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Sound Matters: A Sonic Pilgrimage

Sound Matters: A Sonic Pilgrimage

by | Feb 5, 2026 | Harmony, Joy, Life, Meaning, Meditation, Peace, Zen

Sound matters. Not concept. All ancient traditions knew this. Veda, mantra, sutra, dharani, koan — they are not intellectual puzzles but sonic transmissions. Zen too is deep-rooted in this. My master keeps urging: move beyond concepts. When we get stuck in concepts, we lose our way.

There is a story of a Zen master speaking to Alan Watts. He said there is no need to translate Zen, because the sound of rain in all languages is the same. This struck me deeply. It is the purest teaching. Before the word “rain,” there is the sound. Before the concept of “wet,” there is the feeling. The translation happens in the mind; the experience is direct, universal. This is where we must reside.

Zen practitioners  chants sutras, but Zen also says: Do not cling to words and letters. This is not contradiction. It is rhythm. Sound is presence. Chanting is practice. It is the direct transmission, felt in the bones, not processed in the mind. The koan isn’t solved; it is absorbed until it shatters the intellect.

Frequencies and Harmony

Modern seekers rediscover what ancients knew: sound is not just heard, it is embodied. The Solfeggio frequencies — 396 Hz, 417 Hz, 528 Hz, 639 Hz, 741 Hz, 852 Hz — are said to resonate with human nature, unlocking healing, transformation, harmony.

Verdi’s 432 Hz tuning is another example. Unlike the modern 440 Hz standard, 432 Hz is said to align more harmoniously with natural resonance, with the rhythms of the earth and the human body. Musicians, mystics, and meditators alike speak of its calming, centering effect.

Zen would say: do not get stuck in the numbers. Do not cling to the theory. Listen. Chant. Embody. The frequency is not concept but vibration. The practice is the return to resonance. We are tuning the instrument of our being.

The Uninvited Mantra: Sound of the Inner Anechoic Chamber

But what of the sounds we do not choose? The ones that come unbidden, like a ghost in the machine of our own mind?

A few years back, I landed in deep depression due to Tinnitus. A constant, incurable ring. I suffered because I refused to accept it. I fought it. Friends, talks, psychiatrists helped. But what really helped was when I started meditating on it.

My psychiatrist, at our first meeting, did not rush to prescribe. He told me: no one can withstand perfect silence. The max time one could stay in an anechoic chamber—the quietest place in the world—are just a few minutes. I read about it. In that room, silence is so absolute, so below the threshold of hearing, that you start to hear the sound of your own blood moving. The click of your eyelids shutting. Your body becomes a symphony of noise you never knew was playing.

For those who have done Vipassana, you know this. By the 7th or 8th day, as you go deeper, you start to hear the voice of your own cells. We are oriented to vibration. We are vibration. But not for an anechoic chamber. And not, at first, for Tinnitus.

When you meditate on Tinnitus, you stop fighting. You listen. You realize it is not one flat ghost noise. There are finer nuances to it. It changes tunes and rhythms. It almost becomes musical. You realize: Tinnitus is not different from you. You are Tinnitus.

Once you reach there, it recedes. It becomes a tone in one far corner of the vast galaxy of your brain. The aha moment comes: The silence of the mind is different from the silence of sound. On top of the Himalayas, one can be troubled by the silence. Right in the midst of a Silk Board flyover traffic jam, horns blaring, one can be at peace.

This is the first lesson. Accepting reality as it is. Life is what happens to you when you have other plans. What you resist, persists. Acceptance is not helplessness. It is choiceless awareness. Seeing the borderlines we draw between our experience and ourselves—seeing that these lines are also possible battlelines. And in that seeing, letting the battle extinguish.

 

Expanding the Practice: Listening Across Traditions

So I started listening. To the Heart Sutra, the Four Great Vows, the Wishing Prayer — not only in  Japanese, but also in Classical Tibetan, Sanskrit, Pali and Chinese Mandarin. Each language carried its own cadence, its own resonance, its own transmission. This is not translation of meaning, but embodiment of vibration. Each language is a different sonic key for the same lock.

Heart Sutra Across Languages

  • Classical Tibetan:
    བཅོམ་ལྡན་འདས་མ་ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པའི་སྙིང་པོ།
    chom den de ma sherab kyi parol tu chinpai nyingpo
    “The Blessed Mother, the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom.”
  • Sanskrit:
    गते गते पारगते पारसंगते बोधि स्वाहा ॥
    gate gate pāragate pārasamgate bodhi svāhā
    “Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, awakening, svaha.”
  • Chinese (Mandarin):
    揭諦揭諦 波羅揭諦 波羅僧揭諦 菩提薩婆訶
    jiē dì jiē dì bō luó jiē dì bō luó sēng jiē dì pú tí sà pó hē
  • Japanese:
    羯諦 羯諦 波羅羯諦 波羅僧羯諦 菩提薩婆訶
    gyatei gyatei haragyatei harasōgyatei bodhi sowaka

Each language shifts the vibration. Tibetan is earthy, resonant. Sanskrit is sharp, crystalline. Chinese is flowing, tonal. Japanese is clipped, rhythmic. Each is sound beyond concept. The Gate Gate Pāragate mantra isn’t a sentence to be parsed; it is a vehicle to be ridden. The sound is the teaching.

The Four Great Vows (Japanese Zen)

衆生無辺誓願度
煩悩無尽誓願断
法門無量誓願学
仏道無上誓願成

Shujō muhen seigan do
Bonno mujin seigan dan
Hōmon muryō seigan gaku
Butsudō mujō seigan jō

Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them.
Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them.
Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them.
The Buddha Way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it.

The vow is cadence. The vow is sound. Its rhythm shapes the aspirational mind.

Wishing Prayer (Samantabhadra)

སེམས་ཅན་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱིས་སེམས་དང་བསམ་པ་དག་པར་གྱུར་ཅིག
semchen tamche kyi sem dang sampa dakpar gyur chik
“May all beings’ minds and thoughts become perfectly pure.”

The repetition is sonic dedication. Aspiration becomes resonance.

Om Mani Padme Hum

ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ།
Om Mani Padme Hum
“Om, the jewel in the lotus, hum.”

Avalokiteśvara’s vow embodied in syllables. Compassion as frequency.

21 Taras

ཨོཾ་ཏཱ་རེ་ཏུ་ཏྲེ་ཏུ་རེ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ།
Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha
“Homage to Tara, swift liberator.”

The syllables themselves are Tara’s activity. The chant is protection, not the idea of protection. The vibratory pattern is the swift, motherly response.

Gregorian Chant: Sanctus

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus
Dominus Deus Sabaoth
Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua
Hosanna in excelsis

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of ghosts.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.

The resonance of Gregorian chant is cathedral stone vibrating with human voice. It is not doctrine but sound. It is an architectural resonance of awe.

Śaṅkara’s Nirvāṇa Ṣaṭkam

मनोबुद्ध्यहंकार चित्तानि नाहं
न च श्रोत्रजिह्वे न च घ्राणनेत्रे ।
न च व्योम भूमिर्न तेो न वायु
चिदानन्दरूपः शिवोऽहम् शिवोऽहम् ॥

manobuddhyahaṅkāra cittāni nāham
na ca śrotra jihve na ca ghrāṇa netre
na ca vyoma bhūmir na tejo na vāyuḥ
cidānandarūpaḥ śivo’ham śivo’ham

“I am not the mind, intellect, ego, or memory.
Not the senses of hearing, taste, smell, or sight.
Not space, earth, fire, or air.
I am the form of consciousness and bliss — I am Śiva, I am Śiva.”

The cadence of Sanskrit dissolves identity. Each syllable is a negation, each refrain is affirmation. Not concept, but vibration. To chant Shivo’ham is to let the repeated sound dissolve the very “I” that would claim it. The sound does the work.

 Kanzeon Zendo, Perumalmalai

Here at Kanzeon Zendo, Perumalmalai, the name itself is practice of compassion . Kanzeon — Avalokitesvara, Kannon, Guanyin — the Bodhisattva of Compassion who hears the cries of the world. Tara — his emanation, swift motherly response. One listens, one acts. One is presence, one is movement.

Our practice extends into the night. Every single evening, we close with music meditation. We sit in Hakuin Zenji’s Nanso no ho—the Soft Butter Meditation—allowing the body and mind to melt like soft butter, while listening to carefully selected music. The music is not entertainment. It is the container, the environment of resonance in which the “soft butter” of awareness can dissolve and flow. On some blessed nights, when a musician visits, the meditation deepens. The live vibration of guitar, flute, or voice merges with the practice of Nanso no ho. There is no separation. The musician breathes, the listener breathes. The note vibrates, the body vibrates. It is all the sound of rain.

Our broader chanting — Heart Sutra, Four Great Vows, Wishing Prayer, Om Mani Padme Hum, Tara praises, Gregorian Sanctus, Nirvāṇa Ṣaṭkam — is not about concept. It is about sound. Sound as Dharma. Sound as transmission. Sound as ordinariness.

The Zendo becomes a mandala of sound. Tibetan syllables, Sanskrit cadence, Pali rhythm, Chinese tone, Japanese vow, Latin resonance, the note of a flute, the falling rain—all dissolve into one practice. Not separate traditions, but one vibration. In this sonic mandala, the canter is listening-compassion, and every chant, every note, is an arranged element of the integrated whole. We are not blending doctrines. We are experiencing sonic unification. The Dharma has no native language. It is the sound of rain.

When we chant, when we sit with music, we do not explain. We embody. We dissolve. We return.

At Kanzeon Zendo, Perumalmalai, this is our root.
Compassion as sound.
Wisdom as sound.
Aspiration as sound.
Protection as sound.
Presence as sound.

These are not abstract virtues described by sounds. They are activated and transmitted as sound.

Sound matters. Not concept. The pilgrimage is the return to this resonance. To listen, to chant, to melt like soft butter into the note, into the silence after the rain. To dissolve. To return.

 

The Thief of Joy: Walking the Ox-Herding Path Back to the Marketplace, to the Tune of a Different Drummer

The Thief of Joy: Walking the Ox-Herding Path Back to the Marketplace, to the Tune of a Different Drummer

by | Jan 29, 2026 | Compassion, Harmony, Integrity, Life, Transformation, Zen

Expectation is the thief of joy. We imagine the world, people around us, and life events should conform to our hopes—and when they don’t, peace and happiness slip away. This is all the more piercing in spiritual communities, where many assume fellow practitioners are somehow more evolved than the rest of society. But that assumption is false. Often, people come to the sangha not to deepen realization but to escape the marketplace, and so the same patterns of hypocrisy, ambition, and self-deception repeat themselves—sometimes unconsciously, sometimes with full awareness.

The Ten Ox-Herding Pictures are not simply allegories; they are one of Zen’s most enduring teaching devices. Originating in China during the 12th century, attributed to the Chan master Kuoan Shiyuan, they depict the seeker’s journey through ten stages of practice. The ox itself is a symbol of the mind—wild, elusive, sometimes hidden, sometimes tamed. The pictures begin with the restless search, the ox unseen, the seeker wandering. By the third step, the ox is glimpsed—the true self recognized. The middle stages show taming, riding, and eventually forgetting the ox, pointing to the dissolution of duality. And the final step is the most radical: returning to the marketplace with “bliss-bestowing hands.” Here, realization is not escape but ordinariness, not withdrawal but presence in the midst of daily life.

Yet many begin in the marketplace and end there again, without ever walking through the intermediary steps. They wear the robes of spirituality but never touch the ox. They mistake the outer form for the inner journey. And so, spiritual communes mirror the wider world. The marketplace is always present—even in the zendo. The question is not whether hypocrisy exists, but whether we meet it with awareness. To see the act, the mask, the double face, is itself a koan: how do we walk without expectation, without projecting our longing for purity onto others?

This longing extends far beyond the zendo. It touches the very core of how we move through society. We are all, in some way, following an internal rhythm. Henry David Thoreau captured it perfectly: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

David Keirsey placed this quote at the opening of Please Understand Me for a reason. It is a testament to temperament—to the innate, different guides within us. The spiritual path, at its best, is about hearing that unique drummer with perfect clarity and having the courage to step to it. Yet so often, in our rush to belong to a community—be it a corporate team, a family, or a sangha—we mute our own music. We project onto others the expectation that their drumbeat should match the one we’ve chosen to hear, or worse, the one we think we should hear.

The full passage from Walden reveals more. Thoreau speaks of advancing confidently in the direction of one’s dreams, of new laws establishing themselves “around and within him.”

Here is more of the surrounding text for context from the final paragraph of the chapter titled “Conclusion.”  :

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favour in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings…

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak. Shall he turn his spring into summer?”

This is the journey of taming the ox: the inner laws becoming clear, the authentic rhythm undeniable. But here is the paradox: to return to the marketplace with “bliss-bestowing hands” is not to demand that the chaotic noise of the market become your melody. It is to move through it, undistracted by its discord, steadfast in your own measure—and in doing so, to allow others the space to hear their own.

If we can meet even hypocrisy as another face of suffering, then it too becomes part of practice. We see it not merely as a moral failure, but as a profound disconnection—a person who has stopped listening to their own drummer and is instead clattering along to a cacophony of borrowed beats, of shoulds and oughts, of spiritual ambition and unmet longing.

The path is not linear. Some circle back, some stall, some leap ahead, some act out roles without ever glimpsing the ox. But the invitation remains: to strip away masks, to deepen realization, and to return to ordinariness. To live in the marketplace—not as escape, but as presence. And to do so, finally, stepping to the music you hear, however measured or far away, while letting the din of expectation fade into the background where it belongs.

The Marketplace of Masks: Value, Silence, and the Sound of One Hand Clapping

The Marketplace of Masks: Value, Silence, and the Sound of One Hand Clapping

by | Jan 24, 2026 | Integrity, Life, value, Zen

In 2002, one of the things learnt from Dr. Richard McHugh is that much of our behaviour and actions stem from the subconscious or unconscious mind. For a while, while leading the Talent Transformation Academy at Wipro, it became clear why facilitators use games and simulations in corporate classrooms. It is in those moments that the mask falls off, and we begin to notice what is usually hidden.

Later, during a PG in Education at APU, frameworks such as Social Exchange Theory, Carl Menger’s subjective value and marginal utility, and most importantly the minmax principle, offered lenses to decode these observations. Returning to NGO work and then corporate corridors, observing people’s behaviour and learning from it became a kind of pastime. It is fascinating, almost like marking tally marks, when a senior leader rudely interrupts others in a meeting, or when an SVP nods approvingly whenever the Chairman speaks. People are constantly trading in currencies of respect, attention, status, and approval. The interruption is a claim to status currency. The nod is an exchange of approval for favour with the Chairman. It is a market of social transactions.

Once, an experiment made this visible. In a brainstorming session, notes were exchanged between myself and my boss. I presented his inputs, and he mine. The team’s responses were striking—most of my ideas, when voiced by my boss, were voted in. Again, at the Zendo and outside, it is equally interesting to observe how people respond—or do not respond—on social media and various community groups.

Carl Menger’s principle of subjective value and marginal utility applies directly to meetings: an idea’s worth is not intrinsic, but assigned subjectively by the receiver. The same idea, voiced by me, had low marginal utility, but when packaged and presented by my boss, it carried high value—the source added a premium. People are value-appraisers in every interaction.

The minmax principle (minimizing maximum possible loss) is the engine of much corporate politeness and risk-aversion. Supporting the Chairman’s point or deferring to the highest-paid person’s opinion (HiPPO) is often less about genuine agreement and more about minimizing personal risk.

And one of the toughest koans in Zen is “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” created by Hakuin Ekaku, one of the famous Rinzai masters. Once a practitioner gains insight into that koan, one begins to live with the sound of one hand clapping. There is freedom from approvals, emojis, and appreciation—even from close family or friends. One speaks because speech must arise. One writes for the sake of writing. Nothing more.

The Zendo and other platforms make this explicit. The response or non-response is pure social exchange and subjective value. A like or comment is a micro-currency. Silence can be a deliberate withholding of currency—disagreement, indifference—or a calculation that engagement has no utility or carries risk (the minmax principle in a public forum). The online disinhibition effect—both positive and toxic—is another way the mask falls off.

Here, the koan of one hand clapping integrates seamlessly as liberation. All the tally marks, nods, interruptions, likes, and emojis are currencies in the social marketplace. But the koan points to freedom from that marketplace. To live with the sound of one hand clapping is to speak without seeking approval, to write without chasing appreciation, to act without calculating marginal utility. It is radical liberation from the minmax principle itself.

And most often, our learning and education come from a mindset of instrumentality—we learn in order to get something. Yet there is another way. My children, who had their schooling at a Krishnamurti school, taught me that learning is not transactional but transformational. Learning is meant for making or unmaking ourselves. The mindset of Instrumental vs. Integral Learning is a crucial one. Conventional learning often becomes another transaction—acquiring skills to trade in the marketplace. In contrast, learning for “making or unmaking ourselves” is inherently non-transactional. It aligns with the one hand clapping. It is learning for sovereignty, not for currency.

The Marketplace of Self

These observations highlight the core challenge of collaboration: human beings are not rational agents evaluating pure data, but social beings navigating a complex web of subconscious drives, perceived value, and status economies.

The corporate and social world is a subconscious economy where our masks are both currency and commodity. Every interruption, nod, like, or silence is a transaction in the currencies of status, approval, and security. The theories of Menger and Minmax aren’t just academic; they are the living, breathing algorithms of daily life.

That note-swap with my boss is the quintessential proof. It reveals that in this marketplace, the “who” often completely overwrites the “what.” The subjective value conferred by status can render identical content either priceless or worthless. This is the silent, powerful bias that undermines meritocracy.

And the Zen practitioner who lives with the sound of one hand clapping has already stepped beyond the need for transformation—because the freedom is already here.

Hakuin’s koan is not a riddle, but an antidote to the social marketplace. To live with the sound of one hand clapping is to opt out of the exchange. It is to act from an internal locus of value, where creation and expression are ends in themselves. It is freedom from the tally sheet.

The ultimate goal, perhaps, is not to make everyone a Zen monk, but to create pockets of space—in relationships, in corporate meetings, in classrooms, in online forums—where the sound of one hand clapping can be heard: where ideas are evaluated more independently of their source, where silence is not fearful, and where contribution is driven less by the calculation of personal utility and more by the intrinsic value of the act itself.

You Are Here (Even in the Over-Lit Corporate Corridor)…

You Are Here (Even in the Over-Lit Corporate Corridor)…

by | Jan 21, 2026 | Joy, Life, Peace, Zen

The voice from the google map app in iPhone tells us to turn left, then right, then merge. We follow the blue dot, but the feeling grows: this is not just a wrong turn. This is being lost in general. The highways multiply, the paths diverge, and we whisper:

 Where am I, really?

We are lost on the over-lit corporate corridors, moving from one identical meeting to another.

We are lost in the labyrinths of relationships—with the dear and near, with friends, or in the outer circles of Dunbar’s number, wondering which connection is true.

We are lost in the marketplace of choices and voices.

We are lost on our own spiritual path, where the signposts are confusing or gone.

We have endless guidance for roads, and none for this.

It is here, in this specific modern wilderness, that David Wagoner’s poem Lost isn’t just pretty verse. It is a radical, necessary command.

Lost  by David Wagoner

“Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,

I have made this place around you.

If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you. “

This applies to anywhere. Especially here. Especially now.

