How to Use koan in a Sentence

koan

noun

• Like so many other questions in this book, this one is posed as a head-scratching koan.
  — Benjamin Moser, New York Times, 28 June 2018
• His answer is also a Zen koan that tells a lot about him: Walking functions as a metaphor for life.
  — Aaron Gilbreath, Longreads, 9 Apr. 2020
• The answer is a Zen koan: wide enough to accommodate all the passengers that flow through at peak times.
  — Justin Davidson, Curbed, 5 May 2021
• No, that’s not a Zen Buddhist koan designed to perplex music fans and philosophers alike.
  — George Varga, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 July 2022
• Paula has this great exercise that’s almost like a Zen koan: write a play that’s impossible to stage.
  — Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 18 Dec. 2022
• But there is enough evidence to suggest this isn’t a koan—an unanswerable Zen riddle.
  — Nick Ravo, WSJ, 7 Feb. 2020
• Officials and researchers alike were speaking in paradoxes akin to Zen koans.
  — Kitty Morgan, SFChronicle.com, 19 Apr. 2020
• To me, Ritual’s products sounded like one hand clapping: a cocktail koan.
  — John Seabrook, The New Yorker, 20 Sep. 2021
• Andre’s self-deprecating asides have the wisdom of Buddhist koans.
  — Patty Rhule, USA TODAY, 6 Feb. 2018
• But insights can also be found in the very act of solving the puzzle itself, just as illumination may come from contemplating a Zen koan.
  — Quanta Magazine, 10 Feb. 2021
• There is plenty of time to ponder koans these days at the animal park, where the coronavirus pandemic has left the sea lions, and the rest of its roughly 6,000 creatures, without an audience.
  — New York Times, 3 Apr. 2020
• Yes, there are 100 grandiose, koan-laden blurbs about the year's very important newsmakers, but also, each one is written by another one of the year's very important newsmakers.
  — Jay Willis, GQ, 19 Apr. 2018
• In the process, antidisestablishmentarianism became the longest non-technical word in the English language—and a nebulous koan with which to shake a fist against the Man.
  — Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 22 May 2017
• Physicist Aguirre borrows from the Zen Buddhist tradition of koans, or contemplative riddles, to present some of his field’s most esoteric concepts.
  — Gemma Tarlach, Discover Magazine, 7 May 2019
• Her Comme des Garçons shows became Zen koans—assemblages of bulbous shapes meant to challenge our preconceptions about garments, fashion, the establishment.
  — Steff Yotka, Vogue, 5 Oct. 2018
• Also judging by the trailer, no characters are wearing conceptual outfits inspired by the unknowable truth of Zen koans.
  — Steff Yotka, Vogue, 22 Apr. 2018
• For market watchers and finance industry savants, Greenspan was a human koan upon which they were expected to puzzle out their own economic enlightenment.
  — Elizabeth Spiers, The New Republic, 24 July 2019
• Its underlying nutritional philosophy is similar to the famous koan from nutritionist Michael Pollan: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
  — Megan McCarthy, USA TODAY, 9 Jan. 2020

Last Updated: 17 Nov 2024