Koans
1. What was your face before you were born? This question from Hakuin Zenji is often the first barrier in Rinzai Zen. It asks the practitioner to look prior to identity, memory, and form. It points not to a physical face but to the fundamental, unborn source of awareness itself—one’s original nature. No intellectual answer suffices; the koan demands a dropping away of the thinking mind to realize what is present before and after all coming and going. 2. What is it that is not a thing, not the mind, and not the Buddha? This koan systematically strips away every possible conceptual handle. It negates the external world (not a thing), the internal world (not the mind), and even the highest spiritual ideal (not the Buddha). It leaves the mind nowhere to stand, forcing a leap into the unnameable, immediate reality that precedes all categories. It points directly to absolute suchness, free of all designation. 3. Mu (Joshu’s Dog) = Neti Neti A monk asked Joshu (Zhaozhou), “Does a dog have Bud...