Welcome to the Heart of Meditation

A Koan is a questions about something.
The box on the right is a nice example.

The propper reaction is to "jump out of the Koan" and playing your own creative idea. Done.

Just in case you want to know more about Koans....

Zen Words - Zen Koans

Zen riddles, Zen-Koans, Buddhist Koans are only different words for short stories Zen is famous for.

You find on this site whatever you want to know about Koans, but also about Meditation and Buddhism.

One example. If you're interested in Buddhist mysteries, look for Zen riddles to find the three rules on how to deal with mysteries in Zen.

Questions&Answers about Zen Koans

Just want some examples of Riddles or Koans? Here they are.

What are Koans good for? For nothing. (Is that true?)

How to find an answer of Zen riddles?
No problem. They are given. Sometimes you have to click to get it.

Where do Koans come from? From China. Read some funny stories
about history, fiction and politics in Chinese Chan Buddhism.

In Chan or Zen Buddhism every student is trained in dealing with Koans.
It's takes a some time. At the end the student has to forget the Koan. That's the most difficult thing to do.

How Simple Stories became Koans

Originally Zen Koans dealt with simple everyday life events in Buddhist monasteries.
Tipping over a pot, climbing a tree, hurting somebody, cleaning a bowl, lighting a candle etc. If these stories were told, everybody could imagine what was going on.

Later Buddhist master in China and Japan shrouded these everyday events in mystery, called them "Koans" so that normal people couldn't understand the stories anymore. Only the initiated could.

In 18th century the Koans became "riddles" and the underlying everyday events were the riddles' answer.
That's how the Koans are used until today.

More about Zen and Koans

Koans and Meditation are the centre of Zen Buddhism on this site.

You may order my free ebooks at the right hand side of this page.

Information about Zen, Buddhism, Religion and History was piled up over time. The navigation on the right hand side of each page helps you to find this stuff.

The overview page guides you to the history and practice of Zen (Chan) Buddhism, to the goals and results of meditation with Koans and more. Try.

The Comic Pictures - two Ways of Storytelling

Comic-pictures do not usually illustrate Zen pages.

But on this Zen site, you'll see no nicely piled grey stones, no pieces of wood or Japanese characters caligraphy.
Instead you'll find small American comic-pictures from the 40th, with sometimes changed talking-bubbles.
Sorry, but...

Comics as well as Zen-Koans tell stories about everyday reality.
In Zen mainly words to tell the stories. Comics characters are Zen stories in themselves.
Not a big difference in storytelling it seems to me.

Make your own experience with the comic storytelling on this site.
It's fun.