About Zen — Zen Master Hakuin
“What Is the Sound of One Hand Clapping?”
“We know the sound of two hands clapping. Now, what is the sound of one hand clapping?”
If we have heard this absurd, confounding question, we might know about Hakuin Ekaku. He created it. What does the question mean and why did he ask it?
While Hakuin’s life experience in eighteenth century Japan might not seem relevant to us today, his example of leading a vital, engaged life, caring about others, using physical discipline and energy for the good of all, and excelling artistically after the age of sixty might be worth our consideration.
When he was a boy, Hakuin heard a preacher talk about hell. Specifically, the preacher described the Eight Hot Hells. The prospect literally scared the hell out of Hakuin. He thought the only way to escape, as the preacher painted hell — bursting blisters, chattering teeth, a body breaking into pieces like a block of ice, being crushed into bloody jelly, and being impaled by fiery swords for up to 3.39738624×1018 years — was to go into a Zen monastery. So Hakuin did. He entered monastic life at age fifteen. Three years later, he gave up hope of saving himself from hell when he heard about an accomplished monk being murdered by bandits. Hakuin took off, traveling the country learning about literature and poetry.
When he returned to the monastery, Hakuin told the master of his fear of falling into hell. The teacher called him self-centered and assigned to him an inscrutable mind puzzle, called a koan, to meditate on. These koans were designed to create psychological tension and doubt in the student’s mind. The experience of meditating with a koan was described as sitting with a red hot ball in your belly. Hakuin wrote that his experience with koan training revealed that, “At the bottom of great doubt lies great awakening.”
Hakuin was presented by his master with a collection of classical koans to solve:
Two men argued over a flapping flag:
“The flag is moving,” one said.
“The wind is moving,” said the other.
A teacher walked by and said, “The flag does not move. The wind does not move. The mind moves.”
How do we respond?
“A buffalo comes through a hole in the wall. The whole buffalo passes through, the head, the horns, and all four legs, except the tail. Why doesn’t the tail come through?”
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How do we respond?
A teacher held up a spatula and said, “If you call this a spatula, you give offense. If you say it is not a spatula, you break the law. What do you call this?”
How do we respond?
“If you have a stick, I will give you one. If you do not have a stick, I will take it away from you!”
How do we respond?
“You are standing at the top of a 100-foot pole. What is your next step?”
How do we respond?
When Hakuin was given one of these befuddling mind puzzles to solve, he meditated on it. Then, he went into a knee-to-knee interview with his teacher. He declared his koan and gave his response. If he passed, he was given another koan to solve. If he failed, he was told to go back and work on his koan some more.
Hakuin passed through this style of koan training and felt he could do better. He made up koans for his own students. The most famous, the one that we might know: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”
How do we respond?
Hakuin encouraged deep and prolonged zazen, meditation, with real commitment and diligence. Through his own work, he realized that the purpose of life was to benefit others and help everyone to wake up to their own inner truth. He instructed his students to be ethical and live a virtuous life.
Later in his life, near the age of sixty, Hakuin took up painting. For the next quarter century, he completed over a thousand works. He became one of Japan’s most famous artists.
One story sums up Hakuin’s legacy:
There was a young girl who lived in Hakuin’s neighborhood. Her parents found out that she was pregnant. The girl did not want to implicate her lover, so after much intense questioning from her angry parents, the girl said that Hakuin was the father. The parents confronted Hakuin with their accusation. All he had to say was, “Is that so?”
After the child was born, they brought the baby to Hakuin, who had gained a spurious reputation because of the accusations. Hakuin took the child in and cared for it. A year later, the girl relented and told her parents that a young man who worked at the local fish market was the father. The girl’s parents rushed to Hakuin to apologize and ask for forgiveness. As they took back their grandchild, all Hakuin said was, “Is that so?”
