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'All of a sudden an explosive conversion will occur, and you will astonish the heavens and shake the earth.'
-Zen master Wumen, The Gateless Barrier. |
What is a koan?
Zen koans are records of encounters between two people in which something significant happened - usually, a student experiences a great awakening as a consequence of an interaction with a teacher.
Often, these interactions will make little sense at face value, and koans are rarely 'teachings' in the conventional sense of instructions to follow or descriptions of points of doctrine. Rather, koans are questions to be explored personally - reading about some esoteric point of Buddhist insight practice might be interesting, but experiencing it for yourself has the power to transform you at the deepest levels. And so we take up a koan not because we expect to learn something from the words of the koan themselves, but from finding what it was happened in the moment that the koan records - by seeing our true nature, experiencing kensho, waking up to who we really are.
How does koan practice work?
Traditionally, koan practice is usually undertaken with the guidance of a teacher who has received transmission (inka shomei) in the Rinzai Zen lineage. If you would like to work formally with a teacher in this way, I can highly recommend my teacher Daizan Roshi and his organisation Zenways. Of course you're also welcome to contact me, but if you want a Zen master, Daizan's your guy.
However, we can also work with koans in a meaningful way on our own. The actual procedure is pretty simple.
First, you need to choose a koan. Many of the traditional ones are complex, obscure and require a lot of commentary before you can even begin to understand what they're getting at. You can find good translations and commentaries of many of the classic koan collections, such as the Gateless Barrier (Mumonkan) and Blue Cliff Record (Hekiganroku) if you'd like to go that route. However, it's often easier to start out with something more accessible, like one of the following:
It's best to pick one koan and stay with it until you experience some real insight, rather than changing from one koan to another each time you sit down to practise. It's better to dig one deep well than many shallow ones!
Having selected a koan, set yourself up in a sitting meditation posture, and take a few moments to settle the mind and relax the body. Then, on your next out-breath, pose your question. On the in-breath, simply look to see what comes up in response. Try not to direct the inquiry by thinking about the question - we tend to relate to problems by thinking about them, but in the case of koan practice it's more useful simply to notice whatever comes up in response to the question in a more hands-off, intuitive manner - think of it more as 'asking and listening' than 'asking and answering'. Then, on your next out-breath, ask the question again, and keep going in this manner. After a while you might find that the asking and answering takes on a rhythm of its own, not connected to the breath - that's fine, just let it happen. What's important is that you maintain the attitude of asking the question - inquiring deeply into the koan - and then listening carefully, open and attentive, willing to receive answers in whatever form they might take, be that thoughts, emotions, body sensations or anything else.
You can find two guided koan meditations (working with 'Who am I?') on the Audio page, one 10 minutes, the other 25 minutes.
Integrating your koan into daily life
In addition to formal meditation, we can also work very effectively with koans in daily life. Koans have a way of continuing to do their work on us even in the background, particularly if you reconnect with them throughout the day. The Chinese Zen teacher who popularised this way of practice, Dahui Zonggao, recommended that, whenever you have some work to do, you focus 100% on the task at hand, but whenever you have a quiet moment (perhaps when walking somewhere or waiting in a queue), bring your koan to mind and inquire as deeply as you can. In time, you'll find that the koan starts to come up naturally whenever you have a quiet moment, and this will significantly accelerate your progress.
Zen koans are records of encounters between two people in which something significant happened - usually, a student experiences a great awakening as a consequence of an interaction with a teacher.
Often, these interactions will make little sense at face value, and koans are rarely 'teachings' in the conventional sense of instructions to follow or descriptions of points of doctrine. Rather, koans are questions to be explored personally - reading about some esoteric point of Buddhist insight practice might be interesting, but experiencing it for yourself has the power to transform you at the deepest levels. And so we take up a koan not because we expect to learn something from the words of the koan themselves, but from finding what it was happened in the moment that the koan records - by seeing our true nature, experiencing kensho, waking up to who we really are.
How does koan practice work?
Traditionally, koan practice is usually undertaken with the guidance of a teacher who has received transmission (inka shomei) in the Rinzai Zen lineage. If you would like to work formally with a teacher in this way, I can highly recommend my teacher Daizan Roshi and his organisation Zenways. Of course you're also welcome to contact me, but if you want a Zen master, Daizan's your guy.
However, we can also work with koans in a meaningful way on our own. The actual procedure is pretty simple.
First, you need to choose a koan. Many of the traditional ones are complex, obscure and require a lot of commentary before you can even begin to understand what they're getting at. You can find good translations and commentaries of many of the classic koan collections, such as the Gateless Barrier (Mumonkan) and Blue Cliff Record (Hekiganroku) if you'd like to go that route. However, it's often easier to start out with something more accessible, like one of the following:
- Who am I?
- What is my true nature?
- Why am I here?
It's best to pick one koan and stay with it until you experience some real insight, rather than changing from one koan to another each time you sit down to practise. It's better to dig one deep well than many shallow ones!
Having selected a koan, set yourself up in a sitting meditation posture, and take a few moments to settle the mind and relax the body. Then, on your next out-breath, pose your question. On the in-breath, simply look to see what comes up in response. Try not to direct the inquiry by thinking about the question - we tend to relate to problems by thinking about them, but in the case of koan practice it's more useful simply to notice whatever comes up in response to the question in a more hands-off, intuitive manner - think of it more as 'asking and listening' than 'asking and answering'. Then, on your next out-breath, ask the question again, and keep going in this manner. After a while you might find that the asking and answering takes on a rhythm of its own, not connected to the breath - that's fine, just let it happen. What's important is that you maintain the attitude of asking the question - inquiring deeply into the koan - and then listening carefully, open and attentive, willing to receive answers in whatever form they might take, be that thoughts, emotions, body sensations or anything else.
You can find two guided koan meditations (working with 'Who am I?') on the Audio page, one 10 minutes, the other 25 minutes.
Integrating your koan into daily life
In addition to formal meditation, we can also work very effectively with koans in daily life. Koans have a way of continuing to do their work on us even in the background, particularly if you reconnect with them throughout the day. The Chinese Zen teacher who popularised this way of practice, Dahui Zonggao, recommended that, whenever you have some work to do, you focus 100% on the task at hand, but whenever you have a quiet moment (perhaps when walking somewhere or waiting in a queue), bring your koan to mind and inquire as deeply as you can. In time, you'll find that the koan starts to come up naturally whenever you have a quiet moment, and this will significantly accelerate your progress.