I am not certain of the pedigree of the Koan, but am familiar with it primarily as a feature of Zen practice. Essentially, a koan is a word, phrase, anecdote, or story which is intended to illustrate a particular point, or which is intended to, by virtue of it’s profundity or logical disconnection, trigger at least a momentary glimpse of awakening in the student.
Obviously, there is quite a bit of context underlying the above paragraph, which I am not going to get into in this post, but I do encourage you to investigate Zen further if you are so inclined. Zen is a fascinating branch of Buddhism in it’s own right, and is probably one of the more “commonly known” forms here in the States.
What I do want to do here, is feature one of my favorite koans. It takes the form of a story:
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