Mumonkan – Case 46
Zen master Sekiso asked: “How can you proceed further from the top of a hundred-foot pole?” Another eminent teacher said: “You, who sit on the top of a hundred-foot pole—although you have entered the Way, you are not yet genuine. Proceed on from the top of the pole, and you will show your whole body in the ten directions.”
One thing I’ve noticed in Zen practice is that a teacher often meets you at the very edge of your comfort zone. They meet you where you feel safe—but they don’t want you to stay there. They invite you to take that next step, into the unknown.
That’s really what our practice is about. Every step we take is, in truth, into the unknown, since none of us can read the future. And yet, the practice is also about finding a sense of being grounded right there, in that uncertainty.
In this koan, we’re presented with a striking image: a hundred-foot pole. My sense is that the pole represents an accomplishment or insight in practice. Through meditation, we may have moments—small or large—when we see life differently. These are precious. But the Zen master is clear: don’t stop there.
It’s tempting to settle. To think, Now I understand. Now I’ve arrived. But life is unpredictable. One day is never quite like the next. Relying on yesterday’s insight to navigate tomorrow doesn’t work. Each moment asks something new of us.
Sitting on top of the pole feels safe—it’s the ground we’ve gained. But Zen practice invites us to step off, to let go of that safety, and meet the present moment without clinging to what we think we know.
The koan ends with the image of “showing your whole body in the ten directions.” I take this to mean showing up fully and openly in every circumstance—at work, with family, among friends, in times of ease and in times of challenge. Each moment is complete and fresh when we don’t hold on to fixed ideas.
This teaching feels especially relevant to me. I’ve worked for the same company for nineteen years, and there’s a certain comfort in that. In many areas of my life, I tend to play it safe. Yet, through Zen practice, I’ve begun to experiment with stepping into the unknown more often—not recklessly, but with awareness.
The reality is, we can’t truly know what will happen next, no matter how much we plan. Often, I enter a situation thinking I already know how it will unfold, what someone will say, what will happen next. But that’s just me clinging to the pole. When I let go of those preconceptions, I can respond to what’s actually happening—freshly, fully, and without the filter of “I already know.”
The practice, then, is to notice when I’m holding onto the sense of having arrived, and to take that step into vulnerability. Not vulnerability as weakness, but as openness—meeting life without fixed ground under my feet.
Over time, I’ve found that koans work on me more than I work on them. I carry them in my mind, and they quietly remind me of the essentials of practice. This one says, again and again: Let go. Don’t cling. Don’t believe everything the mind tells you. Meet the moment as it is.
By keeping koans alive within us, we keep our practice alive. We learn to show up in the ten directions—not as a fixed, unchanging thing, but as a living, responsive presence. And that, to me, is what it means to proceed from the top of the hundred-foot pole.
Zen Mindfulness Cambridge Zenways Italia 