I stumbled unexpectedly on koans while reading an incredibly dull book about cognitive behavioural therapy and borderline personality disorder; a flasher on the morning commuter train of my Thursday afternoon that has left me unable to get the idea out of my mind. A koan is a saying or story which contains aspects of Truth which are inaccessible to rational logic, but which are said to be approachable through a deeper wisdom. They are a tool of Zen practitioners used to move both student and teacher towards a deeper understanding of themselves and the world they inhabit. They cannot be answered by any power of intellect, nor apprehended through a purely emotional encounter. A koan may have many right answers and even more wrong ones. The koan is a mercurial thing, some would say a capricious at best, seldom retaining it's Truth for even the same person for long at all. The true interpretation of a koan is said to be found only in experiencing life. That is to say, I have been enthralled with the concept of coming to knowledge of something outside of reason and yet not based entirely on my own inner subjectivity since last Thursday at about 10:45 am.Here is a famous Zen koan:
A monk asked Kegon, "How does an enlightened one return to the ordinary world?"And a famous koan from Chistianity:
Kegon replied, "A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen flowers never go back to the old branches."
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.
Not to go too Mr. Miyagi on yall, but I've been thinking about this and figured I'd share the wealth. In parting, I leave you with my favourite koan I've read so far.
The world is vast and wide. Why do you put on your robes at the sound of a bell?
5 comments:
Your post drove me to my old comparative religions text to dig through some of the Zen readings I did in college...and in the margin of the Koan section I found my handwritten note: "enigmatic statement for us to transcend logic."
I feel like this year I've been questioning logic quite a bit. I cling to it though we know that logic can only carry us as far as the human mind has successfully grasped ethereal concepts--unravel them, hold them up to the light, and see if there can be any truth in their core. The philosophy of Koans are attractive in that they are so audacious---somehow they can fearlessly toss the mind into realms where you may only have a feeling that something may be true, but lack nearly all ability to articulate or logically defend your thought...
Often, I think Koans can leave you floundering--but I think its sound advice to take a step back and set Truth, and not logic as your compass and proceed from there.
-M.
Remember too that logic is a strategy, and strategies are supposed to be ways of understanding a concept (meaning it is not the only strategy your mind is using). If you tried to logically explain why you like someone, you wouldn't be able to. You could explain what you like, but not why. Logic can't explain attraction, compulsion, and a number of things. Beauty can't be logically explained, nor can pleasing sounds. I think that's why God never rationalizes his ideas or purposes. We do, but God doesn't. Parts of the life experience are meant to be enigmatic. Good post, Micah.
Playfulness can't be explained . . . creativity . . . God lets Moses know He Is, won't tell the Egyptians why they can't create golden altars or tell Elizabeth, as unpragmatic for an elderly woman as it was, why she needed to carry and give birth to John . . . so many things.
Thanks, James and Michelle. I'm glad that yall enjoyed the post, I'm still working on what to do with it.
GEEZ Micah....get hecka deep on us, why doncha? ;)But really-- I thoroughly enjoyed this and thought it was really well written.
Thanks for teaching me something new and interesting! :-)
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