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Paradox, Breakthrough and the Zen Koan

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Paradox, Breakthrough and the Zen Koan Let’s start with three koans well known X in Zen circles: O D 1. You know what sound two hands make. A R What is the sound of one hand? A P 2. Student: What if it’s a disaster? F O Teacher: That’s it, too. R E 3. If you meet the Buddha on the road, W kill him. O P E H T Paradox, Breakthrough, and the T WHEREVER YOU LOOK at is to use paradox itself to unwind O M I K you will find paradox. If I or disentangle consciousness and I C H think I have free will, how do language. One such method I R O I know that my thought for this untangling is the T O koan, K isn't predetermined? If I Zen which is a brief U R I have an “enlightenment” saying, question, story, K experience, can I know or snatch of conversation I whether it was the that the student of reality consequence of earnest takes up and examines. meditation methods or Unlike most religious of my past karma or paths, Zen makes an ally just something with no of doubt. Whenever the cause—a quantum-level mind offers a thought, it joke? Paradox also seems is really offering a hypothesis to be built into language, about reality: The stock market the greatest instrument and will go down. My partner ought to developer of consciousness. The be nicer to me.The new Prius looks 6th-century Cretan, Epimenides, sharp. Paying attention to everyday used to say,“All Cretans are liars,” which thoughts like these, we notice that there is was a prejudice of the time, and I imagine room for error. They either can be tested, which him enjoying the confusion of his audience means they might be wrong, or they can’t be the way a stand-up comic might today. Zen tested, which means, empirically, that they Buddhism takes this feature of consciousness have no truth value. What does sharp mean, and employs it to free the mind from its and if you get a Prius will people really admire preconceptions, a necessary condition when you are you? And what about nicer—do you mean she confronting sticky problems. ought to do what you want instead of what she This is an interesting strategy if you think about it wants and that this will lead to happiness? Hmmm. for a moment: fighting paradox with paradox.The idea Doesn’t seem likely, does it? When we live by MARCH–MAY 2005 • # 6 • SHIFT: AT THE FRONTIERS OF CONSCIOUSNESS ZenJOHN TARRANT koan thoughts like these, we are living by propositions The mind believes its own thoughts, its own without any anchor in reality. hypotheses about what is real,and the Zen koan undermines In the Zen creation myth, koans were brought to this belief by showing the paradox involved. Sometimes a China by an Indian barbarian called Bodhidharma. koan makes a thought seem absurd by suggesting that the The Emperor asked Bodhidharma, “What is the opposite proposition might be just as useful. A koan main point of this holy teaching?” might run everything backwards. For example: “Vast emptiness, nothing holy,”Bodhidharma replied. In old China someone gave the Governor a rare fan Zen treats all thoughts as delusions, as being more or made of rhinoceros horn—an expensive, useless object. less tangential to reality.They can’t be repaired or shored The Governor handed it off to the local Zen master and up, though most press releases and religious doctrines are it was forgotten. One day, the Zen master remembered it an attempt to do just that.This means that most religions and asked,“Bring me the rhinoceros fan.” lead to an inner conflict between their doctrines and our “Umm, it’s broken,” said the secretary. sense of the truth. Zen offers freedom by going the other “In that case, bring me the rhinoceros.” way, into the midst of paradox and doubt. People spend so much of life trying to mend the Such an embrace is not confined to Zen. The broken fan.You thought you had a job or a partner or renowned anthropologist and social scientist Gregory good health or were rich and suddenly you don’t and you Bateson was tremendously aware of the nature of paradox aren’t.Well, that’s familiar. Or it can work the other way. and the double binds of the thinking mind. Ilya You thought you were unhappy but you look and Prigogine formulated the theory of Dissipative suddenly you are not. It’s this last discovery that Zen Structures to describe certain chemical reactions such as depends on—a flip that applies to other areas of life as those involving chemical clocks. In these reactions, when well.The creative breakthrough is waiting for you as soon a system has fallen out of equilibrium and drifts further as you stop trying to save your old theory or mend the fan. toward instability, there is the sudden appearance of a You are not enlightened, goes the thought, and, new level of order instead of escalating chaos. This is a according to Buddhism, that is why you suffer. But what pretty good metaphor for the way Zen is supposed to if you run that thought backwards? What if, at this very work. Someone who spends time with a koan goes moment, you are happy? As long as you don’t think deeper into the puzzle of reality rather than seeking a something is missing, nothing is missing. Everyone knows quick return to a previous equilibrium. that there is no security in life, and nothing to rely on. Ü SHIFT: AT THE FRONTIERS OF CONSCIOUSNESS • # 6 • MARCH–MAY 2005 Trust doubt, doubt certainty WHEN I TRIED TO FIND OUT what koans are, exchange with a great teacher: it became clear that “koan” is a Japanese word that has “I am Qingshui,alone and destitute.Please help me.” entered the English language without bringing a Caoshan said,“Mr. Shui!” clear sense of its meaning. It is usually taken to refer “Yes!” to some sort of riddle or odd question.A koan actually Caoshan said,“You have already drunk three cups has its origin in sayings or records of conversations of the finest wine, and yet you say that you haven’t between people interested in the secret of life. even wet your lips.” Koans originated when Chinese culture flowered Of all the answers the student might have been about thirteen hundred years ago, at the period of the hoping for, he probably wasn’t expecting to be Arthurian legends in England. In China it was a time involved in a call and response and to be told that he of willow pattern ceramics, wood block printing, was rich.Yet,when you think you are desolate, it can great poets and painters, and, just as in Europe, civil be an intriguing and hopeful thing to be told that war. It was also a time when people grew seriously you are not.After such exchanges, a student who had interested in the technology of the mind. Certain been stuck and unhappy might be suddenly full of spiritual teachers became known for a deep and free joy. More often, the words would work away in the understanding of life, and people came to learn, hoping mind, gradually drawing the student out of a limiting to gain the insight that a teacher had. Some left view he or she held. farms, homes, and jobs in the bureaucracy to form A koan need not be grim or a struggle; it monastic communities; some traveled a thousand miles encourages you to notice that things are clear, or to on foot. These students worked, studied, meditated, throw overboard the idea that things are not and asked questions. Others maintained their work already clear.You could find that courses of action and family life and dropped in for periods of study. appear to you out of nowhere just the way the next The teachers weren’t trying to achieve something; moment does. Your navigation could unfold by they just responded to the needs of their students, and itself, and the universe might provide the beauty it turned out that some of their improvised decisions and happiness you seek. When you forget your kept the process interesting. First of all, they trusted carefully assembled fiction of who you are, you can doubt and rewarded questions.This is rare in religion find a natural delight in people, in the planet, the and an example of the Zen way of treating what is stones, and the trees. There is no observable limit usually thought of as a problem—in this case, doubt— to this beauty, and no one is excluded from it. as a strength. Then, if you are fighting an enemy, you may be The teachers also treated all questions as if they fighting them as well as you can, but you won’t be were relevant, no matter what their content. “Why a true believer.You will know that an enemy is not did I lose my love?” would have the same spiritual truly other and that the fighting is some kind of value as “What happens when I die?”A question is a misunderstanding.The worries that lead to quarrels place of embarkation, and any question was treated as may still be present, but they are not the main being about enlightenment, whether the student was thing. Your problems could be a kind of dream, aware of it or not.
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