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A kyosaku (Japanese), traditionally, is an attempt by one's sensei to alert students to their mindlessness in zazen (sitting meditation), usually administered by a stick. An English translation is stick of compassion.
In a more colloquial fashion, a kyosaku is like a "reality check," or something that alerts one to further contemplate their situation, in order to understand and work things out.
Kyosaku is always administered at the humble request of the student, by way of bowing one's head and putting the palms together, and then exposing each shoulder to be struck in turn. It is not a punishment, but a self-administration-by-proxy, as it were.
Kyosaku sticks generally occur only in Zen Buddhism, not in the other schools such as Theravada, Mahayana, or Nichiren.
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