one hand clapping

[don willard]

1) Cecil commented that one answer to,"What is the sound of one
hand clapping" was for the disciple to thrust his hand forward. I may be mistaken, but I think this might have been the occasion when the master cut off his disciple's finger. I know that happened one time. 2)Although there are various standard answers to the riddles or koans, it doesn't make any difference what the pupil answers. The master is only looking for sincerity, which is to say is the pupil putting his whole self into the answer or is he just being a smart-aleck. The master would accept any sincere answer unless he is in a mood not to accept even that. The whole point of Zen is to constantly evade all definitions and interpretations. 3) I believe MU is the sound of a dog barking, a smart-aleck answer to , "Does a dog have a Buddha nature."

[Chronos]

[Arnold Winkelried voice]Welcome to the Straight Dope, don willard, and thank you for your comments. The column you're referring to can be found on-line at What is the sound of one hand clapping?, and is also published (complete with illustration) in Cecil's first book, The Straight Dope, on page 49.[/Arnold Winkelried voice]

[whitetho]

Originally posted by Chronos
(complete with illustration)

I hate to be picky, but in the interest of meticulous accuracy -- our due to the master -- it must noted that this particular column is actually unillustrated, although there are numerous other high-quality illustrations in this volume, meaning it is easily worth twice its cover price, if not much more.

[Chronos]

Au contraire, whitetho... It does, indeed, have a remarkably accurate depiction of the sound made by a single hand clapping. Next you'll be telling me that the column about the white cat in the snowstorm doesn't have an illustration, either.[/code]OK, I'll admit it, I don't have the book, I've just seen Arnold so many times that I thought that all the columns in the books had illustrations.

[Lux Fiat]

1) Actually, the guy who cut off a kid's finger was Gutei. He was in the habit, when questioned about Zen, of simply raising his finger. The story doesn't say which finger, but if I were a Zen master, I know which one I'd use. Anyhoo, there was a boy attendant in the temple who would go around raising his finger like Gutei. When Gutei heard about it, he, in the spirit of grandmotherly kindness, cut off the kid's finger. The kid started to run screaming from the room, but Gutei called after him, and when the kid turned around, Gutei raised his finger. Bam! Enlightenment for the kid.
2) Yeah, but Cecil, being a man of science, favors the "no-bullshit approach" of the definite answer.
3) I had heard that Mu actually refers to nothingness, and when used in this context essentially has the meaning that Cecil gave it. I hadn't heard the dog thing, but for all I know that's part of it, too.

[don willard]

Lux is right, I realize now that it was Wu, not Mu that was the dog barking. The pupil answers "Wu!" when asked Does a dog have a or the buddha nature. It's in a movie but it doesn't say that Wu was the dog but I read it somewhere.
In the movie the master says to the pupil that he must put his whole self into the answer and answer from his center, thus rejecting the dog barking reply. Don

[Arnold Winkelried]

Thanks for all your great help with the links, Chronos! I know I can safely take a short leave of absence with all you great people around, looking out for the board welfare.

As far as illustrations go, I have to check the book to see if there is an illustration, so if you look back, you will see that sometimes I mention an illustration by the illustrious signor Slug, and sometimes I don't.

[Greyson3]

Hmmm, I was reading a Zen book (A possible oxymoron, I suppose) that defined "mu" as "a statement based on false premises", or something to that effect, which seems to jive somewhat with Cecil's "question too dumb to be asked".

I have the book (Essential Zen, by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Tensho David Shneider) in front of me now, but I can't seem to find the reference.

[mythicfox]

This may sound unbelievable, but I _AM_ capable of clapping with one hand. When done right, it sounds like a regular clap, only faster, and much quieter.

[Chronos]

mythicfox, is that fingers against palm, which anyone can do, or is it actually fingers and palm against air? The latter would be mightily impressive.

[mythicfox]

It's fingers and palm, but probably not in the sense that you might mean... like the episode of the Simpsons where Lisa asks Bart what the sound it, and he just starts bringing fingers to palm. That's not the way I do it. I can flick my wrist just so that fingers do contact palm, it's more of an action of the laws of motion, rather than the muscles in my arm making my fingers move. If that makes any sense.

[Lux Fiat]

Originally posted by Chronos
...or is it actually fingers and palm against air? The latter would be mightily impressive.

Thunder Punch He-Man: Zen master.

[DropOfaHat]

mythicfox, you are not alone - I too have the somewhat disturbing ability to flick my wrist & cause my loose fingers to sort of slap against my palm. (I can even get both hands going, alternatively, and can work up a pretty good speed for a "motorboat" effect.)

Few people I share this talent with fail to be at least mildly disgusted, so currently I keep my displays to a minimum. Why are people so grossed out by it? My guess is that it's the act's (at the risk of being relegated to the BBQ Pit, not that I'd mind) quasi-masturbatory nature.

Of course, every time the infamous Zen question comes up, I give my silent smart-ass answer. It never quite has the impressive effect I'm going for...

