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OfflineSatyapriya
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What is your favorite koan?
    #14538982 - 05/31/11 01:41 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Koans are not rational questions with final linear conclusions. They are especially designed for one purpose; this purpose is to open the mind that has been closed by habitual responses to the world and reality.

Koans are a method of training the mind in order to achieve the state of Satori, or awakened mind.

Koans are teaching tool used to break down the barriers to enlightenment.

Some examples are like:  "If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

and

"What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

Yes, these are pretty pathetic ones, but do you have any favorites that really make you think??


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Invisiblec0sm0nautt
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: Satyapriya]
    #14539018 - 05/31/11 02:08 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Zen Master Unmon said: "The world is vast and wide. Why do you put on your robes at the sound of a bell?"

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OfflineSatyapriya
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: Satyapriya]
    #14539019 - 05/31/11 02:08 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Another one I thought of is the bridge of the Switchfoot song "Dare You to Move," which goes:

"Maybe redemption has stories to tell.  maybe forgiveness is right where you fell.  Where can you run to escape from yourself?  Where you ganna go?  Where you ganna go?  Salvation is here."

Although Jon Foreman of Switchfoot is Christian, I see this song, and many of his songs, from more of a Buddhist point of view.  And they can be very powerful indeed, and have given me a lot of motivation and hope during difficult times.

I remember listening to this song during sunset while camping with some friends on a hilltop in Nepal, and it just clicked for me!  I felt fully awake and I will never forget that experience, as the sheer beauty and wonder of it has been burned into my memory, and my heart.

"Welcome to the planet.
Welcome to existence.
Everyone's here.
Everybody's watchin' you now.
Everybody waits for you now.
What happens next?
What happens next?..."



--------------------
www.collectivelyconscious.net - Hive mind for the awakened. ΰ₯ Collectively Conscious ΰ₯ is a community-powered, community-verified, alternative news/multimedia aggregation service for global citizens.

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OfflineOneU
Registered: 03/19/11
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: Satyapriya]
    #14540477 - 05/31/11 12:34 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

I couldn't pick a favorite but this website has a lot of them. I find myself using the tea one in my thoughts very often when dealing with people.

http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/zenindex.html

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OfflineTony
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: c0sm0nautt]
    #14543964 - 06/01/11 01:27 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

c0sm0nautt said:
Zen Master Unmon said: "The world is vast and wide. Why do you [log into shroomery] at the sound of a bell?"




Good one :grin:

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OfflineNetDiver
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: Tony] * 1
    #14545788 - 06/01/11 01:39 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

"Where were you before you were born? Where will you go when you die?"

"All things return to the One, where does the One return?"


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Offlineivander
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: NetDiver]
    #14546057 - 06/01/11 02:38 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

What came before?


--------------------
Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. - Nietzsche

I've never faked a sarcasm in my life. True story.

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InvisibleThe Whale

Registered: 11/01/10
Posts: 2,384
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: ivander]
    #14546076 - 06/01/11 02:41 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

This koan is the most fun to me. It seems incredibly simple at first until you really think about it and keep asking yourself.

"Who are you?"

:fonz:


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Offlinelaserpig
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: The Whale]
    #14546922 - 06/01/11 05:24 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

What is the sight of blindness?


Remember, koans only work if you actually try to answer them. They force you to recognize the reality of that which is inconceivable, thus destroying the mind's trust in and reliance upon conceptual thought. But, I repeat ... only if you actually try to answer. Attack your koan as a drowning man would thrash for the surface of the water.


--------------------
Weedmaster P knows the truth.

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Invisibleteknix
π“‚€βŸπ“…’π“π“…ƒπ“Š°π“‰‘ 𓁼𓆗⨻
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: laserpig]
    #14547607 - 06/01/11 07:40 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Have you stopped beating your wife lately?

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Offlinelaserpig
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: teknix]
    #14548082 - 06/01/11 09:25 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

I did for a week but the whore started mouthing off again.


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Weedmaster P knows the truth.

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OfflineGrapefruit
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: laserpig]
    #14548547 - 06/01/11 10:59 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:



Remember, koans only work if you actually try to answer them. They force you to recognize the reality of that which is inconceivable, thus destroying the mind's trust in and reliance upon conceptual thought. But, I repeat ... only if you actually try to answer. Attack your koan as a drowning man would thrash for the surface of the water.




