Koan

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A koan is a story, dialog, question, or statement in the history and lore of Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism, generally containing aspects that are inaccessible to rational understanding, yet that may be accessible to intuition. One famous koan is, "Two hands clap and there is a sound; what is the sound of one hand?" (oral tradition, attributed to Hakuin Ekaku [1686-1769 C.E.], considered a reviver of the koan tradition in Japan.)

Koans are said to reflect the enlightened or awakened state of historical sages and legendary figures who uttered them, and sometimes said to confound the habit of discursive thought or shock the mind into awareness. Koans typically include the words of, or dialog with, an awakened or enlightened person, generally one authorized to teach in a lineage that regards Bodhidharma (circa 5th-6th century C.E.) as its ancestor. Informally, the term koan sometimes refers to any experience that accompanies awakening, spiritual insight, or kensho.

As used by teachers, monks, and students in training, koan can refer to a story selected from traditional sayings and doings of such sages, a perplexing element of the story, a concise but critical word or phrase (hua-tou) extracted from the story, or to the story appended by poetry and commentary authored by later Zen teachers, sometimes layering commentary upon commentary.

English-speaking non-Zen practitioners sometimes use koan to refer to an unanswerable question or a meaningless statement. However, in Zen practice, a koan is not meaningless, and teachers often do expect students to present an appropriate and timely response when asked about a koan. Even so, a koan is not a riddle or a puzzle¹. Appropriate responses to a koan vary according to circumstances; there is no fixed answer that is correct in every circumstance.

The word koan corresponds to the Chinese characters 公案 which can be rendered in various ways: gongan (Chinese pinyin); kung-an (Chinese Wade-Giles); gong'an (Korean); cong-an (Vietnamese); kōan (Japanese Hepburn; often transliterated koan). Of these, "koan" is the most common in English. Just as Japanese Zen, Chinese Ch'an, Korean Son, and Vietnamese Thien, and Western Zen all share many features in common, likewise koans play similar roles in each, although significant cultural differences exist.

Table of contents

1 Examples
2 Roles of the koan in Zen practice
3 Etymology and the evolving meaning of koan
4 The role of koans in the Soto, Rinzai, and other sects
5 Interpretation of Koans
6 References
7 AI koans
8 External links
9 Other Meanings of Koan

Examples

A monk asked Zhaozhou (rendered Chao-chou in Wade-Giles; pronounced Joshu in Japanese), "Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?". Zhaozhou said "wu". ("mu" in archaic Japanese; "no", "not", or "nonbeing" in English. This is a fragment of Case #1 of the Wu-Men Kuan. However, note that, a similar koan records that on another occasion, Zhaozhou said "yes" in response [Case #18 of the Book of Serenity].)
Hui Neng asked Hui Ming "Without thinking of good or evil, show me your original face before your mother and father were born". (This is a fragment of case #23 of the Wu-Men Kuan)
A monk asked Tung Shan "What is Buddha?". Tung-shan said "Three pounds of flax". (This is a fragment of case #18 of the Wu-Men Kuan as well as case #12 of the Blue Cliff Record)
A monk asked Zhaozhou, "What is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the west?". Zhaozhou said "The cypress tree in the courtyard". (This is a fragment of case #37 of the Wu-Men Kuan as well as case #47 of the Book of Serenity.)

