So in some worlds, this is the 31st of July. In some worlds, it's Thursday. But I think in this world, it's the last day of Shashin. The last day of Shashin has a very interesting quality to it. and a very interesting opportunity. It's like in the story of Shakyamuni's awakening, he sees the morning star and something is realized. So today, you get to see the morning star And more particularly, you get to see what you pluck out of your imagined future and bring here to delight and dismay you, to frighten you, to sadden you, to excite you.

[01:32]

And you get to choose, sort of. You sort of get to do is because it sort of rushes at you with a mind of its own. And that's also another interesting feature. You know, you can watch. To the degree of selection, what gets pulled forward? I mean, do I look at possibilities and say, OK. I want some nasty ones, some scary ones and some And then be frightened and upset. Or do you pull forward some glorious experience of serenity and freedom. Oh, I'll go over to Moorwoods and I'll walk and I'll hug a Redwood.

[02:38]

Or is it some delight? I'll call up Sally and we'll go and have lunch at that little cafe. Sit down in the sun. It will be exquisite. And I won't have to cross my legs while I eat lunch. Or do any of that tenting stuff. Just get straight into lunch. Look at the minions. I don't want that. I want that. And don't put any of that on it. the world of our choosing the world of that our habits and our desires and our aversions prompt us to bring forth and the ones that seem to come forward unbidden like uh oh

[04:11]

how much authority how convincing are they are they plays of shadow on the floor or are they super real and you can tell when they're super real because they just tickle and sweep you up and you're gone maybe for a minute Maybe for the whole period. And then I'm going to say to them, damn it, why didn't you do what I said? And you have a glorious, passionate argument with somebody. Yourself. The amazing thing about the factors of awakening is that these attributes are coursing through us all the time.

[05:26]

They are the ingredients of the passion play of our life. And all practice is saying is this can be an unaware uncontrolled event, or it could happen with some awareness and some skillful response. What is it to be caught up in what you bring forth? That's deep concentration. That's absorption. That's somebody continuously in contact with one experience. arises, we attend to it continuously. We go from just touching it to kind of becoming it. We completely commit to dependent co-arising.

[06:34]

And that experience has rapture. It becomes entrancing. That experience has energy. You know, you can sit in this endo and the thought, the last day, and this lightning exuberance, relief, can rise. And the body that seemed achy and heavy is suddenly light. The mind that seemed rosy is suddenly clear. That seemed rosy and quiet is now active. This power, this capacity is coursing through us all the time.

[07:46]

We don't get it from practice. always there. This is our original nature. And what we do with it, that's why we're practicing. Is it just going to keep causing more suffering? Are we just going to keep repeating the same cycles of thought and feeling and behavior? Or are we going to wake up? So this so-called last day, this is like your final exam. The topic of the final exam is my so-called life. And who picks the exam questions?

[08:48]

You do. And they run something like this. How are you going to relate to, when you pull it forward out of the future, how are you going to relate to that thing that really upsets you? Multiple choice. A, just see it as it is. B, become utterly entranced with it. And struggle desperately. And have that same disastrous, depressing conclusion that you've had in the past. Or C. And then C, you get to right yourself. What choice is C? What did Jung Lin say when he said medicine and disease subdue each other?

[09:52]

When the medicine of the Dharma meets the disease of the affliction of habit energy of body and emotion and mind. question at the last day of Shashin. So should I suppress all those arising images and the accompanying issues and agendas they bring forth? Is that it? Should I suppress them all? Should I sit here in this sea of tranquility? Can I let them pour forth like waves of energy?

[10:58]

Just don't take it personally, as Guishan says. Yangshan says, what do you do when ten thousand things come forth at once? When it seems like all the issues of your life or yelling for your attention. Me, me, pay attention to me. Just don't take it personally. Is that it? So the seventh factor, fittingly enough, is equanimity. You know, equanimity has a variety of attributes to it. In those moments of tranquility, in those moments of settledness, equanimity is pretty obvious.

[12:23]

It's pretty accessible. Let it be. Just stay balanced. What in those other moments? A period of zazen, after period of zazen. Where it's never... totally settled or not a little bit grasping or pushing away. What's equanimity then? And what's equanimity when the waves of the passion of your life pour forth swirling in all directions?

