{"id":16810,"date":"2017-08-04T08:10:17","date_gmt":"2017-08-04T15:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/?p=16810"},"modified":"2017-08-04T08:10:17","modified_gmt":"2017-08-04T15:10:17","slug":"victor-sogen-hori-koan-introspection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2017\/08\/victor-sogen-hori-koan-introspection.html","title":{"rendered":"Victor Sogen Hori on Koan Introspection"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/81\/2017\/08\/VictorHori.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16811\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-16811\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/81\/2017\/08\/VictorHori.jpg\" alt=\"Montreal Zen Poetry Festival 2009\" width=\"454\" height=\"310\"><\/a><br>\n\u201c(K)\u00f5an practice is first and foremost a religious practice, undertaken primarily not in order to solve a riddle, not to perfect the spontaneous performance of some skill, not to learn a new form of linguistic expression, not to play cultural politics, and not to carry on scholarship. Such ingredients may certainly be involved, but they are always subservient to the traditional <a href='https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/library\/buddhism' target='_blank'>Buddhist<\/a> goals of awakened wisdom and selfless compassion.\u201d\u00a0Victor Sogen Hori, <em>Zen Sand<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>In my view the scholar and Zen priest <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcgill.ca\/religiousstudies\/people\/former-faculty-members\/victor-sogen-hori\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Victor Sogen Hori\u2019<\/a>s introduction to his book <\/em>Zen Sand<em> remains the best brief introduction to koan introspection in the English language.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thezensite.com\/ZenTeachings\/KoanStudies\/ZenSandIntroduction.pdf\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">You can read it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019re welcome.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201c(K)\u00f5an practice is first and foremost a religious practice, undertaken primarily not in order to solve a riddle, not to perfect the spontaneous performance of some skill, not to learn a new form of linguistic expression, not to play cultural politics, and not to carry on scholarship. Such ingredients may certainly be involved, but they [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,44,11,10,9,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhism","category-koan","category-mysticism","category-religion","category-wisdom","category-zen"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Victor Sogen Hori on Koan Introspection<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&quot;(K)\u00f5an practice is first and foremost a religious practice, undertaken primarily not in order to solve a riddle, not to perfect the spontaneous\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2017\/08\/victor-sogen-hori-koan-introspection.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Victor Sogen Hori on Koan Introspection\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&quot;(K)\u00f5an practice is first and foremost a religious practice, undertaken primarily not in order to solve a riddle, not to perfect the spontaneous\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2017\/08\/victor-sogen-hori-koan-introspection.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Monkey Mind\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/james.ford.1029\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-08-04T15:10:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/files\/2017\/08\/VictorHori.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James Ford\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James Ford\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2017\/08\/victor-sogen-hori-koan-introspection.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2017\/08\/victor-sogen-hori-koan-introspection.html\",\"name\":\"Victor Sogen Hori on Koan Introspection\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-08-04T15:10:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-08-04T15:10:17+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#\/schema\/person\/3f37f475fb5078d1e7faa93a63a0fddb\"},\"description\":\"\\\"(K)\u00f5an practice is first and foremost a religious practice, undertaken primarily not in order to solve a riddle, not to perfect the spontaneous\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2017\/08\/victor-sogen-hori-koan-introspection.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2017\/08\/victor-sogen-hori-koan-introspection.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2017\/08\/victor-sogen-hori-koan-introspection.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Victor Sogen Hori on Koan Introspection\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/\",\"name\":\"Monkey Mind\",\"description\":\"Easily distracted...\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#\/schema\/person\/3f37f475fb5078d1e7faa93a63a0fddb\",\"name\":\"James Ford\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fa18971b225a3bb79f0c4c381a5fae20?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fa18971b225a3bb79f0c4c381a5fae20?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"James Ford\"},\"description\":\"James Ishmael Ford is a writer and spiritual director. He has been authorized as a teacher within two traditional Zen lineages. James has washed dishes, assisted a crab fisherman on the Florida keys, worked in bookstores up and down the California coast, and served as a Unitarian Universalist parish minister. He currently lives with his spouse Jan and her mother in Los Angeles. His next book the Intimate Way of Zen is due from Shambhala Publications in July, 2024.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.emptymoonzen.org\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/james.ford.1029\",\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_Ishmael_Ford\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/author\/jamesford\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Victor Sogen Hori on Koan Introspection","description":"\"(K)\u00f5an practice is first and foremost a religious practice, undertaken primarily not in order to solve a riddle, not to perfect the spontaneous","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2017\/08\/victor-sogen-hori-koan-introspection.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Victor Sogen Hori on Koan Introspection","og_description":"\"(K)\u00f5an practice is first and foremost a religious practice, undertaken primarily not in order to solve a riddle, not to perfect the spontaneous","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2017\/08\/victor-sogen-hori-koan-introspection.html","og_site_name":"Monkey Mind","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/james.ford.1029","article_published_time":"2017-08-04T15:10:17+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/files\/2017\/08\/VictorHori.jpg"}],"author":"James Ford","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"James Ford","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2017\/08\/victor-sogen-hori-koan-introspection.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2017\/08\/victor-sogen-hori-koan-introspection.html","name":"Victor Sogen Hori on Koan Introspection","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#website"},"datePublished":"2017-08-04T15:10:17+00:00","dateModified":"2017-08-04T15:10:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#\/schema\/person\/3f37f475fb5078d1e7faa93a63a0fddb"},"description":"\"(K)\u00f5an practice is first and foremost a religious practice, undertaken primarily not in order to solve a riddle, not to perfect the spontaneous","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2017\/08\/victor-sogen-hori-koan-introspection.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2017\/08\/victor-sogen-hori-koan-introspection.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2017\/08\/victor-sogen-hori-koan-introspection.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Victor Sogen Hori on Koan Introspection"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/","name":"Monkey Mind","description":"Easily distracted...","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#\/schema\/person\/3f37f475fb5078d1e7faa93a63a0fddb","name":"James Ford","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fa18971b225a3bb79f0c4c381a5fae20?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fa18971b225a3bb79f0c4c381a5fae20?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"James Ford"},"description":"James Ishmael Ford is a writer and spiritual director. He has been authorized as a teacher within two traditional Zen lineages. James has washed dishes, assisted a crab fisherman on the Florida keys, worked in bookstores up and down the California coast, and served as a Unitarian Universalist parish minister. He currently lives with his spouse Jan and her mother in Los Angeles. His next book the Intimate Way of Zen is due from Shambhala Publications in July, 2024.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.emptymoonzen.org","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/james.ford.1029","https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_Ishmael_Ford"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/author\/jamesford"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}