Zen Koans

For years I have enjoyed the wisdom I find in Zen Buddhism and their pithy little saying called koans. I thought I would share a few of my favorites.

The first is about one who was seeking enlightenment and asked a Zen teacher if you met a zen master on the road to enlightenment, what would you do? The teacher replied, “Whack him one.”

Another is about a woman who possessed a beautiful little golden Buddha in which she could burn incense. But she wanted to keep her little Buddha to herself so she would always cover it with her hands when she burned incense. Soon the little gold Buddha was covered with black with suet.

Finally, this is my favorite. A man was walking down the jungle path one day when he heard growling behind him. He ran down the path with growling behind him and came to a cliff. He looked over the cliff and saw a vine growing on the side of the cliff. He jumped over the cliff and grabbed hold on the vine and listened to the growling of the tiger above him and then noticed at the bottom of the cliff was another tiger looking up at him and growling at him. Hanging on to the vine he then heard some gnawing sounds. Looking up she saw a white mouse and a black mouse gnawing on the vine he was hanging from. Then he looked beside him and saw a clump of grapes growing on the vine. With on hand he hung on to the view and with the other he plucked some grapes, tossed them in his mouth and said, “How delicious.”