Roles of the koan in Zen practice

Koans collectively form a substantial body of literature studied by Zen practitioners and scholars worldwide. Koan collections commonly referenced in English include the Blue Cliff Record (Chinese: Pi-yen lu; Japanese: Hekiganroku), the Book of Equanimity (also known as the Book of Serenity; Chinese: Ts'ung-jung lu; Japanese Shoyoroku), both collected in their present forms during the 12th century); and Gateless Barrier (also known as Gateless Gate; Chinese: Wu-Men Kuan; Japanese Mumonkan) collected during the 13th century). In these and subsequent collections, a terse "main case" of a koan often accompanies prefatory remarks, commentary, poems, proverbs and other phrases, and further commentary, etc. about prior emendations. Koan literature typically derives from older texts and traditions, including texts that record the sayings and doings of sages; from Transmission of the Lamp records, which document the monastic tradition of certifying teachers; and from folklore and cultural reference points common among medieval Chinese. According to Victor Hori—a native English speaker who has experienced extensive koan training in Japanese monasteries—koan literature was also influenced by the pre-Zen Chinese tradition of the "literary game"—a competition involving improvised poetry². Over centuries, contemporary collections continued to inspire commentary, and current koan collections contain modern commentaries. New koans on occasion are proposed and collected—sometimes seriously, sometimes in jest.
A koan or part of a koan may serve as a point of concentration during meditation and other activities, often called "koan practice" (as distinct from "koan study", the study of koan literature). Generally, a qualified teacher provides instruction in koan practice to qualified students in private. In the Wu-Men Kuan, case #1, Wu-Men wrote "...concentrate yourself into this 'Wu'...making your whole body one great inquiry. Day and night work intently at it. Do not attempt nihilistic or dualistic interpretations."³ Beyond this, written instructions are rare.
A koan may be used as a test of a Zen student's ability. For monks in formal training, and for some laypersons, a teacher invokes a koan and demands some definite response from a student during private interviews.
Koans are presented by teachers to students and other members of the community, often including the teacher's unique commentary. A koan may seem to be the subject of a talk or private interview with a student. However, a koan is said to supersede subject-object duality and thus cannot necessarily be said to be the "subject" of such encounters. The dialog, lecture, or sermon may more resemble performance, ritual duty, or poetry reading.

Etymology and the evolving meaning of koan

Koan is a Japanese rendering of the Chinese term (公案), often transliterated as "kung-an". Chung Feng Ming Pen (1263-1323) wrote that kung-an is an abbreviation for kung-fu an-tu (pronounced in Japanese as ko-fu no an-toku), which referred to a "public record" or the "case records of a public law court"4 in Tang-dynasty China. Koan/kung-an thus serves as a metaphor for principles of reality that go beyond the private opinion of one person. The metaphor also corresponds to a teacher's test of a student's recognizing and actualizing that principle. Commentaries in koan collections bear some similarity to judicial decisions that cite and sometimes modify precedents. An article by T. Griffith Foulk claims ``...Its literal meaning is the "table" or "bench" [an] of a "magistrate" or "judge" [kung]..."⁴. Apparently, kung-an was itself originally a metaphor—an article of furniture that came to denote legal precedents.

Before the tradition of meditating on koans was recorded, Huang Po (720-814) and Yun Men (864-949) are both recorded to have uttered the line "Yours is a clear-cut case (chien-cheng kung-an) but I spare you thirty blows", seeming to pass judgement over students' feeble expressions of enlightenment. Hsueh-Tou (980-1052)—the original compiler of the 100 cases that later served as the basis for the Blue Cliff Record—used the term kung-an just once in that collection (according to Foulk⁴) in Case #64.

Yuanwu (1063-1135), compiler of the Blue Cliff Record in its present form, "gained some insight" by contemplating (kan) koans⁵. Yuanwu may have been instructed to contemplate phrases by his teachers Chen-ju Mu-che (dates unknown) and Wu-tzu Fa-yen (?-1104). Thus, by the Sung Dynasty, the term kung-an had apparently taken on roughly its present meaning from the legal jargon.

Subsequent interpreters have influenced the way the term koan is used. Dogen wrote of Genjokoan, which relates everyday life experiences to koans. Hakuin recommended preparing for koan practice by concentrating on "ki" breathing and its effect on the body's center of gravity, called the tanden or hara in Japanese—thereby associating koans with pre-existing Taoist and Yogic meditative practices.

The role of koans in the Soto, Rinzai, and other sects

Koan practice—concentrating on koans during meditation and other activities—is particularly important among Japanese practictioners of the Rinzai sect of Zen. However, study of koan literature is common to both Soto and Rinzai Zen. There is a common misconception that Soto and related schools do not use koans at all, but while few Soto practictioners concentrate on koans while meditating, many Soto practitioners are indeed highly familiar with koans.

