The Iron Flute 100 Zen Koans

A reader reviews the Zen book The Iron Flute a collection of 100 Koans - 100 stories meant to shake up how we view the here and now. Originally I purchased the book to read over a rainy weekend, twenty years later it caught my eye sitting between numerous unread companions, and I read it. If I had read it when I originally bought it I'm sure my perception and understanding would have been far different then what it is today and I'm certain my reading of it those twenty years ago would have been arid.

The Iron Flute collection of Koans originally compiled by Genro in the 1780's, it includes additional commentary on each Koan from his student Fugai, it was translated by Nyogen Senzaki and Ruth Strout McCandless in 1950's.

The book begins with an intro from a contemporary Zen priest, Steve Hagen. "When I first began practicing Zen under Dainin Katagiri Roshi, he asked me to comment on a Zen koan. I told him, in all honesty, that I found the koan puzzling. Immediately his face wrinkled up as if he had bitten into a lemon. "Not puzzle!" he shouted. He quickly made it clear to me that Zen teachings are not puzzles to which we students are expected to come up with clever answers".

Over the century's many approaches to Koans have developed but few explanations seem to speak to the definition found in this book "Koans are expressions of immediate awareness before we categorize, label, arrange or evaluate everything" Reality without coloring or prejudice is additionally a clear view. Many Zen teachers and authors suggest that you leave your preconceived notions at the door when you read a Koan and just let it work within you. Perhaps like marinating the koan itself without the traditional grinding of thoughts will come to meaning all by itself.

So the approach in reading or studying a Koan seems like a puzzle or maze some crazy Zen master is beckoning you to become trapped in, but this is missing the point entirely. A Koan may best be approached as something you perceive here and now, and not something you add layers of intellectual analysis to. If you're new to Koans try reading one, and then just sit with it. The koan Itself is not magic or some new age trick, it's an expression of here and now. Even my attempt to explain fails as I'm caught in trying to explain meaning with my own words and perceptions, simplicity eludes me. My explanation is itself a coloring of the koan egg.

Here is the first Koan in The Iron Flute

One day as Manjusri stood outside the gate,
the Buddha called to him, "Manjusri, Manjusri, why do you not enter?"
Manjusri replied, "I do not see myself as outside. Why enter?"

The book offers scads of commentary for each of the 100 koans, though the commentary at times will seem even further away from understanding, remember understanding intellectually is not the goal. Each Koan presented is uniquely a moment by itself and if you read The Iron Flute like a novel please go back later and take each one by itself. If your a beginner you might try reading it out-loud or have someone read it out-loud to you.

What's The Point

Indeed what's the point of my digging out gems from the book and sharing them with you? If the point of koans is an experience then as an old Zen monk might say, " who cares what I say, who cares that I may think the book is important." Important, indeed...what a rascal I am.