ...

See also

• Wu wei - Chinese philosophical term
• wu-wo - Chinese tea ceremony
• po

Wu wei (trad. ... Wu-Wo Tea Ceremony (無我茶會/无我茶会) is a style of Tea Ceremony. ... A Po is an idea which moves thinking forward to a new place from where new ideas or solutions may be found. ...

References

1. ^ http://www.fallacyfiles.org/loadques.html

• MAN AND MU: The Cradle of Becoming and Unbecoming. Desiderata For Human Science. By Stacey B. Day. Published by Int Foundation for Biosoc. Dev & Human Health, N.Y. 1997. LCCat Card No 97-072905. ISBN 0-934314-00-4.

External links

• Regarding Mu
• Mu Machinery: The Mu of Non-Identity