That over-lit corporate corridor? It is your forest. Stand still. Listen to its hum. Let this Here be known. That labyrinth of a relationship? Stand still. Not in silence, but in deep attention. Let the space between you breathe. Ask permission to know it anew. The noise of the marketplace? Stand still. Let the frantic churn become a powerful stranger you observe, before you buy. The confused spiritual path? Stand still. The path is not ahead; it is under your waiting feet.

In Zen practice, there is a bow. You bow to the doorman at the zendo entrance. You bow to the Buddha on the altar. You bow to the person across from you. It is not a bow of blind reverence to others. It is a bow to the Buddha within yourself, and within them. When you bow, you empty yourself—your pride, your rushing, your frantic need to be somewhere else—and in that emptying, the world comes in.

It is the same as swimming. While you struggle in frantic motion, you drown. Only when you relax, when you release the fight, do you start to float. The water was always holding you; your panic was what sank you.

It is the same as Tai Chi. I remember when François taught us at the zendo. He did not rush into teaching forms. He spent a good three weeks teaching us to stand still—Wuji, the primordial stillness. And he said, all Tai Chi movements start by themselves from that stillness. The form does not begin with a step, but with a surrender. The first movement is not made; it is allowed, born from the quiet fullness of standing.

Standing still is that bow. Standing still is that floating. Standing still is that Wuji. It is the surrender that precedes being upheld, the emptiness from which true movement spontaneously arises. Emptying yourself of the frantic navigation so that the forest—the corridor, the labyrinth, the path, the water, the qi—can find you. Can move you.

The poem’s genius is its transferable truth: “If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, You are surely lost.”

If what your colleague’s silence does, or the labyrinth’s turn, or the marketplace’s buzz does is lost on you—you are surely lost. So you must stand still. You must bow. You must stop thrashing. You must find your Wuji. Not to figure it out, but to let it find you. To let it carry you. To let the first real movement begin from you, not through you.

Only when we empty ourselves—when we bow to the Here, when we relax into the float, when we root into the unmoving stillness—does the world come in. The corridor, the labyrinth, the path, the water, the life force… it knows where you are. It has always known. You must let it find you.

You are not a blinking GPS dot,  not a line on a map, not a corridor endlessly lit. You are a breath in a breathing world, a silence that listens, a stillness that bows.

Stand still— and the corridor becomes a forest. Stand still— and the labyrinth becomes a path.

Stand still— and the marketplace becomes a stranger you can greet.

The world has always known where you are. It waits for you to stop thrashing, to empty, to float, to bow.

Here is not a mistake. Here is the beginning. Here is the place that finds you.

You are a breath in a breathing world. And it knows exactly where you are, even here. Especially here. 

 

Preparing with Care, Trusting in Execution… Reading the First Half, Living the Second

Preparing with Care, Trusting in Execution… Reading the First Half, Living the Second

by | Jan 19, 2026 | Change, Communication, Compassion, Harmony, Life, Meaning, RElationship, Trust, Zen

My better half’s family was into Krishnamurti and she got out of a well-paying IT job to be a teacher in a. Krishnamurti school and Manu and Rishi too had their entire school education there. Though, it is an alternative education, it did give me some anxious moments, especially when i got to read about the competitive landscape of higher education and career building and livelihood earning outside that protected cocoon. They did end up in really good universities for their UG. But , the elder one, did face the challenged due to changed environment. Someone who was never part of dumb bell curve or exams for most of his life, but who pursued knowledge and wisdom for its own sake, was thrown into the high seas of surprise tests, CGPA and dumbbell curve etc without any life jacket. And it did reflect on his performance for the first two sems… There were O+ with 0 ( Not present). As someone who skipped my final year Engineering exam , for watching World cup football, in spite of my late Father’s concerned advice of a lengthy 5 page letter, i knew i did not have the moral capital to advise him. Though indirectly , i tried to share some pointers and nothing much. There was some subaltern tension and concern nevertheless.

But one thing good about him was his zeal of reading and ability to observe. As a very young child, he was into ornithology and could recognize almost all kinds of birds in the Valley school campus. Their daily routing in school, even for 1st std starts with early morning Nature walking. And the first gift i had given was a book by Salim Ali and a Bushnell binocular bought in Johannesburg. And he is one of those who read much more than i do. So in the breaks between semesters, while at home, he started reading the books in my bookshelf and also started buying a lot of books chosen by him. Me and Thara had also kind of stopped asking him about his results. We just used to say in a good way that he got to prepare himself to make a living as there is no inheritance as such.

So i was quite surprised, when he walked in and showed me his Semester marks card last month. It was all O+ and A+. I asked him how did he turn himself around and he talked about Frankl’s paradoxical intention and Huxely’s law of reversed effort. As someone who was trained in NLP ,Counselling, and did MA in Psychology and got trained in Coaching and read a bit, i was familiar with most of such stuff. But not this. And when i asked about it, he showed it in the book ( my old book of Man’s Search for Meaning). I had read the first part and just skimmed thru the second half. 🙁 .. Below is his full note on that. When your own son self-coaches himself, out of trouble into some success and teaches you about it, may be one can’t be more happier than that … Here is his note in full:

“The law of Reversed Effect

The law of reversed effect can be viewed as a psychological boomerang. When you attempt to wilfully dictate an experience, the harder you try, the more that experience will slip away from you. It’s like trying to hold a feather steady in a gust by grasping it tightly in your hand. Examples of this principle are found in all areas of human experience. The more you attempt to force sleep to occur, the more alert and reactive your brain will become; likewise, if you tell yourself to “stay calm,” all of a sudden, you’ll feel more anxious. The conscious mind, when in a state of contraction, creates a resistance to the natural rhythms required by the unconscious mind to perform its job effectively.

This law points out that the mind is likely going to produce better results through relaxation than through strain. All aspects of performance, confidence, creativity, and memory are likely to grow, develop, and improve when there is less pressure and strain associated with them. Athletes enter into flow states by not trying hard enough, but rather by getting out of their own way. As soon as an athlete stops worrying about the results of a competition and focuses only on the performance, their body takes over and performs at its best.

The law of reversed effect does not imply to “never try.” It means to use intention rather than effort and precision over strain. For instance, aim like an archer: identify the target, align your shot, and release without forcing the bow. In many cases, the most successful result comes from creating a time period of rest and relaxation in between two actions, during which you lead, rather than restrain, your movement toward your desired outcome. Sometimes the best way to make progress toward a goal is to stop chasing after it and allow it to come to you.

Rather than mandating performance, the conditions can be established which will allow the output to develop itself, which means So, you relax the inner grip. You don’t quit, you just change the aim of your effort. Just move your effort from trying to control the end result and start focusing it on the process. When the anxiety pulls you into “I must do this right,” you pull back and say, “I’ll make the space for good execution.”

In a way, this is line with. Viktor Frankl’s Paradoxical intention. Paradoxical intention is a psychotherapeutic technique developed by Viktor Frankl, the founder of logotherapy. It is designed to break the “vicious cycle” of anticipatory anxiety—the fear of a symptom (like insomnia or stuttering) which, through the very effort to avoid it, makes the symptom worse. This directly mirrors the “Law of Reversed Effort”. Many who read Frankl’s “Man Search for Meaning”, though it is a small book, reads the first part where he narrated his experiences and let go the second part in which describes the second part of Logotherapy. ( Like my Papa!) . And they don’t realise that , Man’s search for meaning is meaningful, only if you stay with it rather than let go in the middle. 🙂

Coming back to exams, it involves studying for them and going to them trusting what one has prepared for rather than going for what one has not perfected. With anxiety, it involves recognizing the sensations one feels without trying to struggle against them. With skills, it involves practicing them in a structured manner and executing them by breathing into them instead of straining them.

The core is:
Let’s put the effort into preparation rather than execution. Let the trust go into execution. You’re not letting go of control; you’re choosing the right kind of control: conditions, not grip. The effect appears like a cat; pounce too hard and it runs off; just be still, and it curls up in your lap.”

What he has written is not just a psychological principle, but a Dharma gate. The law of reversed effect is nothing but the Zen koan of “trying not to try.” The feather in the gust, the archer’s release, the cat curling up in the lap—these are not metaphors alone, they are lived gestures of life teaching us that control is often the enemy of presence.

I see in his words the same paradox that Krishnamurti pointed to when he said, “The more you pursue pleasure, the more pain you invite.” Or in Zen, when Master Dōgen reminds us that practice is enlightenment itself, not a means to it. The reversal is the teaching: when you grip, it slips; when you soften, it arrives.

And perhaps this is the most ordinary miracle—that a boy who once walked the Valley campus identifying birds by their calls, now identifies the subtle calls of the mind itself. He has moved from Salim Ali’s field guide to Frankl’s logotherapy, but the movement is the same: attention, observation, and trust in what reveals itself when you stop forcing.
For me, reading his note was like being shown my own bookshelf anew. I had skimmed, he had stayed. I had read the first half, he had lived into the second. And in that reversal, the son became the teacher, the father became the student. That is lineage too—not only bloodline, but wisdom line, where insight flows back and forth, unowned, ungrasped.
So I take his words as a reminder: prepare with care, execute with trust. Grip less, condition more. Let the cat curl up. Let the arrow fly. Let the feather dance. And let the law of reversed effect be not just psychology, but practice—practice of living, practice of dying, practice of being.

And perhaps, this is where the circle of education and life shows its hidden symmetry. What began as a child’s morning nature walk in Valley School, listening to bird calls, has now become a young man’s walk through the inner valley of mind, listening to the calls of anxiety and learning to let them perch and fly away. The binoculars of Salim Ali have turned into the lens of Frankl, but the act is the same: seeing clearly, without grasping.

It reminds me that the true inheritance we give our children is not wealth or security, but the courage to observe, the patience to stay, and the humility to learn from reversals. My father’s five-page letter was one kind of inheritance; my silence with my son was another. Both carried concern, but only one gave space. And in that space, he found his own way.

This reversal is not a defeat of the parent, but the flowering of lineage. The son teaches the father and  the feather teaches the hand. And life, in its ordinary rhythm, teaches us again and again that the way forward is sometimes to soften, to trust, to let go.

So I bow to this teaching—not as a principle in a book, but as a lived koan in my own home. The law of reversed effect is not only his discovery; it is now mine too.

You Are Here (Even in the Over-Lit Corporate Corridor)…

The Third Electron, Zendog Bhim, and the Early Warmth of Sankranthi…

by | Jan 14, 2026 | Harmony, Life, Meaning, Zen

The great biochemist Albert Szent-Györgyi once shared:

“When I joined the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, I did this in the hope that by rubbing elbows with those great atomic physicists and mathematicians I would learn something about living matters. But as soon as I revealed that in any living systems there are more than two electrons, the physicists would not speak to me. With all their computers they could not say what the third electron might do. The remarkable thing is that it knows exactly what to do. So that little electron knows something that all the wise men of Princeton don’t, and this can be something very simple.”

What does this statement mean?

I don’t know much about electrons. But I get what he means.

The “third electron” is a metaphor for the mystery of life. Physicists can calculate two electrons with precision. Add a third, and the math breaks down. The system becomes unsolvable.

  • Two electrons: predictable, solvable.
  • Three or more: mathematically intractable.
  • A living system: countless electrons, all cooperating flawlessly.

The paradox is stunning. The “wise men” with their computers cannot predict what that third electron will do, yet in nature, it behaves perfectly. It knows. Life itself embodies a simple, self-organizing intelligence that exists beyond our equations.

This isn’t just a technical point. It’s a deep mystery: life works through a simplicity hidden within immense complexity. What is unsolvable to the intellect is intuitively resolved by nature itself.

Now, let us turn to Zendog Bhim.

When Bhim is in pain, he yelps. When not, he just doesn’t worry about it. He holds no fear of future pain, nor regret for past pain. We might dismiss this as simple instinct, but what if it is clarity instead? Zendog Bhim lives in the simplicity of the present. He yelps, then returns to now. No shadow of future suffering, no ghost of past hurt.

His existence aligns with that “third electron” intelligence — the kind that knows what to do without being told, that moves in harmony with life’s unscripted flow. We often mistake such presence for a lack of intellect. But perhaps presence is its own wisdom — the wisdom that lets life happen without constantly interpreting it.

And today is Makara Sankranthi.

One thing I have noted in the last four years is this: when the sun’s rays first reach this place in the early morning, Perumalmalai seems to realize it doesn’t have to chill out anymore. Early warmth brings more life. The birds and all the animals sense it too.

To their credit, humans once knew this as well—long before complex machines, just by observing. We felt the sun’s return in our bones.

In the subtle shift of sunlight, in the early rays that touch Perumalmalai, something ancient stirs. The chill loosens its grip. The earth senses the change before the mind can name it. Birds know. Animals know. The land itself seems to exhale.

Sankranthi marks that deep, cellular recognition—a festival born not from dogma, but from observing nature’s quiet intelligence.

It’s the same intelligence that guides the third electron. The same that lets Bhim live without regret or anxiety. The same that tells the earth it’s time to wake.

The “third electron,” Bhim’s yelp, and the golden Sankranthi rays—they all point to the same truth:

  • Life cannot be reduced to equations alone.
  • Nature embodies a wisdom that transcends calculation.
  • What looks simple is often a profound intelligence—an effortless alignment with reality.

In Zen, this is suchness: things as they are, without extra commentary. Bhim yelps when there is pain, rests when there is none. The electron arranges itself without hesitation. Perumalmalai warms up when the sun arrives.

So the little electron knows something the wise men don’t. And Bhim knows something we humans often forget. And Perumalmalai, in its quiet Sankranthi awakening, reminds us of a knowing that exists beyond computation.

We live in an age of magnificent calculation. Yet sometimes our very brilliance distances us from the simpler, deeper knowledge—the kind that doesn’t need to be proved, only perceived.

Sankranthi, in its gentle way, invites us back. Back to the early warmth. Back to the wisdom of cycles. Back to the humility of watching, feeling, and trusting that nature knows what it’s doing.

Maybe wisdom isn’t about having all the answers. Maybe it’s about recognizing the questions that need no answer—only reverence.

Happy Makara Sankranthi.

May your days grow lighter, your heart warmer, and your awareness a little more in tune with the quiet knowing that runs through all things.

Which Horse Are You Riding? Shadows, Centaurs, and the Art of Noticing…

Which Horse Are You Riding? Shadows, Centaurs, and the Art of Noticing…

by | Jan 13, 2026 | Change, Life, Meaning, Zen

We all have patterns—ways we respond to deadlines, difficult conversations, or the quiet call to care for our health, our relationships, our purpose. Often, we don’t move until we feel the heat.

Why?

Centuries ago, the Buddha offered a mirror in the form of a parable: the Four Horses. It’s a map of our readiness, of our habitual self. Not as a spiritual abstraction, but as a reflection of our everyday life. What we do here and now—this is the practice.

We each ride a deeply conditioned “horse.” Its temperament dictates our reactions:

  • The Excellent Horse moves at the shadow of the whip. It aligns intuitively with what is needed.
  • The Good Horse responds when the whip touches its hair. It acts on a clear signal.
  • The Poor Horse needs the whip to strike its flesh. It requires direct discomfort.
  • The Worst Horse waits for the pain to reach the bone. Only crisis compels it.

Be honest: Which horse feels most familiar?

For most of my life, I have ridden the fourth horse. My confession is this: “I have not changed, unless there was no other way.” My habitual self-waited for the pain in the bone—for circumstances to force my hand.

But seeing the horse is only the beginning. The real inquiry lies in understanding the terrain it runs on. In my experience, between the signal and the response, three primary shadows often fall. They are not flaws, but human patterns. Observing them is the practice.

  1. The Shadow of Reactance
    The moment an instruction comes—however well-intentioned—we often perceive it as an intrusion. This is psychological reactance: an automatic, defensive pull away from any perceived threat to our autonomy. The mind resists simply because it can, not because the request lacks value. Where do you feel this subtle pushback?
  2. The Shadow of Subjective Valuation
    We act based on a private, internal ledger. As economist Carl Menger showed with the Diamond-Water Paradox, value isn’t inherent; it’s assigned. We devote our scarcest resources—our time and attention—to what we deem most valuable in the moment. Where is your commitment placed on that ledger right now? Is the value seen in the immediate, or the eventual?
  3. The Shadow of Entitlement
    We live in a world where payment can foster the idea that we chart a purely individual course. But as with a symphony ticket—which grants you a seat, not the baton—true engagement often means joining a collective container. Does a subtle expectation for on-demand service obscure your participation in a shared, structured practice?

This isn’t just metaphor; it’s mechanism. The ‘Worst Horse’ is often the default of our survival brain, reacting only to sharp threats. The act of observing these shadows is the conscious mind waking up and saying, “I see this pattern.” This seeing is the beginning of rewiring.

The Practice: Observing the Horse, Not Judging It
This is not about violently taming your horse into an “Excellent” one. It is to notice, with gentle curiosity, the horse you are riding and the shadow it stands in.

When you delay, when you feel that bristle of resistance, when you rationalize… can you see the horse? Is it ignoring the shadow, waiting for the sting? And which shadow is there? Reactance? A devaluation? A sense of “I should get to do this my way”?

In that moment of noticing, a miracle occurs: you are no longer just the horse. You become the awareness that can see both the horse and the shadow. This is the beginning of freedom.

A Living Example: The Shadow vs. The Bone
When put in charge of our practice schedule, my horse sought comfort. I declared Sundays free—no 4 a.m. wake-up. Everyone was happy.

My 90-year-old teacher, Fr. AMA, said nothing. But on Sunday morning, he was alone in the Zendo, sitting in zazen as always. His practice didn’t bend to convenience. He moved with the shadow of the whip, not the ache of the bone.

He was not riding a better horse.

The Centaur: The Unity of Rider and Path
This points us beyond the four types. In mythology, the Centaur represents a profound unity: the human mind seamlessly fused with the horse’s body. Awareness and instinct, one being.

The ultimate aim is not to be a frail rider forever struggling to control a wild horse. It is to become the Centaur.

In this integration, the shadows dissolve. There is no separate “self” to feel threatened, to calculate return, or to demand special terms. Action flows from a unified intelligence. The Centaur does not respond to the whip; it moves in harmony with the direction of the path itself. Its movement is its nature.

My teacher that morning was the embodiment of the Centaur. Practice was simply flowing. Rider, path, and steed were not separate.

Chronicles of Meeting: The Languages We Meet In

Chronicles of Meeting: The Languages We Meet In

by | Jan 2, 2026 | Communication, Compassion, Empathy, Friendship, Joy, Life, Zen

 

There are four French practitioners in our Zendo this week. Their presence stirred a memory—first through a reel I happened to see of a tuk‑tuk driver in Jaipur who had picked up French from his passengers, and then through my own halting attempts at the language years ago. He was speaking with surprising fluency. After Thara and I got married, she wanted to better her French. She had studied at Church Park Chennai with French as one of her languages and I had my schooling at the notorious KTMHS Mannarkkad ( which the locals often read it as. Kerala Themmadi Memorial roughly translated to Kerala Rascals Memorial School. ) where language of life was taught without any fees. As I am writing, one of my best friends, classmate and benchmate is the current Head Master of that school.  It kind of reminded me, the story of Franklin Roosvelt making. Joseph Kennedy. ( the father of the famous John Kennedy) as the first chairman of SEC in USA.  It was reported one of the President’s aid, reminded him about the crooked and dishonest side (especially in Stock market) of the Sr. Kennedy to President’s notice.  Roosevelt seems to have replied, “It takes one to catch another”.  And my good friend, current Head master indeed reformed and transformed that school .

