Ask a person who identifies as femmekin

[Borachio]

I know. I know.

It's just I never found that convincing as an answer to the koan. Nor does it make a convincing clapping noise.

You could, of course, clap with one hand by slapping it against a firm surface.

I suspect that neither is what the koan is hinting at. But that's koans for you. So who knows?

 

[Traitorfish]

Are you actually meant to answer a koan? I thought the idea was that they provoked you to reconsider your world view. They're not actually puzzles.

 

[NovaKart]

Are you a fan of shirley McClain ?

 

[IIHAAETTEAAHII]

Are you actually meant to answer a koan? I thought the idea was that they provoked you to reconsider your world view. They're not actually puzzles.

the correct answers to the koans are all written in a book which is in the possession of the dalai lama and passed to the new dalai lama on his death.

 

[Traitorfish]

Koans aren't even Tibetan!

 

[Borachio]

Are you actually meant to answer a koan? I thought the idea was that they provoked you to reconsider your world view. They're not actually puzzles.

Kind of.

My understanding is that there aren't any answers to be found in a book. Though some do publish lists of answers to koans.

I believe that you're meant to answer them spontaneously at the time they're asked. The "enlightened" individual will answer correctly whatever answer he gives. And vice versa for the "unenlightened". (For any given value of enlightened you choose, that suits you, of course.)

 

[IIHAAETTEAAHII]

Koans aren't even Tibetan!

do not dare to underestimate the knowledge of the dalai lama, immortal spirit roaming this illusionary realm for several centuries.

 

[Borachio]

I quite like the Dalai Lama.

But I fancy his knowledge of my sock drawer between the years 1972 and 1983, inclusive, is defective.

 

[dusters]

Are you a fan of shirley McClain ?

Never heard of her till just now.

 

[Borachio]

Surely you'll have seen her.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_MacLaine

 

[NovaKart]

Maybe you saw her in Downton Abbey. She's really into past lives and new age stuff.

 

[Borachio]

She used to be my favourite looking woman. In the seventies. Maybe a little faded now. But that's life for you.