Rebekah Ingram
“Two hands clap and there is a sound; what is the sound of one hand clapping?”
-Buddhist koan
This is a well-known koan: a story, question, dialogue, or statement from the Zen Buddhist tradition. Koans are usually meditated upon, or they can be presented much like a lesson crafted by a Teacher, offered to a student. They are exercises designed to promote the use of intuition rather than reason or logic, which seems to contradict much of Unitarian Universalism espouses. However, there is no denying Buddhism’s appeal to many of us. For it is concerned with alleviating suffering, ridding oneself of distractions, and coming to a sense of peace, of enlightenment, possibly even nirvana. I wonder if Buddhism’s appeal and the appeal of koans such as what is the sound of one hand clapping? are intriguing because they are so different from anything in our tradition, and they directly address matter beyond our Reason and logic, oftentimes beyond language. What is the sound of one hand clapping?
I have heard a number of answers to this question that seems unanswerable. What is the sound of one hand clapping? Nothing. No sound. Silence. In preparing for this sermon, I read an argument for why the sound of one hand clapping is the sound of two hands clapping. I won’t go into that one now. There are also accounts of the answer to this koan being an action – the act of literally clapping one hand – not an answer that can be articulated in language. Or this action being a physical WHACK! for in the midst of getting slapped, one cannot help but be fully present. In that instance, WHACK, there is no judgment, no thought.
Having recently started the spring semester at school, I found myself applying to a number of courses. It just so happened the courses that interest me most this semester are all seminars with limited enrollment. How this works is that during the first class meeting, students are asked to fill out an application…to literally get into the course. The applications, although different for each class, typically include space for students to describe relevant coursework and experiences, and there are usually a few questions about why, exactly, you want to take the course. It’s an interesting exercise in sales, a time to brag, a time to beg, a time to share advice, suggestions, and wisdom with fellow students (as long as they are not applying to the same courses I am. In these situations, I am hopelessly selfish and keep the tricks of the trade to myself).
In the process of filling out one course application after another, because I needed a Plan B, and C, and D in case I was not accepted to every course, I confront a koan of my own creation sprung rather oddly from this seminar application process: Why me and why not someone else? Why should I be allowed to take the course and not someone else? How do I answer such a question, let alone write it persuasively on an application? I don’t know! I don’t know what others may bring to the class or why the person next to me is also interested in the course. And so these little applications prove to be fodder for much personal reflection that persists through the semester. And I realized, while writing this sermon, that koans – a situation or question that cannot be understood with logic or reason but by intuition (or perhaps not understood at all) – are not so foreign to us, after all. There is much in life that we can’t answer, much that cannot be answered with reason and logic alone.
One of the seminar applications I filled out two weeks ago asked…so simply: “Why theology?” My answer, which I proudly wrote in the form of a sentence fragment: “Because it is beyond language.” For me, this is the paradox that drew me to the study of theology in the first place. I imagine it is similar to mathematicians and scientists who have hypotheses rooted in an educated guess, perhaps even a little intuition, and who possess a strong desire to find out the Truth with a capital T. Who doesn’t feel compelled to discover and experience Truth whether that be in an academic setting or in the practices and rituals that make up our daily lives? In our search for Truth, let us not lose sight of the Mystery. How do we honor the mystery – whether that be a relationship with the Divine, how we relate to one another and the natural world we inhabit, the work of justice we take up, the spiritual practices we maintain, the faith communities of which we are a part, the wonder and miracle of life, of science, and of history that delights, inspires, and bewilders? There is so much mystery that we grope our way towards.
How do we leave space for it? A possible answer: What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Silence
Leaving space for the incomprehensible in our own lives and in our relationships with each other, and possibly the Divine, is just as important as the work of expressing that which we believe and experience. Both – the speaking and the silences - nourish the faith community and honor the mystery and wonder that first brought us into community, and into being.
