A mindfulness or spiritual practice in my experience and humble opinion seems to be half meditation practice and half studying wisdom or contemplation.
This list of 101 koans is a resource for the latter half.
Koans are like riddles, from the Zen Buddhist tradition, that have no correct answer as a solutions.
A classic koan is super short and powerful: “What am I?”
It’s like a rhetorical question, but instead of being silenced with the insinuated answer with a rhetorical question, a koan leaves your mind opened. With the mind open, contemplation begins.
I recommend reading a koan after meditation when the mind is still, or even before meditation to calm and focus the mind. It is also excellent to read koans in a group setting!
During the pandemic, I transformed my men’s group’s study material to koans, thanks to a friend suggesting that koans can be very powerful in a group setting.
2 Comments
Could you give me an example of the kind of Koans you came up with for your men’s group? I am wanting to do the same thing with my men’s group and have been going down the same avenue.
Hey Jason! Using the koans shared in this post, I would pull any of these up and use them as a tool to create discussion. Some will land better than others depending on the personalities that make up your men’s group. Let me know how it goes!