Who's Afraid of Kōans?

Many earnest seekers of Buddhist wisdom have eagerly scrutinized collections of kōans, only to end up feeling completely bamboozled. Without a teacher familiar with the evolution of Chinese Buddhism, who can expose the layered meanings implicit in the original Chinese, and who is well-acquainted with the poetry, popular expressions and stories they contain, kōans can seem deviously inscrutable and almost perversely coy.

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Bewildered and dismayed, many of us have been tempted to turn our backs on kōans and write them off as completely nonsensical. This is a big mistake--akin to throwing out the baby with the bathwater!

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Many of the greatest teachers of our lineage loved kōans, including Dōgen and his teacher, Nyojō. Dōgen compiled his own collection and quoted hundreds of kōans throughout his writings.

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What are Kōans?

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Kōans originated in Tang Dynasty China. There are approximately 1,700 of them. Many are extracts from longer stories and dialogues featuring prominent Zen ancestors, while others are completely made up.

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Kōans are notoriously difficult to translate and understand. They are filled with literary allusions and references to well-known folktales, historical events, long-forgotten colloquial expressions, people, legends, poetic formulations, metaphors, and other cultural references. Making full use of the multi-layered meanings implicit in Chinese characters and engaging in sophisticated wordplay, they thwart efforts to reproduce them in translation.

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Various eminent teachers assembled collections of their favorite kōans that are still widely circulated today.

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Wanshi Shōgaku (1091-1157) selected one hundred kōans and composed verses for each one. His disciple, Banshō Gyōshū, appended jakugo--short, humorous capping phrases-- along with commentary, and assembled them into a collection called Shōyō-roku or The Book of Serenity.

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It is important to understand the historical context in which Shōyō-roku was created. It was, in part, a powerful response to relentless attacks by teachers such as Daie Sōkō (1089 – 1163), a proponent of Kanna Zen who criticized the Zen of the descendants of Tōzan’s lineage as being Mokushō Zen or heretical “Silent Illumination Zen”.​

 

Under the influence of Rinzai teachers, kōans came to be used as tools to propel students toward an intense psychological experience called kenshō (seeing the true nature). Over time, kōan training developed into standardized curricula with standardized responses.

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The Sōtō school’s approach to kōans is markedly different. Sōtō teachers lecture on kōans and offer commentaries intended to clarify rather than bamboozle. Instead of treating kōans as riddles or tools, teachers in the Sōtō lineage study and appreciate them as exquisite expressions of “what it is” and “how to be”.

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This difference is of enormous significance. In the Rinzai approach, students believe awakening is something an individual achieves by working hard to grasp arcane mysteries hidden within each kōan. In Dōgen’s lineage, by contrast, students are instructed to see for themselves that awakening is already manifested when practicing Shikantaza and letting go of the ego-centered point of view.

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These views are not merely different. They represent fundamentally distinct approaches to Dharma.

 

Rev. Issan Koyama’s Lecture Series

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Using trilingual texts featuring the original Chinese, Japanese yomikudashi, and brand-new English translations by Rev. Issan Koyama, this Lecture Series embraces the conviction that kōans yield their greatest wisdom when thoroughly understood.

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Rev. Koyama begins by placing kōans into their proper historical and cultural context. With his extensive knowledge of the historical events, folktales, personages, literary allusions, and poetic metaphors they contain, he brings kōans vividly to life.

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In addition, Rev. Koyama draws upon a wealth of relatable, real-life examples to demonstrate how the wisdom contained in each kōan is applicable to our everyday lives, here and now.

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Exploring kōans in this way, we begin to appreciate them as miniature masterpieces of dharma that are illuminating, inspiring and often astonishingly amusing.