Some stuff on koans

It is always interesting to hear what people think about zen. While many a times, zen seems to be centering on words and mysterious riddles called koans; in actual fact, zen is not only abt words but actions. It is not only about what we say but what we do and how we do it. In short, how we respond to the situation that is presented in front of us.

One zen master once said that 'opening one's mouth is a big mistake', because zen believes in the liberation from concepts and words only introduces more concepts which leads one away from Truth. Yet, in zen there is also another saying, 'but words are necessary' as without words there is no way to lead people into the practice.

However, zen ultimately values only experience. The heartfelt experience of the emptiness of forms, impermenance, non self and suffering is zen's real aim. This experiences irreversibly changes one's psyche and thus one's response to situations.

Koans, many a times, present situations. Situations that simulate real life situations. A person who has a deep experience responds differently to a situation from a normal person and that is how the answer to a koan is judged to be correct or wrong. It is not a perfect method though and answers can actually be memorised or deduced. However to a good zen master, a keen eyed one, if he suspects that the student merely memorised the answers or copied them from someone, the zen master may ask for an alternative answer or present a koan of a similar situation and press the student for a response. If the student has a clear experience, it would not be difficult to answer in a different way or to another similar koan. If to the first koan, the student merely deduced the answer without the necessary experience, or only has a weak experience, he would be slow in answering other similar koans. If it is found that the person has a weak expeirence or is able to deduce the answers, the zen masters usually present more koans to the student to 'polish' the student's view. I should add a disclaimer here that it is not the case where a student who has passed all the koans would be able to respond to all situations in his life correctly and are 'enlightened' with the Right View. This is because koans are only simulations of situations and are ultimately not the real situations. Thus the real test still lies in facing the situations in one's daily lives. In short, zen masters are not perfect, they are just people who have a clearer view of how things really are compared to regular people. The 'enlightenment' that students in zen stories experience are usually not that of attaining the Right View, but just glimpses of the Right View. We too get these at times, an Aha! moment.

A common misconception people have about koans is that they are word questions, riddles, which are in turn to be answered by word answers. In actual fact, zen adopts the principle: actions speak louder than words. Words are not enough, you have to do something about the situation at hand, not just talk. That's why you sometimes hear zen masters saying things like if you open your mouth, he will hit you 30 times, if you do not say anything, he will also hit you 30 times. He is in fact pushing you to act, do something about the situation (koan) not just talk or not do anything (sometimes not doing anything might also be the answer though). You might say zen koan training sometimes also teaches you how to deal with situations.

Lastly, if koans still sound like a mystery, as a final attempt to demystify koans, i would like to end off by saying that many of the answers to the initial first level koans are about the present situation. These koans point to the present, current situation, what is happening now, what is in front of you, what are you feeling, what is this current sensation, asking one to be mindful of the present situation, what is happening now, rather than the past or future.

Hope this helps! :)