英和和英

別の表記

• kōan

語源

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

発音

• (英国発音) IPA: /ˈkəʊ.ɑːn/
• (米国発音) IPA: /ˈkoʊ.ɑn/

名詞

koan (plural koans)

1. (Zen Buddhism) 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.
   • 1977, Thomas Hoover, chapter 1, in Zen Culture‎, →ISBN:

     Zen, with its absurdist koan, laughs at life much the way the Marx brothers did. What exactly can you make of a philosophical system whose teacher answers the question, "How do you see things so clearly?" with the seeming one-liner, "I close my eyes"?

2. A riddle with no solution, used to provoke reflection on the inadequacy of logical reasoning, and to lead to enlightenment.
   • 1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow:

     Gibberish. Or else a koan that Achtfaden isn’t equipped to master, a transcendent puzzle that could lead him to some moment of light.

   • 2001, Joyce Carol Oates, Middle Age, paperback edition, Fourth Estate, page 303:

     As always the koan “Why, Why am I here, why here” begins in her head, but she beats it back like a housewife with a broom.

3. 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.

派生語

参照

アナグラム

• KAON, Kano, Kona, NKAO, kano, kaon