In fact, the Soto sect has a strong historical connection with koans. Many koan collections were compiled by Soto priests. During the 13th century, Dogen, founder of the Soto sect in Japan, compiled some 300 koans in the volumes known as the Greater Shobogenzo. Other koans collections compiled and annotated by Soto priests include The Iron Flute (Japanese: Tetteki Tosui, compiled by Genro in 1783) and Verses and Commentaries on One Hundred Old Cases of Tenchian (Japanese: Tenchian hyakusoku hyoju, compiled by Tetsumon in 1771.) However, according to Michael Mohr, "...koan practice was largely expunged from the Soto school through the efforts of Gento Sokuchu (1729-1807), the eleventh abbot of Entsuji, who in 1795 was nominated abbot of Eiheiji."6, p245.

A significant number of people who meditate with koans are affiliated with Japan's Sanbo Kyodan sect, and with various schools derived from that sect in North America, Europe, and Australia. Sanbo Kyodan was established in the 20th century, and has roots in both the Soto and Rinzai traditions.

Interpretation of Koans

Zen teachers and practitioners insist that the meaning of a koan can only be demonstrated in a live experience. Texts (including koan collections and encylopedia articles) cannot convey that meaning. Yet the Zen tradition has produced a great deal of literature, including thousands of koans and at least dozens of volumes of commentary. Nevertheless, teachers have long alerted students to the danger of confusing the interpretation of a koan with the realization of a koan. When teachers say "do not confuse the pointing finger with the moon", they indicate that awakening is the standard—not ability to interpret.

Even so, koans emerge from a literary context, and understanding that context can often remove some—but presumably not all—of the mystery surrounding a koan. For example, evidence 7 suggests that when a monk asked Zhaozhou "does a dog have Buddha-nature or not?", the monk was asking a question that students had asked teachers for generations. The controversy over whether all beings have the potential for enlightment is even older⁸—and in fact, vigorous controversy⁹ still surrounds the matter of Buddha nature.

No amount of interpretation seems to be able to exhaust a koan. So it's unlikely that there can be a "definitive" interpretation. Teachers typically warn against over-intellectualizing koans, but the mysteries of koans compel some students to reduce (but not necessarily eliminate) the uncertainties—for example, by clarfying metaphors that were likely well-known to monks at the time the koans originally circulated. In that spirit, we present some interpretations that are certainly not the last word.

"Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?" — Hakuin

The traditional response to this is to thrust out one's hand. The reference to two hands is understood as a metaphor for dualism (yin/yang, subject/object, etc) and intellectual discrimination, while the reference to one hand is a metaphor for nondualism.

Several koans involve Zen master Zhaozhou, otherwise known as Chao-chou or, in Japanese, Jōshū).

A monk asked Zhaozhou, "Why did Bodhidharma come to China?"

Zhaozhou replied, "The cypress in the courtyard."

After Zhaozhou's death, a monk asked Huijiao (a disciple of Zhaozhou's) about the cypress koan. Huijiao denied that Zhaozhou ever said it. The disciple did indeed know Zhaozhou's koan (it was very famous already), but felt it would be better to retire the koan for this particular monk. This denial has become a koan itself.

Reportedly, Chinese translators have tended to render the type of tree in the koan as "cypress" while Japanese translators have rendered it as "the oak tree in the courtyard".¹⁰

A monk asked Zhaozhou, "Does a dog have Buddha-nature (fo hsing) or not (wu)?"

Zhaozhou replied, "Wu."

This koan is particularly well-known. Translators often render Zhaozhou's answer as often mu from Japanese retellings. Wu and mu are variously interpreted as meaning no, not, or nonexistence. Centuries earlier, the same Chinese character appeared at the end of verse 40 of Lao Zi's famed Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) in a line sometimes translated as "existence emerges from nonexistence". Mahayana Buddhist doctrine codified in the Nirvana Sutra held that all sentient beings posess the capacity for enlightenment. The commentary of teachers in the Linji (Rinzai in Japanese) tradition tends to emphasize that the interpretation pertains to a challenge the monk poses to Zhaozhou to demonstrate Buddha-nature without becoming entangled in doctrine; and that this interpretation only has meaning in the context of a meditator who contemplates the koan. Some stendents speculate otherwise, for example that wu is a pun that means "It is unknowable whether the dog has Buddha-nature" or "The question has no meaning." Others have suggested the word "wu" was originally intended to also convey the sound of a barking dog, the way we would say "woof!".

