Koan
A kōan (公案) (/ˈkoʊæn, -ɑːn/) is a story, dialogue, question, or statement which is used in Zen Buddhism practice to provoke the "great doubt" and to practice or test a student's progress in Zen.1
$ koan
1. A Cup of Tea
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912),
received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full,
and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could
restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your
own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen
unless you first empty your cup?"
Setup
First, open the file koan in your favorite text editor and set the absolute path to your local repository in the DIR variable.
Then simply
$ sh setup.sh
and you're good to go.
Info
These koans were translated into English from a book called the Shasekishū (Collection of Stone and Sand), written late in the thirteenth century by the Japanese Zen teacher Mujū, and from anecdotes of Zen monks taken from various books published in Japan around the turn of the 20th century2.
This project is licensed under GNU General Public License v2.0 or later.