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What is the Sound of One Hand Clapping? ...
by Zen Koan

What is the Sound of One Hand Clapping?
- Traditional Zen Koan

Related topics: Zen

The True Path is the path on which
there is no coming and no going.
- Traditional Zen Koan

Overflowing Cup of Tea:
The Zen Master poured his visitor's teacup full, and then kept pouring.
The visitor watched until he could no longer restrain himself.
"It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," the Zen Master said,
"you are full of your own opinions and assumptions.
How can you learn truth until you first empty your cup?"
- Traditional Zen Koan

The Sweetest Strawberry:
A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger.
He fled, the tiger after him.
Coming to a precipice,
he caught hold of the root of a wild vine
and swung himself over the edge.
The tiger sniffed at him from above.
Trembling, the man looked down to where,
far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him.
Only the vine sustained him.
Two mice, one white and one black,
little by little started to gnaw away the vine.
The man then saw a luscious strawberry near him.
Grasping the vine with one hand,
he plucked the strawberry with the other.
How sweet it tasted.
- Zen Koan

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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Time to Die:
A Zen teacher had a rare and priceless teacup.
One day, his precocious student accidentally broke the cup.
Hearing the footsteps of his teacher,
the student held the pieces of the cup behind his back.
When the master appeared, he asked: "Why do people have to die?"
"This is natural," explained the teacher.
"Everything has to die and has just so long to live."
The student showed the shattered cup, saying,
"It was time for your cup to die."
- Traditional Zen Koan

The Moon Cannot Be Stolen:
A thief entered the little hut of a Zen Master,
but discovered there was nothing to steal.
The Zen Master discovered the thief.
"You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler,
"and you should not return empty-handed.
Please take my clothes as a gift."
The thief was bewildered,
but he took the clothes and slunk away.
The Zen Master sat naked, watching the moon.
"Poor fellow," he mused,
"I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."
- Traditional Zen Koan

A system of morality which is based
on relative emotional values
is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception
which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.
- Socrates

 

The sound of 'gentle stillness' after all the thunder
and wind have passed will be the ultimate Word from God.
- Jim Elliot

A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty,
the contemplation of mystery,
or the search of truth or perfection
is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession
of such days is fatal to human life.
- Lewis Mumford

The primal rhythmic power
and resonant sound of waves on the shore
are like the earth's heartbeat,
and become our connection with the body of nature.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Visualize your end result as having already been accomplished.
Let the image of your success play on the giant screen
in full color with surround sound -
so real you can smell and taste it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

True friendship is like sound health;
the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.
- Charles Caleb Colton

Music is what feelings sound like.
- Anonymous

Overwhelm is not a pleasant condition.
The to-do list overflows,
the deadlines appear imminent and immovable.
There are too many demands upon too little of your time.
Does this sound familiar?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition
for building up a sound education.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

To the Master's honor all must turn,
each in its track, without a sound,
forever tracing Newton's ground.
- Albert Einstein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory'
is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.
- Isaac Asimov

AUM, the most primordial human sound -
and the sound most connected to Spirit,
is pronounced in these three parts:
A (as in mama) - a throat sound
that vibrates in the abdomen - signifies waking.
U (as in who) - a tongue sound
that vibrates in the chest - signifies dreaming.
M (as in mama) - a lip sound
that vibrates in the head - signifies sleeping.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Apathy, indifference, not caring...
It may sound insensitive for me to say, "I don't care,"
but ask first to what I am indifferent.
I choose to be caring, compassionate
and kind toward all people,
and I also choose to be indifferent to gossip,
petty complaints, and idle chatter.
About those, I just don't care.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal
with the intent of throwing it at someone else;
you are the one who gets burned.
- The Buddha

One can never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar.
- Helen Keller

Individually, we are one drop.
Together, we are an ocean.
- Ryunosuke Satoro

Try a new perspective on diversity.
Across the country and around the world,
we are all one.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly,
"one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower."
- Hans Christian Andersen

