There are many problems with the Koan Zen style of teaching that places emphasis on kensho or satori experiences. Firstly, it can mistake colourful experiences for the recognition of our essential nature; secondly, it can set students up to feel like they haven’t had that experience and that somehow, they are a failure; thirdly, these experiences can elevate the self and then the self is always chasing another experience, where our essential nature is not an experience of any kind. Another problem was that these experiences would often bypass unrecognised psychological issues that would manifest later. Hence, our founding teacher dropped the Koan style teaching method and placed emphasis on the direct path to awakening to our essential nature, by including within that the direct experiencing of body sensations including unwanted sensations such as anxiety. The combination of direct experiencing and dropping the story-line would lead to the erosion of our separate self. These talks explore this style of teaching in part 1 and part 2 of Relational Zen.

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