Tuesday
Apr132010
Modern koan
Tuesday, April 13, 2010 at 04:13PM
By Jonathan Kaplan, Ph.D.
One of the characteristics of Zen Buddhism is the use of koans--or riddles--for meditation practice. Questions such as "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" and "What was your face before you were born?" are used to prompt reflection and a disentanglement from literal, rational thought. Another popular koan is "If you meet the Buddha in the road, kill him."
Recently, I experienced a modern variation of this traditional koan. I accidentally taped two recordings of the PBS documentary, The Buddha, last week. So, I sat down to delete one of the shows from my DVR and I received the following message, asking for confirmation:
One of the characteristics of Zen Buddhism is the use of koans--or riddles--for meditation practice. Questions such as "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" and "What was your face before you were born?" are used to prompt reflection and a disentanglement from literal, rational thought. Another popular koan is "If you meet the Buddha in the road, kill him."
Recently, I experienced a modern variation of this traditional koan. I accidentally taped two recordings of the PBS documentary, The Buddha, last week. So, I sat down to delete one of the shows from my DVR and I received the following message, asking for confirmation:
"Are you sure that you want to delete The Buddha?"
tagged Buddha, Zen, koan in Impermanence, TV
Buddha, Zen, koan in Impermanence, TV 
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