Koan (Japanese)
A technical term used in Zen Buddhism referring to enigmatic or paradoxical questions used by teachers to develop students’ intuition. Also refers to religious problems encountered in daily life.
Here's an example for me from the life of the Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton (as found in
Spirituality of Imperfection by Kurtz and Ketcham.)
One of Merton's favorite figures was Tan-hsia, a ninth-century master who often is pictured warming his bare backsides at a fire which he had made with a wooden image of the Buddha. In the Zen tradition, it is understood that idols of every sort are to be relentlessly smashed- whether they be one's dependence upon the ego, doctrine, scriptures, or even the Buddha.
--p. 123
What do I worship even more than God? What would I
not be willing to lose? Now those are questions that border on heresy.
1 comment:
Heresy? Perhaps. Consider, however, the writings of the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart, "The eye with with I look for God is the eye with which God looks for me." Like all mystics, there is evident on getting to "the God beyond God", that is beyond mere conceptions. In that pursuit, opposites collapse. Nothingness?, the zen master barks, "Show me this nothingness." Carry on, dear friend.
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