Where did you get this exchange from?
The first part with the master was through the waves emitted by the seeker’s cell phone. The second part was from Google chat.
Put filters on the web so these kinds of exchanges don’t get seen. Enlightenment is dangerous for our purpose.
Yes Ma’am.
What’s your next transcript?
From the White House, Ma’am.
Let’s see.
It’s the president with her secretary, Ma’am.
Mrs. President, you called me?
Yes. What do you think of the latest exchange between the majority and the minority leaders?
To be expected, no?
I think we need to draw attention elsewhere.
Yes?
I have some ideas … Come over here.
Mrs. President, isn’t this room bugged? Shouldn’t we go outside?
The bushes are bugged, too!
Then, the tape is silent, Ma’am, except we can hear some scratching noises. Our video cameras shows them communicating with each other in writing. The notes were kept by the president. We searched the White House trash cans and the bags sent to the shredding room and found nothing.
The president’s secretary is our plant. We’ll get that information.
Ah! Well, would you like to read the exchange between the majority and minority leaders?
We scripted both sides of it.
They changed the script.
Only the details. Let them think they are in charge. It really does not change the end point.
~ ~ ~
Source, you’ve been over the Akashic records.
Yes.
What do we do?
Human beings are ready for honest relationships.
How do we do that?
Let the planets do their thing: annular eclipse of the Sun, Venus transit, full Moon eclipse… it’s all good, it’s all good.
What do you mean?
Enlightenment can not be covered up anymore. The hearts will open, just like the seeds grow, and the flowers eventually bloom with proper temperature, soil and light. All the circumstances are just right. Some people have to play out their dark side until they die. But their game plan has already failed. They know it. They don’t know how to stop their own machinery. Just like a car on ice and the driver attempting to stop it. It just has to be played out. Wait and see.
Very well.
Now, about that exchange … that’s a classic! Read it again.
~ ~ ~
Master! I have walked for days and climbed many mountains to find you.
I know. You would have continued your search endlessly had I not allowed you to find me.
Teach me.
You already think you know everything.
Yes, but I also know I think wrong.
You’re crazy.
Yes. That’s why I need you to teach me.
I’ll give you an old Zen Koan. Then leave me alone. Once you ask for a Koan, you cannot give up; you have to meditate until you find the answer. Deal?
But …
No but. Deal?
Ok.
Listen well! Here it is: What is the sound of one hand clapping? Now, please, go.
But I already know this one!
You would not be here if you knew the answer. Keep searching. One more thing: you did not say ‘thank you!’
Thank you!
And thank the air between us.
Thanks to the air!
And thank all the paths and mountains you walked on to find me.
Thank you paths and mountains!
Good! I’ll give you one more Koan for your pain. Work on it only if you’ve given a good try to the first one and still can’t find the answer.
Thank you!
It is called Three Days More. When you are ready to give up, give yourself three more days.
But …
What did I say?
Thank you!
~ ~ ~
What did he say?
He gave me a koan I already knew.
Which one?
The sound of one hand clapping.
LOL. Have you ever found the answer?
There is no answer! It’s just …
So it was a waste of time?
Maybe not.
What then?
I think I was waiting for a master to give me the answer. He made me realize I was driven by wanting the answer and I ignored everything else around me as if unimportant. But the answers to my quest are in life’s details. I was failing to see what’s right here each moment by my side and be grateful for it and for everything that ever was on my path. He made me realize I should never give up what I start, or else I should not start it. But he only said all this by talking about the koan, leaving me to choose to hear it, or not. And when I thought he was done, he gave me one more koan.
Which one?
Three Days More.
Is it the one about the student who is trying to figure out the answer to the sound of one hand clapping?
Yes. He can’t figure it out so he keeps going back to the master begging him to release him.
I love this one. The master keeps telling him to meditate one more week. He comes back, yet again, and the master tells him to meditate five more days. The master eventually tells him to give it three more days of meditation and, if he does not succeed, this time, he might as well kill himself. The student is enlightened in two days. What do you get from this?
I am the one in my own way.
What if there was something to be found from the first koan?
Ok. The first obvious meaning of the sound of one hand clapping is that there is no sound. The paradox is in the choice of words. Imagine it worded as: ‘What is the sound when one hand tries to clap but misses the other hand?’ The answer would be that there is no sound. But instead the question is: ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping?’ The question does not leave any doubt that the hand is actually clapping.
