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The Koan of the Mindzendo: Writing in the Tunnel Without Light…

The Koan of the Mindzendo: Writing in the Tunnel Without Light…

by | Mar 28, 2026 | Change, Life, Transformation, Zen

There was a time — not that long ago — when the tunnel had no light. Not at the end, not even at the beginning. Just darkness, thick and unyielding. I had lost my job, lost my footing, and with it, the fragile scaffolding of confidence. Depression is not just sadness; it is the absence of horizon. You cannot even imagine the possibility of dawn.

In those days, the only thing I had was a domain name: Mindzendo.coach. A small corner of the digital world, a name I had registered almost absentmindedly, like planting a seed without knowing if the soil would ever hold.

Then something curious happened. On GoDaddy, an unknown bidder kept raising the price for that domain. Ten dollars, a hundred, a thousand. When it touched six thousand, I was tempted to sell. After all, I was penniless. Six thousand dollars could have been oxygen for someone who was drowning in the whirlpool of life.

But then a thought struck me: if someone else sees so much value in this, and I cannot, then the issue is not with the domain — it is with my eyes. To sell it then would have been to sell not just a name, but the possibility of my own seeing. So I declined.

That refusal was not an act of wealth, but of faith. Faith that value is not always measured in currency, and that sometimes the world tests us by showing us our worth through another's eyes.

It was around then that my friend Komal Jain said, "Why don't you monetise your writing?" At that time, even stepping out of the house felt like climbing Everest. To imagine that my words could carry value, that they could be exchanged in the marketplace of human attention, was almost absurd. And yet, it was precisely then that I applied for an online writing programme.

The irony is not lost on me. I had no money, no certificate, no job, no confidence. But I had a domain name, a friend's suggestion, and a stubborn refusal to sell what I did not yet understand. Out of that refusal, a new path opened.

That online writing programme is one of the most reputed in the world, and would have cost me a fortune. But when I wrote to them — explaining that, in the aftermath of Covid, the NGO I worked with had let me go and I was absolutely penniless — they let me join on two conditions: no certificate, and I was not to broadcast their generosity too widely. I have kept both, as best I can.

The writing programme taught me what no certificate could: that the heart of writing is perspective. It is not about technique. And perspective is born not in comfort, but in crucible. It is born when you sit in the tunnel without light and still choose to see. It is born when you decline six thousand dollars because you sense that the real treasure is not in the offer, but in the challenge.

Looking back, I see that Mindzendo was never just a domain. It was a koan. A question posed by life itself: Do you know your own value?

And writing became the answer. Not a final answer, but a living one. Each word, each act of seeing, became a way of reclaiming that value — not in the marketplace, but in the heart.

The tunnel did not end. It transformed. The darkness became ink. The absence of light became the page. And the act of writing became the lamp.

After the lamp came the books. Three of them, in particular, became companions on the writing path. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott — honest, irreverent, a writer telling the truth about the mess of writing without flinching. Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg — spare, surgical, a love letter to the sentence itself. And Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg — which came to me through Fr. AMA Samy, who recommended it when I asked him to write a preface for my first book, Fallen Flower, Fragrant Grass.  ( https://amzn.in/d/02lCskfG ) Goldberg writes about writing the way a Zen teacher writes about sitting — as practice, as presence, as a return to what is already there. I should not have been surprised. The bones, after all, are just another name for the ground.

After living in the Zendo for almost three and a half years, one thing I have learnt: writing is like Zazen. One writes for the sake of writing. One reads for the sake of reading. One sits for the sake of sitting. All of them are complete in themselves. Anything that comes out of them is just a bonus — grace, arriving uninvited.

Purrfect Presence: The Trikaya on a Balcony

Purrfect Presence: The Trikaya on a Balcony

by | Mar 20, 2026 | Life, RElationship, Trust, Zen

Eckhart Tolle said: “I know many Zen Masters… all of them Cats.”

