What I want to consider together with you is this giant meditation on impermanence that was just delivered and is continuing to be delivered. It is said in many texts in the Buddhist collection of wisdom teachings that one of the most central meditations, one of the most beneficial cluster of meditations are those that are in this general category of meditations on impermanence. And in fact the major themes are impermanence and transformation. In one of the sutras it says, of all plowings of a field, the autumn one is the best.

[01:16]

Of all footprints, the elephant's footprint is the best. And of all recognitions, the recognitions of impermanence and mortality are the best. They eliminate all attachments of the three realms, ignorance and pride. It is also praised as being the hammer that destroys all defilements and misconduct at once. And the great gateway leading to the accomplishment of all virtues at once. Mindfulness of impermanence and death is important at the beginning of the path to impel one to engage in the practice. It is important in the middle to maintain one's energy and it is important at the end to induce one to complete the practice and receive enlightenment. I don't know about you but I'm pretty convinced that that's true and I am struck by how much company I feel in the world.

[02:35]

One of the unexpected blessings I have been experiencing this week is this sense of all of us being joined in some vivid sense of very deep experience of our lives and of the fragility of our lives and of the world we live in. Which allows all of us to talk about that which actually matters deeply to us. I'm really struck by hearing the news broadcaster on television or on radio talking about matters of birth and death. Finally, in this culture which we live in, which is so full of distractions and diversions and obstacles to this kind of deep consideration of the nature of things, here we are face to face with the bare bones of our existence.

[03:48]

And I find myself feeling a kind of extraordinary gratitude and joy that this is our condition and amazed at what it takes for us to get to this point. I was struck in watching the news a couple of nights ago when there was an interview of a young man in East Oakland who had been spending all of his time without sleep since the earthquake helping people get out of the freeway that collapsed. And helping find and remove the bodies of the people who were killed. And his saying how wonderful it was for him that everyone was working together. A sense of people who were complete strangers being joined together in the process of doing whatever arises that we can do to help.

[05:02]

And his saying, I wish we could live together like this all the time. I think one of the reasons I like to go to India is because you are in touch with the bare bones of things. And this week I thought, it doesn't feel like I have to go to India. What do we ever know that is higher than that power which from time to time seizes our lives and reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered. Why does death so catch us by surprise? And why love?

[06:06]

We still and always want waking. We should amass half-dressed in long lines like tribesmen and shake gourds at each other to wake up. Instead, we watch television and miss the show. This is a quote from Annie Dillard's recent book on writing. Pretty good, isn't it? Katagiri Roshi, when he was here doing a teaching a couple of years ago, talked over and over again about how fragile our life is. And of course every time I spend time keeping someone company as they are dying, I'm struck by that.

[07:11]

But there's something of a different order when the very earth underneath us shakes and rattles and rolls. When the structures in our lives, man-made and otherwise, change their shape so violently and suddenly, it brings us up against the fact of impermanence in a way that is so compelling. Over and over again this week I've heard people talk about how ungrounded they feel, how light-headed they feel, how uncertain they feel about where their feet are. And I think that's a completely understandable and appropriate response to the fact of this big earthquake and the tremors that we've had since then.

[08:15]

Can we notice the kind of vividness of each footstep when we put our foot down, one foot after another, and we have absolutely no idea what the very ground underneath us will be like? So we have this big chance to wake up, to be awake, to notice what it feels like this week, these days, to be awake together. So we have a chance to finish our business, to say that which we want to say but never get around to saying to those people we love, to those people we appreciate, to that person with whom we have some old unresolved difficulty or heartbreak, to forgive, to say, I'm sorry, I care about you.

[09:27]

Whatever it takes to be resolved in each moment, because we have no idea what's next. Some weeks ago, maybe a couple of months ago, when I was coming back from Minnesota, my husband picked me up at the airport and had a verse written out on a piece of paper on the dashboard, which said, birth will end in death, youth will end in old age, meetings will end in separation, wealth will end in loss, all things that exist in cyclic existence are transient, impermanent. And this verse dropped into my body, literally.

