Koan Meditation

[shivraj]

Koan Meditation


In Koan Meditation a person is given a koan (i.e. a puzzle or a question) and he is told to keep thinking about what can be the right answer to it. Some examples of koan are:

1) How can you clap with one hand?
2) An egg of a bird was kept inside a bottle. The mouth or opening of the bottle measures exactly the size of the egg. The egg hatched inside the bottle and the little bird was fed and raised inside the bottle. Gradually the bird began to grow. Then a time came when the bird had fully grown up and had become equal to the size of the bottle. Then, without breaking the bottle and without killing the bird, how can this bird be freed? This puzzle has to be solved.
3) How can the eye see itself without a mirror (instrument)? How can the Experience (of Being) experience the Experience (of Being)?
4) Which are the questions whose answer is right if you say ‘Yes’, but is right even if you say ‘No’?
5) Who is the ear of the ear? How can the tongue taste itself?
6) How was your face before you were conceived?
7) In dreams, why don’t we see ourselves at the place where we actually are?
8) If we have attained this birth due to our karma (deeds) in our previous births, then how did we get our first birth?
9) How can effortless effort be done?
10) What is definite in deep sleep?

While solving these puzzles, the seeker reaches the real Experience of Being because that is the aim of Koan Meditation. It is not very important whether the answer is right or wrong, the important thing is up to what depth you contemplated.

While contemplating on these koans, if you feel you have got the right answer, still don’t stop thinking. Continue the contemplation on advanced answers of the same puzzle. If you have a Guru, then you can write the answer to him. On receiving guidance from him, start contemplating again. This contemplation can lead you to the Absolute Silence within (moun).

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by shivraj

1) How can you clap with one hand?

closing your fingers against your palm.

2) An egg of a bird was kept inside a bottle. The mouth or opening of the bottle measures exactly the size of the egg. The egg hatched inside the bottle and the little bird was fed and raised inside the bottle. Gradually the bird began to grow. Then a time came when the bird had fully grown up and had become equal to the size of the bottle. Then, without breaking the bottle and without killing the bird, how can this bird be freed? This puzzle has to be solved.

teach the bird extreme yoga and it can wiggle out

3) How can the eye see itself without a mirror (instrument)? How can the Experience (of Being) experience the Experience (of Being)?

The Experience (of Being) can experience the Experience (of Being ) by Being.

4) Which are the questions whose answer is right if you say ‘Yes’, but is right even if you say ‘No’?

Is you answer to this not correct?

5) Who is the ear of the ear? How can the tongue taste itself?

When they are not being their selves.

6) How was your face before you were conceived?

Just as it always is.

7) In dreams, why don’t we see ourselves at the place where we actually are?

the assumption is wrong - we are where we actually are in dreams.

8) If we have attained this birth due to our karma (deeds) in our previous births, then how did we get our first birth?

assumption is wrong, we didn't get here based on previous births. time is not in play in the void before birth.

9) How can effortless effort be done?

without effort

10) What is definite in deep sleep?

what is really true in complete wakefulness?

[infinitethoughts]

Another interpretation is What is the Sound of one hand clapping.

[Cantando]

Zen Buddhists use Koans as a kind of fast track method of attaining enlightenment.

In the monastery, the students are given progressively more difficult Koans to solve until the head monk decides they have attained enlightenment.
Actually, the Koans are rather non-sensical and the more non-sensical the answer, the more likely the head monk will approve, otherwise he is liable to thwack the student with a stick!

There are many true stories around this.
One famous story relates a famous monk who kept getting beaten for giving the incorrect answer. Eventually, he left the monastery in disgust and became enlightened through his own efforts.
He then returned to the monastery and gave the head monk a good clip round the ear-hole!

[Liara Covert]

Koans are a means of opening up to expand new levels of awareness and to explore unconventional reflection. All of this nurtures patience.