Back to the French story, so on weekends we would drive down to Alliance Française near Cunningham Road in Bangalore. In those days, the city still had a certain ease, and that part of town was worth visiting just for the atmosphere and food. I too signed up for the course. To the best efforts of my teacher, the only phrase that stayed with me was: “Comment allez‑vous ?”

When Frédéric rode in from Auroville on his bike and entered the Zendo, I greeted him with that phrase. He looked at me with surprise—“You speak French?”—and in that moment, the classroom laughter of long ago returned. I remembered how Thara, my classmates, and even our French teacher would laugh heartily at my expense. What was once comic has now become a bridge.

These days, it is Tamil that surprises me. Sometimes, when I am not self‑conscious, I find myself conversing in the Kodai tongue with the garden workers. But the moment someone comments on my Tamil fluency, the flow collapses. It is like practice itself: when the watcher steps in, the natural ease is lost. The other day, driving toward Dindigul, I began reading aloud the place names painted on the back of a bus. Prakash, our Zendo manager, was astonished. Yet for me, it was simply another reminder: language is not something we master; it is something that meets us when we forget ourselves.

When I shared this Chronicle with Thara as she waited for a doctor’s appointment, it sparked a sudden flurry of French on WhatsApp—messages and voice clips of “Allez, Au revoir, Bon nuit, Bonjour, Merci beaucoup, Très bien.” What began as a memory became play once again. The laughter of the classroom, the greeting at the Zendo, and now the joy of a few words exchanged across a waiting room—all of it, the same language of meeting.

The memory of those French classes also brought back another corner of Cunningham Road—Infinitea, the tea shop we often visited. Thara, though from a family of coffee‑estate owners in Wynad and raised in Chennai, has always been a tea person. My mother, Mysore‑born and long settled in Palakkad, brewed close to a million cups of tea for my father and remains a coffee person till now. And I—well, I am both. A coffee, a tea person. I relish each. Perhaps that too is a kind of practice: not choosing sides, but tasting fully whatever is placed before me. Similarly, we did have some very common interests and common friends… People like Komal, Sheik Iyer, Rajalakshmi, Abhijit and Navita et al are my friends too… We both like movies in Tamil and Malayalam…. And music too…

Then there are things which are absolutely not part of that Venn diagram… For ex: i have Zero artistic ability. Thara is a good painter. And she has zero interest in Tech or Social Media unlike me. .. May be more than the languages we know, it is the language of silence that bonded us. May be the language of heart too is the language of silence. During this Dussera holidays, she chose (at last ) to come to Zendo and meditate. That was a bit of surprise for me. May be the fact that Rishi, my second son, came to Zendo and meditated and had some good words about it, might have been an influence. Even then, Thara is her own person. Though she taught at a Krishnamurti school for more than 16 years and her own Grand uncle was into Krishnamurti, she was not a Krishnamuritite per se. While i read. K, she kind of lived that philosophy without reading or talking about. Closing In the end, whether it is a phrase of French remembered, a few words of Tamil spoken without self‑consciousness, the aroma of tea or coffee, or the quiet presence of Thara sitting in the Zendo, all of it points to the same truth: life speaks in many tongues, yet its deepest voice is silence. And in that silence, we meet—not as teacher and student, husband and wife, or even as speaker and listener—but simply as presence itself.

As Lao Tsu reminds us, it is the empty hub that makes the wheel turn, the silence between notes that makes music, the space in a window that lets in light. And as Gibran wrote, the pillars of a temple do not stand together. Both point to the same truth: it is the space between that allows movement, harmony, and relationship. Without the gap, there is no wheel, no music, no light, no love.

 

The Goalless Goal: Escaping the Prison of the Timekeeper

The Goalless Goal: Escaping the Prison of the Timekeeper

by | Dec 29, 2025 | Harmony, Joy, Life, Meditation, STRESS, Zen

It was my habit to sit in the last week of December, reflect on the year gone by, and write down goals for the year to come. All the “Success” literature reinforced this: write it down, and it will manifest. (Though research says most new gym signees in the first week of January drop out within 2-3 weeks—hence the insistence on annual payments. The percentage of readers who never go beyond chapter one is very significant.) For a long time, I even carried that quote from mountaineer W. H. Murray, attributed to Goethe: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!”. Not that it made any difference to my life per se.  It was one of those things to showcase effort.

And so, during the last week of a December 2022, after “successfully” shrugging off anxiety attacks, sleepless nights, and the annoyance of tinnitus—like that vetala on Vikramaditya’s shoulder—by returning to Zazen as advised by my Zen Master Fr. AMA Samy, I wrote down a vow: for the whole of 2023, I will wake up and meditate every single day. No exceptions.

I had read that if you do something for 21 days, it becomes a habit. Considering the amount of failures I had known, I stretched the vow to a year. And I did it. Even during the Qatar World Cup, when matches ended at impossible hours, I still woke at 4 a.m. and sat. Many times during bus rides to Kodaikanal and back to Bangalore, once even in the early morning cab to the airport. The vow travelled with me.

As the Insight Timer announced milestones along the way, my heart swelled with pride—and my ego too, quite a bit. By year’s end, the streak was complete. 365 days. A circle closed. One evening in the early week of 2024, over tea at Kanzeon, I showed it to Fr. AMA. He might have sensed my vain pride.  He smiled, waved it off, and said: “This is not Zen. Zen does not need adrenaline-pumping, teeth-gritting effort.”

Then, with a twinkle, he asked: “Do you count your breaths too like this?”

Zen does talk about Great Doubt, Great Faith, and Great Effort. While it balances faith with doubt, it does not talk much about Great Effort. May be that is  due to  the most important lesson in Zen:  the Great effort in Zen is effortless effort. As the Zen master teaches Prof. Herrigel in that wonderful book Zen and the Art of Archery.

“I seated myself opposite him on a cushion. He handed me tea, but did not speak a word. So we sat for a long while. There was no sound but the singing of the kettle on the hot coals. At last the Master rose and made me a sign to follow him. The practice hall was brightly lit. The Master told me to put a taper, long and thin as a knitting needle in the sand in front of the target, but not to switch on the light in the target sand. It was so dark that I could not even see its outlines, and if the tiny flame of the taper had not been there, I might perhaps have guessed the position of the target, though I could not have made it out with any precision. The Master “danced” the ceremony. His first arrow shot out of dazzling brightness into deep night. I knew from the sound that it had hit the target. The second arrow was a hit, too. When I switched on the light in the target-stand, I discovered to my amazement that the first arrow was lodged full in the middle of the black, while the second arrow had splintered the butt of the first and ploughed through the shaft before embedding itself beside it. I did not dare to pull the arrows out separately, but carried them back together with the target. The Master surveyed them critically. “The first shot,” he then said, “was no great feat, you will think, because after all these years I am so familiar with my target-stand that I must know even in pitch darkness where the target is. That may be, and I won’t try to pretend otherwise. But the second arrow which hit the first—what do you make of that? I at any rate know that it is not ‘I’ who must be given credit for this shot. ‘It’ shot and ‘It’ made the hit. Let us bow to the goal as before the Buddha!” The Master had evidently hit me, too, with both arrows: as though transformed overnight, I no longer succumbed to the temptation of worrying about my arrows and what happened to them.”

 Later, on Fr. AMA’s insistence I spent time reading Dr. Steven Hays and studying about ACT. Dr. Steven Hayes’ teaching: that we often write our own prison rules for the mind. Our processes build the prison cells like a smart dictator. While we focus on external freedom and borders, we do not notice that we are prisoners of our own mind. The “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts,” the milestone flags it raises, the appreciation and depreciation notes it throws up on our mind’s billboards.

And when we chase our cast-in-stone goals, guided by the chimes of our smartphone timers, zealously driven by the psychological prison-warden in our mind, we hardly realize that the real achievement is gaining freedom from that prison of the watch.

On the last Onam day, after I missed the annual Sadya and ended up instead with a super lunch with Fr. AMA and Prakash at Kodai International hotel, I spent some time reading about calendars and time. The Kollam Era had just entered its new century—Kollavarsham 1200 in August 2024, now 1201 from August 2025. A calendar born in 825 CE, sidereal solar, still guiding rituals and harvests in Kerala. Chingam 1st, Andu Pirappu, the beginning of Onam.

So many calendars humans have made. Yet most of us stick to the Gregorian one, imposed by empire, just as Greenwich became the zero of time. And more curious still: we inherited this whole architecture of hours and minutes. The Babylonians and Egyptians gave us the duodecimal system—that’s why we have 24 hours and 60 minutes. The French Revolution tried to decimalize time, with 100 minutes in an hour, but it didn’t stick. For millennia, sundials and water clocks (clepsydras) measured in broad strokes. In medieval China, they even used incense sticks that burned at a fixed rate—you could literally smell what time it was. Early mechanical clocks in Europe had no minute hand. The second hand is a very recent invention. We’ve even had human alarm clocks: in Victorian England, “knocker-uppers” were paid to tap on workers’ windows with long poles.

And I see now: just as we count days, we count breaths, we count streaks. We build cages of time, cages of achievement. The streak was my personal calendar. The Insight Timer was my Greenwich. My ego was the minute hand, ticking away, and my pride was the knocker-upper, jolting me awake to meet a man-made deadline.

But Zen says: Now.
Wu Wei says: the river flows without measure.
Krishnamurti says: the observer is the observed.  Or to paraphrase him in my own crude way the achiever is the achieved.

And Khalil Gibran too, in The Prophet, saw time as immeasurable and sacred. He said: “They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.” He called time timeless, boundless, like love. Not fleeting seconds to be quantified, not a commodity to be sold. He reminded us that yesterday, today, and tomorrow blend into one, that the richness of life is soulful purpose, not profit.

And so the goalless goal emerges not as passivity, but as release.
From outcome to process.
From accumulation to letting go.

From Greed to need.
From time to presence.
From selling days for gold to living them as gifts.

The practice remains—the 4 a.m. wake-up, the cushion—but the why has evaporated. It is no longer a brick in the wall of a spiritual identity. It is simply what I do, as naturally as breathing. And in that naturalness, the freedom the traditions speak of is not something found at the end of the streak. It is felt in the very texture of the sitting itself, unadorned by accomplishment.

And again From Zen in the Art of Archery:

“You see what comes of not being able to wait without purpose in the state of highest tension. You cannot even learn to do this without continually asking yourself: Shall I be able to manage it? Wait patiently, and see what comes—and how it comes!”

I pointed out to the Master that I was already in my fourth year and that my stay in Japan was limited.

“The way to the goal is not to be measured! Of what importance are weeks, months, years?”

“But what if I have to break off halfway?” I asked.

“Once you have grown truly egoless you can break off at any time. Keep on practising that.”

Zen, which grew within the Mahayana stream, reflects this spirit of non-standardization. It resists being carved into fixed formulas. Instead of clinging to texts or doctrines, Zen points directly to experience: the sound of the wind, the rustle of a leaf, the ordinariness of attention. Where Theravada often emphasizes preservation, Zen emphasizes immediacy.

This brings us to Ikkyu, the great iconoclastic Zen master. A man once asked him to write down a maxim of the highest wisdom. Ikkyu took up his brush and wrote a single word: Attention.
The man frowned. “Is that all?”
Ikkyu calmly wrote again: Attention. Attention.
The man, now irritated, said, “I don’t see much depth in what you’ve written.”
So Ikkyu wrote a third time: Attention. Attention. Attention.
Exasperated, the man demanded, “What does this word mean, anyway?”
Ikkyu replied gently: “Attention means attention.”

The story is deceptively simple, but it cuts to the heart of Zen. Wisdom is not hidden in elaborate doctrines or clever formulas. It is in the quality of our attention—to breath, to thought, to the rustle of a leaf, to the ordinariness of life. And yet, being attentive cannot be taught by anyone.

The breath, after all, never counts itself. It just rises and falls. And in that endless, unmeasured rhythm—from the very first inhalation at our birth to the last exhalation at our death—everything is already complete.

What I Learnt by Walking Straight on the Road with 99 Curves: Notes from a Late Bloomer

What I Learnt by Walking Straight on the Road with 99 Curves: Notes from a Late Bloomer

by | Dec 25, 2025 | Career, Compassion, Friendship, Gratitude, Harmony, Integrity, Joy, Life, Livingwithawareness, Meaning, Meditation, Peace, Relationships, Transformation, Zen

20 Dec 2025 . Saturday evening 6 pm.

As I was getting into the bus at Kodaikanal bus stand, Amma called. I told her I would call back, and after settling in my seat, I did. She was checking whether I would be coming to Ramapura to visit her. I said yes. Just before the call ended, she asked me whether my training at Kodaikanal had got over. Over the last three or so years, that is what I had told her. She knows I am in a temporary consulting assignment, and she has always been concerned about my future. Last time we met, that was the question in her mind: while my peers in the IT industry are doing well, what ails me? She usually quotes two names she remembers—Komal and Bops—and very wisely, she does not compare me with my own cousin. She knows my past fights at the workplace. And then she cushions the criticism by adding it’s just her concern for Manu and Rishi and my own well-being. It seems nowadays no one really cares for another, and it’s important to have financial security. It quite baffles her that her son, who spent some 30 years in IT, hasn’t learnt it. So, just before the call ended, she asked me again what I am learning new at Kodaikanal, and will it get me a better job. I was about to say yes, and then I did not say it.

Krishnappa, my friend, was the main driver. He is one of my new friends, gained from my three years of regular trips between Blr and Kodaikanal. Now he treats me as though I am also part of KSRTC. When the bus stops at Battalagundu for dinner or early morning coffee near Krishnagiri, he always makes it a point to tell them, “Nammavaru” — our man — so they don’t charge me either.

He was nearing retirement, proud of being one of the early members of the KSRTC Volvo fleet. One summer night, with an extra bus on the route, he suggested I sit in the front seat. I agreed, forgetting my severe fear of heights. For an hour, I was okay. Then, nearing Rat Tail Falls, he overtook a slow car. In that moment, the big bus covered the available width of the mountain road, and I saw the distant lights in the valley like a midnight sun. We were on the just the edge. A sudden, infinite fear switched my senses to high wattage. I got up and moved back to the safety of my seat.

Later, at dinner, he asked gently if I had been frightened. Then he told me, with a calm that was almost Zen-like, that in over thirty years he had not had even a small accident. A state cabinet minister had once asked him to be his personal driver. It was the confidence of a man absolutely sure of his craft—a mastery so complete it needed no explanation, only the steady grip on the wheel and the knowledge of every curve in the dark.

I had fallen asleep after that, and he woke me up for early morning coffee this time. And once I was back in the bus, the questions and concern of Amma popped into my mind. I could not go back to sleep.

I started reflecting on my last three years at Kanzeon Zendo. What did I learn? The second part of her question—whether it will get me a better job—somehow did not land in my mind.

What did I learn… as a late bloomer in the afternoon, if not the late evening, of my life?

Maybe I learned that my path was never meant to be a straight line. It is a spiral. I look at friends in straight lines—they knew what they wanted at 20, achieved it by 25, solidified it by 30. And then there is me. Starting and stopping. Pursuing passions until the meaning drains away. Years that look like stagnation outside, while inside I am fighting wars no one else sees. I remembered a line that found its way to me, as if by some meaningful coincidence: “The first half of life is merely a preparation. A clearing of the throat before the actual speech begins.” For people like me, maybe this first half wasn’t for achievement. It was for the friction needed to wear away everything that is not you.

I read something else that felt like it was written for me. It said: You are not failing to launch. You are undergoing a gestation period that is proportional to the size of the destiny you are meant to carry. The teak tree by the side of the forest near my window at the Zendo does not grow at the speed of the grass. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I was building a foundation for a skyscraper, when everyone else was pitching tents. It made me think of another idea: that “until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” All this time, feeling adrift, perhaps I wasn’t being passive. I was in the difficult, essential work of turning a fate I didn’t choose into a destiny I could understand.

The teachers appeared as guides in that work. The first was Orie.

His name means ‘light’ in Hebrew. He was at the Zendo when Hamas attacked Israel across the border. He had been one of those who chose to stay with the IDF beyond his mandated service. But after one operation, witnessing the outcome scene, he quit to seek peace. For seven or eight years since, he had been travelling from one monastery to another across India, Sri Lanka, Burma, and East Asia.

He was built like a panther and moved without making any sound. He would often come late to the meditation hall, tiptoeing in like a cat, and no one would notice his arrival. He had the most tranquil way of debating. On the day of the Hamas attack, we spoke for a long time. He was cool as a cucumber. He taught me Spinoza’s statement: “There are two sides to any story, however thin you slice it.” He said the koan of the sound of one hand clapping was true, because in almost all conflicts, whether you feel like the victim or the tyrant, you are only ever hearing the sound of two hands.

I had wanted to learn the Wim Hof method to do takigyo, the waterfall misogi, at the Zendo—that ancient practice of standing under icy water to purify the body and mind, to seek oneness with nature. Orie told me Wim Hof was a pale imitation and taught me Tummo instead, the inner fire. As we were bonding as friends, he left without announcing it. He just slid a small piece of paper under my door. It said: thank you. O. And nothing else.

Then there was the visitor from Japan. For a week, an elderly Japanese woman stayed at the Zendo. According to her registration form, she was in her early eighties, yet she was the first to complete her full prostrations during chanting—nimble, healthy, and carrying a profound peace. She wanted to visit The Potter’s Shed in Kodaikanal, and I went along, thinking I could stop at the Pastry Corner afterwards. As I went to open the car door from the traffic side, she gently stopped me. She taught me the Dutch Reach: using the hand farthest from the door to open it, which forces your body to turn and your eyes to look over your shoulder—directly into the blind spot where a cyclist might be. It was a safety technique, yes, but she framed it as more. She told me it was an individual’s compassionate and wise response that, when done by many, becomes a community ritual. 

“Compassion for the person in front of you is easy,” she said. “Being compassionate to the one you cannot see, the one who is unknown to you—this is the deepening of the way. It is how we begin to live the vow: ‘Though sentient beings are innumerable, I vow to save them all.’” Enlightenment in a gesture. A small, physical twist to protect an unseen other.

And then, Francois. My journey to him was a spiral of its own. I first heard the word “Tai Chi” from U.G. Krishnamurti, later saw it in Milwaukee, and for years in Bangalore, my wife Thara and I learned the Long Form until life, like the Silk Board flyover, threw its spanner. At the Zendo, split between jungle and city, I couldn’t restart. Then I saw him on the terrace—a French martial artist who had spent twenty years in Japan and China. His movement was a perfect symphony. I asked him to teach me. He paused in his considered way, and finally agreed.

For Francois, Tai Chi was not an exercise but a way of living. He took four weeks just to teach us how to stand in Wuji and to master the Tai Chi walk. No forms. Just standing. Just rooting. Root before you rise, he would say. In that endless, patient standing, I finally understood what I had been doing all those years in my career spiral. I wasn’t failing to build; I was in the Wuji of my life—the silent, potent stance where all potential gathers before the first movement begins. It was the physical truth of the teak tree growing its roots.