[10:31]

I also thought, that's a cheery verse to have on the dashboard of the car. And I think, in fact, the last time I spoke, I recited that verse to you. So I've been saying some version of it six times a day since I first saw it. And this morning I asked Bill if he would write it out again from the text source, because I was pretty sure I'd fiddled around with the language and had restated it one way or another. So he wrote it out again, and then at the bottom he puts, G. Shakyamuni, author. It's very powerful to take a verse like this and recite it six times a day, every three hours.

[11:36]

It drops into your conscious and unconscious mind in some very interesting and surprising ways. I'm particularly interested to notice which line keeps sticking up a little bit more under my nose than any of the others. For me it has been the one about meetings will end in separation. And I've been noticing, literally every day, something about a kind of vivid attention, which I seem somewhat more capable of in my meetings and leavings with all kinds of people. This line, which has dropped into my mind and my body, my waking and sleeping consciousness,

[12:39]

is reminding me about the impermanence of every single encounter and has become a kind of spur to take some care or some attention so that I am a little bit more engaged with each encounter, looking directly into the other person's eyes and not waiting to say anything that is arising ready to be expressed. It feels a little bit like, for me, reciting this verse has turned up the dial called being awake a little bit more so that I have some energy I don't remember having

[13:43]

for the consequences of noticing that indeed all meetings will end in separation. And how, if I remember that, each meeting has a kind of fullness and sufficiency. I've been walking around in the world with my head shaved for the last few weeks, something I haven't done for a number of years. And particularly in Minneapolis, where there are a lot of Lutherans, not so many Buddhists, I was very interested to see what it was like to be around in the world as a bald woman. It's a little different than being a shaved-headed man, especially in this culture.

[14:51]

The last time I had my head shaved, I was struck by the kind of energy that I spent recovering from what felt like a lot of negative projections. And it was difficult. I felt quite tired from that energy expenditure. And after a few months, I decided to let my hair grow again and keep it short, but not unseemingly short by our cultural standards anyway. What has struck me this time is how much that has been, at least so far, not at all my experience. And so I wonder, is it the world that has changed, or is it my feeling about having my head shaved? Perhaps it's a little of both, but I suspect it has a lot to do with my own feeling about having my head shaved.

[15:56]

So I went into an engineering reproduction company, and there were two young men working there. I had some documents I wanted copied that were about 18 inches wide and 6 feet long, not so easy to copy, all done up in ancient Chinese characters. And these two young men were very eager to help, knew that these were pieces of paper which should be handled respectfully and carefully, wanted to know why I had my head shaved, and were supportive and kindly when I told them that I was a Buddhist priest. There was a kind of vividness in that encounter with them that I suspect was to some degree informed by some state of mind

[16:58]

which I'm beginning to cultivate a little more deeply from the practice of reciting this verse. There's a way in which when we know, when we actually remember, I know I will die, I have no idea when or how, that leaves me anyway in the world feeling like, what have I got to lose? And so when I was in this reproduction company office, I was willing to stand there bareheaded, literally, asking these two young men to help me figure out how to do something that I needed to do, willing to have them be uncomfortable or comfortable with me, however that might go, and we ended up having this very sweet encounter, working together for a couple of hours, getting something taken care of, and we said goodbye.

[18:12]

I may never see either of them again, but I can see their faces very clearly, and I feel quite touched by their kindness and help. I felt the same quality of contact and gratitude when I looked at the face and listened to the voice of this young man in East Oakland who talked about what it was like staying up for a couple of days and nights, doing, as he put it, whatever he could see that might be done that would be helpful. I feel it with the people that I've talked to on the phone or in person, each of us saying to the other, are you all right? Is your family okay? How's your house?

[19:15]

Do you know someone who has suffered some loss from the earthquake? Is there anything any of us can do? And over and over again, hearing and reading stories of people acting in this way with each other, without benefit of knowing each other's names or status or job or income or having special clothes or car or whatever. It all takes on some different look and feel, doesn't it? And of course, to stay in touch with the kind of presence and awakeness that we have in our lives this week, that's going to be the test.

