Koan Zen 

Koans: 101 ways to be unpopular at parties

“...extraordinarily clear, and impossible to explain.” Yup. That about sums koans up in a nutshell.

The "MU! U!" anecdote always cracks me up.

Brad's description of his koan experience sounds very familiar. I practice in the Kwan-Um School of Zen, which is based on the Korean Chogye tradition, so we say, "kong-an" instead of "koan," but the meaning is the same. The point of kong-an study is to develop an insight into words. The practice opens up something intuitive and direct, which Zen Master Seung Sahn called, "before thinking." Before thinking, they universe is already complete - 'spring comes, and grass grows by itself' (another one of Seung Sahns favorite phrases). In kong-an interviews, we try to demonstrate this kind of clarity. Some kong-ans are simple, like the Mu kong-an. Some employ the kind of "illogical logic" Brad is describing in this video. A good example of this is the kong-an, "The mouse eats cat-food, but the cat-bowl is broken." No amount of thinking will help you answer this kong-an. I know; I tried for 27 years. When you "get it," the answer is very clear and simple, and it makes perfect sense. Seung Sahn was also not a fan of the traditional kong-an style. He felt that it had become an empty ritual that had no relationship with everyday life. Under his influence, kong-an study in the Kwan-um school has become more fluid and less formal. We don't do "hwadu" style kong-an introspection (although there is no rule against it either). We just do zazen and "work on" kong-ans in whatever way makes sense to each individual student. Somehow that seems to work.

We all come to the same understanding of Zen when we pick up a leaf and determine the front back top and bottom of the leaf, and May the shape of the universe from that leaf.

Ya did it again Brad, i got the 'poke.' And here i've been propping up a short kitchen table leg with a book of Koans for years. Who knew there was something in them??

an ice cream cone is better than a zen koan. one is clearly more delicious and makes you smile. share a lick with a friend.

I like all the stuff with the hands

Dogen certainly did use Koans to teach and to practice. His point however was that they are not completely necessary to reach Satori in meditation; Jhana - whatever you want to call it - which they are not. Simply sitting is enough.

An important point about koans is that they do not have 'right answers'...what they have is an 'appropriate response'. And there isnt just one appropriate response for each specific koan...there can be many. A good Zen teacher will sometimes throw in a question that isnt a koan (but sounds like one) to see if the student can tell the difference. This makes it impossible to respond according to some formula worked out in advance.

You’ve alluded to the Soto/Rinzai rivalry in a few videos, so as someone who loved Hardcore Zen and also studied with Rinzai teachers for a bit I’d be curious to hear your “diss track” on Rinzai Zen sometime.

I tapped my head once I heard your koan, BEFORE I heard your answer.

You were all like "I'm gonna pronounce koan properly!" and then you lost it in like 20 seconds.

"The Sound Of One Hand" was reprinted recently by New York Review (of) Books. I picked it up the other week (whatta coincidence!), and the first thing I thought upon reading it was, "Man, how many dolts are going to read this and then think they can now go beat Zen teachers at dharma combat?" But maybe that's a good thing, because it'll make it all the easier to weed out the people who aren't serious about Zen in the first place.

It is psycho-logic. :-) Once I came across during meditation the answer of "Where have you been, befor your parents where born" - the, from my experience, totally logical answer would have been to hug you with all my heart. This answer was crystal clear in that moment. No idea, if its the right answer by the books, but it was the right answer in that moment. Without a shadow of a doubt.

My take on koans is that the “answer” is not words, logic, or explanation. It is the full experience of being thrust into the beyond-conceptual state. That’s how the same koans can be used for generations, after the “right answers” have been made known. That wouldn’t work for any other test.

What is practice? What are words??

Koan pastiche most probably does lead away from the Buddha way - However, a lot of the koan paradoxes seem to revolve around mistaking my relative viewpoint, for some kind of base reality.

The tree in a forest is Hume, or Berkeley, I think.

well, well said! brad, good speak!

the universe is a membrane, for which, at best, we are the jewelry!!

The answer to the 'tree falling in a forest' question is there was no sound and there was no tree.

ive always thought that Koans were ways to indoctrinate gullible people into subjective relationship with a "master"

At one point in your video you say that everyone gives the same answer to koans - but at the end you say your teacher suggested another possible answer to the one he'd given you. Is ther just one answer to a koan or no?

