Zen Revolution
Years ago, a monk would take one kong-an into the mountain and hold it for many, many years until he got enlightenment. That was possible because a monk’s life does not always need to be involved with changing situations in a hectic world. But nowadays many people must connect their practice with life in a very fast and complicated society.
If you only hold this samadhi-style and become-one style of using kong-ans, you are attached to an old and dead tradition. Then your kong-an practice does not have some practical and spontaneous application to life in the modern world. This is how Zen died out in China. Zen practice and kong-an practice there could no longer connect with everyday life, so they both died. Zen became an esoteric practice based on secret words and behind-meanings. Zen practice after the T’ang and Sung dynasties lost all of its bodhisattva direction.
Our Zen style means intuitively perceiving how you use these kong-ans to connect meditation practice to bodhisattva action in a complicated world. That is the point of separating this way of viewing kong-an practice. It is a Zen revolution.