And here, three ZenCats listening to a teisho have arranged themselves with such impeccable dharmic precision that one suspects the whole scene was choreographed by something beyond mere kittenhood. 🙂

But first — what the photograph doesn’t show. These three had known loss. A sibling, gone. And with it, a wariness that only grief can plant in those small bodies. They had reason to stay back, stay wary. It took a long time — quiet sitting, no agenda, no forcing — before they would come close at all. That patience, that slow and gentle rebuilding of trust, is not the backstory to this photograph. It is the teaching.

In Mahayana Buddhism, the doctrine of Trikaya (Sanskrit for “three bodies”) describes the three manifestations of Buddhahood:

Dharmakaya (Truth Body): the formless, unmanifested absolute — ultimate reality, emptiness, Buddha-nature itself.

Sambhogakaya (Enjoyment Body): the luminous “reward” body, radiant presence experienced in deep meditative states.

Nirmanakaya (Transformation Body): the physical manifestation that appears in the world to teach and guide beings.

The balcony photograph is nothing less than Trikaya in fur.

One eager beaver kitten leaning forward with attention. Shoshin in fur form. Beginner’s mind, ardent faith, great doubt — personified in a tiny body. Not striving, just interested. Pure attention meeting the moment. This is the Nirmanakaya: the Buddha who enters the world, who takes form, makes eye contact, leans in. Shakyamuni under the Bodhi tree had this same quality — fully landed in form, fully present.

The one bang on the Middle Way. Not meditating — just being the meditation. The very picture of shikantaza (just sitting). Half-lidded eyes, no goal, no attainment, nothing to reject. Sitting is sitting. Cat is cat. This is the Sambhogakaya: luminous enjoyment body, radiating without broadcasting, bliss without agenda. Amitabha’s infinite light simply shining.

One lounging in the back row. Stretched out, utterly unbothered. Upekkha so complete it naps through the teisho — which is itself the teisho. “The sound of the talk is the sound of the breeze. The breeze is nice. I shall nap.” This is the Dharmakaya: the unborn, unmanifest ground of all three. Not sleeping, not waking — prior to both. The Dharmakaya doesn’t meditate. It is what meditation is.

Eagerness, detachment, equanimity — all expressed in fur and whiskers. One cat-nature. Three expressions. The form that engages. The presence that radiates. The ground that holds it all.

The balcony is the zendo. The morning light is the dharma. The railing is the boundary between samsara’s hillside busyness and this small square of equipoise. No separation between practice and life. No special posture required. Just this — fur, light, hillside humming in the distance — already complete.

They lost a sibling. They had every reason to remain closed, remain wary. And yet here they are — one leaning in with trust, one sitting in luminous presence, one resting into the ground of being. That journey — from grief and wariness to this open, sunlit arrangement — is perhaps the deepest teaching of all.

Cats don’t try to be enlightened. They simply are what they are, completely. Which, as this photograph shows, turns out to be the three bodies of Buddhahood — arranged casually on a balcony, waiting for breakfast.

Who still doubts that a cat cannot be a Zen Master?

The answer, as always, comes in purrfect silence. 🐾

Dilbar Coffee

Dilbar Coffee

by | Mar 17, 2026 | Harmony, Joy, Life, Meaning, Zen

 

Some of the most remarkable insights in life have not come from self-made billionaires on Forbes covers. Or spiritual gurus on mountain tops. The most unexpected people, in the most ordinary moments taught me those wonderful life lessons.

This is one of those.

During those days, post covid Corporates were trying to get out of work from home rule. My boss was in faraway Zurich gave me the freedom to decide. But one jealous senior colleague, with whom I had an argument, did not like that. He made sure that I had to visit my work office in the United States of Sarjapur at least on once in a week. Corporate office was in the United States of Sarjapur, northeast of normal Bangalore. Every second Thursday I would drive cross-country very early in the morning. The reason was simple. To avoid an hour of meditation at the infamous visa and passport check at Silk Board junction. 😄

An early morning breakfast at TRC was a routine affair. That's where I first met Dilbar. The quiet, friendly barista at TRC, brewing that perfect South Indian filter coffee like it was the most important thing in the world.

