A kōan (公案)/ˈkoʊ.ɑːn/; Chinese: 公案; pinyin: gōng'àn; Korean: 공안 (kong'an); Vietnamese: công án) is a story, dialogue, question, or statement, which is used in Zen practice to provoke the "great doubt" and test a student's progress in Zen practice.
The Japanese term kōan is the Sino-Japanese reading of the Chinese word gong'an (Chinese: 公案; pinyin: gōng'àn; Wade–Giles: kung-an; literally: "public case"). The term is a compound word, consisting of the characters 公 "public; official; governmental; common; collective; fair; equitable" and 案 "table; desk; (law) case; record; file; plan; proposal."
According to the Yuan Dynasty Zen master Zhongfeng Mingben (中峰明本 1263–1323), gōng'àn originated as an abbreviation of gōngfǔ zhī àndú (公府之案牘, Japanese kōfu no antoku—literally the andu "official correspondence; documents; files" of a gongfu "government post"), which referred to a "public record" or the "case records of a public law court" in Tang-dynasty China.Kōan/gong'an thus serves as a metaphor for principles of reality beyond the private opinion of one person, and a teacher may test the student's ability to recognize and understand that principle.
Koan is a generative music engine that was created by a company called SSEYO, a company founded by Pete Cole and Tim Cole. It was founded specifically to create and market Koan. The technology is now owned by a company called Intermorphic Limited, which was co-founded by the Cole brothers in 2007.
Koan was actually an architecture named the SSEYO Koan Interactive Audio Platform (SKIAP). This consisted of the core Koan generative music engine (the SSEYO Koan Generative Music Engine (SKME), a set of authoring tools (SSEYO Koan Pro and SSEYO Koan X), a set of stand-alone Koan Music player (SSEYO Koan Plus, SSEYO Koan File Player and SSEYO Koan Album Player) and a plug-in for internet browsers such as Internet Explorer and Netscape.
The Koan generative music engine was very deep; this is partially because of the long history of the product. Development of the Koan engine started in 1990, when SSEYO was founded. By 1992, the first version went into beta testing. The first Koan software was publicly released in 1994 and distributed by Koch Media. The first Koan Pro authoring tool was released in 1995. The same year, SSEYO managed to bring Koan to the attention of Brian Eno, and it turned out that he was interested in using Koan. He started creating pieces with Koan Pro that, in April 1996, lead to the publication of his seminal title Generative Music 1 with SSEYO Koan software. This was a boxed product containing a floppy disk, on which was the SSEYO Koan Plus player and a set of 12 Koan generative-music pieces that he authored. Eno's early relationship with Koan was captured in his 1996 diary A Year with Swollen Appendices.
Kōan (弘安) was a Japanese era name (年号,, nengō,, lit. "year name") after Kenji and before Shōō. This period spanned the years from February 1278 through April 1288. The reigning emperors were Go-Uda-tennō (後宇多天皇) and Fushimi-tennō (伏見天皇).
Who has more beauty, finch or black jackdaw?
Who is more precious, fleece or red tiger claw?
Does joy or sorrow lie closer to god?
Do angels and devils deal from one deck of cards?
You must sing more sad.
You must sing more sad.
You know the world wouldn't feel so bad if you would sing more sad.
Does love lie in madness, madness in truth?
Is wisdom in knowing, knowing can never prove?
If being can be but being right now,
How can tomorrow weigh anything more than cloud?