Episode Description: This koan explores the key question: Where have you come from? Henry gives background anecdotes on the two characters in this koan, Isan and Kyozan, then startlingly describes a koan as an “affront to our humanity,” and the reality uncovered through Zen practice as “an intrusion on our experience.” Methodical and persistent Zen training, however, takes this experience and slowly refines, integrates and stabilizes it as our lived reality. Practice is much more than “collecting and calming the mind; it offers the true ocean of self-nature, the ultimate matter.” Listen to this teisho and discover how this simple but profound koan addresses three fundamental questions: Where have I come from? Who am I? and What should I do?

Post Image Credit:  Evening , by Hartwig HKD, CC BY-ND 2.0.

Featured Image Credit: By Ryan Dickey, Via Photopin, CC BY 2.0