Zen Koans: When the Master SLAPS the Disciple || Acharya Prashant (2025)

Acharya Prashant

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00:00Let's look at a few co-ons, so the elder Ting asked Linchi, Master what is the great

00:13meaning of Buddha's teachings?

00:18So Ting here is the disciple and he is asking Linchi and it's a perfectly legitimate question,

00:28a very sincere question, politely asked, Master what is the great meaning of Buddha's teachings?

00:37We would expect any teacher to appreciate such a question, but what do we get here?

00:48Linchi came down from his seat, slapped Ting and pushed him away and what has Ting done?

00:56Master asked, what is the great meaning of Buddha's teachings?

01:00And he has been slapped and pushed away.

01:03Ting was stunned and stood motionless.

01:06This movement of receiving an electric shock is very central to the Koan method.

01:17Ting was stunned and stood motionless.

01:19A monk nearby said, Ting, why do you not bow?

01:26This is usual practice, politeness, decorum, mannerism.

01:33To bow to the master when you receive an answer.

01:37You ask a question and if the master answers you, you are supposed to bow.

01:42But, Ting has been so badly stunned that he has forgotten the protocol.

01:56And at that moment, Ting attained great enlightenment.

02:01And with the usual conditioned mind, you will not be able to make much sense of it.

02:15What is happening?

02:17Here you are, Ting, thinking of yourself as a student.

02:26You think you are a student.

02:28But had you really been a student, then all that you act, being a student, would have been

02:41very central to your being.

02:43If I am a student, right from my core, then all my actions that I display, as being those

02:56of a student, should be spontaneous, should be very spontaneous, right?

03:07You are optional.

03:13But here, see, one push, one slap.

03:23And you forgot all decency, all politeness, you just stood shocked.

03:31What does that mean?

03:33That being a student is not your primary identity.

03:39Being a student or being even Ting is just something that you are wearing over yourself.

03:49And that which you are wearing over yourself is exactly what has been slapped and pushed

03:54aside by the teacher.

03:57Please understand.

04:01Ting is asking, what is the core of Buddha's teaching?

04:08And the master says, this is the core of Buddha's teaching that all that which is false must

04:13be slapped and pushed away.

04:15And whatever thing has become, whatever he thinks of himself, whatever his personality is,

04:24whatever his identity is, all that is just false.

04:28And that's exactly what the Buddha has taught.

04:32Whatever you think of yourself deserves to be slapped and pushed away.

04:36And that's exactly what I did.

04:39And when I did that, I was proven right.

04:41Because when the student was slapped and pushed away, see, the student ceased to be a student,

04:47the proof is that he did not bow.

04:52Had the student been really inexorably a student, irreversibly a student, choicelessly a student,

05:09he would have remained a student even in his death.

05:12Even in the moment of his death, he would have still not forgotten that he is a student and

05:17would have continued to show the usual cultural obedience and reverence to the teacher.

05:26That you see, whatever you think of yourself is just like the courtesy of bending and bowing

05:35to the teacher.

05:37It is a thing of the mind.

05:38It is a thing of memory.

05:40It is a thing of convenience.

05:42It is a thing of conditioning.

05:45And that's what needs to be slapped and pushed away.

05:47And that's the Buddha's teaching.

05:50So, quans in that sense, become more experiential than just analytical.

05:58Analysis requires time.

06:00Quans do not give you time to analyze.

06:06They are like a bolt from the blue.

06:09You are hit, shattered before your defenses can get activated, before your logic can become

06:21a shield and armor and protect you.

06:29The master just suddenly sends something your way and you are unprepared.

06:37And he says, watcha.

06:42Getting it?

06:45The same thing Vedanta does in a more elaborate way.

06:52The teacher will go a long distance, very laboriously teaching you that your personality is false.

07:04That the ego is the false center.

07:08That your thoughts, beliefs, opinions, emotions are just objects of conditioning.

07:18And the student would be sitting and the teacher would be taking a lot of pains delivering these

07:24things to him.

07:26In the Koan method, these things are delivered experientially and instantaneously.

07:37But the limitation of the Koan method is, these things can work only on someone who is very,

07:43very prepared, very, very ripe already.

07:50If you are not ripe enough, when the teacher slaps you, you will just feel offended.

07:55Worse still, you may slap the teacher back.

08:01What the Koan does not say is, that Ting was already a very mature student.

08:10And when you are just there, right at the edge of the cliff.

08:17But unable to take the final step into the abyss, the depths of the unknown.

08:25That's when Koans come handy.

08:29Koans are not for someone who is just beginning his journey or is at some point in the middle

08:34of it.

08:35Koans are for those who are like ripe mangoes hanging from the branches.

08:48Already very ripe but for some reason unable to leave the attachment to the branch.

08:55And in that process, now they run the danger of getting decayed.

09:04Or being spoiled by birds or something.

09:08Right?

09:10If a ripe fruit stays for too long on the tree, then that's not good.

09:19It must leave the branch.

09:25Otherwise, both the seed and the pulp stand threatened.

09:35But it often does happen, that mango or some fruit might be quite ripe but still not falling.

09:48Koans are like the shock.

09:50You go and just shake the trunk up or the branch.

09:56You shake it up and the ripe ones fall.

10:03Vedanta takes you from your very ordinary state to a state of ripeness.

10:17That's why you will find that most of the koans are presented as discussions between the disciple

10:28and the master.

10:30So it is already a disciple, an advanced disciple who is asking a question and the master replies

10:36and then often the koan ends with and the disciple was immediately enlightened.

10:44So it is already an advanced disciple who gets immediately enlightened.

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