Talk:Koan/Archive 1

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Contents

Current questions and issues

  • Pinyin rendering of Tsung-jung Lu?
  • What is a good translation for Tsung-jung Lu? Cleary renders it as Book of Serenity but I have also seen it elsewhere as Book of Equanimity (e.g., more than 180 Google hits on that title). Under the circumstances I wonder--is "serenity" something of a marketing term?

-munge 15 July 04

  • Etymology section: I doubt that kung fu an tu in Chinese is actually prounounced ko-fu no an-toku in Japanese. The former seems to be a 4 character expression in Chinese, and the latter seems to be a 5 character expression in Japanese. I'd appreciate if anyone can straighten that out. If I can't get some confirmation or a correct Japanese rendering, I'm likely to delete the Japanese rendering that's there.

-munge 16 Sept 04

The revision

-munge 1 July 04

Here are some of the explanations of the revision.

  • Many say a koan is not a kind of riddle or puzzle (references below). "Conundrum" doesn't address this concern, as it's pretty much a synonym for riddle. There is a particular sense of the word "enigma" that might apply, but I'be not seen that used in koan literature (and FWIW Thich Nhat Hanh nixes "enigma" on p57 of Zen Keys). So, let's not oversimplify.
  • The existing article says that koan originally referred to a signpost, with no citation and none offered after some months. I deleted the signpost. Broad consensus seems to exist about Chung Feng Ming Pen's classic etymology.
  • It is misleading to say that Soto "does not focus on" koans; in the revision, I've tried to express a non-sectarian view. There was also some earlier stuff about Soto advocating "gradual enlightenment" which I believe is false.
  • "Skillful means"..."According to their ability"...It is not clear that koans are necessarily a "means"; means and ends are a duality and koans supercede (but do not necessarily exclude) dualities. (If you say the two hermits are the same, you do not have the eye...) See for example Book of Serenity case #68; and Hakuin's Song of Zazen on the identity of case and effect. I also recommend avoiding use of the word "subject" or "instrument" when referring to koans. Very complex topic.
  • "Koans sometimes...have an answer or explanation that logically follows..." ?!Traditionally, koans have no answers, no explanations, and the response that's in accord with circumstances is not logical. Chase down the first two cites in note [4] if interested.
  • "This meat is of prime quality". I'll be blunt: With all due respect to Thich Nhat Hanh. That's dog meat advertised as lamb chops. (See Wu-Men Kuan case #6). I wager he will concur.
  • I corrected some of the obvious problems in the section "Koan Interpretation" (formerly, "Examples"). But not all. Koans are fun. But they are also grave matters, so be careful.
(Umm..."skillfull means" is the customary translation of upaya, which is a very specific concept. There are indeed those who would class all practices as upayas, but this is not at all universal and certainly not to be assumed. On the other hand, the sentence in the current article is a very application of the concept, and I have no objection to removing it. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 09:57, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC))
Okay, I'm doing some cleanup on the proposed article. Whoever wrote this seems to have a deep and troubling love affair with sentence fragments. ::grin:: Also, this sentence, "The response to a koan that's in accord with circumstances does not necessarily correspond to a fixed verbal answer or particular gesture," I removed because I wasn't sure how to rescue it from its grammatical problems without possibly losing the intended meaning. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 10:06, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I find that definitions in reference books do not necessarily consist of complete sentences.
As for the sentence in question, I suppose all I meant was that "Appropriate responses vary according to circumstances. A koan does not have a fixed answer that is appropriate in every circumstance." -munge 27 June 04
Also, are the two remaining examples meant as a placeholder for all the others, too, or is there an objection raised? If so, specific standards of inclusion and exclusion should be discussed. Also, I don't like the reference style; if this is the wikipedia standard (ewww, I hope not), could I be pointed to it? If not, might I suggest a more traditional endnoting style, such as <sup>[[#references|1]]</sup>, i.e., 1? -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 10:17, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)
My objection is mainly that the beginning of the article shouldn't get bogged down in interpreting specific koans. Interpretation is fun. There's room for interpretation of koans in the wiki. But if we make interpreation the priority, it completely misses the point of what a koan is. Proliferating more concepts is not the point. Another objection is that people are throwing stuff in there that aren't exactly koans.
For the first set of "Examples", I propose we keep it to a short list of the critical phrases from very well known koans, and save the longer list for later. I get the idea that people want to play, so I suggest that the later section "Koan interpretation" is for that. Is that reasonable?
Standards for inclusion of koans for the article as a whole: I suggest including only if a) It is in a koan collection (identify the case and the collection); or b) it's part of Hakuin's oral tradition, like "sound of one hand"; or c) exceptions that have a good reason, where you explain the good reason--like the "she keeps calling to her attendant..." koan that supposedly accompanied Yuan Wu's first insights (the good reasons being, he was contemplating phrases; later he was the author of the Blue Cliff Record; it's arguably the earliest surviving recorded example of someone experiencing Zen insight by contemplating phrases). Is that reasonable?
If it's just a Zen story, even an enlightenment story, or a statement from the sayings and doings of masters, that's nice but it doesn't necessarily make something a koan. For example, as far as I know, "...kill the buddha" is not exactly a koan. It's part of the commentary to the Wu/Mu/No koan and it's part of the Lin Chi Lu (J. Rinzairoku); if I'm wrong, somebody cite the case, OK? It either belongs on the Lin Chi page, or needs to be discussed in regard to what it means in the context of wu/mu/no...
Footnotes: Yes, superscript makes sense. Is that the only problem you have with the footnotes? -munge 27-8 June 04

