Hey folks,
I was one of those that found Zen through Alan Watts (as I'm sure a few Americans have), before beginning talking to an abbot and settled on reading what English translations I could from the Caodong / Linji schools, Bodhidharma, etc in the Chan tradition before moving on to Japanese Zen.
Koans are only meant as guidance, and the very act of committing them to paper or record excludes it from being capital T "Truth," and are only used as stepping stones through contemplation.
I was wondering, maybe we need new ways of looking at Zen through a contemporary lens (I don't mean Zen and the Art of Napkin Folding). The Zen Masters of the 1300s gave some great wisdom, but I've moved away from looking at all of them as kernels of wisdom that are "eternally true" and assigning an almost saint-like status to former teachers. Some of those koans don't appreciate over time, and might even obfuscate and make it more difficult for the reader as they were recorded for the context of their time. What's the harm in trying to iterate on their ideas and coming up with better examples and stories to make the path easier using modern language?
Would you put as much stock into koans written today as you would those recorded 700 years ago, or is there something about "old" being "better?"
I feel like koans are only good insomuch as they are useful, and maybe too much emphasis is put on students patting themselves on the back for figuring out a puzzle seven centuries old.
Submitted September 09, 2021 at 03:14AM by Fennecfox707 https://ift.tt/3njxyvh
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