"What a noisy door."

A week ago I was practicing and learning Zen meditation... when I heard a character in a cartoon that was on our television say, "What a noisy door."

It struck me as an important thing to think about. 

Over the next few days I would sit in meditation and ponder that phrase.  To me it made some Zen sense in the idea that a gate separates one side from another.  For example, the inside from the outside.

Much like the gate of the mind separates outside action and noise from internal action and noise.  But when the mental gate is noisy  - it generates a problem of mental clatter.  Those thoughts that preoccupy the moment.  Worries about the future, regrets about the past, frivolous concerns about food, phone calls, or other events we might do that day.

When those thoughts exist, but the mind doesn't follow them, then the gate is silent, it just observes the inside noise.  The outside noise is also observed, without the mind following.

I suppose such a state of awareness would be called Samadhi. 

There is also a story in Zen called "The Gateless Gate."  While not having read it just yet, I thought, "what if there was no gate?"  Then the mind would be in the state called "no mind."  A higher form of Samadhi.

Finally, the breath.  In the teachings of Hinduism - especially the works of Paramhansa Yogananda, there is a concept of no breath.  A goal where one naturally ceases to breathe for a moment.  When these moments are found, then a great peace pervades.

Zen also speaks to the breath and likewise says that if we manually stop the breathing (holding breath) our thoughts stop.  We can see this when we are doing something that requires a lot of concentration - we naturally hold our breath.

In actual practice, I've found that in meditation my thoughts stop when I hold the breath.

So combining these two world views, the Gate could also represent the breath.  Since the mind and the breath are interconnected.  By having no gate, you have the moment of no breath and in that space there is bliss.  Mushin, or no thought.