I'm interested to know the academic consensus on Cleary's translation of The Blue Cliff Record. I've heard that his translations could be spotty at times, given that, how accurately has he depicted this text? To clarify: I want to know how closely Cleary's translation adheres to the original Blue Cliff Record, not how the Buddhist community regards it in terms of Buddhist practice.

I've been looking around online for an answer to this question, but have come up empty handed. My understanding of *The Blue Cliff Record* is that it's a collection of famous cases compiled from the history of Zen. But what I'm wondering is how *The Mumonkan* differs from it? (I haven't read this one yet). Is there any overlap in the cases? And what was the purpose of having two different collections of Koans? Is it an entirely new collection? If so, what is the difference in the history of their respective collections?

I want to work on the Koan,**'What was your original face before you were born'** and '**Who am I**',How do I go about it. Should I constantly ask myself this question? Should I write it down? How is the Koan practise done?

I read that koan practice is meant to create doubt. But what happens when the koan has been passed? Does doubt end, or begin again, or get literally "shattered"? Does the practitioner experience a moment of hope?

There are lots of Koans on the internet, but I am not sure if there is some sort of process that a Koan must go through, or if there is some sort of list of Koans that are taught and that new ones are not added. Meaning, if a Koan is just made up on the spot by some random person, and the Koan is unrelated to the core principals of Zazen, I presume it wouldn't be taught by a Japanese Zen master. Which leads me to believe that there are some sort of "canon" of Koans.

From [Socratic questioning – Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_questioning) : >Socratic questioning is a form of disciplined questioning that can be used to pursue thought in many directions and for many purposes, including: to explore complex ideas, to get to the truth of things, to open up issues and problems, to uncover assumptions, to analyze concepts, to distinguish what we know from what we do not know, to follow out logical consequences of thought or to control discussions. Socratic questioning is based on the foundation that thinking has structured logic, and allows underlying thoughts to be questioned. The key to distinguishing Socratic questioning from questioning per se is that Socratic questioning is systematic, disciplined, deep and usually focuses on fundamental concepts, principles, theories, issues or problems. > > Examples of Socratic questions that are used for students in educational settings: > >1. Getting students to clarify their thinking and explore the origin of their thinking e.g., 'Why do you say that?', 'Could you explain further?' > 2. Challenging students about assumptions e.g., 'Is this always the case?', 'Why do you think that this assumption holds here?' > 3. Providing evidence as a basis for arguments e.g., 'Why do you say that?', 'Is there reason to doubt this evidence?' > 4. Discovering alternative viewpoints and perspectives and conflicts between contentions e.g., 'What is the counter-argument?', 'Can/did anyone see this another way?' > 5. Exploring implications and consequences e.g., 'But if...happened, what else would result?', 'How does...affect...?' > 6. Questioning the question e.g., 'Why do you think that I asked that question?', 'Why was that question important?', 'Which of your questions turned out to be the most useful?' Does this sound familiar with any Buddhism teachings/suttas? In specific, I think this has the same idea with koans, but I'm not sure. My interest seems to be about zen and mahayana, however any schools are welcomed.

What prompted the great BodhiDharma to go to China to spread his teachings- why not at home in the first place. Was he the founder of kalari payattu which has become somewhat unknown to us?

I'm new here. I have a question regarding "Not-Buddhism" as the highest level of Buddhism. I'm not sure where is the source, but this is the koan. >Tozan said to his monks, "You monks should know there is an even higher understanding in Buddhism." A monk stepped forward and asked, "What is the higher Buddhism?" Tozan answered, "**It is not Buddha.**" What does Tozan mean by "It is not Buddha"?

A further question: is there an online community that creates kōans? Thank you so much! John

I keep seeing the following koan: > A monk asked Zhàozhōu, "Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?" Zhaozhou said, "Wú". What does this mean and why is it important? More specifically: Does "Wú" mean "no" in this context, or does it mean "the question doesn't make sense and therefore cannot be answered"? I've seen both interpretations, which one is correct?

> A kōan (公案?) (/ˈkoʊ.ɑːn/; Chinese: 公案; pinyin: gōng'àn; Korean: 공안 (kong'an); Vietnamese: công án) is a ***story, dialogue, question, or statement,*** (1) which is used in Zen practice to ***provoke the "great doubt"*** (2) and ***test a student's progress*** (3) in Zen practice. (4) Kōan Wikipedia 1. What are these stories, dialogues, questions, or statements? Where do they come from? How are they formulated? 2. What is "great doubt"? What is the goal of provoking "great doubt"? 3. What is being tested? What are the possible responses? How does the response quantify progress? 4. What is the overall goal of kōans? Perhaps considering a few kōans it is possible to illustrate the process from choosing or formulating the story, question, statement, or dialog, inspiring "great doubt", and how this measures progress and ultimately relates to the goal kōans / "great doubt" is supposed to achieve. Looking for an explanation based on any tradition using kōans including but not limited to [tag:zen] or [tag:mahayana]. Objective is to better understand the following content .

