On 'Say It Is a Thing and You Miss'

setsu ji ichi motsu soku fu chuu — Say It Is a Thing and You Miss.

On the origin

From the Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp (景徳伝灯録), in the chapter on Nanyue Huairang. His answer, given eight years later, to Huineng’s question: “What is it that comes thus?”

On the reading

The moment it is named as a thing, it has already missed the mark. What is asked after cannot be caught in words. Explanation may draw near, but never arrives at the thing itself. Where nothing can be said of it, there it is.

On the garment

The seal for this phrase was hand-carved in Tokyo by the artist Satake Hōsen. The front carries this phrase’s seal; the back and inside label carry the Hōsen seal (寳千), printed in vermilion.

The garment is Bella + Canvas 3001 (short sleeve) or Gildan 2400 (long sleeve). A vessel for the word, not the subject itself.

― hosen, tokyo