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Post by steven777 on Dec 12, 2016 10:14:34 GMT -5
In this thread post some of your favorite existing koans, or even better, create and submit your own koan...
I love koans in that a well constructed one has the impact of freshening the air and opening up a lovely space.
In this thread I encourage the submission of koans and the discussion of each submission...but not neccessarily the submission of 'answers' to the Koans, though if you have what you feel is a good 'answer' to a koan please feel free to submit it!
So let this thread be a repository of koans and commentary on koans. 😊
Koans are one of the few ways to really share a kind of Dharma transmission with each other at a written forum...lets have fun and enjoy some lively koan contest comiseration among friends..
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Post by steven777 on Dec 12, 2016 10:19:22 GMT -5
"What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
See how the contemplation of that simple classic koan, that most can relate to immedietly, opens up a space for silence and stillness?...how it sorta settles one and "takes you there".
Other koans are seemingly more complex...but all are lovely...
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Post by zendancer on Dec 12, 2016 10:30:40 GMT -5
I would recommend that no answers to any of the formal koans be posted on the forum. The answers to informal, somewhat trivial, koans can be used to show that all koans have "concrete" non-conceptual "answers," but I think that answers to classic koans would detract from the power of realizing for oneself what the answers are. Koan contemplation can lead to some astounding realizations (and even CC experiences), and if people read an answer that did not arise from their own realization, the power of that particular koan would be lost.
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Post by zendancer on Dec 12, 2016 10:54:15 GMT -5
I first read about koans in 1975, and during the next 9 years I became familiar with dozens of the most famous ones. Up until 1984, however, I had never found the answer to a single koan.
In 1984 I read an account of an interaction between a Zen Master and a student. The student had been contemplating a particular koan for many days. When he went to see the Zen Master for an interview, something happened. He wrote that the space between himself and the Zen Master had collapsed, and he had found himself walking backward and forward at the same time. It was clearly a big breakthrough for the student, but when I read his account, I could not imagine what sort of experience he had attempted to describe. I remember thinking, "How could space have collapsed, and how could he have been walking forward and backward at the same time?" This question became an informal koan of my creation, and I often contemplated the question in silence. Each time that I contemplated the koan it put me into a non-thinking state of internal silence.
Several months later, I was contemplating another totally different existential question when the space between myself and a distant object started to collapse. It did not collapse completely, but the experience felt internally wrenching and it generated some sort of deep emotional response. I immediately started second-guessing what I had momentarily experienced, and concluded that I must have been imagining things. I did not connect the contemplation of the first koan with the contemplation of the second koan at that time.
A month or so after the momentary sense of spatial collapse occurred, I had a huge CC experience, and afterwards I knew exactly what the student had been trying to describe when he said that the space between himself and the Zen Master had collapsed.
Five or six months after that initial CC experience, I went to a silent Zen retreat where I was formally introduced to koan study. Koan study showed me how completely the consensus trance keeps us imaginatively isolated from the truth, and I felt as if I were just beginning to wake up from a long period of deep sleep.
The resolution of many koans can be explosive, amazing, and astonishing, but over the years I discovered that the most important koans can be the ones that we, ourselves, formulate. The bottom line is this: koans are designed to paralyze the intellect. What a spiritual seeker is searching for cannot be found through thinking. It can only be found through a suspension of thinking that leads to an intuitive breakthrough.
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Post by maxdprophet on Dec 12, 2016 11:00:47 GMT -5
so give us another?
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Post by zendancer on Dec 12, 2016 11:19:51 GMT -5
1. Set an apple on a table in front of you, and contemplate the question, "What is that, really?" Hint: the answer is not "an apple." 2. How can you greet an enlightened woman if you meet her on the path with neither words nor silence? 3. If you were going to your high school reunion, and you owned three cars--a ten-year-old Chevrolet, a late-model Toyota, and a new Mercedes--, and you didn't want your classmates to think that you were showing off by playing a one-ups-manship game, which car could you drive that would totally eliminate your concern about what they might think? 4. This stick (holds up a stick) and this sound (hits the floor with the stick), are they the same or different? If you want to check an answer that seems intuitively obvious, PM Steven or me. |
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Post by steven777 on Dec 12, 2016 11:24:13 GMT -5
A monk sat in a chair contemplating the great mysteries of life...
