This is the end of the day, [...] If I were a dancer, I would dance for you.

[01:06]

And that dance would express everything I'm feeling with no words. If I were a singer, I would sing a song for you with no words. but the sound and the melody would convey all the energies I'm feeling at this moment. If I were a poet, I would write a poem whose images would capture what my words can't. So maybe the energy from which I'm speaking transfers from my body to your bodies. But don't get stuck by the words I'm using because they're very limited. Those who in past lives were not enlightened will now be enlightened.

[02:18]

In this life, save the body which is the fruit of many lives. Before Buddhas were enlightened, they were the same as we. Enlightened people of today are exactly as those of old. That's what we celebrated this morning. And I hope you could feel that, that you one day will be a Buddha. maybe already are Buddha unbeknownst to you, because there are Buddhas who don't know that they are Buddhas, but they go on generating Buddhas. So we don't have to know it, but it will happen. We're on the path, regardless of what we think about ourselves. We're not here by accident. When you go to Bhutan, When they meet you and greet you, they say, your family, we have met, we are finally meeting again, and we have met innumerable times in innumerable forms before this meeting.

[03:33]

And for them, it's completely evident. And it meets you wherever you go. Your family, you're not there for the first time. with them innumerable times before. And so have we here. We don't have to know it. We don't have to know the stories, how we met or how, in what combination we were together. We have been and we will be. And we help each other on the way to being awakened just as the being we are. not as Shakyamuni Buddha, not of any of the other Buddhas or ancestors, just as Carissa, as Lorenzo, as Yoen, as Matt, as our wonderful Ino Ngetsu, everybody, as, don't say it, it's coming, it's on its way.

[04:40]

Okay. So, And that's what I feel you all, we all have been cultivating in such an incredibly moving and touching way through the past five and a half days. And have still an opportunity to continue through today and then a little bit tomorrow morning. And then we're going to be so wonderfully moved into a transition where Sesshin world and the world of everyday life and city life start kind of mingling through the rest of the day. The poem I want to read today is by Mary Oliver, The Journey.

[05:56]

One day, you finally knew what you had to do and began. Though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice, though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. Mend my life, each voice cried. but you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late, enough, and a wild night, and a road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, As you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice, which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do, determined

[07:20]

to save the only life you could save. So we all find ourselves on that journey. Sometimes the old talk is stronger because we have to leave on some level home after home because our life keeps moving forward. Sometimes the tug is light, but we're all on the path to save the only life we can save, the only body we can save, which is the fruit of many lives. This is Longya Chudun, a direct successor of Dongshan, who wrote these words. and Dogen quotes them at the beginning of the Ehei Kosovo Tsugan Won, his fascicles.

[08:25]

One of his fascicles. opening our hearts, our minds are free. So yesterday, my heart started to close down big time. I started to think about today's talk and about tomorrow and about everything that's coming and what I still have to do. And how I thought about my talk today was, oh, it has to follow... logical line from the last talks.

[09:27]

I thought about it in a linear way, and it completely trapped me. I felt like in one of the things we chant, I don't remember in which one is it, in the Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi, maybe like a trapped rat or a tethered colt. That's how I felt, completely. And I wanted to leave. I thought, what a bad idea it has been. Everything just shifted in my perception, and it became really dark and desperate and impossible. Then I thought, I ask Paul if he will give a talk. LAUGHTER And I wrote him an email and I left him a voicemail on the phone. And that already kind of was like... I reached out.

[10:31]

I made space. It was already a little more space. Then I hadn't time to go back to my computer. T came along and after T, Paul left the room and I left the room. And he said, I... wrote you back. And if you really want, I'll give you the talk. Is it okay, Paul, if I quote you? I also want to be sensitive to how that might be for the participants of the sesshi. So we stood in the Enos office kind of pondering that question which also had arisen in me but I had thought I asked Paul anyway you know and then I said yeah I don't know either by when do you need to know Paul said tomorrow after breakfast but maybe that's making it more difficult and I said no that's wonderful thank you

[11:45]

So then the world turned back into connectedness, into spaciousness where I could listen what the voice inside me was saying, what was in my heart, which my mind, the linear mind, had completely obliterated. I couldn't even know there was a heart that might say something. It was as distant as heaven from earth. It says when the slightest delusion, like or dislike arises, the way is as distant from heaven and earth. And since then, I had about at least 50 fabulous Dharma talks going through my mind. just flowing from one thing in the other, completely in themselves. And occasionally I would write something down, but when I read it later, it kind of has maybe still a little wiggle of life in it, but it's not out connected to this moment.

