My Koan

At the risk of sounding much like a fool (which I undoubtedly am, I recognize), let me tell you briefly about my koan.

This famous koan was given to me in 1999 in a very unique way by a well-known Zen master. I struggled with it for, well, truth be told, only a few hours before giving up. It pops into my mind every now and then, and I have been tempted to cheat, but I won’t, because one day I will solve it.


A flag was fluttering in the breeze before the gate of the temple of the Sixth Patriarch in China. One of the disciples, a man deeply engaged in Zen training, cried: “See how the flag moves today!” Another beside him retorted, “No, today the wind is moving.”

“No, it’s the flag. Can’t you see it actually moving?”

“Not at all, it’s the wind. Don’t you understand that’s the active principle?”

And it developed into a serious dispute. Let me now ask you to try a question. In this case, what is it that is moving?

Well, the Sixth Patriarch happened to come out, and he told them: “It is not the flag that is moving and not the wind that is moving. It is the mind of the two noble monks.”

This incident has become one of the classical problems for Zen study, and is called the Case of the Sixth Patriarch and the Wind and the Flag. It is a knotty point. Though the flag be there, if there is no wind it does not move. And though the wind be there, if there is no flag, it does not move. Then again, though the flag be there and the wind be there, if there is no observing mind, there is nothing to be called movement.

Before the gate there were doubtless cryptomeria and pine trees, but they were not having an argument. There were farmers and woodmen working quietly without minding, and they were not quarreling. As it happened, in front of the two monks who were moving their minds, the flag was moving.

But it won’t do to stop at that and rush away with the idea: “Why yes, of course, it’s just the mind that is moving.” Even though the two monks do not agitate their minds, the flag without mind is moving. So further, it is not the flag which moves, it is not the wind which moves, it is not even the mind of the two monks. Then what is it that is moving? Let those whose karma has brought here ponder it and penetrate to the truth.


I was very interested in Zen in the 90s and read and thought much on the subject. Coincidentally, I was also very much into physics, and studied it for three semesters and a summer session at Seton Hall. I do believe, as many do, that they are related somewhere at their buried roots, intertwined perhaps, several feet under the ground which we experience as everyday reality.

For the longest time the seventh paragraph waved out to me. “There’s a clue here – this is not simply a handful of sentences to embellish the tale.” But honestly, I don’t know, and I lack the intellectual energy at this moment to contribute any substantial thoughts. (And I recognize that “substantial thoughts” may be exactly what the koan is trying to eliminate, or at least bypass.) I could google the koan and find some answers, but that would be meaningless. If you know the “answer,” please don’t share it, but if you have some “insights” I would not mind reading them.

I sure wish this is something I brought up at those campfire drinking sessions twenty years ago …