Koan
I found about the concept of koans, and I really liked it for some reason; suprisingly, it was Venetian Snares who showed me the path.
A koan refers to a paradoxical statement used in Zen practice to provoke doubt. Essentially, these are riddles used by Zen masters to test their students.
This is the first koan I came across:
If you meet the Buddha, kill him.
After scouring for its meaning on the Internet, I ended up finding multiple interpretations of the same koan - often contrasting each other - but somehow all of them made sense.
These are some of the interpretations which seem to be apt:
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If you think you have met the Buddha, you are wrong - it is an illusion. To kill the Buddha is to kill our belief that we know it all.
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To kill the Buddha means to let go of the sense of materialism, to let go of anything outside our needs.
I would highly recommend to go on this little journey of exploring the world of koans, give your brain something to think about.
Here are some more koans I found:
Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?
Out of nowhere, the mind comes forth.
A monk saw a turtle in the garden of Daizui’s monastery and asked the teacher, “All beings cover their bones with flesh and skin. Why does this being cover its flesh and skin with bones?” Master Daizui took off one of his sandals and covered the turtle with it.