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FAQ

  • Is a koan a kind of riddle, puzzle, conundrum, or enigma?
    No. The English language has no synonym for koan. The point of a riddle is for one to find an answer. It would be more accurate to say that a koan's purpose is to make one aware of the penumbra in which the question posed in the koan can even exist. As a by product of becoming aware of the penumbra in which the question exists, the question in the koan resolves to a non-question. (Just for clarification: the resolution of a koan is not because the recipient has found an affirmative answer for the now non-existent question. How could the recipient answer a non-question?) As such, there is an entirely different relationship to be realized between the recipient of a koan and the recipient of a riddle.

One of the definitions of enigma may be close, but other definitions of enigma don't cut it. So please don't write that.

Another English term for relating to a koan is precedent, as koan are the literary precedents established as examples of Zen. In a court of law one compares today's case against the precedents of past cases, and in Zen one compares one's own underlying assumptions about reality against the precedents of the past cases. But while precedent accurately portrays the role and status of koan within Zen, the term does not convey in English quite the usage of koan in the specific context of Zen, since use of the koan as the standard against which one compare's one's experience of Zen evokes the sense of puzzlement of the intellect in the student until he/she gets it (resolves the penumbra surrounding the supposed question) through the intuitive process, and then it doesn't seem puzzling at all (hence a non-question). (GW)
  • What's the correct answer to this koan?
    The correct answer is one's own understanding of the koan. If someone gives you an answer that manages to fool your teacher when you repeat it, what have you learned? And how will you respond to the next one? Perhaps there is no pattern.
However, the word "understanding" presents the problem of intellectualization when translating the psychological process of working with koans into the academic framework of questions and answers. Koan answers are not an intellectual understandings, they are practical or imagistic responses. For example, one Wikipedia entry describes a usage of the term understanding as "A person understands the weather if he/she is able to predict and to give an explanation of some of its features, etc." That is not a proper expression of understanding when working with koans, because the "answers" to koans don't have anything to do with inellectual "explanation" or "prediction" as those terms are usually used. In the context of demonstrating one's understanding of a koan to a teacher, a person shows he/she understands the weather not by explanation or prediction but by showing the opening an umbrella in the rain or removing a coat in the warm sunshine.(GW)
  • What's the correct interpretation for this koan?
    A koan has no definitive interpretation. However, much context surrounds every koan; in many cases, much of the original meaning is lost without this context. Wikipedians seem to enjoy interpretations and have included some at the bottom of the article. You could also start a page using a short name for a koan, e.g. Baizhang's Fox or Huineng's Flag.
  • I've heard the Soto don't use koans.
    Many don't. Some do. There are many sectarian rumours about each sect. Also, use is not exactly the right word to describe the relationship between a Zen practitioner and a koan — though again, English lacks an accurate term.
"Working with" is the best term for koan practice, as when an artist works with his/her materials, a mathematician works with a problem, or a horse trainer works with the horse. The student works with the koan and, similar to working with art, math, and horses, the student is simultaneously worked on by the koan. This two-way working is the subtle and profound meaning of "with" in the phrase "working with." (GW)
  • Aren't koans an instrument that people use to reach enlightenment? Skillful means and all that? Why not just come out and say it?
    Maybe you are the instrument—consider that. But see Hakuin's "Song of Zazen", which says that cause and effect are the same. Every means is itself an end. Most teachers agree that koans supercede subject-object duality, so the "instrumentalist" view is not helpful.
Koans are instruments in the sense of musical instruments. As some people make devine music with a musical instrument when others just make noise, some people make enlightenment with koans when others just make ignorance or confusion. One works with the instrument to "reach" the result, but the result is not achieved though an "instrumentalist" view because an instrumentlist view is typically limited by the subject-object distinction. The great musician becomes one with the instrument to show the result, and the Zen student becomes one with the koan to show the result. In this sense the instrumentalist view must be transcended.(GW)
In his "Ode to Sitting Meditation" (坐禅和讃, Zazen Wasan) Hakuin doesn't say "cause and effect are the same." He says, "Then opens the gate of the oneness of cause and effect." Saying "cause and effect are the same" implies lack of differientiation, while "oneness of cause and effect" means oneness within the differientiation. In other words, cause and effect are not dissolved into sameness by denial of their difference, instead the essential working of cause and effect is not denied but is realized through an appreciation of their underlying oneness. It is an important nuance that is portrayed in the koan case #2 known as "Baizheng's Fox" (J. Hyakujo) of the Gateless Checkpoint (erroneously translated as the Gateless Gate) (無門關, C. Wumen Guan, J. Mumonkan). (GW, updated 7/03/07)
"...effect and cause are the same" according to Robert Aitken, also published in Taking the Path of Zen, p112-113. Another Aitken translation reportedly has it as "The oneness of cause and effect is clear". Similarly, D.T. Suzuki reportedly has it as "...the oneness of cause and effect". I am curious how Norman Waddell translated it, possibly in his Essential Teachings. --Munge 08:58, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Some would say this is an example of Zen pedantry and reflects Zen's tendency to obtuseness, obfuscation, and political correctness in refusing to use conventional words in their conventional sense. According to the vast zen literature, many zen students do in fact actually 'use' koans to 'gain' enlightenment whether or not such terms are technically correct from an 'enlightened' point of view. See Philip Kapleau's book Three Pillars of Zen for clear exaples of koan 'usage'.
See The Zen Koan (or Zen Dust) by Miura and Sasaki, pxi; "To say that it is used as a subject of meditation is to state the fact incorrectly". See also Zen Keys by Thich Nhat Hanh, p57: "...we cannot say it is a theme or subject of meditation." See also The Koan, p281, where Victor Hori quotes Hee Jin Kim; they both criticize the "instrumentalist" view of koans, that they are a "means" to something. Hori reiterates this understanding in the introduction to Zen Sand. As the article stands right now, "Koans are often used...to induce an experience of enlightenment..." expresses as fact what is actually a particular POV, refuted by these authors, whose lineage and scholarship are not in question. They do not make obtuse statements; they are quite direct, and they are not made in a context of mystical commentary. Some would say Hakuun's statement was not obtuse either, but a straightforward expresion that every means is itself an end, a theme reiterated in rational western literature. I suggest this issue could be handled in a subsection of the article. I've tried to make sure that all controversial statements in the 1st half of the article are well documented, as you may have noticed. If teachers make many clear statements that koans are "used" and whatnot, perhaps you'd be so kind as to cite some specific examples, and one of us can write a section on "two attitudes about the use of koans" or something like that, OK? --Munge 04:41, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
Update: I see that on p12 of Three Pillars of Zen, edited by Philip Kapleau, he writes that koan zazen "must not be confused with...fixing one's mind on an idea or object." This is the same page where the book first explains how to practice with koans. I'll stipulate that he sometimes does write "use koans" or "utilize koans" (p6, p64). But evidently, Kapleau's 'usage' comes with qualifications. --Munge 05:18, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Can any perplexing or paradoxical situation be a koan?
Yes. One point of all koans is to make the recipient aware of their reaction to the koan directly through their experience. When you listen/watch/feel your mind chase the answer to a perplexing or paradoxical situation like a dog chases his tail, that's True (like the computer screen you're reading this on right now) and unlike anything the mind comes up which is just more thought or mind. When you realize that as the observer of your mind, that you are a separate, larger, entity than your mind (the field in which the mind plays), all koans will make sense to you. When you realize that the mind that chases the koan is the same mind that chases life, then you can live life instead of being lived by your mind. (DAK)

