| rdfs:comment | - Mu (Japanese/Korean), and Wu (Chinese traditional: 無, simplified: 无 pinyin: wú Jyutping: mou2), is a word which has been roughly translated as "no", "none", "null", "without", and "no meaning". While used in Japanese and Chinese mainly as a prefix to indicate the absence of something (e.g., 無線/无线 musen or wúxiàn for "wireless"), in English it is better known as a response to certain koans and other questions in Zen Buddhism, intending to indicate that the question itself was meaningless.
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| abstract | - Mu (Japanese/Korean), and Wu (Chinese traditional: 無, simplified: 无 pinyin: wú Jyutping: mou2), is a word which has been roughly translated as "no", "none", "null", "without", and "no meaning". While used in Japanese and Chinese mainly as a prefix to indicate the absence of something (e.g., 無線/无线 musen or wúxiàn for "wireless"), in English it is better known as a response to certain koans and other questions in Zen Buddhism, intending to indicate that the question itself was meaningless. The best-known mu koan is as follows: 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). 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 to mean that such categorical thinking is a delusion, that yes and no are both right and wrong. This koan is traditionally used by Rinzai school to initiate students into Zen study.[citation needed]
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