just occurred to me as I was sitting down and folding my robes that Shishin is a pretty straightforward process. It demands our attention with its rigor, you know. Sit still for the next hour. Sometimes that's so spacious, elevating, and joyous. And sometimes it's not. I'm struck by this version of the Foucault's Uncaptain commenting on, I was in later, Dogen's version. latest in the last version I put the more is translating it he starts with the sense of however preceded by here's a straight direct all-inclusive all-inclusive way to practice however so I think maybe yesterday's word was maybe so today's word is however

[01:31]

The rigor of the sheep almost inevitably, almost unavoidably demands attention in the eye. And I would say to facilitate that process, attention in the body and in the breath. In some ways, it's extraordinarily complex. We never, as Dovan says, dentists, even if all the Buddhas are depending directions as admirable as the sands of the Ganges, with all their blue wisdom, I still couldn't fully comprehend what a person says. So that organism,

[02:37]

Of course, it's part of all being. This morning, as Anisha and I were standing waiting for the single vid on the dead show so we could start doing the jungle, I was looking up at the stars. I just look up, and you can see about 14 billion light years. Still, something in me was wondering how cold is it right today, right now. So the first couple of days are our initiation. In some ways, despite that complexity and vastness, the rigor,

[03:54]

And the way Sashin structures it, obliges us to set aside all the things we like to worry about and anticipate and regret. It's almost like a contraction of coming through the birth canal and to be born. think of that however as being born into humanness not the humanness that's enriched confused and preoccupied by its expressions

[05:04]

my concerns of a single self, but a different kind of humaneness. It is something like this. Last June, I was at first in the world of poetry, the Poet Laureate of the United States. was chosen that was a Native American woman in part of her acceptance just that I feel a responsibility to ancestors before I did come to my homeland to all of them to all of my tribes to all people, all earth, all beginnings and all endings.

[06:21]

I don't really know who she is, but they look like red. One of the details that struck me, she's a musician. She plays saxophone and she does the vocals. man she had was called poetic justice and apparently she's touring with some group now and they're called dynamic arrows and here's old speaks for itself, ego pull, to pray, open your whole self, to sky, to earth, to sun, to moon, to the one whole voice that is you, and know there is more that you can't see, can't hear, can't know, except in moments, steadily grown, and in languages that aren't always sound, but other circles of motion,

[07:36]

Like Eagle, that Sunday morning, over South River, circled in blue sky and wind, swept our hearts clean with sacred wings. We see you, we see ourselves, and know that we must take the utmost care and kindness in all things. Breathe in, knowing that we're made of all this, and breathe, knowing that we're truly blessed. because we were born and died soon within the true circle of motion, walking, rinding out the warning inside of us. We pray that this will be done in beauty, in beauty. As Dogen was modifying the adamant, straightforwardness of Fukunza Zengi, as he originally wrote it.

[08:55]

One of us, however, when the human interrupts, the suggestion was the Bodhisattva Bach. The Bodhisattva Vows. I would suggest to you that the Bodhisattva Vows challenge us to give our help, to take to heart rather than to head. Thank goodness they express in the possibility I would get all titled up in success and failure. And I'd say the challenge for each of us is what kind of imagery, what kind of wording, what kind of involvement inspires

[10:05]

Inspired. When I read that poem, I hope it isn't too boring for you. Because I have not. That in a way, almost with humility, can allow ourselves to be in this rudimentary process. Yes, my healing tendencies, my tendencies of mind and emotion and psychological significance are to search out the intrigues of self and expression. our body and our bread and the structure of the Zendu and the Bodhisattvas were sitting with and the bells that were calling us to the next thing they were all saying to us there's something more than that intensity of single being

[11:50]

And in his later notes on think, not thinking. How do you think, not thinking, not thinking? And then Dobin-Zempi says, well, if you couldn't experience what surprises you, if you couldn't let it be part of everything, if it can have its own abiding presence I would suggest to you we come through that doorway we experience the intensity of our own preoccupations my experience is that as I do that a relationship to that intensity, a more forgiving, a more accepting, a more compassionate.

[13:11]

On a good day. On other days, hmm. And even there, you know, we could say, oh, well, now we're so wise, we're into day three. Now they do everything. It's just reading a few poems. Actually, it invites us into history. It invites us into the great common. How do I be this one that I suggest? how shall it call me? And David's Andrew says, when it becomes really sticky, when it becomes overwhelming, utterly confusing, disorienting, remind yourself

[14:28]

upgraded being. Not simply as an idea, but as a sensibility. This is what we got. You know, even though we can't look back at the history of humankind, as I was reading, this poem. I thought about a story I read once where a military general in the U.S. Army was searching because they were fighting against Native American Indians. And they came across a village where all the men had left for reasons I don't know. So they massacred all the women and the children, but too many infected.

[15:32]

And then when we arrived back in New York, they gave him a kicker-take parade. it is to just let something inside of us get caught up in its own self-centered with the and create what later when you look back with spaciousness and insight something in us weeps would want to endorse such a matter.

[16:46]

So all that will give you all. All that's in our whisper. And yet, right along with it, the wisdom of spirituality and of simple human goodness. It's always being there too. Ms. Joy Harjo says, all my ancestors of the past and I'm responsible to them and of the future. challenge for us, you know, as we take up a spirituality that has its roots, you know, in age and cultures that maybe most of us are not so adjunct.

