![]() ![]() ![]() It is a kind of wonderment similar to a young child’s when he discovers and marvels at the world around him-very immediate, not lost in the future or in the past. This questioning gives you energy, because there is no place to rest, and it allows for more possibilities and less certainty. By repeatedly questioning with the energy and interest of someone who has just discovered she has lost something, you evoke a brightness in your whole being. They are just the diving board from which you dive into the pool of questioning. The process of inquiry is vivid, because you are not repeating the words like a mantra-the words themselves are not sacred, nor do they have a special resonance. By cultivating concentration, you allow for a certain calmness and spaciousness to develop. The question is the anchor of your meditation, the fixed point. Concentration is developed as you come back again and again to the words of the question, back to the present moment. This is very similar to the sensation you are trying to develop in Zen questioning.Ĭoncentration and inquiry are brought together with this technique. For a moment before you try to remember where you’ve left them, you are totally perplexed you have no idea what might have happened. You check this corner and that corner of the pocket again and again, and there is nothing. You are going somewhere, you put your hand in your pocket to grab your car keys. You are trying to develop a sensation of questioning and an inquiry that brings about the sense of bewilderment you feel when you have lost something. It’s like diving into a pool: the whole body is engaged in the act, and the whole body and mind are refreshed. You are giving yourself over entirely to the question. We are letting go of our need for knowledge and security, and our body and mind themselves become a question. As we throw out the question What is this? we are opening ourselves to the moment. We are trying to develop a sensation of openness, of wonderment. This is a practice of questioning, not of answering. We are questioning for questioning’s own sake. We are asking unconditionally, What is this? without looking for an answer, without expecting an answer. The most important part of the question is not the meaning of the words themselves but the question mark. We are trying to become one with the question. You ask, What is this? because you do not know. It was not the master of the body, the source of consciousness, or any other designation, because those are mere words and not the actual experience of it. It was not the Buddha, because you have not yet awakened to your Buddha-nature. It was not empty space either, because empty space cannot speak. My own teacher, Master Kusan (1909–1983), used to try to help us by pointing out that the answer to the question was not an object, because you could not describe it as long or short, this or that color. You are not asking: What is this thought, sound, sensation, or external object? If you need to put it in a meaningful context, you are asking, What is it that is hearing, feeling, thinking? You are not asking, What is the taste of the tea or the tea itself? You are asking, What is it that tastes the tea? What is it before you even taste the tea? You are turning the light of inquiry back onto yourself and your whole experience in this moment. Whether you are walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, you ask repeatedly, What is this? What is this? You have to be careful not to slip into intellectual inquiry, for you are not looking for an intellectual answer. The whole story is considered the koan, and the question itself, “What is this?” is the central point- hwadu in Korean, or huatou in Chinese. Huineng asked: “What is this?” Huaijang replied: “To say it is like something is not to the point. He went to see Huineng to tell him about his breakthrough. He practiced for many years until he understood. Huaijang could not answer and remained speechless. “What is this and how did it get here?” demanded Huineng. Huineng asked: “Where do you come from?” “I came from Mount Sung,” replied Huaijang. Huaijang entered the room and bowed to Huineng. In the Korean Zen tradition, one generally meditates on the koan, What is this? This question derives from an encounter between the Sixth Patriarch, Huineng (638–713 C.E.), and a young monk, Huaijang, who became one of his foremost disciples: By asking and focusing on a single question as a meditative method, Zen practitioners aimed to develop a rich experiential wisdom. To move away from this academic direction and toward the Buddha’s original teaching of practicing meditation and realizing awakening in this very life, the Zen school developed its koan practice, in which stories of monks’ awakenings became a starting point for meditative inquiry. In sixth-century China, the Buddhist schools were quite scholastic and focused on the scriptures. ![]()
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