SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHO OWNS THE KOANS?

**Omoi Otoshi** · 01-09-2012, 11:08 AM

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHO OWNS THE KOANS?

Maybe he's right.
But I'm willing to take the risk of being mislead.
Thanks for leading/misleading!

/Pontus

**Shokai** · 01-09-2012, 12:53 PM

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHO OWNS THE KOANS?

My dog and I have this unique relationship and I doubt is the same as that which Pontius and his dog share but, who's to say that one or the other is better. :lol: His dog is brown, my dog is black!

Jundo, thank you for this Sit-a-Long, it totally brings out the "my dog's better than your dog"-isms found in all religions. Which donkey ya gonna ride and who owns the donkey anyway??

Like i keep telling my wife, "There's no ownership in this lifetime!"

Most of all i love your logic and passion, please don't change ( although we all change and nothing is changeless 8) ) . I most certainly am looking forward to the discussions on the Book of Equanimity/Serenity (the Sh?y?roku)

again, many thanks for this lesson

????

**Dokan** · 01-09-2012, 05:06 PM

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHO OWNS THE KOANS?

Different strokes for different folks.

I've enjoyed koan study in the past...even if I was "doing it wrong" by some standards...and look forward to continuing so with Shoyoroku.

Gassho,

Dokan

PS - Posted up to podcast.

**Nenka** · 01-09-2012, 06:28 PM

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHO OWNS THE KOANS?

Dosho Port's comment was interesting--worth showing in its entirety, I think:

Hi Jundo,

Of course, it is possible that someone without any koan (or shikantaza) background, a four-year old even, might see through a koan in a totally fresh and invigorating way. I’ve seen in my short time working koans with students that some long-time shikantaza practitioners have been doing their shikantaza in a way that when they encounter koan, it’s like warm butter spreading on toast.

That’s not true for everyone, however. For some practitioners, the shikantaza instructions (especially when the fundamental is reified as something beyond our reach) can lead to trance and avoidance of what’s really going on in life and can leave people clueless about how to bring the zazen heart forth in daily life.

There are, of course, many possible negatives of koan practice too – like competitiveness and arrogance, for example. We humans can sure make a mess of whatever we pick up.

I see the koan masters as teaching the same point as Dogen with incredibly innovative and creative ways to help us discover and actualize the fundamental point.

As many people have noted, (my koan teachers Ford, Blacker, and Rynick for example), the two practices can be very much complementary, not “this and that” as you say. Koan and shikantaza seem to me to be two foci interacting. I have gone on and on in blog posts about this and how this view elegantly fits with the overall teaching of Dogen – imv.

Granted, you and I see things differently and have come to different (provisional, I hope) conclusions. No problem. I like differences as they provide the opportunity to learn.

I’m surprised to see that although you agree with my point of caution for Soto teachers who haven’t done koan work you plan to work through the Book of Serenity with your students. Be careful, some of them might find themselves considering koan in zazen and defiling their shikantaza! :-)

Seriously, I suggest that you don’t. From what I’ve read of your views on koan and shikantaza, I wonder if you might be misleading your community by working through koan with them – koan that you yourself have not worked through with anybody. Perhaps qualifying what your doing by saying that this is just your view….

Specifically, you seem to see koan and shikantaza as rigidly different (I say this from seeing your comments on your blog and at ZFI) and this itself suggests to me that there might be a better answer than how you would tend to interpret any koan.

If you would like to discuss this further, I suggest that we have a Skype conversation.

Respectfully,

Dosho

All right. It's a fair warning, I think, from his point of view--not so much an attack but a warning against doing the kind of practice he once did and now regrets:

Now that I’ve done some koan training, I confess to this hubris in my own past and from my current perspective would like to encourage my Soto non-koan trained friends to consider the possibility that there might well be something in a koan that they have not seen from their shikantaza perspective.

I suppose that goes for all of us all the time.

Well, yes, it does. I assume all of us at Treeleaf get that? I haven't done much koan study at all, but I can't imagine going forward with this and not thinking that there are so many different perspectives on what it all means.

I am curious about his last statement, though. Are koan and shikantaza practices "rigidly" different? Do you, Jundo, really think so?

Gassho

Jen

**Jundo** · 01-09-2012, 06:36 PM

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHO OWNS THE KOANS?

Originally posted by Jennifer G P

I am curious about his last statement, though. Are koan and shikantaza practices "rigidly" different? Do you, Jundo, really think so?

Gassho

Jen

Hi Jen,

No, and they have always gone hand-in-hand.

We wrestle with Koans around Treeleaf all the time ... sometimes the "classic" Koans, and sometimes modern, living Koans that are appearing in our active lives each day. (By the way, the "Book of Equanimity" reading, with Rev. Wick's commentary, is a wonderful success at both ... bringing the "classic" Koans into relevance for this present life.)

Gassho, J

**Rimon** · 01-09-2012, 08:38 PM

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHO OWNS THE KOANS?

Very well put Jundo. Thanks for sharing.
As I see it, stating that there is a correct way to interpret a koan goes against the very nature of working with koans.
How can they be alive if they turned into a riddle that needs an algorithm to be cracked, so to speak?

Gassho
Rimon

**Omoi Otoshi** · 01-09-2012, 10:22 PM

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHO OWNS THE KOANS?

Originally posted by Shokai

"my dog's better than your dog"

I can assure you that your dog is better than my dog!
I have no illusions. My dog is completely worthless, a total waste of dog food! :lol:
Somehow I can't help loving him anyway.

/Pontus

**Risho** · 01-09-2012, 10:58 PM

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHO OWNS THE KOANS?

Ha! I loved that talk, and I'm really looking forward to studying the koans.

**Yugen** · 01-10-2012, 02:39 AM

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHO OWNS THE KOANS?

Jundo - what a brilliant talk! It seems that Dosho's post is a koan of sorts that we have already started to discuss.... right way/wrong way/OK to have more than one way - of course there are other perspectives out there that we might open our minds to!

As Jundo mentions in his talk, Dogen is a master of the koan - Shobogenzo is one big koan - Dogen's use of contradictory statements and reversals of position throughout the fascicles is characteristic of his rhetorical style - it is the entirety of these statements that represents his teaching style and not the seeming individual inconsistencies many point out.... this is intended to disrupt/short circuit discursive thinking and lead one into the realm beyond thinking.... this is the heart of the difference between koan practice in the rinzai style as compared to soto: rinzai uses silence, "thought-stopping speechlessness," and meditative contemplation leading to kensho as a passageway beyond thinking. Dogen's style in Shobogenzo is to use exploratory discourse beyond discursive thinking - playful dialogue - much like a maze - some of it goes nowhere and is unproductive - some leaps ahead dimensions beyond linear thinking. To raise the relationship between Shikantaza and Koan practice as Dosho does is in my mind to miss the deeper point.... Read the 18th fascicle of Shobogenzo - Shin-Fukatoku - Dogen's assessment of the meeting and dialogue between the Old Woman selling rice cakes and Tokusan plays out variations of "he said/she said..." Dogen goes so far as to reject the open-ended question format employed in Rinzai-style koan analysis by saying that the old woman "has questions.... but is without any assertion." Just because Tokusan could not answer her question does not mean she is a "realized" person: "No one since ancient times has ever been called a true person without asserting even a single word." The flapping of sleeves and abrupt turning away of zen masters in many Koans is a dramatic literary instrument, but IMHO does not contribute to any real learning or movement beyond thinking...! Silence, on the other hand, can be a very powerful tool, and Dogen does recognize this.

The use of Koans is central to Soto Zen - it is a vibrant part of Dogen's work - its method is not that traditionally taught and recognized in the Rinzai tradition, nor in the Rinzai/Soto crossovers that we see in Rev. Ford, or ZMM (Loori's work), etc. The Koan heritage is so rich and boundless there is no need to be territorial.... within this corpus there is more than enough for all.....

We owe Dosho a debt of gratitude, for he has shown us that there is more than one way to slice a cat (sorry Nansen)!

Gassho,
Yugen

**Seiryu** · 01-10-2012, 04:45 AM

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHO OWNS THE KOANS?

I personally love Koans. Both for the direct pointing they offer and for the aesthetic beauty I get from reading them.

During my time with the Kwan Um school of Zen I did a lot of work with Koans, and the Koan isn't something that belongs to any school. In fact the Koan by itself is pretty useless. Koans present a question, a problem that we think we need to figure out. Because that is how we are brought up. A question is posed we need to have an answer, a problem is presented we need to have a solution. But it is in this very way of thinking that keeps us separated from the truth of the Koan. To truly see a Koan we have to enter into it, to fully embody it with body and mind. When we completely enter into the Koan in this way, where is Rinzai way, Soto way, Buddhist way?