[Irishman]

Lux Fiat posted:

1) Actually, the guy who cut off a kid's finger was Gutei. He was in the habit, when questioned about Zen, of simply raising his finger. The story doesn't say which finger, but if I were a Zen master, I know which one I'd use. Anyhoo, there was a boy attendant in the temple who would go around raising his finger like Gutei. When Gutei heard about it, he, in the spirit of grandmotherly kindness, cut off the kid's finger. The kid started to run screaming from the room, but Gutei called after him, and when the kid turned around, Gutei raised his finger. Bam! Enlightenment for the kid.

Okay, I still don't get it. Child mutilation is acceptable if done in the pursuit of enlightenment? The Zen master is the only one allowed to raise a finger? The message doesn't translate into English?

And nobody comes near my finger.

[don willard]

Well they lived in more overtly barbaric times, or else
the story is apocryphal. Anyway, I feel that the average urbanized person nowadays has been drained of imagination and tends to take things literally as opposed to and getting in the way of getting the point. Hence fundamendalism which is evidently not restricted to religion, but is found
everywhere. For instance, most of the replies to this question take the story of the hand literally instead of as it was intended, and focus on how one hand really could clap in a sense.... Another Zen koan is What did your face look like before you were born. Instead of concentrating on
what before embryology came along was the impossibility or unanswerability or irrationality of this question, people nowadays just say well it was very big as was my head, curved over, and got smaller later, because everybody has seen the faces of embryos duplicated in museums and pictures. The koans are meant to be unanswerable; the point is evidently to get people to stop being literal-minded and rational. In trying to solve the koan the mind is supposed to wake up to the buddha-nature or universal consciousness which is all around, or else one is supposed to realize there is nothing to be done or to wake up to. The most important thing is that the answer to the koan tells the "master" whether the answerer is sincere or not, meaning whether he is focused on something, concentrated on something, without anything else going on. Then he has answered the koan correctly no matter what he says. Not that I claim to be enlightened myself.

[Irishman]

don, I'm aware of the nature of the koans and their point. That still does not explain the finger story.

[Chronos]

I think that the master was allowed to just raise his finger because he came up with that as a sincere answer to whatever koan was being asked, through a process of meditation, introspection, whatever. The student, on the other hand, was just being a smart-alek, and copycatting the master, which is very unenlightening, hence the punishment.

[msouth]

the most commonly-heard one-hand clap is th snaping of fingers. the sound of the snap comes from the finger clapping agains teh palm near the base of the thumb (you might have thought it was the finger rubbing and moving past the thumb, but that's much quieter).

I wonder if there's a specific term for people who take delight in "solving" koans? (other than the obvious and already proposed "smart-alec", or the synonymical "mathematician", I mean...)

[Irishman]

Not to be obtuse, but how does that then lead to enlightenment for the kid? Suddenly he realizes that he was just being smart-alecky?

msouth, technically wouldn't that be the sound of one finger clapping?

[Chronos]

Not to be obtuse, but how does that then lead to enlightenment for the kid?

I dunno. If you knew that, you'd have enlightenment yourself. In any event, it makes more sense than someone gaining enlightenment by being told to wash a ricebowl.

[ren]

Not to be obtuse, but how does that then lead to enlightenment for the kid? Suddenly he realizes that he was just being smart-alecky?

Some minor details about the original koan that are vital: I believe that the story says that Gutei was in the habit of waggling his finger (or some such similar behavior) when answering a question - not that he would just answer questions by raising his finger. The student got into the habit of imitating him. To further clarify, after cutting off the kid's finger, an exchange occurs between Gutei and student. Gutei raises his finger, and the kid, out of reflex, does the same - but he doesn't have a finger. Enlightenment ensues. Presumably what went on in the student's mind is that he reacted out of reflex, and for just a second it seemed to him he had a finger. Then he realized the illusion. Hence the power of the mind to create false reality was made potently clear to him. Many koans are variations on this theme.

The somewhat violent nature of the koan is also not unusual. One reason this story survives is because it is a colorful example of what a brilliant teacher Gutei was. This is illustrated by the fact that he was able to A) analyze the situation and come up with an effective means of communicating illusion vs reality to the student - well enough and strongly enough to achieve a breakthrough - and B) not afraid to use unconventional methods to do so, if it got the point across.

These stories serve not only as parables on the Dharma (illusion vs. reality in this case) but also as commentaries on what makes skillful teaching.

[Lux Fiat]

Here's the story as it appears in The Gateless Gate, by Mu-mon, from the book Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, collected by Paul Reps, 1989 printing:

Gutei raised his finger whenever he was asked a question about Zen. A boy attendant began to imitate him in this way. When anyone asked the boy what his master had preached about, the boy would raise his finger.

Gutei heard about the boy's mischief. He seized him and cut off his finger. The boy cried and ran away. Gutei called and stopped him. When the boy turned his head to Gutei, Gutei raised up his own finger. In that instant the boy was enlightened.

When Gutei was about to pass from this world he gathered his monks around him. "I attained my finger-Zen," he said, "from my teacher Tenryu, and in my whole life I could not exhaust it." Then he passed away.