And in a way, it was.

Now let me tell you a little about Dilbar. He is from Assam — a young boy who failed his 10th standard, with no degree, no diploma, no connections. Just a quiet desperation to support his family. So he did what many young boys from smaller towns do: he packed whatever little he had and came down to Bangalore in search of a job. Any job.

And somewhere along the way, he found coffee. Or perhaps coffee found him.

I was seeing him after some time when I asked whether he had been on leave. He, self-effacingly, replied that he had been in Mumbai. When I persisted, he said he had been at Mota Bhai's house. He was one of those who went with the TRC team for Mota Bhai's son's wedding. And it so seems Mota Bhai and another family member had taken a liking to his South Indian filter coffee .

Now here is where the story gets interesting. In India, no one says no to Mota Bhai. So when his managers spoke to Dilbar's employer, there was no notice period. Dilbar was now working at one of the most prestigious addresses in India — may be beyond India too.

His entire job there was to make one or two cups of coffee. Every single day. For Mota Bhai. And the ritual was something else. When Mota Bhai arrived for breakfast, his personal butler would radio the kitchen manager. Only then would Dilbar begin his work. He would brew that perfect cup, hand it to the kitchen manager, who would walk it to the butler, who would then serve it.

A relay of respect, for one cup of coffee.

But here is the twist in the tale.

After a few days, Dilbar got bored. Not even the other kitchen staff drank coffee — they were either tea drinkers or badam milk people. 😄 A coffee maker with no one to make coffee for.

Think about it: a musician without an audience. Sanju Samson batting in front of an empty stadium. A writer without a reader (like me?). Or a barista without that beautiful chaos of steam, clinking cups, and a queue of sleepy people waiting for their first hit of caffeine.

Making two cups in a palace, how much soever prestigious in LinkedIn — safe and secure, but not alive. So after a few days, he walked up to the kitchen manager and said he wanted to leave. Word reached Mota Bhai. He did not meeting him in person. Through the kitchen manager he enquired and offered to double his salary.

Some one who as a master communicator thru Coffee, Dilbar had to struggle to explain: it is not about the money. This is a society of spectacle where increments on a payslip, or designations in LinkedIn profile are success barometers. In this world, Dilbar's quiet "no" was nothing short of a revolution. Corporate workshops spend millions trying to teach Corpoarzens this: "purpose over package".

Because how do you explain to the richest man in the country that a craftsman needs his crowd? That a barista needs his rush? That making two cups a day, how much soever prestigious, is not living — it is mere existence?

Think about what happened here. A boy who failed his 10th standard, from a small town in Assam, was being offered a doubled salary by the richest man in India — and he said no. Not out of arrogance, not out of foolishness, but out of a deep, unshakeable understanding of what truly fulfils him.

How many of us — with our degrees, our MBAs, our LinkedIn profiles — can say that with such clarity? Sooner than later, he was back. To TRC. To his station. To his thousands of coffees a day (including the one for yours truly 🙂). Back to the chaos, the steam, the noise, the orders. Back to where he belonged.

No fanfare, no Instagram post, no "as seen at Mota Bhai's house" badge on his apron.

A man, his coffee, and his calling.

And this story dismantles a myth we all grew up believing — that success is a linear ladder, always pointing upward. For Dilbar, success was a circle that led him right back to his station at TRC. He didn't see working for India's richest man as a promotion. He saw it as a detour.

Think about it. In one of the most discussed wedding where everything was curated to perfection. In that world of million dollar wrist watches and Michelin-star menus, what lingered was a humble cup of South Indian filter coffee. Brewed by a boy who failed his 10th, who travelled from Assam to Bangalore with nothing but hope.

That's not luck. That's mastery.

And mastery, I have come to believe, has nothing to do with where you studied, or where you come from, or what certificate is framed on your wall. Mastery lives in your hands and heart—not in your head. And in the way you show up for your craft every single day in an honest manner.

