The Sound of One Hand Clapping

The most famous of all Zen Koans: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

For me, this koan is about duality: fragmented-divided awareness/experience, as opposed to full, integrated, non-dual awareness/experience. The two hands are subject and object, yin and yang, etc. Full awareness/experience occurs only when the two hands collide and become one, an experience utterly transcending subject/object; the “clap” has profoundly different quality than the “sound” that either “hand” can possibly make alone; a “sound” that is unimaginable until it is “heard.”

So the koan is hard because people try to imagine one hand clapping, which can never happen! Enlightenment occurs when one finally recognizes the above, in a flash; then the insight is so simple. Not to say that sustaining non-dual awareness is easy, of course it isn’t – but the fundamental insight is very simple, once you really get it.

I have modified the famous, traditional black and white yin and yang symbol to visually express the astonishing experience created by two hands clapping.

When subject and object are absorbed into a unified field of experience, the flat character of unenlightened awareness (black and white) bursts into full color.

It’s just a metaphor, but you see the idea...