To do

  • Convert all Wade-Giles renderings to Pinyin, but on first incidence, give Wade-Giles renderings and Japanese pronunciation.
  • Settle on Book of Serenity or Book of Equanimity or...? Have a decent reason for doing so.
  • Move analysis of the wu/mu/no koan to a separate page? Maybe the mu page?
  • Explanation of the hua tou (critical phrase)? Or is existing mention enough?
  • Explanation of checking questions
  • Explanation of capping phrase (jakugo) practice
  • The role of Ta Hui Tsung Kao (1089-1163), who provided a lot of written advice for lay students who practiced with koans; regrettably his written material on koans is not completely translated into English, most of what is translated into English appears to be out of print; you can get a little of it if you google Ta Hui and Chun-Fang Yu; more complete sources may be Robert Buswell's book on Chinul, and Miriam Levering's dissertation, which I think also has some material on the next item;
  • Women who figure in koans e.g. Iron Grindstone Lu; and women who taught koan practice (e.g. Miao Tao?)
  • The role of koans in the martial arts
  • Cultural differences among Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Western koan students/practitioners (e.g. Chinese integration with Pure Land; contemporary Japanese literary tradition; reconcilliation with Western naturalistic philosophy? Distinguishing features of study/practice in Korean Son? In Vietnamese Son? Mu as a lifelong practice in some places?)
  • If Zen is a separate teaching outside the canon, how did it come to encompass so much literature?
  • Can any perplexing or paradoxical situation be a koan?
  • The koan in the West and modern koans
  • Role of the koan in sectarian rivalry and the competition for patronage (attempting non-sectarian coverage of Northern/Southern, Rinzai/Soto, sudden/gradual controversies).

Interpretation section pitfalls

Why do we have an interpretation of koans section?

...it's not much of an explanation if we make the problem harder for the reader

When the revision happened, the stuff that I thought had value, plus what I just didn't have the heart to delete (including that Gifts thing) got condensed into an Interpretation section. At the time, a few wikipedians wanted very much to play. No problem, and the other sections could be strictly based on research informed by practice. With the aim that any reasonably literate person could parse it. And no pretense of preaching the dharma. It seemed like a good idea at the time but the pitfalls are becoming evident. The interpretation section always had a certain preachiness. It's got that caveat at the beginning, but the danger is there. What is the danger?

First, it's not dangerous for someone who concludes "oh, koans equal metaphor plus folklore", and then they move on to their shopping lists or whatever, I figure they were probably going there anyway, so no problem. And there's no danger if someone is a Zen priest or adept and reads it--I imagine they'd say "amusing horseshit" to just about anything written here. user:munge 18 November 2004

Hahaha! Most likely.
...I expect they'd enjoy cogito ergo sum#Success_of_the_Cogito as well, for possibly different reasons. --[[User:Eequor|ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ]] 06:17, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The danger is if an actual spiritual seeker is taken by this stuff and gets a false sense of security that this is an opening for them, they get it, the dog, the bowl, the three pounds of flax that may or may not be a monk's robe. If their curiousity, their doubt, isn't stoked but is instead partially satisfied, dampened. The classic Zen proverb about it is "pictures of food can't satisfy hunger". The best thing that could happen for the actual seeker is if the article either leaves them in their present state of doubt, or if it does throw them into a greater state of doubt. The issue for that person isn't if it gets harder. The issue is, does it get hard enough for them to get their ass on a cushion.

I know that's not the encyclopedist's job. But, if Ta Hui did indeed burn the printing blocks to the Blue Cliff Record, if that story's true--now I know why.

So in that sense it may not be much of an article if, in a certain sense, if makes things seem easier.

