What is a kong-an?

Answer:

Zen Master Soeng Hyang: For me, kong-ans are the root of our practice. Kong-ans are like receiving a gift. There's the package: it's beautifully wrapped, there's a ribbon, wrapping paper, a beautiful box, and when you open the box there's tissue paper.
But what you really want is the gift inside, which is our true self. The very heart of the gift is to ask, "What is this?... What am I?" until it's totally unfiltered, totally present and intimate. Zen Master Seung Sahn has done an excellent job of making it possible for us to learn how to practice with the kong-an. 

The first time I had an interview with Zen Master Seung Sahn, I was very frightened. I had read all these books about Zen, mostly from the Japanese tradition. In 1972 that was all that was available, mostly translations from Japanese or Chinese. The masters were very severe. They were hitting people with staffs and shouting, "KATZ!"
I was very afraid he was going to do that, too. But what he did was teach about HIT (hits floor). He just kept saying, "What is Buddha? (hits floor) Boom. "What is dharma?" (hits floor) Boom. After drilling that into my head for about five minutes he asked me, "What is Buddha?" I tried a timid little tap on the floor (hits floor softly). I was so afraid, and he says, "Wonderful!"
If I were to look at it from the outside I'd say, oh God, he's just trying to prop her up and make her feel good, but it worked. I felt as if I got something. I felt a little bit of that hit. Something was communicated with that hit. That was important.

Zen Master Bon Yeon: One of the things that I always appreciate about kong-an practice is the great relief to meet somebody in your life who asks you, "Who are you?" You're stuck and you don't know, but you're happy. I think other people feel this relief too. 

I recall one funny example of seeing this relief in a video clip of Zen Master Seung Sahn's teaching in Europe.
In the film he's giving a first or possibly second interview to several people at once, all from different countries. With his Zen stick in hand he pokes them each in the belly asking them one by one, "When you die, where do you go?" Of course nobody could answer.
There's a tension in the room which is visible on the faces of these Zen students. After none of them can answer, he says to the group, "OK. You ask me."
They look puzzled, like, "You're gonna TELL us??" Then they all look at him and ask together, "When you die, where do you go?"
With those bright eyes of his, he says, "To the cemetery!!!"

You can hear the laughter and see this relief come over their faces as if to say, "Oh my God! Is that all?" In that moment they realized they didn't have to try and figure it out, and they could just be with "don't know."
If you keep your mind really simple and in this moment then the questions we have about life and death are quite approachable. You allow yourself to just see, or hear, or smell. Then it's very wonderful and for that moment the question and the answer dissolve in the act of just doing something 100%.
When you give up the feeling that you have to be right or you have to have the answer, then it's fun and great to have the "gift of the question itself," as Zen Master Soeng Hyang just called it.
That's the thing: it's not about finding the answer to some questions such as, "When you die, where do you go?" or "Who are you?". It's the question itself which is the gift.

Zen Master Seong Hyang
Zen Master Bon Yeon

Excerpted from a workshop at
" The Whole World is a Single Flower" Conference.