Personal Koan

A Zen Koan is a riddle of sorts, meant to provoke insight into enlightenment (aka satori). Usually koans seem outright illogical on the surface - indeed, they're meant to destroy the mind's use of logic as a crutch and bring the user into experiencing the moment, or reality, as is. Koans are primarily used by the Rinzai sect of Zen - up to this point, I have mostly been following Soto Zen style meditation (counting of breaths without the use of any Koans).

I've been reading a new Zen book and somewhere in the back of my mind, I was struggling with a very dire issue. This morning, I realized that it was a koan of my own making - created quite unintentionally:

The path of Zen is one that is free of desire. One's actions and thoughts should be free of what one wants or the possession of goals. But then why study Zen? To desire enlightenment, freedom from life's sorrows, or even to wish to continue meditating are all desires themselves. In other words, to attain enlightenment, one must free themselves of desires. But to have the desire of enlightenment prevents attainment.

There is a story in Zen that touches this very issue. A disciple once asked the founder of Soto (Dogen Zenji) what the purpose of meditating was. The answer? "Nothing what so ever".

Koans are life-and-death riddles, according to some authors. Questions that touch the very core of the person trying to answer to the point where they try to find an answer day and night. I feel like this issue is very important to me and needs to be answered... looks like I have a project for a while.