About This Author
My name is Joy, and I love to write. Why poetry, here? Because poetry uplifts its writer, and if she is lucky enough, her readers, too. Around us, so many objects abound to write about. Once a poet starts with a smallest, most trivial object, he shall discover that his pen will spill out what is most delicate or most majestic hidden inside him. Since the classics sometimes dealt with lofty subjects with a lofty language, a person with poetry in his soul may incline to emulate that. That is understandable. Poetry does that to a person: it enlarges the soul and gives it wings. Yet, to really soar, a poet needs to take off from the ground. Kiya's gift. I love it!
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Oct 4, 2005 at 10:46am
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Edited: October 4, 2005 at 10:49am
A Few Koans for the Third Prompt
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What is the truth that has not been taught?

If you grasped the problem, what is the problem?

There is a big stone. Do you consider it to be inside or outside your mind?

Both speech and silence are faulty. How can you escape these faults?

Blow and You Can Extinguish a Fire. Blow and You Can Make a Fire. So why don’t you stop blowing?

When the world is destroyed, it is not destroyed, isn't it?

You never step in the same river twice. Do you?

The well has no sympathy for the peasant. Does the peasant know sympathy?

If the journey is longer coming back, why do you go?

Water heats gradually and boils suddenly. So why do you rush each time this happens?

What was your original face before you were born?

The Stream Never Flows Backward. The Water Slips
Past, Past, Past...But the Moon Doesn't Move.

"Medicines cure diseases. The whole earth is medicine, but which is yourself?”

"How can we escape the cold and heat?" “"Why not go where there is no cold and heat?"

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As to what a Zen Koan is, two definitions are:
"In Zen a koan is a formulation, in baffling language, pointing to ultimate Truth. Koans cannot be solved by recourse to a logical reasoning but only through awakening a deeper level of the mind beyond the discursive intellect."
                    From the book, “The Three Pillars of Zen”

"A paradox to be meditated upon that is used to train Zen Buddhist monks to abandon ultimate dependence on reason and force them into gaining sudden intuitive enlightenment."
                   Webster’s Dictionary

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A Few Koans for the Third Prompt
· 10-04-05 10:46am
by Joy Author IconMail Icon

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