One time a monk asked Zhaozhou "Does a dog had Buddha-nature or not".

Zhouzhou answered, "No."

Another time a monk asked Zhaozhou "Does a dog had Buddha-nature or not".

Zhaozhou answered, "Yes."

This is related to but in contrast to the previous koan; here, the emphasis is on the applicability of the answer rather than the meaning of Buddha-nature.

"If you meet the Buddha, kill him." — Linji (part of the commentary to the wu/mu/no koan)

If you are thinking about Buddha, this is thinking and delusion, not awakening. One must destroy preconceptions of the Buddha. Zen master Shunyru Suzuki wrote in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind during an introduction to Zazen, "Kill the Buddha if the Buddha exists somewhere else. Kill the Buddha, because you should resume your own Buddha nature."

A monk asked Zhouzhou to teach him.

Zhouzhou asked "Have you eaten your meal?"

The monk replied "Yes I have,"

"Wash your bowl," said Zhaozhou. The monk understood.

This koan is beloved of students, perhaps because it seems to negate the need to understand obscure doctrines. Yet straighforward as it may seem, Wu-Men comments in verse "Because it's so clear/it takes long to realize".

Siddhartha Gautama, the person often meant by "the Buddha", was to give a lecture on dharma at Vulture Peak. He stood in front of the assembly, said nothing, but silently twirled a flower. No one responded except his disciple Mahakasyapa, who smiled.

From Wu-Men's comment about this koan: "Gautama insolently insults noble people. He sells dog meat labeled as mutton and thinks it commendable." Wu-Men actually intends his scathing insult as a form of high praise, thwarting any student's attempt to rationally explain the koan as feeble.

Many Zen masters have been asked "What is the Buddha?" and have given various answers. Here are some of them:
- The Buddha? He is on the meditation hall altar.
- He is made of clay and covered with gold.
- Don't talk nonsense.
- The danger comes from your mouth.
- We are surrounded by mountains.
- Look at this man who exposes his breast and walks with bare feet.
A story in the Zen tradition, about the monk and the hot coal, illustrates how a student who practices with koans must respond without hesitation to a teacher's challenge.

A Zen monk, early in his training, is preparing to leave the monastery and switch locations, for that is common in the Zen practice. Before he leaves he goes to the abbot of the monastery, to say goodbye. He does so, but the abbot says he has a gift for him. Now, it is part of the Zen and Japanese way to accept gifts and be appreciative; to do otherwise is rude and, therefore, wrong. The abbot takes a pair of tongs and picks up a red hot coal from the adjacent fire pit that he has a tea kettle on. The young monk starts to contemplate what he should do, and after a few moments runs out of the hall distressed, for he cannot figure out what he is supposed to do; he can take the coal and be burned or he can refuse the gift of the abbot. Both, in his mind, are things he cannot do. He meditates on the problem for the next week, and comes back to say goodbye. However, the same scene is played again, and the same frustration is found when he tries to figure out what the abbot wants him to do. He meditates further on the subject and feels he has discovered how to respond to the abbot's gift. He returns, for the third time, to say goodbye to the abbot, and as before the abbot picks up a red hot coal and presents it as a gift to the young monk. The young monk simply replies, "Thank you." The abbot breaks a grin, nods his head, and returns the coal to the fire pit. "You may go now," he says.