[13:00]

But some of it is still kind of spawned something new. And this morning's ceremony was so... profoundly touching to me to the sounds the drums the flowers all the work that went into it to make it happen all of your presence and your energy it was just the best and the occasion I was wearing that just came to me when I went down I thought oh I'm going to wear this ocasa. This is an ocasa that has 25 joes, and each joe has five panels in it, so I don't know how many. 25 times 5 is 125, I think. It's lined inside with 125 pieces, like this one is, but this only has 9 times 3.

[14:04]

You know, it's like the other color. And Blanche, when I arrived at Green Gulch in 1988, Blanche and Lou were living there, and Blanche has started this ocasa for Zen Center. And I learned to sew on that ocasa, not knowing anything about what it really meant, what an ocasa meant, what all these forms meant. That was my introduction with my body. to do something with my body to this Zen practice. I mean, I've been sitting before, but in every inside place, and I had not known about here. I just arrived. So Blanche's stitches are in that ocasa. My stitches are in that ocasa. Maya's stitches are in that ocasa. Innumerable beings that helped... or in that Okesa, it's still living in the room that Suzuki Roshi used to live, and occasionally it comes out for a special ceremony.

[15:13]

It doesn't belong to any person. It belongs to Zen Center. And at some point with Blanche, it came here, and there was another one with 25 joes made for Green Gulch because it became too difficult to kind of... move it from one place to the other when it was time for it to support and be aired too. It needs life. It can't be just in a drawer all the time. So, when we open our hearts, our minds are free. Lives are free to find their way. We can start hearing our way-seeking heart.

[16:22]

Our way-seeking heart is free to find its way. And speak to us and we can hear. And I feel that's what we all have been doing in those days. the ones that just came for a few days, the ones that came for the whole time. It didn't matter. Everybody has brought their life, their whole life's energy into Zendo, into the kitchen, into the serving, into going through your experiences, into staying quiet. into supporting this deep, deep silence that permeates the whole building. I think on Monday the Meditation in Recovery group met here. Did you hear them? Do you hear them usually? When they come? There's quite raucous when they arrive and raucous when they leave.

[17:25]

We didn't have sign-outs. Please support the silence. Everybody just... responded to it being here. It was amazing. Ed had meetings with people, administrators. They walked quietly through the room. They left quietly. I mean, it's... And that's the power of that stillness that is always there. It runs through everything. And maybe we could taste it... or some of us could taste it, that it is in the midst of the sounds of the sea. They do not disturb that silence in the least way. Absolutely not. It's like the clouds do not hinder the sky. And that has been nourished by your presence, by the way

[18:31]

you engaged what you engaged, and it nourished you back. We say in the meal chant, giver, receiver, and gift are empty. I would like to say, giver, receiver, and gift are one thing, and they go round and round and round. It's giving, receiving, and gift. It's everything. I am the giver, I am the receiver, I am the gift. which is emptiness is form, form is emptiness. But when we say it's empty, I think we should also say it's one, for me, because it would make a different, for me, makes a different connection to it. So the stillness, we all... Each one of us has helped cultivate.

[19:32]

I feel is tangible, gentle, inclusive, calm. It includes loving kindness. The four heavenly abodes are present in the room. or present right here. Loving kindness, metta. Compassion, karuna. Sympathetic or appreciative joy, mudita. Equanimity, upekka. Just by sitting still, just by following your way-seeking heart to sign up, come, and keep showing up, is cultivating these and has cultivated these.

[20:40]

And they, in turn, help us to open our hearts to some experiences where it's easy to open it to and to maybe a little bit to the ones that are more difficult to open to. And it doesn't need much. It's just a little bit. Just a little opening goes a long way. So whatever it is you have made space for in your heart, have acknowledged and are going to acknowledge as we continue the Sashin, are or have acknowledged its presence, that it's here, just acknowledging it's here. When I finally acknowledged, oh, I'm so trapped, and I can't get out of it, Paul came up in my mind, and he was connected to acknowledgement.

