This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, dear Sangha. Good morning, wholehearted good morning. I greet you from the heart of Coast Miwok territory this morning. in the long, deep, and hopefully rain-laden shadow of Mount Temple Pius, West Hill, Coast Meenwalk Territory, ancestral territory for more than 10,000 years, a site of immense healing and continuous learning, unbroken lineage and circle of the way. So a site of deep healing and... a site where this morning, wherever you find yourself, you are sitting, standing, resting, practicing on native land.

[01:06]

So to acknowledge that with full heart and intention is the beginning of this morning's address to each and all of you. So may the site of healing where we find ourselves, may these sites of healing continue, and may we commit together to right relations. with Native people and with all beings in the 10 directions. I would like to dedicate this morning's address to my close and abiding, excuse me, Dharma brother and deep friend, Amigo Bob Contesano, who died this year in this COVID year on the 26th of December. We've been friends with Amigo, Bob, for more than 30 years, he's been the longtime close farm advisor and deep friend to Green Gulch Farm for decades. Like the courageous warrior he is, he passed with great spirit after nine years of...

[02:18]

directly confronting cancer of the throat. And as an orator and a great teacher and a frontline organic farmer, keep the lynx alive was Amigo's message. So this morning I am very much calling Amigo forward and his beautiful wife, Jennifer and family, and all of us at Zen Center who studied with him for so many years. We'll keep the lynx alive. And this courageous man... had the good idea to be one of the first charter members of an organization called Recompose. So he donated his body to a great composting system that's just opened up in northern Washington and was the 108th, this is significant, person to be put into a great vat. And after a good six weeks, he, his body, mine had been recomposed into delightful, rich things. which we're hoping to get a handful of and return to the forest. So dedication this morning to Miko Bob Contesano and to all of our deep friends and recognition that in this COVID time, we are standing, sitting, bearing witness with 3 million who have joined the great majority, 3 million people worldwide dead from this pandemic, one half a million in this country alone.

[03:40]

So holding that truth. in our hearts and minds as we move forward. I'm so honored to be able to speak to you this morning in honor of Earth Day, or what I love right now, Joanna Macy and her address a few days on proper Earth Day, April 22nd. Joanna Macy reminded us that it's not just Earth Day that we're celebrating, but Earth Justice Day, a time of great turning and justice. opportunity for us right now. So we are joining with people worldwide on this auspicious day in honor of the earth. Here as the moon grows full and the lyrid meteor showers, 20 meteors a night, dark and brightening the night sky, we stand together in honor and protection and

[04:41]

fierce commitment to listen to the teachings of the earth and to, and to abide and respond to them. So I want to go a little bit of a backstroke and you see me backstroking into this beautiful print on our wall, a print from ecologist and teacher Duncan Williams, who lives in the Nehalan river, this of a beautiful Chinook salmon, full size, this is the pressing of the body of the salmon. And underneath the salmon, a rib bone of a great gray whale here on our altar, our home altar, to remind us together of the importance of celebrating and recognizing the presence of the people of the global majority, the beings of the world, and the close to 1 billion human beings and more than human beings that have gathered this just a few days ago on April 22nd in support of justice for the earth and the beings of the earth.

[05:50]

So I remember vividly April 22nd, 1970, when 20 million Americans initiated the celebration of earth justice day. I'm going to just call it that straight out. Now in that time, 20 million Americans, a good 51 years ago, now 1 billion human beings celebrating, participating, rededicating practice to protection of the earth from 193 countries. And in 1969, the UNESCO conference in San Francisco proposed a full day to honor the earth, a day of practice, a day of meditation, a day of mindfulness and awareness, mindfulness from the two characters, heart and mind together in the present moment. And on that day, in that year, in 1969, on January 28th, I vividly remember the oil spill in the waters of Santa Barbara.

[06:56]

Some others of you present may also remember that fateful day when the ocean was darkened with well oil seeping up Through the water, a well blew out and 200,000 gallons of thick oil rose up for a solid 11 days to cover the ocean, January 28, 1969. At the same time, actually a few months later, in the East Coast, the Cayuhuga River, burning from an oil slick and pollution on the river. And I think what happened is humankind took a look and reconsidered what it means to be alive in these times. And there was a giant dedication to protecting the earth and the peoples of the earth. So it was a senator, Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin, who had a vision of a teach-in learnings and time when we could really focus on protecting the earth.

[08:02]

And so it began in 1970. And along with the disasters, a great force of will rose up in the 1970s. I like to remember the ethos of Earth Justice Day. In 1970, the foundation of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration or the NOAA administration to protect the oceans of the world. And not long after the formation of the Natural Resources Defense Center, in 1972, Clean Water Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, 1973, Endangered Species Act, 1974, through the EPA, Safe Drinking Water, and on and on and on during the 1970s. So I'm proud to have grown up during this time and to be able to reflect on these times now, today in celebration.

