You Must Kill Buddha

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Have you heard of a koan? A koan is either a riddle, or a story told to students by zen monks. Koan’s are designed to baffle the rational mind. When someone reads a zen koan their mind tells them that it’s nonsense. This is because koan’s are not like math problems. Math is logical and leads to predictable results. However, a koan can only be understood by the intuition. Koan’s do not lead to predictable outcomes therefore, trying to figure out a koan with the rational mind will exhaust it. But when the mind is exhausted and surrenders, the koan reveals itself.

I am going to introduce a new koan, along with my thoughts about it, each week. If you feel inspired, please leave a comment about what the koan means to you.

Koan #1 You must kill Buddha
When asked why he practiced zen, the student said, “Because I intend to become a Buddha.”
His teacher picked up a brick and started polishing it. The student asked “What are you doing?” The teacher replied, “I am trying to make a mirror.”

“How can you make a mirror by polishing a brick?”

“How can you become Buddha by doing zazen?
If you understand sitting Zen, you will know that Zen is not about sitting or lying down. If you want to learn sitting Buddha, know that sitting Buddha is without any fixed form. Do not use discrimination in the non-abiding dharma. If you practice sitting as Buddha, you must kill Buddha. If you are attached to the sitting form, you are not yet mastering the essential principle.”

The student heard this admonition and felt as if he had tasted sweet nectar.
— Dōgen Zenji

My Thoughts
Modern life is goal oriented and outcome driven. We want the time and effort that we put into something to produce what we desire. You may say, why should spirituality be any different? The spiritual student thinks that a prescribed way of behaving, like sitting meditation, church going, prayer, chanting, etc., should produce an abstract idea of salvation. But that’s the rub. This koan is telling us that you must kill the idea of Becoming. In this case, Buddha nature. If you meditate with the desire to become something other than yourself, you will never be enlightened. The act of meditation is about letting go of the attachments that keep us from understanding the nature of the universe. The hardest attachment to let go of is the “reason” you meditate in the first place.

Several years ago, I started a mindfulness practice with an intent to manifest a spiritual breakthrough. I started the journey because I was deeply frustrated with my life. I couldn’t find a way out of my situation, so I started believing I needed to become someone different. I was familiar with meditation through the martial arts. However, I never took it seriously as a practice by itself. I started meditating for twenty minutes every morning, and I soon found that my desire to change made it impossible to quite my mind. I felt like a failure after each meditation session. I beat myself up because my mind would wander, and I would lose count of my breaths. The pressure I put on myself made it hard to even breath. After more studying and listening to meditation masters, I realized that mindfulness is not about changing, it is about BEING. It is about connecting with our true nature.

Who am I?
I'm just a guy that likes to write about mixed martial arts, self-defense, and mental health. The FightingArts Community is where I write about martial arts.