In this modernistic new musical, Gao Xingjian merges Chinese traditional speaking and singing arts with modern Western theater of the absurd to dramatize how, in the Tang Dynasty, the most famous of Chan koans (paradoxical statements or questions which, when profoundly meditated upon, may bring the Chan practitioner sudden enlightenment) became the basis on which power was transmitted from the fifth patriarch, Hungren, to the sixth patriarch, Huineng.
在這本現代戲曲的新作中，高行健結合中國傳統戲曲的說唱藝術，與當代荒謬喜劇的手法，表現唐代期間，最著名的禪門公案──五祖弘忍傳法六祖慧能。