But most importantly, there was Fr. AMA. I first met him properly at a Koan seminar in 2022, as the new Zendo was being built. After hearing my story of living on the edge, his simple suggestion was: do Zazen. By January 2023, I became a regular at the Zendo, taking to Zen as a fish to water. Yet, my questioning mind never stopped. Over three years, I must have asked him a thousand questions, some provocative. He was the only person in my life who never took offence. A mentor in our Sangha once wrote in his autobiography about seeing me in the Zendo, noting how my questions often gave voice to what others wondered but dared not ask, calling it a “questioning spirit and generous heart.” After two years of this, Fr. AMA asked me to join him, and I moved in as a full-time student of Zen.

What did I learn from him? Above all, compassion. He taught that without compassion, there is no point in being on the Way. It is as important as enlightenment, if not more. Then, wise discernment—that crucial mindset where great doubt, great effort, and great faith must walk together. It is not about blind acceptance, but about testing everything against the stillness of your own practice. And lastly, the profound importance of striving to live an ordinary life of peace and joy. His teachings became the vessel that held all the other lessons: Orie’s two sides, the visitor’s mindful gesture, Francois’s rooted stance. He taught me how to hold them, question them, and let them shape a life.

And I owe the very possibility of this three-year immersion to another teacher of a different kind: my boss, Robert Meier. A Swiss national in a high-pressure role leading a corporate transformation, Robert was the rarest kind of manager. Amidst immense pressure, he never sacrificed his truthfulness, honesty, or his inherent kindness and compassion. He was, in his own way, a Zen Boss. When he heard of my need to be at the Zendo, he allowed me to work remotely from there. For almost three years, the quiet of the meditation hall existed alongside the digital pulse of my consulting work. One thing he told me has stayed: whenever he had to deliver a difficult truth to the powerful, he would say he was prepared to do any job, even clean public toilets, but he would never sacrifice his authenticity and professionalism out of fear. In him, I saw that the “unshakable” security I sought wasn’t just spiritual—it could be a quiet, formidable force in a boardroom, too.

There were, of course, so many others—Christa, Olaf, Meath, Robert Amor—a constellation of fellow travellers at the Zendo who offered their own quiet lessons. That gratitude is for another day.

Then came the lessons that turned the path inward, towards home. When I shared Fr. AMA’s invitation to live at the Zendo with Thara, my better half, she paused. Then, calmly and lovingly, she said, “You should take it. It is a calling and you are not seeking anything. Don’t worry about anything else. We will take care of the home.” In that moment, I learned that love also means letting go, not holding on.

And one morning during breakfast, Rishi told me, “Zen seems to be good for you, Papa.” I asked him why. With a smile, he said, “You are not random anymore. We all relate to you better.” That is when I understood what Krishnamurti meant: we know ourselves only in the mirror of our relationships. My stillness had become a space they could lean into.

So when Amma asks what I learned…

I learned to sit with the silent suspicion that I failed before I began, and not let it drown me.

I learned that my exhaustion is not laziness—it’s from processing reality at a higher resolution.

I learned that the world needs people who can follow instructions, but it also needs those who can rebuild the instructions when they no longer work.

And from Krishnappa, I learned Nammavaru.

Our man. Belonging without a badge. A free coffee that tastes of community. And a mastery of the spiral path so deep, it feels like stillness.

The bus moves on in the dark. The road is a spiral, not a straight line. Jung said the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are. For a long time, that privilege felt like a burden. But in the humming dark of this bus, surrounded by the smell of diesel and the quiet breaths of sleeping strangers, it feels less heavy. Maybe that’s how some of us find our way—by circling closer and closer to the centre, where the answer isn’t a job, but a man, finally becoming who he is.

The Song from Behind the Wall: On My Grandmother, Kathakali, and Kalamandalam Hyderali

The Song from Behind the Wall: On My Grandmother, Kathakali, and Kalamandalam Hyderali

by | Dec 22, 2025 | Compassion, Harmony, Life, Meaning, Peace, RElationship, Zen

I have mixed feeling about Kathakali.. I have also mixed feeling about my paternal Grandma. … Mixed with likes and dislikes. No idea about the ratio of that proportion though. The artform of Kathakali was introduced to me by my Grandma.. So we got to start from her.

By any yardstick, my grandma was a very strong lady . She went to school only till 3rd standard.. But could remember the poems . especially the song praising the Queen of British Empire, she leant in her school. And she remembered all the slokas from Malayalam version of Ramayana.. Though she was not a great believer of God per se.. Guess her faith was very much rooted in practicality of day to day living. May be she followed Aristotle’s golden mean on that aspect. She liked temples and festivities as such. Especially those temple artforms such as Kathakali.

She was born into a very wealthy family, lost her mother when she was 21 days old. And sooner her father lost all his wealth. Her upbringing was taken care by a relative. She used to tell us that, as in infant she was fed goat milk. May be that explains her health till the very last moment of her life. I don’t remember she was ever hospitalised for any major illness. Though she was as smart or more smart than her cousin brothers, her education was stopped as was the norm during those days. Girl.

And as the daughter of a poor father, she got married to another not so wealthy person in that small Kannadiga community. Her husband, my paternal grandfather had almost a similar story being born into a wealthy family, but his parents squandering all their wealth and become quite poor by the time he finished his FA . ( During those days, intermediate was known as FA.). In our old family home, there was a photo of him in Football jersey . And my father Sankara, used to tell us that he was quite a good centre forward, that got him a job with Spencer’s. Then suppliers of British Army. But when their unit moved to Singapore , he had to leave that job and stay back to take care of his parents at their insistence. Guess not to his choice or liking. As he used to love Football too. And he took a govt. job.. and due to his over honest and over idealistic nature, remained quite poor throughout his life times.

During those times, there were around 10 Kannadiga families in Mannarkkad, 2 temples and a big graveyad just for the Kannadiga community.   Rest of them were quite wealthy and due to that my grandparents were kind of socially ignored. Also was at the end of ridicule by them.

May be that environment made her seek cultural wealth. I guess Kathakali was her connection to the lost grandeur , an equalizer and display of cultivated taste.

Another story she used to tell us was on how she and other relatives planning to grow vegetables. During those days, they used to grow most of their needs. And most vegetables were seasonal. And she always used to plant a few a few week before others did and used to harvest and share with her relatives. May be some competitive streak.

In a life where so much was decided for her—her halted education, her marriage, her social standing—controlling the calendar of a seed was a powerful act of sovereignty. Planting earlier was a way to command time itself. And Harvesting and sharing first wasn’t just kindness; it was a subtle restructuring of social dynamics. The relatives who may have “socially ignored” them became, briefly, recipients. She transformed from being overlooked to being the source, the one who provides. It turned perceived lack of enough into plenty.

All her life experiences had made her a formidable person. And sometimes ruthless too (most of the times she was quite self-centred too.) When a small infant grows up against all odds, it might have ingrained in her that she got to take care of herself. And she is there to take care of herself. And that reflected the way she treated her others in general and her daughter in laws in particular. May be the dislike part in me for her comes from that.

And the like part comes from all the great stories of our ancestors, she shared with us , and especially the stories of Kathakali. ( Kuchelavritham and Karna Sapatham etc were here favourite) and great insights.

For example, when Rajiv Gandhi was PM of India, there was some commotion about his wife, Sonia Gandhi being an Italian. ( Bofors times). And. I remember , her cousin brother, who was a national award winning school teachers talking to her about it. She said, anyone who can ties a saree so well got to be an Indian. Now when I look back, that was great cultural exams, no one can dispute.

Coming back to Kathakali. During those days, 2 or 3 days Kathakali performance was part of the annual festival at MuMoorthi temple in Mannarkkad. And that was something she never wanted to miss. Every single time, she will tell us, next year no one knows whether she is going to be alive so that this may be her last Kathaakali viewing.

I did not like Kathakali is an understatement. For those who wonder what Kathakali is ! It is an 4 or 5 century old temple art form in Kerala. Now almost dying. That is more to do with its form than its content. Kathakali programs used to be like 3 -4 full days. ( Nights in fact… from after the dinner, till just before the sun rises !). Most of the audience used to be Old people.. and often the younger ones with them were there to go with them. As our attention span, ability to really learn nuances and enjoy the slow pace of life declined , Kathakali too moved to reel size appearances in movie songs or on the welcome program of foreign tourists in those fancy resorts.

On that temple grounds, on the grass mat we used to carry as our seating ( in our case sleeping pad), we kids used to sleep .. While elders used to enjoy every moment of it.

I should say that , I was quite happy when that annual sojourn ended.

Much later , it came back. Through the voice of Kalamandalam Hyderali. He came as an arts festival guest at Govt Vicotria college. As the most famous Kathakali singer , as a Muslim , his invite seems to be more of a political statement. But when as an humble man, he said he is no orator and he would sing a kathakali padam for us. And he sang “Ajita hare” without any accompaniments it hit the heart note of all the audience. That song from KuchelaVirttam might have entered into my brain, during my sleeping stint as an audience on that temple ground. Hyderali’s rendering of that, just woke me up from my slumber.

Even then I did not make any attempt to learn about him. Again during 2006, he reappeared in the obituary column of the Hindu. And that was a great story. When Mohanlal and Kalamandalam Gopi’s epic movie based on Kathakali “Vanaprastham” was realised, Hyderali was again in news and the legendary Kathakali Artist Gopiasan told in a TV interview, the most iconic kathakali singer was Hyderali.

Kerala is known as God’s own country.. I would hasten to add that it is also Devil’s own country too… In This small Gaul like state , both profound and profane coexist…. Secularism and fanaticism .. kindness and meanness… Openness and narrowmindedness…

Kerala is also home to K J Yesudas, an Xian who is more known for his Hindu devotional songs, K Raghavan an Hindu whose Mappila songs are evergreen. And Kalamandalam Hyderali a Muslim who went to become a legendary Kathakali singer. Kathakali is a Hindu temple art form and was in the hands of conservative echelons of Kerala society.

One of the Best KATHAKALI singers of his generation, Hyder Ali is the first non-Hindu artiste to make a mark in the four-century-old Classical Dance-Drama KATHAKALI.

It was when he was 11 years old that Hyderali joined Kerala Kalamandalam. Hailing from a poor family, his parents had struggled to pay the admission fee -— incidentally “a Hindu and a Christian” helped him secure admission in the premier performing arts institute, as Hyderali later recalls in his autobiography.

Hyderali was blessed with a light, pliant and sonorous voice that tuned well to softer and melodramatic scenes on Kathakali stage. His emotive singing used to earn him praise from masters like Kalamandalam Gopi.

Hyderali, suave and soft-spoken, nurtured the wish to see Lord Krishna in real life, but had to occasionally suffer professional humiliation on religious grounds, as entry to temples, where a chunk of Kathakali shows finds stage, in Kerala is barred for non-Hindus. Kathakali aficionados recall how those in control of an ancient temple near Haripad actually pulled down a part of the compound wall and extended the platform there for Hyderali to sing for the Kathakali performers inside the compound.

And that was a great story.. And Hyderali in one interview says as he was forced to stand on the stage part which was behind the wall outside the border of the temple, “ My body was outside the temple, but my voice was within.. Had I extended my hand, I would have touched the God.”

After a few years in wandering through the Zen way, I would have told him, that God was within him and may be all the Gods go wherever he used to sing to listen to him.

Coming back to my grandma, maybe she too would have felt , she is standing outside the wall of this world, even from a 21 days old infant till she passed away…

It took the story of a Muslim man singing of Hindu gods from outside a temple wall to make me finally hear my grandmother. Her life, too, was a voice singing from behind a series of walls—of poverty, of gender, of social slight. I had resented the formidable structure of her person, as I had resented the endless nights of Kathakali she loved. But Hyderali taught me to listen for the song within the fortress. The ‘Ajita Hare’ that seeped into my childhood sleep was that song. Her sharp wisdom about a sari was that song. In the end, the walls—of the temple, of the art form, of her difficult strength—dissolve. What remains is the voice, reaching for the divine. And finally, I am listening.

The Song of Silence That Remains…

The Song of Silence That Remains…

by | Dec 19, 2025 | Harmony, Joy, Life, Meaning, Meditation, Peace, Zen

The Music Around Me (Inheritance)

Music was always present in the background of my life, though I never claimed it as my own. My late father, Sankara, was a devoted fan of Rafi and Mukesh. In our home stood an old radio, and before that, I remember an even older one—so old it required a license from the post office. Listening to Vividh Bharati and Ceylon Radio was a daily ritual. My father often spoke with fondness about how Rafi would visit Thalassery for annual concerts, and those stories carried a kind of magic, even if I did not yet understand the music itself. 

Around me, others carried the thread forward. A cousin of my father in Mannarkkad was a flutist, his son a skilled mridangam player. Our family friend, Dr. Anju, now balances her life as a doctor and a singer. I still remember attending her very first concert when she was a child—watching her step onto the stage with a voice that has since grown to embrace Carnatic, semi-classical, and even pop.

Even in my own home, music appeared in unexpected ways. My elder son, Many, learned tabla for a while, and though he dropped it midway—as children often do—his teacher at TVS insisted he had talent. My younger son, Rishi, sings, strums the guitar, and listens widely. Yet both of them, true to the Krishnamurti school spirit, resisted any attempt at dictation. For them, music was never about performance or achievement. It was simply part of life, woven into their days without showmanship.

Looking back, I see that they were living out something I only discovered later: music is not about being “talented” or “rhythm deaf.” It is about how it inhabits the spaces of our lives.

The Music I Found (Awakening)

For much of my early life, I was not even a listener of classical music. Perhaps I was rhythm deaf, or perhaps I simply stood outside its circle. But one day, on Church Street in Bangalore, I picked up a CD—Colours by Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan and Ustad Zakir Hussain. That album opened a door. I began to build a small collection of instrumental music, and slowly, listening became a quiet practice.

When I moved to the Zendo, music took on a new role. Each evening, we chose music for meditation. Sometimes, visiting musicians played live. At other times, I curated recordings—Kitaro, Hikari Ōe, Naomi Sogbe, and others. Fr. AMA was particular about the choices, and I learned to listen with care, to sense how sound could prepare the ground for silence.

Through Rishi, I discovered Agam, the Carnatic progressive rock band. He insisted that all music is good music, and I began to hear through his ears. Their fusion of Carnatic depth with rock’s energy felt like a bridge between traditions, a reminder that music is always evolving, always finding new forms.

The Music That Remains (Revelation)

A long time back, in 2015 i guess, i was attending annual KFI conferences in the verdant settings of KFI, Rajghat. And they organised a concert on Kabir, by the side of Vasantha college , under that giant and old peepal tree by the side of ganges. There were diyas around and stars and moon in the sky to give us some light. There were no sound boxes or other artificial enhances. And that atmosphere, kabir dohas, melodious siinging, it was just mesmerising and just seeped into my heartmind.

But then not all music connects. I once heard T. M. Krishna at The Valley School, but something in his manner left me distant. By contrast, Harish Sivaramakrishnan of Agam felt closer—perhaps because of his spiritual intensity, perhaps because his birthplace was near Mannarkkad, perhaps because his music carried both rootedness and rebellion.

I once tried to attend an Agam concert in Bangalore, but the tickets sold out before I could get them. Still, their recordings reached me. Their third studio album, Arrival of the Ethereal (2025), was their most ambitious yet, with a hundred-piece orchestra recorded in Czechoslovakia. One track, The Silence That Remains – Mokshamu Galada, lingers with me.

Its words echo a truth I have come to know in Zen practice:

What is longing but the soul remembering something once held— and lost?

When the body fades, when the curtain falls, what remains?

For those who never sought—emptiness. For those who clung—regret.

For those who fought the tide—fear.

But for those who saw, who surrendered, who walked open handed and unafraid— silence. light. freedom.

 And still, the song remains, whispering:

Did you find your way home,

or are you still searching in the dark?

When the music fades, what remains is not the sound but the silence it reveals. That silence is not empty—it is luminous, alive, free.

The Teacher’s Voice And Hakuin’s healing ( Integration)

Once, to a question of mine, Fr. AMA said:

“I too had a long struggle with religions, orthodoxy, sexuality and SJ. What I can tell you is it is possible to go beyond them and continue your spiritual journey. It is tough and not easy. But possible. Zen did help me. What I can’t do is to explain to you how to do it. You got to find a way and do it by yourself. But being aware, is a right start. Also remember, Humour makes humans. Animals are not known to have it. Some humans too. That is what makes us not only cope up, but successfully face the absurdity of our life. Please remember Humour and Music elevates the human mind. They are very much part of Zen.”

His words stay with me. They remind me that music and humour are not diversions from the path, but companions on it. They are ways of lifting the mind, of facing the absurdity of life without despair.

During another question and answer, Fr. AMA told us why music . meditation is as important as Zazen, or Samu.

It so seems Zen Master Hakuin, who wrote the Song of Zazen

Zen Master Hakuin suffered from what he called “meditation sickness”—a burning sensation in his chest and mental agitation from overzealous practice. He was healed by a Taoist hermit who taught him the “Butter Method of Meditation”, a visualization practice that soothed his nervous system. Later, Hakuin himself recommended healing practices that included sound and chanting, showing how music and vibration can restore balance when meditation becomes excessive fierce and uncompromising in his youth, once drove himself into collapse. His practice was fire—unceasing meditation, relentless striving, a refusal to rest. The body rebelled. He described it as “Zen sickness”: burning in the chest, agitation in the mind, sleepless nights.

Seeking relief, Hakuin found a Taoist hermit, Hakuyū, who offered not more effort but gentleness. The teaching was simple, almost childlike: imagine soft butter melting from the crown of the head, flowing slowly down through the body, soothing every nerve and bone. This “Butter Meditation” restored him. The fire cooled. Breath returned. Practice became whole again.

The Music of Healing

Though Hakuin’s cure was imagery, the principle is the same as music: vibration, rhythm, and softness that re-tune the body-mind.

Chanting sutras is not performance but medicine—breath and sound aligning with heart.

Temple bells and gongs are not decoration but resonance—waves that settle agitation.

Silence itself is music, the pause between notes, the butter melting into stillness.

When meditation becomes too sharp, music reminds us of roundness. When practice burns, sound cools.

In our own Zendo, music is not entertainment. It is presence. The bell before Zazen, claps before kinhin and meal gatha, the chant that rises and falls, the quiet hum of voices sharing tea—all are therapies for the subtle sickness of striving.

Hakuin’s story is not about weakness but about balance. Even the fiercest Zen master needed butter, needed sound, needed softness. His sickness became his teaching: practice must heal, not harm. And so, perhaps the silence that remains is not solemn, but smiling. A silence alive with laughter and song. A silence that is, in itself, the song of Zen.

Usually at the zendo, we play recorded music.. Sometimes, when a musician visits us, it is live music. Yesterday for evening music meditation, a very accomplished French violinist and composer Chloe Netter performed. And in between , there was a silence.

It kind of transported me back in time to that Kabir concert by the banks of Ganges.

Sound is a path to silence, and that silence, when attended to, is itself a song.

A Celebration for Nothing: Pizza, Zen and the Inner Shrine

A Celebration for Nothing: Pizza, Zen and the Inner Shrine

by | Dec 14, 2025 | Joy, Life, Meaning, Peace, Zen

Perhaps that’s what this is—a long journey brought to stillness in a shared meal, a remembered verse, a slice of pizza in the hills. No reason. Every reason. A celebration for nothing. For everything.