You tried this then? How did it go?


--------------------
Little left in the way of energy; or the way of love, yet happy to entertain myself playing mental games with the rest of you freaks until the rivers run backwards. 

"Chat your fraff
Chat your fraff
Just chat your fraff
Chat your fraff"

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Offlinelaserpig
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: Grapefruit]
    #14548957 - 06/02/11 12:59 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

The mind isn't stupid: it has a strong temptation to give up when it's told to conceive of the inconceivable. That's hard to overcome. But the times that I've been persistent, it feels like ... as if by pushing on conceptual thought hard enough, you actually move yourself away from it. Like an astronaut pushing on a space capsule and floating off into the void. By going straight at it full force, you move farthest away.

The term "void" gets thrown around a lot when talking about meditation, and I'll fully admit I'm not sure that I know what most people mean by it, but in my experience there is a definite open-empty type feeling which arises whenever thinking-about-experiencing can be made marginal to direct experiencing. The state is void of concept, but full of the reality of experience.

There are a lot of different ways to get to that state, but what you learn from it depends largely on how you get there, as far as I can tell. Getting there by koan directly illuminates the contrast between conceptual thought and the nature of this other state in a way that personally I don't think anything else does. At least nothing that's teachable in the way that koans are.

It's one thing to consent to the idea that concepts aren't everything, but it's quite another to actually observe how concepts behave in your own mind and exactly what their relationship is to sensory experience and external reality. That's what koan meditation is: a torture-test for the conceptual mind. It yields experience and observations that you're just not gonna get from, for example, focusing on your breath for an hour.


--------------------
Weedmaster P knows the truth.

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Offlinedzza
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: Satyapriya]
    #14553128 - 06/02/11 10:21 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Here's a Bokononist koan:

Tiger got to hunt.
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, "why why why?"

Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.


From Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle

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OfflineSatyapriya
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: dzza]
    #14553178 - 06/02/11 10:31 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

dzza said:
Here's a Bokononist koan:

Tiger got to hunt.
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, "why why why?"

Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.


From Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle




I like this one a lot.  Thanks for sharing! :mushroom2:


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OfflineGrapefruit
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: laserpig]
    #14554276 - 06/03/11 04:49 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

laserpig said:
The mind isn't stupid: it has a strong temptation to give up when it's told to conceive of the inconceivable. That's hard to overcome. But the times that I've been persistent, it feels like ... as if by pushing on conceptual thought hard enough, you actually move yourself away from it. Like an astronaut pushing on a space capsule and floating off into the void. By going straight at it full force, you move farthest away.

The term "void" gets thrown around a lot when talking about meditation, and I'll fully admit I'm not sure that I know what most people mean by it, but in my experience there is a definite open-empty type feeling which arises whenever thinking-about-experiencing can be made marginal to direct experiencing. The state is void of concept, but full of the reality of experience.

There are a lot of different ways to get to that state, but what you learn from it depends largely on how you get there, as far as I can tell. Getting there by koan directly illuminates the contrast between conceptual thought and the nature of this other state in a way that personally I don't think anything else does. At least nothing that's teachable in the way that koans are.

It's one thing to consent to the idea that concepts aren't everything, but it's quite another to actually observe how concepts behave in your own mind and exactly what their relationship is to sensory experience and external reality. That's what koan meditation is: a torture-test for the conceptual mind. It yields experience and observations that you're just not gonna get from, for example, focusing on your breath for an hour.




Cheers for the reply, that was an interesting read.  Focusing on breath seems pretty useless to me, if you're gonna meditate the best way is just to sit and explore your thinking, it's roots and general experience IMO. I may give a koan a go, how long do they take you? I hear it's days for some of them. I also hear that certain ones are designed to give certain insights which I'm not really sure I believe.

Perhaps you could throw out an analogy of a koan being like throwing yourself against a brick wall, eventually the rational brain just gives in. A lot of my "advances" (read; failures :lol:) have been just from a moment when the mind just gives in. Would you agree with this completely or would you say there is something more to a koan than just that?

