Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide (Graphic Guides)

by Borin Van Loon

Koan study was an entirely new development unique to Zen. A koan is a phrase of the Buddha, a teaching on Zen realization or an episode from the life of a teacher. Each koan points to the nature of ultimate reality. Paradox is essential, as it transcends conceptual or logical thought. The first koan was a phrase of Hui-Neng. A monk asked him: How do I get rid of ignorance? Cease running after things, stop thinking about what is right and wrong but just see, at this very moment, what your original face was like before your mother and father were born. We are conditioned to form conceptual answers to questions and it comes as a shock to find there is no answer which fits the question. Koan study is specifically designed to short-circuit the whole intellectual process and experience reality directly. The answers to koans often seem like witty aphorisms, but to the student absorbed in the koan, the experience is life and death. Some books list the “correct” answers to koans, but without the process of dropping conceptual mind, intellectually knowing the answers is useless. However, the tradition which had been so alive, became ritualized: every detail of the practice became regularized and koan study became a ritualized formal activity. Around the 10th century, Buddhism in China lost its power; the priests were mainly involved in performing weddings and funerals and exorcising evil spirits. By this time, the living spirit of the tradition had transferred to Japan.