Kwan-um: How to work with a koan?

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paulus_germanus
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Kwan-um: How to work with a koan?

Post by paulus_germanus »

Hello to All!

I've been practising zazen for years now :meditate: - few of those in Kwan-um school of zen - but only about a year ago I got to disentangle my first koan, given to me by a zen teacher during a private talk.

Here it is kongan:
WASH YOUR BOWL
A monk told Joshu, "I have just entered the monastery. Please teach me."
Joshu asked, "Have you eaten your rice porridge?
The monk replied, "I have eaten."
Joshu said, "Then you had better wash your bowl."
At that moment the monk was enlightened.

I also received along the following two questions to answer:
1. What has the monk achieved? - that one I answered right away, with a slight "push" from the teacher, and the answer seemed satisfactory to him,
2. What would you answer? - I wasn't able to give a reply to this one so the teacher asked me to "sit with it"...

...and here's where my problem's started :juggling:
1. What did he mean by "sit with it"?
2. How was I supposed to practise with the koan?:
- Am I to replay in my mind the scene of a monk coming to a monastery?
- Am I only to ask myself the question: "What would you answer?" repeatedly during zazen like a mantra? If so, am I to ask it without any mental connection between the scene and the question? Or with if the connection should be there how am I supposed to maintain it?
- Am I to imagine to be the teacher asking the question, and then to be the monk whose trying to reply?

I've got absolutely NO IDEA :shrug: how to bite it...

I asked two of acquainted teachers for help and the reply was: "When you ask a person on the street what time it is, do you make a big thing out of that? Practice a koan with the same mind as when asking a random pedestrian for time." But that does not seem to answer my question in the slightest.

Plz help.

PS: and I beg of you guys - I wouldn't like to get any of "koans aren't the proper way the meditation's supposed to by done" kind of comments plz.
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Astus
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Re: Kwan-um: How to work with a koan?

Post by Astus »

Number one favourite answer: discuss it with your teacher. But let's put aside that for now.

Phrase investigation (ganhwa) is a great method. If you want some general info, start here: What is Ganhwaseon.

To sit with a gongan simply means "work on it". Working on it is carrying it with you all day long, asking questions, constantly knocking on the gate of no gate (i.e. using thoughts to realise what is beyond thinking). That is, exhausting all the possible answers until you arrive at the point where only a big question mark remains. Then you keep going on with that great doubt. Because great doubt is without conceptualisation but at the same time it is vivid and aware. Then comes a point where you realise for yourself that this whole process is just your own making, that problems and solutions are all just mental games, and once you don't grasp at an idea there is no further complication.
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
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seeker242
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Re: Kwan-um: How to work with a koan?

Post by seeker242 »

One should not kill any living being, nor cause it to be killed, nor should one incite any other to kill. Do never injure any being, whether strong or weak, in this entire universe!
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LastLegend
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Re: Kwan-um: How to work with a koan?

Post by LastLegend »

Astus wrote:Number one favourite answer: discuss it with your teacher. But let's put aside that for now.

Phrase investigation (ganhwa) is a great method. If you want some general info, start here: What is Ganhwaseon.

To sit with a gongan simply means "work on it". Working on it is carrying it with you all day long, asking questions, constantly knocking on the gate of no gate (i.e. using thoughts to realise what is beyond thinking). That is, exhausting all the possible answers until you arrive at the point where only a big question mark remains. Then you keep going on with that great doubt. Because great doubt is without conceptualisation but at the same time it is vivid and aware. Then comes a point where you realise for yourself that this whole process is just your own making, that problems and solutions are all just mental games, and once you don't grasp at an idea there is no further complication.
I like this. :rolling:
It’s eye blinking.
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