It was a Celebration for nothing… mean no particular reason… per se…

Today morning, I was watching again the documentary An Original Cloud in the Mountain. And after that we, Fr. AMA, Prakash, Sreenath, Robert, Inaki and I, headed for a Sunday pizza at George’s Gourmet Kitchen. George is a Canadian settled in Kodai Kanal… and many have vouched that he makes really good pizza. (That many includes my second son Rishi and many of our guests who have travelled around the globe.)

On the way, Jill Mistry, who is the Director of the movie, stopped our vehicle for a lift… She was on her way to Kodai town for a haircut. She was asking me to visit her and Cyrus. While Cyrus Mistry is a well-known award winning author and playwright, she is into films. And Rohinton Mistry (who wrote those best sellers A Fine Balance and Such a Long Journey; who got nominated for the Booker Prize thrice and even made an appearance in Oprah Winfrey’s talk show) is Cyrus’s younger brother. And to add to all that, Jill’s and Cyrus’s son is into Psychology and Counselling. So whenever we meet, endless talk on movies, books and psychology. She was also telling me that she was into shooting a documentary on the lives of tribals. There is a tribal hamlet a bit far off from Kodaikanal, where they still live their ancient ways, closer and in alignment with nature. Jill was telling me that they are more spiritual than many others in the modern world.

And during the pizza lunch, I was telling Fr. AMA that just today morning I was watching the documentary, here she is…

Sometimes life is like that. It is wonderful as it is. Hence the Celebration for nothing…

Please do watch that documentary at Kanzeon Zendo you tube channel. ( if you can spare some 50 minutes.) It is on Zen. Some of the scripts I remember from that movie are from Fr. AMA on his Zen vision… and that wonderful and most spiritual poem of Tagore from Gitanjali.

From Fr. AMA:
“I am often asked to what religion I owe my allegiance. I say I stand in the in between of Advaita Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity. My vision of Zen is dynamic and liberative though I am rooted in the Buddhist tradition I have gone beyond its approach and yet differs in varying degrees from that are many Buddhist teachers…..

The mind is emptied so that the world can be received as it is. It reflects the world as it presents itself. It is consciousness becoming conscious of itself like a mirror that reflects whatever comes before it, itself being empty of colour or form. Now it’s a universe becoming conscious of itself, stepping forth and manifesting itself…..

You are the universe and the universe is yourself. When you sit in meditation it’s Earth sitting, it is a mountain sitting. When you breathe it’s a universe breathing and when you walk it is a universe that is walking….

The heart is a mystery here where the Divine and the human meet. The way is perfect like vast space where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess. Indeed it is due to our choosing to accept or reject that we do not see the true nature of things….

In Zen there is no why. Zen does not try to explain suffering or evil or any of the ultimate realities of life. Why is there suffering? So that you may respond to it. Why do I suffer? So that I may bear it. You are called and you respond to the call. You become yourself only in this call and response.
You are Buddha, become Buddha. To use Christian terms in the light of Zen you are Christ and you are called to become Christ who bears and suffers all. There is no God outside of you. The only answer is to respond in your compassionate action to the suffering and the broken. When you pervade the world with the consciousness of compassion and love, you are the awakened Bodhisattva.”

Tagore’s Gitanjali
“The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.
I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light,
and pursued my voyage through the wildernesses of worlds
leaving my track on many a star and planet.
It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself,
and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.
The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own,
and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.
My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said “Here art thou!”
The question and the cry “Oh, where?” melt into tears of a thousand streams and
deluge the world with the flood of the assurance “I am!””

Some 40 years back, I had read an old Malayalam novel written with the background of Kodaikanal Astronomical Observatory—Pullippulikalum Vellinakshathrangalum (Spotted Leopards and Silver Stars). It was serialized in Mathrubhumi Weekly and I might have read it when I was in high school. Written by C. Radhakrishnan, a famous Malayalam novelist known for his wonderful fiction work with a lot of metaphysical background.

Last time, after the sesshin got over, we went to a pizza at George’s Gourmet Kitchen and on the way back, I saw that Kodaikanal observatory. I did share with Fr. AMA about the novel I had read some 40 years ago, written by a scientist who worked there and with a lot of metaphysical underpinnings. And laughingly but very affectionately, Fr. AMA told me: no wonder you have reached the same place.
And today before our sesshin starts, we went again for a pizza at George’s.

And as Tagore wrote so wonderfully:
The time that my journey takes is long, and the way of it long… The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own… and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.

Perhaps that’s what this is—a long journey brought to stillness in a shared meal, a remembered verse, a slice of pizza in the hills. No reason. Every reason. A celebration for nothing. For everything.

The Pied Piper’s Tune: On Spiritual Gurus, Corporate Leaders, and the Surrender of Our Critical Mind

The Pied Piper’s Tune: On Spiritual Gurus, Corporate Leaders, and the Surrender of Our Critical Mind

by | Dec 12, 2025 | Friendship, Integrity, RElationship, Transformation, Trust

My concerns about the modern “guru”—a title that now stretches from ashrams to boardrooms—are simple and twofold.

First, does the person on the stage actually know what they’re talking about? Have they genuinely walked the path they’re selling, or is it just polished rhetoric? Second, and more dangerously, what do they do with the authority they gather? Too often, the answer points toward the oldest temptations: power, privilege, and personal gratification.

The mechanism for gathering this authority is often the same: the demand for total surrender. It’s a call to “have complete faith in me, my way, and what I say.” It’s the subtle (or not-so-subtle) instruction to park your critical thinking at the door, to keep your questions in abeyance, and to simply follow. This isn’t a relic of medieval spirituality; it’s the bedrock of modern influence.

I saw this play out in real-time recently. A venerated corporate leader was interviewed live by a famous media personality. Before a large, attentive audience, he staked a controversial claim. He leaned in and declared, with absolute conviction, that he was stating a “FACT.” Not an opinion, not a perspective—a fact. The crowd, a sea of people nearly all holding smartphones—literal fact-checking libraries in their pockets—nodded and absorbed it as sacrosanct truth.

A simple check proved his “fact” was wrong. I even shared the details beneath the video later in Linkedin. Yet, the reluctance to accept the correction was palpable. The spell of the moment, the aura of the speaker, was more powerful than a verifiable truth.

And this game doesn’t only play out on spiritual or corporate stages. Think about it: a person in deep distress, seeking a therapist’s help; a coaching client investing in their potential; a young child looking up to their teacher; a fan pouring admiration into a celebrity. In each of these relationships, a natural power differential exists, built on a legitimate need—for healing, growth, knowledge, or belonging. This is precisely where the Piper’s tune finds its most vulnerable listeners. The dynamic can morph, subtly or overtly, from guidance into control, where the healer, coach, teacher, or star becomes the sole, unquestionable source of what the seeker desperately needs.

This is the essence of the Pied Piper’s power. It doesn’t work through logic, but through a magnetism that asks for our trust in exchange for our discernment. As sociologist Paul Heelas observed in studies of modern spirituality, people often reject traditional authority only to surrender to new, charismatic forms of it. We exchange one piper for another.

Mariana Caplan, in her book Halfway Up the Mountain: The Error of Premature Claims to Enlightenment, diagnosed this same malaise in contemporary spirituality. She warned that seekers and teachers alike often mistake charisma, altered states, or partial insights for full realization—and then prematurely claim enlightenment. The danger, she argued, is not only in the teacher’s illusion but in the seeker’s surrender of discernment. When we hand over our authority too quickly, we become vulnerable to fraud, confusion, and exploitation. Caplan’s critique echoes the Pied Piper metaphor: the tune is seductive, but it leads us away from freedom into dependency.

And this is not new. History is littered with such tunes—whether in medieval cults, fascist rallies, or corporate “visionary” speeches. The melody changes, but the mechanism remains: charisma eclipses scrutiny, and authority bias blinds us to fact. Even today, with confirmation at our fingertips, the enchantment of certainty often outweighs the quiet labor of verification. Psychologists call this authority bias: the tendency to accept statements from perceived experts without question. Add confirmation bias—the desire to hear what fits our worldview—and the Piper’s tune becomes nearly irresistible.

The true guide, then, is not the one who demands we stop thinking for our journey. It is the Kalyan Mitra—the “good friend” or fellow traveler—who walks beside us. This is the therapist who empowers your inner authority, the coach who mirrors your own wisdom back to you, the teacher who ignites your curiosity beyond their own knowledge. This guide doesn’t ask for surrender; they empower our scrutiny. They don’t offer a tune to follow blindly, but a mirror to see our own path clearly. Where the Piper plays louder, the friend invites silence. Where the Piper demands obedience, the friend cultivates discernment.

John O’Donohue, in his Celtic meditation Anam Cara, speaks of the soul friend in precisely this way: as one who dissolves masks, who sees you as you truly are, and who walks with you in intimacy and authenticity. The anam cara is not a master but a companion, not a Piper but a mirror. In such friendship, the soul finds recognition and freedom.

The Buddha, too, told Ānanda that spiritual friendship is not half the holy life but the whole of it. In the Samyutta Nikāya (SN 45.2), he declared that with admirable friendship, companionship, and camaraderie, the Noble Eightfold Path unfolds. The radical claim here is that awakening is not built on surrender to authority but on the wonder of camaraderie—walking together, questioning together, supporting each other.

In a world full of Pied Pipers claiming to have the only map, the most radical act is to hold on to your own compass. To listen, but also to verify. To respect, but also to question. Because the tune that leads you to surrender your critical mind never leads to freedom; it only leads to the next cliff edge, with someone else in control of the music.

Freedom is not found in the tune that enchants us, but in the pause that lets us listen. The true guide is not the one who plays louder, but the one who helps us hear our own music. To walk with such a friend—whether as anam cara or kalyāṇamitra—is to keep our compass alive, even in a world of pipers. Better than following a tune is learning to hear the rhythm of your own footsteps. It is my lived experience that, transformative growth happens in the soil of egalitarian, trusting relationship, not in the shadow of unquestioned authority.

The Courtesan and the Cosmos

The Courtesan and the Cosmos

by | Dec 6, 2025 | Meaning, Transformation, Uncategorized, Zen

The Sun is a minor star in a small galaxy, in a universe of billions. And yet, it can make a flower smile. Carl Sagan often reminded us that even in the immensity of the cosmos, the warmth of a single star sustains life and beauty here on Earth. Vastness does not diminish intimacy.

Romain Rolland, in his biography of Swami Vivekananda, recounts a story from the Jaipur palace. After Ramakrishna’s passing, Vivekananda travelled across India and was often hosted by kings and nobles. In Jaipur, the king arranged a dance performance by the most renowned courtesan of his palace. Vivekananda, offended, withdrew to his quarters. The king worried about displeasing him, but it was the courtesan who sent a note that carried the true teaching:

“The Sun does not discriminate. It shines on all — the saint and the sinner, the lotus and the mud. Why then should an enlightened one like you?”

This reminder became a mirror for Vivekananda. Just as the Sun warms every flower without judgment, true wisdom does not exclude. The courtesan’s note revealed that enlightenment is not about separation, but about seeing the divine equally in all beings.

We see the same truth in other traditions. In the Gospels, Jesus did not shun Mary Magdalene despite her social stigma. Instead, he welcomed her as a disciple and allowed her to be the first witness to the resurrection. His openness showed that divine recognition is not bound by categories of “pure” and “impure.” Compassion, like sunlight, embraces all.

Zen offers another wave. Two monks came to a stream where a young woman stood unable to cross. One monk lifted her and carried her across. Hours later, his companion, troubled, asked: “Why did you break your vow by touching a woman?” The elder replied: “I put her down hours ago. Are you still carrying her?” The teaching is clear: true practice is not about clinging to rules or appearances, but about responding with compassion in the moment.

Across Hindu, Christian, and Zen lenses, the lesson converges: enlightenment does not exclude. Social categories — courtesan, sinner, woman, untouchable — are human constructs. The divine light, whether expressed as Sun, Christ, or Dharma, shines impartially. The “unexpected guru” may appear in any form: a courtesan, a stigmatized disciple, or a woman at a stream.

The story turns the telescope around. Sagan used the cosmic view to make us cherish the intimate. The courtesan used the intimate — a beam of sunlight on mud and lotus alike — to reveal a cosmic spiritual truth: consciousness, like sunlight, is fundamentally impartial. Vastness does not diminish intimacy; true vastness of spirit includes all intimacy, all particularity, without judgment.

The cosmos is not cold because it is vast. It is the source of the very warmth that allows for the flower, the saint, the sinner, and the moment of understanding between a weary monk, a wise courtesan, a compassionate Christ, and a Zen elder at a stream. The final teaching is that to be truly “enlightened” is not to flee from the mud, but to recognize that the same light that makes the lotus glow also sleeps within it.

The Dance of Change: Lessons in Transformation, Resonance, and Compassion

The Dance of Change: Lessons in Transformation, Resonance, and Compassion

by | Nov 29, 2025 | Change, Management, Transformation, Zen

The first time I heard the phrase “Change Management,” I wasn’t in a lecture hall or reading a textbook. I was on the 23rd floor of the Renaissance Centre in Detroit, in 2004, looking out at the river below, surrounded by seventeen senior leaders from the tech world’s elite. I was there for the GM Round Table, representing Wipro as the most junior person in the room.

That moment was the beginning of a journey—one that would weave through corporate high-rises, soul-testing commutes, and the quiet of a Zen meditation hall. It was a journey that taught me change is not a process to be managed, but a dance to be learned—a subtle, living art built on resonance, trust, and compassion.

Beginnings: The Mask and the Scaffolding

I felt the weight of that room deeply. My boss, Geoff Phillips, saw my trepidation. He flew in and spent weekends drilling me in the art of consulting, teaching me to put on what I later called the “Monroe Mask”—that layer of outer confidence worn to cover the inner tremors.

Soon, I realized I wasn’t the only one learning to wear a mask. Our client manager enrolled the entire team in a three-day crash course on Change and Transformation Management, led by Booz Allen & Hamilton. That was the first time I heard the term. Those three days were precious.

But in my usual, tenacious way, I couldn’t stop there. I began gathering books—an enormous collection on Change Management. From the British Council’s digital library, I painstakingly downloaded chapter by chapter from nearly fifty books. Over time, those lessons became the scaffolding of my professional life.

That scaffolding was tested to its limit during my KAUST assignment. For months, I endured a daily commute of 260 kilometers—130 km each way from Jeddah to Thuwal and back. The endless desert highway became a grinding ritual that left no space for life itself. It was this physical and mental exhaustion that finally forced my hand; I decided I had to step out of Wipro to reclaim my time and my well-being.

But then, grace intervened. My client, Carsten Svensson, upon hearing my decision, spoke directly to my bosses. He valued the work more than the policy, and carved out a direct contract. He ensured I had a Red Sea-facing apartment on campus, a monthly Emirates ticket home, and a generous raise.

Those two years gave me the freedom to fly away from the 9-to-5 rhythm. The tax-free money helped Thara and me settle all our loans, buy an apartment, and decide to live debt-free.

But this story was never about financial freedom. It was about the lessons I learned in Change Management—through books, through work, through the very grain of lived experience.

The Four Directions of Change

From Detroit to KAUST to Bangalore, the compass of change has revealed itself in four enduring lessons:

  1. Reactance – The Pushback Reflex
    Reactance is the invisible wall that rises when people feel their freedom is being curtailed. It calls to mind the wisdom of Lao Tzu:

“Water is the softest thing, yet it can penetrate mountains and earth. This shows clearly the principle of softness overcoming hardness.”

A consultant who barges in with “best practices” is the hard hammer; the wall only hardens in response. The art is to be like water—to invite rather than impose. Frame change as choice, not command. Create space for ownership, so resistance transforms into curiosity.

  1. Persuasion Radar – The Hidden Antennae
    Every individual and organization has a subtle radar scanning for manipulation. This truth is perfectly captured by an old Arabian proverb:

“He who has a hundred guests cannot seat them all at the same table, but he can offend them all with a single dish of hypocrisy.”

One insincere gesture is all it takes. Authenticity, therefore, is not a soft skill but a strategic imperative. Speak plainly, act transparently. Influence flows not from persuasion, but from resonance.

  1. Overton Window – The Horizon of Acceptability
    The Overton Window is the spectrum of ideas a community currently considers “thinkable.” It is a slow, patient process of expanding the light, much like the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

You cannot force an unthinkable idea from outside the window; you can only illuminate it from within. Frame new ideas in familiar language. Stretch the window incrementally, so what was once unthinkable becomes inevitable.

  1. Context Matters – The Ecology of Change
    I never get tired of quoting Steve Donahue’s opening from Shifting Sands:
    “How big is the top of Mount Everest?”
    “About the size of a small kitchen table,” he responded.
    “That is amazing,” I said, “You know, when you cross the Sahara Desert, there is no way of knowing where the desert ends. There is no peak, no border, no sign that says, ‘You are Now leaving the Sahara Desert – Have a nice Day!’”

This is the essence of context. There is no universal map. Context is the soil. A banyan tree may scatter thousands of seeds, but it becomes another banyan only when a seed finds the right soil. A goose thrives in a pond; a camel in the desert. Listen to the land. Change is ecological, not mechanical.

The Unlearning: Compassion as the Ground

After I left Wipro, I stepped fully into managing the affairs of our Zen meditation center, Bodhi Sangha.

In my very first week, my teacher, Fr. AMA Samy, gave me a single lesson: “Be compassionate, regardless of the situation. Don’t bring your corporate hat here.”

And then he quoted a Sanskrit sloka:
Bryat satyam, priyam bryat, na bryat apriya satyam.
(Speak the truth, speak it sweetly, but do not speak unpleasant truth.)

Here, I had no title, no salary leverage. My only tools were compassion, trust, and presence. This was the most profound validation of the principles I had studied. The compass was true, even here—especially here.

The Nuance: Honesty is Not Transparency

This journey taught me another vital lesson: Honesty and integrity are the essential blocks of transformation, but honesty is not the same as transparency.

You must be honest in all you convey. Your word must be true. But to believe you must reveal every card in your hand, in a compulsive rush for total transparency, is to invite disaster. It can overwhelm, create unnecessary panic, or be weaponized against the very change you seek.

Nature understands this deeply. Human beings and animals have skin. Trees have bark. These are not walls of deception; they are vital boundaries that protect the delicate life within, allowing for selective exchange with the outside world. They are membranes of wisdom.

You can speak your truth with integrity without revealing the raw, unfinished, and vulnerable core all at once. Timing, dosage, and discernment are everything. This is the lesson from nature: be honest in your being, but wise in your revelation.

The Final Truth: Time is the Essence

And yet, all these principles rest upon one universal, non-negotiable truth: Time is the essence of all change.

We cannot alter this principle, regardless of the compulsions of Wall Street or Dalal Street. One cannot create a baby in two months by enlisting four mothers.

Nature achieves everything—without hurrying, without hastening. This brings to mind the timeless wisdom of Lao Tzu:

“He who stands on tiptoe doesn’t stand firm.
He who rushes ahead doesn’t go far…

If you want to accord with the Tao,
just do your job, then let go.”

The Dance Is the Path

So, this is my synthesis. My learning.

Change is not a formula to be memorized. It is a dance. A flight path constantly being reshaped by winds, horizons, and landscapes.

This philosophy redefines our role as that of a pilgrim—a seeker who walks alert to resistance, attuned to sincerity, patient with horizons, and humble before context.

In a world obsessed with speed and scale, this compass reminds me that true transformation is never about control.

It is always, and only, about resonance. And resonance requires the courage to be honest, the wisdom to be discerning, and the patience to listen to the ancient rhythms of nature itself.

