A Zen koan is a preposterous question such as, "What did you look like before your parents where born?" or the most ubiquitous, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?". These questions are supposed to jump the mind into sudden enlightenment but in reality stop the mind by their inanity.
The classic Japanese movie "Rashomon" is based upon a long koan. The Hollywood movie "The Outrage" starring Laurence Harvey copies it. "Rashomon" is the title of a story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Only a small reference to it is in the movie. Actually, the movie is more about another Akutagawa story "Yabu no Naka". In it, there is a trial. Someone killed a young samurai named Takehiko, and his wife Masago was raped. Tajomaru the Ronin is accused of the crime. He claims he desired Masago, so he lured the couple into a grove with tales of buried treasure. He tied the man to a tree and raped the lady. Then, he says the two men fought a duel over the possession of her, and he won, but the lady had fled while they fought. Th lady claims her husband was disgusted with her for being raped, so she stabbed him fatally and tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide with a tanto. A medium contacted the dead man, and he claimed he commitrted seppuku in shame at his wife's behavior in liking being raped and telling the ronin to kill her husband. The ronin knocked her down for such treachery and left, as did the lady. Left alone in great shame, he saw a tanto and drove it into his chest. So, a man was stabbed to death, and all three people present each claims credit for the killing. How can anyone decide who is telling the truth, if anyone is? Is truth merely subjective, or does objective truth exist. I will eat ice cream while watching this intriguing movie.
Pearl 