Recently, I read the autobiography of Master Sheng Yen, a wonderful Chinese Dharma teacher. It was called Footprints in the Snow. And I thought, what a great title for an autobiography. You know, footprints in the snow, the snow melts and they're gone. It really highlights impermanence. And I really appreciated, you know, I've appreciated his teaching before, but I really appreciated his autobiography.

[01:01]

And then, maybe two weeks after I finished reading it, the news of his death came across the internet on the American Science Teachers Association site. And there we are. Right back in the ocean of birth and death that I can't seem to stop talking about because I keep bumping into it. And I think we need to really pay attention. You know, that's why that verse is on the haunt. You know the verse on the haunt? Has anybody ever noticed it as they go by? Great is the matter of birth and death. All is impermanent, quickly passing. Wake up, wake up. Don't waste this life.

[02:02]

So we have this fabulous gift of life. And the teaching of impermanence is how are you going to use this wonderful gift of life? How are you going to get it back? How are you going to fully express your appreciation of it? One of the wonderful things in Master Chang'an's book was talking about when he first became a monk. He was 13. And he began his day, I should have gone to look it up to see how many, but with several hundred prostrations to Kuan Yin was the first thing he did each morning. And it reminded me of, well, several things. I mean, Suzuki Roshi, said once, it's very hard for Americans to bow. Maybe we should bow nine times instead of three.

[03:10]

And that's why we bow nine times at morning service. Normally in Japan, you bow three times. But he noticed that it was hard for us to bow. And I remember thinking how odd it was for him to say, well, since it's so hard to bow, let's do more of it. I realize now that it was quite compassionate about him. He really wanted us to appreciate the practice of bowing, of expressing our love and gratitude every chance we get, wholeheartedly. And Master Chang Yen spoke about I really think prostrations are wonderful for clearing karmic hindrances. A few years ago, the American Zen Teachers Association had their annual meeting at a Korean Zen temple in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

[04:23]

And I don't know how many of you are familiar with Korean practice, but there... All the Zen teachers join wherever we're meeting, join with whatever the morning practice is at the temple we're meeting at. And so we joined in with the morning practice at Ann Arbor. And being a Korean temple, the morning practice begins with 108 boughs. And... What impressed me, though, was not just the 108 boughs, but that verse showed up again. We did, you know, people who are accustomed to doing 108 boughs every morning, they're not slow. They're a workout. So the leader, you know, led us in 25 boughs, and then she chanted very loudly.

[05:28]

Great is the matter of worth and death. Then we did 25 more bows. Impermanence is all around us. We had 25 more bows. We awake each moment. 25 more bows. Don't waste this life. And then eight more bows, and then you sat down. And you know, nobody fell asleep. Everybody was wide awake. And everybody knew why we were sitting. It's a very good reminder. And, you know, I remember Bobby Rhodes, who's now head of the Quantum Sense School here in America, was telling me about her. She's done a number of individual hundred-day retreats. And so she was telling me sort of how she set up her schedule for it. She would set up her schedule and go over it with her teacher and even put it. And she did a thousand boughs a day.

[06:31]

And, you know, in the Tibetan tradition also, if you want to become a disciple of a particular teacher, you do a hundred thousand boughs and prostrations in preparation for being accepted as your teacher's disciple. So there's a great deal of... of... precedent or example around us of the efficacy of frustrations. Just putting down the ego and just expressing our gratitude. Expressing our wholeheartedness. making frustrations. And again, Suzuki Roshi used to talk about it, he says, my teacher had a callus on his forehead from bowing.

[07:43]

He said he had to bow a lot because he was a very stubborn person and he needed a lot of bows. So I recommend the practice of frustrations. But my subject today is birth and death and one of the reasons it's so in my face right now is that last Wednesday my nephew was at a gym working out, fell in his head and died on the way to the hospital. He was 58. The Tibetans have a saying, death is certain. Time of death is uncertain. So knowing that, not trying to kid yourself, you know, just knowing that, consider how to live your life.

[09:00]

Let's live right now, in this moment, And this moment. And this moment. And what is the worth of our life? And what do we want to do? Mary Oliver, who's my favorite poet, has a... I didn't bring that poem with me, but... has a poem called A Summer's Day which ends up with doesn't everything die and too soon tell me what is it that you plan to do with this one wild and precious life what is it you plan to do But I read across another poem of Mary Oliver's.

