Koan And Kensho In The Rinzai Zen Curriculum

Abstract

Abstract According to a widely accepted model, a koan is a clever psychological device designed to induce satori or kensho. The koan is said to pose to the Zen practitioner a paradox unsolvable by the rational, intellectualizing mind. Driven into an ever more desperate corner by his repeated futile attempts to solve what cannot be rationally solved, the practitioner finally breaks through the barrier of rational intellection to the realm of preconceptual and prelinguistic consciousness variously called pure consciousness, no-mind, without-thinking, or emptiness. This breakthrough is called satori or kenshi5. The cleverness of the koan consists in the fact that rather than attacking reason and logic from outside, the koan uses reason to drive itself into a selfcontradiction and cause its own destruction. In this picture, the koan is fundamentally an instrument and has no use except as a means for psychologically inducing kensho. These two notions-the koan as nonrational, psychological instrument, and kenshi5 as the breakthrough to nonrational, noncognitive, pure consciousness-nicely support each other.

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