The greatest mistake you can make in life
is to be continually fearing you will make one.
- Elbert Hubbard

Drop the sword - for there is but one flesh to wound,
and it is the one flesh of all humankind.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Don't let one cloud obliterate the whole sky.
- Anais Nin

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned,
so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.
- Joseph Campbell

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences.
No one can eliminate prejudices -
just recognize them.
- Edward R. Murrow

Love one another but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea
between the shores of your souls.
- Khalil Gibran

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children,
to leave the world a better place,
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived,
this is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans.
- Khalil Gibran

If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
- Mother Teresa

No one was ever named "Hero" for following the crowd.
Heroes set their own course.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Fear defeats more people than
any other one thing in the world.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

To know yet to think that one does not know is best;
Not to know yet to think that one knows
will lead to difficulty.
- Lao Tzu

When written in Chinese, the word "crisis"
is composed of two characters.
One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.
- John F. Kennedy

One can not reflect in streaming water.
Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.
- Lao Tzu

There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.
- Albert Einstein

I am one with the Earth,
with the Water, with the Fire,
with the Air that I breathe,
with all Living Things,
and we are all one with Spirit.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

One does not discover new lands without consenting
to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
- Andre Gide

This day I will marry my friend,
the one I laugh with, live for, dream with, love.
- Anonymous

Majority rule only works if you're also
considering individual rights,
because you can't have five wolves and one sheep
voting on what to have for dinner.
- Larry Flynt

Sing like no one's listening,
love like you've never been hurt,
dance like nobody's watching,
and live like its heaven on earth.
- Mark Twain

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy
is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet,
alone with the heavens, nature and God.
Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.
- Anne Frank

Imagine all the people living life in peace.
You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us,
and the world will be as one.
- John Lennon

A new command I give you: Love one another.
As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
- Jesus of Nazareth (John 13:34)

There is no passion to be found playing small -
in settling for a life that is less
than the one you are capable of living.
- Nelson Mandela

Take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
A terrible thing: no one to blame.
- Erica Jong

When one door closes, another opens.
But often we look so long, so regretfully,
upon the closed door,
that we fail to see the one that is opened for us.
- Helen Keller

The human race has one really effective weapon,
and that is laughter.
- Mark Twain

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others,
giving away their last piece of bread...
They offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl

To leave the world a bit better ...
to know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

We must let go of the life we have planned,
so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.
- Joseph Campbell

If you wait for opportunities to occur,
you will be one of the crowd.
- Edward de Bono

Courage is the art of being the only one
who knows you're scared to death.
- Earl Wilson

If the stars should appear
but one night every thousand years
how man would marvel and stare.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

All the darkness of the world cannot
extinguish the light of a single candle,
yet one candle can illuminate all the darkness.
- Jewish Hanukah Prayer

The happiness of one's own heart alone
cannot satisfy the soul;
one must try to include,
as necessary to one's own happiness,
the happiness of others.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

No one can make you jealous, angry, vengeful, or greedy -
unless you let him.
- Napoleon Hill

Each one has to find his peace from within.
And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The glow of one warm thought
is to me worth more than money.
- Thomas Jefferson

One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life
comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.
- Robert A. Heinlein

One whispered yes becomes the wind song over an ocean of no's.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

No one can find inner peace except by working,
not in a self-centered way, but for the whole human family.
- Peace Pilgrim

No one knows what he can do until he tries.
- Publilius Syrus

Glory lies in the attempt to reach one's goal,
and not in reaching it.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

To live a pure unselfish life,
one must count nothing as one's own
in the midst of abundance.
- The Buddha

Don't give up. There are too many nay-sayers out there
who will try to discourage you.
Don't listen to them.
The only one who can make you give up is yourself.
- Sidney Sheldon

One movement toward light becomes a clear signpost on a long road.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

I believe that everything happens for a reason.
People change so that you can learn to let go,
things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right,
you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself,
and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.
- Marilyn Monroe


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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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