One Hand Clapping

A Zen monk named Ichhi labored his whole life in the kitchen of the great monastery at Lake Hakkone.

He deemed himself a failed monk because he had been assigned the koan of “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” since his earliest days in the congregation and had never been able to solve it.

It was now fifty-five years of seeming failure, and he was nearing the end of his lifetime.

But as he lay dying he suddenly realized that he cradled a great peace in his soul. Gone was the striving for enlightenment, gone was the stridency of his loins, and gone was the haunting koan – for he had found the stillness of no longer striving in this exquisite silence alone in the attic in the soft dark at the end of his life.

It was only then, when there remained no more questions nor need for answers (or even the need for breathing) that Ichhi heard at last the whooshing silence of one hand clapping.

True Intelligence

Do you think that only the monk has missed One Hand Clapping. We all are missing One Hand Clapping everyday. God knocks every day on our door but we are unconscious of One Hand Clapping.

Recollect from your own life many times during the day we feel that suddenly we become alone in the middle of the crowd. We suddenly try to change our focus. We try to involve ourselves in other activity as we have not introduced ourselves this aloneness. This aloneness is our emptiness, One Hand Clapping, soul whatever name you want to give.

What is turning in? All of us have read many times regarding Turning In. Turning In is nothing but our introduction to ourselves or introduction to our Emptiness.

God is always within us and we search outside. This is from where our misery start. We always search somewhere else and never given any attention towards ourselves. This is the reason all the enlighten people says that Be Yourself.

There is nowhere to go but Go In, Turn In.

I will give you one example so that it will be easy for all of you to practice Be Yourself. Science says that when you are angry focus on your breath and you will calm down and your biochemistry will change. They never say you focus on someone else’s breath. If you want to calm down then focus on your own breath.

What I am saying is scientific observation. Spirituality also say same thing that unless you focus and become alert towards yourself you cannot experience your Stillness. Stillness cannot be experienced if your focus is on others. As soon as your focus is on yourself you become still. Science also says the same thing. Don’t seek any answer outside of you Turn In and all your question will disappear and you will find stillness in you.

True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found.

Learning from the story One Hand Clapping: True Intelligence

Experience Learning

True Intelligence is not about following anyone or any scripture but it’s about how we use our own Intelligence and thinking to respond in the present moment.

We access great power when we cooperate with the movement of life. In Intelligence Beyond the Mind is the voice of the thinking mind with the non-conceptual space of awareness he calls “unconditioned consciousness.” When we break free from egoic thinking and its endless problems and complaints, he explains, we stop working against life and instead relax into the natural flow of universal love.

What is Intelligence?

When you hold Presence, sometimes the change may not happen through your action. There are many situations where action at this moment is not possible. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do, however you can continue to be present. Then, a greater intelligence is activated. Very often you will find change happening in the situation.

This greater intelligence is not the conceptual intelligence that you can measure with IQ tests. It is non-conceptual intelligence. Conceptual intelligence is the ability to retain information, analyze, compare, and so forth. It’s a tiny fragment of what intelligence is. There is a vastness of non-conceptual intelligence. Our destiny is to be in that way, so that our whole life is to become a work of art. Not just be confined to that state of consciousness when you do your creative work. Any creative thing has a spark, an aliveness, a quality, a newness, a freshness. You connect with non-conceptual intelligence in the alert Stillness within. Everybody has that, as their essence. That is true intelligence. To what extent you are connected with that could not possibly be measured through any IQ test. Ultimately, you cannot measure creativity.

Very often, the form of the present moment seems like a limitation on your life, something that is impinging on your freedom. The body could become ill, you may find it hard to move. When something drastic happens, if you can learn to accept it, a little bit of spaciousness comes into your life. You say, “this is what is”. A little bit of space just opened up, and you’re no longer just a resisting entity. Then, you realize that you are essentially formless space. In other words, you find inner peace. At first it is very gentle in the background, in the midst of any situation. That peace is powerful. It can become so powerful, that is obliterates almost anything. Peace is the formless in you. By accepting the form, the formless within you opens up. This is how something seemingly bad – a limitation – becomes an opening for realization of who you truly are.

The closer we get to the end of our present evolutionary stage, the more dysfunctional the ego becomes, in the same way that a caterpillar becomes dysfunctional just before it transforms into a butterfly. But the new consciousness is arising even as the old dissolves.

You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle.