One of the core tenants of Zen Buddhism is Kongˆn practice. The original concept of Kongˆn, although associated with Buddhist practice in the West is not strictly a Buddhist term and translated means Òa public case,Ó Òa public exchange,Ó Òa public situation,Ó or Òa public document.Ó The pronunciation of the Chinese characters (__) for Kongˆn is G_ng-ˆn in Chinese or Koan in Japanese. The common use for this word comes from ancient China, and referred to a situation when copies of a government document were produced, the scribe would use a ÒchopÓ or seal on the copy in such a way that half of the seal was on the original document and half was on the copied document. This would allow for future verification of the authenticity of the copy by matching the two halves of the seal.