The Rinzai school has always forbidden the publication of formally acceptable answers to the various koans,
 because the whole point of the discipline is to discover them for oneself by intuition.
 To know the answers without having so discovered them would be like studying the map without taking the journey.
 Lacking the actual shock of recognition, the bare answers seem flat and disappointing,
 and obviously no competent master would be deceived by anyone who gave them without genuine feeling.
 The study of Zen in the Rinzai school proceeds through six stages.
 The first five stages consist of passing a graduated series of approximately 50 koan problems.
 The sixth stage is a study of the Buddhist precepts and the regulations of the monk's life, Vinaya, in the light of Zen understanding.
 Normally this course of training takes about 30 years. By no means all Zen monks complete the whole training.
 This is required only of those who are to receive their master's Inca, or seal of approval,
 so that they themselves may become masters, Roshi, thoroughly versed in all the skillful means, Upaya, for teaching Zen to others.
 Like so many other things of this kind, the system is as good as one makes it, and its graduates are both tall Buddhas and short Buddhas.
 It should not be assumed that a person who has passed a koan, or even many koan, is necessarily a transformed human being,
 whose character and way of life are radically different from what they were before.
 Nor should it be assumed that Satori, enlightenment, is a single sudden leap from the common consciousness to complete, unexcelled awakening, Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi.
 Satori really designates the sudden and intuitive way of seeing into anything,
 whether it be remembering a forgotten name, or seeing into the deepest principles of Buddhism.
 One seeks and seeks, but one cannot find. One then gives up, and the answer comes by itself.
 Thus, there may be many occasions of Satori in the course of training, great Satori and little Satori.
 And the solution of many of the koan depends upon nothing more sensational than a kind of knack for understanding the Zen style of handling Buddhist principles.
 To the normal Asian concept of the master-pupil relationship, Zen adds something of its own in the sense that it leaves the formation of the relationship entirely to the initiative of the pupil.
 The basic position of Zen is that it has nothing to say, nothing to teach.
 The truth of Buddhism is so self-evident, so obvious, that it is, if anything, concealed by explaining it.
 Therefore, the master does not help the student in any way, since helping would actually be hindering.
 On the contrary, he goes out of his way to put obstacles and barriers in the student's path.
 The preliminary Hoshin type of koan begins, therefore, to obstruct the student by sending him off in the direction exactly opposite to that in which he should look.
 Only it does it rather cleverly, so as to conceal the stratagem.
 Everyone knows that the Buddha nature is within oneself and is not to be sought outside, so that no student would be fooled by being told to seek it by going to India or by reading a certain sutra.
 On the contrary, he is told to look for it in himself.
 Worse still, he is encouraged to seek it with the whole energy of his being, never giving up his quest by day or night, whether actually in Zazen or whether working or eating.
 He is encouraged, in fact, to make a total fool of himself, to whirl around and around like a dog trying to catch up with its own tail.
 Commonly, then, a first koan given to a student might be Hui Neng's original face, Chou Chu's Wu, or Hakuin's one hand.
 At the first San Zen interview, the Roshi instructs the reluctantly accepted student to discover his original face or aspect, that is, his basic nature, as it was before his father and mother conceived him.
 When the beginning koan is Chou Chu's Wu, the student is asked to find out why Chou Chu answered Wu, or none, to the question, "Does a dog have the Buddha nature?"
 The Roshi asks to be shown this nothing. A Chinese proverb says that a single hand does not make a clap, and therefore Hakuin asks, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
 Can you hear what is not making a noise? Can you get any sound out of this one object which has nothing to hit? Can you get any knowledge of your own real nature? What an idiotic question!
 By such means the student is at last brought to a point of feeling completely stupid, as if he were encased in a huge block of ice, unable to move or think. He just knows nothing.
 After some time in this state there comes a moment when the block of ice suddenly melts, when this vast lump of unintelligibility comes instantly alive.
 The problem of who or what it is becomes transparently absurd, a question which from the beginning meant nothing whatever. There is no one left to ask himself the question or to answer it.
 In this state the Roshi needs only a single look at the student to know that he is now ready to begin his Zen training in earnest.


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