 

The Paradox of Ego, Desire, and the Shifting Self

The Paradox of Ego, Desire, and the Shifting Self

by | Nov 28, 2025 | Life, Transformation, Zen

A few days, happened to write in response to a WordPress prompt: What historical moment fascinates you the most? I said the most historical moment for me was my own birth.

A kind response to that reflection wondered aloud if such a statement was egoistic. That question itself opened another gate for me—into the paradox of ego and desire. Perhaps that concern comes from a certain religious conditioning—that moksha or mukti must mean the annihilation of ego, the killing of all desire. I do not know if that hypothesis is true. What I do know is this: for human beings to live a good, functional, phenomenal life, a healthy ego is a must.

Our existence is paradoxical. We are where infinitude meets finitude, the eternal with the temporal. We can only realize the Self through our own consciousness—through the very ego we are told to erase.

Try this simple experiment: hold your breath for a few moments. The desire to breathe in, to live on, is our most natural desire. Without it, there is no life, no practice, no realization. So one cannot be egoless and desireless.

The real question, then, is not whether ego and desire should be annihilated, but:

  • What is a healthy ego?
  • What is a wholesome desire?

Let us begin with ego…

What we call Self / I / Other / World are not fixed identities. The borderlines between self and other, I and world, keep changing like a shifting sand. In a sense, self-realisation is the dissolving, the sublimation of that line altogether. But as the Zen koans remind us, one cannot function in that place for long. One must return—to this world, to the marketplace, to the ordinary rhythms of living. Modern psychology offers its own language here. Winnicott spoke of the “true self”—a healthy ego that allows spontaneity, play, and authentic living. Jung described individuation—the process of integrating fragments of psyche into wholeness. Both point to the same truth: ego is not to be annihilated but clarified. In Dharma terms, ego is not the enemy but the raft. Without it, we cannot cross the river; with it, we must remember not to cling once the crossing is complete. And this borderline is not a single line at all, but a continuum—stretching from finitude to infinitude. Take a simple example: when I sit on a chair and say my chair, the border is drawn where my body rests on the wood. The chair is the “other.” But when I say my hand or my leg, suddenly that which is outside me is also claimed as mine. The borderline has shifted inward, now lying between me and mine. Follow this chain of logic and you find it is endless in both directions.

Where does the “I” end and the “world” begin? Is the breath I draw in mine or the worlds? Is the food that becomes my body still “other”? Even the thought that says I—is that me, or is it something arising within me?

Advaitins keep referring to Advaita Vedanta’s never-ending refrain of neti-neti— “not this, not that.” Each identity we cling to, each border we draw between self and world, is gently negated. The chair, the hand, the breath, even the thought “I”—all are peeled away until what remains is the unnameable Self, beyond attributes.

 Yet Zen diverges.  Zen insists we return. After the silence of dissolution, we must still sweep the floor, cook the rice, and bow to the neighbour. The paradox is clear—Vedanta dissolves, Zen re-enters. Together they remind us that realization is both transcendence and ordinariness, silence and sound, vastness and marketplace.

Zhuangzi, the Taoist sage, once dreamed he was a butterfly. Upon waking, he wondered: was he a man who had dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was a man? This wasn’t just whimsy—it was a radical questioning of the solidity of the self and the world. Zhuangzi constantly shifted perspectives to show that what is “true” depends entirely on one’s standpoint. He didn’t resolve the paradox—he danced with it.

The borders keep moving, like waves on the shore. Sometimes they dissolve altogether, and we glimpse the vastness where self and world are not two. But then, inevitably, the tide returns, and we find ourselves once again in the marketplace—buying vegetables, greeting a neighbour, saying this is mine, that is yours. It is here—in the weighing of tomatoes, in the bargaining for onions, in the smile exchanged with a neighbour—that realization is tested. Not in exalted states, but in ordinariness. The marketplace is the true koan: do we cling to “mine” and “yours,” or do we walk lightly, allowing the world to fill us in?

When one becomes egotist, then for them only they exist, and the other does not. But when we are empty of self, then the world fills us in.

Turning now to desire, and what makes it wholesome…

Buddhism itself makes a subtle distinction here. It speaks of two kinds of desire:

  • Tanhā – craving, thirst, the clinging that binds us to suffering.
  • Chanda – wholesome aspiration, the clear and steady wish that leads toward growth, practice, and liberation.

So, the problem is not desire itself, but the way it is held. When desire hardens into tanhā, it narrows and enslaves. When it opens into Chanda, it becomes a path, a current that carries us toward freedom. In many mainstream interpretations, moksha, mukti, nirvana, swarga, and heaven are precisely conceived as an escape—a final release from the painful, relentless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth (samsara) on this Earth. And many traditions teach the way out of this to kill the ego and discipline the desire. Sometime back, I read a caption on the T-shirt of a young tourist in Kodaikanal. It read: “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die.” I was struck by the absurdity of that quote. Many don’t realise that living here, right now, is heaven.

Religions often seem to have trained us to believe in a heaven “out there”—a distant reward to distract us from our pain here. We’re told to sacrifice our joy, suppress our desires, and endure suffering for a paradise that never arrives. It’s like a carrot hung in front of cattle—always just out of reach. Infact In Mahābhārata, Bhishma Parva urges the warriors that virgins wait in heaven for their valour and death in the battlefield.

In verse 6.11.13, Sanjaya declares to Dhritarashtra:

“Those who die in battle, having fought bravely, attain the regions of the righteous, where celestial nymphs wait upon them.”

The battlefield becomes a portal to heaven, and death becomes passport and visa. But what gets lost is the heaven of this life—the heaven of ordinariness, of compassion, of presence.

By the way this motif isn’t unique to the Mahābhārata. In Norse mythology, warriors who die in battle are promised entry into Valhalla, where they feast and fight eternally under Odin’s gaze. The valour of death becomes the ticket to glory. In Islamic martyrdom traditions, especially in certain militant interpretations, paradise is promised to those who die defending the faith—often described with vivid imagery of gardens, rivers, and companions.

Even in Indian traditions, moksha or mukti is often described as a state of eternal bliss—freedom from rebirth, from the cycle of earthly pain and suffering. In other words, another metaphor for heaven. Swarga, Vaikuntha, Kailasa—each tradition paints its own celestial landscape. But the paradox remains: we long for liberation from this world, even as the teachings whisper that liberation is found in this world.

My reflection, however, leans into a different, though equally ancient, interpretation found within those very same traditions. It’s the voice that questions:

What if the goal is not to escape the world, but to see it correctly?

This is the radical non-dual perspective within Vedanta, the “nirvana is samsara” of Mahayana Buddhism, and the “ordinary mind is the Tao” of Zen.

From this vantage point:

  • Heaven (Swarga) vs. Moksha: In the traditional ladder, swarga is a temporary, pleasant abode—a reward for good deeds, after which one must return to Earth. Moksha is the final release from that very cycle. But we often treat moksha itself as a super-sized, permanent swarga—a “better place” elsewhere. This longing for “elsewhere” blinds us to the sacredness of “here.”
  • The Problem isn’t Earth, it’s Ignorance: The suffering isn’t inherent in the world, but in our avidya—our distorted perception. We suffer because we cling to what is impermanent as if it were permanent and believe the fragile ego to be the whole truth of who we are.
  • Liberation is a Shift in Perception, not Location: When ignorance falls away, the world isn’t negated—it is transfigured. The same marketplace, the same breath, the same neighbour, is seen in its true nature—as luminous, empty, and inseparable from the divine ground of being.

So perhaps the eternal bliss of moksha isn’t the antithesis of earthly life, but its fulfilment. We don’t leave the world to find heaven—we discover heaven by fully, awake-ly, living in the world. The raft (ego) isn’t burned because it’s evil, but because the crossing is complete. One stands on the further shore, only to realize the shore was always right here, and the river was an illusion of perception all along.

So we return, as always, to the paradox of ego and desire. At the beginning, they seemed like obstacles—something to be killed, disciplined, erased. But now they appear as gates. Ego is the raft, desire the wind. Without them, there is no crossing. With them, there is danger of clinging, of craving.

The task is not annihilation, but clarification.

  • Ego clarified becomes openness, a self that is porous, playful, and free.
  • Desire clarified becomes aspiration, a current that carries us toward compassion and ordinariness.

When ego hardens, the world shrinks. When desire distorts, the heart thirsts endlessly. But when ego softens, the world enters us. When desire steadies, the path unfolds beneath our feet. Perhaps this is the paradox: we do not transcend ego and desire by destroying them, but by letting them dissolve into their true nature. Ego as transparency. Desire as aspiration. Both as companions on the way.

And then, as always, we return to the marketplace—smiling, bowing, buying onions. Heaven is not elsewhere. It is here, in the ordinariness of breath, in the neighbour’s greeting, in the stray dog’s eyes. And the other shore is not the shore of Nirvana, but of our present life—this breath, this neighbour, this stray dog, this marketplace. Ego and desire do not vanish; they are clarified, softened, made transparent. They return with us to the ordinariness of living, no longer chains but companions.

The realisation / enlightenment or whatever we name is the understanding that  there is no non-dualism without dualism, no day without night, no life without death and no yin without yang. Realisation is not the erasure of opposites, but the seeing that opposites are inseparable.

 

On the Way of Fireflies and False Lights and Borrowed Brilliance

On the Way of Fireflies and False Lights and Borrowed Brilliance

by | Nov 24, 2025 | Life, Management, Meaning, Zen

Btw Nature as we call it is not all about serene views and instagram photo shoot opportunities… As every Rose comes its thorn, nature too comes with its own paradoxes….. After rainfall, especially regions like Tamil Nadu, it’s common to witness swarms of winged insects. They are winged termites or ants… (they are not Fireflies) Attracted to artificial light, and die within hours.. gathering around artificial lights.. interesting thing is they are alwys swarm near to blue or white elctric lamps.. anot the yellowish ones. aFter swarming, they shed their wings and die quickly.. Naturalists say especially if they fail to. mate of find shelter.. And often in the mornigns yo see piles of dead insects near the map. By the fireflies are biolumiescent insects that emit light from their abdomen. And they are not attracted to artificial light in the same way. They are not known to swarm and die en masse around eletric lamps.

This natural paradox is a powerful metaphor for our own lives and careers. How often are we, like the insects, drawn to the “borrowed brilliance” of trendy ideologies, external validation, or the glamour of someone else’s success? This mindless swarming is not true community, and such attraction rarely leads to meaningful union or purpose.

This challenge of navigating external noise is not new. Steve Jobs articulated it perfectly when he explained the core of Apple’s marketing philosophy, saying:

“This is a very complicated world; it’s a very noisy world. And we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us.”

This is the corporate equivalent of the firefly’s path. Jobs understood that the only way to cut through the “noisy world” was not to swarm towards the artificial lights of competitors or trends, but to be radically clear about your own core identity—to generate your own light from within.

May be that is why Buddhs said to us “appo deepo bhava” and. Krishamurti wrote ““It is only when you are a light to yourself that there is freedom.” The insects teach us: Not all light is guidance. Not all swarming is Sangha. Not all attraction leads to union.

Let us not be drawn to borrowed brilliance. Let us glow from within, like the firefly— not to dazzle, but to illuminate the path.

The Art of Living Well: Rehearsing Failure and Symbolic Death for a Successful Life

The Art of Living Well: Rehearsing Failure and Symbolic Death for a Successful Life

by | Nov 21, 2025 | Harmony, Life, Meaning, Meditation, Transformation, Zen

One of the best ways to set ourselves to success in any endeavour in life, is prepare ourselves the best for a potential failure. While it is true, with respect to skills, strengths and ability, it is better to strengthen our strengths than bridge the endless gap of lack of it. That does not work in the area of mindset and attitude.

How much ever we reframe ourselves with positive thinking and paper over those fears with hope, fear of failure, performance anxiety lies in some distant corner of our mind, like that potassium permanganate capsule. And the moment it gets burst in a beaker of water, it colours the water in no time. The same with that capsule of fear of failure / performance anxiety in the darkest recesses of our mind.

And only way we can purge it out of our system is, putting the 1000 lumens headlight of awareness right into it. All human transformations begin with awareness. In management parlance, there is a cycle of unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence. Unless we bring out what is there in our unconscious mind to the effervescent light of awareness, we will never be able to transform it.

This is where the ancient practices come alive. The way to do it is those Stoic exercises on death or Jesuit memento mori. While I learnt the Stoic exercise from the annual Stoic Week organised by University of Exeter, Fr. AMA taught me about the Jesuit practice of memento mori. Once we visualise what is the worst that can happen in our endeavour and then survive those torrid feelings in our body, it dissolves itself. The nervous system learns it has already “died” and returned. The capsule loses its potency. This is not just a mental reframing but a physiological release — the body itself learns freedom.

Athletes too have discovered this gate. Sports psychologists train competitors to rehearse failure — missed shots, falls, defeats — so that when the real contest arrives, the body does not recoil. The fear has already been faced. And Phil Jackson, the “Zen Master” of the Chicago Bulls, brought this wisdom to Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and their teammates. He taught them meditation, breath awareness, and detachment from outcomes. In his method, the game was not just about winning but about presence. By rehearsing loss, by facing impermanence, the Bulls dissolved their fear and played with freedom.

I have been a student of spirituality and meditation for some 30+ years. And I did read quite a bit (in fact late Dr. Satish Inamdar, KFI Trustee and Director of The Valley School had said to me once, I will find my “way” when I stopped reading!) and did my quota of channel surfing and spiritual shopping in my life. And the search kind of ended while watching an NBA basketball match on TV in West Haven. Seeds of Zen were planted in my mind in the most unlikely of places. West Haven.

During June 1998. That was my first visit to the land of Baseball and Basketball. Both Greek and Latin games for me as a spectator. In the NBA final, Chicago Bulls were playing against Utah Jazz. What got my eye and attention was Chicago Bulls Coach Phil Jackson. There was an article in NYTimes that he used to make players like Dennis Rodman, who was an out and out rebellious, rule-breaking toughie, and Scottie Pippen and the larger-than-life Michael Jordan, all managed by the Zen Coach, Phil Jackson. I would have read and reread his book Sacred Hoops more than once. He was deeply spiritual with Native Indian and Zen philosophy. In fact, Jackson spent a large part of his life studying Buddhism and its principles, from his mentor Shunryu Suzuki. Jackson wrote, “What appealed to me about Zen practice was its inherent simplicity. It didn’t involve chanting mantras or visualizing complex images, as had other practices I’d tried. Zen is pragmatic, down-to-earth, and open to exploration. It doesn’t require you to subscribe to a certain set of principles or take anything on faith.”

Fourteen years later, in 2012, after my own experiments with truth and lies of spirituality, I did a hard landing into Bodhi Zendo and Zen, and real spiritual seeking started.

AMA Samy and Bodhi Zendo were different. I would compare Bodhi Zendo a bit with Esalen of Big Sur, CA. One of the most beautiful places of learning I had visited. It was not as regimented as a Vipassana session. It did allow a good amount of personal space to oneself. Sometimes a good conversation, a good joke and laughter at the dining table along with some yummy food, is as good as anything else in this world towards one’s spiritual seeking.

Secondly, AMA Samy had one of the best collections of books on spirituality, philosophy, theology and psychology I have seen in my life. (AMA seems to have read most of them.) When I was a full-time student of MA Education at APU Bangalore, I had to write a term paper on Phenomenology of Krishnamurti’s teachings as an assignment for Dr. Kaustav Roy. I was searching for a book of Heidegger at the Zendo library one December afternoon. AMA walked in to keep some book and he asked me what I was reading. When I explained to him my struggle with that phenomenology paper, he spent 15–20 minutes to sum it up for me like a précis. I ran back to my room, and jotted down in my notebook whatever I could remember. That assignment is one of the few for which I got an O grade. And getting it from Dr. Kaustav Roy was almost like a Fields Medal. 🙂

Thirdly and most importantly, no one demanded that the camel got to pass through the eye of needle test of Faith first and salvation later. The Kalama Sutta poster on the wall said it so succinctly: “Don’t blindly believe what I say. Don’t believe me because others convince you of my words. Don’t believe anything you see, read, or hear from others, whether of authority, religious teachers or texts.” And AMA Samy did practice it to every dot in the i and j and crosses in the t. Though he had a tough and rough demeanour as a Zen master, there was an endearing quality of integrity and compassion about the man. He took his spirituality and teaching seriously, not himself. That was absolutely refreshing to my tired seeking mind.

Even then, it took me 3 years to seek to be accepted as AMA’s Zen student. As the saying goes, once bitten twice shy and the cat which falls into a hot water tub will stay even from a cold water one. Heidi, a co-student of AMA in Japan with Yamada Roshi and later AMA’s student, spoke to me and asked me to join Bodhi Sangha.

And I did decide to seek to be accepted as a student of AMA Samy, after reading this passage in one of the books written by him:

“The master cannot give you satori; she/he is there to guide, to challenge, to test, to confirm. In truth, all the world is your teacher, the whole life of birth and death is the training field… Zen, therefore, is a teaching by negation, negating everything that the student supposes Zen to be, hoping that the student will realize that by not being any particular thing, s/he is everything; and that by not being any particular self, s/he is selflessly all selves.”

Coming back to our theme of this note: what emerges here is not just resilience, but antifragility — the capacity to grow stronger through stress and shocks. By rehearsing failure, we do not merely withstand adversity; we integrate it, and in doing so, we gain from it. The process unfolds as a living cycle:

Awareness → Acceptance → Integration → Freedom.

We move fear from the unconscious (where it controls us) to the conscious (where we can work with it). By mentally and emotionally surviving the worst-case scenario, we integrate the experience, and the capsule loses its potency. What remains is not naive hope, but a confident, grounded presence.

As the saying goes, hope for the best and prepare for the worst is the best strategy. Not pessimism, but resilience. In Zen terms, it is living with the certainty of impermanence while still planting seeds of joy and trust.

 

Reclaiming the Temple of Sleep: The Lotus Pond and Night stars.

Reclaiming the Temple of Sleep: The Lotus Pond and Night stars.

by | Nov 18, 2025 | Harmony, Life, Meditation, Peace, Trust, Zen

Sometime back, I asked Fr. AMA what the mark of a spiritually evolved person is. He replied, “They may have reconciled their relationship with money, power, sex, and hunger.” Later, when I read Buddha’s five Nīvaraṇa (hindrances), when I saw sloth and sleepiness (Thīna-middha) as one of the Nīvaraṇa, I added one more of my own: a sound, deep sleep.  Not as a hindrance but, essential for spiritual evolvement.  If one can’t sleep well, may be how can one be awake well and live well.

Though I don’t know where I stand on that list of hindrances, one thing I can say is I am not much bothered about it anymore. But one box I can tick is sound, deep sleep. May be that is why I added it to that list.  Those holy books and enlightenment literature always talk about enlightenment as awakening from sleep. But they hardly realise that one awakens well only when one sleeps well and deep. Our own life is nothing but a spark of light between two eternal sleeps. And without that eternal sleep, before the beginning and after the end, there is no spark of light and life. Similarly, ever good day lived in wakefulness, is between two deep good sleeps.

Animals remind us that sleep is never uniform but always adapted to survival. Bears and bats hibernate, entering long torpor where metabolism slows and hunger waits at the edge of waking. Dolphins and whales sleep with one half of the brain at a time, keeping one eye open to guard against predators. Birds too drift in unihemispheric rest, balancing vigilance with renewal. Even creatures like giraffes or certain fish seem to sleep with eyes open, conserving energy while remaining alert. Evolution teaches that sleep is not a luxury but a covenant, reshaped by environment and necessity.