The future of this article

  • Convert all Wade-Giles renderings to Pinyin, but on first incidence, give Wade-Giles renderings and Japanese pronunciation.
  • Lose the redundancies
  • Move analysis of the wu/mu/no koan to a separate page? Maybe the mu page?
  • Explanation of the hua tou (critical phrase)? Or is existing mention enough?
  • Explanation of checking questions (I suspect the story of Huijiao is not a koan itself as stated in the article but more commonly a checking question on the cypress tree koan.)
  • Explanation of capping phrase (jakugo) practice
  • The role of Ta Hui Tsung Kao (1089-1163), who provided a lot of written advice for lay students who practiced with koans; regrettably his written material on koans is not completely translated into English, most of what is translated into English appears to be out of print; you can get a little of it if you google Ta Hui and Chun-Fang Yu; more complete sources may be Robert Buswell's book on Chinul, and Miriam Levering's dissertation, which I think also has some material on the next item;
  • Women who figure in koans e.g. Iron Grindstone Lu; and women who taught koan practice (e.g. Miao Tao?)
  • The role of koans in the martial arts
  • Cultural differences among Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Western koan students/practitioners (e.g. Chinese integration with Pure Land; contemporary Japanese literary tradition; reconcilliation with Western naturalistic philosophy? Distinguishing features of study/practice in Korean Son? In Vietnamese Son? Mu as a lifelong practice in some places?)
  • If Zen is a separate teaching outside the canon, how did it come to encompass so much literature?
  • Can any perplexing or paradoxical situation be a koan?
  • The koan in the West and modern koans
  • Role of the koan in sectarian rivalry and the competition for patronage (attempting non-sectarian coverage of Northern/Southern, Rinzai/Soto, sudden/gradual controversies). Here's an citation along those lines that may prove useful. It seems to show that a Northern School practice had some similarity to contemplating phrases. According to Northern School text, Hung Jen taught that "When you are sitting, settle your face, arrange your body properly, and sit straight. Relax your body and mind. Through all of space, see as from afar a single word. There is an inherent sequence. People of beginner's mentality do a lot of grasping at objects. You should contemplate a single word in your mind for now." From p70, Zen Dawn, J.C. Cleary, translation of Record of the Teachers and the Students of the Lanka a.k.a. Lengqui shizu ji, copies discovered at Tun Huang during the 20th century. Even skeptics attribute this work to Jingjue during the first half of the 8th century. Jingjue himself cites as the source as his own teacher Xuanze, who Jingjue indicates was a student of Hung-Jen. See also p61 for a related remark about a "single word" that Jingje attributes to 4th ancestor Daoxin. I found it remarkable that that dating that corresponds to some 2 centuries before Chao Chou, some 3 centuries before the earliest surviving koan collections. Today's students who practice "mu" or "wu" or "no" of Case #1 of the Wu Men Kuan/Mumonkan might see some similarity with "a single word". Comments appreciated.

-munge Dec 03 - Jul 04

I added some stuff, using some information (not plagiarized ;)) from Zen Keys by Thich Nhat Hanh. I didn't take into account the changes proposed on this talk page yet. --Furrykef 16:20, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

Mu

I'm pretty sure Chao-chou's "mu" was intended simply to mean "no" (although I am not a great scholar on the matter). Moreover, "mu" is a Japanese word and not Chinese, and therefore has Japanese connotations attached to it; i.e., the koan does not mean precisely the same thing in the two languages. But I think "no" is the best translation because it is meant to contradict the usual teaching that, yes, a dog has the Buddha nature. If we can agree on this then I will probably edit Zhaozhou and Mu (Japanese word) accordingly. --Furrykef 18:48, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

