This is the sound of the bell.
The bell.
The bell.
Open up the silence.
Whatever is happening in the body,
The mind,
The world,
Never mind.
Just appreciate the underlying silence.
The underlying stillness.
The prior perfection.
Appreciate that whatever the conditions of life in this moment,
Body,
Mind,
Heart,
Spirit,
World,
That you can have an intention to look towards silence,
And silence will be here.
Even as thoughts come and go in a busy mind,
In a busy world,
These thoughts come from silence and return to silence.
And the activity of the world arises out of silence,
Returns to silence.
Feelings in the body rise and pass back into silence.
It's as if this great silence gives birth to everything all at once,
Even as it gathers it back up within itself.
And all that means practically is that in this exact moment,
Whatever the activity,
Whatever the commotion inside and outside,
There is also absolute rest available.
And there are so many different ways to be human.
In Rumi's words,
A thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
The names we give to the divine.
And for those of us who don't identify with the divine,
Names we give to the transcendent,
The cosmos,
Creation.
Whatever it is that is transcendent and beyond our smallness as individuals,
We can open up to it,
Open our hearts to it.
The rishis of India,
The imams of Islam,
The lineage holders of the vehicles of Buddhism,
The shepherds in Christianity,
The scientists,
The moderns,
Atheists and agnostics who set their hearts on the highest possibility of humanity itself.
So many ways to be human,
So many ways to make sense of this journey,
This sojourn here on what we call the planet Earth.
And all these worldviews,
All these ideas and beliefs arising out of the silence,
Falling back into the silence.
Whatever you're feeling in this moment,
Maybe joy,
Maybe ease.
If that's the case,
Practice letting go,
Practice being totally willing for this joy and peace and rest to fall back into silence.
And if it's a heavy heart,
If it's a distracted mind,
If it's a vague or even an acute sense of human suffering in this moment,
Can you soften just a little bit,
Trusting that out of this silence came the suffering,
Back into the silence,
This suffering will disappear,
Rising and passing,
Expanding,
Contracting,
Always back to the silence.
Modern science tells us the entire cosmos was born out of an explosion,
A big bang.
All of creation,
Every story ever known or told out of this big bang,
Out of the silence.
And in one moment,
Perhaps billions,
Trillions of years from now,
Back into the silence,
All of creation may go.
Just another in-breath and out-breath for the great silence that brings forth and gathers back up,
Utterly timeless,
Utterly boundless.
In this silence,
There is neither a need to see nor to be seen.
Out of this silence,
We are utterly alive,
Utterly unique,
All children of the living one.
Thank you.
