The Sound of the Bell

At our recent winter sesshin (retreat), I played the large Zen bell called the Keisu. During our chanting service, I repeatedly hit the rim with a special striker to punctuate essential points in the sutra readings.

Each time I struck the bell, for an instant, there was a contact of form meeting form. The striker meets the metal, a precise point in time, already gone the moment it happens. The sound arises, full and clear, filling the space. But even as we hear it, it is vanishing.

The bell's sound is not a thing to be grasped; it exists only in its arising and fading, a movement that is constantly changing. Its clarity dissolves into a faint hum, then into silence. But is it truly gone? The vibrations, too subtle for the ear, ripple outward into the vast fabric of existence. The universe receives them and carries them forward unseen.

The bell sound is not separate from silence. The sound does not end—it only shifts, transforms, and continues beyond perception. So it is with all things. A moment, a breath, a life—none of these ever disappear. They become part of the infinite, moving without beginning or ending.

To hear the bell is to listen to the universe itself. Struck, fading, silent—yet always present.