[13:27]

There's a couple of images in spiritual practice, in Zen practice. One is at the mountain. The mountain just sits there. Rooted, grounded, upright. It rains, it shines, does everything in between. Just stay here. Sort of universal. So what? So what it's raining. So what it's shining. So what my mind is settled. So what my mind is unsettled. So what a thousand images of my future are arising and coming here. And then the other image is of the bamboo.

[14:47]

The bamboo is praised because of its strength. But its strength is its flexibility, its resilience. When the fierce wind blows this way, the bamboo bends that way. When the fierce wind blows this way, the bamboo bends that way. When the wind stops, the dharma comes upright. In Japan, there's something called a daruma doll, after bodhidharma. It sort of gets abbreviated to daruma. And a daruma doll is like one of those dolls that's weighted on the bottom. So when you push it, it goes over, and then when you let it go, it comes back up. So then the notion is that bodhidharma's accomplishment was that No matter what happened, he came back to this place of balance. So this is the bamboo. Whatever happens, just come back.

[15:53]

Okay, you go off into some marvelous, mysterious intrigue of your so-called life. Okay, come back. How was the body? What did it absorb? that journey how is your state of mind after that journey how is the blood and while we're at it what's going on here what's being seen and heard and felt coming back from any and every journey from So these are two images of equanimity. And they both have a teaching in exploring them.

[16:59]

When we explore them, they both offer us a teaching. When we don't go to have the energy of our life, Two things, many things can happen, but there's two categories within those many. One is we experience what it's like to not go with the habit energy. What happens when you don't do that? And then we also, the other thing we experience is the persistence, The determination, the energy of our habit energy. How committed we are to it. So both ways we get taught. And this is the mountain sitting still.

[18:03]

Both ways the Dharma is revealed. Just this. Young men's face in oneness. What did the Buddha learn through his lifetime of practice? Just this. And then the other way is that we It's a little bit like, then the commentary on that Cohen says, it's like a ball floating on a swift flowing street. You just stay conscious of all this movement and activity and swirling here and there.

[19:13]

It's not an issue of control. Can you just stay conscious? Can you stay in contact? Can you stay noticing it rather than being entranced in a dream? Can you feel what it is to bring forth that story? What emotions does it evoke? With your palette of preferences, what color do you paint it? Do you paint it frightening? Do you paint it depressing? Do you paint it delightful? And how delightful is delightful? Does your body tingle with excitement?

[20:21]

Or is it just, hmm, yeah, that could be fun. carrying that possibility of delight, like a grand obsession, you know, thinking, okay, 415 minutes till we finish. Or... 221. 100. 100. humbling us with the passion, the power of our passion. Amazing us with the human condition.

[21:31]

This force that courses through us and a lot of the time amazingly We're not even noticing. We're just acting it out. So both these expressions of equanimity are like jewels. Just this, just now. And this great dance of a human life. This marvelous opportunity to see what we're made of. And how it comes into play. To see the extraordinary expression of conditioned existence.

[22:35]

What marvelous and significant and important information for when you do step into this so-called my life, my world. To have a relationship, an informed relationship with the habits and behaviors of your own passion. helpful that will be in discovering appropriate response. This is the practice of the so-called last day. And why is it the last day? Because we sinners.

[23:48]

can play with that too. How much authority, conviction do we assert the last day? And then there's a way in which this rushing forth of our life has a real practical side to it. And because, you know, now as we come to the end of Sashin and the end of the intensive, there is a request to transition. You know? And... To transition back into another way of being. So this gives us a kind of a trial run, a taste.

[25:02]

A kind of integration of the states of mind, the experiences that Shishin and the Intensive create. How do they integrate into what I consider to be My ordinary life or my usual life. Would you have an opportunity to explore that? And I would also say, these two states, just this is it. and letting everything pour forth and just be experienced as its own energetic flow. These two states can dance in harmony, you know, these two requests of equanimity. There's something about whatever degree of sadness or release we've discovered

[26:23]

in these five days or three weeks of releasing agitation and allowing spacious being. There's a way in which that can support us now with the energy, with the dynamic play of what's arising In Mahayana Buddhism, when you add a concept to that, that concept is the Bodhisattva vow. And I would like to reference it by quoting

[27:32]

parts of a poem by Pablo Neruda. He, in this poem, he's using, in the whole book actually, he uses the image of the sea as this dynamic wave after wave, this flow of energetic existence, personal and interpersonal. Mostly he thinks of it as interpersonal. To whoever is not listening to the sea this Thursday morning. To whoever is cooped up in house, office, factory, street, mine, or dry prison cell. To them I come. And without speaking or looking, I arrive and open the door of their prison. And the vibration starts up, vague and insistent.

