" When we sit, we do not listen to anything, we don't pay any attention. Even though the birds are singing, we are just sitting. If I listen to their singing and think 'there are the birds' then it's not zazen (just sitting) anymore. When I do this there is a separation between the person sitting and the sound.
There is an interesting koan story that Dogen likes;
A teacher asks a student, showing and pointing at a wind bell.
The teacher asks - ' Is the wind making the sound or the bell making the sound?
The student said - 'My mind is making the sound, neither wind nor bell'
That means the wind blows the wind bell, it makes a vibration of the air, it reaches my ear and it becomes sound. Before the vibration reaches my ear, there is no sound. So the sound is inside my mind.
But Dogen said that is not true. Because even if my mind is working, if the wind does not blow, and the wind bell does not shake, the air does not vibrate, then there is no sound. So all of them are making the sound. That means the entire universe is making this sound. There is no subject who listens, and no object or sound that it hears.
This is what Dogen called Total Function.
We are part of it. So there is no such person who is listening, nor sound that comes to me. But this entire world is making that sound - through this person. And this person is only a tiny part of it.
This is based on the basic Mahayana Buddhist teaching of interconnectedness."
Extract transcribed from a film about Okamura's life and teaching, called - A Good for Nothing Life.
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