Here's an example of a Buddhist koan:
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?" as quoted on the Zen Koans page, www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/1acupoftea.html
Here's an example of a koan in computer science that emulates this literary form:
In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6. "What are you doing?", asked Minsky. "I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe." "Why is the net wired randomly?", asked Minsky. "I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play." Minsky shut his eyes. "Why do you close your eyes?", Sussman asked his teacher. "So the room will be empty." At that moment, Sussman was enlightened. as quoted on the Artificial Intelligence Koans page, www.serve.com/cmtan/buddhism/Lighter/aikoans.html
Some other examples along these same lines appear at The Rootless Root, the Unix Koans of Master Foo, by Eric Steven Raymond.
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