user:munge 18 November 2004

I agree. It's really tempting to burn all the text about Zen; after all, nothing external can truly be the cause for a student's realization. But if all the Zen monks had avowed silence, choosing to keep secret what they had discovered — or if Siddhartha Gautama had chosen that, long ago when he despaired of anyone understanding — then nobody today would have the privilege of knowing there might be something more to consciousness than what everyone takes for granted. Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Instead, we have a vast body of literature which nobody understands at all. Most people can't even comprehend the least part of the riddle we've been left with, and there are very few who could help them. Isn't it the encyclopedia's role to provide the best answers known to anyone who might ask? Shouldn't the world's largest encyclopedia contain, somewhere, the clearest, fullest explanation of Zen yet developed?
And, if the best explanation is we don't know either, shouldn't we simply state the facts we do know, rather than throw out philosophical jargon to divert the readers' attentions toward something they won't understand any better? --[[User:Eequor|ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ]] 06:07, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As an example of what I feel the article should strive for, please see One Drop Reveals the Ocean, in which Geoffrey Shugen Arnold presents a much clearer explanation of why Zhaozhou's Cypress is a koan, and why the monk's later denial is also a koan. --[[User:Eequor|ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ]] 18:51, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What do you suppose Arnold is saying? The part about water seeing/speaking water is right on. Yet, who knows what it meant to Dogen. We can't get past knowing that we are mostly water...I doubt if Dogen knew that. And you can filter out 100% of Arnold's stuff about environmentalism as POV, IMO. I mean, it's lovely, but POV nonetheless. As skillful means of engaging with contemporary Western and Japanese students, it's skillful alright. But as for demolishing delusions, Robert Sharf, in the flawed yet nevertheless excellent http://kr.buddhism.org/zen/koan/Robert_Sharf-e.htm solidly debunks the idea that the "nature" in "Buddha nature" meant what it means to today's environmentalists. Environmentalism was alien to Zhaozhou because it wasn't an issue. The Chinese vocabulary did not distinguish nature and culture as we do. What was Zhaozhou's actual attitude toward the Budda-nature of non-human entities? What was Dogen's? I'm working on it. It's taking me a few years, however. user:munge 22 November 2004
*grin*
I agree; the environmentalism stuff is a nice way of giving Westerners some context, but in itself it isn't particularly interesting (aside from being very elegant). The most insightful part of his talk is in three paragraphs, including the part about "water seeing water":
When Zhaozhou said, The cypress tree in the yard, what did he see that made him declare, "This is the true meaning of your nature, of Chan Buddhism, of reality?" This koan is an excerpt from a longer exchange. The monk asked, "What is the living meaning of Chan?" Zhaozhou answered, "The cypress tree in the yard." The monk continued, "Teacher, don't use an object to guide people." In other words, don't use something that's bound to the subjective world. Zhaozhou said, "I'm not using an object to guide you." The monk proceeded, "Very well, then, what's the meaning of Chan?" Zhaozhou said, "The cypress tree in the yard." It was the monk who was using an object; he couldn't free himself of the tree so that he might realize the tree.
(Zhaozhou has been very kind.)
Once, a student of Zhaozhou went to Master Fayan's place. Fayan asked him, "Where have you come from?" The monk said, "From Zhaozhou." Fayan said, "I hear that Zhaozhou has a saying, ‘The cypress tree in the yard.' Is this so?" The monk exclaimed, "No." Fayan pursued this, "Everyone who's been around says that a monk asked him the meaning of Chan and Zhaozhou said, ‘The cypress tree in the yard.' How can you deny this?" The monk said, "Master Zhaozhou really didn't say this. Please don't slander him." What was the monk saying? Don't try to come to life in the words, don't turn this dharma into a commodity.
This is context which is valuable to everyone, regardless of how they feel about the environment or anything else. Wu-Men's Case 37 becomes dull by comparison; he left out the most important part of the story! In this context, too, the monk's denial becomes much more interesting, as one can see that he gained something from Zhaozhou, and see the denial might not be as straightforward as it appears. --[[User:Eequor|ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ]] 10:16, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
As for the monk's later denial, my impression is that it's part of commentary (and, I suspect, a checking question for Zhaozhou's tree). To call the denial a koan opens up the can of worms. If it is a koan (I'm not saying it's not) then what is not a koan? Note that "can anything be a koan" is on the to-do list. To keep the problem from exploding, I think wikipedic energy is best directed toward koans that are indisputably koans. As noted above, I see three possible ways to qualify: 1) Having a case number in a classic koan collection, 2) being universally accepted as oral tradition (as in the sound of one hand), or 3) otherwise having a strong historical basis (Yuanwu's own first koan, Little Jade, which deserves ever so much more attention than it gets IMO). Being able to settle whether the monk's denial is a koan or commentary...being able to handle Alice's encounter with the caterpillar, etc., as a koan (I'm aware of 2 teachers, not affiliated with each other, who have assigned it as such)...but is this really a priority? user:munge 22 November 2004
I found a reference to this, finally: it's noted in Zen and Zen Classics: Selections from R. H. Blyth by Frederick Franck, page 75, ISBN 0394724895; apparently referencing Zen and Zen Classics: Twenty-Five Essays by R. H. Blyth, ISBN 0893460524.
Apparently this also contains the following entertaining version of Zhaozhou's Dog, which leaves the previous discussion about Wú even more uncertain:
Joshu asked the zen-man, Sekito, "Does a dog have Buddha-Nature?"
Sekito answered, "Shut your mouth! No barking like a dog, please."
A zen-man once asked Joshu, "Does a dog have Buddha-Nature?"
Joshu answered, "No!"
--[[User:Eequor|ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ]] 10:44, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Etymology and a play on the words gong/kong?

Someone modified the etymology section, noting that kung an could have been a play on words. Namely, kung sounds like kong, a Chinese word for emptiness (I believe that kong = 空, as distinct from the gong 公 in kung-an or gong-an). Was that term "kong" used as an equivalent for the Sanskrit sunya during the Tang and Sung dynasties? That could support the claim there was a play on words. Otherwise, maybe not. A reference would help.

What would also really help would be for someone to straighten out the problem of kung-fu an-tu (Chinese) seeming to have 4 characters, and ko-fu no an toku (Japanese) seeming to have 5 or maybe 6 characters, so they can't quite be equivalent.

The Chinese and Japanese are kind of equivalent. The "no" in Japanese is used like the 's in English. i.e. the document of the official desk or the official's document. Chinese writing often drop the use of the 's as abbreviation. It can be there or it can be understood. The Chinese tu is pronounced as toku in Japanese, so it is actually 4 characters in both cases, but the Japanese added a "no" in the middle as a connector.
Thanks once again! -user:munge 08:07 UMT 7 December 2004

Note how difficult it is to get the facts straight, let alone the speculations. user:munge 22 November 2004

After considering this, I decided to delete the remark. As it stood, the edit contained a clearly false statement because the two Chinese characters are different. The person said it was a "separate tradition". Couldn't have been because of the two different characters. Above, I speculated "play on words". I don't know why I was trying to be nice when they never said that. I'm not going to try to fix someone's obviously wrong statement based on my speculation. I have another speculation that isn't as kind anyway, which I will omit to spell out. user:munge 02:66 UMT 6 December 2004

Zhaozhou's tree 101

According to http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/zen/mumonkan.htm (I suggest that Wikipedians may not want to link articles there unless one can confirm it doesn't violate the copyright held by Sekida and Grimstone), the main case of Wumenkuan #37 reads: 趙州、因僧問、如何是祖師西來意。州云、庭前栢樹子。(One of my teachers told me that the original has no punctuation marks. Be that as it may...)

I tentatively translate this as "Zhaozhou, because a monk asked, when the founder of the sect came from the west, what was his intended meaning? Zhou said, the (young?) tree in the courtyard." Tradition holds that Bodhidharma came to China from India, perhaps around 500 C.E.

I am relying on a Chinese-English dictionary. According to that dictionary, 祖師 (zushi) means "founder (of a school or sect)". (Copy and paste the 2 characters above into the 3rd text box on the Search page of http://zhongwen.com, submit characters, click on first character, go down a few lines and you'll see it.) As far as I can tell (I do not speak Chinese) there is no implication of gender (such as with zufu "grandfather" or zumu "grandmother"). The rendering "patriarch" appears to be one of those all-too-common artifacts from the age when Zen texts in translation made endless apologias and drew highly questionable parallels to the Bible.

Yes, the term zushi (祖師) literally means "ancestral teacher" or "original teacher" or "founding teacher" and the translation as "patriarch" was a patriarchial choice by the first translators, as you say, within their cultural context. (GW)

Strangely, the tree (shuzi) is not the same character pair that the dictionary gives for cypress (boshu), and not the character for oak (xiang). That diminutive 子 also appears in the wu/mu koan. I've wondered about that (little dog? son-of-a-bitch? even the slightest [bit of buddha nature])? Nevertheless, I have also noticed (as pointed out in note 10 of koan) that Japanese teachers/translators do render it as "oak" (Sekida/Grimstone, Senzaki/Reps, Shibayama/Kudo, Yamada) while English-speaking translators from the Chinese tend to render it as "cypress" (Aitken, T. Cleary including in Cleary's rendering of case #47 of the Congronglu/Tsungjunglu/Shoyoroku/Book of Serenity, which appears to have the same main case as Wumenkuan #37). Blyth also renders as "oak". Apparently, teachers don't believe the type of tree is important. -user:munge 26 November 2004