I have never heard of that book, and I currently have a koan practice, however, I have not passed that many. However, does that book really have the answers? I hope not, early in my practice when I was stuck on MU, (took me two years to pass), I tried to look up the answers online, and I am happy that I never found it and was able to pass on my own.

“Thus the sutra says: ‘A phrase that has profound spiritual energy lasts through the ages without decaying.'" (from Zen Dawn, pg. 64) Maybe its a matter of 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear!'? Three Barriers of Huanglong (three questions Chan Master Huanglong Huinan used to challenge students): 1. 'Everyone has his own cause for birth. Where is yours?' 2. 'Why is my hand like Buddha's hand?' 3. 'Why is my leg like a donkey's leg?' When Chan Master Huinan received tentative answers, he neither affirmed nor denied them. A disciple asked him why. Huinan replied, "Those who have already passed the barriers just swung their arms and went directly through, and never even noticed there is a watchman. Those who ask the watchman to affirm or deny have not passed the barriers." from: 'Clouds Thick, Whereabouts Unknown', Pg. 214, by Charles Egan

So if I get the book with koan answers, can I easily pass the zen master test?

No shave November?

So what was the koan?

Brad, I am not sure how familiar you are with Dogen scholarship, but even though I am not very familiar with it myself, it is pretty clear from a cursory search on my part that the use of Koans by Dogen is pretty well established. Exactly how he taught them and used them is probably still in debate by scholars, but to say that he didn't use koans is pretty wrong, see for example, the following sources: Steve Heine, Koans in the Dogen tradition www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/DogenStudies/koans_in_the_dogen_tradition.pdf In Heine's book on this topic, which has the same title "Dogen and the Koan Tradition: A Tale of Two Shobogenzo Texts" he mentions several of Dogen's discussions of Koans, and it is much more subtle and complicated than you make it sound. His argument (if you go on google books for this text, its around page 119-120) is that Dogen is not attacking koan practice in toto, but only the "irrationalist" interpretation of koan phrases, that is, the idea that they are supposed to be simply incomprehensible phrases that mean nothing which force the practitioner to cut off all thought. Rather, per Heine, Dogen's view is that koans use language to "disentangle the vines of discrimination through the use of those very vines of word tangles" (Heine, p120). There is also this source, which collects a koan collection by Dogen: The true Dharma eye, Zen master Dogen's 300 koans terebess.hu/zen/dogen/Dogen300.pdf So Brad, I don't think its so simple to say that Dogen did not teach or use koans, its just that he had a different idea of how to use and study them.

If Koans, or even just fixing the word Mu, has led people to enlightenment, why is it so decidedly rejected in soto? I can not give up the thought that koans could "provoke" an experience of enlightenment and thus improve the chances of it. The oft-repeated zazen is already enlightenment quote and the second enlightenment may come as a by-product to it ... I do not like this sentence and yet it seems to me to be true. Damn it. I am only practicing for a year, probably can not even sit properly, but this mu has been haunting my head since I read about it 20 years ago. It's like itching in the brain to constantly think about enlightenment in zazen. It should be just ridiculously simple, it could not be better hidden than your nose when you look into the sky. Say the crazy master. I've also heard more often, as long as you think about enlightenment, it's nothing. My Zen teacher never talks about enlightenment. When I mentioned him on this topic, he said that would be stupid to look for something I do not know what it is. Great. helps me absolutely, because somehow it seems to me that this is correct! At the same time I hate him for the sentence. :) So, I would like to understand what Koans excludes as a method for the Sotos? Evil Koans the Wicked Rinzai Guys ;-)?

So if the answer for a dog is Mu the answer for a cow is Woof , LOL

Mu!

Clearly you have never heard of Master Dogens collection of 300 Koans or read his Eihei Koroku in in which he quotes and suggests contemplation on countless more cases. Now I'll give you one, master and I beseech you to answer. "Because of fire, fire Phoenix flies. Because of No water, iron fish swims." What have you to say?

how convoluted. Nibbana is the cessation of desire. It has nothing to do with all this. Just stop making videos . That would be a start. In my opinion non arahats should not teach because what is teaching is desire aversion and delusion.