by Steve Rojin Genyo Lefever

🪷 Opening Koans

“Not knowing is most intimate.”
Zen Master Dizang

“It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.”
Miles Davis

“True entrusting is living fully in the here and now.”
Rev. Koyo Kubose

🎺 Who Was Miles Davis?

Miles Davis (1926–1991) was one of the most influential jazz artists of all time. A trumpeter, bandleader, and relentless innovator, he was known for constantly reinventing his sound, from bebop to cool jazz, modal improvisation, and electric fusion. What made him a Dharma teacher, whether he knew it or not, was his relationship to space. Miles played fewer notes than other musicians. What mattered most was what he didn’t play, the silence that shaped the music.

And so it is with our practice: what we don’t do is just as important as what we do. The pauses between chants, the moments between breaths, the silence after the bell, all of these spaces are pregnant with presence, carrying the Dharma in ways words cannot.

🌞 A Summer Moment

One afternoon not long ago, I sat on my front porch in the thick July heat, the kind that makes the world slow down. From the distance came the low hum of the freeway, steady and grounding. Kids on bikes were flying down the street, their laughter rising and falling like an improvisation. “Wait up!” a voice called, and the rhythm changed again.

The trees across the street swayed gently, and my Tibetan prayer flags danced just slightly on the breeze. My two pugs lay beside me. One snored. The other watched the world go by, chin resting on the cool concrete, eyes half-closed in the afternoon light.

And in all of that, the freeway, the breeze, the dogs, the children, the stillness, I realized I wasn’t doing anything. And more importantly, I wasn’t waiting for anything.

That moment was music, but not the kind you can hum.
It was the music between the notes.

🎵 Section I: Silence is Not Empty

In jazz, silence isn’t an absence, it’s structure, shape, meaning. In Buddhism, silence isn’t void, it’s emptiness, or shunyata, the fertile ground from which all form arises.

In the temple, when the bell is struck, it’s not just the tone that matters.
It’s the space between the rings, that lingering pause, like a breath drawn by the universe.

“When you become comfortable with the pauses, you begin to hear the Dharma.”
Roshi Reb Anderson

That day on the porch, the bell was ringing through the freeway, the wind, and the children. I didn’t have to add anything. The Dharma was already playing.

🎶 Section II: Shunyata and the Sound of Compassion

“Form is emptiness; emptiness is form.”
Heart Sutra

Miles Davis let the rests carry the soul of the song. He trusted the space. That’s emptiness in action. And when we chant Namo Amida Butsu, that Name arises from the same space, not self-made, but flowing from Amida’s vow.

“The working of the Buddha’s compassion is not something we can see or measure. But we can feel it in our lives.”
Rev. Gyomay Kubose

Amida’s vow moves through us like music moves through air.
Sometimes we chant. Sometimes we pause.
And in both, the Buddha is fully present.

📿 The Space Between the Beads

When we hold our mala or nenju, we often focus on the beads. But between each bead is a space. It’s not just decorative, it’s essential.

“The space between the beads is not emptiness, it is entrusting.”
Rev. Koyo Kubose

Each pause between chants is like a rest in music.
Each pause is the Buddha waiting, not demanding, not judging, just there, completely.
Just like Miles resting between notes.
Just like the bell ringing across the sky.
Just like the breeze catching a flag.

In that space between beads, we are not doing anything. We are being called. Amida’s compassion flows freely in that moment, unencumbered by our grasping.

🎤 Improvisation, Non-Knowing, and the Vow

“Play what you hear.”
Miles Davis
“Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.”

“Just live. That’s all. Live the Nembutsu, live with Amida.”
Rev. Gyomay Kubose

Miles didn’t read from a script.
Neither did Shinran.
Both learned to trust the unknown, to show up and let the next note come from beyond self.

In that way, Miles Davis was a Pure Land master of jazz.
He didn’t save himself, he listened, he let go, and he received the music.

So do we. The space between each moment is where we practice the vow, not with effort, but with trust.

🕊 Section V: The Great Composition

We are each a single note, a fleeting tone.
But together, we are part of a vast Dharma composition.

“Zazen is to tune into the universe. You’re not playing your own little solo anymore. You’re part of the symphony.”
Kōdō Sawaki Roshi

And what carries the music?
Silence. Stillness. Space.
The same space between the beads.
The same breath before a child laughs.
The same pause before you call the Buddha’s name.

In that space, we are held. Not lost, not found, but simply alive. This is where Zen and Pure Land meet, in the pause, in the silence, in the space between.

🧠 Section VI: What Fills the Silence? A Look Through Buddhist Psychology

Silence can be unsettling.

It’s in those quiet spaces that our inner voices speak the loudest, the whispers of ego, worry, craving, self-doubt. This is exactly where Buddhist psychology enters: to help us see clearly what arises in that space, rather than being swept away by it.

In the space between two beads, between two thoughts, or between one breath and the next, we encounter:

1. The Five Aggregates (Skandhas)

Form (Rūpa): The sensation of the body, the heat of the sun, the weight of sitting, the breath entering your nose.

Feeling (Vedanā): Pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, like the slight discomfort of sitting still or the soothing rhythm of the wind.

Perception (Saṃjñā): Recognizing a sound as laughter or a breeze as refreshing.

Mental Formations (Saṃskāra): The stories we begin to tell “I should be doing something,” “This is boring,” or “This is peaceful.”

Consciousness (Vijñāna): The bare awareness that knows all these things are happening.

These five aggregates are not who we are — they are what we are experiencing. Silence allows them to unfold like a jazz solo, unpredictable, alive, unrepeatable.

2. The Arising of the “Monkey Mind”
   In moments of stillness, the mind can become chaotic. Old regrets swing in. Future worries leap forward. We chase thoughts like jazz riffs that never resolve.

But Buddhist practice, like good jazz, isn’t about controlling the improvisation. It’s about noticing it. Being present with the play of the mind without getting caught in the performance.

“The thoughts are not the problem. Getting lost in them is.”
Everyday Suchness teaching

3. Trusting the Silence
   Miles Davis trusted silence so much that he let it lead. In the same way, Buddhist psychology asks us to notice what arises in silence, and then return to the ground of awareness again and again.

This is not avoidance, it’s intimacy.

“Not knowing is most intimate.”
Zen Master Dizang

That intimacy with the unknown, with the formless, the spacious, the unseen, is exactly where the Dharma lives.

🪞 Section VII: The Space We Live In

Whether we are sitting in a temple, standing on a stage, or watching the world go by from a front porch in the July heat, we are living in the music of the Dharma.

The bell doesn’t need to ring for us to hear it.
The chant doesn’t need to be loud for the Buddha to be near.
And the note doesn’t need to be played for the heart to move.

Miles Davis showed us that the silence is the song.
The Buddha taught us that emptiness is form.
Shinran showed us that the Name arises from that formless space, a space not of our making, but of deep, boundless compassion.

“Each step is the place of practice. Each breath is the Dharma gate.”
Everyday Suchness

So let us pause.
Let us listen.
Let us entrust.

Not to the sound we think we need, but to the space that carries all sounds, to the great vow that carries us, like a melody we did not compose, but which is always already playing through us.

“Silence is not nothing. It is the womb of everything.”
Rojin Genyo

🌸 Final Haiku

One breath not taken—
the wind plays the Buddha’s name
through an open door.

Namu Amida Butsu. Let the breath be your bell. Let the silence be your mantra. Let the space in between guide you home.