I've seen it translated as bamboo sometimes, but I think it must be cypress (栢樹).
a-HA. (*^_^*) I hadn't noticed, but zhongwen.com didn't take that first character (栢). Then I read somewhere 栢 is an alternate for 柏. And indeed, zhongwen.com renders cypress as 柏樹. -user:munge 28 November 2004
Japanese translators see oak instead because that is the meaning of 栢 in Japanese, but of course Wu-men didn't write "oak". "Little cypress tree", maybe?
The name of Zhaozhou's temple is Bailin Chan Si (柏林禅寺) which is either Cypress Tree Chan Temple or Cedar Tree Chan Temple. The Unihan dictionary data for U+67CF has bǎi (柏) (sometimes pronounced bò) as both cypress tree and cedar. Zhongwen has only cypress. CCDICT Chinese Character Dictionary has both cedar and cypress. (see also

http://www.mandarintools.com/cgi-bin/wordlook.pl?word=0x67CF&searchtype=trad&where=anywhere

One problem is that common usage names often confuse between cedar and a cypress. For example, in English some people believe Cypress is also called Yellow Cedar on the west coast ( see http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/bot00/bot00567.htm ) and Port-Orford-cedar (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana) is also called Lawson cypress.
Bailin Chan Temple has a large tree in the courtyard which they say is the same tree, or one just like it, that Zhaozhou was referring to. The picture can be seen at the website of http://www.hsuyun.org/Dharma/zbohy/Special/2005/chantraining.html Does it look like a cedar or cypress? It looks like a cedar to me but I'm no botanist. I suppose that one would have to go there and see, feel and smell the tree. Gregory Wonderwheel, Jan, 24, 2006.
Andy Ferguson of South Mountain China Tours http://www.southmountaintours.com/pages/Zen_Tours_General/zen_tours_gen_intro.htm leads Zen history tours that include a visit to Zhaozhou's (Joshu) temple in China, and he has told me that the tree is indeed a cypress tree and that its descendents are still standing in the courtyard of the temple just as shown in the photograph. Andy is also the author/editor of Zen's Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings.(GW 1/3/07)
A number of cypress varieties are native to China, and one cannot say the same about members of the cedrus family. So, cypress until proven otherwise. My hunch is the Unihan lexicographer is indulging the Western practice of using the common name "cedar" for stuff that is not a member of the cedrus family. I won't say it's incorrect, but the author of this page thought it was a common enough misconception, and noted that the so-called Yellow Cedar is "not a cedar" (and not a true cypress, either). Indeed, in a botanical garden last weekend, I and another person saw a member of that very species of tree, labeled as a cedar. I am not making this up. (In an infinite universe, given infinite time, all coincidences are inevitable.) --Munge 04:06, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
And yes, the exact type of tree probably isn't all that important. --[[User:Eequor|ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ]] 12:42, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The tree in the photo at the link Gregory Wonderwheel posted is a Chinese Juniper. Calling it a cedar is a mis-translation - MPF 21:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I agree it is not a cedar. I don't know how you can tell it's a juniper, but look at that Wikipedia description of the "Chinese Juniper". It says the Chinese Juniper is in the "Family: Cupressaceae" which means the Cypress Family. (GW 1/3/07)

Perhaps nothing that a student thinks about it is important. Wumen's verse: 言無展事/語不投機/承言者喪/滯句者迷. Tentatively (and too hastily, I'm sure) I'd render that as "Words don't express the matter/speech doesn't convey the subtlety/accepting language one comes to grief/stagnant, at a loss for words, a confused person". Several translators (Aitken, Sekida/Grimstone, Shibayama/Kudo) appear to translate 承 as "attached" (to speech), but not others (such as Cleary or Blyth).

The parallel to the tradition of Shakyamuni awakening under the Bodhi tree is impossible to ignore. But Wumen's warning should completely dowse any notion that the koan can be explained by reference to history, folklore, philosophy, psychology, linguistic theory...

And despite the reference to mountains, rivers, and oceans in the Book of Serenity's commentary, there seems to be no justification for seeing Zhaozhou's response as pointing to "nature". That commentary gives equal time to cultural phenomena--boats, statues, and carts. As I don't have the original, I'll quote from Cleary's translation "...still the cart is made to fit the groove..." and "Buying all the current fashions without putting down any money". (The latter are the final words of the commentary.) I have no idea what any of that means, only that it obviously doesn't mean anything about reverence for the earth or ecology. (See http://terebess.hu/english/borup.html for more on "reverse orientalism", or "Zen and the art of telling Western audiences what they want to hear".)

In its commentary to the koan, the Book of Serenity also cites the story wherein Huijiao, asked by Fayan about Zhaozhou's tree, responded "The late master really didn't say this; please don't slander him."

The 'Sayings of Zhaozhou' records another dialogue about the tree:

A monk asked, "Does the oak tree have Buddha-nature or not?"
The master said "It has."
The monk said "When will it become Buddha?"
Zhaozhou said "When the world ends."
The monk said "When will the world end?"
Zhaozhou said "When the oak tree becomes Buddha."

(The above is similar to fragment #305 of The Recorded Sayings of Chao-Chou, translated by James Green, and to commentary to case #37 in 'The Gateless Barrier', Robert Aitken, p230)

A great deal more can be said regarding Zhaozhou's tree, in terms of the history, folklore, philosophy of Chan/Zen, and contemporary scholarship regarding Buddha nature. Fortuntely, this has nothing to do with the koan itself. Commentary (notably by Shibayama, Aitken, and others) strongly emphasizes Wumen's point that the koan is incomprehensible. The traditional interpretation is that Zhaozhou was pointing to a living experience that supercedes comprehension and discourse. Indeed, the longer record (similar to Green, p15-16) says the monk responded to Zhaozhou "please don't use objects to teach." And Zhaozhou responded "I don't use objects to teach." "In that case, when the founder of the sect came from the west, what was his intended meaning? Zhou said, the tree in the courtyard."

This is very important. Zhaozhou wasn't referring to the tree in the courtyard as an object anymore then Hui Neng was referring to the flag and wind as objects. Pointing to the tree in the courtyard is pointing directly to mind, not to an object. The principle here is not to mistake the finger for the moon. It is the mind that points and the mind that sees that is the intention of the coming of the founder from the west. Remember that an epithet of Buddha is Tathagata which means the "thus come one," so when asking the intention of the coming from the west, the zen person is asking the intention of the coming of the universe from the mind. The only answer is to point to the mind itself which has thus come: the tree in the courtyard. (Gregory Wonderwheel Jan. 24, 2006.)
To say the koan is "incomprehensible" or that Wumen's point is that the koan is "incomprehensible" misunderstands Wumen's words. He is saying that comprehension is not found in words, he is not saying that the koan is incomprehensible. Be one with the koan and you will comprehend it without relying on words.(GW 1/3/07)

In a famous mondo, a student asked Linchi (aka Rinzai) the same (approximately the same?) question, "what was the intended meaning of the founder...?" Linchi responded something like "If the founder had any intention, he couldn't even have saved himself". (Similar to p68 of The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi, Burton Watson's translation of the recorded sayings of Linchi.)

One might not be too far off to say that Zhaozhou's intention is to disrupt the student's thought processes. Try just sitting with not knowing. Otherwise, I'll go to hell for this.