[09:05]

And in 2021, restoring our earth, 1 billion people worldwide participating in five programs, particularly to make sure that worldwide hunger is turned around in the Buddha's lifetime. He reminded us that the greatest gift we can give one another is the gift of material balance and health, healthful food. So with the gift of good food and protecting people from hunger, It is possible to generate a call to call forth the Dharma and also to be unafraid in our advocacy for protecting the earth. And that depends on the gift of good food. So this year, in particular, a focus on Earth's justice day to make sure that all beings in the 10 directions come to the table and are fed. And climate literacy and evening out of the... gigantic and growing inequity through poverty, racial disparity and tension and also pandemic and global health.

[10:16]

So to rectify in some way this injustice and to bring the earth together in celebration and co-commitment and also a global earth challenge and a challenge to... clean up especially plastics in the world now. And ironically, one of the highest new sources of plastic pollution is face masks that are being discarded. So a call to all of us to be as mindful and careful as we can be during this time. So I wanted to begin by acknowledging Earth Day and this extraordinary time. Now, if you will, let's just take a break wherever you are. So that's a little bit of history, extraordinary history, 51 active years of protection and great sorrow and worry and recognition of huge loss and change, but also the opportunity to work together and to practice together.

[11:27]

And I remember in particular... Let me just, again, encourage us to, wherever you are, just put down whatever you're doing. And let's take a deep breath in and out. Not turning away from The calamities that face this earth and world in this being time, but also not being submerged by the things of the world. So breathing in. And out. Strong spine. Soft and open front.

[12:30]

facing our times. And one more deep breath in and out. So I want to pivot to a more personal story. I love to call up Ed Scott Fitzgerald, draw your chair close to the precipice. I'll tell you a story. Come, come, come. Look into the abyss until, in fact, the abyss looks into you. And imagine from the teachings of Zen Master John Didylori. looking at the interconnection of dharma and deeds. So staying in the spirit and heart and mind of meditation, maybe even closing your eyes, these beautiful words from Roshi John Dido, Laurie.

[13:43]

Imagine, if you will, a universe in which all beings have a mutual identity. Imagine all beings have a codependent origination. Imagine when one being, when one thing, when one thought arises, all beings, thoughts and possibilities arise simultaneously. And everything has a mutual causality. What happens to one thing happens to the entire universe. And so imagine a universe that is self-creating, self-maintaining, self-defining in its organic thusness. A universe in which all parts and the totality of all that we know and see and dream of.

[14:55]

All of the pieces and the whole being at once are one living, breathing, existing being. I think of the great hall designed by Julia Morgan at Asilomar, where for almost 40 years we'd gathered with Amigo Bob and organic farmers, some 1,500 organic farmers. from all over the world. And every time we're there at Asilomar, we go into the chapel designed by Julia Morgan, and she echoes John Vidalori around the ceiling and the high beams of this beautiful wooden being, because that chapel is a being. It's very much like the body of a great fish or a young whale and written around the beams, above the voices, Of the many waters, because this chapel is right close to the Pacific Ocean, the mighty breakers of the sea sing, O heavens, and find joy.

[16:03]

Break into singing, O mountains. So I want to drop down into an experience that those of us who live here in Coast Muwok Territory, near Vier Beach Territory, that's been tended for 10,000 years with pristine and continuous care. We know that on the 8th of April, the celebration of Buddha's birthday, wonderful celebration also, the birthday of the little girl, Hadley, whom I lived next door to. She turned one year old on April 8th. And I think of Lucas Kila, born at Green Gulch. Also on April 8th, I think of children of the world on that beautiful day, April 8th. Word went out that a healthy whale had washed up on the beach and died and was dead. So the word went out to our living community here in Muir Beach.

[17:10]

And we walked down to the ocean. Our next door neighbor, three-year-old brother, Charlie Graham and little Hadley. In her mother's arms, we went down to pay respects to this extraordinary sea mammal, a great gray whale, 40 feet long, 36 tons in weight, absolutely healthy, dead on the beach. There were shark bites on her back and a clear blow to the right side of her head. And we gathered in awe, actually, to be present to such a huge... And people came and went. Many, many people came to the beach. The area around the whale was roped off. And I thought of Earth Day, Earth Justice Day. I thought of all the beings in the deep ocean who are coming now to shore. You know, even in this month of April, there have been four...

