Dear Tommy/ Reader:

I wanted to understand what koans are about, so I looked at patehos. com and The mind’s journal. com:

Koans are phrases or small stories that are not meant to be addressed by the rational, thinking mind. They’re actually designed to put the thinking part of our brain (“the beast that never sleeps”) on pause, in an attempt to activate our Beginner’s Mind. A Beginner’s Mind is an awakened (if only for a moment) state of mind where we experience things as if for the first time.

In this awakened state (if only for a moment), there is no pushing, no seeking. no thinking-mind-generated noise, no asking questions and no finding answers (A famous Zen saying is: “In Zen we don’t find the answers. We lose the questions”). Koans are a way to slip past  the-beast-that-never-sleeps. They allow finding truth without triggering rigid thinking and judgements.

Koans challenge and transform conventional thinking. Zen Buddhists use Koans during meditation to exhaust the egoic and analytic mind and uncover the intuitive No-Mind. They are about unraveling the greater truths about ourselves and the world. Zen Koans are a tool that delves into the mind of a meditator to challenge and break rigid thinking. “Koans are not meant to provide any explanations or answers. They simply show you the way”.

Examples of koans: “The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear“, “No thoughts. No action. No movement. Total stillness”, “Stop talking, stop thinking, and there is nothing you will not understand“, “The harder you try the less you know”, “Do not seek what you already have“,  “You are there now. What was never lost can never be found”, “Where am I? Here. What time is it? Now“, “The way is an empty vessel that is never filled”.

anita