Zen Koans: Ancient Wisdom for Today

Ancient wisdom of Japan you can use today

Author: David Tuffley
Length: 65 page(s)
Written: Apr 2011
Sales Rank: -
Views: 324

The kōan is an enigmatic or paradoxical question used to develop a person’s Intuition. Kōans are a valuable tool in your quest for enlightenment, but how do they work and why use them?

Kōans work by confounding logic and forcing a person out of their normal thinking and into the realm of Intuition. In other words, the inherent meaning is inaccessible to rational understanding, but perhaps accessible to Intuition.

This book presents some of the classic kōans from traditional Zen, originally written hundreds of years ago in Japanese, and re-interpreted from early English translations into early 21st Century English. The underlying meaning is still there, so they will still work as a kōan should, but they are expressed in language more easily understood by people in the 21st Century.

Each kōan encapsulates a profound truth for reflection. Zen counsels the lessening of the ego, not the strengthening of it as consumer culture would urge. Instead of making a name for ourselves in society, we should listen to the voice of pines and cedars when no wind stirs, in other words become no-thing, entering instead the field of pure being that is behind the phenomenal world.

About the Author

David Tuffley
Member since: Apr 2011
Publications on XinXii:  25

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David Tuffley PhD is lecturer and researcher at Griffith University in Australia. David is a Software Engineer, though his interests range across Comparative Religion, Philosophy, Psychology, Anthropology, Literature, History, and Architecture.

David has been an academic since 1999. Before academia he was a consultant for public and private sector IT clients in Australia and the United Kingdom. He combines theory and practice in a focussed and disciplined way that has proved effective for solving problems for clients.

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