A Bell

The cool air of the morning and open sky is getting ready for a new weather shift...maybe rain.  The temperature sits at 68 degrees fahrenheit.  Today is Tuesday.

Listening to a talk by an old teacher about ringing the bell that is used when chanting, brought inspiration.  It was a simple idea but very important as a reminder about how we engage with others and with things around us.  How we approach is as important as the encounter.  Even before the encounter, a quality in ourselves - an intention - will certainly have an effect on what happens next.

A lovely way to remember that preparation and intention contribute to making an experience more rich, more meaningful - no matter what the result.  The engagement itself and your participation in it can be the essence of that experience rather than the fulfillment of any agenda or outcome that may be in mind.  What are you feeling?  How did you prepare yourself in making the journey to the engagement and were you already thinking about the other (person or mountain or sea)?  Each encounter brings the opportunity to consider what can be anticipated and felt, even before knowing.

In some cultures, there are physical reminders to attend to one's pre-encounter awareness.  Are you approaching from a place of caring, of curiosity, of compassion?  What expresses this intention or state of mind?  It might be a small gift, food, a piece of creative expression.  And of course, we see many examples of what can happen when the intention is to claim dominance over people, land, and entire societies - it's called war.  The destruction can be instant.

When there is no thought or intention given at all, it can be disastrous.  In meditation, people are told to "empty" their mind.  That's a different kind of "no thought".  The disastrous kind of no thought was illustrated in a story about a beautiful national park, marred by trash and discards.  No thought or awareness that others may have wished to enjoy the natural beauty of the park.  This is the extreme result of being "in the moment" without knowing that all things are interconnected and will reveal something of the self that has yet to be awakened. In those instances, the fact that sharing can happen across space/time has been lost, or forgotten, or perhaps never understood at all.  In the end, all suffer for this empty-headedness.

So, the story about the bell that brought the reminder that intention matters, was helpful because in ringing the bell, one is not "hitting" or "striking";  rather, one is "inviting" the sound to come forth.  It is a sharing that creates peacefulness if the bell sounds inviting.  And in order to get the sound that can bring peace, one has to be at peace.  It can take a lifetime of practice.