Fun With Koans

 A koan is a teaching device often used in certain traditions of Buddhism, particularly the Chan and Zen lineages. In some ways they are considered "dharma riddles," and like most riddles, working with them can be either fun or frustrating. Sometimes they take the form of a question ("What is the sound of one hand clapping?"), or they can be embedded in a teaching story. Here's one... "The leader of a monastery encounters two novice monks arguing about the movement of the flag atop the temple. One monk says the flag is moving, and the other insists that the wind is moving. The leader tells them, 'It is your mind that is moving." 

See what I mean about frustrating? And yet, did you notice that your mind stopped just for a second, as though all the gears and wheels froze up? That's one of the results of hearing a koan, perhaps because of the paradoxical nature of these questions or stories; the human mind may not be able to hold the polarities of paradox, and so it just shuts down. 

I have found that it is in this "shut down" state that we have the power to penetrate a koan and let its deeper meaning be revealed. It becomes less about "finding an answer" and becomes more of a "living into" the answer. Here is one of my favorite passages from Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet (1929/2022):

"Do not search for answers that cannot be given to you now because you could not live them. And it is a matter of living everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will one distant day simply live your way into the answer, without even noticing (p. 19)."

I have never worked with koans on a regular basis, mainly because I came up through a different dharma lineage (Theravada). I could never seem to get the "right" answer, and my process was usually bolloxed up from a mind that was trying to find literal or rational answers. I had briefly studied an amazing text called Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Shobo Genzo, which contains 300 koans. While I found it fascinating, I got a bit frustrated and gave up after a couple of months. 

Then I recently remembered an old teaching koan I had heard many years ago about a monk who had studied arduously for years and yet did not think he was yet "awake." His head teacher gave him this koan:

 "What was your original face before you were born." 

It stopped the poor monk cold (just as it may have done for you while reading it). Distraught that he could not find the answer, the monk renounced his studies, burned his books, left the monastery, and tended to a small remote shrine in silence and solitude. One day, while he was sweeping the walkway with a rake, a pebble bounced off the rake and hit a large bamboo stalk with a loud "thok!" Upon hearing the sound, the monk was awakened. 

When I unearthed this koan story again, I found that it made perfect sense to me. I had lived my way into the answer due to all the years of practice and repetition. Apparently, in order to enter into the teaching of the koan you must go through and beyond the words or images that he mind creates. The monk had to relinquish the "sense of self" (ego?) that told him that his intellect was the "be all and end all." (And it's a nice story because you get two koans for the price of one!) 

Then why should we give koans a try? As with the monk who had a spontaneous awakening (satori), reflecting on a koan can open doors where you never knew there were doors. One of our sangha members with whom I have had several "debates" about the doctrine of anatta, or "emptiness of self," indicated that they had a new understanding of the teaching after contemplating the "original face" koan. 

You are invited to sit with this koan and the questions that it brings. Live your way into the answer by letting go of the "self" that says you have to find the answer. Maybe there is no answer! Be patient and let things take their natural course. Ideas may just keep flowing and unfolding for a long time. 

WHAT FUN!

Gratefully yours,

Roger