References

[1] See Futh Fuller Sasaki's introduction on page xi of The Zen Koan, Isshu Miura and Ruth Fuller Sasaki, Harvest/HBJ, 1965; See also Steve Hagen's introduction on page vii of the 2000 edition of The Iron Flute (subtitle) 100 Zen Koans, translated into English by Nyogen Senzaki and Ruth Stout McCandless, originally Tetteki Tosui, Genro, 1783

[2] See chapter 4 of Zen Sand (subtitle) The Book of Capping Phrases for Koan Practice, Victor Sogen Hori, 2003, University of Hawai'i Press

[3] The Gateless Barrier (subtitle) Zen comments on the Mumonkan, Zenkei Shibayama (1894-1974), Translated from Chinese and Japanese into English by Sumiko Kudo, Shambhala Publications, 1974; incorporates Wu-Men Kuan (J. Mumonkan), Wu-Men, 1228)

[4] See The Zen Koan (see note [1]) p4-6, and also "The form and function of koan literature" (subtitle) "A historical overview", T. Griffith Foulk, in The Koan (subtitle) Texts and contexts in Zen Buddhism, Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright, eds., 2000, Oxford University Press, p21-22. Assertions that the literal meaning of kung-an is the table, desk, or bench of a magistrate appear on page 18 of the article by Foulk, and also in Seeing Through Zen, (subtitle) Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism, John R. MacRae, 2003, University of California Press, p172-173 note 16.

[5] See Zen Letters (subtitle) Teachings of Yuanwu, Yuanwu Kequin (1063-1135), translated into English by J. C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary, 1994, Shambhala Publications, p16, and "Before the empty eon versus A dog has no Buddha-nature" (subtitle) "Kung-an use in the Ts'ao-tung tradition and Ta-hui's Kung-an introspction Ch'an", Morten Schlutter, in The Koan (subtitle) Texts and contexts in Zen Buddhism, Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright, eds., 2000, Oxford University Press, p185-186

[6] "Emerging from Nonduality" (subtitle) "Koan Practice in the Rinzai tradition since Hakuin", Michael Mohr, in The Koan (subtitle) Texts and contexts in Zen Buddhism, Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright, eds., 2000, Oxford University Press, p245

[7] See the commentary on case #1 in The Gateless Barrier (subtitle) Zen Comments on the Mumonkan, Zenkei Shibayama, translated in English by Sumiko Kudo, 1974, Shambhala Publications

[8] See "Tao-sheng's Theory of Sudden Enlightenment", Whalen Lai, in Sudden and Gradual (subtitle) Approaches to Enlightenment in Chinese Thought, p173 and 191. The latter page documents how in 429 or thereabouts (more than 400 years before Zhaozhou), Tao-sheng was expelled from the Buddhist monastic community for defending the idea that incorrigible persons (icchantika) do indeed have Buddha-nature (fo-hsing).

[9] Pruning the Bodhi Tree (subtitle) The Storm over Critical Buddhism Jamie Hubbard and Paul L. Swanson, eds, 1997, University of Hawaii Press; for example see Chapter 1, "Why They Say Zen Is Not Buddhism" (subtitle) "Recent Japanese Critiques of Buddha-Nature", Paul L. Swanson

[10] The Gateless Barrier (subtitle) The Wu-Men Kuan (Mumonkan), Robert Aitken, North Point Press/Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York, 1991, incorporates Wu-Men Kuan (J. Mumonkan), Wu-Men, 1228); see p306, footnote 1 for Case #37

Dates are per Zen's Chinese Heritage (subtitle) The masters and their teachings, Andy Ferguson, 2000, Wisdom Publications

AI koans

The artificial intelligence community at MIT has a body of humorous koans about their science. One such example is the following, attributed to Danny Hillis:

In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.

"What are you doing?" asked Minsky.

"I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-tac-toe," Sussman replied.

"Why is the net wired randomly?" asked Minsky.

"I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play," Sussman said.

Minsky then shut his eyes.

"Why do you close your eyes?" Sussman asked his teacher.

"So that the room will be empty."

At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

Unlike most real koans, this koan has a possible concrete answer: just as the room is not really empty when Minsky shuts his eyes, neither is the neural network really free of preconceptions when it is randomly wired. The network still has preconceptions, they are simply from a random rather than a human source.

External links

The Gateless Gate
Life at the Monastery - a humorous look at koans
Zen Buddhism Koan Study Pages
Zen Koans: Transcending Duality - a list of koans

Other Meanings of Koan

Koan (公安) is a common shorthand for the Japanese National Public Safety Commission.

Koan is also a name for an Emperor of Japan.

Koan is also the name of an algorithmic music software package.