[18:01]

I remember when I was in Lunk in Thailand, And the meditation hall, which wasn't really a meditation hall, it was a Buddha hall. It had this big 20-foot power, a golden Buddha. And the people who lived, it was in Bhaka. People who lived there, most of them they would come to do devotional practice, to venerate the Buddha. and I would sit in the corner being wiser than all that nonsense and be meditating I remember over time somehow it seemed like the veneration and devotion was contagious and then once I was watching myself and I was bowing

[19:13]

I started to meditate. And it was nothing but devotion. Sort of confounded all my notions about Buddhist practice. Can I say, oh, it's not like me. Be a light unto yourselves. Don't make statues of me. That's not the point. Simply. Yes. What is that something for you? That inspires. That touches your heart. challenge for us.

[20:30]

I think many of us have a difficulty going back to the spiritual tradition. If there was one, that we were born in. Now, we were with a certain kind of cynicism. In that regard, I would say, you know, most of us were introduced to those spiritual traditions when we were children. So if you now think it was childish, well, I guess it was. You were a child. You got the child's version of it. But there's something marvelous about being a child.

[21:34]

The world is so vibrant. intellectualizing. Just present one in a row. It's what you feel. I think I learned as in sitting at a big church early in the morning just sort of enjoying the quiet of the space. What is it for you to evoke that which invites you to open, invites you to embrace all being?

[22:35]

However you want to describe it. Maybe the imagery of an eagle flying in the sky flying in the sky, and then the eagle, like eagle, rinds me like the morning, inside us. This way of getting in touch. This way, the binary the intrigues and the complexities of our single being. And then putting them into a context of all being.

[23:43]

And not just because you're a virtuous, diligent, good Buddhist. Because something in you comes alive when you open up to that way of thinking and feeling. It's John Joseph's other poem that I wrote. Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world, we took it for granted. Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind. Then doubt pushed through with its spiked head, and once doubt ruptured the web, all manner of demon thoughts jumped through.

[24:51]

We destroyed the world we could give it For inspiration and life, each stone of jealousy, each stone of fear, grief, envy and hatred put out the light. No one was without a stone in his or her hand. They were right back where we'd started. We were bumping into each other in the dark. And now we have no place to live. since we don't know how to live with each other. Then, one of the stumbling stones took pity on another, and shuddered like it. A spark of kindness made light, and the light made an opening in the darkness. Everyone worked together to make a light. A lean kind person climbed out first,

[25:55]

into the next world but then the other clans and the children of those clans and their children and their children all the way through time to now into the morning light into the I sometimes think it may be the most important moment in a period of sassy is when the bell rings at the end and your knees will be hurting like crazy and your back and your head and the whole world and the bell rings

[26:58]

her willingness to be what's happening next. This sheer encouragement upset me thinking, in a moment I'll be able to stand up. Zen view says raise slowly and deliberately even from the that is how we fought in that period of time in the midst of that there was there was contact there was engagement

[28:11]

There was letting go of grasping and clinging to thoughts and feelings and memories. Something has been taken in, and what is it to carry it forward? So one aspect of our practice goes beyond thoughts and feelings. Stand up. Some sense of ease. And space. And gratitude. Don't continue. She says. Move slowly. Quietly. And deliberately.

[29:15]

And then. In his later version. He adds on a few more footnotes. This is how we continue. That's life. This is how we carry it forward. Katagari Roshi said, it's like carrying something that's very fragile. The analogy he used actually was a big, large, wet, soft piece of tofu. Must have worked, it stuck in my mind. Carrying something to get the full part in a moment. So carry it gentle. I would suggest to you, this carrying force, the Bodhisattva Love, in a way, is a similar process. It's not about having lots of ideas.

[30:22]

certainly your own virtue or the virtue the way you're practicing or whatever it's an odd combination what we do to ourselves and what we do to each other and what's possible and how within a can evoke the nobility of spirit, to hold, to hold it off with a compassion. If you think, oh, that general

[31:25]

who massacred the women and children of that village. Those people who attended and cheered and created the ticket parade. They were the unwitting victims of us, of a mindset that had grown up and created us and them. And them are so terrible that killing their women and children is a good thing. How do we do that to that general? How do we do that to those people celebrating? This is our God, all inclusive.

[32:39]

It's not smoke. It's not wonderful loss and terrible loss. It's a kind of humility. this come to be so after 17 years you rewrite your notion or says it and you had some footnotes yes the way is perfect and all-pervading what need is there for concentrated effort like a dragging ticket to the wire however that's not exactly what's happening for you maybe just request to look a little deeper

[33:58]

to look a little wider maybe there's a request to hold the whole human condition This is our bow. Turn it into words and feelings, anywhere you want. Explore what works for you. In a few moments, we'll go outside. in the product of billions and billions of years of evolution.

[35:07]

The extraordinary coincidence of this planet's ecosystem carbon-based cycle is the coincidence of an atmosphere that's 20% oxygen. But we, the interlopers, get to walk on the very ground that the native Indians considered sacred. be holding in our hearts how that's come to be not to get caught up in shame and loathing but to not take the grit

[36:29]

Maybe that's the Bodhisattva Bible. You, you pray, you open your whole self to sky, to earth, to sun, to moon, to one great voice. That's you. that there's more that you can't see, can't hear, can't know, except in moments, steadily growing, and in languages that aren't always solid, but other circles in motion. Like Eagle, at Sunday morning, over South River, circled in blue sky, in wind, swept our parts clean, with sacred works. We see We see ourselves, and we know that we must take the utmost care and kindness in all things.

[37:45]

Breathe in, knowing we're made of all this, and breathe in, knowing that we're truly blessed, because we were born, and die soon within the true circle of motion, like the ego, rinding out the morning inside us. We pray that it will be done in beauty, in beauty.

[38:12]

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