So the answer ‘no sound’ is incomplete. There has to be something more to it.
If you use telepathy instead of talking to me out loud, there is no sound in the traditional sense, but I may still ‘hear’ your thoughts. The sound of one hand clapping could be that kind of sound: ‘What do I hear from one hand clapping?’
Interesting.
The answer is different for you or me. I can see how one simple question can help many different people to enlightenment. It may even be different from moment to moment for the same individual.
Or ‘What do you feel from the sound of one hand clapping?’
That’s even more subtle. My first reaction is a hand trying to hit me, like I am scolded.
Aww!
I am choosing not to react as in meditation. As I receive this information with innocence, the source of the hand clapping laughs at my not taking the blame anymore. I notice I don’t trust the laughter. I don’t trust the source. But another part of me wants to trust and waits for the source to guide me to trust in some way. It reminds me of the way I don’t trust lovers to love me. I did not know I did not trust lovers to love me. And yet there’s also a part of me wanting to trust.
If you loved yourself completely, would you fear that your lover doesn’t love you? Would you fear the source?
Ouch! You’re right! It’s about accepting everything in my life. I’ve interpreted parts of my life as punishments. If I don’t, if there is positive meaning in all the losses I have experienced, in all my failures and limitations … If all that is not due to my character defect but is a way for me to find out I’m still ok, no matter what, to find out I have infinite resources if I only trust life … then I was loveable and loved all along.
Yes. What’s the hand doing now?
It is waiting for me to make a move. I reach out to it with my hand. It wants my participation. It wants to clap together. It wants to celebrate with me and encourages me to extend this celebration with everyone I meet.
What kind of celebration?
Every moment.
How?
I have to leave everything I think I know behind. Any concerns I ever had. I have to come naked from all the things I thought were mine. Be open. Dive into the unknown moment with an open heart. It all seems so crazy given what I thought life was about. You know? Planning, getting a degree, a career, getting married, having a child, being responsible …
No responsibility?
Well it is about living my life. It is not limited to what I thought it would be.
What about the hand?
It claps.
What do you make of it?
Encouragement. The sound of one hand clapping is that it shows one hand is missing. The one missing is yours, mine, every one’s hand as it is invited to participate in the clapping.
Then what?
Enjoy what I do. Every moment is an opportunity to freedom, to enlightenment, by letting go of what draws me away from joy.
Are you going to tell the master you found your answer?
I’m sure he knows. He had already given me the answer in other ways. He had told me to say thanks to my path, to everything on my path. Now, I need to practice … Ok. It’s your turn.
To seek the master?
To hear the sound of one hand clapping.
Oh! That! I don’t believe in God. To me that hand does not have a ‘source.’ It is clapping against something though, like an invisible giant bell. I sense it and really want to see it. This clapping is producing a sound beyond my reach.
Interesting.
The sound is the exact sound I need to wake up from my illusions. Wait a second.
…
It reminds me of something I have heard before.
…
It is not a giant bell. It is an infinite gong, the very fabric of the universe. It creates waves that penetrate my body like the sound of a gong, but it is infinitely more refined, more like a fragrance. It is changing the rhythm of my breathing. The hand starts clapping against the gong at a faster rhythm, taking my heart in a flight … When it slows down, it starts clapping louder and the waves are larger, opening me, and my entire surroundings, to a space of no doubt and no fear, a space of harmony and beauty. As you, I have to let go of everything I thought mattered in order to let that happen. I see my little child within me, resisting, wanting to stay behind. I hold this child as if we were on a roller coaster. Also, I know that that hand is always available. It is always there, infinitely loving, and tender. Oh! It feels so real. It can’t not be! I want to stay right here with it. Then it says I am it, we are not separate, we never were …
Are you ok?
It is hard to come back. Our reality is very coarse in comparison. I want to keep that refinement, that sensitivity, here, in my daily life. Being on earth is sometimes like trying to play Vivaldi in the middle of a war zone.
Yes.
It’s easier to get numbed by some of the coarseness of human interactions and deeds. But then we fall asleep. The sound of one hand clapping helps me remember my own sensitivity.
And me, mine. Thank you!
Nice chatting with you.
Same here, ttyl.