The Buddha Responds to an Outsider (GG32)

KOAN:

An outsider asked the World-Honored One, “I do not ask for words; I do not ask for what has no words.” The World-Honored One just sat still.

The outsider praised him, saying, “The World-Honored One with his great compassion and mercy has opened the clouds of my delusion and enabled me to enter the Way,” then made bows and left.

Ananda asked, “What did that outsider realize to praise you like that?”

The World-Honored One said, “That outsider is like the fine horse who runs even at the shadow of a whip.”
 
—Gateless Gate, Case 32 (Wumen)