[18:12]

whales washed up dead on the beaches of the extended circle of the Great Bay Area, Muir Beach, Fitzgerald Reserve in San Mateo, Crissy Field in beautiful San Francisco, and in the Berkeley Marina in Chichen Yolani Territory, a dead whale on each of these beaches. An extraordinary number to be on the shores right now. And these giant mammals are completing right now. They're in the process of one of the longest migrations on planet Earth, an underwater migration for these ancient ones to travel every year from the Gulf of Alaska through from the feeding grounds of the Bering Straits and the Chai Sea and the Beaufort Sea. feeding and strengthening themselves. They make a pilgrimage or a journey, a migration, a long journey southward to breed and calve in the warm seas of Baja California, 10,000 miles.

[19:25]

The whales travel slowly and methodically, carefully finding their way. They travel at about five miles an hour through the deep oceans, maybe 75 miles a day. as they make their slow process south and then north again, along close to 7,000 miles of shoreline. And deeply significant, I think, is that they stay, they hug the shoreline of Washington, Oregon, California, Mexico, all the way down into Baja, into the Gulf of the Baja Gulf. So this beautiful migration beginning in September through October and continuing until the whales arrive in Baja California. They're hefty from feeding in the nutrient-rich waters of the Arctic and then arriving in Baja California where they calve or breed.

[20:27]

And then late in, usually birth time is January. I mention this because the whale... who washed up on Muir Beach, is a female. And was she traveling with the calves? Her calf, perhaps. The calves are born in January of every year in the Gulf of Baja, in those lagoons. A newborn whale comes to life 15 feet long, weighing a scant 1,500 pounds. And they nurse on their mother's rich whale milk for close to seven months. By February or at least March, they're strong enough to accompany their mothers on the journey back north to the cold waters, to the nutrient-rich waters. And there is no chance for them to be eating as they travel. So that by the time they come to California or to Oregon or to Washington, they're weak with the journey but persistent in their traveling. So I was deeply aware of this migration standing there on the shore.

[21:34]

And people came and went all morning. For me, I felt that to bear witness and to stay present with this newly dead being was a great honor and privilege. And I was present there on the shores of Muir Beach when the Marine Mammal Association, Marine Mammal Center came. very life and strong young women scientists with obvious appreciation and awe for the extraordinary being that was on the shore, circled her, protecting her, looking at her, measuring her, being completely quiet with her before consulting with one another and climbing up on the body of the whale and they proceeded to perform and extraordinary for me the first time in my life, observing a necropsy or a biopsy of this whale because science calls to know what is happening to these whales.

[22:49]

Their populations have plummeted. At their peak of healthiness in 2016, there were some 27,000 monitored gray whales in the waters. And there's been a decline of about a quarter from global climate change. from the warming of the oceans and from pollution and from commercial fishing. And especially because this was the corroborated cause of death for the near beach whale from accidents in the shipping lanes. And the shipping lanes, as you well know, during this pandemic have been very busy, primarily and multiply busy. And the ships are traveling at huge velocity. So an exhausted whale, heading home to the Arctic. You can only imagine them experiencing confusion, their sonar being thrown off and unavoidable contact with the ship. So this whale was killed by a blow to the right side of her head.

[23:51]

She died instantly and was washed ashore. We didn't know that when the scientists approached her. And I watched as they sectioned with long... almost like machetes, opened her body, and suddenly she was very alive in her death. As her organs came out into the light, the children screaming and running away, and I found myself stepping closer. I had my old, rather tired cell phone in hand and immediately thought to call Kathy Fisher, Sensei Kathy Fisher. She, I know, is leaving a practice period, but I thought she might have a break. And was able to beam in on the well because Kathy was deeply knowledgeable in the ocean depths and the ocean creatures. So together we practiced and offered our presence to this extraordinary being as she was truly dismembered. And her organs were harvested, as people like to say.

[24:54]

For me, it was an extraordinary experience, especially to see how. extremely healthy she was and how alive. And so I stayed for a few hours watching them cut out her stomach, remove her eye, looking at measuring her tail. All of this procedure happened. And then in the afternoon when all the procedures were finished and the organs had been harvested and taken to Cal Academy of Sciences, the ocean It was pretty far away from the whale. And people continued to come and go. And in the night, my husband and Norman and Kathy went down to pay respects in the dark. And at daybreak the next day, when there wasn't a crowd of people around, I went to the ocean with this, a wand of sage. Sarah Tasker and Hilary Rand have been providing me with sage wands.

[25:58]

So I took a wand of sage. And a little book of matches and a lei from Hawaii, from the Hawaiian Islands, a lei that my daughter had given me a year ago, a dry lei. And at maybe six in the morning, went out to the beach to practice meditation with this extraordinary being. Our fire chief from your beach was there. looking and figuring how might we care for her now? Do we pull her to sea? Will we be able to do that? Is she to be buried? All these issues come from, as Dido Laurie encourages us, imagining a universe in which all beings have a mutual identity. Everything reams, everything is contingent on one another and on all beings together. We have a codependent origination. So we were plotting, shall we... try to get a boat and pull her out to sea because the resources of the Marine Mammal Center and of the National Park Service were not sufficient to do that.

