Kōan B Jap., lit. “public notice”; the Chinese kung-an originally meant a legal case constituting a precedent. In Zen a Kōan is a phrase from a sūtra or teaching on Zen realization (teishō), an episode from the life of an ancient master, a mondō or a hossen whatever the source, each points to the nature of ultimate reality. Essential to a kōan is paradox, i.e., that which is “beyond” (Gk., para) “thinking” (Gk., dokein), which transcends the logical or conceptual. Thus, since it cannot be solved by reason, a kōan is not a riddle. Solving a kōan requires a leap to another level of comprehension.
kōans have been used in Zen as a systematic means of training since around the middle of the 10th century. Since the kōan eludes solution by means of discursive understanding, it makes clear to the student the limitations of thought and eventually forces him to transcend it in an intuitive leap, which takes him into a world beyond logical contradictions and dualistic modes of thought. On the basis of this experience, the student can demonstrate his own solution of the kōan to the master in a dokusan spontaneously and without recourse to preconceived notions. The word or expression into which a kōan resolves itself when one struggles with it as a means of spiritual training is called the wato (Chin., hua-tou). It is the “punch line” of the kōan. In the famous kōan “Chao-chou, Dog,” for example, mu is the wato. Many longer kōans have several watos.
There are all told about 1,700 kōans, of which present-day Japanese Zen masters use only 500 to 600, since many-are repetitions or are not so valuable for training purposes. Most of these kōans are in the great collections, the Wu-men-kuan (Jap., Mumonkan), the – Pi-yen-lu (Jap., Hekigan-roku), the Ts’ung-jung-lu (Jap., Shōyō-roku), the Lin-chi-lu (Jap., Rinzai-roku), and the – Denkō-roku.
In general kōan practice is associated with the Rinzai school (kanna Zen), however kōans have also been used, both in China and Japan, in the Sōtō school (mokushō Zen). To begin with, kōan practice prevents a student from falling back after a first enlightenment experience (enlightenment, kenshō, satori) into “everyman’s consciousness” (bonpuno-jōshiki); beyond that, it helps the student to deepen and extend his realization.
Within the system of kōan training adopted by the Rinzai school, five types of kōan are distinguished: hosshin, kikan, gonsen, nantō, and go-i-kōan.
1 . Hosshin-kōan (hosshin, Jap., “dharmakāya,” trikāya) are kōans that help a student to make a breakthrough to enlightened vision and to become familiar with the world of true nature, buddha-nature (busshō).
2. The hosshin-kōan relates with the world of “nondistinction, ” however the student should not get stuck on this level of experience. The kikan-kōan (Jap., kikan, “support, tool”) is meant to train the student in the ability to make distinctions within nondistinction.
3. The gonsen-kōan (Jap. gonsen, “pondering words”) is concerned with the deepest meaning and content of the sayings and formulations of the ancient masters, which lies beyond lexical definition and conceptual representation.
4. The nanto-kōan (Jap., nanto, “difficult to get through”) are basically those kōans that, as the name implies, are particularly hard to solve.
5 . When the student has mastered the kōans of the first four classes, then, through the kōans of go-i, the five degrees (of enlightenment) of Master Tung shan Liang-chieh (Jap., Tōzan Ryōkai), the genuine insight he has developed is once more fundamentally worked through and put to the test.
After a first glimpse of enlightenment (often through the use of the kōan “Chao-chou, Dog”), the kōan training “in space” (Jap., shitsu-nai) begins. At the end of kōan training comes the time to become acquainted with the real meaning of rules and precepts like the jūjūkai and with the different levels of meaning of the “three precious ones” (sambō). When a student has mastered the different levels of kōans to the satisfaction of his master, he has fulfilled an essential requirement for receiving inka-shōmei.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen. Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Books on Kōan
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