In a city like Bangalore, which runs on ambition and caffeine, Dilbar is as essential as the morning news. Some people don't chase the spotlight. The spotlight finds them. And some people — after standing in the spotlight — quietly walk back to where their soul sings ☕.

Now here is the part that gave me goosebumps. I looked up the meaning of his name. Dilbar, in Urdu, translates to one who fills the heart. A boy named Dilbar, who fills hearts for a living, with a cup of coffee. You can't make this up. He doesn't only serve coffee. He administers a small dose of warmth, and a quiet sense of normalcy, to hundreds of strangers every single morning. He brewed a life lesson. And yes, some coffee does fill the heart. Especially when someone whose heart is already full makes it. The boy from Assam taught me more about purpose, mastery, and self-awareness than most books I have ever read.

Some people inspire me. Some people remind me that purpose is brewed, not bought. And yes—there are things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s Mastercard.

P.S. When I first shared this story with my near and dear over WhatsApp, I did include his photograph — taken with his permission. After his narration, over a second cup of coffee, I told him I was going to share this in my group, and he said okay. But as I write this for reach, I realise the story's soul is that this man walked away from the spotlight. As a coach, the most empathetic thing I can do is not drag him back into one without his full, informed blessing. So Dilbar's face remains, in a befitting manner, between the steam and the silence

Dilbar taught me that purpose is brewed, not bought. But if you'd like to help me keep brewing these stories, you're welcome to buy me a coffee — every cup fuels the next.

☕ buymeacoffee.com/vishysankara.     

Or simply click the coffee cup on the right side of this page — it's always warm and waiting. 😄

 

When the North Star Disappears — Lost Is Where It Begins…

When the North Star Disappears — Lost Is Where It Begins…

by | Mar 10, 2026 | Life, Meaning, Transformation, Zen

Since olden times, people looked outward for direction. Sailors on sea, wanderers in desert, travellers on land—all leaned on North Star and compass. They became symbols of constancy, external lighthouses available at any point of time. They remind us of the human need for validation, for something outside ourselves to say: this is the way.

But as with all symbols, context undoes them.

At the North Pole, Polaris is no longer a guide—it hangs directly overhead, dissolving its function as "north." In Norway's summer months, as a Norwegian friend at the Zendo described, the sun refuses to set—and locals speak of "time-free zones," where the ordinary rhythm of day and night disappears. Near magnetic poles or iron-rich lands, the compass needle falters, pointing in strange directions. In those places, navigators abandon it altogether.

Thomas Kuhn wrote that paradigms change only when experience breaks the programmed frame. These examples show the same truth: guides are not absolute, they are contextual. The North Star and compass are reliable until they are not.

What is harder to name is the in-between. The moment the star disappears but the inner light has not yet steadied. That gap—disorienting, even frightening—is perhaps the most honest place on the journey. Many turn back here, reaching for a familiar guide even when they sense it has begun to mislead them. The known wrong direction feels safer than the unknown right one.

The poet David Whyte, reflecting on Dante's opening lines from the Commedia—"in the middle of the road of my life, I awoke in a dark wood where the true way was wholly lost"—offers a striking reframe: "How do you know you're on your path? Because it disappears. That's how you know." The loss of the way is not a failure. It is a signal. A threshold.

The Zen tradition calls it don't-know mind. Not ignorance—something subtler. The willingness to stand in open uncertainty without rushing to fill it. To let the question breathe before the answer comes.

Rumi points to the same field: out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. When the compass loses its north, that field opens.

The Tao Te Ching whispers the same: the Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao. What guides us most deeply resists being fixed, pointed to, written down. The ancient Chinese navigators of the interior did not seek a star to follow—they sought a quality of listening, a receptivity to what the moment itself was asking. Wu wei—not forcing, not grasping. Moving with what is, not against it.

