Early every morning, a herd of cows routinely walk past our home in Iowa, not thirty feet from our back door. Some of the cattle are belled, and every morning we are woken by the clanging of swinging metal. Now that we have moved to Providence Zen Center, not a lot has changed. We still get up to the sound of a bell... a call to wake up, which in our tradition started when the Buddha's mind and heart opened because he had made a great vow. In the sound of the bell is all the teaching handed through time and many lineages, and which is with us in this moment. In trying to complete our "don't know," our experience becomes clear and our correct way of being in this world manifests. Not depending on whether you're a father in Iowa or an abbot in Cumberland, the love mind that Zen Master Seung Sahn refers to asks, "How may I help you?"
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