Will's blog : Zen koans to keep handy by your fireside

introduction

These are the long lost koans of the great Zen Masters Will, Ben, and Anna. They were recently unearthed in the bowels of a cave in South Dakota, written on parchment pressed between the bricks of an ancient parchment press.

It is said that those who wish to add to these wistful wisdom whimsies could do so through the comments section at the bottom.

koan 1

Young Gephart said to Master Ben, "I have often wondered about the donkey in our yard who seems to snort every time I ask it if it is hungry. Can the donkey that is braying be at peace?"

Master Ben thought a moment and said, "Is it the donkey that brays at you, or you that hears the donkey braying?"

Young Gephart thought about Master Ben for a bit wondering if Master Ben should move into a nice little white room with men wearing nice white coats who smile at him gently.

Young Gephart thought, "Maybe this Zen stuff isn't for me at all and maybe I should have set up a corner store and sold funny little decorations and tin trinkets like my mother told me to."

Then a few minutes passed and Young Gephart suddenly smiled said, "Whether it is the smart-ass hearing the smart-ass bray, or the smart-ass braying at the smart-ass, we are all smart-asses!"

To which Master Ben became occluded and wrinkled his eyebrows in perplexion. "These young folks....", he muttered.

Master Will said, "Here son, have a cookie."

koan 2

Master Will and Master Ben set up camp on a riverbank after a long day of canoeing. They pulled out their pan to fry a few strands of bacon before the sun slipped into its salmon slumber.

The Masters cooked their meat in silence and thought of the rippling of the water and the sparkling of the sun.

As the bacon was almost fried, the pan exclaimed, "Master Will! Master Ben! I have had the strangest dream! I was a small insect who owned a giant industrial park devoted to churning milkfat into a viscous substance. And now I am forced to wonder whether I was a pan dreaming he was a butter fly or am now a butter fly dreaming he is a pan."

Master Ben and Master Will sat in silence, munching loudly on their bacon.

koan 3

One evening while Master Will and Master Ben were dangling their naked feet in the naked waters of the ocean which was naked, Master Will, who wouldn't know a naked woman if she beat him over the head with her nudity, asked, "Master Ben... What are these things called naked women?"

Master Ben who typically finds himself naked replied, "In language, the adjective before the noun reflects upon the noun that it preceeds. Thus a naked woman is a woman who is naked."

Master Will thought upon this naked truth and then asked, "If people are nouns, then what reflects upon them?"

Master Ben, smiling happily because he's realizing he gets to say the Zen conundrum line here, quietly stated in a nakedly revealing way, "Many people are nouns. Many other people are adjectives. And a happy few who are at peace with the world are neither noun nor adjective for they reflect upon themselves."

koan 4

Master Ben and Master Will were tending to their potato field. As Master Will was hoeing the earth, he was also pondering upon the many stars that he saw last night when the moon was wrapped in shadow.

Suddenly, he stopped hoeing and said unto Master Ben, "Master Ben, last night there was no moon and I saw millions of stars speckled across the sky like grains of sand upon a black marble counter top."

As the wind quietly whispered through the grasses, Master Ben looked up from his weeding and said, "Yup, there sure are a lot of them."

koan 5

Master Ben was walking through the forest, when he happened upon a little girl. He sat with her, pondering the chirping of the birds and the girl's munching.

She burst out, "Where is the spider that was promised to me? I was told he would come if I just sat on this tuffet and ate these curds!"

Master Ben considered this for a moment, his brow furrowed. Then a calm expression spread over his face. He whistled into the verdant yonder. Out of the forest came Master Will. After a few moments more, out came a spider who sat down beside her.

Master Ben giggled impishly at the little girl and said, "Where there's a Will, there's a whey."

koan 6

Master Ben was wandering along the path that led from the lake up to the house that he lived in with the other Zen Masters when he stumbled upon Master Will who was working on mending the stone wall.

Master Ben stopped for a few moments watching Master Will sweating profusely trying to lift a heavy stone into place. He was using another stone as a fulcrum and a large stick as a lever with which to lift the heavy stone into place. Master Ben asked, "What are you doing with that stick?"

Master Will replied between grunts of effort, "To give the ... heavy stone motivation ... to move into place."

At this point Master Ben put his hand on Master Will's shoulder indicating for Master Will to step back a bit. Master Ben breathed in slowly, focusing his energy. Then Master Ben shouted at the rock, "B-R-E-A-K!!" and with a fluid and striking movement he split the heavy stone in two.

Master Ben grinned and said, "Now that, my boy, is motivation."

koan 7

Master Ben and Master Will lay down to sleep one night after meditating greatly on the nature of the universe. As they drifted off into their peaceful slumber, they began to dream.

Master Ben dreamed that he was flying far above the fields of the monastery, into the glow of the rising sun. He gazed to his left and saw the black veins and colored spots of a butterfly wing. He glanced to his right and saw the same. He realized happily that he was a butterfly.

Master Will dreamed he was flying too, likewise into the glow of the rising sun. Similarly, he observed his left and right and saw the two butterfly wings, and happily concluded that he was a butterfly.

In fact, they were dreaming they were the same butterfly.

