...as a meditative/contemplative tool because everyone on this forum has pursued koans whether they realized it or not. Anyone who has asked him/herself:
Who am I?
What's going on here?
What's the truth?
What is the meaning of life?
What should I be doing with my life?
Is there a God?
How can I know God?
Is there an afterlife?
What could explain the many paradoxes in modern physics?
or any of a thousand other similar existential questions, has asked an informal koan. Zen has simply added a bunch of other interesting what-is-the-nature-of-reality-type questions to the above list, most of which are designed to illuminate specific areas or aspects of life.
I have an enlightened friend who had a major awakening experience as a result of pursuing one single question that consumed him from an early age, "How can I know God?" One day, after contemplating this question for many years, he was driving down the road in his pickup truck when he glanced up at some pine trees and suddenly found that he was looking at himself--his True Self. Zen people call this a kensho experience of seeing into his true nature. He then looked around, and everywhere he looked, he was looking at himself. This was a classic kind of cosmic consciousness experience. He saw himself in the license plate of a passing vehicle and in a hawk sitting on a tree limb. He later described what happened to him as "the shift." From that point on he could see himself anywhere he looked and he knew that the world was not what other people imagined.
I met him seven years after his shift, and we became good friends. At some point he got interested in koans and asked me to explain how Zen uses them. We drove to a secluded bluff overlooking a scenic view, and I spent two or three hours discussing koans and showing him how they are used. He caught on instantly, and because he was very clear, he was able to answer a large number of koans very quickly. He wasn't interested in koan study because he didn't have any remaining questions, but he wanted to understand how they are utilized in Zen training.
The best koans are the informal existential questions that we ask ourselves in pursuit of the truth, and the only important point, from my perspective, is that the resolution to all existential questions is already within us. The advantage of seeing through some simple koans is the realization that the answer to any question can be found by silently contemplating what it is we want to know. I don't have any questions that bother me, but if I did, I know that I could sit down, silently contemplate the issue, and the answer would appear.
Who am I?
What's going on here?
What's the truth?
What is the meaning of life?
What should I be doing with my life?
Is there a God?
How can I know God?
Is there an afterlife?
What could explain the many paradoxes in modern physics?
or any of a thousand other similar existential questions, has asked an informal koan. Zen has simply added a bunch of other interesting what-is-the-nature-of-reality-type questions to the above list, most of which are designed to illuminate specific areas or aspects of life.
I have an enlightened friend who had a major awakening experience as a result of pursuing one single question that consumed him from an early age, "How can I know God?" One day, after contemplating this question for many years, he was driving down the road in his pickup truck when he glanced up at some pine trees and suddenly found that he was looking at himself--his True Self. Zen people call this a kensho experience of seeing into his true nature. He then looked around, and everywhere he looked, he was looking at himself. This was a classic kind of cosmic consciousness experience. He saw himself in the license plate of a passing vehicle and in a hawk sitting on a tree limb. He later described what happened to him as "the shift." From that point on he could see himself anywhere he looked and he knew that the world was not what other people imagined.
I met him seven years after his shift, and we became good friends. At some point he got interested in koans and asked me to explain how Zen uses them. We drove to a secluded bluff overlooking a scenic view, and I spent two or three hours discussing koans and showing him how they are used. He caught on instantly, and because he was very clear, he was able to answer a large number of koans very quickly. He wasn't interested in koan study because he didn't have any remaining questions, but he wanted to understand how they are utilized in Zen training.
The best koans are the informal existential questions that we ask ourselves in pursuit of the truth, and the only important point, from my perspective, is that the resolution to all existential questions is already within us. The advantage of seeing through some simple koans is the realization that the answer to any question can be found by silently contemplating what it is we want to know. I don't have any questions that bother me, but if I did, I know that I could sit down, silently contemplate the issue, and the answer would appear.