Very recently, I commenced a more intentional exploration of silence. Every Wednesday from five to six o’clock, a group of about five to ten students gather in the corner of the chapel on the Harvard Divinity School campus and we sit in silence. I have absolutely no idea who the other people are with the exception of one person I recognize from class. I love the fact that we are probably from all different faiths and backgrounds and that we are headed in different directions when the hour is up, but still we gather weekly in silence. I’ve had this same sensation on the T or bus, sometimes even in a movie theatre: the temporary intersection of so many people, so many lives coming together to share a space, a brief moment in time.
I’ve come to learn that the silence of a community is different from the silence I experience when I find myself sitting alone free from distraction, intentionally or not. As powerful as that is, I think that there is a distinction to be made between silence practiced in community for it is not solitary versus the silence of being alone. Before I give you the impression that I am a master practitioner of silence, I should explain that I am horrible with this silence thing. Absolutely horrible. I think about the things I should be doing. I stress out about how this one hour of silence a week might be an indication of a developing slothfulness. I think about how much my back hurts, how uncomfortable the seats are, how much time has passed, that itch that is slowly jumping around from my head to my foot to my elbow to the tip of my nose. I wonder what other people are experiencing: if they’re just as uncomfortable and as fidgety as I am. But sometimes there are moments in that hour of silence, when I actually feel the silence and let myself be just that: silent. And since I sit in silence with others, my self-awareness is always perceived in relation to others, which is a powerful reminder that we are always alone and at the same time, never alone. And when I’m not there (which happens more often than I would like), I think of that silent community and imagine one of them might wonder where I am that week, and why I am not there. And that is enough to keep me going back despite the discomfort.
Emerson wrote “I like the quiet church before the service begins.” In this morning’s reading by Billy Collins, the poem reads: “[Shoveling snow with Buddha] is so much better than a sermon in church.” I would agree with Emerson and Collins that a sermon, more specifically, language, can’t capture it all. But here we are in church, trying to put mystery into language week after week after week. And while I can’t deny (especially when writer’s block set in) that I was tempted for my sermon to be twenty minutes of silence, I feel compelled to address, in language, and as impossible as that may be, the transforming power of silence. And I never ever thought I would refer to the movie Pulp Fiction in a sermon, but here I go: In Pulp Fiction, Uma Thurman, describes how nice it is when you are comfortable enough with someone that you can just sit in silence together and not feel the need to fill that space with words. Well, actually, that is a paraphrase since she describes the ability for two people to sit in silence a bit more crudely. This is just like Billy Collins poem that describes shoveling snow with Buddha:
All morning long we work side by side,
me with my commentary
and he inside the generous pocket of his silence,
until the hour is nearly noon
and the snow is piled high around us;
then I hear him speak.
After this, he asks,
Can we go inside and play cards?
It’s interesting and appropriate that the Buddha here sounds like a child, a friend, a partner. The generous pocket of Buddha’s silence is somehow comforting and entirely enigmatic just like the company of another being.
In a short essay handed to me at one of my Wednesday evening silent gatherings, I was given the following wisdom…in written form: “In silence we pass through the bonds of language to lose ourselves in wonder. In silence we honor the mystery present in the hearts of our brothers and sisters, strangers, and enemies. In silence we learn to let go of the curiosity, presumption and condemnation that pretend to penetrate the mystery of our hearts. True silence is an expression of love, unlike the taciturnity that arises from fear and avoidance of relationships.”
Silence because we leave space for mystery, for the not yet known. Silence because we leave space for what is present, but not yet perceived. Silence because language cannot always accurately capture life, theology, and personal experience. What is the sound of one hand clapping? There are thoughts, feelings, and experiences that we simply cannot put into language, and we need communities that we can bring these to, even in the form of silence. “The healing power of silence does not come cheaply. It depends on our willingness to face all that is within us, light and dark, and to heed the inner voices that make themselves heard in silence.”
Amen. Blessed Be.