-user:munge 26 November 2004

About Xizhong's wheel

Here are some notes about the wheel of Xizhong (Wade-Gile Hsi-Chung, Hepburn Keichu). As some of you may have noticed, I use the discussion page as a staging area for the main article. This is very un-wikipedian but I don't know another way. It's too hard to do research and prepare text in final form at the same time. If you are so inclined, feel free to jump in and wikify, add Chinese characters, dates of birth, verified historical verse commentaries on this particular koan, etc., if you are so inclined.

Translators vary wildly regarding the spokes/wheels/cart. Aitken, Blyth, and Yamada have a "hundred carts". Paul Reps has it as two wheels of fifty spokes each. T. Cleary, Sekida/Grimstone, and Shibayama (as well as Stryk/Levering user:munge 05:12 UTC 11 Dec 2004) use words to the effect of "a cart having wheels with a hundred spokes each". The Chinese characters apparently translate literally as "cart 100 spoke".

The only main line Rinzai priest among the above commentators, Shibayama, asserts (p.73) about Xizhong "...in the days of Emperor U of the Ka dynasty...he made a grand cart whose wheels had a hundred spokes and amazed the people". (Is this U the same character as yu, the converse of wu/mu?) In any event, Xizhong was a mythical figure, a contemporary of Canjie, who invented the Chinese alphabet.

Apparently, little biographical information is available about Getsuan/Gettan/Yueh-an/Yuean of the Linji lineage of Chan/Zen. Yuean was the teacher of the teacher of Yuelin, who was Wumen's teacher. (Perhaps the story was passed down orally 3 generations from teacher to student, rather than recorded in a prior collection, lamp history, recorded sayings, or similar document.)

The wheel implies some common images of the Buddhist and Indian worldview, especially cyclic rebirth. However, the image of removing a wheel invokes a particular Buddhist convention, the story of King Milinda and the Buddhist monk Nagasena, told (with "interminable...detail" according to Blyth) in the Milindapanha (Questions of Milinda). Borges (with characteristic economy of style) retells it as follows: "...as the King's chariot is neither the wheels nor the chassis, neither the axle, the shaft, nor the yoke, so man is not matter, form, perception, ideas, instinct, or consciousness. He is neither the combination of these parts nor does he exist apart from them...after two days of discussion or catechism, he converted the King, who put on the yellow robe of a Buddhist monk." (see for example, "The Dialogues of Ascetic and King", in Selected Non-Fictions, Jorge Luis Borges, p384, cf p348, cf p3). The cart is not the same, not different from its parts; the truth is not one and not two. The view of nonduality is just as much a view, an illusion, as the view of duality. This is apparent from the mental experiment of removing the parts of the cart.

One might say that the contemplation of Xizhong's wheel koan reveals relationships among cart and parts, among ourselves and our parts, and among ourselves and other parts of the world that are not expressible using language. One cannot invoke the meaning of the koan by appealing either to illusory undifferentiated wholes nor to illusory boundaries among parts. -user:munge 09:09 UTC 7 December 2004, a day that will live in infamy because I'm going to hell for this

Huayen precursors to the kung-an

See The significance of paradoxical language in Hua-yen Buddhism, Dale S. Wright, Philosophy East and West, July 1982, pp325-338. That link is missing a page or two of the article, including the notes. Key quote: "...the origins of the kung-an in the Ch'an school can be traced to paradoxical language in Hua-yen texts as well as in other lines of Mahayana thought." --Munge 03:58, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"used...as objects" is POV

Koans are used by Zen practitioners as objects of meditation to induce an experience of enlightenment or realization.

I deleted this sentence. It may seem very petty, but I believe that the sentence is POV of a particular "instrumentalist" attitude that is not shared by all Zen teachers/practitioners. In fact, I am not aware of traditional sources that use that kind of language, only modern ones in English. Moreover I suspect very few if any Zen teachers actually believe it can be taken literally.

You are quite correct to remove the sentence. Koans are not "objects", they are expressions of mind. By opening up to an expression of mind one sees mind. The important thing to remember about koan "utility" is that they are direct expressions of mind in a particular context of upaya; that is, a koan is an expedient teaching in reply to a particular circumstance of mind. Koans are intended to undo dualistic dependency so that mind can directly perceive mind without the filtering of mental polarization. Virtually every koan begins with a dualistic or oppositional proposition that the response is aimed at unseating. When the person "gets it" and sees with one single eye (see Wumenkuan Wumen's comment to case 2) instead of the pair of eyes, then one is said to see into one's own nature (J. kensho). To see koans as objects would persist in a dualistic discussion of subject and object and presupposing that the object has some inherent existance. Gregory Wonderwheel, Jan.. 24, 2006.
My Diamond Sangha teachers carefully use the terminology, "sitting with a koan". They don't talk about "passing" them either. None of them has ever passed MU. Not a one :) Zora 04:44, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

In The Zen Koan, p281, Victor Hori quotes Hee Jin Kim (I think it refers to Kim's Dogen Kigen, Mystical Realist) who calls this attitude the "instrumentalist" view of koans, a view that they are a "means" to something. Hori and Kim do not endorse this attitude. It is my understanding that Hori is not merely a scholar; he trained hard for decades and remains committed to practice. As for Kim, I don't know about him personally but find his writing to be top notch. I also find the "instrumentalist" POV directly contradicts Hakuuin Ekaku's Song of Zazen, which identifies means as equal to ends; and it contradicts my understanding of Buddha Nature doctrine, which I think identifies practice as transformation.

As a person who works with ("practices with" or "sits with" or okay too) koans, I agree that utilitarian or instrimuntalist views seem to be too objectified. However, seeing the koan as a musical instrument is not too far off. As a musician makes music with an instrument when others just make noise, so a Zen student makes intuitive wisdom (prajna) or insight with koans while others just make confusion or ignorance. Becoming one with the instrument is the way one transcends the instrumentalist view, not by denying it. (GW 1/3/07)

The current article might eventually benefit from a discussion of the instrumentalist position, though I don't find it a priority bec. discussing misunderstandings is endless. I note that in Zen Keys, Thich Nhat Hanh presents an instrumentalist position first as an upaya; then he seemingly retracts it, positing it as a provisional teaching, a step toward a more complete understanding that is ultimately expressed without subject/object relationships. I'll further speculate that the "instrumentalist" position has parallels to the emphasis on cause-and-effect posited by the exponents of Critical Buddhism.

