Zen and the Art of Chuck Berry

The one hand clapping books start with an enigmatic verse. Each one is slightly different but they’re all based on a famous Zen saying by a Chinese master called Fu-daishi:

Empty handed I go, and behold, the spade is in my hand;

I walk on foot, yet on the back of an ox I am riding.

The master taught his students that people are imprisoned by thinking logically and in terms of opposites, e.g. the hand is empty or the hand is holding a spade. On foot or riding. He tried to help his students break out of these constraints and

use their intuition. So one way to do this was to hit them with these apparently nonsensical, contradictory sayings, which they had to overcome. Another master, Basho, simply said in his sermon, “If you have a staff, I will give you one; if not, I will take it away.”

Being able to break of logic and our world of duality means being free to follow the Buddhist ‘Middle Way’ and act purely. Right action!  

In the one hand clapping books I’ve reworked Fu-daishi’s saying. Zen City, Iso is set in the ‘Noir Age’ which is roughly the forties to early fifties. So I replaced the ox with a tram (used in Bangkok at that time) and spade with silk cord, which could have been used to kill the women:   

Empty handed I go, and behold the silk cord

is in my hand;

I walk on foot, and yet on the seat of a tram I am riding

Man in Zen Ambulance fast forwards the action to the ‘Atomic Age’, the mid to late fifties. So this time I replaced the ox with a classic American car made famous in Chuck Berry’s rock and roll song Maybelline. The Mk2 Oka is the outrageously overblown automatic handgun used by the assassin-monk, Milo:    

Empty handed I go, and behold the Fuji-Kool Mk2 Oka

is in my grip;

I walk on foot, and yet a Coupe de Ville I am driving

I’ve tried to do three things with these verses. Firstly, I wanted to introduce my readers to a little slice of Zen that made such an impact on me when I was a teenager. Secondly, set the stage for the contradictory, surreal Buddhist world the one hand clapping action takes place in. And finally, raise uncomfortable questions about the dark places corrupted Zen Buddhism can take us to.