So in my version at least, there is no waggling, nor a verbal exchange between Gutei and the kid, though perhaps a more profound exchange takes place. It really doesn't accomplish much to analyze exactly how the above led to enlightenment for the kid, or how it can do the same for you in the comfort of your home. That's like asking what's going on in the Christian monk's mind, that he's able to touch the Godhead after whipping himself with wet ropes for a few hours. By throwing words on it until it's shaped like something you recognize, you obscure the whole point of the experience, which is pretty much to transcend stuff like language in favor of direct experience of Universal Truth, whatever that is.

[don willard]

Referring to the finger cutting and wet rope beating, this type of thing is suspicious. Naturally anything so overwhelming will make a person feel overwhelmed, which is what an experience of enlightenment or of the Divine love or whatever of the Divine is about. Also, human nature because it is monkey nature has an element of cruelty, masochism, sadism in it. Anything extreme which is not also pleasant should be dismissed on these grounds alone. And in addition, while learning anything new is unpleasant in large part, it doesn't have to be TOO unpleasant. Thus in raising children certain disciplines must be imposed on them as it must on new workers. Discipline I mean just as doing definite assigned things regularly for awhile until the new thing is learned. And another thing, life is always already imposing itself on us with all too unpleasant things for us to be looking for wet ropes. Speaking of child rearing, dog training, and so on, you wouldn't beat a dog half to death to train him or make him love you, which is exactly what the gods of religion are all about. An excessive interest in religion is always a sign of mental instability, I read in a book once. Sermon ended.

[Lux Fiat]

Speaking of child rearing, dog training, and so on, you wouldn't beat a dog half to death to train him or make him love you, which is exactly what the gods of religion are all about.

Without getting into the efficacy of such a method, you're confusing the "love God" aim of mainstream Christianity with the "know/experience God" aim of mystics. The Gnostic monk whips himself with the ropes, the aboriginal candidate for manhood wanders starving in the wilderness for several days, etc., not because they believe that their god demands it of them, but because mortification of the flesh is one of the tried-and-true methods throughout human history for attaining religious ecstacy.

That having been said, I wasn't trying to draw a parallel with the physical act of cutting off the kid's finger when I brought up our friend the Gnostic and his wet ropes. I was drawing a comparison between the ineffability (is that a word?) of the two experiences. There's no way you're going to put enlightenment (or whatever you want to call it) into words, because by its nature it transcends language.

[ren]

By throwing words on it until it's shaped like something you recognize, you obscure the whole point of the experience,

Been thinking about this for a few days. Couldn't leave it alone, I guess. I would agree that words fail when one attempts to describe such experiences, but I don't think that it's proper to conclude we should not attempt to talk about them. Yes, real dharma can only be communicated through direct experience (hence the need for relationships with skillful teachers) but a lot of the groundwork and understanding has been passed down in written and spoken form as well. I came to a lot of understanding using books and lectures as a starting point.

Giving a example of how one might interpret Gutei's encounter with his student may only approximate or guess at the real experience, but it may also serve to help foster understanding of the mechanisms by which Zen seeks to bring greater awareness to the individual, so I think it's good to discuss, even while keeping in mind how limiting language is.

BTW, I originally encountered this story with a different ending which, roughly paraphrased, was:

...the student raised his finger, then realized it was not there. He paused for a moment, then bowed.

with no mention of enlightenment. I tend to favor relating the story in this way, since it communicates that a lesson was learned without necesarily dragging the baggage associated with "enlightenment" into the frame.

[Lux Fiat]

I came to a lot of understanding using books and lectures as a starting point.

Well shit, it's not like I'm a Bodhisattva or anything over here. Everything I know about this subject (which really isn't much at all) I learned from books myself. I didn't mean to come across as if I'm against the attempt to talk about these experiences. On the contrary, I could talk about it all day. It just seemed as though you were attempting to explain the thought process behind enlightenment (the outcome of my version of the story). Since in your version (and I'm not sure which one I like better; they both make different points, and I'm hard pressed to choose between them), the baggage of enlightenment isn't present, your explanation of the story makes a lot more sense to me. I suspect we're both on the same page, here, but have until this point perhaps been falling prey to the limitations of our words.

[ren]

I suspect we're both on the same page,

Uh oh. We'd better move this to the Pit before an agreement breaks out.

[DrMatrix]

Originally posted by ren

One reason this story survives is because it is a colorful example of what a brilliant teacher Gutei was. This is illustrated by the fact that he was [...] not afraid to use unconventional methods to do so, if it got the point across.

These stories serve not only as parables on the Dharma (illusion vs. reality in this case) but also as commentaries on what makes skillful teaching.

"Unconventional methods"??? In this country a teacher can't even use corporal punishment. I'll bet if a teacher started disecting your child, you would not talk about what a skillful teacher he is, even if he got his point across.

[Stentor]

Originally posted by don willard
An excessive interest in religion is always a sign of mental instability, I read in a book once. Sermon ended. [/b]

The aryan race is suprior to all other races and has a moral obligation to wipe its inferiors from the face of the earth. I read a book once, too.