Stories
Zen Koans
Zen koans are not puzzles to be solved. They are encounters, with a question, with a teacher, with the edge of the thinking mind itself. The tradition of the koan arose in Tang Dynasty China as Chan masters observed that intellectual knowledge of Buddhist philosophy, however sophisticated, could leave a student’s deepest habits of mind entirely unchanged. The koan is a tool designed to exhaust ordinary thinking, to create a kind of productive desperation in the mind that forces it beyond its usual categories into direct, immediate experience. What follows are ten of the most famous and most studied koans in the Zen tradition, with their stories and the wisdom they carry.
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What Is Buddha?
A monk approached the great Tang Dynasty master Yunmen Wenyan and asked him the central question of all Buddhist practice: What is Buddha?
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The Man in the Tree
A man is hanging from a branch of a tall tree by his teeth, not his hands, not a rope, but his teeth alone. His hands are tied behind his back. His feet cannot reach any foothold.
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The Sound of One Hand
Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769) is considered the father of modern Rinzai Zen, the man who revived a tradition that had grown ceremonial and hollow and filled it once more with ferocious life.