--Munge 08:26, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This may be an example of the rivalry between the Northern and Southern schools of early Zen, discussed by Jeffrey L. Broughton in The Bodhidharma Anthology. The instrumentalist view seems to have been a point of contention between the schools; Master Yüan, a disciple of Bodhidharma whose ideas seem to have carried over to the Southern School, viewed ingenious artifice or ch'iao-wei as an obstacle to developing wisdom. On the other hand, the Northern School practiced gradualist, step-by-step teaching, and seems to have carried the instrumentalist position.
The Northern School had been developed by Shen-hsiu, while the Southern School was founded by Hui-neng, the traditional sixth patriarch. In their time, an interesting rivalry developed between the two schools: Shen-hsiu's disciple P'u-chi declared the Northern School to be in fact the Southern School, Shen-hsiu to be the real sixth patriarch, and himself to be the seventh. This was not tolerated by the Southern School; in the Platform Talks or T'an-yü, Shen-hui rejected these claims and stressed that correct practice was "no-examining" (pu-kuan) rather than "gazing" (k'an) as in the meditation of the Northern School. The original Southern School prevailed, and this may have biased views against the instrumentalist methods. In particular, Dogen would naturally share the views of the Southern School. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 22:22, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This issue of Northern School vs. Southern School is very very complicated. For example, Hui-neng did not "found" any school much less one named the "Southern School." Both Huineng and Shenhsiu were called the Sixth Ancestor by their respective followers, but both called their traditions "the Southern School" in reference to being the school of Bodhidharma. After Huineng's death, Huineng's disciple and self-declared defender, Shenhui, is the one who said Puchi's school should be called the Northern School because people referred to the Zen tradition after the Fifth Ancestor by saying "Huineng in the South and Shenhsiu in the North." Also, there is only very slight circumstantial evidence that Shenhui had anything to do with the actual writing of the Platform Sutra of Huineng and some evidence that he didn't. For example, the lineage of the Zen ancestors in the Platform Sutra is different than the lineage that Shenhui has in his own writings. There is greater circumstantial evidence that the Platform Sutra was made by other Zennists than Shenhui (possibly even those of the Oxhead school) working as mediators to resolve the impending schism that Shenhui was creating with his ranting attacks on Puchi and the Zen descendents of Shenhsiu. The primary difference between Shenhsiu and Huineng is that Shenhsiu continued to emphasize the use the Lankavatara Sutra as the seal of awakening as Bodhidharma has passed it down, while Huineng used the Diamond Sutra as the seal. It was the Fifth Ancestor who created this division by using the Diamond Sutra with Huineng and the Lankavatara Sutra with Shenhsiu. Because the Diamond Sutra is shorter, more concise, more understandable, and in simplier language it was found to be more in tune with the Chinese outlook and character than the complex language of the not so easy to read Lankavatara. So when Chinese Zen adopted the Diamond Sutra over the Lankavatara Sutra they were simultaneoulsy adopting the lineage of Huineng over the lineage of Shenhsiu. This process took several teaching generations and over a hundred years before Shenhsiu's lineage died out while Huineng's lineage grew stronger. (GW 1/03/07)
I want to read Broughton, haven't got around to it. Now I agree, from other things I've read, the self-styled Southern School was, by all appearances, anti-instrumentalist, as was Dogen. (You have kind of a knack for these doctrinal classifications, don't you?). That said, I have hoped we can keep the "Northern vs. Southern" debate out of the koan article because the "Northern School" strikes me as an invention of Shenhui; on request, I'll supply cites of McRae, Faure, and others. Of course, it is certainly part of Zen/Chan self-understanding that there was a degenerate "Northern School" which advocated gradualism, quietism, other isms said to be deficient by the winners who ended up writing the history. But an early dialogue found at Dunhuang in the early 20th, translated by Cleary in Zen Dawn, is evidence of a supposed Northerner advocating in favor of sudden, not gradualist position. And there's more like that in Ceasing of Notions translated by Soko Morinaga. My impression is that the invasion of the North by the Khans was what really did in the people who were labeled as being of the Northern School. --Munge 07:13, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"metanoia" and "faith" deserve discussion

an experience of metanoia or radical change of consciousness and perspective, from the point of view of which the koan 'question' is resolved, and the practitioner's religious faith is enhanced.

I intend to modify this later. "Metanoia" is colorful, but unnecessarily obscure; maybe "personal transformation" will do, as it alludes to probable Yogacara influences on the koan, in contrast to a probably unrelated Greek tradition. I would like to hear from other Wikipedians about the significance of faith in koan study/practice. Just how did the founders of the school intend us to have "faith"?

--Munge 08:26, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Faith seems a poor word; in Buddhism, the idea it usually represents is based on one's own understanding and verification of one's beliefs, which would be better represented by confidence. Faith is belief without supporting evidence; confidence is belief in what one has previously observed to be true. There are some beliefs which must be taken on faith initially, but this is not "blind faith": one has the expectation that one's beliefs will eventually be verifiable, but one also accepts the possibility that they may be incorrect, and, in any case, remains critical. This follows the Kalama Sutra [1], in which Gautama Buddha instructs the Kalamas (and, by extension, his followers) to not accept anything merely on faith. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 23:04, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Confidence does appeal; how about "personal transformation that resolves the koan's mystery and stimulates the practitioner's confidence in and committment to Buddhist practice". However, translators often link faith with Linji, and the title of the famous poem attributed to the 4th ancestor, Sengcan's is often translated as "Faith in Mind"; not to mention the Awakening of Mahayana Faith. I think they meant confidence,conviction, and trust, as opposed to "belief without evidence". But I don't know. Struggling with my own, perhaps western bias. Now, I certainly have an affinity for the Kalama but have been criticized on another page for being "diachronic". (I thought it was a good thing! I guess it's not always.) In fact, I have not been able to demonstrate one way or the other that the Chinese of the generations that we are talking about (say, 6th to 13th century) were familliar with the Nikayas. Clues appreciated. --Munge 07:42, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

OK, been a while, people. This is my conclusion. Cites can always change my mind, and none were offered to justify metanoia, faith, and used...as objects.

I intend to delete the word metanoia because this Greek word is so very often translated as repentance. See that wiki. I am most of the way through Heine's Shifting Shape... which discusses the role of repentence in Zen and it's not clear to me at all that Zen and Christianity have similar ideas about a change of heart. If someone wants, they can cover Buddhist-Christian dialog in an appropriate forum.

I also intend to delete the word faith, at least for the time being. The latter-day slogan "great faith, great doubt, great effort" suggests that faith is a precondition for koan practice, no less than doubt. Whereas our article currently decrees, without cites, that experiences of faith resolve Zen students' feelings of doubt. Again, that reads like Christian-Buddhist dialog, not an encyclopedia article about koans. If someone wants to write about faith and Zen, I'd consider it's more urgent to update Linji and Sengcan.

Given the cites at top of this page, Koans are often used by Zen practitioners as objects of meditation also needs to be deleted.

--Munge 08:29, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Shuryu Suzuki

The information about Shunryu Suzuki is not right. He did have a green bird in a cage, but a cat ate it. He probably regretted not releasing it, but the bird died in captivity. --Defenestrate 18:22, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

the incident is quoted in the book Crooked Cucumber, the cat ate it after he released it.

