| | Been solving koans as of late, I find that with much of the striving-diligence practice (viriya, appamada) there is an increase in heart tension and an increase in strength and will-power (iddhi, indriya, padhana etc). Koans have the opposite effect, they seem to work with my anxiety in such a way that the tension goes away, instead of striving, many opposites and contradictions are taken care of.
I'm reminded of Alan Chapman's tweet that went something like: "If someone born in a dissolving aeon is born ignorant and later attains awakening, does that mean someone who's born in an aeon of expansion is born enlightened only to attain ignorance?"
When I read a koan it just sinks into my heart, I don't really analyze it, but it solves something, it feels nice. It's like the opposite of proliferation, or rumination, where one thought leads to many, in this case, many contradicting thoughts resolve into one.
A trick for koans is somehow to relate things back to "self" constantly, that's usually the case with mathematics wherein edge cases always contain the paradoxes (1, 0 or infinity), for koans, relating them to self seems to produce pseudo-profound answers.
Richard: thanks for the advice, I've noticed that my practice has a strong momentum, but it seems to have reached a dead-end, so I guess I will have to be creating new habits to actually reach new territory.
ggnore |