Dear friends,
whenever we hear the sound of the bell,
we practice listening to the bell deeply.
Usually when someone
invites the bell to sound...
We don't say "hit" the bell,
we say...
"invite" the bell to sound.
He or she should wake the bell up first
with a half sound
like this.
[half bell]
That is a half sound.
But before he or she does that,
she has to practice mindful breathing first
to prepare himself.
And there is a verse for the bell master to use
for breathing in and breathing out and to make himself or herself...
available to the bell,
qualified as a bell master.
You just cannot pick up...
the instrument and then make the sound you have to prepare yourself.
So holding the...
May I borrow it?
Holding the stick like this,
he will practice mindful breathing
a few times in order to calm himself down,
to make him or her into a real bell master.
And the verse is like this:
"Body, speech and mind in perfect oneness.
I send my heart along with the sound of this bell.
May the hearers awaken from their forgetfulness
and transcend the path of anxiety and sorrow."
That is a four-line verse
for you to breathe and to become...
a real bell master.
"Body, speech, and mind in perfect oneness.
I send my heart along with the sound of this bell.
May the hearers awaken from their forgetfulness
and transcend the path of anxiety and sorrow."
And then you're calm,
you are fully aware, you are fully present.
And now you can
invite the bell to sound.
You invite, you offer half a sound
so that the whole community
become aware that a real sound, a full sound is going to be heard.
And everyone stop thinking, stop talking,
prepare themselves to receive the full sound.
The voice of the Buddha
calling you back to your true home.
In a practice center,
the sound of the bell is the voice of the Buddha from within
calling you back to your true home.
And so the bell master make a half sound
and allow you the time
to prepare yourself
for the reception of the full sound, the voice of the Buddha.
You stop what you are saying.
You finish what you were saying in a few seconds.
You stop your thinking.
Not only your talking but you stop also your thinking.
You go home
to yourself, with your in-breath.
And you enjoy breathing
to get prepared for the sound,
the sound as the voice of the Buddha from within
calling you back to your true home.
And then the bell master will allow you the time...
for one in-breath, one out-breath at least,
and then he or she will invite the bell
so that a full sound will be offered to the whole community.
And then everyone will enjoy...
breathing in and breathing out at least three times.
And when you breathe in, you say: "I listen,
I listen".
And when you breathe out,
you say: "this wonderful sound brings me back to my true home".
"Listen,
listen.
This wonderful sound brings me back to my true home."
No thinking.
Just listening,
listening very deeply to the sound of the bell
that will bring you back to your true home, in the here and now.
And the one who speaks
stops speaking and thinking about what to say next
and enjoy deeply his or her in-breath and out-breath,
enjoy his being in his true home.
That is the living Dharma:
being in your true home.
And the one who listens to the talk also stops listening
and enjoys...
her in-breath and out-breath.
Very nourishing, very healing.
In Plum Village in France,
not only we enjoy the sound of...
of the great bell within our center
but whenever the bell, the church bell nearby...
sounds, we also stop and enjoy the church bell.
Not only we enjoy the church bell,
but every time the clock plays the music,
every quarter of the hour,
we also stop thinking, stop talking,
we go back to our breath,
and we enjoy breathing in and out
whether we are in...
the dining hall or in the kitchen we do the same.
So, the clock, the music of the clock...
is like the mindfulness bell that helps us to come home
and to enjoy our home.
Also when you hear the telephone ringing,
you practice.
You are supposed not to run to the telephone.
You're supposed to stay wherever you are
because the sound of the telephone is also the voice of the Buddha
calling you back to your true home.
Stay wherever you are and go back to your in-breath.
Listen, listen.
This wonderful sound brings me back to my true home.
And then after having practiced like that two times,
you do walking meditation to the telephone,
or you take the telephone out
and answer.
And if you are the one...
who wants to make a phone call,
you prepare yourself
before making
the number.
You practice going home to yourself.
And there is also a verse
for you to practice:
"Words can travel thousands of kilometres.
They are to bring about more understanding,
mutual understanding.
I vow that what I am going to say
will be beautiful
like flowers and embroideries.
I vow that everything I'm going to say
will help with more mutual understanding and compassion."
And then, now you are qualified
to make a phone call.
And when you hear
you hear the sound
at the end of the line,
you know that
the other person is listening
breathing in and out
and you know that you have a chance to practice breathing in and out with her
so both of you
are breathing in and out mindfully at the same time.
It's a very beautiful practice.
We call it "telephone meditation."
And then, in Plum Village,
in the Deer Park Monastery also,
if we use the computer,
the computer is programmed so that every quarter of the hour
there will be a bell of mindfulness,
so that you can stop your work and go home
and enjoy your in-breath and out-breath.
And you know that when you call Plum Village or Deer Park
you don't expect them to answer right away after the first ring.
They are breathing in and out.
"Listen, listen. This wonderful sound brings me back to my true home."
And you enjoy deeply
your in-breath and out-breath three times.
The bell master tonight is a monk...
from
New Zealand:
Brother Phap Dien,
"the Field of the Dharma."
Enjoy the mindfulness bell,
enjoy your in-breath and out-breath three times.
If you'd like to use different kind of verses,
you might use the verse: "I have arrived.
I'm home."
"I have arrived.
I'm home."
Or you might like to say:
"I listen,
I listen deeply".
This wonderful sound brings me back to my true home.
Or you may say:
"Breathing in, I feel calm
and relaxed.
Breathing out, I smile."
Calming.
Smiling.
Breathing in, I establish myself in the present moment.
Breathing out, I know this is a wonderful moment.
Calming,
smiling.
Present moment,
wonderful moment.
When you come home to the present moment
with your in-breath,
you become fully alive, fully present.
You can touch life in the here and the now.
You feel that you are alive.
You touch the miracle that you are alive.
Because to be alive, that is the greatest of all miracles.
And with only one in-breath you can touch that miracle.
That is why you can say:
"Present moment,
wonderful moment."
If someone asks you:
"My dear friend,
Has the most wonderful moment of your life arrived?"
He wants to know whether the most wonderful moment of your life has arrived.
It would be a pity if such a moment
does not arrive at all.
Then, you may have the tendency to say:
"Oh, it does not seem that it has arrived
that wonderful moment,
but I am sure that it will arrive soon, sometime in the future.
That is our tendency to answer.
But if we keep living
like the way we have lived our life in the past 20 years,
it will not arrive
in the next 20 years.
It might not arrive at all
that moment we call the most wonderful moment of our life.
And for many, many of us, that moment...
does not arrive at all
until we die.
The Buddha said:
"You have to make the present moment the most wonderful moment of your life."
And this is possible.
Because if you are able to go home
to the present moment to the here and the now,
become fully alive,
become fully present,
you can touch all the wonders of life within yourself and around you.
Everything belonging to you is a wonder:
your eye, your ear, your nose,
your body, your mind.
And because you are not mindful,
you don't touch them deeply, you don't know that they are wonders
until you die and you begin to regret that you have not lived at all.
That is why our true home must be sought in the here and the now.
It can be touched in the here and now.