You may be right. I'm inclined to believe the "nonanswer" theory just because it's more Zenlike. How are we to know whether a dog has a Buddha-nature? In the "nonanswer" sense, mu concisely and elegantly reveals to the student that some things are unknowable. If mu meant yes or no, this example is not actually a koan: it does not encourage a moment of insight; it simply states a supposed fact.
What did Zhaozhou actually mean? Mu. --Eequor 19:17, 27 May 2004 (UTC)
Something to note: this koan is most often attributed to Joshu, which is Zhaozhou's name transliterated into Japanese. This demonstrates that the koan was translated first into Japanese and then to English. Zhaozhou did not actually say mu; he said wu, which was translated into Japanese as mu. --Eequor 19:31, 27 May 2004 (UTC)
Dog, Buddha-nature
The perfect pick, the right command
As you just begin to say "it has" or "has not"
You lose your body and life!
-- Wumen
Hence the answer wu, nothingness. --Eequor 19:38, 27 May 2004 (UTC)
On re-reading this I tend to agree with Eequor. First, Wumen obviously did not say "mu" because he did not speak Japanese. Second, an accurate translation would be "no"; but third, it would be inaccurate to interpret that as indicating that Zhaozhou agreed or disagreed. The clue is in comparing the monk's actual question--"Does a dog have Buddha-nature or not?" (not just "Does a dog have Buddha nature?"!) Wumen's verse is even trickier than it sounds (hint: Is losing your life a bad thing in Zen?) but still suggests Zhaozhou is responding to—not necessarily answering—the monk's question. Not so far from Hofstater's idea that he's "unasking" the question or saying no to both choices the monk gives him; but even that is saying too much I feel. I'd say ultimately, "no" expresses the sound of his breath, not a sense of negation. (I find the idea that he's imitating a bark is just silly, but don't get me wrong; silliness is OK, too.) Or better, the meaning, such as it is, is only accessible to one who sits, not to one who interprets. The one major place I really differ is that at least some Zen teachers (including mine) are translating from the Chinese nowadays, not retranslating Japanese; also, RH Blyth's translation (1966) gives the old Chinese right there next to the English; and I have an idea that Robert Aitken's translation (see footnote 10 in the article) is directly from the Chinese. -munge 15 July 2004

But Zhouzhou did answer the question directly with yes or no: as I have stated in the article itself, he has answered both the negative "wu/mu" and what translates to the affirmative "yes", which would make a natural opposing answer to "wu". The idea was the more desirable answer to give depended on the person, not the question. In Zen Keys, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, "On the conceptual level, objective truth is on the side of the word 'yes', because in Mahayana Buddhist circles it is said that every being has the nature of awakening. But in the world of ultimate reality, the word 'yes' is no longer a concept that is opposed to the concept 'no'." --Furrykef 19:56, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

Do you have a source that shows he said anything other than wu? --Eequor 20:11, 27 May 2004 (UTC)
By the 12th century, both yes and no answers were picked up as case #18 of the Tsung Jung Lu, aka Book of Serenity as translated by Thomas Cleary. Discussed in commentary by Shibayama (1974) on the wu koan, case #1 of The Gateless Barrier, also originally from the 12th century, and also in John Daido Loori's book Two Arrows Meeting in Mid Air. FWIW, I think it seems very unlikely that an encyclopedia (or discussion among students) will be sufficient to create the conditions whereby a student penetrates a koan, though I suppose anything's possible. -munge 1 June 2004

Now, see, my professor told us that "wu" was meant to stand simultaneously for "no" and for the sound of a dog barking. ::grin:: -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽

The monk is saying in effect "show me your Buddha nature". ``...it is a challenge to Chao-chou to articulate his understanding of the vexed buddha-nature issue in such a manner that he remains true to Ch'an principles. Thus Chao-chou must respond in a fashion that does not reify, or express attachment to, the notion of buddha-nature, whether of the sentient or the insentient. Chao-chou's response--his unapologetic denial of buddha-nature to dogs--denotes his freedom from attachment to doctrine (i.e., his acknowledgment that no conventional formulation is ultimate), and his refusal to attempt to articulate a medial or transcendental position." per Robert Sharf, On the Buddha-Nature of Insentient Things available at http://kr.buddhism.org/zen/koan/Robert_Sharf-e.htm I find there are some errors in the article but it makes several important points and is consistent with teishos of Shibayama and Aitken, which aren't on the Web. This also relates to the oak tree (some say cypress) thing, too; see http://www.beliefnet.com/story/33/story_3313_1.html. Knowing this is not the same as realizing, recognizing, actualizing the koan by the way. Many would say that it is not particularly helpful either, nor is it necessarily unhelpful. -munge 18 June 04
Incidentally, mu in Toki Pona can be a dog's bark (as well as any other animal noise). soweli li mu can mean the dog barked. --Eequor 21:18, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

Older Issues and Comments

Isn't Ch'an and Zen the same thing ? One in China, second in Japan ?Taw

Yes and no. I'd guess they're enough alike to be on the same Wikipedia page for now, but IMHO there was some change over the centuries and kilometers. (I am not an expert on this.)
Ch'an and Zen are just two different pronunciations of the same Han character, (U+79AA in Unicode). How the Chinese and Japanese version of the two religions diverged is out of my league. But if the name writes the same way, at least they are from the same origin even though they may have evolved differently. A look up in a Chinese dictionary entry at (http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/agrep-lindict?query=%c1%49&category=wholerecord) shows that the word is from a Sanskrit term "Channa" . Another search of all the Sankris based Chinese terms (http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/agrep-lindict?query=Sanskr.&category=full&boo=no&ignore=on&substr=on&order=all) reveals many Chinese Buddhaism terminologies and their explanation.

