What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Francis, you are going to hell...

As long as they are there with me..

correct, but there is a sound.

Why do you ask?

I once tried to clap with one hand, but I missed.

I'm inclined to agree with fresco. And with Niels Bohr. And a lot of other people, too, come to think of it.

Whoever made this up did not know anything. I can clap with one hand easy i'll e-mail you for proof. E-mail is [email protected] ancient mystery solved.

Mu


(just adding this line because a2k won't let me post only 2 letters... )

A koan (the kind of puzzle of which the sound of two hands is an example) is a tool (upaya) for zen "education" in the Rinzai tradition. The monk sits for hours forcusing with all his strength on a riddle/paradox that cannot be "solved". At regular intervals the monk meets with the teacher (master) to show the progress made on the assigned puzzle (there are hundreds of them). He does not "solve" it in the usual sense, but a kind of psychospiritual "resolution" may be achieved after time. This resolution has to do with a radical shift in the entire perspective of the monk (in his relation to his experience of self and his world) not with the accuracy of his answer to a question in the usual sense of the term.
The koan helps maintain in meditation an open readiness of mind--since there is no way to actually engage the koan because of its radically illogical and paradoxical nature--a posture that promotes greater openness and equanimity in life. It has been called a pressure cooker approach to the development of enlightenment. I've had encounters with three koans and I prefer the less structured mindfulness (satipathana and vipassana) approaches of the Soto zen school.

I generally smack the space bar a few times. One character is as good as another.

aha.. Thanks for the tip. I just assumed that wasn't counted as characters.

Oh, did you hear of the monk who, in response to the question What is the sound of one hand, slapped his master on the cheek?
It didn't pass muster, that day, but the next day it did.

Oh, did you hear of the monk who, in response to the question What is the sound of one hand, slapped his master on the cheek?
It didn't pass muster that day, but the next day it did.

I'd love to hear more of how it played out

Well, I think it didn't "pass muster" because the monk was being conceptual (or clever). The point of a koan is not to have an intellectual problem to "solve" but to have a mental circumstance/posture in which you are forced to transcend to a new (non-dualistic) perspective or resolution of existential contradictions. Something like that.

That's how I understood it from your previous explanation in this thread. But why did it pass the muster the next day?

When I encountered the question of the sound of one hand clapping I immediately thought of it as a non-issue, or a question that sounds reasonable because it is grammatically correct and sounds "genuine". But it is a bit like asking what is outside everything. That was why I answered Mu .

If you answered "mu" because it embodied some intellectual principle the master would most likely detect that and reject your response. If you intone "mu" as a genuine expression of your existence/reality at that moment, an expression that finallly has nothing to do with the meaning of the koan per se, the master might accept it and pass you on to another koan. Maybe not.
Of course the koan is a non-issue outside the context of the zen encounter. But if you accept the premises of the encounter, if you permit yourself to enter the trap, to become engaged then you must free yourself from it, but you won't so long as you expect the master to free you by accepting your response. I think he passes you when he realizes that you have already freed yourself by transcending the trap. Easier said than done, because the master has ways to keep you engaged.
I think your mu was an enlightened response, even if the master rejects it.

I used to read Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, every two or three years. While I did not solve any koans, it brought me comfort, of sorts.

enlightenment don't know what it is. if it did it wouldn't be enlightenment.

Hi, guys. Edgar, in the sixties and seventies I used to read the zen literature, especially the works of writers like Alan Watts for the feeling of "enlightenment" (or comfort) it gave me. It was a kind of fix. Now my "fix" is a half-hour of meditation (shikantaza) every morning. With that I don't feel a need for "enligtenment". And Dyslexia has become my koan.