The Salish people of the Pacific Northwest speak to this directly. In a teaching recounted in David Wagoner's poem Lost, young ones ask the elder: what do I do when I am lost in the forest? The answer was not to search harder or move faster. It was to stand still. To stop imposing direction. The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you. Whyte, reflecting on this teaching, draws the Zen parallel himself: the elders of the Northwest and the masters of Zen were pointing at the same truth—that the deepest orientation does not come from our seeking, but from our allowing.

There is a difference between surrender and giving up. Giving up turns away from the journey. Surrender turns toward it—with empty hands. To release a guide is not to abandon the path; it is to trust that the path continues even when the markers disappear. That trust is itself a form of navigation.

In our human journey, external guides—teachers, traditions, communities—can illuminate the way. But there are moments when they fail, when the compass lies or the star disappears. Then the invitation is to turn inward, to cultivate an inner compass, to discern direction from lived experience, silence, and presence.

The North Star and compass are not wrong; they are incomplete. They remind us of our longing for orientation, but also of the wisdom to know when to trust them—and when to let go.

And this is why the Buddha said: Appo deepo bhava—be a light unto yourself.

When the outer lights go dark, we do not become lost. We become ready.

The Tax of Goodness…

The Tax of Goodness…

by | Feb 14, 2026 | Compassion, Life, Zen

It is not really easy to be a good human being. It is in fact quite difficult. I mean to be a good human being in practice. Not as an idea or ideal in our mind.

That is because to be a good human being we got to fight with our nature. Our DNA. DNA is for hierarchy and followership. DNA—our basic nature—is not for equity, equality or thinking mind with awareness.

The paradox of the "natural"

Awareness and equity are not natural to our hardware. We are running on millions of years of code optimized for tribal survival, not universal compassion. But the fact that we can even recognize this limitation is evidence that we have already transcended it.

A fish does not know it is wet. A human, however, can observe the water and decide to build a boat.

Our DNA gives us the instinct to push others aside to reach the fruit; awareness gives us the ability to plant an orchard for the next generation. That act of planting is "unnatural," but it is precisely what makes us human.

Religious vs spiritual

Religions were initiated in an effort to make us all into good human beings. If you carefully and hermeneutically decode those scriptures across any tradition, they are all gentle teachings, advice and nudges to align our selfish gene to being good. They span from strict commandments of Judaism, Christianity or Islam, to the precepts of Buddhism, to the teaching through parables and Gitas of Hinduism.

Those who scripted those scriptures might have believed that those who follow would end up as good human beings.

But following is being religious. Religiosity calls for just faith and following to a hierarchy. It is, in a way, deciding not to use our rational brain—not to work the small space between stimulus and response. We surrender our personal agency to something beyond us. Our existence out here is preordained; very little we can do about it. It is very easy to be religious. That explains the milling crowds.

Religion fills our cup with the Shepherd's process, procedure, worksteps. Soon there is space for nothing else.

Being spiritual means empty that cup quite a bit, so that there is mindspace for the world in general and others in particular. The Zen Master, filling the professor's overflowing tea cup until it spills, was pointing to this.

Being spiritual is an entirely different ball game. Spirituality accepts and aligns our instincts and nature to the well being of ourselves and others, using our ability to think and decide for ourselves. One got to be really aware of our thoughts, sensations, basic nature and not to identify with it. To choose a way that is good for us and good for others too. But being aware and being an observer is not basic nature of a human being. That is an evolved quality. It takes effort. Often it is taxing.

A small parable:
Religion is like following a shepherd into the valley. You trust the path is laid out. You surrender your agency to the flock.
Spirituality is like planting seeds in wild soil. You decide where to place them. You water them, protect them, wait.
The shepherd gives you belonging. The seed gives you responsibility. Both are paths. But only one asks you to awaken in that small space between stimulus and response.

True spirituality is not about floating above the muck of human nature. It is about wading through it without losing sight of the shore. It is easy to feel enlightened in a quiet room. It is hard to feel enlightened when your nervous system is screaming at you because a toddler is screaming at you.

