Koan Zen
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Koans: 101 ways to be unpopular at parties
Whoremonk ha!
MUUUUUUU!
NY Times Best Seller right there
The "MU! U!" anecdote always cracks me up.
“...extraordinarily clear, and impossible to explain.” Yup. That about sums koans up in a nutshell.
Brad's description of his koan experience sounds very familiar. I practice in the Kwan-Um School of Zen, which is based on the Korean Chogye tradition, so we say, "kong-an" instead of "koan," but the meaning is the same. The point of kong-an study is to develop an insight into words. The practice opens up something intuitive and direct, which Zen Master Seung Sahn called, "before thinking." Before thinking, they universe is already complete - 'spring comes, and grass grows by itself' (another one of Seung Sahns favorite phrases). In kong-an interviews, we try to demonstrate this kind of clarity. Some kong-ans are simple, like the Mu kong-an. Some employ the kind of "illogical logic" Brad is describing in this video. A good example of this is the kong-an, "The mouse eats cat-food, but the cat-bowl is broken." No amount of thinking will help you answer this kong-an. I know; I tried for 27 years. When you "get it," the answer is very clear and simple, and it makes perfect sense.
Seung Sahn was also not a fan of the traditional kong-an style. He felt that it had become an empty ritual that had no relationship with everyday life. Under his influence, kong-an study in the Kwan-um school has become more fluid and less formal. We don't do "hwadu" style kong-an introspection (although there is no rule against it either). We just do zazen and "work on" kong-ans in whatever way makes sense to each individual student. Somehow that seems to work.
When you "got it," who is it that understood?
And what's the answer to the cat koan?
@@michaelserebreny454 You already understand.
@@edgepixel8467 You already understand.
@@barence321 did I just read your comment or did the comment read itself? How would Seung Sahn respond?
Ya did it again Brad, i got the 'poke.' And here i've been propping up a short kitchen table leg with a book of Koans for years. Who knew there was something in them??
I like all the stuff with the hands
an ice cream cone is better than a zen koan. one is clearly more delicious and makes you smile. share a lick with a friend.
Dogen certainly did use Koans to teach and to practice. His point however was that they are not completely necessary to reach Satori in meditation; Jhana - whatever you want to call it - which they are not. Simply sitting is enough.
We all come to the same understanding of Zen when we pick up a leaf and determine the front back top and bottom of the leaf, and May the shape of the universe from that leaf.
An important point about koans is that they do not have 'right answers'...what they have is an 'appropriate response'. And there isnt just one appropriate response for each specific koan...there can be many. A good Zen teacher will sometimes throw in a question that isnt a koan (but sounds like one) to see if the student can tell the difference. This makes it impossible to respond according to some formula worked out in advance.
I tapped my head once I heard your koan, BEFORE I heard your answer.
well, well said! brad, good speak!
It is psycho-logic. :-)
Once I came across during meditation the answer of "Where have you been, befor your parents where born" - the, from my experience, totally logical answer would have been to hug you with all my heart. This answer was crystal clear in that moment. No idea, if its the right answer by the books, but it was the right answer in that moment. Without a shadow of a doubt.
You’ve alluded to the Soto/Rinzai rivalry in a few videos, so as someone who loved Hardcore Zen and also studied with Rinzai teachers for a bit I’d be curious to hear your “diss track” on Rinzai Zen sometime.
I would never diss Rinzai Zen!
Okay, maybe "diss track" is a silly way to put it. More your take on Rinzai practice from your Soto perspective and how the groups relate to each other. I seem to remember reading/hearing something from you about how Rinzai focuses more on "enlightenment experiences" than Soto does, and how that seems to have pretty big ramifications for how the actual practice plays out and the conclusions/insights that practitioners have.
Not long after reading your book (and Dharma Punx), I studied on-and-off with a Rinzai group and attended a 10-day Sesshin headed by Joshu Sasaki Roshi back in 2007 -- those sanzen sessions were one of the most intimidating things I'd ever experienced. I never really thought much about the Soto school (I'm not sure if I was even aware of it at the time) but discovering your YT channel has got me thinking about this stuff in more depth again. I lived in China for half a decade and learned some Chinese, so your videos have inspired me to start picking away at some of 临济's writings and try to learn a bit more about current Chinese Chan practice too.
Thanks for all that you do!
Oh yeah! Sasaki Roshi was famous for having difficult sesshins. Soto sesshins are also difficult, but maybe the approach they take is a little more gentle. Also, they don't care if you get enlightened or not in a Soto style Zen sesshin.
