Koan
The practice of sitting with a koan is to focus on forming the capacity to live comfortably within tension: to know and not know, to see paradox as an essential element of truth-seeking. Truth is that which we know directly; it presents itself as an unalterable encounter with that which is. It is a kind of perception from within, yet fully transcendent in that, even without one's direct encounter, it stands imperturbably and inexorably within its own self-knowing, for truth is not only factual - more than that, it is relational. To know truth is to know oneself, and to be within oneself is to submit to and stand within that dance of within and without. This itself presents a paradox; it is a koan.
A koan is a statement, a kind of sentence that expresses something which seems at first glance to be a contradiction - a kind of expression in which opposing elements cannot seem to exist together. Yet, as we ruminate and sit with that phrase long enough, what begins to emerge is the awareness that what stands is not contradiction but paradox: something that expresses mutual truths that somehow come together and collaborate to reveal a deeper meaning.
A koan, as expressed within the philosophical tradition of Zen Buddhism, is geared toward the exhaustion of the intellect, demonstrating the folly of pure rationalism as the primary mode of knowing that which is true. For what is true extends beyond facts. In fact, one may say that mere facts hardly present themselves as truths at all - merely arbitrary bits of information that happen to be so. Historical and scientific facts are such as these: interesting bits of information, but hardly meaningful in the sense that they do not necessarily order one's life. The fact of a scientific theory, purported to be most likely so, is an interesting phenomenon to know, but observation - the kind of direct experience within one's life - may be unalterably different from the fact itself. The sun is said to rise, not the earth to rotate. Though it is a rotational cycle, the experience is that we see a bright light come and go, rise and fall; that experience then dictates the encounter of what is meaningful, not merely factual. Facts are representations of the mind that imply a phenomenon, but truth implies something far greater. Truth supplies meaning; therefore, it is fundamentally meaningful, extraordinarily so, as it pertains to the personal narrative and the relational, emotional, and arguably moral sphere of the human psyche.
What is meant to be explored in understanding a koan, then, is that what is known is not a logical fact, per se, but that what we derive as meaningful and true does not, in fact, come analytically, but rather directly - as information contained within the world of relevance and observation, and as we show ourselves ready, truthful.
The reason for writing this within a mental health paradigm is to reflect outward the need to recognize that mental health is exactly this: an encounter with what is true. Outside in, inside out. It is a kind of koan, not something analytically known, but experientially meaningful, felt, and known. It is objective and subjective; both are truth-tellers. The practice here is to study koans, to reflect on koans as a way to train the mind toward living within the space of what is knowable and yet unknowable, for it offers a different path of knowing. It removes the debris encountered when we allow the analytical mind to step aside as a servant to a deeper field of knowledge. This is the proper place of truth and fact, though at times paradoxically enough, they remain in deep relationship to one another as well. And yet here we arrive at another form of paradox, a kind of koan expressing self-knowing and knowing outside oneself.
For mental health, this erases black-and-white thinking - the tendency to label, blame, project, and seek answers and proofs, which often hinder healing rather than promote it. The work of living and holding life itself as a koan is the movement toward healing and growth. The true aim of mental health and therapy is just that: growth rooted in prosperity, firstly within, and finally and completely without. Intuitive knowing is the path toward truth, for truth in its most fundamental element is only knowable as such. Not to erase facts, but to color them with meaning - and it is the dance of the inner and outer that creates abundance.
Look at a koan, study it, contemplate it, and let it reteach your mind and orient you toward that which is true and good and beautiful.