[21:43]

Before I was trying to get around it, to get rid of it, to think of something else, to manage it, forget it. I had to say, wow, I have no words. I can't speak. There are no words. I'm out of words, I said to Paul. There's no more words coming. But I had to acknowledge it to myself and then to somebody else, in that case, or reach out. For what we acknowledge and we make space for, We make space for its presence, and it doesn't matter how big or small it is. It can be a hurting toe or little finger or a big sorrow. There's no difference in the effectiveness.

[22:45]

When we make space for that, and how you have made space for that, each of those little... making space of those little openings have added to the depths and are adding to the depths and stillness and silence, which nourishes and encourages all of us to open their own heart in their very own way to their own experience. So it connects us and at the same time it supports us to be as alone as we are because only we can save our life. Nobody else can do it for us. And that's very big aloneness. That's existential aloneness. You all live in your own very own universe and we are completely connected.

[23:51]

So this stillness, this quiet, this willingness to keep showing up in your place, to follow the schedule or to follow what your body needs at that moment and sleep in or take a break because you need a break in order to be able to show up. You need a break in order not to show up. That's the difference. And in your heart you will know the difference. When you do it to support your capacity to show up, it helps everybody, encourages everybody. You haven't left your seat even though you might lay in your bed and take a necessary nap. Necessity in German means Notwendigkeit, that which turns misery. It's a beautiful word.

[24:55]

So when we open our heart and surrender to what is here anyway, to acknowledge its present, we have a chance to follow our way-seeking mind, our way-seeking heart. And that's not always easy. And it may take time and courage to get there. Because, as in the poem by Mary Oliver, we have to leave a home. We have to, we may have, to disappoint, to disillusion, to wake up ourselves, to ourselves, which may include that we disappoint our parents, a friend, a spouse,

[26:25]

a teacher, a community, a dream we had we have to leave behind, a beautiful idea of where this path was going to lead to. But then suddenly, because way-seeking mind may take a turn where it wasn't expected, and suddenly, oh, and I have to leave this behind and go over here, so I have to say goodbye. If it is a process of clarification and following our way-seeking heart, it is fundamentally and ultimately a cause of celebration and a success, which does not diminish how painful it will be, how sorrowful, how much we have to grieve letting go of our own or shared ideas and dreams that seem so close to be really manifesting.

[27:37]

But they are not. When we can open our hearts to all of that, as it will be arriving because grief or loss, feelings of loss, of abandonment or whatever will arise in their own time, They will not all be there and then I can acknowledge them and then I'm done. That's not how it works. It's a slow process and it has its own timing. When we are able and willing to do that step by step to the degree we can, it will heal all wounds and it will heal the suffering in the world. You know, when I became... ordained as a Buddhist priest. It was a big, incredible suffering for my father. He was a very practicing in his daily life Catholic man with a very dogmatic mind.

[28:47]

So for him, to him it meant his daughter is forsaking the salvation of Christ and goes back to him. to being a heathen. And it was incredibly painful for him. It was maybe he felt like he had failed me as a father, he had missed the chance to bring me upright, and there were no ways we could talk about it. Then I started sewing an ocasa. And I suddenly felt I have to go home. I didn't know why I have to go home. I have to go home. I have to go home. So I went to Wendy Johnson. I was working in the garden. I said, Wendy, I need to go home. When is a good time to go home?

[29:49]

She said, now. Perfect timing. So a week later, I went home. And while I was packing, became clear to me why I had to go home. I had to go home and ask my family and my friends if they would put in a few stitches in my ocasa. So I arrive at my parents' house and I share the news and the siblings that were there because they had come to greet me. We had a nice meal all together. I have six siblings. who said, yes, oh yes, and one of them said to my father, so you have to do that too. And my father said, I don't have to do anything. And I said, no, you don't. And I had decided in my heart, I'm not going to ask again. Unless I have to ask again from my heart, I will leave it alone. So I'm there for I don't remember how many weeks and friends and family have put stitches in.

[30:53]

It was a beautiful experience. And the day of my packing arrives and I start packing my things and leaving in the evening. My father says, well, if I want to put the stitch in there, I have to do it now, don't I? And I say, yes, if you would like to. You would have to do it now. And he sat down and put in stitches in my okesa. Still today. So we could never talk about it. When we started to talk about it, we got totally entangled immediately in irreconcilable of ideas. There was no way. But in the living, something else happened.

