About a week ago, I finished Nyogen Senzaki's The Iron Flute. It is a collection of 100 Zen koans, with commentary, and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in either Taoism or Zen. Back in the archives, I've posted many of my favorites, so I won't post any here.
Each koan has commentary with it, and the commentary is iself a koan in most cases. However, my favorite part of the commentary is that it has been built onto over the years. Genro, Fugai and Nyogen have all added comments (Nyogen's being the most recent), and they weave together like a conversation, or sometimes an argument, clarifiying and confusing all at the same time. There are cases where the commentary opened my eyes to a meaning I hadn't seen before, and other cases where I thought I understood until I read the commentary.
One final thought. This is not a book to sit down and read all at once. Perhaps some people would get something out of it that way, but I sure wouldn't. I read this book slowly. First I tried one koan a day, then I decided that wasn't enough. I would read a koan one day, and reread it the next. Sometimes I would reread it the third day as well, but usually I moved on. So I've been working on this book since last August. It was well-worth it, and I'm sure I'll come back and reread them all again at some point.
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I'm not sure what this blog stands for any more. It died once and I'm working on bringing it back to life, one post at a time.
2 comments:
Enlighten me. What's a koan? I've seen the term many times before, but I've never known what it means.
A 'koan' is basically a paradoxical story, usually associated with Zen. The idea is to take people beyond the ordinary level of thinking. (Sorry about not answering for so long; tests to write and grade, projects to get done...)
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