You were all like "I'm gonna pronounce koan properly!" and then you lost it in like 20 seconds.
"The Sound Of One Hand" was reprinted recently by New York Review (of) Books. I picked it up the other week (whatta coincidence!), and the first thing I thought upon reading it was, "Man, how many dolts are going to read this and then think they can now go beat Zen teachers at dharma combat?" But maybe that's a good thing, because it'll make it all the easier to weed out the people who aren't serious about Zen in the first place.
It's a strange book. I don't think it's very useful for most Zen practitioners, whether or not they practice "koan introspection."
It seems best for people with a scholarly interest in Zen. For actual Zen students, it's a distraction at best.
What is practice? What are words??
My take on koans is that the “answer” is not words, logic, or explanation. It is the full experience of being thrust into the beyond-conceptual state. That’s how the same koans can be used for generations, after the “right answers” have been made known. That wouldn’t work for any other test.
That's one way to look at it. In some sense it is beyond conceptual. Although I think it includes conceptual thinking too. It just isn't dominated by conceptual thinking,
Hardcore Zen yes- it’s the difference between EXPLAINING a joke, and “getting” a joke.
the universe is a membrane, for which, at best, we are the jewelry!!
Trippy!
Koan pastiche most probably does lead away from the Buddha way - However, a lot of the koan paradoxes seem to revolve around mistaking my relative viewpoint, for some kind of base reality.
The tree in a forest is Hume, or Berkeley, I think.
Oh!
I have never heard of that book, and I currently have a koan practice, however, I have not passed that many. However, does that book really have the answers? I hope not, early in my practice when I was stuck on MU, (took me two years to pass), I tried to look up the answers online, and I am happy that I never found it and was able to pass on my own.
I've heard people say that if you have a koan practice you should NOT look at that book! So you're better off without it. I also don't think a good koan teacher would accept the answers from that book.
Ok, thanks. Just to be on the safe side I'll stay away from that book. Looking back, I wasn't ok with being frustrated and stuck on koans, I had high expectations of myself and liked the feeling of passing koans. Now if I get stuck for a few days, weeks or months it doesn't bother me like it used to, I still go in and present my answer and do my best. :)
At one point in your video you say that everyone gives the same answer to koans - but at the end you say your teacher suggested another possible answer to the one he'd given you. Is ther just one answer to a koan or no?
There is just one answer, but it can be expressed in different ways.
So if I get the book with koan answers, can I easily pass the zen master test?
Probably not. Not even if you go to a place that uses that particular curriculum of koans. They all know about the book now.
dopplegangerdavid not even slightly; some of the true masters were clairvoyant, they would see the snake the moment he slithered in. Not to mention there are counter questions each teacher makes up on their own. You wouldn't get passed any of them.
Why do you want to be given transmission?
“Thus the sutra says: ‘A phrase that has profound spiritual energy lasts through the ages without decaying.'" (from Zen Dawn, pg. 64) Maybe its a matter of 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear!'?
Three Barriers of Huanglong (three questions Chan Master Huanglong Huinan used to challenge students):
1. 'Everyone has his own cause for birth. Where is yours?'
2. 'Why is my hand like Buddha's hand?'
3. 'Why is my leg like a donkey's leg?'
When Chan Master Huinan received tentative answers, he neither affirmed nor denied them. A disciple asked him why. Huinan replied, "Those who have already passed the barriers just swung their arms and went directly through, and never even noticed there is a watchman. Those who ask the watchman to affirm or deny have not passed the barriers."
from: 'Clouds Thick, Whereabouts Unknown', Pg. 214, by Charles Egan
So if the answer for a dog is Mu the answer for a cow is Woof , LOL
The answer to the 'tree falling in a forest' question is there was no sound and there was no tree.
TukenNuken that sounds good! why do you think it is right? i don‘t want to offend you. I‘m just still trying to understand koans
thanks.. that makes it a lot clearer and also makes sense :) i was never a fan of koans, because no one could explain them well or "in a logical way". But this is a very helpful point of view
The sound of a tree falling is not dependent on whether we hear it or on a conception of a tree so the logical answer is simply yes. Stuff happens without us observing it e.g germs and illnesses.
doge it's not a bad answer; won't try to explain why or I may loose my eyebrows but if you ask me, I say if no one is around to hear it the woods don't exist.
One can only point to the moon, you have to turn your own head and look.
You can see the moon's reflection in the lake without looking at it.
