THE KOAN OF SILENCE

When this afternoon we visited Hiyoshi Taisha shrine in Sakamoto, one of our favorite places at any time of year, in an exquisitely beautiful sub-temple of Enryaku-ji all was at peace, no cicadas yet, some birds were chirping at first but when they saw us approach the massive sacred bell they began to whisper…

Echo grabbed hold of the rope that’s used to swing the big log that after a few good heaves will reach and strike the bell and sound the very air; the birds put their wingtips in their ears…

For indeed, what is more spiritually inviting on a warm Spring afternoon with its carefully attended silence than a huge shrine bell just hanging there nascent with noise in a quiet sleepy subtemple with no one around, the young monks all napping in their cells just a few meters away?

1 – 2 – 3 - she swung the log and whipped it forward but the rope had been tied to the bell frame so as to stop the log about 2mm before it struck the bell. Silence doesn’t get any bigger than that.

The rope hadn’t been tied so that the log was simply immobile; there would be no spiritual lesson therein: it had been tied so that someone could swing the log back and forth, slowly priming and readying for sound with every expectation of sonic spiritual uplift, and then the wham of S – I – L – E – N – C – E, drawn out slowly and to its fullest length the way a cat stretches.

It was a sort of reality koan, something like “What is the sound of a bell not ringing?” The sound is within you, your spirit reverberates…