For example, the Koan—”What is the sound of one hand clapping?” It took me many years to arrive at the answer. But in the meantime, it was sitting in my consciousness, letting its meaning marinate within me—until one day, many decades later, I got it. The sound of one hand clapping is silence. It’s a paradox because by definition, clapping requires two or more hands to produce the sound.
It dawned on me that all of life and the cosmos itself is an interrelationship. Nothing stands alone. Everything is interacting with everything else. Furthermore, silence itself is what makes sound and the rhythms of sound, including music, discernible. And it is only within the silence of the undisturbed mind that we can find the peace that is at the root of spiritual contemplation and awareness.
Not every interpretation is valid. Zen students have been chastised by their masters if they come up with an overly intellectual answer or try to be too clever. Koans aren’t a free-for-all in which any answer will do, either. Their value is in the way they impact our consciousness. It might be ironic or humorous to say, “The sound of one hand clapping is pizza.” But it shows a flippant attitude rather than an intent to understand.
Koans are designed so that we “fail” to grasp them with simple and pat explanations. They are beyond the cliches and life-hacks that numb the mind with their rote explanations. They are funny. Aimed to take all the pompous seriousness out of spiritual practice. It’s best to fail at understanding a koan and eventually allow it to do its magic as the life force within us shows us the way. Then our world can be rocked out of “correct answers” and into expansive and freeing insights.