So there I was today, sitting- ok kneeling to be specific (you try to sit in a lotus position after 4 years of college water polo.  I am lucky I can cross my ankles)- with the koan, "Save a Ghost", when this question kind of bubbled up...

Where is the koan?  Or where is a koan? 

Seriously, try to find it.  I thought it might be in my thinking mind, but when I stopped thinking, and my mind lay still and serene, the koan was still there, resonating, burning, tweaking, bending.  So I tried to find it in my body, maybe in my "gut" or "heart".   Sure, I could feel it there, but when I noticed where it was coming from, there was no source.   It gets trickier when I acknowledged that it wasn't there, or wasn't just there, and starting trying to locate it elsewhere.  When looking for it outside of me, it was there too, but then the mind-twisting reality that I wasn't in any of those places or really I at all.  So there is that.  But in trying to find the koan, all of a sudden I felt like the koan was trying to find me, and neither of us was making any headway.  So I took a break and just saved a ghost.

Quick aside...I have never done acid or any other fun qualifying hallucinogenic (more because of lack of opportunity and upside rather than morals, of which I have but a few....but I digress), but I would imagine it to be a let down after koan study.   New Buddhist tag line..."Zen...its cheaper than drugs".  No, that's probably not the message I think I am going for.  It would probably change the sangha make up though. 

So there is your homework...just try to find your koan.