The Fox Koan Essay

Buddhism is one of the most widely practiced ways in the Western world. Throughout the west koan’s are often used to demonstrate a story to reveal a deeper lesson. Some of the most famous koan’s that best captures the Buddhist perspectives and concepts of dharma, kensho, and bodhi are written by Eihei Dogen. One of Dogen’s most debated koan, which can be found in The Essential Dogen is “The Fox” koan. The koan can be easily interpreted as a story about rebirth and becoming enlightened. What is often left out is who is the fox? Scholars often debate that while reading the koan it can be inferred that the fox is truly Master Baizhang’s former self.

In “The Fox” koan, one major concept that is demonstrated is kensho or seeing into one’s nature. One instance where looking into ones nature can be seen through the Buddhist ideology is that knowledge is passed on from one generation to the next. While this knowledge is passed down through each generation it must be revealed through accessing the knowledge within one’s self. For example, one analogy that is used is comparing all buddha’s throughout time to a candle. As the candle

Within the story the old man not only achieves his own enlightenment, but helps lead his present self towards it as well. This allows his present self to gain knowledge from the old man’s mistakes as well as adjust his own ways of thinking for the future. Since enlightenment “is not limited to conditions” one awaking can form a chain reaction to begin another (Tanahashi and Levitt 4). This means that even though the old man has found his own sense of enlightenment from his experiences, Master Baizhang can also gain from this enlightenment. If the purpose of the fox’s appearance was in fact to help Master Baizhang to make this realization, it is likely that teaching this lesson and passing along this information was always the underlying