12/10/2023 0 Comments Define zen koan![]() ![]() He’s also the source of what is sometimes called the First Koan, the one through which the majority of people practicing koan Zen will be begin. We see him in numerous koans, of the three great collections, he appears twenty times. According to the tradition he was born at the tail end of the Eighth century and lived through nearly all of the Ninth. Zhaozhou Congshen is one of the great ancestors of the Zen world. But this time that action is met with what appears to be the wildest praise. Again, a hermit appears and raises his fist. But then the old worthy, Zhaozhou goes again to a hut and asks if anyone is there. If that were all there were to it, it doesn’t seem to mean anything. And he exclaims how shallow! No boat can anchor there. Or, in a variation on that theme, simply turning around and facing the wall. Simple gestures like that are common in Zen’s koan literature. He goes and asks at the door of the first hut, if anyone’s there? The response is a raised fist. With that Zhaouzhou’s visit to the hermits. But when we bring our hearts and our being to the project, then they are lamps casting light into the recesses of our lives, they become cups holding the coolest of water, waiting for the thirsty to drink. They can hang in the air like non sequiturs. Without our participation they’re simply ancient stories that usually seem oblique, at best. And like that other tool, the axe, they can be used in any number of ways.Īlthough it’s also important to note they’re not merely expedients, either. They are not channeled through a prophet. Or, perhaps a bit more accurately, and using an old Zen saw, they become fingers pointing to the moon, pointers, giving us a direction for our own walking, our own place. ![]() Here koans are set to open us up, to take us some place. Here we get a bit closer to the heart of the matter. In fact, the American Zen master Robert Aitken suggests a koan is “a matter to be made clear.” ![]() It is applied to exchanges between Zen teachers and students or other Zen teachers which can range from a word such as “Mu” or “No” to rather long narratives with a number of wato or “word heads,” each pointing to something particularly important on the Zen way. The word comes from the Chinese gong an and translates literally as “public case,” as in a legal document. There are for many, most words, a number sometimes a veritable host of different meanings.Īnd, here, the use of the word koan to mean question or especially thorny question is at base true enough. In this case, literally.Īnd, of course, words can have multiple uses, slightly different, for different purposes, or within different specialized disciplines. The word “prevent,” for instance, as used in the 17th century English of the King James version of the Bible means “to lead forth.” Not understanding context can take us in the wrong direction. However, one does need to be at least a little careful. It shifts and changes and is put to uses other than originally meant. My friend, and a host of others, including Zen teachers, although it’s important to distinguish, Zen teachers who’ve not engaged in the discipline of koan introspection, have come to use the word to stand for “a particularly thorny question.” Actually, on occasion I’ve even seen koan downgraded to simply be a synonym for a “question,” difficult or not.įirst, language is mutable. Your children might need to use it.A while back, a friend referred to an important personal question he was pondering as an “honest koan.” That set me to thinking, once again, about how the word koan has mutated and its use expanded within American English. “Throw me over the cliff, if you like,” said the father, “but save this good wood coffin. “I know you are going to throw me over the cliff, but before you do, may I suggest something?” “What is it?” replied the son. Still lying there peacefully, the father looked up at his son. After closing the lid, the son dragged the coffin to the edge of the farm where there was a high cliff.Īs he approached the drop, he heard a light tapping on the lid from inside the coffin. Without saying anything, the father climbed inside. “He’s of no use any more,” the son thought to himself, “he doesn’t do anything!” One day the son got so frustrated by this, that he built a wood coffin, dragged it over to the porch, and told his father to get in. His son, still working the farm, would look up from time to time and see his father sitting there. So he would spend the day just sitting on the porch. A farmer got so old that he couldn’t work the fields anymore. ![]()
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