Ken's Koan Sayings

There are barriers and pitfalls to working with the koans. Not beginning is the first, but just beginning is not a ready solution either. Treating koans like a DIY project in lifeless meditation practice: when something is not happening, something is wrong with my practice, my attention, my teacher, my life--” Maybe try a little MU”-- is not a sure-fire way to fix things up. There are at least as many misunderstandings about what they are as there are koans. If you want to count them, you can start from any place where you begin.

We might think that koans hold a key to unlocking the big mysterious secrets behind All of It, but they are just the great privilege of eavesdropping on conversations between some really cool practitioners. The keyword is practice. A fly on the wall might be a privileged position, but probably not enough.

Zen can’t fix anything. Some people think of meditation is a cure, like medicine, or maybe a panacea for some thorny life problem. That is a lovely hope. There is even a koan that uses the words: ”The whole earth is medicine.” If aspirin is the first thing that comes to mind, exercise particular caution. Dream on if you must, but see a competent psychotherapist if you need to. There is no self-contradiction in any of those statements.

The difference between good design and bad design, good or bad practice, good writing or bad writing, is the time you spend on it. And sometimes inspiration hits like lightning.

They are good reasons--aside from the usual ones--to get over lots of talk about the shamanic origins of Zen. Bury useless chatter alongside your Tarot cards and the map of your stars. Your future depends on it. It does.

I’ve often wanted to retrace my steps to an insight or an experience in meditation. This is an impossible task, but sometimes, as the saying goes, you just get lucky.

The Map Salesman will tell you that his or hers shows the basic terrain, even the quickest route, in more or less detail, to the 10 highlights of London, complete with a timetable and fare schedule for the Tube. Beware. It’s someone else’s experience, including their personal proclivities. There are no perfect maps. Road conditions change, among other things, and your expensive guide might skip the hidden gem.

Traveling in groups is safer, so keep your companions close.

No one knows!

In our rural Connecticut village, my mother taught me to look both ways before crossing the road, first to the left first and then to the right. It’s automatic. When I lived a block from Chinatown in San Francisco, I noticed something that I found unsettling. At the complicated intersection of Stockton, Columbus, and Green, you had to look even if crossing with the light. But standing next to one of my Chinese neighbors, she looked to the right first. Her mother also taught her well. Now living in Asia, I also look to the right, but it was something that I had to relearn.

You might be mugged by reality! If you are lucky, or honest, but there are real reasons to be wary. There are bandits on the road set to deceive you. “Teacher, teacher, be vigilant. Don’t be deceived.”

Out of Bounds, Off Limits

Originally posted Saturday, April 8, 2023

This is where Issan "Tommy" Dorsey Roshi began his career as a drag artist.

In a friend’s kind of online bio, she said that “Zen is essential to my practice, but I'm not a Zen teacher. It turns out I'm too heretical for institutions, and that's a good thing. There's much seeping in that doesn't fit the forms. The ecology of erotic emergence overflows.” I thought of her and Issan when I saw this picture of military police preventing entrance to a legendary San Francisco gay bar. If I am perhaps distorting her remarks to dig down deeper into something she intimates about the groupthink that seems to go hand in hand with the kind of rigorous practice that is normally delivered and fostered in Western Zen centers, forgive me.

“The Black Cat” was one of San Francisco's first gay bars to offer regular drag shows. It was the San Francisco jumping-off point for one of the great first-generation American Zen teachers, Issan ”Tommy” Dorsey Roshi.

These days, Issan wouldn't have a chance in certain parts of America, the country he put his life on the line for. But he seized on the chance of practice as soon as he encountered it, and that gave him another life.

Rei, it’s always out of bounds and off limits, or it ain’t Zen.