Zen kōans, for the less Zenified among you, are little stories or statements or questions that are supposed to cause your brain to go haywire. If you think about them, they're supposed to cause your thinking process to go all higgledy-piggledy, thus reminding you that rational thinking is pointless, in deference to simply being. Zen masters used to tell them to Zen students (probably still do, I assume). They're also great for things like Kung Fu B movies (and TV shows), during those flashback sections where the student remembers his training.

Naturally, all Zen kōans are not created equal, and today it is my lot to review some examples of the form and pass judgment on them.

1. Two hands clap and there is a sound. But what is the sound of one hand clapping?
This is probably the most famous of all kōans. (It is sometimes mistakenly believed that some even more famous brain teasers, such as "If a tree falls and no one hears it, does it make a sound?" and "Does a bear shit in the woods?" are also famous kōans, but exacting historical research on the part of this author has proved these notions to be fallacies.) The reputation of One Hand Clapping (OHC) as one of the best of kōans is well-deserved, because the sound of clapping is a phenomenon created by the force of the two hands meeting one another, thus causing a small shock wave that is transmitted via the air. If you subtract one of the hands from this equation, you're left with a dilly of a problem: one hand clapping, as best I can determine, would produce no sound whatsoever. And yet the kōan itself asks, "What is the sound of..."? If we assume that "one hand clapping" = "silence" and do a simple replacement, algebra-style, we get: "what is the sound of silence"? The only proper response to this wicked conundrum is, "Whoa, duuude!" Followed by: "Totally."

Steps Towards Nirvana (out of an unspecified amount): 8.

2. A monk told Joshu: `I have just entered the monastery. Please teach me.'

Joshu asked: `Have you eaten your rice porridge?'

The monk replied: `I have eaten.'

Joshu said: `Then you had better wash your bowl.'

At that moment the monk was enlightened.

This kōan sets the mind reeling, because at first it seems too easy. If you've just eaten your rice porridge, then you need to wash your bowl. Well that's just plain old common sense. So common sense is the same as being enlightened? Either that or dish washing. But these answers are much too easy. There must be a trick here somewhere! Are common sense or dish washing the opposite of enlightenment? Dammit, what did the monk realize from these statements that made him suddenly become enlightened? Perhaps it was a complete coincidence, and Joshu could have said anything at all. Hmm, that doesn't seem like that's it. Is the bowl a symbol for something else? You see, I've just started in on this baby, and already I'm nonplussed. Nonplussed like a fox. Because Zenliness is next to um, enlightenment.

Steps Towards Nirvana: Yellow.

3. Sekkyo said to one of his monks, "Can you get hold of Emptiness?"

"I'll try" said the monk, and he cupped his hands in the air.

"That's not very good," said Sekkyo. "You haven't got anything in there!"

"Well, master," said the monk, "please show me a better way."

Thereupon Sekkyo seized the monk's nose and gave it a great yank.

"Ouch!" yelled the monk. "You hurt me!"

"That's the way to get hold of Emptiness!" said Sekkyo.

All stories that end in someone's nose getting seized and yanked are good stories, but stories about enlightenment that end this way are pure genius. It's a little known fact that Larry, Curly, and Moe, in addition to being top notch entertainers, were also Zen masters.

Steps Towards Nirvana: You cannot reach Nirvana on foot, grasshopper.

4. The wind was flapping a temple flag, and two monks started an argument. One said the flag moved, the other said the wind moved; they argued back and forth but could not reach a conclusion. The Sixth Patriarch, overhearing their conversation, said, "It is not the wind that moves, it is not the flag that moves; it is your mind that moves." The two monks were awestruck.

Though it is not well known, this story has a continuation. At that point, a man wearing a suit and tie and sunglasses appeared and cracked his knuckles and he and the Sixth Patriarch began having an elaborate and unbelievably cool looking fight, intermittently in slow motion. The two monks continued to be awestruck.

Steps Towards Nirvana: Let's just dispense with this Nirvana nonsense, shall we?

5. Bashõ Osho said to his disciples, "If you have a staff, I will give you a staff. If you have no staff, I will take it from you."

Your first reaction is to think that somebody made a typo, right? You can admit it. But then you realize, "Hey, wait just a cotton-picking second...this is starting to sound familiar." And you would of course be right: Good old Bashõ Osho (know amongst his friends as B.O.) was no mere Zen master, but the inventor of economics!

--Robert