San Francisco Zen Meditation

Talks and Blog

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Calendar
    • Blog
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • Zen Reading

4/25/2012

Any old koan will do

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
Koan practice is integral to rinzai Zen and at the heart of Pacific Zen Institute approach to awakening.  

But how special are they really?   And if they are special, are the unique and which properties make them special? That they are old?  That they are Chinese?  That people kick things and shout?

John Tarrant likes to say "A koan is a story that transforms you".  Ok.  Good start.  But has this been put to rigorous analysis?  Probably not.  So what would make a good Zen game...you see where I am going with this?

This question came to me while sitting: What is the opposition of a story that transforms you?  I figured, a story that does not transforms you.  That leaves you mired the way you are.  So, for tonight's experiment, we used one of those stories, and treated it like a koan.  There was no hypothesis, or controls, or comparative analysis.  That is all to say the scientific method was kept safely away from our lab, and that is probably right as the meditative path is seldom linear, but all the same, this was some interesting &^$%.  

We were instructed to find a tired old story.  Any one.  "I am too disorganized.  I cannot do my job right because I lack follow through.  I will never accomplish anything because I doubt myself.  I am unlovable because ___. "  Whatever.  We all have them.  Find one that makes you suffer.  Then condense it to a one sentence phrase.  A slogan.  We were instructed not to try to fix it, or make it more or less true, or to worry about whether it was true.  Just notice what came up around it.  

We rang the bell, and were invited to treat that as our koan.  

Then we passed the Zen cricket and discussed our experience.  

Like I said, interesting &*$%. 

A:  My mind was going too fast and I couldn't find one, then I realized that was my koan and I realized I sit with that one a lot and refuse to look at it. 
B:  It was really powerful.  For me it was a fear of getting older.  Sitting with it for the first time and just letting it be there.  I noticed my fear, but it seemed further away.  Like I was watching it.  I realized that if I read a story about a girl who was afraid of getting older, I would like her and feel interested.  I am going to sit with this more. 
C: I thought about it like a koan.  At first, I didn't like it.  I thought, "this is a &*^ty koan.  Then I realized my mind was trying to find ways to demonstrate it, like I was going to present it to David.  
D:  It was intense.  I realized how much time I spend avoiding this story.  And then I looked at it, and realized it wasn't as bad as I had thought.  
E:  It actual felt quite light hearted.  I was a bit concerned that my problem didn't seem important.  Then I realized that it just didn't seem like a big deal when I wasn't tasked with solving it. 
F:  I noticed that when I treated it like a koan, I trusted I would know what to do when the time came to do something, and it just disappeared.  and I sat.  and only later did it reappear at the end of the period.  
G:  I found it really disturbing.  My mind rebelled at giving respect to a story that had caused me so much pain.  It didn't want to welcome it at all. 
H:  I noticed how I had a few stories, before my mind settled on one.  that my mind was too busy to get anything productive out of meditation. I noticed how when that was my koan, the edges softened and the story was defanged.  It was something I was seeing with a little distance, and it was just something I was telling myself.  I wasn't anymore sure at all how true it was.  
I:  I used the story about how everyone would leave me.  then I noticed how hard I work not to look at that.  And when I sat with it, it seemed more forgivable to feel that way.  

Thanks everyone who joined tonight.  It was a great evening. 

Share

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

Details

    Author(s)

    “A Course on Koans” is the delusion-riddled work of Chris Kufu (“Wind in the Void”) Wilson, who began practicing Zen in 1967. He regards Taizan Maezumi, Robert Aitken, and David Weinstein as his root teachers. Each of them pecked at his shell until he “completed” the never-ending koan curriculum of the Harada-Yasutani lineage.

    Get posts as they are published:

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    October 2016
    March 2016
    July 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    February 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    June 2013
    March 2013
    September 2012
    August 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009

    Categories

    All

    What We Read

    Serina's Travel Blog
    Shoshin
    Zenosaurus
    Eugene Koan Blog
    A Zen Jesuit's Blog
    Christian Koans
    Twelve Step Zen Blog
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Calendar
    • Blog
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • Zen Reading