The koans suddenly started to make a lot of sense, though not in the usual way anything makes sense intellectually or logically. But the koans were absolutely necessary at this time & phase of the Pilgrim’s journey. They showed up unplanned, as if by miracle, and found their place in a major milestone, where the battle between the mind and the Mind ceased to a large extent.
Many of these koans in the Gateless Gate, or the Gateless Barrier, compiled from the Chinese Master Mumon Ekai, have been verbalized in various non-dual teachings of Sri Ramakrishna as well. Nonetheless, these have probably been true through the ages. From the Kybalion to the koans, they speak the same things in different ways.
It is said that the koans often do not make sense, instead they make you. And the practice keeps the you alive much longer. But then again, clinging to the practice, with what is called the way seeking mind in the Soto Zen practice as described by Shohaku Okumura, with an understanding of absoluteness, goes right against the very essence of these koans.
But Zen or no-Zen, right or wrong, good or bad, the fleeting mind and the fleeting moment are not to be found. Like it never was now, it is either past or the future. When Zen makes you lose the moment, Zen is detrimental. For the Pilgrim, Zen is impossible. If Zen exists in the mind, that Zen rather be thrown out than kept alive. It’s not that Zen practice is difficult, but Zen as a practice is.
Once the Zen teacher asked “With which mind will you have tea – the one that’s gone or the one that’s yet to come?” Meaning either there is no cognition of the now or when there is a now to recognize, nothing else exists.
The Pilgrim wonders if there is a need for time to point out the now in the first place? If one has nothing to achieve, nothing to prove to someone else, nothing to measure objectively, there could be no reason to define anything called time. Without time, there is just change and an acknowledgement of that change. Without time, things just are! This is the isness that matters.