She raised her hand to speak—and then didn’t.
Jasmine had spent years learning how to listen. In therapy school, they called it “holding space.” She was good at it. Colleagues praised her calm. Friends called her wise. She became known as someone who could absorb chaos and stay still.
But lately, the stillness had started to ache.
It wasn’t peace. It was absence.
During a conversation with a mentor, Jasmine was asked something unexpected:
“You give so much space to others. Where do you go?”
She opened her mouth to answer—but no words came. Just a tear. A small, quiet gesture. Like the sound of one hand clapping.
The Koan That Stops You
Zen masters use this question—“What is the sound of one hand?”—to snap the mind out of its linear, logical patterns. It’s not meant to be answered. It’s meant to break something open.
It points to the space between things. The presence beneath sound. The awareness before thought.
Because where there is only one hand, there is no clap.
Only presence. Only potential.
And maybe that’s the point:
Some truths are felt, not heard. Some knowing comes through stillness, not action.
Modern Life Doesn’t Reward One Hand
We live in a world that praises the clap—the visible result, the feedback, the measurable proof.
But what about the hand that reaches, creates, supports, or waits?
Psychologists call this the problem of outcome bias: we tend to value actions based on what they produce, not what they express.
But meaning isn’t always loud. Growth isn’t always a collision. Sometimes, it’s just one hand raised in stillness, asking, “What if this moment is enough?”
Jasmine’s Answer That Wasn’t an Answer
Weeks later, Jasmine found herself guiding a client through silence. The woman across from her had lost her father. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t talking. Just breathing, staring, trying to exist in the absence.
Jasmine didn’t rush to fill the space. She didn’t offer advice.
She just mirrored her breath. Stayed.
And in that moment, Jasmine heard something.
Not sound.
Not words.
But a presence. A knowing. A deep clarity that only comes when nothing is forced.
She still didn’t know how to answer her mentor’s question. But maybe, she didn’t need to.
Maybe her presence was the answer.
The One Hand in Your Life
The unfinished painting that still speaks.
The pause before you reply.
The goodbye you never got to say.
The love that exists without being returned.
The stillness you carry when the world is clapping around you.
Sometimes, life offers no echo.
No applause.
Just a question:
Can you hear yourself, even when nothing is responding?