Koan Practice

My practice tends to veer back and forth between sitting and teachings, and acting and responding. Sometimes mostly one, sometimes the other.

External phenomena are the deciding factor; classic zazen requires specific conditions that I can't consistently guarantee, given my economic status. But I console myself that the effectiveness of zazen alone famously fails to survive triangulation.

Sure, you're Dogen himself when you're shut up in that little room, with no immediate fears and no pressing needs. But what happens when you don't rule the universe? How does your Zen fare in the real one?

You know, the one outside your skull.

The one beyond your teacher's control.

The one that doesn't give a damn about your twee little Zen practice.

This test, cœnobitic Zen often fails.

I still prefer classic meditation practice, and if I had the choice would do nothing else. (So... I'm lucky I don't...?)

All of which came to mind when this article by Carol Kuruvilla – in the Huffington Post, of all things – washed up on the beach. I haven't recently been permitted to steep in koanic literature, not with the steady, stable discipline I prefer. And this article reminded me of that.

The five chosen koans, drawn from the ancestral record, remain as provocative as ever. And the commentary – an important component of eremitical koan practice – is excellent. (Note that one respondent is even a civilian. Welcome innovation.)

So I'm sharing it here.

Newcomers will find the most effective approach is to take just one koan, without commentary, and sit with it for at least a day. (Meaning you carry it around in your head, even when you're not literally sitting, returning to the written koan a few times to refresh the impression. Avoid that scriptural thing where you obsess over the words and try to pry meaning out of them. That's not this.)

You can keep this up for as long as you like. Monastery monks, studying under teachers who claim the right to "certify" their insight, have been known to contemplate one koan for 20 years.

But whatever your case (no pun intended), the next step is to read the commentary and compare it to your own notions. The formal commentary in the ancient literature is itself usually so brief and cryptic as to amount to another koan, implying another sustained cerebral simmer. Modern takes are generally just explications, either "this is what the old master meant" or "this is what it means to me". But both styles are worthwhile, and useful for practice.

When you feel you've chewed that bone enough, move on to the next.

And remember: every time you read a koan is the first. You could probably base a lifetime practice on just these five, rotating back to the first when you've done with the last.

Any road, I offer this hot lead to the Nation of Seekers, with fraternal regard.

Gasshō.


(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)