QUOTE 109 EXCERPT:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Molearner
Is there any juncture against sharing your interpretation of a koan with another ? Would that rob their experience of a possible epiphany ? And to be commended for your insightful interpretation…..to what purpose ? To serve your ego ?
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First of all, there is no juncture against sharing one's interpretation of a koan with another (as we are doing here). There are many cases where a teacher gives a public response in assembly and lets the assembly approach the koan in whatever way they choose. Sometimes, the koan story itself includes responses by more than one student. Often, however, a teacher gives a student a particular koan best suited to moving that particular student along as my teacher often did with me in Zen-like fashion. Such koans are generally processed alone individually with periodic consultations with the teacher. A "community effort"
might not be advisable in such cases since it raises the typical difficulty where one student benefits by solving/influencing the discussion and then giving his/her answer to the others. In any case, each situation is unique so there is no "correct" answer to your question. As mentioned previously, there is also no single approved answer to a koan.
In addition, there is something somewhat unique in Zen. It's called a "dharma battle". On the one hand, such dharma battles take place when an advanced disciple from one monastery makes visits to different Zen Masters at different monasteries with the intention of testing his depth of understanding of Zen. It's like a rite of passage in a sense.
On the other hand, dharma battles are attempts to bring out what it is impossible to bring out. In other words, a dharma battle is not something to be won or lost but a matter of finding a way to express the inexpressible in a fresh, original, creative manner. They're actually quite fun and certainly not an "ego trip".
Since I believe that you have a Christian orientation, I can think of two Zen-like interactions between Jesus and the Scribes/Pharisees where a question is answered in such a way that the questioner is stunned into silence. Two examples come to mind immediately and I'm sure that you know the whole story in each case:
1. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
2. "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's".
Neither is "serving the ego" but both are brilliant Zen-like responses (as in a dharma battle) that silenced the questioners by answering the question in a fresh, original, unexpected manner.
It does sound too "Zen" for the Buddha. 
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