Requested Move

The following was posted to WP:RM, but not announced here. Dragons flight 02:47, August 24, 2005 (UTC):

Zen koan → koan, its former location, which has been moved to koan (disambiguation). ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 15:33, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

This article has been renamed after the result of a move request. Actually someone else moved it, but never closed. Dragons flight 02:04, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

Intellectualizing

I work with koans. I removed some of the material added to "What is the sound of one hand?" because it was mere intellectualizing. Anything that prevents a student actually coming face-to-face with the koan is a hindrance to practice. I understand that this is not a Zen-"owned" article, but still ... don't give the authority of an encyclopedia to musings by people who have never done koan practice. Zora 20:14, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I support your edit, Zora, and thank you.
Would you care to comment on the following? In everyday conversation, you and I understand "a stone's throw" to mean "a short distance", not about playing baseball with rocks or whatever. Likewise, maybe a monk in Hakuun's time would immediately understand "two hands" as a figure-of-speech that means "dualistic interpretations"? And "one hand" to mean "nondualism"? If so, I would support restoring that particular comment.
If there's any "meaning" there, it's poetic and evocative, not literal. Making it literal is a hindrance. Leave it out, please. Zora 00:42, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Also, I may support restoring a statement like "A traditional response is to thrust out one's hand" if that is true. I don't know that it is true, but if so, I would also add that "Presumably, a qualified Zen teacher can discern a student who concentrates on this koan every hour of every day for some years and then thrusts out a hand, versus a student who takes instruction from an encyclopedia and tries to pass it off as insight. The teacher is not looking for a gesture that can be described, but for aspects of the response that are not amenable to narrative description". What say you? --Munge 22:38, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
There is no one "right" response. If you have let go of the some of the junk you used to carry with you, you can respond to life as it is right now, to the teacher and to the moment. There is an infinity of right responses.
"Thrusting out one's hand" might be accepted as the proper response in a program that has completely LOST the meaning of Zen, in which students are perfunctorily marched through pre-set questions and answers on the way to a certificate that allows them to hold the family temple. That is not the Zen I know (Soto, Sanbo Kyodan, Diamond Sangha).
Now you might want to put in a para about the family temple tradition in Japan, requirement to study at a monastery, and a tendency for koan study to become a mere form, books of koan answers to be published and used, etc. Zora 00:42, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Good. So much for thrusting out of hands. So much for pop-culture references about literal clapping. So much for uninformed speculation.
But if 18th century Japanese monks did parse two hands as an idiom or poetic metaphor for dualism, IMO that would be encyclopedic. --Munge 09:56, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Did they? Do you have a cite? Zora 01:46, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I have very little doubt that many did, and yes. But I post very slowly and invite review. For the record, see especially, Tan Yan's address to the emperor in Blue Cliff case 18, (e.g. Cleary p115). More explicitly, see Hori in The Koan, p281: "...in the regular lectures which monks receive...they hear constantly phrases that refer to...nonduality"; and "Hakuin's well-known koan...is clearly about two and one"; such correspondence is bona fide, but in and of itself, parsing "one hand" as nonduality conveys no kensho whatsoever, as reiterated strongly in Hori, p51 (link to 2.5 Mbyte pdf marked "download" near bottom of page). That's at least borderline encyclopedic IMO, maybe a no-brainer to other wikipedians. Pointer to another koan, Blue Cliff 16 ("Man in the weeds"; how appropriate; e.g. Cleary p. 104) as well as various commentaries elsewhere, mention a common expression, "one hand lifts up, one hand presses down" or similar. I have an idea that expression originates in the hagiographical account of Buddha's birth, you know, "I alone am the honored one". (Talk about junk, as you called it.) I suspect that predates Zen/Chan. (Beware "one hand...the other hand...", though.) It's worth investigating whether the iconography of a single Buddha hand may also be quite ancient. I would also like to know the origin of "with one hand, he blocks out the sun", e.g. see Zen Sand, p138. As long as I'm on the subject of cites: Ossified canned responses you referred to, outed in Gendai Sojizen Hyoron ("Critique of Present-Day Pseudo-Zen"), and translated by Yoel Hoffman (The Sound of One Hand, pp57-65, cf p73, certainly emphasized the thrusting out of a hand. Hell need not be lonely. --Munge 19:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I'll check the koans. Hori is perhaps an example OF intellectualizing. Perhaps we need a section on "Non-Zen explanations of Zen koans" or some such thing. Also, as I said, notes on pro-forma Zen for the sake of authorization to hold a temple. Dang. I wish I could say that "I'll hop right to writing it" but I'm grotesquely over-extended on Wikipedia as it is (articles re Islam, clothing, Hawai'i, Tonga, Persia, India). Zora 19:46, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
FWIW. Blue Cliff #18 (Huizhong's seamless monument) at T48n2003_p0157c27(02) Xuedou commented "獨掌不浪鳴". Cleary & Cleary 1977 p115 has "A single hand does not make a random sound". Cleary 2000 p59 has "One hand doesn't clap for nothing"; and an apparently unsigned translation, apparently originating from SKB "The single hand does not sound without reason". Sekida 1977 p194 has (a very loose translation?) "Soundless sound of one hand". Trouble seems to be with 浪. A single hand doesn't make that kind of sound. Zhongwen defines 浪 as "wave" and "dissolute". Unihan has "wave, wasteful, reckless". Mandarintools has "wave, breaker; unrestrained; dissipated". --Munge 09:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

The abbot's gift

Would the anonymous person who posted this section, or someone else, please provide the citation/source for this koan? Eduardo Cuellar 04:26, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

There is neither the name of the abbot nor the name of the student involved, nor any citation. Looks like one of the stories floating on the net. I vote for its deletion. --Knverma 13:23, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Contemporary Koans

C'mon, people, let's not forget some of the great ones from Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac! "Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?" "Woof". JD79 01:52, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Kerouac is amusing but I wonder whether these add anything to the reader's understanding of what a koan really is and how it is used in Zen practice. I suggest this section be restricted to contemporary koans that are actually used by Zen teachers, not just witty sayings. Contemporary western culture has hijacked the term "koan" to mean anything that is enigmatic and seemingly not open to rational thought but this is, after all, an encyclopedia of knowledge that should be based on facts, not pop culture (unless the entry is about pop culture, of course!). Has anybody ever heard of these so-called "koans" actually being used as koans in Zen practice? If not, I suggest removing them. Thinman10 (talk) 08:14, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion

If a tree falls in the forest...

Is this a koan as well? It's always grouped together with "one hand clapping". Rampart 23:18, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

According to who? Sorry, no.--Munge 05:47, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Examples

All but one of the examples (your original face) is further discussed in the interpretation section. I propose the example section be deleted, possibly with an interpretation of the remaining koan added to that section - is there a reason that koan has it's own wiki page but not the others?--Spyforthemoon 22:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't support that. I'd sooner just delete the interpretation section. As for the Original face article, at present it seems to me it's some thoughts written by an enthusiastic person, not an encyclopedia article. I also think that its opening claim "The original face is a concept in Zen Buddhism" is an erroenous statement. I think calling it a concept is simply inaccurate. --Munge 05:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Koans are not parables

I deleted the recent contribution The koan is analogous to the Western tradition of teaching by means of a parable, which rewards contemplation with spiritual or intellectual revelation. I have never heard or read anyone else make that claim. Parables tend to have a "moral to the story". (See the quote from H. W. Fowler in the Parable article.) What is the moral of Yunmen's "Cake"? --Munge 06:03, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Is there a problem with "timely response"?

