Caveat: This post is mine and mine alone. I the author of this blog assure you, the reader, that any of the opinions expressed here are my own and are a result of the way in which my meandering mind interprets a particular situation and or concept. The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of other martial arts and/or conflict/violence professionals or authors of source materials. It should be quite obvious that the sources I used herein have not approved, endorsed, embraced, friended, liked, tweeted or authorized this post. (Everything I think and write is true, within the limits of my knowledge and understanding.)
What are Zen koans? It is a terse story, dialogue, question, or statement (quote), which is used in the practice of Zen that its purpose is to stimulate thought thereby provoking within the practitioner doubt. It is also a test of the practitioners Zen progress. In Japanese the term koan is the reading of teh Chinese work gong’an. These are actually and historically connected to the ancient Chinese practices where Chinese masters would quote stories with practitioners (disciples) then make a comment on it with the purpose of educating students and broaden their insight into the teachings.
The karate koan for practitioners of “Ti” would be the “ken-po goku-i” often presented to practitioners to also broaden their insight into the teachings of martial arts as well as educate. When studied and as practitioners grow, learn and experience both life and martial arts then often perceive different things from the gokui much like Zen disciples of the Buddhist teachings.
For the most modern of us there is also the variety and sources of martial quotes. These quotes are not meant to be taken literally and singularly but rather as a type of martial koan that stimulates thinking, study and experience building practices. All to often they are taken literally and figuratively as stand alone sound-bites of wisdom but they are not that, they are simply quotes of insight from teachers to educate and provide insight that allows the student/practitioner to go beyond the basics both in life and martial arts.
For instance, this quote is meant to stimulate thought, thinking and the creation of theories and ideas much like using a hypothesis in a scientific experiment to find the truth about that hypothesis. The quote from martial historians, sensei, senpai and kohai, etc., are small terse stories that stimulate and promote progress and growth in each of us.
“I feel strongly the truth of one’s belief that the answers one gives to life’s crucial questions are never truly spontaneous; they are the embodiment of years of contextual experience, of the building of patterns in each of our lives that eventually grow to dominate our behavior.” - Kreizler
Quotes taken alone and without contemplative meditative thought tend to be an obstacle to progress and practitioners actually stagnate in practice, training and especially teaching martial arts fully and completely.
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