“Every Voice is the Voice of the Buddha”

If only we could hear that voice. Call it the voice of the Universe, if you like. Call it “the voice of God.” Are we listening? That’s the question.

On a Street Retreat with Roshi Bernie, we had dinner one night with the homeless at the Bowery Mission. We met one of the senior staff there and he told us his story. He himself had been homeless. He slept on the subways in the days before the city put the arm rests between seats to keep the homeless from lying down. Nobody bothered him, he told us. No one wanted to mess with a big black man. Except the transit cops. If they came around, they’d prod you with a nightstick until you moved.

One night, he felt himself gently shaken. A tiny white woman with gray hair was standing over him. “What’s a man like you doing in a place like this?” She handed him a card with the address of the Bowery Mission. That woman had a lot of courage, waking him. He was impressed, so he checked out the Mission. After dinner and the evening service, he asked around. “Who’s that white woman handing out cards on the subway?” No one knew who he was talking about. No one had ever heard of her. He ended up staying at the mission, cleaning up, joined the mission staff. When we met him, he was the assistant director. Who was that white woman who turned his life around? Was it a miracle that he had listened?

My favorite meditation instruction these days is, “Shut up and listen.” What am I listening for? The voice of Buddha? The voice of God? Do I we expect to recognize the voice? “Oh, hi God. I’d recognize your voice anywhere.” Do you think the Universe has only one voice?

“Every Voice is the Voice of the Buddha” is a Zen koan from The Blue Cliff Record. What do we do with a koan like this? Try to explain it? Shut up and listen.