The Sound of the World 2

What came together today was shikantaza (just sitting), buddha fields, and the world. All are just this... whatever is right here right now (as the cliché goes). Sound is sound, but it is also any phenomenon that creates a sensation [IMHO]. The five-clouded world is on top of my ear. It is exploding my ear drum. Someday it might be so quiet that I could hear a pin drop [which I've never heard [yet].

Become 1 with the Sound of the World 1

Opps. 6 fingers. Earth on 5 GIANT cloudy day. Buddha Dharma Sangha (3 treasures).

They told us in school [with a straight face] what was the world. It wasn't where I road my bike [in the alley]. I heard sirens and saw Patty the One-arm who had a difficult birth. She reminded us how privaledged we all were. I can still see her every day walking down the street...always alone, with one arm dangling. [Next life I'll buy her a milkshake at Walgreens.]

My first intensive was at a Vietnamese monastery. I asked if you can be in the present thinking about past. A monk took an hour to answer me. He said yes, you could.

Wash

I am the bell. It was distant until I heard it & then I stepped into the bell [gingerly] and got showered with the sound and the vibration of the bell jiggled jiggling me thru & thru [actually more times than the sands of the Ganges]. Soon there was a dharma talk and the words didn't stop [hearing the peal of the hammer before, during, and after] but permeated through the pores of skin making & shaking all my cells as the talk rained over me. I didn't listen in the same way that the fish don't know they are in water until they aren't.

The Virtue of Irrationality

Damn! All day long I was thinking about the virtue of irrationality and then I got squelched by all the wise bodhisattvas in the Vimalakirti Sutra reasoning so brillianty describing non-duality and I thought they were so awesome using such rational thought to describe non-duality and I was convinced I was all wrong and that Buddhism is really all rational and then I [realized I] was not so far off when Manjusri [mon not man] said there is no use for syllables, sounds or ideas. Finally [I found] a comrade [or 2] in my quest for irrationality. —Kim Mosley 9/8/25

Become One with the Sound of a Distant Temple Bell

I was misconstruing “embodied” to mean taking something inside oneself. So I put my nocelf [sic] inside a classic 8734 model Acme kasket [sic]. Then I was really isolated from the sound of the distant temple bell. So I created a spirit to rise out of the casket to become one with the sound. God is looking on. She is not thrilled with this strategy. It is good that I'm smoking a pipe in the casket becuase then the spirit could come from the smoke. First thing I bought when I went to college was a pipe and tobacco. I had just turned 17 and I was going to be grown up.

Bad

I tried so hard to B Good I was bad. So then I Decided to be bad & that didn't work either. So then I just became myself and that worked much better. Why didn't anyone tell me it would be so much easier to just stop trying so darn hard? [My student of 50 years ago said, “because you didn't listen.”] [I'm balancing two MTnesses. Maybe juggling? One is impermanence and the other is no essence. And of course they are 1.]

2 People

When can 2 people really agree about anything? Maybe when they are both fully realized [that's crazy... though there is one dharma, it would still be seen from different vantage points and not appear to be the same as we see in the Vimalakirti sutra where each of the bodhisattvas see non-dualism from a different perspective.] Why? Because not knowing is the ultimate realization. [not knowing is most intimate—maybe they'd at least agree that they don't know.]

Mortals

Mortals yearn for boundaries. [Are there any boundaries when you open your hand?] It makes us feel safe like how we wrap a distressed babe in a tight blanket. But what really gets done wrapped up? If liberation is anything it is floating away on a blanket. [I wish I would have said, "...it is floating home on a blanket to our original self."]

Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form

Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form

1) When we grab the steering tightly our knuckles turn light pink & we stress out really bad and we are forgetting about how beautiful the world is and we are breathing shallowly (if that was a word).

2) When we open the hand [of thought] and feel the weightlessness of life we breath deeply and smile. It is laughable how simple and beautiful it all is. Embrace it [all} with your heart.

3) But the truth tells we need to hold on for dear live and we also open our hand [of thought] and feel the bird as it flies away effortlessly.*

*–"Eternity" by William Blake

He who binds to himself a joy

Does the wingéd life destroy

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in eternity's sun rise.

Buddha Fields

Contemplation on Depth in Practice Reading

I love the description of Buddha fields in tonight’s reading, of each of us as the cultivator and cultivated, each as teacher and facilitator to the other.

I love the vision of Buddha fields that this reading holds, as both internal and external, as both specific to one and at the same time expansive & indistinguishably interconnected with all buddha fields.

And how this reading is, as our practice is, a poetic reminder of the interwovenness of all things, all moments, all activity, be they our thoughts and actions or those happening around us. And a further reminder of how the teachings, although limited by mere words, weave into our bodies, minds, and emotions, and soften our limited notions, much like a basket weaver softens grapevine and reshapes each part of the vine into a new creation with each part intersecting, overlapping, intertwined, and indiscernible as separate from all other parts.

