koan

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun

A story about a Zen master and his student, sometimes like a riddle, other times like a fable or parable, 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.
A riddle with no solution, used to provoke reflection on the inadequacy of logical reasoning, and to lead to enlightenment.
A therapy technique used by Traditional Chinese medicinal physicians or medical practitioners to break a presenting patients habitual pattern of thinking that has been diagnosed as the primary cause of an illness or disease.

/ˈkəʊ.ɑːn/ /ˈkoʊ.ɑn/ en-us-koan.ogg

koan koans kōan

From Japanese 公案 (kōan), derived from Chinese 公案 (gōng'àn, “official business”).

koanic koanlike

Finnish: aporia Finnish: kōan French: aporie Hungarian: koan Italian: aporia Polish: koan Spanish: aporía

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.

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