The Chinese word Ch'an (in Mandarin) is pronounced as Zim(3) in Cantonese. Who know how it is pronounced in other Chinese dialects? And who know where the Japanese learned the pronounciation of this Han character? Though obviously not from Mandarin. However, Zen and Zim are more closely related than Zen vs Ch'an. Apparently, the Sanskrit word Channa was transliterated into a Chinese word phonetically. Then the Chinese word spreaded to different dialects which each has its own pronunciation for the same word. When the Japanese picked up the word, it no longer sounded like the Sanskrit original.

I think it's fair to say that in the English language, Zen refers to the various Asian meditation schools that trace their lineage--or at least, heritage--to the Chinese Ch'an schools, which in turn, by common tradition, trace their lineage to Bodhidharma (6th century?). I think the teachers would say that the practices are more similar to each other than they are to other Buddhist schools, and that the essence, such as it is, of the teachings is identical. However, there are clearly cultural differences in the way that Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and I also understand Vietnamese varieties of Ch'an/Zen/Son are practiced/taught.
Here's another take on "same" and "different" with regard to Ch'an/Zen/Son: Master Yunmen [864-949, also called Ummon] asked a monk "An old man said, 'In the relam of non-dualism there is not the slightest obstacle between self and other'. What about Japan and Korea in this context?" The monk said "They are not different". Yunmen responded "You go to hell". (See Master Yunmen, translated by Urs App, fragment 272.) At the risk of oversimplifying, it seems to me that Zen is not about having naive views of nonduality, not about thinking that everything is the same. -munge, 14 March 2004
Something like this: Dhyana/Channa > Ch'an/Zim > Zen.  :-)

Could some examples of koans go up here, or are they ineffective in translation? - Stuart Presnell

They are perfectly effective in translations. I don't know of any good sources off the top of my head, other than in Hofstadter's "Godel Escher Bach" book Mark Jeays

Soucres: Probably the most available sources in English are the Wu-Men Kuan (aka Mumonkan, aka Gateless Barrier, aka Gateless Gate), and the Pi-Yen Lu (aka Blue Cliff Record). They are on the order of 800 and 900 years old respectively, and there are several translations in English. E.g. for Wu-Men Kuan, notably there are two (separate) translations called "Gateless Barrier" by Shibayama and Aitken. Other translations of the same work are by Cleary, Senzaki & Reps, Sekida, and Yamada. I would say that the differences among translations point out to anyone that there are certainly serious issues raised by translation and that there is no "best" translation; e.g. Shibayama points out (in case 1) that the monk asking Chao Chou about the dog was prefigured by earlier dialogs, while Aitken (and everybody else) seems to omit this; yet Shibayama translates the last line of Wu-Men/Mumon's poem in case 2 as being about "regrets" while Aitken's translation of "mistakes" evokes the possibility that there is nothing necessarily regrettable about making mistakes. Hofstatder is careful to point out that he does not claim to have fully penetrated a koan, and I for one don't find his presentation of koans sufficient to convey to a reader how to study them earnestly, let alone practice with them, leaving open the possibility that someone else needs to write a book that fully reveals the connection between Goedel's Proof and Ma-Tsu's "it is not mind, it is not Buddha, it is not a thing".

munge, 9 March 2004

With all due respect to Minsky et al I feel the AI koans merit a separate page.

I couldn't agree more. While I realize that, as all things on the Internet, the content of Wikipedia will tend (at least at first) to be skewed towards the interests of "computer geeks" (such as myself), this is a particularly jarring example. Koans are a rich subject, yet over half of this page is devoted to the relatively obscure and less culturally-significant issue of AI koans.
Yeah, I know, if I don't like it, fix it myself. Maybe I will.

--- M. E. Smith

AI Koans

What can you do about AI koans without simply copying the section out of the hacker's dictionary?

Also regarding the sussman/minsky koan: the point is perhaps that just because you make yourself ignorant of some fact (by closing your eyes, or by getting a randomiser to pick values), doesn't meanthat fact is not there.

Better yet, can we get rid of the AI koans all together? Does this added bit of nerdery really enhance the article? - Nat Krause 05:05, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It belongs in a separate article, if anywhere. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 19:21, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
And now the "koans" have gone away. --[[User:Eequor|η♀υωρ]] 03:57, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, Eequor! user:munge 17 Nov 2004
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