Working with Koans

Koans are a central part of our practice at Desert Rain Zen. In the Pacific Zen School / Open Source tradition we do both individual and group koan work. Individual koan practice is available with our resident teacher Tenney Nathanson Sensei. We do group koan work in our monthly Sunday Koan Seminar and in frequent brief "koans with tea" conversations at the end of some of our other Sunday sits.

Some Resources:

Here are some resources, most of them from the Pacific Zen School / Open Source, about koans and koan work:

• Joan Sutherland in Lion's Roar: a roundtable interview on koan work
• Joan's book on koan work Acequias and Gates
• Joan's talk "Warmth and Curiosity: an Introduction to Koans"
• Joan's talk "Unromancing No"
• John Tarrant's "How to Practice Zen Koans"
• The Pacific Zen Institute's Koans page
• Megan Rundel's "What Are Koans" (looks like this link is no longer active-stay tuned!)
• Tenney's "Working with Koans (Resemblance)" is on our talks page (look under the header "talks at Little Chapel, 2014")

photo: Bill Scott
this page last modified: August 27, 2019