There are instances in one’s life that begin their course as just another flow in the routine; an ordinary occurrence in the grid of daily schedules. However, they soon accumulate such meaning and intensity, that they shatter the very grid they’d been positioned in and redefine the notion of what life should be. For me, one of those was an encounter with a kōan in 2018 — an instance that not only shaped my identity then, but also formed a framework that I still think in.

Kōans are paradoxical structures (appearing as short statements, questions, stories, or riddles) in Zen Buddhism that are designed to puzzle one’s mind. But the goal of a kōan is not to have a clean and rational answer; it’s exactly the opposite. The goal of a kōan is to wear one’s reasoning down and function as a tool of insight, like an ethereal light at the end of the tunnel, beyond logic and analytics. They’re like cats in philosophy: appearing mighty cute and approachable, but hiding sharp teeth and claws as a reminder that the experience is on their terms, not yours. Kōans are designed to pry your mind loose from its habitual grip, so that an uncluttered, pure awareness can arise from the mess of collapsing explanations and systematic exhaustion. That’s their beauty.

Now, there’s a landscape that needs to be laid out. By 2018, I was in a tangled mess of afflictions: from lifestyle decisions to turbulent relationships, but the heaviest of them all was being mid-way in a rigorous professional course that had never been my calling. I was enrolled in Chartered Accountancy, a sanctified pursuit in the world around me then — and nearly everyone was steeped in the narrative that pursuing anything else was not just a sheer waste of potential but also career-suicide. It was only this holier-than-thou certification bestowed by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India that could ensure success in the life of students like us.

Breathlessly trapped on just about all sides by that indoctrination, my days were suspended in a grinding routine: college lectures starting by early morning, followed by packed, day-long coaching classes, and a mindless return to home at night, cornered by pending assignments and other chores before slumping with fatigue. I mauled time and timetables like a hungry beast to get the space to keep writing, but the aspiration of entering a creatively empowering field, and thriving in the one joy that I had always seen my life lead towards had already begun to feel like a distant, dying dream.

How I got to that point is a separate tale, but it was then that I began the practice of meditating through kōans. My process was to select one kōan and let it bounce around in my thoughts, through moments of stillness or in the background during daily routines, until I could reach a personalised meaning that helped me sift through some of the disarray. This could take days, weeks, or months — depending on when I felt satisfied with an interpretation.

As this practice began altering my perspectives, I picked up the next kōan as just another flow in the routine, without having the slightest hint of how it was about to change my life forever. Like a flare going up in fog, this was a string of words that would not leave me until it had remade me. Attributed to Linji Yixuan, a ninth-century Chinese monk and the founder of the Rinzai sect (one of the three schools of Zen in Japanese Buddhism), this is how that kōan flows:

If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.

Kill Buddha, but be assured that this is not a call to literal violence. There are two ways to proceed further with this discourse. First, pause and ponder upon the meaning of this kōan in your life, within your contexts and understandings, without being occupied by mine. Take your time, until you’re satisfied with an interpretation, and then return. I’d recommend that. Second, just flow as you already are, and continue reading. I’ll take a slow breath, as you choose your way.

Back to 2018, then. The words of this kōan began to affect me deeper than any other reflection had. As the pieces of an interpretation began to come together, in their own many ways, they began to provoke an existential honesty within me — slowly challenging every certainty that I had either constructed or been made to believe. Kill Buddha. The paradox began to feel as liberating as it felt shocking, even if these words initially refused to settle into neat comprehension. It was as if this kōan was a permission to dissolve ideals and idols, like the slow erosion of stones by moving water.

There was no sudden, cinematic shift or any eureka moment. I like to believe that the process began and ended with the realisation of Buddha, becoming alive in the little moments that a day could bring to me — observing the colours of a class packed with students, conversations with friends and strangers, riding a metro or local train in the rush hour, stillness in the library, midnight rides on my Honda Activa, the taste of roadside dosas and samosas, long walks in my building’s garden, the breezes and the asthma attacks, between notes, across timeline, profile feed, and chats, nearly everything tuned to music in the background, the words that would come to me and those that were elusive, and the slow, beating pulse of all memories. Kill Buddha.

Buddha was the synthetic composite of beliefs, authorities, and narratives that I had been steeped in. To kill that was to confront the illusions I had internalised, to question and dismantle the hierarchy of worth and success that was dictating the fractured rhythm of my life. I examined. I slaughtered. I reckoned. And in the void that was left behind, I was introduced to a strange, powerful vitality; as fragile as it was ferociously alive.

I happened to myself. The kōan made me realise how rigid attachment to externalised blueprints would never lead me to any path of meaning that could satiate me. The only meaningful way was the way I’d choose for myself, shaped by storms and tides only I’d ever wholly understand. My journey could never be borrowed, inherited, or imposed. The meaning of life, should there be any to claim, would have to be crafted on my own terms, with all its risks and raw textures.

To kill Buddha was then, in essence, to kill every prefabricated answer, every premeditated conviction I had been told to kneel before.

All that would remain would be the terrain of my design, however uncertain and unmapped. Only on this terrain could the story truly continue.

Quitting Chartered Accountancy was a decision I announced to myself on the same terrace, of my old building, that had been privy to my childhood dreams. What followed right after was bloodshed: being broken up with by my then-girlfriend, being ostracised in college, creating a rift within my family, stumbling into hollows that I had not foreseen, and facing eyes and tongues of judgement. All these did was strengthen my resolve. All these did was mould my perspective. All these did was make me stronger.

By the last quarter of 2018, I had started writing my first novel (Wildflowers In The Dark), had begun working at Ogilvy as a copy intern (with a forged letter of permission from my college), as a direction intern on an internationally co-produced film (Skater Girl, directed by Manjari Makijany), as a contracted spoken poet across venues, and as a freelance copy, content, and editorial consultant. My schedule was more packed than it had been, but now there was meaning. A path was being born, and I knew I was only at its beginning.

8 October 2018, performing Paper Hearts at Fun Republic Social

Looking back now, I realise how the kōan equipped me with a stance. It gave me a way of awareness that was not a call to rebellion, but to brutal honesty. And as is the nature of such encounters, I don’t think it will ever end.

The kōan keeps returning to me each time I meet Buddha on the road. It insists on being re-understood. Maybe the meaning it’s trying to get at is less a resolved decision and more a stubborn uncertainty that will keep remodelling the map. Maybe there is no tidy conclusion waiting at the end of this path, only the practice of choosing and choosing again.

Should there be an answer beyond that practice, it’s likely that I’ll never know.

Banner image courtesy of @equator

auster

auster

The goal of a kōan is to wear one’s reasoning down and function as a tool of insight, like an ethereal light at the end of the tunnel.