The sentence that now reads ...teachers often do expect students to present an appropriate response when asked about a koan. formerly read ...appropriate and timely response.... In other words, "timely" was deleted.

I can imagine possible problems the editor had with "timely": If Lindsay Lohan was in the news today, the roshi probably isn't looking for you to mention her. And in some traditions the roshi may expect a response that was timely back in the 17th century. Or maybe the editor had some other reason.

Still, I'd say that a roshi a) is often unimpressed by any kind of hesitation, and b) often seems to be looking for something relevant to here and now. So, opinions? Revert back to timely? How about "...appropriate, unhesitating response"? Leave as is? --Munge 06:27, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

"...appropriate, unhesitating response" sounds best to me.--MichaelMaggs 07:33, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

"Three pounds of flax"?

[2] This version of "The Gateless Gate" gives Tozan's response as "This flax weighs three pounds", not "Three pounds of flax." In other words, not "The Buddha is 3 pounds of flax", but more like not answering the question asked (but possibly a deeper one?) Could any experts on this stuff check into this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Vultur (talk • contribs) 00:16, 20 December 2006 (UTC).

I think the original is 山云、麻三斤。Almost literally, "flax three pounds"; Zhongwen has "hemp" as alternative to flax; Unihan defines 斤 in various ways, around half a kg.
And "three pounds of flax" it is, in six different translations I just checked, by Aitken, Blyth, Levering, Loori/Tanahashi, Sekida/Grimstone, and Shibayama/Kudo. In No Barrier, Cleary has "three pounds of burlap", indicating he thinks it's clearly fabric, not seeds or something.
The uncredited translation in the ibiblio site seems to be the one by Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps, and I think I've seen the interpretation somewhere that Dongshan was weighing fabric at the time and the moral of the story is to pay attention to what you're doing, not get lost in discursive discussions of metaphysics. Good point but what if it's not the actual point of the koan? As far as I can tell, there's nothing in the koan that says he was weighing anything or handling fabric. Personally, I'm intrigued by (I think it was McRae who interpreted it as) "a monk's robe is all it takes". Or what if Dongshan responded wtih a nonsequitur simply because he thought the question was a nonsequitur? Still, all that might be crap. What if Dongshan just said "three pounds of flax"? Regarding this very koan, Hakuin wrote "Even the Buddhas and Zen masters cannot figure it out" (see Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record):--munge 09:15, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Wu/mu etymology

Dancing women? Under a tree, maybe? Divining that which arises from the vast nothingness, I gather? Help, anyone? See [3] Amazing. –munge 07:34, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Dancing Wumen, perhaps?—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 08:12, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Preparing to strike (remarks about precepts)

In the Rinzai Zen tradition the final set of koans is the ten precepts of Buddhism (Do not kill, and so on) which must be understood outside the dualism of right and wrong, but not in a monist or nihilist manner either.[2] The Soto Zen tradition begins training with Dogen Zenji's koan-style description of this deeper meaning of the Precepts.[3]

The reference given for [2] is The Zen Koan, and the reference given for [3] is a commentary by Jiyu-Kennett roshi. I'm considering deleting the above, and here's why.

The first thing I noticed on reading this was...is it true? In The Zen Koan, Miura specifically exempts himself as having "no scholarly learning" (p35; on or about the same page number in Zen Dust I think) and says he simply presents "my own experience" of Rinzai Zen training. That led me to Zen Sand, where Victor Hori says (p20) that his "general impression" is that goi jūjūkin (the five ranks and ten grave precepts) is "usually considered the fifth category" (and that there are usually but not always [p19] five categories); but Hori also notes that Shimano Eido (in Zen: Tradition and Transition, ed. Kenneth Kraft, Grove Press, 1988) says otherwise, listing the fifth category as kōjō ("directed upwards"); and moreover Hori says that "No systematic survey has been conducted to determine what system the majority of Rinzai teaching-rōshi in Japan now follow". Then there is the question of whether mention in this way gives unfair privilege to the Rinzai system, considering the population of koan practitioners outside Japan, and considering that western koan practitioners have also been influenced by Seung Sahn of Korea, Sheng-yen of China, and Thich Nhat Hanh of Vietnam. One more point. There has certainly been criticism of Rinzai attitude toward precepts (for an interesting example see commentary on an extended quotation by Takuan Sōhō in The Mind of Clover, Robert Aitken, p5). This is speculation on my part, but: To me, mention that Rinzai koan practice culminates with precepts seems defensive.

As for the remarks about Soto training, I don't get this at all! I am not aware that there is a systematic method of Soto training re koans. The reference, a commentary on Dogen's presentation of the precepts by Jiyu-Kennett roshi, does not seem to contain any references to koans. And as far as I know, when you start a sentence with "The Soto Zen tradition begins training with..." the only correct way to finish the sentence is "how to sit". (E.g. see p1 [4] of the booklet that the Jiyu-Kennett article was taken from). munge 09:40, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Examples

My intuition seems unable to access the meanings of the examples. Are they really inherently unexplainable by any rational means? A.Z. 02:06, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

As one of the purposes of koan practice is to be unattached to "rational means", clearly explanations by rational means would not be so satisfactory :) Koan collections like The Gateless Gate and The Blue Cliff Record though now have lots of commentaries by Zen teachers, but they don't try to "explain" the koans. --Knverma 18:01, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
One of the koans in The Gateless Gate makes sense to me, but I don't know if I got it right. Thank you for the links. A.Z. 02:32, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

"Many monks asked "Why". "http://www.wikipedia.org", said Buddha." I doubt it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.227.122.30 (talk) 00:55, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

revert

Hey,

I reverted an edit from earlier today by 12.111.47.185. He seemed to be trying to add something to the first example, but it was very unclear and had "your mom" randomly inserted in the middle of it. If anyone with better knowledge of the subject understood what he was trying to say, please go ahead and revise it. 152.23.101.108 04:38, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Tasmania fart Kaon (modern example?)

Stumbled on this page, and rem. that I heard this one years ago. A Buddha master now lives in the beautiful wilderness areas of Tasmania, a state of Australia separated from the mainland by Bass Strait. One of his followers from Sydney, Australia, telegraphs him one day and breathlessly announces that he thinks he has attained Enlightenment. The master sends back a telegram with the single word FART. The student is bewildered, hurt and angry, and catches the next plane there. He rushes right away to the Master’s remote dwelling, and immediately asks the Master “What do you mean by this?”

The Master answers, “You claim you have found Enlightenment, and yet one little fart has blown you clear across Bass Strait.” Myles325a (talk) 23:20, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

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