Salvia is my koan of late, I really recommend it. Always throws you back on yourself, kinda like ug but more powerfully, holds up a mirror to any vanities and fraudulent thinking. I really think it's very different to other psychs and you don't get lost in silly thoughts in the same way, very zen stuff. Always get this feeling like I'm going to get something out of the experience but it just shows you there's nothing to get every time, even if you think that you want to be shown that it still manages to throw you off guard.


--------------------
Little left in the way of energy; or the way of love, yet happy to entertain myself playing mental games with the rest of you freaks until the rivers run backwards. 

"Chat your fraff
Chat your fraff
Just chat your fraff
Chat your fraff"

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Offlinelaserpig
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: Grapefruit]
    #14555110 - 06/03/11 11:24 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Someday I need someone to show me how to use salvia correctly. Every time I've done it, it's been annoying and trivial, but other people consistently report deep experiences with it. There's got to be something I'm doing wrong.

I have no idea if you're ever "done" with a koan. Maybe you truly can push hard enough that something in the mind breaks open and you're never the same again, but personally I've only pursued it 'til I ran out of energy, and learned from the experience during the attempt. I don't know if there's a "goal" that you "get to," but the process of torture-testing your conceptual mind absolutely is itself illuminating.

Perhaps there really is a point where the mind fully gives in, and some state I haven't experienced arises. I don't know. Koan meditation is perhaps the single most engergy-and-focus-intensive technique I've attempted, so it wouldn't surprise me if I haven't gotten all out of it that I can.

Focusing on the breath IMO really is important, but it's more of a means to an end, than an end in and of itself. Steady, deep, relaxed breath is the ideal way to put the body in a state of rest while still heavily oxygenating the brain. That's what you want for meditation.

I once read an old Chinese alchemical meditation text called "The Secret of The Golden Flower," which I highly recommend. (And actually, now that I think about it, I should read it again myself. As always, I recommend completely ignoring the paragraphs of white-man interpretation which any edition you find is bound to come with. Just read the translated original text, and really think about it.) It's got some strange terminology because of the language and historical gap: for example, what we would be more inclined to call "mind," that text calls "the heart." The heart of the being, the mind. Kind of makes sense. Anyway, they say that the heart cannot be touched directly. But the breath is a handle on the heart. If once can circulate the light of the breath, IE perfect the natural rhythm of breathing, then the circulation of light in the heart/mind will follow as a matter of course.

What this means to me is that, no matter what kind of meditation you attempt, breathwork is important. As important as solid posture and comfortable seating, or perhaps even more so. In this sense, focusing on the breath is far from useless, but nonetheless I feel you're not really maximizing your meditative potential if ALL you do is focus on breathing. The organ you're trying to exercise in meditation is the brain, not the lungs.


--------------------
Weedmaster P knows the truth.

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OfflineOneU
Registered: 03/19/11
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: laserpig]
    #14555631 - 06/03/11 01:20 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

I found Salvia is similar to being thrown into the depths of the ocean. I will look around and think to myself nothing is happening, what is this, it's the medicines fault (get pretty negative oriented) until I stick my head out of the water, so to speak. Then, the realization starts. Then, I can be consciousness and face the fears I have locked away. The less you respect the medicine, the deeper you get thrown and the more you have to 'swim up' to get to the 'surface'.

Very peculiar.

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OfflineGrapefruit
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: OneU] * 1
    #14558978 - 06/04/11 06:04 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

I have no idea if you're ever "done" with a koan. Maybe you truly can push hard enough that something in the mind breaks open and you're never the same again, but personally I've only pursued it 'til I ran out of energy, and learned from the experience during the attempt. I don't know if there's a "goal" that you "get to," but the process of torture-testing your conceptual mind absolutely is itself illuminating.

Perhaps there really is a point where the mind fully gives in, and some state I haven't experienced arises. I don't know. Koan meditation is perhaps the single most engergy-and-focus-intensive technique I've attempted, so it wouldn't surprise me if I haven't gotten all out of it that I can.




I feel this from jed spiritual autolysis technique too, he describes it as a zen koan on steroids, it really just pushes you into a frenzy of typing afterward I always feel much more awake and my senses intensified. It's pretty easy to do too, just write your thoughts and look for the lies and correct, at the same time you focus on the moment and try to directly look at the reality of it. Very intensive stuff.

Quote:

Focusing on the breath IMO really is important, but it's more of a means to an end, than an end in and of itself. Steady, deep, relaxed breath is the ideal way to put the body in a state of rest while still heavily oxygenating the brain. That's what you want for meditation.