Humans, by nature, are diurnal beings. Our bodies are tuned to the rhythm of sun and shadow, waking with light and surrendering to darkness. Yet the Industrial Revolution, with its artificial light and endless productivity, compelled many into nocturnal patterns. Factories and electric lamps broke the covenant, forcing us to live against our biology. In this dissonance, sleep disorders multiplied, and the ritual of trust was forgotten. To reclaim sleep is to reclaim our natural rhythm, to remember that we are not nocturnal hunters but beings of day and night, of surrender and renewal.

Mythology too circles around sleep, magnifying its power and paradox. In the Ramayana, Kumbhakarna is cursed to sleep for six months and wake for only one day, a cycle that mirrors the hibernation of bears. His story is both comic and tragic — sleep as abundance, sleep as curse. In Greek myth, Endymion is granted eternal sleep by Zeus, a timeless rest that suspends vitality. Hypnos, the god of sleep, is brother to Thanatos, death itself, reminding us that sleep and mortality are kin. In Hindu and Buddhist lore, sages and enlightened beings are said to transcend ordinary sleep, resting in awareness beyond waking and dreaming. Myth remembers sleep as both vulnerability and power, both surrender and transcendence.

Even gods and animals remind us: sleep is not absence, but renewal. Whether in the hibernation of bears, the one-eyed vigilance of dolphins, or the enchanted slumber of Kumbhakarna, sleep remains the covenant between body, mind, and cosmos. To sleep deeply is to trust — to let problems sink into the lotus pond, to let blessings rise and dance in the night breeze, and to awaken renewed at dawn.

During modern times, especially after the advent of scientific management, sleep was looked down upon with contempt. Productivity and efficiency became the new gods, and those who needed more sleep — even the average quota required by the body — were branded lazy, not up to the corporate mark. Higher education institutions, preparing students as future cogs in the corporate machine, began loading them with assignments and work, training them to wear sleeplessness as a badge of honour. To survive on a few hours of rest became a symbol of toughness, a distorted virtue. In the era of social media, even political leaders project this image — sleepless nights as proof of dedication.

Of course, there were exceptions. Winston Churchill was said to take long afternoon naps and then return to work with renewed vigour. And I remember my own corporate days at Wipro in 1995, working on the fourth floor of S.B. Towers, MG Road. The top floor housed the management. Once, passing the narrow corridor that divided the open office from the cabins, I saw Ashok Soota, then our CEO, sleeping on a mat on the floor. A colleague later told me he did this regularly, and everyone knew not to disturb him. Much later, when I tried the same in our EC office, my annual 360-degree feedback carried two criticisms about it. When I shared this with my then boss during appraisal, he laughed and said, “In corporate, the top fellas can do anything. Those who are bonded labourers are not supposed to. And remember, it is not the results, but the perception that matters.”

In essence having a good relationship with one of important needs for our life is as difficult as any other instincts.  Most of the tradition and rituals are developed by societies to take care of those nivarans or to ensure a smooth societal living. Tradition are rituals based on wisdom, and wisdom is always derivative of the knowledge in one particular time. Rituals are not timeless—they carry the imprint of the knowledge available in that moment. When knowledge evolves, rituals must evolve too, or else they become hollow forms. Two points about the wild animals in nature remind us of this evolutionary wisdom. First, they are not programmed for a deep sleep. That is evolutionary. If someone is lost in deep sleep, one may end up as a lunch or breakfast for another. Second, most of the hunting animals, which require speed and faster response, have a higher breathing rate. And they also have a lesser living age. Speed and responsiveness come at the cost of longevity. Evolution balances survival strategies differently depending on ecological niche. Most of the human being problems stem from the fact that though our environment has changed, we have not bothered to reprogram our rituals. Most important of all the rituals is the ritual of sleeping. We all need a long deep sleep to rejuvenate and rebuild our body. Yet we cling to outdated patterns—late-night meals, overstimulation, artificial light—while ignoring the wisdom of renewal. In effect, we have broken the covenant between body and environment.

After we started living in better protected shelters than in open spaces and caves, human beings started evolving their sleep habits and used to follow nature’s rhythm. Last meals of the day were before the sun set. And though people used fire as light, since those resources were scarce, it was put out well before our ancestors hit the bed. Darkness itself became the cue for sleep. The body’s rhythm was perfectly attuned to the cycle of sun and shadow.

Today, artificial light tricks our bodies into believing it is still day. Screens and productivity rituals have replaced the ancient ritual of surrender. We have forgotten that sleep is not just biological—it is a ritual of trust. Trust in the shelter to protect. Trust in the rhythm of nature to guide. Trust in darkness to renew.

Our body starts sleeping only when our mind starts sleeping and is still. In modern times, with all those electric lights (white) and blue lights of the screen, music, food eaten closer to the sleep time even after birds have rested and sun had set—all cause our mind unrest. The body cannot rebuild if the mind refuses to yield. To sleep deeply is to allow the mind to bow, to let silence and darkness become the true temple.

In Zen practice, breathing is the most important ritual. One Zen quote says: “You can’t wipe away blood with more blood.” Similarly, you cannot wipe out thoughts with more thoughts. Breath is what unites body and mind. Zen emphasizes focusing the breath into the hara (tanden, lower abdomen), rather than at the nostrils as in Vipassana or at the third eye in other traditions. This shift of attention is a way of stilling the mind. At the end of the day, we often take the brain as the seat of all thoughts. But in Zen, the hara becomes the true seat of awareness—breath anchoring us away from the turbulence of thought into the stillness of being. And moving that focus even from hara to heel is even more effective. Sooner, one will know that the mind is still, all our problems, pains, suffering and challenges of the day have been written, cast away, and sunk deep into the lotus pond. And those blessings of the day will start floating on the surface, dancing in the night breeze. And soon, we would have slept.

First, I became  aware of the sleep rituals when I was deprived of it. I was in deep depression due to tinnitus peaking, and at first another doctor, when my Doctor, Dr. Raja Hiremani was away, prescribed a medicine named Olanzapine in a higher dose and another medicine for sleeping. Before that, for days together, sleep left me. It was a very difficult time. I hardly ate. But there was no hunger. No sleep too. Though I used to feel the effects of sleep deprivation. But after those medicines, though I used to fall asleep, suddenly my legs or hands used to jerk so violently during sleep as if they belonged to another soul beyond my mind’s control. And I used to be so startled and scared of that.

So I wrote a lengthy email to Fr. AMA. At that point of time, he had moved out of Bodhi Zendo and was living in a small room in Little Flower School. One of those days I called my family friend, Dr. Radhakrishnan. He was undergoing some procedure in a hospital in Coimbatore and his spouse Usha Aunty took the call. Maybe by listening to my sad tone of voice, she handed over the phone to Dr. He did listen for a few minutes and told me that no one really knows how those neurological medicines act on the human body unlike other normal medicines. Since I am into meditation etc., why don’t I try that out.

And on the same day I got a reply from Fr. AMA saying, though it will take some time to build the new Zendo, there is going to be a two-week Koan Seminar in the school. Till then just do Zazen and focus on my tinnitus at home. Maybe I was on the edge between life and death. And one morning, I just threw away those sleeping tablets into the dust bin though Dr. Raja Hiremani advised me to taper it down rather than stopping it at once. I started sleeping well. Maybe my body was getting back all those deprived sleep. There were days when I woke up during the lunch time. But I never had to go back to those medicines or even supplements for sleep. And that is when my own learning and experimentation with sleep rituals started.

Now I can sleep even on a noisy railway platform in a moment. Some time back, when I shared that in my WhatsApp group, a good friend and ex-Wipro colleague Mukesh wrote back that he could sleep even standing in a moving bus. But then Mukesh was one of the coolest persons I had met in my life.

Last meal of the day at the Zendo is at 6:00 pm. Fr. AMA has his light supper a bit earlier than that. Music meditation ends at 8:00 pm and then it lights out. I do check my emails for 10 minutes and write down the day review. Then laptop and phone are out.

My most important learning was: as times change, we need to gain new knowledge about the environment, revise our wisdom and rituals. This reprogramming became my nightly practice, a three-part ritual to close the day.

First comes the Emotional Catharsis—the Problem Sink. I write a day review, beginning with the most problematic event of the day. The first version is an emotional outburst, pure feeling onto the page. This is the act of “casting away.” Then, after a few deep chiposoku breaths, I write it again, this time as a clean, objective problem statement. This is the “sinking.” I am telling my mind, “It is noted. It is stored. We will address it in the light of tomorrow.” This, I realize, is the modern equivalent of our ancestors putting out the fire for the night—a ritual act of closure, trusting that the shelter will hold until dawn.

Next is the Gratitude Journal—the Blessings Dance. Here, I look for the silver linings, even on days of the darkest clouds. A good message from my better half, a show of affection from Zendog Bhim. This conscious cultivation of trust is the active reprogramming of the mind from turbulence to peace. These are not just words; they are the most potent nutrients for the soul. Truly, this practice has become the best sleeping pill, melatonin, and magnesium supplement, all combined into one.

Finally, I engage the Physical Anchors—the path from Hara to Heel. The last read is the Four Great Vows. Then, on the bed, I begin chiposoku breathing. But now, the journey of attention deepens. I let my tongue touch the upper palate, a subtle Tai Chi cue to connect the body’s energy and promote stillness. Then, I move my focus from the breath in the hara, down, all the way to the heels. This is the ultimate act of grounding. By rooting my awareness there, I am no longer in the thinking brain. I am planting myself into the earth, into the primal trust of simply being. I become as solid and unmoving as a mountain, ready for the final surrender.

This embodied practice is the synthesis; it is the theory made truth.

That my Garmin notes a sleep score of 80-90, even on short nights, proves a vital point: sleep is not an absence, but a quality of renewal. The ritual itself is what matters. And the ability to sleep on a noisy platform? That is the ultimate proof that the covenant of trust has been rebuilt. The shelter is no longer just four walls; I carry it within me. The chiposoku breath is no longer just a technique; it is the living bridge that unites my body and mind, moment by moment, breath by breath. When the hara steadies, the heel roots. Problems sink into the lotus pond, blessings rise and dance in the night breeze. Ritual is wisdom reprogrammed, and dawn is the seal of trust.

Vedanta speaks of four states of consciousness: waking (jagrat), dreaming (Svapna), deep sleep (sushupti), and the fourth, turiya—pure awareness beyond them all. Though this suggests metaphorical sleep  (ignorance, delusion)  and separate it from the biological, restorative sleep (renewal, trust). In my lived experience biological restorative sleep is not an obstacle to the former but is , in fact it’s essential prerequisite.  To me, my nightly ritual feels like a conscious reprogramming of these very states. The Emotional Catharsis clears the residues of the waking world. The Problem Sink dissolves the forming fragments of dream. The Gratitude Dance prepares the mind for the pristine stillness of deep sleep. And in the Hara-to-Heel grounding, there is a hint of turiya—that steady, unwavering awareness which remains, whether awake, dreaming, or asleep. In this way, the ritual is not merely about sleep, but about touching the very substratum of consciousness itself, where renewal and awakening are one and the same. Moving on to other  spiritual traditions, including the Buddhist nīvaraṇas and certain strands of Christian asceticism, sleep/sloth is framed as a hindrance. The goal is to overcome it, to reduce attachment to the body’s need for rest to pursue higher states. The metaphor of “awakening from the sleep of ignorance” is ubiquitous.

Conventional wisdom often places “spiritual practice” (meditation, prayer, study) above “biological maintenance” (sleep, diet).  Zen reframes and  flips this hierarchy. Hakuin Ekaku, one of the most radical and influential Zen Master ever lived, in his song of Zazen says “At this moment , what are you seeking ? Nirvana is right here before youer eyes: This very place is the louts land ! and This very body, the Buddha!”

I reckon  that deep, ritualized sleep is itself a high form of spiritual practice—a “ritual of trust” and “surrender.” It is not the lowly ground crew that enables the spiritual rocket to launch; it is part of the rocket’s fundamental engineering. By making sleep a conscious ritual, we can elevate it from a passive state to an active one, from a biological necessity to a spiritual discipline.

 

Komorebi: Perfect Days in Shadow and Light

Komorebi: Perfect Days in Shadow and Light

by | Nov 13, 2025 | Harmony, Integrity, Joy, Life, Peace, Zen

At our Zendo, Sunday evening movies were once a quiet tradition.

After the reopening, that rhythm slipped away, as if waiting for the right conditions to return. When the new kitchen and dining hall were built, the old dining space by the Zendo hall transformed into a reading room and library—a place of books, silence, and study. We named it as Yamada Koun Library, after Fr. AMA ‘s  Zen Master. 

It was only last year, when Dr. Meath Conlan, a Sangha member, visited and wished to share his film on the Benedictine monk and guru Bede Griffiths, it got reignited. Btw we can’t move on without mentioning about Dr. Meath Conlan. He is one of the persons enriched my life on the way of spiritual seeking immensely. By any yardstick, Meath is an extra ordinary person and lead so far, an extraordinary life.  His great grandfather T Conlan was once a VC of University of Allahabad. Once means a long time back. 1894-98 … And Meath as a spiritual seeker would have read about various traditions and travelled around the world in general and India in particular than most of the people whom I have met. He is a retired diocesan priest who once was the Vatican’s representative in China. He is a polymath, knowledgeable in so many areas, a writer and teacher himself.  His elegant film “The Human touch” on Bede Griffith was broadcast on ABC. And another connection I have with Meath, in addition to being fellow disciples of Fr. AMA and Bodhi sangha members are he knew Tony De Mello in person. And I was / still am a big fan of Tony De Mello’s writing.

Then Sr. Chitra offered a gift to Yamada Koun Library —a large Panasonic screen—and suddenly the Zendo had a new way of gathering. Zen Master Olaf Muyoju suggested Perfect Days for the following Sunday.  And so, the tradition was reborn. To ensure that we don’t regress, Wolf a Sangha member from America, gave me a hard disk with some 200 of the best movies from his collection.

May be the move Prefect days was a perfect restart.  Perfect Days is a more of a film of shadows and silences.

 Hirayama, its hero, if  the current and lofty success standards of our “clean and mean” society permits us to  call a toilet cleaner/janitor as a hero,   speaks very little. Indeed, so very little that one can count the number of his dialogues. But Hirayama’s life unfolds not in dialogues, but in the stillness of  his daily rituals: folding his bed sheet, watering plants, cleaning toilets, listening to cassette tapes,  a lonely lunch under the same tree in the same park day after day, photographing the play of light through trees. At first, I thought whether I could sit through this. But then what seemed monotonous and boring instead came out as  so lively and luminous. Each act is performed with care, with presence. The film does not hurry, does not hurry at all and  does not bother to explain. It simply shows us that even in the smallest gestures, there is a wholeness, a completeness.

In a way this is the rhythm of Fr. AMA and Zendo life too. Early morning Zazen, breakfast, Samu, Sweeping the floor, bowing, walking the Dog. Each act, when done with attention, becomes sacred. And for some mysterious reason this life doesn’t feel boring at all. It feels peaceful. Sacred even. Like there’s something holy in how he takes care of the smallest things.

There’s no big drama in Hirayama’s life. No loud pain. No chase for wealth or attention. But you can feel it. The loneliness he doesn’t complain about. The joy he doesn’t announce. The kindness he gives without asking anything in return. A recurring motif in the film is the canopy of trees. Hirayama photographs them daily, capturing the subtle shifts of light filtering through the leaves. In Japanese, there is a word for this: komorebi—the quality of sunlight as it passes through foliage. Komorebi is never pure brightness. It is light and shadow together, inseparable. Hirayama’s life is like this. (to an extent my life too!)  He carries his past, his pain, like the rings of a tree—silent cassette tapes of storms and seasons. Yet he continues to move quietly, toward the light. When he finds a struggling seedling, he gently scoops it into a folded paper pouch, carries it home, and nurtures it among his saplings. The trees are his companions, his mirrors. They remind us that life is both rooted and reaching, both scarred and vital.

Yet the Director of the movie does not give us an oversentimental portrait. Beneath Hirayama’s serenity, shadows flicker. A niece tells him a disturbing story about a boy who stabs his parents after they cook and eat his pet turtle. His estranged sister appears, brusquely reminding him of their father. In these brief encounters, we glimpse a past marked by rupture, perhaps even trauma. And these scenes come and go in a flash. I missed it the first time. And the second time, I had to rewind and watch again.  The director of the movie does not care to explain. Neither does the hero, Hirayama. He simply nods, accepts, and returns to his life. His quiet routines are not naïve simplicity—they seem to be deliberate practice of turning toward presence, a way of living with shadows without being consumed by them. His “perfect days” are not perfect because they are free of suffering, but because they hold both shadow and light—komorebi itself.

One of the most striking aspects of the film is Hirayama’s devotion to cleaning toilets. His young assistant mocks him: “Why spend so much time and energy? They’ll just get dirty again.” But Hirayama’s effort is not about permanence. It is about presence. Each act of scrubbing, polishing, and restoring is a gesture of respect and compassion—for the space, for the people who will use it, for life itself. In Zen, this is Samu: work as practice, labour as meditation. The point is not to achieve a final state of cleanliness, but to embody care in each moment. After seeing the movie, one of the things I did was to create a few posters on the art of dishwashing.   I took a lot from an article of Thay. ( I will share those )

It has been a recent practice in LinkedIn to list down the cultural practices of Japanese. Most of them repeat the most famous ones. Like kaizen or kintsugi etc. It was quite fascinating for me to learn about komorebi which is the central metaphor of the movie. Life is not about achieving pure, unadulterated light (joy, peace, bliss or perfection). It is about learning to appreciate, even cherish, the dappled and understated pattern where light and shadow are inseparable. Hirayama’s past, his loneliness, his trauma—these are the shadows that give depth and contrast to the simple joys of his music, his plants, and his work. His “perfect days” are perfect because they hold the whole of it, without denial or despair.

By the way this spirit is not confined to cinema. A recent news report from Tokyo said, Koichi Matsubara, a 56‑year‑old man, earns over 30 million yen (nearly ₹2 crore) annually from rental properties and investments. Financially, he has no need to work. Yet he chooses to spend his days as a janitor, cleaning common areas and doing basic maintenance in a residential building.

He works only part‑time, earning a modest 100,000 yen a month—far below Tokyo’s average salary. Why? Because, like Hirayama, he finds meaning in simplicity. The work keeps him active, grounded, and healthy. It gives rhythm to his days. It is not about money, but about living fully in the ordinary.

Matsubara’s story, like Hirayama’s, is a reminder that dignity is not measured by status or wealth, but by the spirit we bring to our actions.

When Wolf, another ultimate polymath and spiritual seeker, I have seen in my life, handed over his collection of movies , I was thinking the way  the Zendo movie tradition slipped away and was reborn is a good lesson. Things in life and practice fall away, and we don’t force them. We wait for the “right conditions,” for the gift of a film, a screen, and a suggestion from a teacher to allow it to return, renewed. This is not regression, but a natural cycle.

 In a way that movie taught that one could live a quiet life and still have a beautiful one.

