Clap for the Koan (with poll)

Koans function as quizzes in Zen Buddhism. Zen masters use seemingly irrational stories, questions, riddles to debate, test and often totally perplex students. Koans become the veritable nightmare of the unexpected final examination on your first day of physics class. 

Koans shock students from discursive thoughts and offer another path toward awareness.  A student professing insight might receive an unsolvable koan to “validate” such experience. A koan’s answer may be correct, wrong or shift with circumstances. An answer right for one student may be poison for another. The student’s understanding of the koan itself, not necessarily the answer, may be the key to enlightenment.

One of the most famous koans originated with Zen master and artist Hakuin Ekaku:

Two hands clap and there is a sound.

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Considered a “beginner’s” koan, the “One Hand Clapping” koan offers a fitting meditation to test readers’ nascent awareness. To make contemplating this teaching easier for non-Buddhists, we will present the koan with multiple choice answers.  

Take your time to meditate, contemplate, a chew on meanings. We will announce the answer in a Winking Buddha Blog soon after the Presidential election (a perfect diversion to take your mind off all those obnoxious political ads and robocalls).

KOAN POLL:

WHAT IS THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING?

(a) whoosh, whoosh
(b) left or right hand?
(c) bear farting in the woods
(d) tree falling when nobody’s around
(e) one toe a tapping
(f) knee slapping
(g) an Aussie dog wagging tail
(h) Mu
(i) am I being graded on this?
(j) do I get a prize if I win?
(k) silence
(l) none of the above
(m) all of the above
(n) other (please include in comment section)

 

Note: 
We attempted to post this with a fancy new Poll Daddy feature 
but it didn't work. 

So we went back to more conventional multiple-choice choices.
Maybe next time!

 

 

Confession

The weather has been so nice here in Houston — in the low 70s, low humidity (great hair day), deep blue sky — that I’ve been spending all my time outside, rather than blogging.

 So, if you stopped by to check us out — my apologizes for nothing new.

But the day and season are new and worth appreciating. Especially after Hurricane Ike.

Enjoy

Winking Wisdom #6: Eschew the Choos

A journey of a thousand miles begins with comfortable shoes.

Winking Wisdom #5: A Cup of Olbermann

A Starbucks coffee cup included this wisdom from my hero TV journalist (and exquisite writer) Keith Olbermann of MSNBC Countdown with Keith Olbermann:

The world bursts at the seams with people ready to tell you you’re not good enough. On occasion, some may be correct.  But do not do their work for them. Seek any job; ask anyone out; pursue any goal. Don’t take it personally when they say “no” — they may not be smart enough to say “yes.”

— Keith Olbermann

A Midsummer’s Dream: The Finale

Hurricane Ike claimed yet another innocent victim. Midsummer Books, in Galveston’s historical Strand district, drowned in eight feet of mucky brine that destroyed its eclectic collection of literature and homey interior. 

For years Galveston’s only new bookseller, Midsummer Books provided a literary mecca for Isle readers, tourists, academics and otherwise freethinkers. Unlike those corporate megastores that peddle everything from Kafka to coffee to CDs to comics to cosmetics, Midsummer Books carried — and displayed prominently –the latest fiction and fact from both people of letters and promising scribes.

Its shelves featured the top picks of the inspired Book Sense Indie Booksellers, not the “esteemed” New York Times Book Review, which too often hucks tripe from such literary gnomes as James Patterson, Danielle Steele, and Joel Osteen.  

Not that either Midsummer Books or its Galveston Isle home teemed with liberal agenda — this remains Texas, after all. But Midsummer Books never followed the popular but the profound. Camus not Coulter. Its shelves offered books on a wide variety of subjects including history, science, biography, architecture, philosophy, literature, natural history and Texas lore that I missed in Borders or B&N, simply because of the sheer volume of mass pulp that those stories purveyed. Midsummer Books shucked fluff to expose literary fruits. Sure, the store carried entertaining books, but those with droll sensibilities such as the best dog cartoons from The New Yorker, graphic novels (not comic books) and a lovely children’s collection.

Midsummer Books felt — and smelled — as a bookstore should. Walk in and you whiffed vellum anticipation mixed with the mustiness of Galveston humidity. The display shelves and tables were dark wood. Comfortable mismatched chairs and rugs over the hardwood floors invited browsing. And the orange bookstore cat snoozed comfortably near the poetry section (I do hope the kitty escaped safely).

Whenever another independent bookstore dies, America loses an irreplaceable aesthetic soul which every author, artist, academic. antiquarian, avid reader and citizen must mourn. Independent bookstores, no matter what their specialty, remain as vital to freedom of speech in this nation as the First Amendment — and as in the case of Denver’s eminent Tattered Cover often are called upon to defend it. 

These usually mom-and-pop booksellers wage the David-Goliath fight daily for independence of thought, creation, words, and views as well as for financial survival. Hometown newspapers no longer reflect local points of view, but rather the editorial and financial considerations of distant corporate conglomerates. Local TV and radio outlets focus on ad revenue for corporate owners which leads to sensational and nonsensical (and frequently politically extreme) news and public affairs programming. 

