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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 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.

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.

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