Koans are a highly distinctive element in the literature of Zen Buddhism. While Zen-like koans may appear in other wisdom traditions at times, there is no obvious parallel to them in the literature of other religions. They contain a message, but it is not a message that is expressed by way of a teaching or exhortation.
Before starting the fun, here's a few things to know about koans.
- A koan is
NOT an intellectual puzzle.
- There is no single approved "answer" to a koan. What a teacher will accept as satisfactory depends on the student he is dealing with, the stage of progress of the student's training, and so on.
- The koan stories ultimately are not amenable to conceptual understanding and contain much that may appear ambiguous, paradoxical, and even illogical.
In this thread, don't expect to find everything straightforward -- it is not supposed to be.
Many of the stories that will appear in this thread will be from the Chinese Zen classics "The Gateless Gate" and "The Blue Cliff Records". The majority of these stories refer to later stages (breakthroughs) when the student has attained some experience of samadhi and has achieved at least a preliminary sort of enlightenment. The discussions will be challenging ... and
FUN for those who dare to participate.
NOTE 1: In some Zen practices, koans are designed for novices and some of those koans will appear here. Feel free to share whatever koans have made a breakthrough impact in your lives. Keep in mind, however, that there is no single approved answer to a koan.
NOTE 2: Here is a reasonable definition of a koan from the Encyclopedia Brittanica. I chose it specifically because I wanted the definition to be as objective and general as possible. Hence, I did not choose to pick a definition from a particular Zen sect.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/koan
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