Zen Puzzles: A Modern Adaptation

Noel Altman, San Rafael, CA

Justin Stone performs an (often) thankless and, what I would imagine to be, draining and exhausting task: truly helping people. He’ll get right to the core of a person, and point out where he/she is stuck – attached, desirous, vashanic (can this be an adjective?). He doesn’t do this by actually telling you, usually. Instead, he gets right into the matter and triggers an emotional response in you. Why do you have the emotional response? Because he’s pointed out a truth of where your ego is leading you into delusion, and your ego doesn’t like it. Its existence is threatened. All true spiritual (which rarely includes religious) practice leads to the dissolution of the individual ego, or self, which results in true freedom.

It may take a while to figure out for yourself what Justin is really doing. I know it did for me. And it’s probably not possible to figure it out by just thinking about it without continuing your practice of T’ai Chi Chih and Seijaku. I know that I continued those practices faithfully, even though I didn’t understand Justin. T’ai Chi Chih practice, over time, changes the character of “your” chi. I know at some point the emotions were no longer triggered when Justin would point out some of the original issues. Some realization or breakthrough had occurred. I could just look at Justin doing or saying the same thing he had before, and it didn’t cause the same reaction in me. I could objectively take in the information he was providing. Because that really is all that Justin is doing – providing information. How is he providing information? When I really looked at it, I realized he’s giving out koans, or Zen puzzles. They’re not the old school koans (e.g., “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”). No, they’re living-right-in-the-marketplace koans because the vast majority of T’ai chi Chih practitioners do not live removed from society, meditating on mountain tops all day and night, or in monasteries. They’re koans which apply to you, living the life that you do. Well, what is the point of a koan anyway?

Often the books I have read on Zen describe actual Zen masters delivering koans to actual students. The koans are usually questions asked verbally, but can also be physical actions delivered without words (often hard blows to the body of the student). Then, the way the student responds is also described. A “wrong” answer may elicit a blow, while a “right” answer may cause complete enlightenment, It’s not even what is said that is important – it is the state of mind of the student that the Zen master is looking at, so when one student says some words, they could be the “wrong” answer for him/her, while, when another student says the exact same thing, it is the “right” answer.

The work of a Zen master, as Justin has said, is to bring a student to the point of crisis (e.g. an emotional response) because in that state, a breakthrough (of some level – not necessarily complete enlightenment) can be achieved. The way a Zen master brings a student to the point of crisis is by giving him/her a koan to mull over. All of which is well worth it when a breakthrough is achieved!

It is having gone through the whole process and achieved some realization (even if only partial, and even though I am at varying places of progress on countless more) that lead me to knowing what Justin is really doing all the time, to all of us. And how he is doing it subtly, almost informally. He doesn’t call himself a Zen master. I have heard him tell one who asked that no, he is not one. It’s not the point with him to make this known. But it doesn’t mean he isn’t one.

Justin Stone performs the work of a Zen master. As I said at the beginning of this article, it is an (often) thankless, and what I would imagine to be draining and exhausting task. Yet, is he drained and exhausted? Or, does he have the energy, vigor and creativity of no one else you know?

Find out for yourself!