Kōan

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.

Etymology

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 (disambiguation)

Kōan

Kōan is a case, story, dialog, question, or statement in the history and lore of Zen Buddhism.

Kōan may also refer to:

Kōan (Muromachi period)

Kōan (康安) was a Japanese era name (年号, nengō, lit. year name) of the Northern Court during the Era of Northern and Southern Courts after Enbun and before Jōji. This period spanned the years from March 1361 through September 1362. The emperor in Kyoto was Go-Kōgon-tennō (後光厳天皇). Go-Kōgon's Southern Court rival in Yoshino during this time-frame was Go-Murakami-tennō (後村上天皇)

Nanboku-chō overview

During the Meiji period, an Imperial decree dated March 3, 1911 established that the legitimate reigning monarchs of this period were the direct descendants of Emperor Go-Daigo through Emperor Go-Murakami, whose Southern Court (南朝, nanchō) had been established in exile in Yoshino, near Nara.

Until the end of the Edo period, the militarily superior pretender-Emperors supported by the Ashikaga shogunate had been mistakenly incorporated in Imperial chronologies despite the undisputed fact that the Imperial Regalia were not in their possession.