what is the sound of 1 hand clapping?

It sounds like "tagh!"

You mean, if using one hand to clap by means beating your fingers against the palm of which they are attached? Then I would say that is still the sound of clapping.

If you mean moving one hand as though it were going to make contact with the other, only the other hand isnt there? Then I would say that isnt clapping at all and therefore....silence and no sound. That would look very silly hahah :-)

What is the Sound of One Hand Clapping?

~~~~~

The sound of “one hand clapping”

Is “Silence”

Make no mistake,

Two hands clap

When we wake

~~~~

In a bubble propelled by silence

Enter in… and move through your mind

You’ll find your bubble popped

When stopped

By trouble you find

Go back into bubble

And face out into wave

Of one hand sweeping

Defenses away

My 1-hand claps sound much the same when I clap my thigh...!

the sound of one hand clapping is a philosophy to keep you thinking about life :P

the sound of one hand clapping is nothing!

If you're one of the people that can do it, it sounds about the same as two hands.

it wouldn't be considered clapping sweetie. fail

Which is the highest mountain in the world? How many planets are there in the solar system? Will the Loch Ness monster ever resurface? What inspired Newton? What caused Van Gogh's prolific brilliance? Who killed Lady Diana? What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Your time starts... now.

Mount Everest... nine... depends on the health of the Scottish tourism industry... an apple... schizophrenia... don't know but whoever it is will come up with a tell-all bestseller sooner or later... the sound of one hand is... what was that again?

Rapid-fire questions, brainteasers, tantalizing posers, circuitous conundrums—we thought we had seen them all, glued as we are night after night to all those quiz shows out to make crorepatis (millionaires) of us all. But that was before we encountered the most vexatious breed of them all—the koan, a Zen riddle so puzzling yet so potent that single-minded contemplation of one may lead you to instant nirvana.

Zen, of which the koan exercise is a tool, is a Japanese sect of Buddhism, which in spite of having masters and monasteries believes paradoxically that nothing can be taught. Adepts compare initiation into Zen to pouring 'boiling oil over a blazing fire'. The logical mind is considered to be the greatest stumbling block on the way to satori (enlightenment in Zenspeak), as is evident from this koan: A monk was asked to discard everything. "But I have nothing," he exclaimed. "Discard that too!" ordered his master.

Koans have been an invaluable aspect of the spontaneous master-disciple interaction in Zen. D.T. Suzuki explains in Zen Buddhism: "The idea is to unfold the Zen psychology in the mind of the uninitiated, and to reproduce that state of consciousness of which the statements are an expression. That is to say, when the koans are understood the master's state of mind is understood, which is satori and without which Zen is a sealed book."

The prospect of satori powers the quest in all spiritual practices. It is an experience so cataclysmic that it has often been called a 'fiery baptism'. I like to think of it as a peep into the soul of the universe that accompanies the dissolution of duality. P.S. Wasu, who conducts workshops based on Zen, likens satori to an empty circle: "There comes a state when the Zen practitioner is able to view everything as a synthesis of opposites that arise from one another. All rational judgments become irrelevant and one starts viewing reality intuitively as it actually is—nothingness that is complete in itself, much like an empty circle."

A single dip in the experience of satori and one is transformed forever. As judgmental constructs based on duality-subject-object, good-bad, success-failure-fall by the wayside, one flows into a state of being where the rigid persona is sloughed off. One begins to exist as life itself. "How can we know the dancer from the dance?" in W.B. Yeats' Among school children seems to express perfectly this existence in oneness sans boundaries that is satori.

That satori may be achieved via koans was the view evolved by the monk Hakuin of the Rinzai sect. Hakuin (1685-1768), a robust monk often likened to Socrates for his predilection for Q-A sessions, vigorously opposed other Zen sects that preferred to let enlightenment glide in through years of zazen (Zen meditation). Rinzai Zen, known as the 'sudden' school of enlightenment, however, gained ground by adopting a conciliatory approach. 'Sudden' enlightenment was acceptable after self-cultivation spread over many lives. The koan exercise came to be viewed as a battering ram that broke down the final vestiges of rational thinking already softened by zazen.

Traditionally, a master would judge the novitiate's spiritual progress before giving him a koan. The novitiate usually came up with answers founded upon logic or scriptures and sutras, which the master summarily rejected. Of the final resolution, Hakuin says: "If you take up one koan and investigate it unceasingly, your mind will die and your will shall be destroyed. You face death and your bosom feels as though it is on fire. Then suddenly you are one with the koan... and you discover your true nature."

The master would not hesitate to strike the disciple physically to resolve the koan. Such resolution once had the monk slapping the master, Obaku, and yelling: "There is not, after all, much in the Buddhism of Obaku." Rinzai explains this idea of 'therapeutic hitting': "Many students are not free from the entanglement of objective things. I treat them right at the spot. If their trouble is due to grasping hands, I strike them there. If their trouble comes from their mouths, it is there I strike." Rinzai was also famous for shouting Katsu!, a nonsensical word, as an answer to koans.

Because of its tongue-in-cheek humor, the koan is unparalleled in world mysticism. Take this koan involving the master Bokuju. He was asked: "We have to dress and eat every day. How can we escape from th

Fingers beating against a thumb.