Koans

What's your original face

before your mother and father were born?

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

What time would it be if all clocks stopped?

How is it that someone who plunges into the sea
and counts all the sands
is sitting on top of a needle?

How will you step up
from the top of a hundred-foot flagpole?

How do you go straight ahead
on a narrow mountain path
which has ninety-three curves?

It is like a water buffalo (an ox) that passes through a window screen.

Its head, horns, and four legs all pass through. 

Why can’t the tail pass through?

Do you see the rabbit's horn?

What is the straight within the bent?

When the many are reduced to the One,
to what is the One reduced?

******

There is a man who eats sparingly, 

but is never hungry.

There is a man who is always eating,

but is never full.

In a well that has not been dug,
Water is rippling from a spring that does not flow;
There, someone with no shadow or form,
Is drawing the water.

The ground that is not dark or light.
The tree that has no roots.
The valley that has no echo.

Empty-handed I go and lo!
the spade handle is in my hand.

When I pass over the bridge the water flows not,
but the bridge flows.

Facing each other,

a thousand miles apart.

Right now, right here:

Facing each other.

Everywhere 

like a burning house.

No cold spot -

in a boiling cauldron.

Washing jewels

in the mud.

Eyes wide - entering

the boiling water -

with dignity!

Shouldering the plank -

till death.

To open eyes wide - lying 

in the coffin.

Entering fire, he is not burned,
entering water he is not drowned.

On top of a flagpole, a cow gives birth to a calf.

Stop the sound of a distant temple bell.

Put out the fire a thousand miles away.

Turn a somersault on a needle's point.

Today is the eighth day of the month,
tomorrow is the thirteenth.

You are not allowed to travel at night,

but you must arrive before daybreak.

Ride your horse along the edge of the sword
Hide yourself in the middle of the flames
Blossoms of the fruit tree will bloom in fire
The sun rises in the evening.

On the saddle, 

no man;

Underneath it,

no horse.

Hide you body in the Big Dipper.

The accomplished hermit

hides in the town;

The immature hermit

hides in the mountain.

Where to hide?

In a needle's eye.

Hide yourself in
each and every thing!

******

To see into the koan
we must see into ourselves.
-Albert Low

only one koan matters
you
-Ikkyu