[20:19]

And I think that there is a way in which each of us has to figure out, use our imagination to see how to do that, how to keep our attention on this point, that the nature of things is that they are impermanent, that the only thing we can count on is the fact of change itself. It is up to each of us to figure out some way of staying in touch with that truth and to allow ourselves to do that in a way that does not bring heaviness but in fact brings true liberation. This is, of course, the liberation which allows us to transform literally anything, any experience, any state of mind, anything at all,

[21:32]

into that which is wholesome and beneficial. And we have such enormous capacity for this way of practicing, this way of being in our lives, far more than most of us realize. I think it's why we need to practice together, so that we can help each other when we get discouraged or feel like we've hit some wall. That's why it's extremely helpful to read ancient texts, to be reminded of these various truths and this essential truth, which is expressed in so many different ways over so many centuries of human life and experience. I would invite you to take up this verse, or some verse like it, and see what it's like to recite it to yourself six times a day.

[22:43]

I figured out that I could do the verse when I wake up, before each meal, and before I go to sleep. Then I only had to figure out a way to remind myself to do the verse one other time of the day. That seemed pretty manageable. So I would tie the recitation to some activity that I know I will always do. Getting up and going to bed and eating were five points in the day I could count on. I will leave the sixth to your imagination. Can we help each other stay in this place of vivid awakeness, at least for a few more days or weeks?

[23:54]

Perhaps what we could do is take Annie Dillard's suggestion, her image. We should amass half-dressed in long lines like tribesmen and shake gourds at each other to wake up. Maybe what we could do is hold such an image just for today, and then tomorrow morning renew our commitment to do that for another day. Who knows how long we could sustain such a way of being in the world. I don't mean to turn away from the incredible suffering that many people have experienced from death and losses of all sorts this week.

[25:06]

But to have us notice together that in the very midst of this suffering, in the very midst of this loss, we are open-hearted with each other in a way that is an enormous gift. And I feel such relief to experience that in this culture, in this society, in this neighborhood. Here at Green Gulch, with our families, with the people that we work with, with the strangers, the so-called strangers that we encounter at the market, and when we're driving on the freeway, when we're talking on the telephone, in every circumstance. Isn't it amazing? All those people that live in the box called TV seem so present and vivid and in front of us.

[26:15]

So I invite you to stay awake. Remember all the admonitions in the various sutras on the wooden plaque that we hammer on to announce the beginning of meditation or a teaching or work that says, Don't waste time. Practice as if your head is on fire. It actually is. We just hadn't noticed it. And remember, birth will end in death. Youth will end in old age. Meetings will end in separation. Wealth will end in loss. Things that exist in cyclic existence are impermanent, are transient,

[27:34]

can let us amass, half-dressed in a long line, shaking gourds in each other's faces, helping ourselves and each other stay awake so that we can live fully for this moment, which is the only moment we have. The strange things that we read about in the paper and that we hear about on the radio and that we see on the television set don't always happen to someone else. We are so buffered. We are so comfortable in our lives. So when there's an earthquake in Mexico City or Armenia, we think, Oh, too bad.

[28:41]

Here it is, right under this very ground where we are currently sitting and standing, not somewhere else. As the earthquake was rolling and our house was moving and the water was sloshing out of the bird bath and the pond and the bird cages were swinging back and forth, the thought that came up in my mind was, Oh, Mexico City sits on a bowl of Jell-O. This is what it must have been like. Think of all the places we've read about or known about in the last year or two where there have been big earthquakes. There's a way in which suddenly, out of our direct experience, we're joined with so many more people.

[29:43]

It's so ironic that in the midst of suffering comes these marvelous gifts. I have no idea when or how I will die, but I know that I will. I know that in our meeting together, the very nature of our meeting is that we will be separated. And this brings me to some willingness to sit here and be exposed to myself and to each of you in a way that goes beyond my imagination up until now. I do think this is the way to live our lives.

[30:46]

We have such great fortune to have heard the teachings of the Buddha and the teachings that have evolved in this great path. But they are not teachings that are peculiar to this tradition versus any other. They are teachings based on the truth about the nature of things that allows us to be open-hearted and awake before any other person, no matter what they look like, no matter how old or young, no matter what their religious tradition or status. There is a way we can be face-to-face, stripped naked in the midst of such difficult time. Thank you very much.

[31:51]

May our intention...

[31:57]

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