The battle is real.

The child as mirror

That is why as adults, we can't really communicate with small children. Have you ever observed how adults communicate with small children who often babble and talk quite incoherently? We do try to listen for some time and then give it up and try to distract the focus of the child to something else.

This is not because we lack love or affection for that child. Basically to be with that child does take energy.

Two areas in human life that receive the most research and advice are leadership and communication. There are terabytes of knowhow on the internet. Especially in community groups of helping professionals such as coaches. On empathy and communication. We pay hefty sums to listen and learn from the fancy sage on the stage.

And yet we often forget: the best teacher of empathetic communication could be the infant child in our own homes. If we could communicate with that infant child, then communicating with anyone else—leave alone humans, even animals, flowers and trees—could be a cakewalk.

The taxing nature of awareness is not a flaw but the very gate of practice. The child's incoherence is not a barrier but a reminder of the raw ground from which awareness must arise.

Adults often assume communication fails because the child lacks vocabulary. In reality, it fails because the adult lacks presence. To be with a babbling child is to abandon the linear, goal-oriented mind—Where is this conversation going? What is the point?—and enter a state of pure process.

This is energetically expensive because we have been conditioned to value outcomes over encounters.

The child is not incoherent. The child is speaking the language of pure sensation. We find it taxing not because it is difficult, but because we refuse to learn the language.

The dance floor

And when we transform that battle into a dance, that is when we really transcend it—without rejecting our basic nature. Using the energy of instinct as fuel for awareness.

The dance happens the moment we stop saying "I must suppress my irritation" and start saying "Ah, there is irritation. Hello, old friend. I see you want me to shut this child down. I am going to feel you, but I am not going to obey you."

The energy of the instinct does not vanish; it is transmuted. The heat of frustration becomes the warmth of patience. The sharpness of hierarchy becomes the clarity of boundaries.

Yes, it is taxing. But a muscle only grows when it is torn first.

Is our nature the shadow?

Our nature is shadow when we remain unconscious of it. Our nature is fuel when we bring awareness to it. Our nature is Buddha when we dance with it.

The shadow is not evil—it is unintegrated. When we fight it, it becomes battle. When we dance with it, it becomes energy for awareness.

In Zen, nature is both instinct and Buddha-nature. The paradox is that both are true: our raw DNA is shadow, but our capacity to see it is Buddha-nature. To transcend is not to reject, but to integrate.

The quiet heroism

We often look for goodness in grand gestures. But the space between the impulse and the action—that gap—is where the real work happens.

It is the pause before snapping at a waiter.
It is the breath taken before correcting a child.
It is the choice, despite exhaustion, to listen to one more round of babbling.

This is invisible labour. No one claps for it. The DNA certainly doesn't reward it.

But this is the architecture of a good human being.

To conclude

It is indeed difficult to be good.

Now one may ask: how do all these connect together? Being spiritual—is it just some navel gazing, mindless, solitary walk on this earth?

No. Being spiritual is to be a completely humane human and live a compassionate and caring life.

If we can't communicate empathetically to that infant child within us, then we cannot connect with ourselves, leave alone others. That child inside—the one who still babbles, still feels, still reacts from raw sensation—if we cannot listen to that voice with presence, then all our fancy communication techniques are just performance.

And that is the most basic aspect of being a humane human. That is the ground floor of being spiritual.

The fact that you find it difficult—that you feel the weight of the effort—is not a sign of failure. It is a sign that you are actually doing it.

The person who finds goodness easy has likely never questioned whether they are truly good. The person who finds it heavy is the one carrying the water uphill, building the consciousness of the next generation drop by drop.

The child will grow. The babbling will become coherence. And one day, that child will encounter their own toddler, feel the familiar surge of impatience, and remember:

Someone once listened to me long enough for me to learn how to speak.

That child is you. Waiting.

That is the dance. That is the transcendence.

That is the tax well paid.

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.

 

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