HANDLE YOUR PROBLEMS DIFFRENTLY

Koans are such a powerful medicine, they must not be ignored. These ancient dilemmas, questions and stories coming from the world of Zen hold a key to transforming suffering and to seeing life with new eyes, in a flash.

Simple, direct and inscrutable, koans refuse to be figured out logically or rationally. We cannot use our usual strategies to find the answer. Koans jog the mind, make us laugh. As we grasp the inner meaning, life suddenly ceases to be a problem and instead turns into an adventure filled with joy.

As we explore the nature of koans, we see what the practice consists of and how they interact with our everyday life. Working with a koan is the same as approaching all the conundrums and paradoxes life, inevitably, throws our way.

In Zen practice, we spend long periods of time in zazen meditation, not moving, sitting silently on the cushion. Although this is fundamental, Zen practice is not about withdrawing or transcending, but about engagement with all of life. As we work on koans, other aspects of ourselves arise providing the insight needed. And, instead of reacting blindly, we become able to respond with our full selves.

Koans Demand That We Make a Response

A koan is given to us by our teacher, who demands that we make a reply. We cannot linger in silence. This reminds us that it is crucial to both hear and respond to the calls that life makes upon us. In the silence we sit and listen. Once off the cushion, we must act.

Koans Are About You Life

Some of the koans we undertake have been worked on for centuries, but they are all about us, who we are right here, today. They are about our life, death and journey. They free us to live honestly and authentically in each moment, as it comes.

Koans Require That We Stop Trying to Figure Anything Out

Koans are inscrutable, keep reminding us that we cannot figure anything out. We try to analyze, strategize, maneuver, and when we do that with our koans, we fail again and again. Koans force us to break that cycle and taste whatever comes completely, whether we like it or not.

Usually, our life is based upon wanting to succeed, get somewhere. We try our hardest to be approved of, bring the right answer to everything. This attitude itself prevents us from seeing into our koan. It ties us up in chains that bind.

When we start bringing answers to our teacher, they inevitably are shallow, conditioned, conventional answers. And we get rejected again and again. This rejection is essential and wonderful, as is the experience of failure. Going through it so often, we learn to break our former patterns and see rejection and failure for what they are.

Pass One Day, Fail the Next

We can pass the koan one day and the next day bring the same answer and fail. We can even bring an answer we know is right, and it’s rejected. Right and wrong have nothing to do with it. Like life, one day our partner may love us, the next day, find our faults. Usually this takes us on a roller-coaster ride. We may spend hours trying to figure out why it’s happening, or to bring another version of ourselves in the hope that it will please. It does no good.

The teacher, like life itself, must say No, again and again. It’s part of the training. We cannot fully pass or be free of our koans until we are finished clinging to being right, for the need for approval and having everything go your way.

Of course no one wants to be tested. All have a fear of being judged, falling short. Will the teacher accept the response, or not? Are we a failure or a success? Did we pass our koan or fail it? Are we taking us longer than others to pass? Until we forget about all that, until it no longer matters, it is difficult to grapple with koans or with life truly. When we no longer care about how our teacher reacts, or about right and wrong, our koans have been passed.

Koans And Everyday Life

Most think that koans and everyday life are different, but the opposite is so. The koan shines a flashlight on everything. Whatever stops us in our everyday life will come up to block us with our koan. As we break through this block, every moment in our live is affected.

Koans Demand a Breakthrough

Koans refuse to allow us to be complacent and stay where we are. Sooner or later we must give up the same old answer, and the same way of being with our teacher. Finally it becomes impossible to rely on our habitual, deadening ways. What seemed important before now becomes laughable. New moments become vibrant and beautiful. How wonderful, the koan is having its way.

BIO: Brenda Shoshanna, Ph.d. is an award winning author, speaker, psychologist and long term Zen practitioner. Her work integrates the teachings of East and West and focuses upon how to live the teachings in our everyday lives. This article is based upon her book Zen Play (Instructions In Becoming Fully Alive). Brenda offers talks, workshops and a You Tube channel, Dr Brenda Shoshanna. topspeaker@yahoo.com.