Deutsche Fassung

GONG-AN (Jap. Koan)

by Zen Master Seong Do

According to the tradition of Seon-Buddhism (Jap. Zen), the Gong-An is a question conferred on a student (practitioner) by a Seon Master who has already attained enlightenment.

The Gong-An is known as Wha-Du, or it is called the patriarch’s Gong-An, due to the fact that it originates from the patriarchs.

The intention of the Seon Master who offers Gong-Ans to his desciples is to direct them toward the path of the enlightenment. It is said that there are about 1700 Gong-Ans, used by eminent teachers, and some of the Gong-An collections are “ The Blue Cliff Record (Byuck Am Rok), The Mumun Kwan, The Jong Gyung Rok and etc.”.

Literally, the word Gong-An originally meant an official document. A long time ago in China whenever any government documents were to be copied, an official seal would be imprinted on the copy. At the time, one half of the seal was done on the original document and another half on the copy, because in case someday its authenticity would be verified, the two halves of the seal could be matched with each other.

In the tradition of Seon-Buddhism, Gong-An is also used in the same manner. In the course of Gong-An practice, a mind-to-mind “ transmission ” is effected between the teacher and his student. And when the teacher (Seon Master) has great sympathy with his student’s answer to his Gong-An, just like the matching of the two halves of an official seal, then and only then the teacher would approve of his disciple’s enlightenment.

The importance of a Gong-An talk lies in motivating strong doubt within the student not in motivating literary beauty or deep intellectual paradox of any kind. In reality, the Gong-An represents “ a strong doubt ”, and the practitioner should hold fast on to the Gong-An given to him, trying his best around the clock to extract the original meaning out from it.

Once a student named Huai Yang came to the famous sixth patriarch Hui-Neng, Hui-Neng asked the student immediately upon his arrival,

- What thing has thus been here ? -

The student Huai-Yang was completely dumbfounded. He could not come up with an answer any more. So he replied, “ I don’t know ”. He went back to his way and thereafter he practised intensively, never losing his grip on the question,

What is this thing? ( What am I ? )”. When he finally attained a firm belief about the question, he decided to revisit the sixth patriarch and went to him, and he gave the following answer :

“ Even though you call me “a thing”, it is already incorrect !”

After this Gong-An talk, Huai Yang was finally transmitted the dharma from the sixth patriarch Hui-Neng.

Likewise, if only one keeps on having strong doubt with regard to a given Gong-An, the ten thousand doubts that well up inside his mind will boil down to one essential doubt in time. So, one should mind not to let go of it and should keep fast holding on to it. 

The Seon (Jap. Zen) practice is ,of course, one of many practices of Buddhism, and especially “the Gong-An Gazing-Seon” lays strong emphasis on the enlightenment attained through passing a Gong-An.

And the Gong-An practice constantly has to be connected directly to enlightenment, and practitioners should always bear in mind that the Gong-An question is used as means to attain enlightenment.

Only when the Gong-An's doubt is broken, it disappears by itself. But the breaking of the Gong-An question should never be inferred alone by a practitioner himself, and he must surely pursue an In-Ga (= the sanction of Gong-An’s solution ) from a known Seon Master. Why ? Because, if In-Ga is ignored and if he were off the point in breaking of the Gong-An question, he is apt to be drawn back into a new illusion of his own.

Now,  how many Gong-Ans actually exists out there?

One time, a student asked an eminent Zen Master :

What is the best way to work on Gong-Ans? ”

He replied,

The ten thousand questions are all but one question.”

You should practice continually with one question : “What am I ?” and you must not deviate from the path of one Gong-An... go straight, What am I ?, What am I ?, ..........

Then your ten thousand questions will vanish instantly like smoke and surely one question will remain at the end, What am I ? ........

This is your main Gong-An. Then what is Seon?

        Spring comes,        the grass greens by itself.
        Summer comes,     it is hot.

Zen Master Seong Do

Zen-Meister Young San Seong Do Snim steht dem International Zen-Temple in Berlin als Abt vor. Der koreanische Zen-Meister gründete den Tempel, um Europäern Zugang zu dem koreanischen Gongan-Zen-Buddhismus (jap. Koan) zu ermöglichen. Als Dharmaerbe des Groß-Zen-Meister Hae-Am steht er in einer Übertragungslinie, die in direkter Folge bis auf Ma’tsu und die chinesischen Patriarchen zurück geht. Merkmal dieser koreanischen Linie ist die große Kraft und Lebendigkeit aus dem ursprüngliche Zen bzw. Chan der chinesischen Meister.

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