Gong'an

gong'an (J. kōan; K. kongan 公案). In Chinese, “public case,” or “precedent”; better known in the West by its Japanese pronunciation kōan. Within the Chinese Chan tradition, a gong'an refers to a meditation technique that typically consists of a presentation of a problem followed by a question that serves as a focal point for contemplation.

The Princeton Dictionary states:

Gong’an was originally a legal term, referring to the magistrate’s (gong) table (an), which by metonymy comes to refer to a legal precedent or an authoritative judgment; the term also comes to mean simply a “story” (gong’an in vernacular Chinese refers to the genre of detective stories). The term is widely used in the Chan school in a way that conveys both denotations of a legal precedent and a story.

The Digital Dictionary of Buddhism states:

Originally, a public notice, issued by, or dealt with by a Chinese government office. The term was appropriated by Chinese Chan Buddhism beginning in the late Tang period (唐代), where it was used to refer to a specific Buddhist meditation device, distinguished from the traditional Indian Buddhist forms of meditation such as śamatha/vipaśyanā.

Gong'an meditation (in the West, more commonly known by its Japanese rendering, kōan) usually consists of the presentation of a problem drawn from classical texts, or from teaching records and hagiographies of Tang and Song period Chinese Chan masters. After the case is presented, a question is asked regarding a key phrase (huatou 話頭) in the story, which usually presents a position that is at odds with accepted Buddhist doctrinal positions or everyday logic. Its purpose is not to elicit a rational answer, but to serve as a focal point for a dynamic form of contemplation, which results in a nondualistic experience. This is also known as 'phrase-observing meditation' (kanhua chan 看話禪).

After being developed in China, this practice spread to Korea as gong-an, where it has remained a prominent form of meditation in Korean Seon schools (mainly Jogye 曹溪宗) down to the present. In Japan, kōan meditation has been practiced mainly by the Rinzai school 臨濟宗, although certain Sōtō 曹洞宗 teachers like Dōgen 道元 did acknowledge the practice. Gong'ans are contained in edited collections, two of the most popular of which are the Wumen guan 無門關 (Gateless Barrier) and the Biyan lu 碧巖錄 (Blue Cliff Record). [Charles Muller; source(s): Nakamura, Ui, Yokoi, Iwanami]

One of the most famous gong'an is the first case of the Wumen guan, known as Zhaozhou gouzi ("Zhaozhouʼs Dog").

Sources

• Buswell, Robert E.; Lopez, Donald S. (2014), The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton University 
• 公案, Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (to sign in, see DDB sign-in)