That’s what I felt while watching Perfect Days. This movie made me realize something. That maybe we’ve been running too fast. Wanting too much. Comparing too often. Reflecting too much on the past.. “It could have been” stuff.  But life doesn’t always have to be loud to be meaningful. Sometimes, it can be found in small routines and stillness.  Decibel levels, the number of likes one gather, the model of the iPhone, the place we went for the last vacation, or the fancy food in that Michelin star restaurant in our Instagram post, or even that AI written intellectual sounding article…. We hardly realise all these chips away parts of our soul one chip at a time.

Some might say Hirayama’s life is simple. But to my uninitiated eyes it looks wholesome. This is the great secret that so many miss in their frantic search for more. A life can be quiet, simple, and utterly, profoundly beautiful. It is a life where every action, no matter how small, is performed with care and presence. It is a life where we can live with the shadows and traumas of our past without being overwhelmed and consumed by them. As the saying goes every saint has a past and every sinner a future.  A sinner gets is present moment and future when one accepts one’s past.

And most importantly we don’t need to be seen by the world to feel alive, and that a folded bed sheet, a clean toilet, or the light through the trees can be more than enough. It can be everything.

And it recalled a question from long ago, from Prof. Indrani Bhattacharjee’s Epistemology class in Azim Premji University on Dharmakīrti: If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it happen? I think I understand it now. Though, she may not upgrade my low grades in that Epistemology course.  And that answer is not found in a textbook, but in a life like Hirayama’s. The reality of the fallen tree—like the reality of our own pain, our joy, our past—does not depend on an external audience. It becomes fully, wholly real when we ourselves can turn towards it with unwavering attention and acceptance. Hirayama’s practice is to be the ultimate witness to his own life. He hears every falling tree in his soul, the shadows and the light, and in doing so, he makes his days perfect.

The final lesson is that “perfection” is not a flawless state or ever bliss, but as the courageous, equanimous and attentive embrace and acceptance of the whole of one’s experience. It brings to mind why I named my own book Fallen Flower, Fragrant Grass—that even a flower which has fallen unseen upon the grass, far from the costly vase of an ikebana arrangement, can still offer its fragrance to the world. Its beauty and purpose are not diminished because they go un-witnessed by the crowd.

Those Flowers Bloom, Even When No One Counts the Petals

Those Flowers Bloom, Even When No One Counts the Petals

by | Nov 12, 2025 | Joy, Life, Meaning, Uncategorized, Zen

Last year, as I was frantically sending out blank requests with attached sample blogs to publishers, one from Chennai very derisively told me: if my blog reached 5000 in the counter, he would publish my book, Fallen Flower, Fragrant Grass.

I did all the tricks I knew and learnt from one of the best SM strategists in Blr (of course low bono work… TRC breakfast :)). And it fell very much short of that 5000 mark. Then I had to go the Kindle self‑publishing way.

That publisher from Chennai gave me an arbitrary, derisive goalpost. It was a “no” disguised as a conditional “maybe.” .I fell short of his meaningless number, but in the process, I built a real, organic audience.

This morning, as I remembered that put‑down, I checked the blog counter again. It had crossed the quirky Nelson number—8888—into 8889. A great miss, perhaps, of what some call “luck.” But in truth, the luck was already here: self‑publishing was the Dharma gate, the breath that didn’t wait for permission.

Btw I was always intrigued by Nelson Numbers… there is a great story behind that. The great Admiral Nelson, who defeated Napoelan had one eye, one hand and one leg. It is said that was a unique luch which played in his victory against Napolean.   Then numbers such as 1111 is called an Angel Number.   3 weeks ago, my good friend , who is the Chief Product Officer of a very promising ( and valued ) AI startup had put out a note in his linkedin wall. Which said their booth number is 1112 in an international exhibition at Barcelona… And I pinged him that he missed the angel number by one for your booth.. Though he is one of those accomplished IIT-IIMer, he comes with a superb sense of humour. He is the one who forwarded that  Paris Museum theft blog. And he replied, “May be a cherub  can visit  and bless us with a few contracts “.    4 years back, I was attending the kick of meeting of Tata & Sons  Breakthru Coaching initiative. And the Zoom attendance list said 111.  And I put that out as a message to the group  .. There were quite a lot of a Smilies around it. But the  person who had taken me in as a Coach was aghast at that !

Mathematicians say a numbers are mental constructs, symbols we use to organize experience. In this view, “8888” or “1111” has no inherent power—it’s our imagination that gives it meaning, whether as Nelson numbers or angel numbers.  But then others see mathematics as a universal language, woven into the fabric of the cosmos. The ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, π, exists whether or not humans imagine it. The same goes with the ratios of  our human body. It seems to be designed by someone who has one a Fields medal in the heaven.

And then, the most important part: I didn’t let his “no” be the end of the story. Though it was pale imitation of Pirsig. ( It is reported that more than 121 publishers said no to his “Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle maintenance ).  I went the self‑publishing route. I put my work out into the world. I had a list of 20 who might be courageous and kind towards me to spend a few hundred rupees. And  that number crossed the 99 mark , silently . May be the next one “When Air turns into breath : Zendo chronicles”, will cross those landmarks with some noise.

And a few months back, I was sharing my blogs for getting published in good journals and mags. Cyrus Mistry told me , they pay well.  $1 per word.  A few ignored it. A few were kind enough to write back and one of them wrote, though the idea and writing is good, I got to work on my grammar.  So when I went back to Blr, I did look for my old Wren and Martin. I had my primary schooling in a local Govt school and then a vernacular aided high school . When I joined my +2 ( then PDC in Kerala), with a vengeance I worked on transforming my Manglish into English. Still I guess, I think in Malayalam and then speak and write in English.  .  If I could not cross the English channel between  Manglish and English in those 40 years, then I may never be on the other side, at least on the language side. But then one never knows.

Btw yesterday’s koan for the dokusan was  Tosu and “Every voice is the Buddha’s voice”.

It goes like this. “ A monk said to Tosu, It is said “every voice is the Buddha’s voice. IS that true?”  Tosu said, “Yes, it is true.”. The monk said , “Master, don’t let me hear you breaking wind.”. Tosu gave him a blow with his stick.

Guess , each one of get our chance to cross those meaningless milestones by let others listening to us breaking wind !

And yes, we all get our chance to “break wind”—to be unapologetically, messily, authentically ourselves. And sometimes, that sound, to the right listener, is the sound of enlightenment.

Yudhishthira’s Dog at the Gate: Dogs, Dharma, and the Paradox of Compassion

Yudhishthira’s Dog at the Gate: Dogs, Dharma, and the Paradox of Compassion

by | Nov 8, 2025 | Compassion, Friendship, Gratitude, Grief, Joy, Life, Zen

 

On the Kodai Ghat road, as you turn from the plains of the marketplace toward the winding hills, one notice stands out. The Forest Department urges travellers: Do not feed the wild animals. It is a reminder written in bureaucratic script, but it carries a deeper teaching. Feeding them changes their nature. They lose the instinct to forage, they grow dependent, they become aggressive. What begins as kindness can end as harm.

This question of compassion follows me into Kanzeon Zendo. Here too, there are three kinds of visitors:

  • Dog lovers, who see every wagging tail as a chance to practice kindness.
  • Those who are scared of dogs, whose compassion is mixed with fear and hesitation.
  • Those who don’t mind either way, who pass by without much thought.

Visitors who come for short stays often feed the stray dogs. Perumalmalai has no shortage of them—thin, hungry, territorial creatures, starved of food, care, and warmth. For a moment, the dogs are happy. They have found a good Samaritan. But when the visitors leave, the dogs remain. They linger at the Zendo gates, waiting for the next act of kindness. Compassion, offered in passing, leaves behind ripples that are not always gentle.

This paradox is not new. The Mahabharata begins with the curse of a dog and ends with the loyalty of another. As a child, I read Mali Bharatham, the Malayalam retelling of the epic sweetened for children. What struck me then, and now, is how dogs frame the epic.

The first story is about the curse of a dog on a king. Janamejaya, son of Parikshit, was conducting a yaga. A dog named Sarameya entered the arena and was beaten by the king’s brothers. Sarama, the mother, confronted the king. Not satisfied with his response, she cursed him.

The epic ends with Yudhishthira, who refuses to climb the celestial chariot to Heaven without the dog that had accompanied him on his final journey. He had lost his brothers and Panchali along the way, but he would not abandon the dog.

Between these two stories lie pages of valour and cowardice, justice and injustice, joy and sorrow, sacrifice and self‑centeredness. And yet, the dog remains—at the beginning and at the end—as a mirror of compassion and responsibility.

Much later, rereading these epics through the hermeneutical eye my Zen Master encouraged, I saw how curse is the last weapon of the helpless. When powerless, the curse becomes the cry of frustration. Wuji, too, came into our Zendo life as a living koan of compassion—sometimes blessing, sometimes burden, sometimes curse.

And then there was Jackie Mu.

The first dog in my imagination was Buck, Jack London’s hero in The Call of the Wild. Later, in childhood, Jackie the mongrel stood guard at our Thenkara gate. But Jackie Mu was different. She arrived at Kanzeon Zendo, half‑tamed, majestic, part Indie, part hound. Adopted by Tithi, cared for like Elsa in Born Free, she became part of our practice. She had her blanket, her medicine kit, her morning walks. She even had her koan: Mu.

Mu is the first case in The Gateless Gate. A monk asked Jōshū, “Does a dog have Buddha nature?” Jōshū replied, “Mu.” Nothingness. Yet Jackie Mu, without doubt, had Buddha nature. She knew which doors to knock at, which people to trust, which paths to guide me along. She led me from Kanzeon Zendo to Bodhi Zendo, waiting at every turn, stopping at Surya tea stall for biscuits while I had chai.

But Jackie Mu was not only a guide. She was also a hunter. She never liked monkeys or cats, and chased them away whenever she could. She killed more than a few. One morning, during our walk toward St. Joseph farm, she spotted a kitten in the hands of a child waiting for her school bus. The kitten leapt from the child’s arms, tried to run, and Jackie Mu caught it in an instant. My screams did nothing. The child wailed, the mother tried to console her, and I sat on the kerb in anger and sorrow. And then, beside me, Jackie Mu appeared—obedient, present, as if nothing had happened. For a moment I did not know how to respond.

That weekend, when I was in Bangalore, came the news of her death. It seemed someone had poisoned her. The paradox closed: the dog who carried Mu, who embodied both loyalty and violence, was gone.

Whatsapp  message drenched in grief said: Jackie Mu had passed away. She lay down outside the meditation hall, her favourite place, and breathed her last. A pang struck deep, as if some part within me had died. Mahayana does not speak of soul, but I am sure Jackie Mu left her Buddha nature behind at the Zendo.

That night, I wrote to Fr. AMA:

Dear Fr. Ama, Tithy messaged me at 9:37 pm saying, “Laddo / Jackie Mu passed away.” Suddenly I felt a pang in my heart. As something within me had died down. I never had a pet before in my life, leave alone a dog. And I just happened to remember the koan Mu. As you used to teach us, all beings are connected in a way. Regardfully, Vishy Sankara

His reply was simple, tender, and true:

I too was saddened by the death of Laadu. It was fond of you, followed you often. I am in tears. Peace to Laadu and to you and to me. — AMA Samy

But compassion is not the same in everyone. In our Sangha, there are members like Robert, who genuinely care for dogs. He takes them along on his hikes, brings them to the vet, ensures vaccinations, medicine, and good food. His care is steady, embodied, and responsible.

And then there are those who are more superficial. They pet the dogs, feed them Zendo biscuits, and enjoy their company for a while. But when their time at the Zendo is over, they move on. They forget the true nature and requirement of being compassionate when a fine being reveals its great Mu nature to them.

This difference is itself a teaching. Compassion is not measured by the warmth of a single gesture, but by the continuity of care. To see the Buddha nature in a dog is to recognize both its joy and its vulnerability, and to respond with responsibility as well as affection.

So the Forest Department’s sign, the stray dogs of Perumalmalai, the curse of Sarama, the loyalty of Yudhishthira, the koan of Wuji, the life and death of Jackie Mu, the Sangha’s varied responses, and the tears of my teacher all converge. Compassion is not sentiment. It is awareness. It is foresight. It is the willingness to see the whole field, even when it complicates our desire to help. Sometimes compassion is feeding. Sometimes compassion is not feeding. Sometimes compassion is simply sitting on the kerb, seeing the dog, seeing our own heart, and bowing to the paradox.

The Mahābhārata ends with Yudhishthira, who refuses to climb the celestial chariot to Heaven without the dog that had accompanied him on his final journey. He had lost his brothers and Panchali along the way, but he would not abandon the dog. Perhaps our visitors too will take the cue, and be truly compassionate—not only in passing gestures, but in the continuity of care, in the willingness to walk alongside, even when the path is steep, even when Heaven itself beckons.

Bhim, the Zendog ...

The Fulcrum in the see-saw of your life : when your first life truly begins…

The Fulcrum in the see-saw of your life : when your first life truly begins…

by | Nov 6, 2025 | Harmony, Joy, Life, Peace, Zen

We are told: “We have two lives. The second begins when we realize we have only one.”

The sooner we realise, our first and only life is going to be lived as it could be lived… For many that realisation comes very close to their end. Though, some philosophers say we are all born equal. I beg to differ. We are born unequal… Some with silver spoon in their mouth, some golden ones and some no spoons at all… Many of us have to struggle and suffer a lot more than others… But in Death more or less we are equal. At the end of it all, it is 6 ft of earth or a handful of ashes.

A long time back, I worked as an Org change and transformation consultant at KAUST Thuwal, Jeddah… Btw full name of KAUST is King Abdulla University of Science and Technology… It is apt to say, it is more of a modern showcase monument than a university. Started by the King of Saudi Arabia in his name and well-funded by Aramco, it is said to be the second richest university in the world after Harvard, in endowment holding. That riches and opulence was there everywhere. I don’t know which other university in the world has its own harbour, lighthouse and a long beach that too facing the verdant Red Sea… And inside, all of us had the big screen Macs in addition to the latest and top most versions of MacBook Pros…

One of the humorous anecdotes I heard there was about its inauguration… It was shared by many. So I reckon it as true. It so seems, during the inauguration, many a times, King Abdulla happened to hear the word KAUST… and he summoned the Aramco sr. exec, who was also the de facto “RULER” of the university to clarify. And that exec replied it stands for King Abdulla University of Science and Technology. It is said, the king got into rage, how dare you shorten my name like that… Better you change it or you had it… And the very next day, they put up the name board in full…

And King Abdulla did pass away, when I was still working there. To my surprise, he was buried in an unmarked grave. This is in accordance with the austere Islamic tradition of Wahhabism, which opposes public displays of wealth and mourning to emphasize equality before God. His grave is located in the Al Oud cemetery in Riyadh and is marked with a simple, plain stone.

So I thought, at the end of the day, death makes us equal in one way or other. Though there was a Shah Jahan who built at a great cost and cruelly a mausoleum and modern day Shah Jahans do that, most of us don’t get there. Though there can smell a bit of inequality there, there is another aspect of death, where we are absolutely equal. No one. Absolutely no one can predict the time of leaving. You can be a prince or pauper. If Alexander had to leave behind all the kingdoms he conquered at an early age, that points to just that.

And here, the philosophers join in like a chorus. Seneca reminds us that the problem is not that life is short, but that we waste much of it. His words sting, because they are true—we squander hours, days, years, as if they were endless. Marcus Aurelius, the emperor who wrote to himself in the quiet of his tent, whispers: “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” His is not a lofty abstraction but a practical tool, a way to live with integrity now, not later. And then Tagore, with the gentleness of a poet, offers another measure altogether: “The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” A life is not weighed in years but in the intensity of its moments, in the beauty of its flight.

Albert Camus, who wrote of the absurdity of existence, died suddenly in a car crash, with an unused train ticket in his pocket. That unused ticket is the perfect symbol of all our plans, our “later,” being rendered null by the absurd randomness of fate. His death is the brutal proof of what the philosophers intuited: that the second life cannot be postponed.

And so we return to the fulcrum. We often assume our first life begins with a cry in a delivery room. But is that truly the start? For decades, we may only be inheriting a life—a script written by others, a path laid down by circumstance, a collection of expectations and conditioned responses. We accumulate a name, a history, a personality, a set of possessions. But is the person living this existence truly awake, or are they a custodian of a pre‑fabricated self?

Life is a see‑saw, the fulcrum never quite in the middle. Sometimes the shorter side sinks, not because of weight, but because of where awareness rests.

This inherited existence—the one of silver spoons or none, of struggle and societal metrics—is the prelude. It is the raw material, the long, often‑unbalanced side of the see‑saw weighted with the past. It is a reaction, not a creation.

Your first life begins at the fulcrum.

It begins not when you are born to the world, but when the world is born to you. It starts in the silent, seismic shock of realization—the same one that marks the beginning of the so‑called “second life.” This is the paradox: your first life and your second life are the same life, born in the same instant.

The moment you realize you have only one life is the moment you become truly alive within it. It is the moment you shift from being a passenger to the driver, from a custodian to the author. The fulcrum point is where unconscious inheritance ends and conscious living begins.

Before the fulcrum, you had a biography. After the fulcrum, you have a story you are actively writing.

So, when does your first life begin?

It begins when you trade Seneca’s “waste” for Aurelius’s “purpose.” It begins when you stop counting months like a mortal and start counting moments like Tagore’s butterfly. It begins when the nightmare of the unmarked grave no longer frightens you, but focuses you on the vibrant, fragile ordinariness of the now.

Your first life begins when you choose to place the fulcrum of your awareness in the present and finally, deliberately, begin to balance the weight of all you have been with the possibility of all you might yet be.

Author’s Note These reflections came up during a memorial service for All Souls’ Day 2 November, observed at Kanzeon Zendo. The names of the departed, the scent of incense, and the silence between thoughts were the first drafts of this chronicle. This is the day the veil between the living and the dead is considered thinnest. And so, behind this thin veil, Camus and Alexander, King Abdullah and Karen, Ann Marie and Sheela, and my late father, Sankara—all find their place on the same altar of remembrance, embodying the very equality I sought to describe.

And perhaps the altar itself is a see‑saw of memory and presence: the weight of absence pressing one side down, the lightness of gratitude lifting the other.

 

Time chasers!

Time chasers!

by | Nov 5, 2025 | Zen

Do you need time?

Do You Need Time?
For what?

The one on their deathbed, who looks back and sees only a life spent chasing time, may feel they need more. The one who suddenly realizes—this is the only life I have—may feel they need more.

As Confucius said: “We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.”

But the one who lives moment to moment never needs more or less time. For them, it is enough. They never rush.

As Lao Tzu reminds us: “Nature never hurries, yet everything is accomplished.”

Those who need time are the ones forever chasing ego’s goals, always in the future, missing the life here and now. And for them, no number of eons will ever be enough.

Live this moment – Not even three moments ahead , three moments are too many.

by | Nov 4, 2025 | Uncategorized

What will your life be like in three years?

A few weeks back i wrote a whole blog on this … https://kokorozendo.life/2025/10/24/stepping-off-the-prison-wheel-living-without-gradations/. To quote from that. “And when I look back from where I am at this point in time — with the great misty mountains rising on the left side of my room, which is both my living quarters and my working office, with a water wall flowing on the right, and the Zendo hall above — I wonder: would I ever have imagined this ten years ago, while dutifully filling in that wheel exercise to design my future? “… after 10 days, there is nothing to change that view… As Steve Jobs said, we can only connect the dots looking back.

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