Koan vs Null - What's the difference?
koan | null |
(Zen Buddhism) A story about a Zen master and his student, sometimes like a riddle, other times like a fable, 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.
* 1979 , Douglas R. Hofstadter,
*:: Zen master Gutei raised his finger whenever he was asked a question about Zen. A young novice began to imitate him in this way. When Gutei was told about the novice’s imitation, he sent for him and asked him if it were true. The novice admitted it was so. Gutei asked him if he understood. In reply the novice held up his index finger. Gutei promptly cut it off. The novice ran from the room, howling in pain. As he reached the threshold, Gutei called, “Boy!” When the novice turned, Gutei raised his index finger. At that instant the novice was enlightened.
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
* 2001 , (Joyce Carol Oates), Middle Age : A Romance (Fourth Estate, paperback edition, 303)
A non-existent or empty value or set of values.
Zero]] quantity of [[expression, expressions; nothing.
Something that has no force or meaning.
(computing) the ASCII or Unicode character (), represented by a zero value, that indicates no character and is sometimes used as a string terminator.
(computing) the attribute of an entity that has no valid value.
One of the beads in nulled work.
(statistics) null hypothesis
Having no validity, "null and void"
insignificant
* 1924 , Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove :
absent or non-existent
(mathematics) of the null set
(mathematics) of or comprising a value of precisely zero
(genetics, of a mutation) causing a complete loss of gene function, amorphic.
As nouns the difference between koan and null
is that koan is (zen buddhism) a story about a zen master and his student, sometimes like a riddle, other times like a fable, 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 while null is zero, nil; the cardinal number before einn.koan
English
(wikipedia koan)Alternative forms
*Noun
(en noun)- Achilles: Let me tell you a k?an about an imitator.
- Gibberish. Or else a koan that Achtfaden isn’t equipped to master, a transcendent puzzle that could lead him to some moment of light.
- 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.
Anagrams
* * ----null
English
Noun
(en noun)- (Francis Bacon)
- Since no date of birth was entered for the patient, his age is null .
Adjective
(en adjective)- In proportion as we descend the social scale our snobbishness fastens on to mere nothings which are perhaps no more null than the distinctions observed by the aristocracy, but, being more obscure, more peculiar to the individual, take us more by surprise.