Note: Here\u2019s the conclusion of my koan confessions, starting with a real confession \u2013 I\u2019m a half-baked potato. I encourage you to also view Koun\u2019s comments for Confessions 2 and 3-4, presenting the view of the just-sitting school. I have heard from some off-line that these aren\u2019t really balanced, that I don\u2019t present the virtues of the just-sitting approach or the weaknesses of the koan approach \u2013 a fair criticism. I\u2019ll get around to that sometime. <\/em><\/p>\nFor now, I\u2019ll be around for a little bit but I\u2019m into sesshin soon so if you post a comment and don\u2019t see it published, it doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that I trashed it. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nConfession #5: I\u2019m a half-baked potato and the work is never done. <\/strong><\/p>\nThe koans assigned to students following breakthrough are ingeniously designed to break open and break apart the breakthrough by revealing what\u2019s missing, what\u2019s being held, inviting the practitioner to see more and more clearly, and more importantly, to actualize the koan at hand \u2013 the infinite aspects of mu \u2013 more and more thoroughly.<\/p>\n
Koans are also the folklore of Zen, as one koan teacher said. However, within each koan is one or more truth-happening points that distinguish koan from the broader genre of folklore. Furthermore, as a koan student moves through the checking questions for mu, the Miscellaneous Koans<\/em>, and into the Gateless Gate<\/em> and other collections, there\u2019s an increasing subtlety in the stories that convey the koan.<\/p>\nMost koans are embedded in stories, carried by stories, lived through stories. To work through a koan, we\u2019re called to enter the koan and make it alive by embodying the central koan points. By becoming the koan we take on the narrative of the koan and include the narrative of the koan in our own life narrative, our self-told stories, including stories of betrayal and suffering, fear and inadequacy, joy and possibility.<\/p>\n
One practical and powerful application of koan work is that in living our self-told stories we also find the possibility to be free within<\/em> our stories, how to be fulfilled in the midst of our hunger.<\/p>\nHow? \u201cTurning away and touching,\u201d says the Jewel Mirror Samadhi, <\/em>\u201care both wrong for it is like a massive fire.\u201d<\/p>\nWhen we turn away from our own life stories, even through the development of witness consciousness, we split ourself off from another ourself and so betray ourselves in a very unsatisfying way. When we touch the fire of suffering, we take a passive position and allow the story to have it\u2019s way with us. This partial-identifying with the story leads to burning our finger, misusing the fire.<\/p>\n
What is right?<\/p>\n
The koan way as I understand it is to enter the story fully, as a participant and a creator, so that the story is neither something that we\u2019re observing from the outside, nor is it something that is happening to<\/em> us. We are free within the predicaments of our lives, right within the \u201cHe insulted me, hit me, beat me, robbed me\u201d (as the Dhammapada has it) of it all, as we might be in a koan.<\/p>\nAs such, the koan way is an affirmative way. Every life story is a passage and we have the great opportunity to enter life fully and respond, for example, by receiving the \u201cYou-bald-ass-bitch\u201d comment of an angry teenager and playing, \u201cYes, I am a bald-ass-bitch so please treat me kindly.\u201d<\/p>\n
We then get to go on with our story. We invite all the many beings to create the story together with us, bringing it all to life, not to avoid or repress the sufferings or joys of life but to embody it all. Kensho, then, isn\u2019t something we have, it\u2019s something we do<\/span>.<\/em><\/p>\nConfession #6: Kensho is not magic.<\/strong><\/p>\nDelusion has a wonderful way of reconstituting so it is the koan student\u2019s responsibility and delightful opportunity to continue enlightening moment after moment, interaction after interaction. It is the koan teacher\u2019s responsibility to collaborate with the student\u2019s innermost request and insist on full aliveness.<\/p>\n
In this way, koan Zen is just like just-sitting Zen. It is about practicing enlightenment, or \u201ckensho-ing.\u201d The fruit of both processes is to become a like ripe persimmon, completely willing to fall from the tree and go, \u201cSplat!\u201d<\/p>\n
Koan work has been a wonderful gift in my life and I\u2019m very grateful to all the teachers who\u2019ve helped me along the way, especially the Boundless Way crew. However, if you think that realizing a koan will clear your complexion forever, that you\u2019ll never have another conflict with your lover, and that you\u2019ll always feel just the way you imagine an enlightened person feeling, you are very likely to be disappointed.<\/p>\n
Confession #7: Koan work isn\u2019t for everyone.<\/strong><\/p>\nKoan work may be wonderful but that doesn\u2019t mean it is the best practice for you. If you have strong faith that you are exactly Buddha, just-sitting Zen may be more appropriate. Speculative types might do best with following the breath. Whatever type you are, if your life is a mess, it\u2019s better to get your self together before tackling Mu.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, if you are a greed type, hungry for it all, or an angry type, desperate for the truth and unwilling to accept what wise people tell you, resolved come hell-or-high water to realize the great matter of birth and death for yourself, then find a koan teacher, someone you can at least tolerate some of the time, and get to work. Our time is limited and the opportunity to play with Buddha in the Zen way will likely slip away.<\/p>\n
Confession #8: This work is not about you or me. <\/strong><\/p>\nThe helpless ones of the future depend on us to keep the buddhadharma alive so that they too will have a life raft in the unimaginably difficult times that may lie ahead, with the unfolding of the post-oil world characterized by global warming, financial meltdowns and unknown challenges.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve staked my life on the belief that through spiritual practice can we live lives that take up the most essential concerns, and can report that resolution is possible. That\u2019s the good news of the Buddha\u2019s Third Truth \u2013 the cessation of suffering. This also invites what might sound like bad news if you\u2019re looking for a magic cure-all \u2013 the Fourth Noble Truth and Eightfold Path<\/a>.<\/p>\nBut I hope you won\u2019t take my word for it or be comforted by a story about koans. They are somebody else\u2019s story, unless they\u2019re realized, digested, and creatively presented for this entire great big blue dumpling world.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Note: Here\u2019s the conclusion of my koan confessions, starting with a real confession \u2013 I\u2019m a half-baked potato. I encourage you to also view Koun\u2019s comments for Confessions 2 and 3-4, presenting the view of the just-sitting school. I have heard from some off-line that these aren\u2019t really balanced, that I don\u2019t present the virtues […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>Note: Here\u2019s the conclusion of my koan confessions, starting with a real confession \u2013 I\u2019m a half-baked potato. I encourage you to also view Koun\u2019s comments for Confessions 2 and 3-4, presenting the view of the just-sitting school. I have heard from some off-line that these aren\u2019t really balanced, that I don\u2019t present the virtues of the just-sitting approach or the weaknesses of the koan approach \u2013 a fair criticism. I\u2019ll get around to that sometime. <\/em><\/p>\n