So the first thing the koan does is to make you completely straightforward, pointing to a single goal, like an arrow. If this is done, soon your mind will be tired. But if you are saving some energy, your mind will always rejuvenate itself. The saved energy will never allow you to be so tired and so exhausted that you simply drop the koan, you simply say, “I am fed up; I am finished. This is stupid — there cannot be any sound with one hand clapping!” At that exhausted moment, mind stops — tired, utterly fed up. With the mind stopping, even for a single moment, in the blink of an eye you are on the other shore.
