E38_What Is The Sound of One Hand Clapping?

We found some new and nerdy info this week that we just had to share. I was reading a book from one of my old meditation classes and came across the word “koan” a few pages into my reading. I didn’t think much of it, but a few pages later it showed up again. Since it hurts my heart to read a word and not know what it means, I decided to look it up. In the definition of koan I found myself very much like Alice from Alice in Wonderland, tumbling down a rabbit hole of the obscure and truly interesting. It turns out that a koan is: a paradoxical anecdote or riddle without a solution, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and provoke enlightenment. Oh word?! Ultimately, the practice of attempting to answer a koan (much like meditation) has to do with stretching our mind and expanding our way of thinking…