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 Buddha-nature or not?” Joshu replied, “Mu.” This “Mu”—meaning “No,” “Without,” or “Nothing”—is perhaps the most famous koan in Zen. It is not a doctrinal contradiction but a sword that cuts through the very duality of “has” and “has not.” To realize Mu is to become one with the undivided reality before the question arises.

4. Joshu’s Cypress Tree

A monk asked, “What is the meaning of the Patriarch’s coming from the West?” (i.e., what is the essence of Bodhidharma’s teaching?). Joshu said, “The cypress tree in the garden.” The answer is not symbolic. It points to the utter suchness of things, exactly as they are. The entire teaching is manifest right here—in the tree, the garden, the asking itself—when the seeking mind comes to rest.

5. Hyakujo’s Fox

An old Zen story tells of a monk who, when asked if an enlightened person falls under the law of cause and effect, answered “No.” For this, he was reborn for five hundred lifetimes as a fox. He later appears to Hyakujo and asks for release. Hyakujo gives the turning word: the enlightened person does not *ignore* cause and effect; he is *one with* it. This koan clarifies the subtle trap of nihilistic emptiness and reveals true freedom within the seamless flow of the phenomenal world.

6. The Sound of One Hand

Hakuin Zenji devised this koan: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” It directs attention away from dualistic perception (two hands meeting) to the single, undivided source of all experience. Listening for a sound that cannot be heard by the ear, the mind exhausts its usual pathways and may open to the silent, vibrant reality that is one’s own true nature, prior to all opposition.

7. Seizei’s Poverty

A monk named Seizei said to Sozan, “I am utterly destitute. Will you give me sustenance?” Sozan called out, “Seizei!” Seizei immediately replied, “Yes, Master?” Sozan said, “You have finished three cups of the finest wine in China, and still you say you have not yet moistened your lips.” This koan exposes the spiritual poverty of seeking something outside oneself. Sozan points directly to the richness of the responsive, aware nature that Seizei already is and has always been.

8. Killing the Buddha

Linji said, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” This is the ultimate iconoclasm. Any Buddha conceived of as an external object, goal, or concept becomes a hindrance to one’s own direct realization. To “kill” that Buddha is to destroy the last subtle attachment to holiness and stand utterly free, relying on nothing outside one’s own true mind.

9. Gutei’s Finger

Whenever Gutei was asked about Zen, he simply raised one finger. A boy attendant began imitating him. One day Gutei called the boy over, suddenly produced a knife, cut off the boy’s finger, and shouted as the boy ran away crying. Gutei called him back, and as the boy turned, Gutei raised his own finger. In that moment, the boy was enlightened. The koan demonstrates that the finger is not the teaching; the direct, non-conceptual experience that the finger *points from* is. Gutei’s drastic act severed the boy’s imitation and forced a genuine awakening.

10. Nansen Cuts the Cat in Two

A dispute broke out in the monastery over a cat. Nansen, holding up the cat, said, “If any of you can say a word of Zen, I will spare the cat. If you cannot, I will cut it in two.” No one could answer, so Nansen cut the cat. Later, he told Joshu what happened. Joshu immediately took off his sandals, placed them on his head, and walked out. Nansen said, “If you had been there, the cat would have been saved.” The koan embodies the life-and-death urgency of Zen. Nansen’s action is the ultimate demand for a demonstration beyond words. Joshu’s absurd, symbolic gesture—wearing shoes on his head—is a wordless “word” that completely transcends the deadly duality of life and death, saving and killing.