KOAN

koan: translation

(Jap., lit. an official document or public notice; a final arbiter of truth or falsehood)Koanare stories, often in the form of questions and answers, set as problems for meditation in the practice of Zen Buddhism, although the problems are not for solving by linear or rational processes. The most famous is the problem of the noise made by one hand clapping. Themu-koanis the replymu(meaning nothing) given by the master Joshu in answer to the question whether a dog has the nature of Buddha. Another is the interchange: ‘What is Buddha?’ ‘Three pounds of flax.’