Koan
The term is a compound word, consisting of the characters 公 ('public; official; governmental; common; collective; fair; equitable') and 案 ('table; desk, altar; (law) case; record; file; plan; mandate, proposal.')
[14] According to Morten Schlütter "it is not clear exactly when the practice of commenting on old gongan cases started, but the earliest Chan masters to have such commentaries included in the recorded sayings attributed to them appear to be Yunmen Wenyan and Fenyang Shanzhao (947–1024).
[31] According to Mario Poceski, although Dahui's kanhua Chan (in which one focuses on a huatou) purports to be a sudden method, it essentially consists of a process of gradually perfecting concentration.
[32] According to Kasulis, the rise of gōng'àn contemplation in Song-era Zen led to a greater emphasis on the interaction between master and student, which came to be identified as the essence of enlightenment, since "its verification was always interpersonal.
"[33] This mutual inquiry of past cases gave Zen students a role model and a sense of belonging to a spiritual family since "one looked at the enlightened activities of one's lineal forebears in order to understand one's own identity.
According to Barbara O'Brien, the practice of going to a private interview with one's Zen master (sanzen) where one has to prove one's understanding of kōan "is the real point of the whole exercise".
[23] He also promoted Dahui's famous kanhua chan method of meditating on a huatou and influenced several Japanese Rinzai masters of the time who came to China to study with him, including Kosen Ingen, Kohō Kakumyō, Jakushitsu Genkō (1290–1367).
[42]In later periods like the Ming dynasty, Chinese Chan developed in different directions, such as incorporating Pure Land elements and the re-introduction of an emphasis on the study of scripture.
According to Eshin Nishimura, Japanese Rinzai-masters like Enni-bennen (圓爾辨圓) (1202–1280) and Nampo-jyōmain (南浦紹明) (1235–1308) had already divided the Chinese kōan into three groups namely richi ('ultimate truth'), kikan ('skillful method') and kōjyon ('non-attachment').
[59][note 4] In the 18th century, the Rinzai school became dominated by the legacy of Hakuin, who laid a strong emphasis on kōan study as a means to gain kensho, but also not to get stuck in this initial insight, and to develop a compassionate, selfless attitude.
[69] In the Takuju-school, after breakthrough students work through the Gateless Gate (Mumonkan), the Blue Cliff Record (Hekigan-roku), the Entangling Vines (Shumon Kattoshu), and the Collection of Wings of the Blackbird (鴆羽集, Chin'u shū).
Kōan curricula are, in fact, subject to continued accretion and evolution over time, and thus are best considered living traditions of practice rather than set programs of study.
[86][87][note 7] The continuous pondering of the break-through kōan (shokan)[68] or Hua Tou, "word head",[48] leads to kensho, an initial insight into "seeing the (Buddha-)nature.
[92][93] According to Samy, this is not equal to prajna: The one-pointed, non-intellectual concentration on the hua-t'ou (or Mu) is a pressure-cooker tactic, a reduction to a technique which can produce some psychic experiences.
"[100] In 1916 Tominaga Shūho, using the pseudonym "Hau Hōō", published a critique of the Rinzai kōan system, Gendai sōjizen no hyōron, which also contained a translation of a missanroku.
In the Rinzai school, passing a koan and the checking questions has to be supplemented by jakugo, "capping phrases", citations of Chinese poetry to demonstrate the insight.
Only when a master is satisfied that a disciple can comment appropriately on a wide range of old cases will he recognize the latter as a dharma heir and give him formal "proof of transmission" (J. inka shomei).
[53][113] An important figure in this development was Gentō Sokuchū (1729-1807), who sought to remove Rinzai and Obaku influences on Sōtō and focus strictly on Dōgen's teachings and writings.
[122] Facing criticism by Buddhists such as Philip Kapleau and D. T. Suzuki for misunderstanding Zen, Alan Watts claimed that a kōan supported his lack of zazen practice.
"[123] Douglas Hofstadter's 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid discusses Zen kōans in relation to paradoxical questions and perceiving reality outside of one's experience.
[web 10] After becoming smitten with Zen (even offering to turn his own house into a zendo), filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky meditated and studied koans with the traveling monk Ejo Takata (1928–1997).
[129] Poceski further observes that although Zen is often portrayed as promoting spontaneity and freedom, encounter-dialogue exegesis actually points in the opposite direction, namely towards a tradition bound by established parameters of orthodoxy.
"[132] He says: In the end, notwithstanding the iconoclastic ethos imputed to them, it is apparent that these textual sources are products of a conservative tradition that, in the course of its growth and transformation during the Tang-Song transition, was keen to promote a particular version of Buddhist orthodoxy and secure its place as the main representative of elite Chinese Buddhism.
[135] According to Poceski, as this is never up for questioning or scrutiny, gong'an stories amount to "received articles of faith, reinforced by a cumulative tradition and embedded in specific institutional structures.
[152] According to Poceski, modern publications and popular Zen books tend to be confined to the same strictures and ideological suppositions as the classical sources.
[153] A noteworthy element of modern interpretations of gong'an material is the tendency to stick uncritically to conventional lines of exegesis that fail to question normative traditions and the untenable assumptions underlying them.
[154] This includes the idea that gong'an represent timeless truths that must be "unlocked via dedicated Zen practice, undertaken under proper spiritual guidance.
[156] In this way, ideological suppositions about gong'an are entwined with social relationships and power structures, as they aim to perpetuate a religious institution whose members derive tangible benefits by virtue of their status in it as maintainers of tradition.
Suzuki observes that although the koan method represents a convenience for the Zen practitioner, a form of "grandmotherly kindness," it is also liable to tend towards formalization and counterfeit.
This is equivalent to the old trick of religious revivalists who give their followers a tremendous emotional uplift by first implanting an acute sense of sin, and then relieving it through faith in Jesus.
