The Zennist: Koan are about the investigation of Buddha Mind

Is the human mind the sum of the brain’s neural activity? We can better understand what this question intends by asking, “Is what comes out of an iPod the sum of the iPod’s components? The answer is no. The iPod did not write the music it plays. By the same account, the brain’s neural activity is not creating mind. Neuroscientists have no idea what Buddha Mind is.

What, so to speak, goes on in our heads, such as our mental images, internal dialogue, emotions and so forth, are mind generated. Being involved in this process we don’t recognize mind as it really is. We only witness the effects of mind, even though, from a Buddhist standpoint, we are absolute Mind. As ordinary beings (not enlightened beings) all that we are capable of beholding is mind generated effects.

When we have to face a koan, what the creator of the koan is not telling us is that the koan’s participant is going to become ensnared, facing a clever mind generated image (it's a trap!), or a phrase or word such as ‘Mu’ (another trap!). More importantly, what the participant is not being told is that the koan’s answer rests, not upon the mind generated images or words, but on realizing the Mind that generates all this. Only if the koan’s participant manages to discover this Mind will the koan’s intent become clear. Only then will the koan be solved.

The koan is not words of wisdom or some special kind of Buddhist advice. The koan is setting up the participant to look within to uncover the luminous nature of Mind. In the preface to the Zenshu Mumonkan by Mumon he says that “Buddhism makes mind its foundation” ((trans. Blyth). This is an important clue to the koan, itself. We can ponder koans from an intellectual perspective—but part of the real intention of the koan is to exhaust the intellect until we arrive at our wit’s end. Only then are we ripe for the plucking; only then we might get lucky and see Buddhism’s foundation.

If we neglect the investigation of Mind, itself, which is forever immaculate and, instead, follow words and letters which are Mind produced, we will never arrive at the true essence of Zen. Before the image appears in our head, before internal dialogue is spoken, before our pondering of the koan, trying to intellectualize it, according to The Hekigan Roku (The Blue Cliff Records) lies, “The real substance of the Universe, the ‘First Principle.’

One more thing. Almost anything the Zen masters of old did was made into a koan. Even the most simple act of a student who answers the teacher’s summons can be turned into a koan. “What brought you to my quarters?” Here the teacher is making the student look for the real substance of the Universe that animates his body. Unless the student knows the answer he is a goner. If the student can’t give the right answer how can he expect to know the answer to “The eastern mountain sails on the river”?