15 Minute Philosophy - What Is A Koan?

And other unanswerable questions, with Zen Practioner Manu Bazzano.

Full transcription and recording of interview is beneath paywall.

This week Manu and I discuss ‘koans’, those strange puzzles that Zen uses to shock people out of habitual thinking.

@0:04 - Tim Lott (timlott56@gmail.com)

I have a very important question, probably the key question for you today.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

We're talking about koans. We're going to try and approach the question of koans, which is not an easy question to approach because koans are a puzzle.

@0:26 - Manu Bazzano

Are you asking me that koan?

@0:30 - Tim Lott (timlott56@gmail.com)

Well, it was a joke, but you know - you can try and answer it.  

@0:46 - Manu Bazzano

It's not ‘what’s the sound of one-hand clapping?’ It’s ‘what’s the sound of one hand’?

@0:51 - Tim Lott (timlott56@gmail.com)

OK then. What is the sound of one-hand?  

@0:55 - Manu Bazzano

What is the sound of one-hand? A koan.

A koan means... it has a court case origin in Japanese. It's like a law case that is being published, made public, and that will be discussed in court.

And  the tradition is part of the Zen lore. It's a particular story. In fact, there is  a whole collection of either dialogues between teacher and student or a classic typical question.

‘What is the sound of one hand?’ ‘How do you stop the sound of the distant temple bells’ is another.

There are many. The other one is ‘how do you get out of a stone coffin’. 

A koan is an enigma, an existential enigma,  with which the committed practitioner works with, sits with, contemplates day and night in the hope of finding an answer.

The so-called answer is not there, but what happens in the process, it may open something up, in the person's experience, what we would call in psychology ‘break through.’

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