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Too Cool for Nine to Five : Dharma Journey of the Ordinary 10

Too Cool for Nine to Five : Dharma Journey of the Ordinary 10

by | Sep 19, 2026 | Harmony, Joy, Life, Meditation, Peace, STRESS, Wisdom, Zen

The very first metro of the day is a different creature from the ones that come after it.

I was on it that Thursday, on my way to meet KC and George for the Virajpet trip. Almost empty coach. The kind of quiet Namma Metro never has once the city wakes up. A young man got in a few stations later and sat across from me, laptop bag between his feet, and his T-shirt said, in a careful embroidered hand — Too cool for nine to five.

I read it twice. Then I did the thing I do, which is to sit with it instead of reaching for my phone to type in my random non thoughts.

I have never been cool. But I have been a long way from nine to five, and I found myself, somewhere between Majestic and the Kengeri Metro station, in Kanzeon again.

The day there started at 3:45. Not 3:45 as an idea — 3:45 as a bell, in the dark, with the waterfall already going. On most days there would be a mail from Fr. AMA timed at around 3:10 am. Then it was time to get ready for Zazen. Bhim slept inside the room only when it was too cold, or when Perumalmalai came under a blanket of mist for two or three days after a storm. He never understood why humans would get up before the birds do. After the early morning Zazen, whatever the day had decided for me, which was never something I had decided for myself. Book editing, writing, answering email queries from visitors and sangha members, cleaning, cooking, sitting, the small endless jobs of keeping a Zendo alive, sitting again, Bhim watching all of it with his usual lack of interest. The day ended when I was dead tired, which was the only clock that mattered by then. And many a time a coaching client of mine would call in late. I could not say no to that, because that was pocket money for Manu and Rishi. Three and a half years of that. Full time student, and assistant to a master who did not consult my preferences.

Nobody would put that on a T-shirt.

And yet, sitting across from that boy, I wasn't feeling superior. I was feeling wistful. Which surprised me, because by any honest count Kanzeon was a much worse deal than nine to five. Longer hours. No pay. No weekend. And here I was, missing it.

There is a Korean-German philosopher, Byung-Chul Han, who wrote a small book called The Burnout Society. His argument is simple and it has stayed with me. Older societies ran on "you must." The boss, the church, the rules, the clock. Ours runs on "you can, you could." Anything is possible, your best life is still out there, unlived, so get on with it. Nobody is standing over you anymore. You are standing over yourself. Han calls it self-exploitation, and says it is more efficient than any master could ever be, because there is no one left to rebel against. The whip and the back it lands on belong to the same person.

That boy on the metro was free. Free of the boss, free of the clock, on the first train of the day with his work on his shoulder. He will be at it long after five, I suspect. Not because anyone told him to. Because he can. And because he is not free from himself.

Here is what I didn't understand when I was in Kanzeon and only understood on that train.

The 3:45 bell was a "you must." The schedule was a "you must." The master was, most definitely, a "you must." And somehow that rested me. When the han sounds you don't decide anything. You get up. When the bell rings you sit. When the food comes you eat it. There is nothing to optimise, nobody to impress, no better version of the morning you could have had if only you had tried harder. The form holds you, so you don't have to hold yourself. For three and a half years the boss inside me — the one that has run my life since school, the one that never once said well done — had nothing to do. He came along, of course. He sat behind me in the zendo for the first few months, telling me my posture was poor and my breath was wrong and everyone else was getting it faster. And then one day, I couldn't tell you which, he went quiet. Not defeated. Just — unemployed.

Baizhang, the old Chinese master, had a rule for his monastery. A day without work is a day without food. People read that as harshness. I read it now as kindness. He was handing his monks a "you must" so that the "you can" could finally shut up.

I was tired at Kanzeon in a way I have not been tired since. It was the tiredness of a body that has done what the day asked and is now done. Han has a phrase for the other kind — the tiredness of the achievement society, which he says is a lonely tiredness, one that separates. And he has a phrase for the first kind too. A tiredness that trusts the world.

That is what I was missing on the metro. Not the Zendo. The trust.

The boy got off at the same station I did. Laptop bag, long stride, already somewhere else in his head. I hope he finds a bell one day. Something outside himself that says, this and not that, now and not later, enough and not more. It doesn't have to be a Zendo. It can be a dog who needs walking at seven, when the sun starts smiling at the birds. It can be a stream that has no name and no opinion about your quarterly targets.