Ta Mo came in through the back entrance and struck him down.
The monk asked him why, and Ta Mo replied:
"You've missed the point entirely."
What is left to contemplate?
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Post by zendancer on Dec 12, 2016 11:36:35 GMT -5
A monk sat in a chair contemplating the great mysteries of life... Ta Mo came in through the back entrance and struck him down. The monk asked him why, and Ta Mo replied: "You've missed the point entirely." This story is usually followed by a question, such as, "What was the point that the monk missed?" or "What did the monk miss?" or "Why did Ta Mo strike the monk?" or "What is your understanding of this?" Steven: when this koan was presented to you, was it presented without a question? Just curious. |
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Post by steven777 on Dec 12, 2016 11:38:20 GMT -5
haha I added it as you were typing lol
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Post by steven777 on Dec 12, 2016 11:39:44 GMT -5
A monk sat in a chair contemplating the great mysteries of life... Ta Mo came in through the back entrance and struck him down. The monk asked him why, and Ta Mo replied: "You've missed the point entirely." This story is usually followed by a question, such as, "What was the point that the monk missed?" or "What did the monk miss?" or "Why did Ta Mo strike the monk?" or "What is your understanding of this?" Steven: when this koan was presented to you, was it presented without a question? Just curious. In a way yes...It was written one word at a time...more came later ;-) |
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Post by zendancer on Dec 12, 2016 11:40:22 GMT -5
haha I added it as you were typing lol Gotcha!  |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2016 12:07:54 GMT -5
Not really a koan although I love the story..
Just before Ninakawa passed away the Zen master Ikkyu visited him. "Shall I lead you on?" Ikkyu asked.
Ninakawa replied: "I came here alone and I go alone. What help could you be to me?"
Ikkyu answered: "If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion. Let me show you the path on which there is no coming and no going."
With his words, Ikkyu had revealed the path so clearly that Ninakawa smiled and passed away.
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Post by steven777 on Dec 12, 2016 12:11:22 GMT -5
A philosopher asked Buddha: "Without words, without the wordless, will you tell me truth?"
The Buddha kept silence.
The philosopher bowed and thanked the Buddha, saying: "With your loving kindness I have cleared away my delusions and entered the true path."
After the philosopher had gone, Ananda asked the Buddha what he had attained.
The Buddha replied: "A good horse runs even at the shadow of the whip."
What did Bhudda tell the philosopher?
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Post by steven777 on Dec 12, 2016 12:16:24 GMT -5
Goso said: "When a buffalo goes out of his enclosure to the edge of the abyss, his horns and his head and his hoofs all pass through, but why can't the tail also pass?"
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Post by zendancer on Dec 12, 2016 12:16:29 GMT -5
Not really a koan although I love the story.. Just before Ninakawa passed away the Zen master Ikkyu visited him. "Shall I lead you on?" Ikkyu asked. Ninakawa replied: "I came here alone and I go alone. What help could you be to me?" Ikkyu answered: "If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion. Let me show you the path on which there is no coming and no going." With his words, Ikkyu had revealed the path so clearly that Ninakawa smiled and passed away. There are so many great stories about Ikkyu as well as the crazy guy he often hung out with (can't remember his name). They were at a banquet one day, and someone asked the crazy guy, "What's the deepest meaning of Buddhism?" The guy suddenly grabbed the table and turned it upside down, dumping all the food on the ground. Ikkyu said in disgust, "Yeah, you understand, but you're still a very crude fellow." |
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