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To: alt.zen From: bairanl@polaris.nova.edu (Luke C. Bairan) Subject: Re: Koans and such (another explaination) (9409.kungans.kk) Date: 499409xx Quoting: Kenneth Kraft Here's an excerpt from "Zen: Tradition and Transition" Edited by Kenneth Kraft. It's a recent book compiling essays from modern Zen Masters and scholars dealing with both Zen tradtionally and it's westernization. It's not really a beginner's book but it does give some inside information on things like Dokusan, Koans, etc. This particular excerpt is from an essay on Zen Medititation by Master Seng-Yen. In this part he gets into a brief discussion of koans which has relevence to certain threads in this group. -------------------------------------- Koan practice is taken up by Roshis Kapleau and Eido in the next two chapters, so the treatment here will be brief. A koan is an account of an incident between a master and one or more disciples which involves an understanding or experience of enlightened mind. A koan usually, but not always, involves dialogue. When the original incident is remembered and recorded, it becomes a "public case," which is the literal meaning of koan. Often what makes the incident worth recording is that the disciple's mind, if only for an instant, transcends attachment and logic, and he catches a glimpse of emptiness or Buddha-nature. At that moment there is a "transmission" of Mind between master and disciple. Once, after the Buddha gave a sermon to his senior disciples, he picked up a flower and silently held it up before the assembly. All the monks except one were mystified. Mahakasyapa alone knew the Buddha's meaning; he smiled, saying nothing. Thus the Buddha transmitted to Mahakasyapa the wordless doctrine of Mind. Although this incident preceded the rise of Ch'an by over a thousand years, it exemplifies the spirit of koans. The earliest koans were spontaneous incidents that arose naturally in the context of practice. During the Sung dynasty (960-1279), Ch'an masters began using these "public cases" as a method of meditation for their disciples. In attempting to plumb the meaning of a koan, one has to abandon knowledge, experience, and reasoning, since the answer is not susceptible to these methods. The student must find the answer by "becoming one" with the koan. Only when there is nothing left in the mind but the koan is awakening possible. Closely related to the koan is the `hua-t'ou' (literally "head of a thought"), a question that the meditator inwardly asks himself. "What is Mu?" or "Who am I?" are two good examples. As with the koan, the answer is not resolvable through reasoning. The meditator devotes his full attention to asking heimself the hua-t'ou, over and over. His objective is to probe into the source of the question, that is the state of mind that existed before the question became a thought. Koans and hua-t'ous ar both methods of ts'an Ch'an, "investigating Ch'an". Because the Buddha sometimes used a question-and-answer format to deepen the understanding of his disciples, the word ts'an is also applicable to the Buddha's teaching methods. Another instance of ts'an Ch'an is the practice of making the rounds to accomplished masters in order to engage them in dialogue. Sometimes the practitioner has reached an impasse in his investigation, and needs some "turning words" from a master to give him the impetus for a breakthrough. Advanced practitioners also visited masters in order to assess their own understanding of Ch'an or certify their own attainment. Koans and hua-t'ous were well suited to these situations. Any interchange between master and disciple can be an opportunity for a live, spontaneous koan or hua-t'ou; these practices are not limited to sayings and questions from the historical record. Another way in which koans and hua-t'uos are related is that a hua-t'ou can give rise to a koan, and vice versa. For example, the question "If all the myriad things in the universe return to the One, to what does the One return?" was originally a hua-t'ou. When a student asked Master Chao-chou this same question, he answered, "When I was in Ch'ing Province I had one hempen shirt made weighing seven pounds." This exchange became an important koan. Conversly, a key phrase in a koan frequently serves as the source for a Hua-t'ou. Thus "What is Mu?" is derived from the koan "Does a dog have Buddha Nature?" ----------------------------------------- The rest of the book is interesting also. There's even a section where one Master reccomends a whole new set of Western koans. -- L.B.
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