Even Bhim, my Zendog master, had a bell. He never heard it as one. He got up when the birds did, ate when the bowl came, slept when the mist rolled in. He didn't need a bell. He was the bell. The highest form of spirituality is when one is the act itself. Bhim never knew that. That is how I know he had it.

I used to think form was the opposite of freedom. Three and a half years of a schedule I didn't write taught me the other way round. The boss inside treats everything as a means. Sit so you'll be calmer, work so you'll be free, and the end is always one more effort away. The bell doesn't work like that. It asks for the sitting, and the sitting is the whole of it. There is a difference between means and ends. When the means and the end are one, that is when the must starts working for you, instead of you working for it.

I still get up early. Old habits. But nobody rings a bell anymore, and I notice the difference.

Here is the thing under the thing. Most of us live with some end in mind. A better job, a calmer mind, a version of ourselves that hasn't arrived yet. Then we put our striving to work as the means of getting there. It doesn't matter much whether the striving says "you must" or "you can." Once it is a means to somewhere else, it has a boss, and the boss is us. That is how the oppressor and the oppressed end up being one person. Zen has only one thing to say about this, and it says it flatly. The means is the end. You do zazen for the sake of doing zazen. Not to become calm, not to become wise, not to become anything. Becoming always lives in the future. Keep your eyes on who you are becoming and you will never once be here, in any of the nows you actually get. The bell at Kanzeon never once asked what my sitting was for. That is why it rested me. There was nowhere the morning was trying to get to.

On those mornings I sit anyway. Not because I can.

Because I must. And that, it turns out, is the freer of the two.

The Distance They Built On Purpose — For the Silence in Our Minds…

The Distance They Built On Purpose — For the Silence in Our Minds…

by | Sep 12, 2026 | Change, Experience, Harmony, Life, Meditation, Peace, Wisdom, Zen

One of my coaching clients is a high-flyer in the corporate world. He often calls me on his way to the airport, or while waiting for take-off, when there's something important he wants to discuss between our scheduled sessions. I've often sensed he doesn't want to let a single waking moment go unproductive. In many of our calls, we end up discussing strategies for doing less—so that he can carve out some stillness in his workday. But for him, it has been genuinely difficult to let go of his old ways of working.

That struggle came to mind recently when somebody shared the reason why arrival gates were moved so far from baggage claim in airports. It was based on research done at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Passengers only took a minute to walk from the gate to baggage claim, then waited seven more minutes for their bags — and complaints kept pouring in even after wait times were reduced. So the airport moved the gates farther away and routed bags to the outermost carousel. The total time to get your bags stayed the same, but now most of it was spent walking instead of standing still. Complaints dropped to near zero. Now several airports design around that insight.

The essence: human beings attribute silence and waiting to being unproductive, of no value — and any action, any time-filler, to being productive, even when nothing has actually changed. The mind doesn't measure what happened. It measures what it was busy doing while it happened. That is the business of busy-ness. Especially in this attention economy.

This is, in some ways, exactly what Kokoro-Zen-Do in Action bets against. KZD is a year-long online circle of twelve — a small mandala of practice, not a retreat weekend — built around the Enso, the single unbroken brushstroke Zen uses to picture wholeness. Twelve people, twelve months, twelve Petals, each carrying its own Mirror Text and Practice Gate, moving through three Arcs: rooting the self, embodying the heart, and finally glimpsing what Zen calls the liberating view. Nothing about it is designed to feel like a workshop. It is designed to feel like a year — which is precisely where it runs headlong into the Houston problem.

I feel this reflects in the cohort members' responses to this long-drawn course as well. Everyone looks forward to jam-packed, wisdom-per-minute, high-energy sessions over a weekend or three-four days. But when the learning is spread over a year, with enough time in between for silence and reflection, people feel it isn't productive for them. Even if the whole journey is designed to unearth their own wisdom within themselves. Nothing is technically missing in those quiet stretches — the walk is happening either way — but because it isn't dressed up as motion, it doesn't register as progress. That's an indicator of how modern capitalism has conditioned human beings — we've learned to trust the walk and distrust the wait, even when the wait is where the actual work is being done. Most people don't realise this until they're inside a year long practice — the discomfort isn't from lack of progress, but from lack of visible motion.

