SATORI

Q: What has four legs and one arm?

A; A happy pitbull.

It’s a joke.

Do you get it?

If you get it you’ll laugh, if you don’t you will be offended. 

If you are not even offended you’ll just stare confused and ask for an explanation.

I had a friend like that, he always asked me to translate my jokes for him. (You know the type )

So I would go: - Pitbulls are very aggressive dogs. They will rip your arm off..

But of course, when you explain a joke like that, the joke is not funny any longer.

So he would go: - Aaaha! Like he understood it. But he missed the whole point entirely.

I was telling him the joke because I wanted to make him laugh not to makehim understand.

When two hands clap there is a sound.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

It’s a koan.

Do you get it?

If you get it, you got satori.

If you don’t you’ll think it is a stupid or absurd question.

If you don’t even think that it is stupid or absurd, you’ll just stare confused and ask for an explanation.

So I’ll give you the answer: The sound of Silence

You need two hands to clap.

You need silence to have sound, and sound to have silence.

One cannot exist without the other, like the two sides of a coin or two ends of a rope.

Technically speaking a constant pressure on your year drums is silence not sound.

You need  a wave, a continuous switching between pressure and no pressure to make a sound.

Two hands pressed together make no sound either.

You have to clap to make the wave oscillation.

It's a yin, yang thingy!

But of course when a koan is explained like that you miss the whole point entirely.

The master has nothing to teach his students that they already don’t know. (Well at least the real ones)

A master does not give his student a koan so the students have something to study, understand and learn, because there is nothing to study, understand or learn.

A master gives his students a koan in the hope that the student will have Satori.

That sudden realization, that sudden awakening that AHA! I got it moment.

I know you purists out there will go:

-        So how come you are doing this?
How come you are teaching this if teaching is not possible?

I am doing it because I am a bad teacher. 

Actually I’m not even a teacher, I’m just a pissed off individual.

And I know what you are thinking:

-        So if you call yourself a buddha how come you are pissed off?
Aren’t enlightened people suppose to be serene, on a plane above mundane?

Oh well... of course, if they choose so.