All Your Koan Questions Answered Here!!

Well, not really… (re: title).

But a lot of you have flung koan-related queries my way. It’s something people wonder about. Or are suspicious about. (I’m looking at you, Soto people!!)

Koan practice is just that. A practice. Like chanting or sitting or tenzoing. I’m pretty sure the historical Buddha figure never went into Sanzen sweating balls over a koan, because koans as we Zennies practice them today weren’t invented yet. But that Buddha guy did pretty okay in the enlightenment game.

So koan practice is not something to get your boxer briefs in a knot about. The worst mistake on the planet, which many of us Rinzai folks make, is to try and become a Koan King. It never works. You just get attached to the teacher and you become a nerdy fanboy of old obscure koan texts without really, as they say, “penetrating the Great Matter.”

I heard a Neil Young song recently. He was talking about love. I liked his message. It’s paradoxical, like all good messages. The more you care about something, the more it means to you? The more you need to just let go of it. I’ve struggled with this my whole life. If you really really care, you can’t hang on. In love, so too in koan practice.

Sayeth Neil:

Love is a rose but you better not pick it/

It only grows when it’s on the vine/

A handful of thorns and you’ll know you’ve missed it/

You lose your love when you say the word mine/

Mine….mine….MINE!

Recently a Zen practitioner emailed me his version of the Koan Blues. I’ll give you his question and then my answer.

“Hi Jack. I have a question for you about koan practice. I’ve been working with my current teacher on koans for more than ten years now, after experiencing something of an opening with my first koan. Far from clarifying the matter though, I find the practice more frustrating than anything and reinforces my feeling like a failure. I think my teacher almost gives me an answer sometimes out of a sense of pity. I’ve seriously considered stopping koan practice and just continuing with shkantaza, but my teacher encourages me to continue. Do you think koan practice is worth it? I could never give up zazen practice; the difference it’s made in my life is undeniable, but feeling like I’m banging my head against the wall is just giving me a headache. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.”

“Phew. Great question. My brother, I know that feeling of being frustrated in koan practice. I don’t have any answers. But if you have a teacher with whom you can connect, then why not keep going to koan practice but without the expectation that you can pass?

Koan practice is kind of (if you ask me) a pretext to interact one-on-one with the teacher, to get a lesson-in-motion and have the teacher manifest the dharma with you. The koan system comes out of strict (militaristic?) Japanese ‘dojo’ culture and isn’t always a great fit for Western personalities. My mentor used to tell me that you get the hang of it, that there’s a certain special ‘language’ (non verbal of course) for answering koans.

Meanwhile I was always trying to blast forth from a place beyond any such ‘language.’ This resulted in a lot of, ahem, performative koan practice. Shouting, jumping up and down, making an ass of myself. Honestly, I’ve never been a star koan practitioner.

It’s a sticky whickett. It does you no good to attach to koan practice or your teacher’s approval. But there he is, failing you every time, and you can’t help but think that your practice is stuck. But that’s all koans are, a practice, an exercise. They’re not the final word on anything.

Ultimately I think of koan practice as an extension of my zazen practice. When I give my answer it’s with the same intention and energy and self-forgetting that I practice on the cushion while following my breath. Don’t think, just do. Without any expectation. The expectation and hope and attachment to passing is what kills you. Every time. It turns you into a koan slave!!

Can you fail at zazen? Not really. Your practice belongs to you, it’s all you, good and bad. Can you fail at being you? Similarily, can you really fail a koan? If so, how? Answer this for yourself, not for your teacher.

By the way, he probably IS giving you the answer. They DO that in Japan a lot, I had a teacher there who literally gave me the answer to the koan, over and over. My job was to manifest it back at him exactly as he had manifested it before me. I kept thinking I had to ‘make it my own.’ But nope. Just mirror me, he was saying without saying. It was humbling. And perfect.”

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