[31:56]

In the bodies, something happened. Being around each other's bodies, something else happened. So when I got home after drama transmission to visit, my father opens the door, takes my hand and says, where is the ring? LAUGHTER And I said, there's no ring. And then later, several days later, we sit in the den where there's the TV and my father loved to sap through channels and read the paper in between and fall asleep in between. And I was just sitting there. So he turns off the TV and says, so now you're something like a bishop. And I felt like we were just in an elevator going like, whoa, where are we going? And I said, what do you mean? And he said, well, you know, in the Catholic Church, when you get ordained as a bishop, you can ordain other people.

[33:05]

So you can ordain other people. And I said, yes, when you look at it that way, That's true. And there was a respect. There was an acknowledgement. There was a meeting me. That was his way, seeking heart, finding a way. My way, seeking heart, finding a way. And... and acknowledging and leaving the space and time it took for that to arrive. Not digging around, not trying to make it happen, and bearing the pain of it because it was painful for both of us.

[34:08]

He felt abandoned in his faith and in his efforts to bring me up as a worthy person. I felt not accompanied by my father on this very important path. And we just let it be and felt the pain but didn't blame. I think we also both didn't blame. I mean, he blamed himself that he wasn't a good enough father, so that it was his fault. But I didn't think it was that. I think he was a very good father because I could find my way. One more thing I want to say today.

[35:11]

And it's on this page. So, when I open my heart, my mind is free. It's actually a quote, an affirmation out of Ani Trimey's booklet that is so dear to you. Your teacher. It's a wonderful booklet because it brings these affirmations up that come from who we really are but think we are not. So they create a wonderful tension between our fixed ideas and actually what we naturally are. When I open my heart, my mind is free. My life is free. My way-seeking heart is free. It can speak to me, or if you open your heart, it can speak to you.

[36:19]

It can speak to us, and we can hear. We can see that we are not here by accident. We can see that what we perceive and then think and then think is our projections of the self we are so invited by this teaching to let go of. We can begin to see that the being that irritates us is here to help us, to help us see the barriers that these thoughts, when we believe in them, create barriers in our heart that can lead to unkindness. We can begin to see and occasionally get a glimpse that the being that irritates us, that we think is in our way or doesn't fit, might actually be a bodhisattva.

[37:37]

who willingly entered this world of suffering to help us wake up. And I want to plant that in us because it's so easy to forget. The Bodhisattva vow is that we keep returning in whatever form it takes into this samsaric world, this world of suffering. of bondage, to heal it. And we don't heal it by being, oh, it doesn't touch me. We enter it with a body that feels pain, that is a human body that suffers with us, that stands those projections and doesn't give up. So whenever our mind starts creating those ideas around somebody and then we have a tendency to kind of, you know, lobbying for them and gathering evidence and having enough people that see it the same way.

[38:48]

It's distracting us and it's closing our hearts off to ourselves and each other. And during this session we have opened those. I don't know if you feel it. For me, it's totally tangible that all those barriers we all carry around in ourselves have kind of loosened up and other things have gotten through. And can we take care of that? Can we cultivate that also when we leave? So maybe... these next sittings that we still have, this few left over the sittings, occasionally you feel into that. What has loosened up in my heart? Where has it opened up? What are the things that now have a little space or maybe a lot of space that before didn't? So that you can remember them and cultivate them when the sesshin and the practice period ends.

[39:55]

So now it's 5 to 11. If we do one period of 40 minutes of Sazen, how much time does that leave us? 5 past 12 is service? Yes? Let's say Sazen starts at in half an hour, because the sun's shining again today. And let's celebrate that. So go wherever you want to go with your body. The courtyard on the roof, the roof gives you wide open space. The park is right across the street. If you go, go with the stillness. And listen to the stillness. It permeates everything.

[41:21]

The quiet, the silence. Keep your eyes so that the senses don't agitate you and take you out of it. So do whatever you need to do to stay in that space. But avail yourself of what's here. And then there will be the bell? The gong? Okay. So would the gong maybe also gong loudly outside the door? And if you go outside, take your watch with you. Please come back in time. Thank you very much. If I ever sway, she will be with each other.

[42:19]

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