I am looking for a book of kōans that contains things like the following: > Nasreddin Khodja commanded his disciples, when he sneezed, to salute him by clapping their hands and crying out: "Haïr Ollah, Khodja," that is "Prosperity to thee, O Master!" Now it came to pass that on one of the days the bucket fell into the well [...] he descended, caught the bucket, and the boys were already pulling him up, when, just as he was drawing near the edge of the well, he chanced to sneeze. Whereupon they, mindful of the master's behest, let go the rope and, clapping their hands in high glee, cried out in chorus: "Haïr Ollah, Khodja," Nasreddin was precipitated violently into the well, bruising himself against the sides. [...] "Well, boys, it was not your fault, but mine: too much honour is no good thing for man." And: > A farmer’s horse ran away. His neighbors gathered upon hearing the news and said sympathetically, “That’s such bad luck.” > “Maybe,” the farmer replied. > > The horse returned on his own the next morning, and brought seven wild horses with it. “Look how many more horses you have now,” the neighbors exclaimed. “How lucky!” > “Maybe,” the farmer replied. > > The next day, the farmer’s son attempted to ride one of the wild horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. “How awful,” the neighbors said. “It looks like your luck has turned for the worse again.” > The farmer simply replied, “Maybe.” > > The following day, military officers came to town to conscript young men into the service. Seeing the son’s broken leg, they rejected him. The neighbors gathered round the farmer to tell him how fortunate he was. > “Maybe,” said the farmer. And: > An elder monk was addressing his students with a large staff. He asked the first student, "What is the Buddha mind?" The first student answered as well as he could, and said "To know the Buddha nature in all things." The elder monk hit the first student in the head with the staff. > > He went to the next student, and asked again: "What is the Buddha mind?" The next student answered "non attachment," and the elder monk hit him with the stick, too. > > He asked the third student the same question, and the third student did nothing but quake in fear. That student got a knock on the head as well. > > The process continued until one of the elder monk's students, before the elder monk had even finished his question, grabbed the stick out of his hand. That was the correct answer. And: > A Zen Master lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening, while he was away, a thief sneaked into the hut only to find there was nothing in it to steal. The Zen Master returned and found him. "You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty handed. Please take my clothes as a gift." The thief was bewildered, but he took the clothes and ran away. The Master sat naked, watching the moon. "Poor fellow," he mused, " I wish I could give him this beautiful moon." Is there such a book? If so, what is its name? I would like to read more of these types of enlightening little stories. I don't like kōans that are heavy on doctrines.

I like studying Buddhism, especially Prasangika, but I find I sometimes get kind of conceptual. I practice shamata every day, but if a beginner like myself wants to try meditation/mindfulness with koans, where should he begin? Any general tips for dos and don'ts?

Or must we just count our breaths and repeat the phrase? I was asked I think "what is your original face" - and I think it's the way / tao, but that's just something that occurred to me, I wrote down on a computer and it seemed alright. It's not that I want to be a part of some tradition or church, really. But all I got out of counting breaths was a lot of leg pain, somewhat (but not completely) offset with some nice feelings and lots of stuff like this /<<<^^^^^

Over the years, as I have seen various commentaries on koans, I've become aware that the quoted text seems to always derive from one of a very few English translations, but the translation concerned is rarely mentioned. I am no expert on this area of philology and I'm particularly interested in the version which for Hyakujo’s Fox uses the phrasing "fall under the yoke of causation". This was the first translation which I saw, and so somehow canonical to me. I wonder if it is a highly regarded one? My main interest is in intellectual curiosity, being interested in philology more generally.

In a recent [meta discussion](https://buddhism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/271/should-we-have-a-policy-not-to-provide-koan-answers) some people expressed the opinion that giving koan answers may be detrimental to one's practice. In what way, exactly? And if it is so, why did many Buddhists publish koan commentaries for many hundred years?

I have a copy of *[The Iron Flute](http://www.amazon.com/The-Iron-Flute-100-Koans/dp/080483248X)* that I use to study individual kōans, and read the analysis provided. I feel like this provides me with some good insight, but it also feels... backwards. How are kōans used in modern Buddhism? Are they intended as teaching aids, where the explanation illustrates one or more principals, or are they intended as puzzles that only sufficiently advanced students should be able to figure out? Or can either strategy (or altogether different strategies) be employed to gainful effect?