Instead, local independent booksellers, detached from the editorial flaccidity of corporate boardrooms, keep the dialogue and debate of current events alive. With profit margins teetering toward nonexistence, the indie book store becomes the true American commons of debate, discourse, democracy and dissent.

I last visited Galveston Island two days before Hurricane Ike hit. I normally enjoy lunch at my favorite restaurant Gaido’s, walk the seawall or beach, and finally settle down to browsing at Midsummer Books. That day I ran late, scratching the walk and the bookstore off my list. Since I planned to return to the Isle just two weeks later, I’d stop by Midsummer Books then, I promised.

But independent bookstores often die from reasons much less violent than hurricanes but frequently just as suddenly. For those of us who love them, the loss remains as traumatic. I missed Midsummer Books that day and now will forever. 

Please visit your local independent bookseller today. The literacy (and liberty) you save, may be your own!

 

Independent Bookseller Resources Links:

• American Booksellers Association
• IndieBound
• Tattered Cover – Denver, Co.

 

Local Houston Independent Bookstore Links:

• Brazos Bookstore 
• Blue Willow Bookshop
• Murder By The Book
• River Oaks Bookstore
• Shrine of the Black Madonna Cultural Center and Bookstore
• Light of Islam Bookstore

 

PLEASE NOTE: I did not include bookstores that sell used books. If you know of other Houston-area or national independent bookstore links, please add them in the comment sections.  Thanks!!

So Help Me, Me!

God received a legal reprieve when a judge tossed a lawsuit because the Almighty wasn’t properly served notice. Seems Heaven has an unlisted address.

Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers sought a restraining order against the Supreme Being for making “terrorist threats” as well as as for inciting death, destruction and disaster upon Earth’s inhabitants, according to an Associated Press report.

However, Douglas County District Court Judge Marlon Polk ruled that because the Divine Defendant cannot be served notice, the suit must be dismissed with prejudice.

Chambers, a law school grad who never took the bar exam, countered that if God is, in fact, all knowing then He’s aware of the suit and, thus, legally has been served. And, because the Lord is omnipresent, He has access to the court proceedings.

Chambers says he filed the liturgical litigation to prove a point that all persons, even the Holiest One, should have equal access to the courts.

However, one wonders if God legally can be sworn in as a defense witness as He must vow to Himself that He will be truthful when questioned (although, that should be a given).

Perhaps, God should follow the example of George Burns (and screen writer Larry Gelbart) who created such a scene in the movie Oh, God! when Burns as God, testified for John Denver’s character and swore to tell the whole truth “so help me, Me!”

Winking Wisdom #4: SVU

You know you watch way too much TV when you recognize actors in commercials from their bit parts on “Law & Order: SVU”

Buddhas For Barack

My God can beat your God. 

Vote Democrat and you’re a godless pagan.

How would Jesus vote? (Probably not for Romans)

John McCain campaigns in Iowa today trying to drum up votes in the state that kicked off Barack Obama’s presidential aspirations.

While Sarah Palin’s personal exorcist already expelled any incantations which witches may have snuck past the Secret Service, John McCain still remains vulnerable to all those left-winged Wiccans brewing October Surprises.

Thank goodness that theology trumps thaumaturgy on the campaign trail. Before McCain’s folksy talk in Davenport about the evils of his opponent with the non-Christian name, a minister delivered an invocation to send any politically incorrect deities packing:

“There are plenty of people around the world who are praying to their god, be they Hindu, Buddah [sic], or Allah, that (McCain’s) opponent wins. I pray that you step forward and honor your own name.” Ends with “in Jesus’ name.”  quote

 

Buddhas and Bramas for Barack! Allah for anyone with a Muslim sounding name. Never mind that the Hindu god Ganesha is an elephant, the symbol of the GOP, or that Buddha was not a god at all but an enlightened human (and not even that confusing father-son-spirit trilogy of Christianity). And never mind that the Judeo-Christian “God” delivers little political pandering aside from all that the Ten Commandment and “love thy neighbor as thy self” business — with no caveats if those neighbors display bumper stickers different from yours.

No, those “other gods” supporting Barack Obama be damned. And who cares that the Jewish Adoni, the Christian Father and the Muslim Allah are technically one in the same. The one true GOD of GOP has spoken and must be obeyed.

With GOP rallies sounding more like witch-hunts and Klan-hate fests, one wonders why any God would be interested in politics at all. Perhaps S/He confronts more concerns than mortgage bailouts (greed, after all, is one of those deadly sins) such as genocide in Darfur, AIDs in Africa, poverty, global warming and extinction of nearly one-fourth of the creatures S/He created. If politicos want Holy endorsements, maybe they need to respect God’s own position planks more.

Many teachings of the Tibetan Buddhist leader Dalai Lama (bless him in his recovery from surgery) talk about the proper role of leadership. However, two reflect the wranglings of this tiresome election:

 

Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.

and 

It seems that when men become desperate they consult their gods. And when the gods become desperate, they tell lies!

 

© 2008 winkingbuddha.com

 

 

Winking Wisdom #3

Somewhere in the world, it’s dawn

Winking Wisdom #2

When you have nothing worthwhile to say…

Don’t