The Sound of the One Hand 281 Zen Koans with Answers [Paperback]

WhenThe Sound of the One Handcame out in Japan in 1916 it caused a scandal. Zen was a secretive practice, its wisdom relayed from master to novice in strictest privacy. That a handbook existed recording not only the riddling koans that are central to Zen teaching but also detailing the answers to them seemed to mark Zen as rote, not revelatory.

For all that,The Sound of the One Handopens the door to Zen like no other book. Including koans that go back to the master who first brought the koan teaching method from China to Japan in the eighteenth century, this book offers, in the words of the translator, editor, and Zen initiate Yoel Hoffmann, “the clearest, most detailed, and most correct picture of Zen” that can be found. What we have here is an extraordinary introduction to Zen thought as lived thought, a treasury of problems, paradoxes, and performance that will appeal to artists, writers, and philosophers as well as Buddhists and students of religion.“The very strain of koan meditation [found inThe Sound of the One Hand] is not unlike the self-imposed strain of a creative mathematician, writer, or artist. Such a person deliberately sets himself difficult problems, and deliberately renews them once they have been solved in order to compose or harmonize or solve himself.” —Ben-Ami Scharfstein
 
“For scholars and students of Zen, inquiring readers, or anyone seeking relief from the rhetoric of division in the current political sphere,The Sound of the One Handoffers helpful didacticisms and poetic reflections that are truly timeless.” —Nozomi Saito,Asymptote

“Koans aim for the complete destruction of the rational intellect.” —Carl JungYoel Hoffmannwas born in 1937. He received his PhD in the philosophy of religion and Buddhism from Kyoto University, Japan, and went on to teach Eastern philosophy at the University of Haifa. In adl…