KOANS

KOANS are a strange class of enlightening stories, encounters, questions, images, and even single words small enough to carry in the pocket of your mind or heart. Just as every particle of holographic light contains the image projected by the entire hologram, every koan transmits dharma and confirms reality in a way that contains and conveys the whole—of mind, heartbeat, world, galaxy, universe, you.

The Japanese word means “public case.” Koans were recorded in a public monastic moment and publicly confirm the undivided reality that is hidden nowhere and experienced directly, right where we are. Each koan illuminates mind unclouded by any sense of “me in here, you or that out there.” The whole of what is, including “me,” is an utterly “public” mystery, hidden in plain sight. This is what koans open us to.