Zen Koans I Just Made Up.

We know doubt have all heard of the sound of one hand clapping? The idea of a Zen Koan is to
jar the brain, to temporary stun us into looking at things in a different and deeper way.I have some
koans of my own making that I want to share here, the first one is that "we have to first die,in order
to become fully alive" to me this means quite simply that the old selfish, self centered me, had to die
and through an inner consciousness sought through meditation, found a way to embrace a more
spiritual pursuit, rather than self seeking, so the old us has to die, and we need to become reborn
into a new and higher level of consciousness.
Another Koan i just made up is this, "to open our minds, we must first shut our mouths" if any
of us are going to grow spiritually then we need to silence the speak, and learn to listen to that
still small voice within us, this voice can be found within us when we quietly practice meditation
and yoga.
Another Koan goes like this, " In order to awaken,we must first know we are asleep", this means
to me that awareness of self is important, to become aware that we have been basically sleepwalking
through our lives, being only operating in two dimensions, physical and mental, while the spiritual
and emotional aspects of our being, have asleep in our life.
A further Koan goes like this,"In order to understand, we must first know what we stand under"?
This to me means that we are all under the powerful universal laws of life and existence,we need to
be familiar with these laws, and when understood by us, focus our thoughts, and actions into making
our selves aligned to these laws, thereby not incurring negative responses from them.
The last Koan I want to share is this one,"before we can know wisdom,we first must recognise our
own ignorance." this means to me that we need to see the depth of our own ignorance, as this is
also good training for us in the ego-deflation scales, when we can truly admit to ourselves that we
are ignorant, and truly believe that this is so, then we have placed our feet firmly upon the road
that will truly lead us to  further knowledge and growing wisdom, plus further insight into who
we really are.
I hope dear readers of my blog that this one will be of some use to you, my life has been greatly
enhanced by these koans, I pray and hope it helps you too.
warmest regards michael.
kirkpatrickmichael17@gmail.com comments welcome facebook soulrealization.