If not, then what is the answer to this koan? I believe it’s different for everyone and, to me, the search for an answer lead me to examine my deepest self, the old, fully able bodied me, as well as the new upper extremity challenged me. Is this what is meant by the koan? I don’t think so. If I am standing, I can slap the open palm of my left hand against my thigh or the seat in front of me, which makes a little more noise than the seated “golf clap”. If I’m sitting, I can turn my right hand over and go through the motions of a clap, but it makes very little sound at all, similar to a muted clap at golf tournaments. After my disability, it became awkward to attend an event where applause was warranted or expected. To clap your hands is to signify appreciation of another’s actions. This has been written in countless songs, poems and lamentations throughout human history. Here’s a fact of life: you can’t fully appreciate something until it is taken away from you. It’s difficult to think about your career or how much is in your 401-K when you suddenly are unable to do previously simple things such as tying your shoes. Then came February 1 st, 2002, and the deeper things that aren’t visible to our eyes or audible to our ears became much more important. I forgot to, as Mushasi puts it, “develop the twofold gaze, perception and sight.” In other words, see what is going on around you (sight), but also look for the things that can’t be seen, the things that are beneath physical sight (perception). Then life hit, marriage, a career, kids, mortgage, etc. He was a Zen Buddhist and, legend has it, he was undefeated in 61 sword duels – in one of which he was so contemptuous of the opponent’s technique that he used a boat paddle! While the book is about sword fighting on the surface, millions of people since then have embraced it as a work of philosophy, especially Zen philosophy.īy the time I was in college, I was taking martial arts classes and learning a little bit more about Zen and began to meditate regularly. By the time I was in high school, I had read “The Book of Five Rings” which is a book written in the 17 th century on sword fighting techniques by a samurai named Miyamoto Musashi. So how does a man who grew up on a farm in South Alabama know about Zen koans? Short answer, I was a weird child. I have no sword, and couldn’t wield one if I did, but I do have 16 years of struggling with this unanswerable question and realized that within the eyewall of this storm, I have learned some things about life, and yes, I believe I know what one hand clapping sounds like.
It’s supposed to be an unanswerable question, just as the Gordian knot was supposed to be impossible to untie until Alexander the Great came along and impatiently cut it with a sword. It’s a koan, or question designed to measure a student’s progress in their study of Zen. So now you know how I came up with the catchy name for my blog, “The Sound of One Hand Clapping.”. The right (and formerly dominant) arm is near 100% paralyzed. My left arm is somewhere around 80% paralyzed. In one of the random shifts that frequently happen in such storms, my legs (and everything beneath my armpits) were restored fully. Instead I awoke in the recovery room unable to move from the neck down. The surgeon told my then wife (we are now divorced) that I could ride the Scream Machine in nearby Six Flags over Georgia in a few days.
Severe neck pain caused by two ruptured discs in my cervical spine had brought me here. My storm hit me in an operating room in Birmingham, AL. In Psalms 42 he wrote: “My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Good question that, “Where is your God?” Sort of gets to the heart of man’s struggle with life’s meaning and his relationship to the universe. David, slayer of Goliath and the apple of God’s eye understood such storms. You don’t have to live on the Gulf Coast to experience these. I’ve weathered my share of those, but the worst storms have nothing to do with wind and rain. Then there are the tough ones, hurricanes and tornadoes that rearrange things and leave a mess behind.
One hand clapping meaning full#
Storms come in many shapes and sizes here from the rain showers that appear in full daylight to the ever present late afternoon thunderstorms in August. It’s a pretty typical thunderstorm here in Fairhope, maybe a bit noisier than most, but common on the Northern Gulf of Mexico in July. I’m sitting in the library right now and watching a thunderstorm.
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