[10:18]

I was listening to the radio and they were broadcasting a reading that she did at City Arts and Lectures. And the opening poem really caught my attention. And I remembered the first line, and I remember another word, but I didn't have a whole poem. I gave Janine, I told Janine about it. Of course, she went to the computer and brought me the poem. Google is wonderful. And so I had this poem I'd like to share. It does a lot to you, but... What do I want to do with this one wild and precious life that's been given to me? My work is loving the world.

[11:21]

Here are the sunflowers, there are the hummingbird, equal seekers of sweetness. Here are the quickening yeasts, there are the blue plums. Hear the clam deep in the speckled sand. Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young and still not half perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. the Phoebe, the Delphinium, the sheep in the pasture, and the pasture, which is mostly rejoicing since all the ingredients are here, which is gratitude to be given a mind and a heart and these body clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy,

[12:37]

to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all over and over how it is that we live forever. My work is loving the world. It's a good thing to do with this one wild and precious life, isn't it? Can we do it? No, the other side of death of the serpent and death of the uncertain, this is how it is that you live forever. Let's talk about that last time, you know?

[13:44]

About someone asking about birth and death. You'll always exist in some form in the universe. There is this way in which life continues. This particular one, in this particular form, ends of life continuing. And this life is part of that continuity. As I talked about last time, Uchiyama Roshi's image of the great ocean of life being scooped up in these particular particular scoops, and then ending up back in the ocean of wine.

[14:57]

I think that's what Mary Oliver means by telling them how it is that we live forever. This life goes on. But this particular wild and wonderful life that we've been given this time, Can we use it to love the world? Can we use it to fill the world around us with love and kindness? This is my ambition. This is what I think my work did, to learn how to do that. I might not succeed, but it couldn't hurt to try. And I invite you all to join me.

[16:01]

Can we do it? Can we fill the world around us with love and kindness? Beginning right here in our own heart and mind. You know, in the traditional meditations on the four unlimiteds, the four social emotions are sometimes called, loving kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity, all of the traditional meditations begin here. May I be happy. May I be safe. May I have ease of well-being. Whatever your meditation formula is for love and kindness, you begin here and move out to those close to you, to those who you may be indifferent about, until you can get to those that's difficult to wish well.

[17:16]

Until you can get to the teaching of the metasutra, may all beings be happy, all living beings, for the weak or strong and high or middle or low realms of existence, clear or born to be born, small or great, may all beings be happy. May they be joyous and live in safety. But we have to begin here. Until we can find a way to wish happiness for ourself, we don't have enough heart to pour it into the world. We need to open our own heart in order to do our work of loving the world. was struck at my nephew's general.

[18:44]

He, along with my oldest son and my first cousin's oldest son, were all named after my dad, who died when he was 52, before they were born. But when one of my nephew's daughters started speaking of what she thought was wonderful about her father, it sounded so much like what I remembered was wonderful about my father. I mean, she used some of the same words that I used to describe my father. What was so great about him is that you could ask him Daddy, why is the sky blue? And he would tell you. He would give you a whole lecture about it. And sometimes she said, and I also said when I was young, could you tell me the short way?

[19:54]

Which would kind of crush it, because she seems tough to just lay it all out there. To hear her speaking Her father, Joe, in the same way that I spoke of my father, Joe, was really intensely moving to me. And she spoke of his great patience, which was also a hallmark of my father. So I was really glad to see that my father had inspired his daughter, my sister, but somehow she passed this down through the generations.

[20:58]

And there was another way that you'd live forever. When we by our acts, inspire others to act very mighty. But when we can be truly compassionate, truly loving in the world, that continues after we're gone through all of those people who were inspired by our loving, by our kindness, by our confession. And to just see that, just to see his daughter describe Joe France in the same way that I described my father, that I think of my father, I could think that the inspiration had gone down through the generation.

[22:03]

It was wonderful. This is what I wanted to talk about, and I've said it, and it's not enough time. I'm not... I didn't prepare a long enough talk, but she wouldn't do. Does anybody have any comments they want to make? If she will, it would have been really, really.

[22:54]

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