Koan

A koan is a paradox to be meditated upon that is used to train Zen Buddhist monks to abandon ultimate dependence on reason and to force them into gaining sudden intuitive enlightenment.

An example is “provide a definition of a ‘powerful’ question.”

According to Jan Willem van de Wetering “All koans are illogical and go beyond the reasoning mind. The monk in training may try to give a sensible answer, but if he doesn’t it will be just the same: the master will ring his bell and the monk has to leave the room until the next instalment of a proposed solution. The answers which, after many years of hard work, despair and near insanity, may be accepted, will be diverse. Perhaps the monk will make a nonsensical remark; maybe he laughs, or looks at the teacher in a peculiar way or does something, like knocking on the floor or waving. If the master nods, the next koan will follow, to deepen the monk’s insight. There are rows and rows of koans, and the monk who solves them all has to leave the monastery to practise his insight in the world, perhaps as a teacher, perhaps as an inconspicuous civilian. Only very few disciples come to the end of the road, which doesn’t matter, for the monastery is not a school intended to produce nothing but masters.”

Koans make no sense without intent and a master. One wouldn’t, for example, expect great insight if a koan was tossed in the direction of a bunch of Australian service providers during one of those HR-ish one hour training sessions. But you never know, there might be a domino effect where someone, somewhere, ends up thinking about it muchly. Who knows where the earthquake will be once the butterfly has flapped its wings?