Embracing Paradox: The Wisdom of Zen Koans
"The koan serves as a trap for logical thought, a net from which the mind cannot escape except by abandoning itself" — Alan Watts
The function of a Zen Koan is simple; it’s like a joke — but instead of the punchline being spontaneous laughter, a Zen Koan’s punchline produces a spontaneous (but fleeting) glimpse of enlightenment.
Just like a joke, you either get it or you don’t. When someone has to explain the punchline, it loses its power.
Koans are a clever way to get around the problem that existence and all meaning derived from it are completely ineffable. Zen acknowledges that attempting to explain "universal truths" is a paradox within itself — the moment you try to define it, you’ve already lost it.
The clever device of a koan is that it manages to get around this paradox by pointing towards enlightenment rather than directly at it.
Universal truths, by definition, are incomprehensible and cannot be explained through intellectual discussion. While other philosophies attempt to explain the nature of existence through logic and reason, Zen acknowledges that the true nature of reality is beyond words and avoids this conceptualization completely.
Am I a terrible Zen student for spending most of my time intellectualizing the crap out of Zen concepts like this anyway — Mu!
What is a Koan?
“The role of the koan is not to lead us to Satori (enlightenment), but on the contrary, to make us lose our way and drive us to despair." — Philip Kapleau.
Zen Koans are paradoxical short stories, dialogues, or questions designed to break the logical mind, disrupt habitual thinking, and provoke direct experience (Kenshō).
They often feature a wise master who does something completely unexpected or illogical.
Some use metaphors to hint at deeper truths.
Others rely on questions that are simply unanswerable.
Ultimately, these stories don’t provide any answers to the reader — at least, not in the traditional sense. Instead, they act as a mirror reflecting the mind's attachments and delusions — helping to bring our unconscious biases into view and flip them on their head. This process dismantles our conditioned thought patterns and erodes the rigid structures of our ego that prevent us from seeing things clearly.
It's difficult to explain the purpose of Zen Koans without sounding like a walking contradiction — so let's explore some of their central themes, briefly examine their history, and then dig into a few of the most famous Zen koans.
The Sound of One Hand Clapping
This is probably the shortest Zen koan in existence — it consists of a simple question:
"You know the sound of two hands clapping — now tell me, what is the sound of one hand clapping?"
This koan likely originated from Hakuin Ekaku (1686–1769), a Japanese Rinzai Zen master who revived the use of koans in Zen practice. At the time, most Zen being practiced in Japan had become formalized and ritualistic. Many monks treated koans as intellectual puzzles rather than tools for direct experience.
Hakuin wrote a series of koans designed to break this type of thinking by forcing students to confront the limits of rational thought.
This koan is one of the first breakthrough koans given to students to push them beyond dualistic thinking.
We know that two hands clapping makes a sound (duality), but there is no way to explain or conceptualize the sound of just one hand clapping (non-duality).
Do What's Next
A student came to his teacher — “I want to learn & become enlightened. Please teach me.”
The teacher asked — “Have you eaten your porridge?”
The student replied — “I have eaten.”
The teacher said — “Then you better go wash your bowl.”
At that moment, the student was enlightened.
This koan is an example of how even the mundane holds the key to awakening if we can see things with clarity. The student comes to the master expecting him to drop some deep wisdom about attaining enlightenment — but the master denies this from him and chooses instead to focus on the simple, immediate task of washing his bowl.
Zen koans like this teach us that enlightenment isn’t some distant, mystical achievement — it’s found in all the ordinary, mundane moments of our lives.
This is it. Life is happening right now. There's no "higher state" to be achieved through striving or accumulation of knowledge.
It echoes the old Zen adage:
"Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."
4 Monks
Four monks decided to meditate silently without speaking for two weeks. They lit a candle as a symbol of their practice and began. By nightfall on the first day, the candle flickered and went out.
The first monk said — “Oh, no! The candle is out.”
The second monk said — “We’re not supposed to talk!”
The third monk said — “Why must you two break the silence?”
The fourth monk laughed and said — “Ha! I’m the only one who didn’t speak.”