I so love how the teachings and our practice re-form us, much like the grapevine is reshaped, softening and inter-weaving us with the lives of others to co-create a life of less suffering for ourselves, for each other, for all.

—Nelda Adamson

++++++++++

"So it is, Ānanda! It is as you say, Ānanda! There are buddhafields that accomplish the buddha-work by means of bodhisattvas; those that do so by means of lights; those that do so by means of the tree of enlightenment; those that do so by means of the physical beauty and the marks of the Tathāgata; those that do so by means of religious robes; those that do so by means of food; those that do so by means of water; those that do so by means of gardens; those that do so by means of palaces; those that do so by means of mansions; those that do so by means of magical incarnations; those that do so by means of empty space; and those that do so by means of lights in the sky. Why is it so, Ānanda? Because by these various means, living beings become disciplined. Similarly, Ānanda, there are buddhafields that accomplish the buddha-work by means of teaching living beings words, definitions, and analogies, such as ‘dreams,’ ‘images,’ the ‘reflection of the moon in water,’ ‘echoes,’ ‘illusions,’ and ‘mirages’; and those that accomplish the buddha-work by making words understandable. Also, Ānanda, there are utterly pure buddhafields that accomplish the buddha-work for living beings without speech, by silence, inexpressibility, and unteachability. Ānanda, among all the activities, enjoyments, and practices of the buddhas, there are none that do not accomplish the buddha-work, because all discipline living beings. Finally, Ānanda, the buddhas accomplish the buddha-work by means of the four Māras and all the eighty-four thousand types of passion that afflict living beings."

Not Seen

Mañjuśrī declared, “Householder, it is as you say. Who comes, ultimately comes not. Who goes, ultimately goes not. Why? Coming is not really known in coming, and going is not really known in going. What is seen is not to be seen again, ultimately.”

There is no fixed self. Coming and going are fabrications… stories… perspectives. Each moment arises and then disappears like a shooting star.

Mu Five

Photons don’t reveal themselves until they connect with phenomenon. Just like light, buddha nature must be everywhere and every time, but it needs phenomenon to reveal itself. If mu is anywhere it must be everywhere, always. A mist. The buddhafield. Kind of like sweat.

Mu Four

I've been told that there is just one buddha nature. Yet here it is just within me and my pup, with a sky of negative buddha nature. But what about the ground? And the trees? If buddha nature is anywhere, it has got to be everywhere. And I must remember that my everywhere is not your everywhere. One buddha nature but many everywheres.

Mu Three

I merged with my dog. We were full of MT, so to speak. But we were isolated from everything else. Which is being alone. It didn't feel right.

Mu One and Two

The koan goes like this:
A monk asked Joshu, a Chinese Zen master: "Has a dog Buddha-nature or not?"
Joshu answered: "Mu." [Mu is the negative symbol in Chinese, meaning "No thing" or "Nay."]

Years ago my teacher was telling us about Buddha-nature and I innocently asked [having two dogs] if dogs have Buddha-nature. He didn't answer, but subsequently on many occasions told me that I was too discursive.

1) I told my koan teacher that mu was stuck in my gut. He failed me, of course. I was adjusting to the fact that I'd fail each week I met with him and that would be fine. XLax didn't help either. Mu was stuck... like a hard rock.

2) By the next week I was imaging that I was in a mu-storm and it penetrated through me. I remember the song from the year we were married (1969), “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head." I has happy with mu flowing through me. And still I failed. There was still a dualism of me and mu.

The cool thing about koan study is that if someone told you the "answer" you'd still fail. Knowing about love or even the secret of a good relationship doesn't insure anything. Reading about going to Paris isn't the same as going to Paris. How does one have an experience of mu. Paris was easier. —Kim Mosley 7/29/25

Is This a Solution?

Smile!

Reflections on Talks on Buddha's Lists

During a recent Appamada Intensive our students gave talks on Buddha's lists. Here are my reflections on their talks.

Boyfriend

Rhinoceros Fan (an infamous koan)

One day Yanguan called to his attendant, "Bring me the rhinoceros fan."
The attendant said, "The fan is broken."
Yanguan said, "Then bring me the rhinoceros!"
The attendant had no reply.
Zifu drew a circle and wrote the word "rhino" inside it.

This is No Other

Dialogue with Charlie

Are You Enlightened?

JOKO BECK had finished a talk and asked if there were any questions. A young man raised his hand and bluntly asked, “Are you enlightened?” Her response was immediate. Laughing, she said, “I hope I should never have such a thought!”

Moon, Susan. The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women (p. 41). Wisdom Publications. Kindle Edition.

Joshua, 1980

Anatomy Lesson and Love

Receiving and Giving

Who's in the world?

Xiushan said, "What can you do about the world?"
Dizang said, "What do you call the world?"

The Lotus in Muddy Water

May we exist like a lotus, at home in the muddy water. Thus we bow to life as it is.

Skateboard Mishap

I thought he'd be all right on a skateboard. I was wrong.

Untitled 11/16/23

Pumpkins and Horse