When François, a French martial artist, who had spent some 2 decades in China and Japan to perfect his Taichi, took 3-4 weeks to teach us Wuji, the empty stance before our Taichi steps began. Whenever he noticed a frustrated face in our small Taichi class at the Zendo, he used to tell us, unless we learn to stand still, we won't learn to move in Taichi. And for those who are used to the busy-ness of life's business, it gets very tough to still body and mind. Once when I asked him, if this suited a slow motion exercise system like Taichi, he spoke about Taiki-Ken, which is similarly foundational for Kung fu practitioners. That entire system is built on the foundation of Ritsu-zen (立禅, "standing Zen"). And it is not a warm-up before the "real" training.

And it is not about standing still. Serious Zen practitioners move from active breath practices in Zazen, to Shikantaza (just sitting) to sit without doing anything particular. Not even with an intent to meditate within a Zendo. In fact, in Zen traditions, there's a word for this: boketto—the practice of gazing at nothing in particular, unfocused, with no goal attached to the looking. It cannot be optimised or performed for anyone watching. Which is precisely why it's so hard to sell to a mind trained to only trust what looks like effort. Boketto is what a yearlong mandala quietly trains — the ability to stay with the space where nothing seems to be happening.

Alan Watts made a similar point in Still the Mind — a mind that never stops thinking has nothing left to think about except itself. There is no room left for anything else to land, not even the world as it actually is. François was training the body to make that room. Boketto trains the eyes to do the same. The mind has always been the last student in that class.

Lao Tzu saw this before airports existed. Thirty spokes meet at a hub, he wrote in the Tao Te Ching's eleventh verse, but it's the hollow center — the part with nothing in it — that lets the wheel actually turn. A vessel is shaped from clay, yet its usefulness lives in the emptiness it holds. A room is cut out of walls with doors and windows, and the room becomes liveable only because of the space that isn't wall. Being gives us the form, he says, but non-being is what we use.

It's the same grammar as silence between notes making the music, the space between bars holding up the song, the window being nothing but a hole that lets the house breathe. We keep admiring the spokes, the clay, the wall — the visible, countable, fundable parts — and forget that none of it works without the hollow at the centre.

Most transformation programs are like 2-minute instant noodles — a packaged, guided tour for those who want instant nirvana. But does it work like that? There are no quick fixes to integrate our shadow and steady the inner life thru stilling the mind. It takes a consistent practice in building our awareness and presence. In fact, after the great success of Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, one habit that got conditioned, is to have a number of steps/processes for anything and everything in life. Life does not work that way. While there are great similarities and commonalities across all human lives, there is a uniqueness too. The first step in our own transformational journey is to be aware of that uniqueness within ourselves. Where Buddha differentiated himself from others is his realisation about this. Appo Deepo Bhava seems to be his greatest teaching. His own way of saluting his students, Kalyana Mitra has modern resonance in the Irish word of Anamcara pal.

A year-long practice runs on exactly that natural principle. The Petals are the spokes. The time of unscheduled quiet between them is the hub. You cannot wipe blood clean with more blood. And there's no way to find that inner silence and stillness in our minds by adding more thoughts — however sacred they sound, however ancient they are.

Cohort 2 of Kokoro-Zen-Do in Action opens later this year, beginning late November — for anyone ready to walk a year built around the hub instead of the spokes. Write to me at vishy.sankara@kokorozendo.life — start with one thing you're trying to slow down.

Sound Matters: A Sonic Pilgrimage

Sound Matters: A Sonic Pilgrimage

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

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

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

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

Frequencies and Harmony

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

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

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

The Uninvited Mantra: Sound of the Inner Anechoic Chamber

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Expanding the Practice: Listening Across Traditions

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

Heart Sutra Across Languages

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

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

The Four Great Vows (Japanese Zen)

衆生無辺誓願度
煩悩無尽誓願断
法門無量誓願学
仏道無上誓願成

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

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

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

Wishing Prayer (Samantabhadra)

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

The repetition is sonic dedication. Aspiration becomes resonance.

Om Mani Padme Hum

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

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

21 Taras

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

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

Gregorian Chant: Sanctus

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

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

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

Śaṅkara’s Nirvāṇa Ṣaṭkam

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

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

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

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

 Kanzeon Zendo, Perumalmalai

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

The 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.

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