Any old koan will do

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.