I once read an old Chinese alchemical meditation text called "The Secret of The Golden Flower," which I highly recommend. (And actually, now that I think about it, I should read it again myself. As always, I recommend completely ignoring the paragraphs of white-man interpretation which any edition you find is bound to come with. Just read the translated original text, and really think about it.) It's got some strange terminology because of the language and historical gap: for example, what we would be more inclined to call "mind," that text calls "the heart." The heart of the being, the mind. Kind of makes sense. Anyway, they say that the heart cannot be touched directly. But the breath is a handle on the heart. If once can circulate the light of the breath, IE perfect the natural rhythm of breathing, then the circulation of light in the heart/mind will follow as a matter of course.

What this means to me is that, no matter what kind of meditation you attempt, breathwork is important. As important as solid posture and comfortable seating, or perhaps even more so. In this sense, focusing on the breath is far from useless, but nonetheless I feel you're not really maximizing your meditative potential if ALL you do is focus on breathing. The organ you're trying to exercise in meditation is the brain, not the lungs.




I have found QiGong and general deep breathing best for the physical side of things in the past. I did it for about 2 and 1/2 months with two 15 minute sessions a day and the results were excellent given that you need not allocate much time to it. Really do intend to take it back up soon, infact I need to as the physical symptoms of awakening seem to be getting pretty serious.

Breath meditation has never really suited me, always feels like "doing this to get that" kinda thing. I can see how it would work for others though. Both practices are really mostly for the physical side of things though IMO, the mental side of things is an intellectual/intuitive process as far as I can see.

Quote:

Someday I need someone to show me how to use salvia correctly. Every time I've done it, it's been annoying and trivial, but other people consistently report deep experiences with it. There's got to be something I'm doing wrong.




Buy some strong extract and go for it, start small and work your way up. I wouldn't recommend going too far over the top, or at least it's a little too much for me. I have never been so positive that I was going to die as on breakthrough doses of salvia, it puts other psychs to shame in this regard. One of these trips felt like I actually saw two people die, because it's a deliriant it seems as real as day and then a voice says "you're next" and all of a sudden half my body is swallowed by a snake then I chickened out and managed to snap out of it.

You will probably have a much better feel for what the drug actually does these days. It doesn't give thought based insight in the same way other psychedelics do, it just knocks your ego for 6. At medium doses it's like it takes a snapshot of your consciousness and puts it on loop making you really "see" that segment, It's very analytical and at the same time a confrontation with death anxiety. At reasonably high doses (just pre breakthrough) it just reduces all your attachments and concepts to absurdity. Breakthroughs are just scary as shit and I don't think I get so much out of them.

That annoying and trivial effect you mention kind of is the reason it's so good, if you give it a go and stick at it you will start to see what I mean. As I said I think you'll probably understand why it does that a lot more since seeing no-self. I remember one experience when I was drunk and in a pretty bad mood, sat around a lot of my possessions and took a decent hit, all of them just seemed absolutely worthless and nothing, mere fragments of one reality that were unrelated to my ego. I remember crying out in protest "no, no, I do have more than this.".


--------------------
Little left in the way of energy; or the way of love, yet happy to entertain myself playing mental games with the rest of you freaks until the rivers run backwards. 

"Chat your fraff
Chat your fraff
Just chat your fraff
Chat your fraff"

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InvisibleThe Whale

Registered: 11/01/10
Posts: 2,384
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Re: What is your favorite koan? [Re: Grapefruit]
    #14567772 - 06/06/11 02:08 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

I find your descriptions of the salvia state(s) spot on.

My most memorable experience was from smoking the pure isolated salvinorin A. I vaporized it and more or less immediately lost normal consciousness. My entire being was being pulled by thousands of hands coming from every direction: underneath me, from the sides, from above, from underneath my feet. They were "sharp" and very cruel and were stealing shreds of me, slowly deleting my reality. I had the vague impression that they were constructed of my memories and notions of the people in my life. The hands were their incarnation. It's hard to explain.

I experienced a hangover the next day and mild depression. Salvia is usually very uplifting and I enjoy the afterglow personally. High doses is a different ballgame entirely. You are transported somewhere else inside yourself (or whatever you want to call it).


--------------------

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