This past Sunday I had the enormous pleasure of leading a small workshop on koan practice with particular emphasis on the Mu or No koan at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.
In preparation for this workshop I cooked up a brief reading list.
As it turns out there really isn’t much written on koan Zen that is directly useful to practitioners. Sadly the field is dominated either by spiritual tourists who for the most part have no idea of what they are talking about or scholars who have a seemingly unerring instinct of missing the forest for the trees.
I pretty much only recommend the following:
The Art of Just Sitting: Essential Writing on the Zen Practice of Shikantaza edited by Daido Loori Wisdom, Boston, 2002 (First things first. And shikantaza is the foundation. I’ve never seen anyone profit from koan introspection practice who did not base that practice upon the solid foundation of silent illumination meditation.)
Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Koans to Bring You Joy by John Tarrant. (The most inviting, and truthfully seductive, introduction to koan introspection practice one is going to find. Sadly now out of print. Although I understand it is due to be reissued soon by Shambhala Publications.)
Sitting With Koans: Essential Writings on the Practice of Zen Koan Introspection edited by Daido Loori Wisdom, Boston, 2006 (The only anthology of ancient and modern writers on koan introspection practice. While there are, to my mind, some glaring omissions in the selection of contributors, on balance Daido Loori and his editorial team did a very good job collecting many helpful essays on the actual practice of koan introspection.)
Zen Dust: The History of the Koan and Koan Study in Rinzai (Lin-Chi) Zen Isshu Miura and Ruth Fuller Sasaki Harcourt, Brace & World, New York, 1965 (This is the mother of all English language koan books. Sadly, long out of print, extremely hard to find, and when found distressingly expensive. Fortunately it is available, if without the extensive footnotes, as Zen Koan, which while now apparently out of print, has been around for years and is quite easy to find used.)
Zen Sand: The Book of Capping Phrases for Koan Practice Victor Sogen Hori, University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, 2003 (Hori combines the insight of an old hand at the koan way with the disciplines of a genuine scholar. His introductory essay to koan introspection practice is, by my best lights, the single most important article on the subject in the English language.)
In addition there are several good annotated translations of the classic koan anthology the Gateless Gate (I particularly recommend the versions by Robert Aitken, Zenkei Shibayama
& Koun Yamada). There is one good commentary on the koan anthology the Book of Equanimity by Gerry Shishin Wick and one good commentary on the “Miscellaneous koans” used at the beginning of the Harada/Yasutani tradition, by Elaine MacInnes.)
The Zensite koan page contains much useful material, including a link to the complete introductory essay to Hori’s Zen Sand.
Actually I highly recommend the Zensite for people trying to sort out authentic Zen while searching the web.
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