I just remembered that one of the threads which I had bookmarked on the old hip forums is now lost. It was a thread with submissions by many people of modern day koans. Since the thread no longer exists, I was wondering if we could start a new one since the old one was so helpful and entertaining. Love, Diana
A man came into the Zen Center smoking a cigarette, blowing smoke in the Buddha-statue's face and dropping ashes on its lap. A monk came in, saw the man, and said, "Are you crazy? Why are you dropping ashes on the Buddha?" The man answered, "Buddha is everything. Why not?" The monk couldn't answer and went away.
I have a great little book The Little Zen Companion (by David Schiller) it has a mix of classic koans and some quotes by modern Western thinkers that could be interpreted as koans. My personal favourite is from Louis Armstrong: "If you have to ask what jazz is you'll never know." Which I suppose applies equally to zen. TTFN Sage