Befriending Zen Koans

January 30, 2026

Here is a reflection by Charlie Korin Pokorny on Zen koans. Charlie Sensei will be teaching “Befriending Zen Koans: Intimate Inquiry into Dynamic Dialogue” at Brooklyn Zen Center. Register here by February 8. Financial assistance applications are due February 1.

Koans are short Zen dialogues that open inquiry into the heart of practice and awakening. 

They are often difficult to approach. Meeting a Zen koan can feel like bumping into a steep cliff or a sheer wall. There seems to be no way in, over or around. One koan even asks, “You are trapped in a cell with no windows and doors – what do you do?” Koans do not seem to offer any way through. Anything you say won’t do. And not saying anything won’t do either.

When the Zen traditions calls a dialogue or a saying a “koan,” it is in effect saying that this dialogue or saying should actually frustrate the mind that is looking for a definitive answer or something to grasp. Koans are not about answers. They are about how grasping opens, inviting us into meeting a bigger sense of ourselves and the world.

“What is your light?” (Blue Cliff Record Case 86)

“What does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion do with so many hands and eyes?” (Book of Serenity Case 54)

“Holy or ordinary?” (Book of Serenity Case 22)

There may be many wonderful, graspable answers to these questions. In befriending a koan, we are less interested in good answers and more interested in good questions. Good answers can be nice, and, they generally don’t last long. Self, others and the world are too dynamic and in process for static answers.

Good questions can be useful for a long time – like a wooden cooking spoon or a good shovel (I can hear people shoveling their cars out of the snow as I write this). Koan practice is about finding good questions to live with. 

Rather than telling me what I’m really doing here, Zen koans are more about inciting a deeper curiosity about what I’m really doing here. And rather than framing this as something I look into on my own, koans embody how this is something we do together. 

Dizang said, “What is the purpose of pilgrimage?” Fayan said, “I don’t know.” (Book of Serenity Case 20)

Xiushan said, “What can you do about the world?” Dizang said, “What do you call the world?” (Book of Serenity Case 12)

The whole world is on fire, what do you do? (Miscellaneous Koans)

Sometimes we offer each other warm support and boundless encouragement. And, sometimes, vitally, we challenge each other. Koans can be the kinds of friends that love us most fully in deeply challenging us to grow to meet them.

A koan is like a good friend who never stops surprising you for your whole life.

There are many ways we can start to befriend a Zen koan. 

One is to simply memorize a koan, to “learn it by heart.” 

Another is to learn about the cast of characters in a koan. What was their practice like? 

Another is to perform, enact and/or embody a koan.

And another is to enter into a conversation. Sometimes this conversation may be about a koan. Sometimes this conversation may seem to just pile on more koans, more confusion and/or more frustration. Sometimes this conversation may enter the koan. Koans really start to warm-up when we find ourselves in the koan and the koan opens something in the deepest struggles of our lives.

This is the kind of conversation we are interested in entering in our upcoming class, “Befriending Zen Koans.”

Join Charlie Korin Pokorny for “Befriending Zen Koans: Intimate Inquiry into Dynamic Dialogue” at Brooklyn Zen Center. Registration closes February 8. If you need financial assistance, apply by February 1.