When we truly enter into the Koan, where can "I" be said to be?

Koan practice, Shikantaza practice, bowing, chanting, and all the other things we can engage in are simply pointers. They are design to point back to our fundamental nature, because most of us refuse to see it directly for ourselves, so we put ourselves through all this training to glimpse something that is present from the very beginning.

But Koans are not for everybody, and thats ok, that is why there are many methods. Find your method and follow that. Don't study Koan because you think you should.

All of us carry within us the most important Koan of all. "What am I?"
who is it that studies the Koans?
Who is it that sits down on the cushion?
Who is it that ask the questions "what am I?"

....just some thoughts....

**RichardH** · 01-10-2012, 05:28 AM

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHO OWNS THE KOANS?

This idea that the meaning of some koans might be lost, or haggled over, is interesting. Are not, or were not, koans a super straightforward way of provoking, evoking, realization(s)?. Wasn't the whole point to not be enigmatic and cloaked in cultural accretions? Why can't a Zen master today who has awakened no more or less than a Zen master of old make new koans, not just in the "everything thing is a koan" sense, but in the sense of expressing the specific points of the old Koans?, from those realizations?, ...new, speaking now as directly to us as Zen masters of old spoke to people then? The stories and situations and imagery of the old koans were normal to the old ears hearing them. I'm happy to be told this misses the point and that I don't understand koans, but it seems to me that if Buddhism, and tradition, and "hocus pocus" is up for review, then why not express the realizations embodied in the koans anew?, so that students today can hear a normal story with the same advantage of cultural immediacy that Zen students of old enjoyed?

**Shokai** · 01-10-2012, 11:59 AM

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHO OWNS THE KOANS?

Seiryu, Kojip; Well said, thank you

**Shokai** · 01-10-2012, 12:18 PM

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHO OWNS THE KOANS?

I recall a Cultural Orientation Training given by a professor at the University of Waterloo, wherein he said, "every day of our lives we ask ourselves three questions:
1) who am I?
2) what am I doing here?
3) How will I survive?

Whether you realize this or not, it is true and it becomes significantly pertinent when or where you find yourself out of your usual environment or culture.
The more you engross yourself in a daily liturgy, the less daunting these questions become; giving you more time to think of others ('not-two' others) and develop compassion and love for the universe.

**Seiryu** · 01-10-2012, 03:42 PM

Re: SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHO OWNS THE KOANS?

There are modern Koans as well...I know Daido Roshi has a Koan collection called, I think, Koans of the way of reality which are 108 koans taken from sutras not traditionally use as koans, and koans that come up from practice in our world now.

Also Zen master Seung Sahn also had some modern koans...like "dropping ashes on the Buddha" koan which was posed to ZM Seung Sahn by one of his students.

"Somebody comes into the Zen Center with a lighted cigarette, walks up to the Buddha-statue, blows smoke in its face and drops ashes on its lap. You are standing there. What can you do?
"This person has understood that nothing is holy or unholy. All things in the universe are one, and that one is himself. So everything is permitted. Ashes are Buddha; Buddha is ashes. The cigarette flicks. The ashes drop.
"But his understanding is only partial. He has not yet understood that all things are just as they are. Holy is holy; unholy is unholy. Ashes are ashes; Buddha is Buddha. He is very attached to emptiness and to his own understanding, and he thinks that all words are useless. So whatever you say to him, however you try to teach him, he will hit you. If you try to teach by hitting him back, he will hit you even harder. (He is very strong.)
"How can you cure his delusion?
"Since you are a Zen student, you are also a Zen teacher. You are walking on the path of the Bodhisattva, whose vow is to save all beings from their suffering. This person is suffering from a mistaken view. You must help him understand the truth: that all things in the universe are just as they are.
"How can you do this?

The mind is always presented with something it thinks it has to figure out. The mind never figures out anything, but it thinks it has to. Koans are the same way. We think we have to figure them out. But there is nothing to figure out.

I remember what Shugen sensei of ZMM said once after a dharma talk..."There are some things in life that can be figured out, but not life itself."

More thoughts....

SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHO OWNS THE KOANS?

SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHO OWNS THE KOANS?

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