Let me see if I can give the same type of talk I used to give to my meditation students when the subject of koans came up, as they always did. I trust no one will take my words too seriously. How can I be 'then' and 'now?' Or there is the formal Zen koan that anyone might wonder about: What is this? Is a "car" a car or a "rock" a rock? What does the car say or the rock? What. This is a recipe for uncertainty and doubt. The upshot is that our beliefs - the stuff we may love to death and rely on - draw us backwards even as we live in the present. just practice and see.Īs to koans that afflict even the non-Buddhists in the crowd, you might consider the very simple line, "I love you." Or wonder a bit about all the wondrous beliefs held in the mind or heart: Beliefs invariably rely on what is past no one can grasp the past and yet we all live in the present. No fairy dust is required, no super-special Buddhist wand-waving. Then sit straight and still and breathe in and breathe out and just see things straight for once. until things start to settle down all by themselves. bust a gut intellectually or emotionally. My feeling is, go right ahead: You won't get anywhere, but you will learn a good lesson. If you involve yourself with formal koans, then I think it is normal to sit down at first and attack the issue with intellect and emotion. just alive: That's what koan study points out.Ī monk asked Joshu, "Does a dog have Buddha Nature or not?" Joshu replied, "Mu!" which means "no" or "not." Since all things have Buddha Nature, what the heck was Joshu getting at? There is no solving this question intellectually and no solving it emotionally. but there is no problem living, is there? Not intellectual, not emotional. really alive! No one can solve or explain or find the true meaning of being alive. Formal Zen draws attention to what is frequently ignored. The fact is that everyone is always awash in koans - it's just a matter of noticing and opening to them. But tradition and a couple of bucks will get you a bus ride. Who knows? It could just be The - Traditionally, there are 1,700 formal koans in Zen Buddhism. So Now when someone mentions Koans, a scene always comes to my mind of a poor, frustrated, anxiety ridden Buddhist student faced with another of those infuriatingly smug Koan teachers. because you know what? Jesus probably WOULD have punched that SOB in the nose. (Well, maybe you had to be there., but) We must have laughed for 10 minutes. "Jesus would punch that son-of-a-bitch right in the NOSE!!" What WOULD Jesus Do?"Īt one point after the game went on for a while, and after a very long, very elaborate set up, in which the 'victim' seemed to be cornered with no way out, and no clever words to set his abuser back in his place or remedy the situation. We would take turns setting up the most rude, bullying, frustrating exchange or encounter between two people, on the street, or in a classroom, or at a shopping mall, etc. So we started playing this little story game Whenever the topic of Koans comes up, it always reminds me of a conversation with a good friend of mine we were talking about the whole What Would Jesus Do? bracelet/bumper sticker/t-shirt fad from a decade or so ago. Nansen said: `If you had been there, you could have saved the cat.' Joshu removed his sandals and, placing them on his head, walked out. That evening Joshu returned and Nansen told him about this. So Nansen boldly cut the cat in two pieces. He seized the cat and told the monks: `If any of you say a good word, you can save the cat.' Nansen saw the monks of the eastern and western halls fighting over a cat. So anybody having any experience with Zen Buddhism and can help me to understand the above statements - because all the above statements seem like a puzzle to me, which i am not able to understand.Īlso, i saw the below koan, which i did not understand completely, so can anyone help me to understand the below Zen koan: also Zen says that to solve the koans, it is needed to just meditate on the koan and the answer shall get revealed.īut how can this happen, do we need to think about the koan in meditation, but then that shall be thinking and getting entangled in thinking, which would not help in making the mind calm. also it is said that Zen Buddhism says that the enlightenment can happen at any moment in solving the zen koan and do not need a long meditative process to realize it. Yesterday i thought of seeing what Zen koans are like and what Zen says about its koans - so i searched about it on internet - i found that it is said that these koans should not be logically tried to solve.
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