At first glance, this koan appears to be a simple story of monks breaking their vow of silence — but the meaning goes much deeper than that.
This koan is a lesson of attachment — but not in the typical obvious, material sense you might expect. Zen teaches non-attachment of all things — material objects, rules, and ideas (including Zen itself).
The first monk was attached to the candle — when it went out, he was unable to stay silent.
The second monk was attached to the rule of silence — when it was broken, he was unable to stay silent.
The third monk was attached to judging others — when he saw the other two monks fail, he was unable to stay silent.
The fourth monk was attached to pride — when he thought he "won," he was unable to stay silent.
The Blind Man
Late one night, a blind man was about to go home after visiting a friend — "Please," he said to his friend, "May I take your lantern with me?"
"Why bother with a lantern?" — asked his friend — "You won't see any better with it."
"No," — said the blind man — "perhaps not. But others will see me better and won’t bump into me.”
So his friend gave the blind man the lantern. It was made of paper and bamboo and held a fresh wax candle inside.
Off went the blind man with the lantern, and before he had gone no more than a few feet, Crack! Someone walked right into him.
The blind man was very angry.
"Why don't you look out?" — he stormed — "Can’t you see this lantern I’m carrying?!"
The stranger looked at the man for a moment — "Why don't you light the candle?"
This koan exposes the perils of making assumptions and reveals the limits of perception. The blind man believes that carrying the lantern will prevent people from bumping into him — but he never actually confirms the candle is lit in the first place.
It's a lesson in self-awareness, humility, and the danger of unexamined beliefs. It’s easy to blame others when things go wrong rather than examining our own assumptions.
It begs the question: Who is truly blind? The man who cannot see? Or the one who assumes he is being seen?
More Zen Koans
I'm a huge fan of koans. I think they're an excellent method to help us dismantle our preconceived notions about the world, the self, and our perception of reality.
They're short, high-impact ponderings that help us question what we know to be true and force us to abandon logic and binary reasoning.
So, for the next few months, I'm going to send a fresh Zen koan to your inbox every Thursday.
I acknowledge that in this post, I acted hypocritically by providing you with my interpretations of a few example koans. My intention was to help you visualize and understand how a koan functions and why they’re so useful to us as students of Zen — however, many Zen teachers argue that presenting an interpretation of the possible meanings of a Zen koan reduces it to an intellectual exercise — which, of course, is the exact opposite of its true purpose.
For this reason, the koans I send each week will be devoid of any interpretation.
Alan Watts, author of the book The Way of Zen — one of the greatest Western interpreters of Zen thought and the master at explaining the unexplainable — argued that if Zen had no secrets, there's no harm in articulating its ideas. I tend to agree with this perspective but argue that reading (and writing) about Zen is in no way the same as practicing Zen. A koan’s true impact comes from direct experience, and much of its power is diminished when it’s filtered through someone else’s interpretation.
For me, koans are a way to engage with the Zen path — helping to disrupt our thoughts and point us toward a more experiential Zen practice.
Instead of looking for meaning in these koans, I invite you to sit with them. Don’t try to solve them. Don’t try to explain them. If they frustrate you, let them frustrate you. If they make you laugh, let them make you laugh. If they do nothing for you, shrug, take a deep breath, and move on with the rest of your day.
Da sound of one hand clapping is a high five …
Ah yes, the noble art of frying your brain on purpose — Zen-style.
This was a beautiful write-up, truly. Like being smacked with a sandal by a grinning master just as you thought you were about to be handed the secret to the universe. You captured the trickster essence of the koan perfectly — that maddening, holy nonsense that short-circuits our sacred logic processors and leaves us blinking in the mystery.
And yes, you did intellectualize the crap out of Zen. But so did Alan Watts. And Suzuki. And half the monks I know who secretly hoard commentaries like they’re ancient Pokémon cards. The important part is you did it with humility and a wink, knowing full well you were already losing the game by playing.
My only koan for you, dear Zen Psychedelic:
If a mind is blown in the forest but nobody’s around to interpret it,
does it still count as enlightenment?
Mu. 🌀