Mu!
No shave November?
I'm trying something new. Seeing if I can get the mustache-like part a bit longer than the beard-like part.
Turning into Alan watts
Brad, I am not sure how familiar you are with Dogen scholarship, but even though I am not very familiar with it myself, it is pretty clear from a cursory search on my part that the use of Koans by Dogen is pretty well established. Exactly how he taught them and used them is probably still in debate by scholars, but to say that he didn't use koans is pretty wrong, see for example, the following sources:
Steve Heine, Koans in the Dogen tradition
www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/DogenStudies/koans_in_the_dogen_tradition.pdf
In Heine's book on this topic, which has the same title "Dogen and the Koan Tradition: A Tale of Two Shobogenzo Texts" he mentions several of Dogen's discussions of Koans, and it is much more subtle and complicated than you make it sound. His argument (if you go on google books for this text, its around page 119-120) is that Dogen is not attacking koan practice in toto, but only the "irrationalist" interpretation of koan phrases, that is, the idea that they are supposed to be simply incomprehensible phrases that mean nothing which force the practitioner to cut off all thought. Rather, per Heine, Dogen's view is that koans use language to "disentangle the vines of discrimination through the use of those very vines of word tangles" (Heine, p120).
There is also this source, which collects a koan collection by Dogen:
The true Dharma eye, Zen master Dogen's 300 koans
terebess.hu/zen/dogen/Dogen300.pdf
So Brad, I don't think its so simple to say that Dogen did not teach or use koans, its just that he had a different idea of how to use and study them.
I didn't say that Dogen did not use koans. That would be absurd. Half of his writings are about koans. He definitely used koans. I just said he did not use what is now commonly called "koan introspection practice" in which a person is given a koan to answer and is expected to present that answer to a teacher in a private interview. He explains how to do zazen several times and none of those explanations includes anything about concentrating on a koan during zazen and answering it for a teacher.
@@HardcoreZen I'm glad you responded to this since this guy has such poor listening skills, but is more than happy to try to correct you, while having no idea Dogen is literally your guy. Mmm egos. I mean, you clearly said that stuff in the video.. not hard to pick up on it. Except for that guy I guess.
So what was the koan?
WHAT is the koan!
@@HardcoreZen
Hmmm...
ive always thought that Koans were ways to indoctrinate gullible people into subjective relationship with a "master"
If Koans, or even just fixing the word Mu, has led people to enlightenment, why is it so decidedly rejected in soto? I can not give up the thought that koans could "provoke" an experience of enlightenment and thus improve the chances of it. The oft-repeated zazen is already enlightenment quote and the second enlightenment may come as a by-product to it ... I do not like this sentence and yet it seems to me to be true. Damn it. I am only practicing for a year, probably can not even sit properly, but this mu has been haunting my head since I read about it 20 years ago. It's like itching in the brain to constantly think about enlightenment in zazen. It should be just ridiculously simple, it could not be better hidden than your nose when you look into the sky. Say the crazy master. I've also heard more often, as long as you think about enlightenment, it's nothing. My Zen teacher never talks about enlightenment. When I mentioned him on this topic, he said that would be stupid to look for something I do not know what it is. Great. helps me absolutely, because somehow it seems to me that this is correct! At the same time I hate him for the sentence. :) So, I would like to understand what Koans excludes as a method for the Sotos? Evil Koans the Wicked Rinzai Guys ;-)?
My teacher explained his view of koan practice like this. He said, "The student enjoys being defeated by the teacher."
Dogen wrote a couple of rants against koan practice in Shobogenzo. This is probably why most Soto Zen temples don't do the practice.
Because being enlighten is not something you brag about considering all the misery that you gone through.
Clearly you have never heard of Master Dogens collection of 300 Koans or read his Eihei Koroku in in which he quotes and suggests contemplation on countless more cases.
Now I'll give you one, master and I beseech you to answer.
"Because of fire, fire Phoenix flies. Because of No water, iron fish swims." What have you to say?
You are kidding, I hope. You're trying to do dharma combat in the comments section of a CZcams video?
By the way, Part Two of this video is about Dogen's 300 koan collection Shinji Shobogenzo. czcams.com/video/3OvFyQ_MbXo/video.html
how convoluted. Nibbana is the cessation of desire. It has nothing to do with all this. Just stop making videos . That would be a start. In my opinion non arahats should not teach because what is teaching is desire aversion and delusion.
Wow! A comment from an actual arhat!
@@HardcoreZen You're welcome.