Did you mayhaps mean Joan?
Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A puzzling, often paradoxical statement or story, used in Zen Buddhism as an aid to meditation and a means of gaining spiritual awakening.
Wiktionary
- n. Zen Buddhism A story about a Zen master and his student, sometimes like a riddle, other times like a fable, which has become an object of Zen study, and which, when meditated upon, may unlock mechanisms in the Zen student’s mind leading to satori.
- n. A riddle with no solution, used to provoke reflection on the inadequacy of logical reasoning, and to lead to enlightenment.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a paradoxical anecdote or a riddle that has no solution; used in Zen Buddhism to show the inadequacy of logical reasoning
Etymologies
- From Japanese 公案 (こうあん), which was from Sinitic 公案 (gōng'àn, "official business"). (Wiktionary)
- Japanese kōan : kō, public (from Middle Chinese kəwŋ) + an, matter. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“4 The koan is the principal form of meditation practiced by the Rinzai sect.”
“A koan is a Zen riddle, the answer to which—if, in fact, there is an answer—is largely immaterial.”
“Whether you think of it as a Buddhist riddle termed a "koan", a mystical allegory, or an inner-world travelogue; if you're in the right frame of mind, you will surely be fascinated by Bae's highly intelligent, visually arresting film.”
The Huffington Post: John Farr: Getting Religion: The Ten Best Films on Faith
“I suppose you could say that it was like the sudden solution to a koan, which is not an intellectual affair, but more of a breakthrough into the ground of being.”
“Once that's done, a command called koan (kickstart over a network) is used on the Dom0 machine to create virtual machines as defined by the system definitions cobbler.”
“Whether you think of it as a Buddhist riddle (termed a "koan"), a mystical allegory, or an inner-world travelogue; if you're in the right frame of mind, you will surely be fascinated by this demanding but intelligent and visually arresting film.”
John Farr: In An Accelerated World - Ten Movies to Soothe the Soul
“The 83-year-old Zen master, who has lived in exile for more than four decades, shared his thoughts in a nine-page Buddhist "koan," a sort of Zen riddle meant to inspire meditation, reflection and enlightenment.”
“Looked at from one point of view, nothing is real; from another point of view, everything is real; from another, "nothing is real except the Real"; from yet another, "I am the Real" (ana'I Haqq, a sufi "koan").”
“I just pose this as a kind of koan for the putative free / free distinction (I'm sure others have thought of it too, and there may even be an answer, but I cannot intuit it offhand); and if the distinction does not survive it, then what has to go: the freedom to sell or the freedom to revise / redistribute?”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘koan’.
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phrontistery - k
from phrontistery.info
kainotophobia, kaiserin, kakidrosis, kakistocracy, kakorrhaphiophobia, kalamkari, kaleidophone, kalology, kalon, kalpis, kalyptra, kame and 189 more...
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Confusually
???????????????????
baffle, farrago, confound, befuddle, daze, disorient, discombobulate, stupefy, perplex, mystify, bewilder, boggle and 134 more...
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thing
apron, lard, clove, camphor, alfalfa, amber, caraway, juniper, kohl, lute, shale, glyph and 142 more...
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slumry's Words
cattywampus, ingratiate, lackadaisical, exactitude, exfoliate, fulminate, circumnavigation, circuitous, debride, sidle, sequester, chicory and 1002 more...
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Appellations
States of ment.
off kilter, fervent, nonchalant, exuberant, turbid, verbose, eloquent, vicarious, gallivant, orotund, amalgamate, accentuate and 285 more...
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Words from "Pearls Before Breakfast"
nondescript, shrewd, seed money, bureaucrat, indeterminate, fungible, cupidity, banal, grandeur, utilitarian, buffer, ecstatic and 123 more...
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words found to be generally pleasing
alabaster, mahogany, camphor, coalesce, spire, portmanteau, gadabout, palaver, dolor, dour, dun, luminesce and 610 more...
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bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1459 more...
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azd's Words
adamantine, abatial, ablate, ablative, abrogate, accretive, acromegaly, acrostic, actinism, actinic, acuity, adduce and 968 more...
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patterns
ergodic, stochastic, stereopsis, echolocation, holocation, broker, map, intarsia, encipher, ocellus, muslin, mandelbrot set and 159 more...
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pixistix's Words
cumquat, circumlocution, panoply, propinquity, contumely, quietus, fardel, tmesis, tipsy, giddy, trudge, vortex and 211 more...
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kewpid's Words
moleskine, araldite, dessicate, cellar door, grotesque, fallacy, vendetta, raindrop, panacea, ethereal, hircus, treppenwitz and 446 more...
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Words
Words I like.
jejune, eunoia, swallow, spelunk, milquetoast, echolalia, trumble, toothsome, synecdoche, taciturn, kerfuffle, aleatoric and 98 more...
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Rabindranath Not Included
i can't never forget thiccyn's!
bubaline, dezinkhornifistib..., hirundine, bee veil, cuckoo spit, resistentialism, hobthrush, burniebee, hookem-snivey, fattiehead, mompyns, mons and 144 more...
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lanklenmot's Words
ineluctable, prelapsarian, bien pensant, prospero, preternatural, gratifying, iconoclast, cineast, persnickety, tumescent, galvanize, pap and 889 more...
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msc's Words
pugilist, threepeat, bloviate, palaver, syncreism, pastiche, eschatology, peripatetic, glossolalia, busker, nudnik, troglodyte and 213 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for koan.
ruzuzu Yes, seanahan. See verity. Jun 16, 2011
seanahan Does Wordie have the Buddha nature? Apr 3, 2009
bilby "He stood there by the fence. The night had been quiet. In freezing temperatures everything becomes stiff and silent. Stina had explained the reason to him; all the surfaces that reflect sound become both hard and elastic, like ice and glass. Hence the frost-night koan: Everything can be heard and there is not a sound."
- 'The Quiet Girl', Peter Høeg. Mar 18, 2008