Zen

[Wizard of Whatever]

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

The standard answer has been to snap the fingers. Here's a few more.

Just move one hand back and forth in front of you.
Silence.
The wind.

Any others.

 

[Sarkus]

To answer that question as you have done is to miss the point of why Zen koans are asked.

But here's an idea for you, WoW: if you want to understand Zen, please do try their practice of meditative silence. I have no doubt that it'll reap benefits the longer you practice for.

 

[C C]

• What is Zen: Zen is the direct experience of what we might call ultimate reality, or the absolute, yet it is not separate from the ordinary, the relative. This direct experience is our birthright. The practice of zazen—meditation—is a way of realizing the non-dualistic, vibrant, subtle, and interconnected nature of all life. [...] Through a dedicated and consistent meditation practice, we can realize that self and other are One, that the conditioned and unconditioned are simultaneous, that absolute and relative are identical. Out of this realization flows a natural compassion and wisdom, a peaceful and intuitively appropriate response toward whatever circumstances may arise.
  
  [...] This simple yet profound practice can release us from the shackles of past and future, as well as from the self-imposed and imprisoning barriers we erect around what we erroneously consider our separate and unchanging identities. Who do we think we are, anyway? When we really look deeply, it becomes the koan “Who am I?” We find that the conditioned views and compulsive traits we have come to call “self” have no fixed substance. We can, through consistent zazen, free ourselves from that imposter self and discover the true self—the being that is open, confident, and unhindered, flowing with all that exists in this very moment.

Initially seems to purport to accomplish what Kant asserted we can't do with respect to the noumenal world: Apprehend it as an experience. (Or at least not as the usual manifestations adhering to the intuitive forms of space and time.) But "Zen experiences" don't sound akin to the psilocybin-like trips of Tibetan monks (6th bardo). But instead just a deriving of non-conceptual revelations from everyday phenomena -- of no longer applying reason and language-based interpretations to them (the ensuing significances alternatively mediated by what -- exotic feelings?). Also, an Aldous Huxley "reducing valve" type view in there -- though the influence is vice versa (he borrowed it from older mysticism and tweaked it with modern, Western metaphors).

• David Darling: Living in a world of words and concepts and inherited beliefs, says Zen, we have lost the power to grasp reality directly. Our minds are permeated with notions of cause and effect, subject and object, being and nonbeing, life and death. Inevitably this leads to conflict and a feeling of personal detachment and alienation from the world. Zen's whole emphasis is on the experience of reality as it is, rather than the solution of problems that, in the end, arise merely from our mistaken beliefs.
  
  Because it eschews the use of the intellect, Zen can appear nihilistic (which it is not) and elusive (which it is). Certainly, it would be hard to conceive of a system that stood in greater contrast with the logical, symbol-based formulations of contemporary science. More than any other product of the Oriental mind, Zen is convinced that no language or symbolic mapping of the world can come close to expressing the ultimate truth.
  
  ... Zen differs from other meditative forms, including other schools of Buddhism, in that it does not start from where we are and gradually lead us to a clear view of the true way of the world. The sole purpose of studying Zen is to have Zen experiences — sudden moments, like flashes of lightning, when the intellect is short-circuited and there is no longer a barrier between the experiencer and reality. Sometimes its methods can seem bizarre and even startling. To catch the flavor, if a Zen master found you reading this book he might grab it from you and hit you over the head with it, saying: “Here’s something else for you to think about!” Such shock tactics, however, are intended not to offend but rather to wake us up from our normal symbol-bound frame of mind.
  
  ... Zen uses language to point beyond language, which is what poets and playwrights and musicians do. But, less obviously, it is also what modern science does if the intuitive leap is taken beyond its abstract formalism. The deep, latent message of quantum mechanics, for instance, codified in the language of mathematics, is that there is a reality beyond our senses which eludes verbal comprehension or logical analysis.
  
  ... Intuition has ever been the handmaiden of science. And although science represents its theories and conclusions in a “respectable” symbolic form, its greatest advances have always come initially not from the application of reason but from intuitive leaps — sudden flashes of inspiration very much akin to Zen experiences. --Zen Physics (1996), Chapter 12

_

 

[TheVat]

Before enlightenment, haul water, chop wood.
After enlightenment, haul water, chop wood.

This was the Zen bit that got me interested ca. age 12. An uncle had a book by Alan Watts, and also a collection of koans. I recall one that made an impression:

The wind was flapping the temple flag and two monks started an argument. One said the flag moved, the other said the wind moved. They argued back and forth but could not reach a conclusion. The master said, “It is not the wind that moves, it is not the flag that moves, it is your honourable minds that move.” The monks were awe-struck.