#Koan one hand clapping full#

It’s a koan, or question designed to measure a student’s progress in their study of Zen. So now you know how I came up with the catchy name for my blog, “The Sound of One Hand Clapping.”. The right (and formerly dominant) arm is near 100% paralyzed. My left arm is somewhere around 80% paralyzed. In one of the random shifts that frequently happen in such storms, my legs (and everything beneath my armpits) were restored fully.

Instead I awoke in the recovery room unable to move from the neck down. The surgeon told my then wife (we are now divorced) that I could ride the Scream Machine in nearby Six Flags over Georgia in a few days. Severe neck pain caused by two ruptured discs in my cervical spine had brought me here. My storm hit me in an operating room in Birmingham, AL. In Psalms 42 he wrote: “My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Good question that, “Where is your God?” Sort of gets to the heart of man’s struggle with life’s meaning and his relationship to the universe.

David, slayer of Goliath and the apple of God’s eye understood such storms. You don’t have to live on the Gulf Coast to experience these. I’ve weathered my share of those, but the worst storms have nothing to do with wind and rain. Then there are the tough ones, hurricanes and tornadoes that rearrange things and leave a mess behind.

#Koan one hand clapping full#

Storms come in many shapes and sizes here from the rain showers that appear in full daylight to the ever present late afternoon thunderstorms in August. It’s a pretty typical thunderstorm here in Fairhope, maybe a bit noisier than most, but common on the Northern Gulf of Mexico in July.

Don’t push it away and don’t try to solve the situation through some “academic” approach.I’m sitting in the library right now and watching a thunderstorm. I challenge you to think about that the next time you are in a tough situation. In order to be a good leader, you have to put yourself into the situation and react to it authentically. Well, leadership, just like koans, is not about an academic exercise. You might wonder what all of this has to do with leadership. But acting out the answer requires you to get intimate with the koan. We are really good at explaining things with words that we haven’t actually understood. But the teacher will be quick to ask the student not to use words, but “show” the answer without using words. Interestingly enough, pretty much any beginner will convey the answer through words. In the Zen tradition, if you work with a teacher on “solving” a koan, there is an actual “answer”. This koan is asking you to become the hand. Koans ask you to engage with them on a very personal level. But the purpose of koans the purpose of Zen is never about academic exercises. They are getting almost academic or scientific about it. Most people, when trying to come up with an answer, will engage with it from a rational perspective. Or closing their hand so it makes a sound. How would you answer this koan? I have seen people answer by tapping their leg with one hand.