[28:38]

A long rumble of thunder adds itself to the weight of the planet and the ocean. So drawn to my destiny, I ceaselessly listen and keep the sea in my consciousness. I mean, I move in and out of the windows and hearing me, eyes may lift themselves asking, how can I reach the sea? And I will pause with them, saying nothing. I pass to them the starry echoes of the wave, a breaking up of foam and quicksand, a rustling of salt withdrawing itself. A great cry of sea birds on the coast.

[29:43]

So through me, freedom and the sea will call in answer to the shrouded heart. So something about We don't benefit others by imposing our notion as to what they should do or not do. It's more like we... Stay close and let something resonate. Because very much in this process, there's what our mind is making of it, and then there's what's happening below what our mind makes of it.

[30:52]

This is the powerful force of practicing and practicing together. something seeps into our body. Some way our heart releases and our mind softens and clears. That's the gift we can offer in support of others. And of course, in this reciprocal world, that's the gift they can return to us, being in that with us. It's not a one-way street. The generosity of it is, in benefiting others, we're benefiting. So as this great karmic flow of our so-called life pours forth, not only can we watch it and discover the karmic nature of self, but in the details, oh, look how important that issue is.

[32:29]

I just thought about it solid for 15 minutes. I went into worry samadhi. And look at that other thing that I thought was a big deal in my life. I just went, huh. You not only can we discover the self. And you, afresh. What we can see, the colors we're painting it. What emotions. what significance we attributed. And we can start to see how to be skillful around that. But we can share this with everyone.

[33:42]

This release, this clarity, This patient willingness to stay in the middle of a storm of life. This clarity that sees the difference between, okay, practice is going to fix me and fix my life and bring forth all the treasures I want. To be able to see A deeper request. Practice supports me to be present with this human life and all human life. This is the heart's ease. This is what releases the mind's agitation, distraction and confusion. something sinks in below our thinking.

[34:50]

Not to say we don't have thoughts about it, usually we do, but something sinks in below that in that we make contact with the world and offer that as a gift. And in offering we receive. And it doesn't make sense. It makes sense in one way and then in another way it just doesn't. Because it has no fixed form or consequence. I will tell my friend and then they'll be like this. Maybe. Maybe you'll find your friend already has a better relationship to it than you do.

[35:55]

Maybe you'll find that in their heart and mind it flowers in an entirely different way. So to the Bodhisattva vow, Yes, we give words. Maybe we give sincere intention. But giving over to something more than the constructs of our human mind or even our human heart. This giving over. And then for good measure I want to mention another poem.

[37:09]

Which is called the beginning. Begin it's called actually. We're not going back to our lives. We're going forward into what our lives have become. Because as surely as we're not the same, they're not the same either. Besides, going back is kind of boring and going forward is more like an adventure. Begin again to the summoning birds, to the sight of the light at the window, begin to the roar of the morning traffic. Every beginning is a promise, born of light, flowering on the way to work.

[38:10]

Begin to the pageant of queuing girls, the arrogant loneliness of swans. Begin to the wonder of unknown faces, crying birds in the sudden rain. on branches stark with the willing sunlight, at seagulls foraging for bread, at couples sharing a sunny secret? Do we live in a world that dreams of ending, that always seems about to give in to something? will bring no acknowledged conclusion, just insists that we forever begin. So we begin.

[39:20]

And we live the mind of the last day, the heart of the last day, the body of the last day. And every day that follows it, if there are days that follow it, They will also ask for the same spirit of beginning, the same renewal, the same equanimity, the same solid mountain sitting unmoving, the same bamboo swaying but never broken. The same insight that knows the Dharma is not going to fix me, or the world, or my relationships.

[40:30]

it is going to shed light upon them and offer guidance about appropriate response. And something in all that stirs the alchemy of my original being. offers an opportunity for transformance. So rather than just being a creature that habitually relives its dramas, that there can be beginning, new beginning, there can be awakeness, there can be bringing to the world some way of connecting, that benevolence flows back and forth.

[41:42]

That this precious path of liberation can be both given away and received with each person we engage in. This is not an exotic event that happens in a far-off Buddha field. This can be the stuff of human life. And who is it that is such one? Thank you.

[42:42]

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