Koan Collecting

Bernie, who was then living in California, sent me to Bob to do Koan study when our attempt via email failed. Koan study was a “standard” part of the Zen training path, and as far as I knew, always followed the same course. There were four collections of koans which we were all to traverse, The Gateless Gate, a collection of 48 koans compiled in the 13th century China; The Blue Cliff Record and The Book of Equanimity, collections of 100 koans collected during the same period; and the Transmission of the Light, written in Japan a few years later. The koans collected in all four books recount stories going back 2500, many originally told in the languages of India.

I was aware that these collectings were the work of individuals. I am surprised now that I didn’t think immediately of John and Alan Lomax who had collected and preserved so many of the American folksongs that I had grown up on. In working my way through the koan books with Bob, I scarcely saw the hand of the collectors. I was more conscious of the translators, particularly of The Gateless Gate, because, even then, there were multiple translations to work with.

It was only when I stumbled on the Tales of the Hasidim that Martin Buber introduced me to the hand of the collector. I immediately felt an affinity between his Tales and the koan collections I had worked with. The cultural and religious contexts were different, but they shared the remarkable affinity of spiritual teaching through stories rather than didactic presentation. As Buber worked on presenting these tales across time and cultures and languages, his awareness grew of the role of the storyteller in the process, and he realized that the tales needed not just collecting and translating: they needed to be retold.

In my Zen tradition, students are expected to memorize each koan, to recite it before presenting their response to the teacher. I haven’t gotten entirely away from that, but more and more, I find myself saying, once the koan has been recited, “Now, tell me the story in your own words.” So often the retelling takes the student deeper and reveals to me layers of meaning which I’d never seen before. Sometimes it’s the discrepancy which I notice between the memorized text and the retelling that takes me deeper. Sometimes the omitted elements are the signs which take us deeper.

And I continue to be amazed how, of the three hundred plus koans that I’d worked through with Bob, only a few have a continuing impact in my life. So often, I am laughing, “I have no idea how I passed this koan.” But the koans, which were important, continue to have great vitality and to transform my life. It now seems that the purpose of going through the four books is not to “pass” three hundred koans but to find the few dozen koans which are “my” koans. My work with students has shifted. The point is no longer passing koans, but finding “your” koans, the ones you will never pass, never finish with, which will animate your practice for the rest of your life or until they don’t any longer or until new koans emerge. Today, I’m pushing the metaphor further. The point of koan study is to create your own personal koan collection, your life changing koans told in your own words.