Master Will could feel Master Ben in the mind of the butterfly, and Master Ben could feel Master Will. The beauteous insect swooped through the crisp and cold air, gleefully rising and plummeting on the quiet morning breeze.

koan 8

Young Gerry was curled up under an oak tree when he was discovered by Master Will. Master Will was not pleased--Young Gerry should have been doing his chores. This was often the case with Young Gerry because he was lazy.

The next morning, Master Will was sipping a cup of tea watching the sun stretch in a myriad of colored yawns and rise above the horizon. Young Gerry walked swiftly by him on his way to do chores which was terribly odd and completely out of character. Never had Young Gerry been seen to be walking the earth at such an early hour. A minute later, Master Ben wandered over to Master Will and sat down, a long two-by-four in his hand.

Master Will spoke, "Master Ben, how is it that Young Gerry has cast off his lazy coil and entered into such hard labor at such an early hour?"

Master Ben smiled, putting his two-by-four to the side, "Ahhh... Young Gerry has learned much after his chance meeting with the Board of Education."

Master Ben and Master Will sipped tea and savored the sun rise.

koan 9

Young Flanigan was having trouble opening the cupboard in which the emergency supply of koans was kept. As he was in a thinking mood, he needed a koan as soon as possible to ponder. And yet the cupboard was locked with a fiendishly big combination padlock. Flanigan tried for hours to pull it open, to cut the lock off, to guess the combination. Eventually he tired of the effort.

"Master Ben, Master Ben," he called. Thirty-seven seconds later, Master Ben gallumphed into the kitchen and gazed expectantly at Young Flanigan.

"I can't open the koan cupboard," Flanigan said.

Master Ben chuckled, cracked his neck twice, and whistled a happy tune as he left the room.

Flanigan was greatly puzzled by this, and thought on it a while. He was in a thinking mood, you must recall. He too chuckled, cracked his neck and whistled, but nothing came of it. So Flanigan called Master Will.

Master Will heard his call and wandered over. Before Young Flanigan could utter a word, Master Will walked to the padlock and kissed it, and the cupboard sprang open and the koans all fell out. Flanigan was amazed to notice that the padlock was still closed.

Master Will smiled and left. Young Flanigan immediately became enlightened.

koan 10

Master Ben, Master Will, and Master Anna were sharing koans. Master Ben went first.

"A great master was sitting across a jug of water from his student. 'Master,' said the youth, 'is not water the most powerful element in nature? Its force can take lives and demolish cities. It can destroy either by absence or excess. Man has contained its power.' The master thought for a moment, then kicked over the jug."

Master Will and Master Anna contemplated the koan for a while. Master Will then spoke.

"While making camp one day, two masters were roasting vegetables over their fire. One said to the other, 'let us be glad we are not animals and have the comfort of fire.' The second master said only, 'if I were not hungry it would be just as well.'"

Master Ben and Master Anna nodded and thought deeply on the koan. Soon Masters Will and Ben turned to Master Anna, asking her silently whether she had a koan to share.

Master Anna only sat peacefully, eating the last of her ice cream. Finally she spoke. "I would share my koan," she said with her mouth full, "only I've almost finished it."

koan 11

One day, Brother Steven wandered over to Master Will who was quietly reading a book about sheep bladders and how they could be employed to prevent earthquakes, and asked him, "Should I go see a movie tonight with my friend Joey or should I hang out with Meg who I am very fond of?"

Master Will looked at Brother Steven over his glasses and furrowed his brow in thought. Then Master Will said, "One day Master Will wandered over to Master Ben to see what Master Ben was doing. Master Ben was twirling a basketball in his left hand, and kneading bread with his right hand. Master Will marvelled at Ben's masterful abilities and then asked, 'Why are you twirling basketballs and kneading bread?' Master Ben replied, 'I have these two hands. I wanted to get some practice in, but I needed to bake bread for supper tonight. I could do either one or the other, but in this case I can do both. If I couldn't do both, I would knead the bread, because playing Basketball should never come in the way of getting the buns in the oven.'"

Brother Steven was enlightened.

koan 12

Master Ben was sitting at breakfast. He takes a triangle of toast, dips it in his coffee, and then sucks on it as he reads from whatever book he is enjoying at the time.

Young Dmitri sees Master Ben doing this and frowning grumpily all the while as Master Ben is wont to do in the morning (Master Ben doesn't like mornings much). Young Dmitri wanders over and hands Master Ben a book on psychology and says, "I want you to have this to read so that you may discover the happiness in the morning."

Master Ben looked up at Young Dmitri, looked down at the psychology book, frowned, took the book from Young Dmitri, dropped the book in his coffee saying, "I want my coffee to have happy mornings, too."

koan 13

Master Anna was sitting by the fire writing in her journal when Master Ben swept in and sat down across from her. He looked across the fire's flames and sparks at Master Anna until she looked up.

Master Ben said unto her, "Anna, it is such a glorious night and you are so wisely spending it sitting by the fireside collecting your thoughts. Perhaps you wouldn't mind sharing a thought or two with me?"

Master Anna read aloud from her journal:

      Goat's beard. Goat...speared. Oh,
      Mutton!  I'm a mutton glut.
      Ton! Mutton glutton!

Master Ben said, "Oh I see."