What’s the sound of one hand clapping is the second koan noted in Enlightenment, a song by Van Morrison. The complete koan is “two hands clapping makes a sound. What is the sound of one hand clapping?” While the little meditation dude in my ‘toon apparently has spent a lot of time contemplating this koan, I have spent the last 17 years of my life appreciating the song.
Most of what I know about enlightenment can be summed up in the verse “Enlightenment, don’t know what it is”. A great koan all by itself, I have considered at various times whether it is saying I don’t know what it is or don’t try to know or enlightenment IS not knowing.
Koans, as puzzle statements create thought diversions and are the remedy for thought-us interupt-IS which is blocking what would otherwise come to us effortlessly by trying to control things with too much thought. To me the unconditional flow of life, or illumination, is the IS that thinking tries to rearrange and improve upon. To not know is to allow what IS to be known. Want to know more? (smiling now) Don’t think about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment