Tuesday, April 2, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
A kung-an is a paradoxical short story or riddle designed to stop ingrained thought patterns and evoke intuitive responses.
Here's an example of an American-style kung-an, as told by Southern California Zen student Tim Colohan, who recently came to Las Vegas for the one-day Mohave Desert Zen Center retreat:
A father and his son are in a terrible automobile accident. They're rushed to the hospital emergency room. The son is rolled in on the first gurney.
The doctor on duty exclaims, "Oh, my God, that's my son!"
How can that be?
An early Eastern kung-an asks whether a dog has Buddha nature.
Acceptable answers to the various kung-an are not published because the whole point of the exercise is to discover the concealed meanings for oneself.
"There is treasure in the answer. If you are clear, the answer is very clear," Colohan said.
The answer to the American kung-an, however, is publishable: The doctor is the boy's mother.
By Merilyn Potters
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