Episode Details

For whom do you bathe and make yourself beautiful?

The cry of the cuckoo is calling you home;

hundreds of flowers fall, yet her voice isn’t stilled;

even deep in jumbled mountains, it’s calling clearly.     

—Dongshan

One way of appreciating this experience we call life is to see it through the eyes of devotion. Whether we are conscious of it or not our lives are woven together through simple, ordinary acts of devotion. We are moved by our love, our sense of duty, our responsibilities and our passions. 

In spiritual practice we are invited to make our devotedness conscious. To ask —what am I devoted to? What do I devote my time and energy towards? How do I use my attention?

As the poem echoes—

For whom do you bathe and make yourself beautiful?

What wakes you up in the morning? How do you greet your day?

Why do you make breakfast, exercise, listen to music, work?

And what if this was a living inquiry? Not another reason to shame yourself into being different, or think about how you should be waking up, or what you should be devoted to…

But instead, perhaps allowing devotion a place at the table of your life. How are you already devoted to your living and loving? How does this devotion show up in your life? What is the shape of your love? What does it feel like to appreciate the commitments that you have? How are you already an accomplice to beauty?

Sometimes we move on auto-pilot. We forget that in the midst of this giant machine of our society, we have agency. And are using it all the time in creative and kind ways. We create beauty. We nourish the ones we love. We turn towards love and compassion countless times throughout the day. We practice seeing more clearly.

We are always in cahoots with the great mystery. The cuckoo calls to us. The cicadas sing. The tea pot whistles in a cadence with the mid-summer breeze. A child laughs, another cries—as our hearts and bodies respond.

Our longing for healing + wholeness, our desire for connection, the passion with which we wish to share our gifts, talents and heart with others and the world—these are the ingredients for living a spiritual life. These are the seeds that open the world of wonder and interconnection.

Underneath every action we take there is a thread of our devotion, a thread that can be traced back to the heart of who we are.

For whom do you bathe and make yourself beautiful?

The cry of the cuckoo is calling you home;

hundreds of flowers fall, yet her voice isn’t stilled;

even deep in jumbled mountains, it’s calling clearly.

May we continue to hear its vital call.

This podcast episode is an exploration of a Zen story from the koan collection The Hidden Lamp. It explores the themes of devotion and listening on the spiritual path. 

Asan’s Rooster

Asan was a laywoman who studied Zen with Master Tetsumon and was unremitting in her devotion to practice. One day during her morning sitting she heard the crow of the rooster and her mind suddenly opened. She spoke a verse in response:

The fields, the mountains, the flowers and my body too are the voice of the bird—what is left that can be said to hear?

Master Tetsumon recognized her enlightenment.

…

I’m Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, Meditation Coach, budding Astrologer and Artist. In my

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