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September 2022
Dear Sangha,
We have, in our kong-an collection, a famous story from the Wu-men Kwan Case #13, which begins like this:
One day Te-shan came into the Dharma Room carrying his bowls. Hsueh-feng
(the Housemaster) said, “Old Master, the bell has not yet been rung and the
drum has not yet been struck. Where are you going, carrying your bowls?”
How often does it happen that we hear something that isn’t there? Through the filters of our conditioning, prejudices, and distractibility (perhaps a rumbling stomach?), we hear something completely different that the sounds or words that have actually taken place.
I would hazard a guess that it happens quite often, based on my own experience of incomplete or “creative” listening. Fortunately our Zen practice trains us to quiet our minds enough to develop our ability to hear what’s really going on. And if we miss our cue one time, we know that we’ll have another opportunity to listen again in the next moment. How fortuitous!
One of my favorite parts of practice at the Zen Center is listening to the temple bell. After that sound diminishes, the reverberations follow. Then we hear the birds, the traffic, and even our collective breath—all are vividly present, to be heard and realized, without end.
Yours in the symphonic dharma,
Jeong Ji
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