Apocryphal koans

The apocryphal koans that began to appear yesterday on the blog, are another part of the project «apocryphal zen», on which I’m working currently. I’m going to explain better what it is about in the next post, here I’m going to tell some words about the apocryphal koans.

In Zen tradition, the term koan is used for a particular problem or theme, by the study and long meditation of which, it is possible to reach the illumination. Practically, it is an anecdote, a lesson or a short dialogue between master and pupil; it looks like an inexplicable enygma, which doesn’t follow the logical categories, the consequential logic nor the non-contradiction principle, because the truth of Zen can be caught only on the other side – or maybe I should say on this side – of the intellectual categories.
Collections of these ‘cases’ were compiled by masters and scholars of Ch’an Buddhism (Chinese ancestor of Zen), who used to add also some verses (absolute not lyrical) and even a commentary of the case, often much more obscure than the case itself. In comparison with this form, I’ve kept the presence of the poem after the koan, but I’ve renounced in adding also the commentary, mainly for lightness reasons.

Now, before forgetting all that you’ve just read, remember that the koan can help only those who cultivate the «great doubt» caused by the reading till the end.


Originally posted in Italian on January 28, 2008 at 21:15