[27:07]

She was left on the beach, and she was providing and is providing a great feast. But on this morning, the 9th of April, it was enough to, in the incredible wind, luckily there was another neighbor who held open Her coat, and I crawled inside her coat, well-masked, of course, and she also, and lit the sage. And then the ocean was coming up close. We walked around the whale with incense and chanting, thanking her for her life and her presence. The lei fit beautifully in her eye socket. And when the sage was burned down, we went home. For the past two weeks of this being has continued to decompose, come apart and be recombined, recomposed on the shoreline of Muir Beach.

[28:11]

Mia Monroe from Muir Woods National Monument reminds us that the great California condor that close to extinction is coming to life again from beached whales, a dark benefit from the death of the marine mammals. But for me to practice with her in all stages has been remarkable. And yesterday morning when the ocean was churned up and wild, my husband and I went out early again, early and the waves completely covered her. She, at this point was beautiful to stand there with Risa from Green Gulch as well. We stood and offered prayers and love and attention and, and watched right now, um, The whale is completely suffused with water. She is liquefying in the water and becoming part of the ocean in every way. She's glorious and she has been feeding many beings.

[29:12]

Some human beings sectioned off pieces of whale meat. Many beings are hungry now. And she's offered a feast to all the shore birds. Even ravens are now so satisfied. with whale meat that they're not bothering to beg on the beach. They are conic and powerful. And the birds covered her with their wing beats, taking her apart, recombining her on every breath. So I hoped to tell you this morning that the sea had reclaimed her, but late at night, going back again, this time with my son, with our son who grew up in near beach, going out, again, offering blessings and prayer. One of the most beautiful things is in the moving waves, the whale's tail has been moving and flipping, almost as if she's swimming and being recombined. Nothing there is that does not suffer a sea change.

[30:15]

A close Dharma sister, Claire from Point Reyes, recommended to me a book that I've not been able to put down ever since the whale washed up on the shore, fathoms, the world in the whale. Let me just read you this definition because she is now being reclaimed by the fathoms. Fathom, a six-foot quantification of depth, breadth, originally indexed, fingertip to fingertip measure, an arm span, an attempt, to understand a metaphor for reaching out to make sense of the unknown. Let me read that again, because this being from the fathoms, from the depths, offers us an attempt to understand a metaphor for reaching out to make sense of the unknown. Ariel's song in Shakespeare's Tempest...

[31:21]

Full fathom five, thy father lies. Of his bones are coral made. Those are pearls that were his eyes. The passage is the origin of the expression, a sea change. Nothing there is that doth not suffer a sea change. A profound reversal of fortune, perspective, and circumstance from which there is no known return. This is not a metaphorical story. It's a story that is continuing to unfold and to reveal itself. And I'm deeply grateful for the gift of meditation and helping me understand. I remember years ago when my sister sent me an account of a whale, a gray whale. No, this was a humpback whale off of the coast of the Farallon Islands. She was tangled up.

[32:22]

In 45, she was 45 to 50 feet long. She weighed 50 tons. She was right off the Gulf of Fairlawns, and 20 crab pot ropes had wrapped around her, 240 feet long, every rope, and weights of 60 pounds throughout the ropes. And she was being dragged down, her blowhole in danger of going under the water. And in the article that my sister sent, she The divers who observed her knew the only thing they could do would be to go into the water, understanding that one flip of the giant tail of this humpback whale would be the end of them. But they went into the water, and with fishing knives, they proceeded to spend two hours, four human beings, encircling this whale and cutting free the ropes. Twelve crab traps, 90 pounds each. being sawed off the well, and she hung in the water, just moving her fins.

[33:22]

The lead diver said that it was his to go. It was his work to go up to her head where the ropes had been ensnared in her mouth. And looking deeply into her eye, eye to eye, he cut up that rope, reached into her mouth and pulled the traps out. And finally, all the ropes fell away. They described the whale cavorting through the ocean, circling each of the divers. An encounter, said the lead diver, that I will never in my life forget. So these are the times we're living in. Shipping lanes crowded, moving too fast. Global seas warming, Arctic krill lessening. Hungry whales wake up calls on every coast and every breath. If we're a lie to these times, then we're a lie to the suffering and the truth of suffering.

[34:29]

But my teacher Thich Nhat Hanh always reminded us that sometimes suffering is not enough. And what we most need to do is to hear within ourselves the sound of the earth crying and not turn away from it. What we most need to do is to hear within ourselves the sound of the earth crying and not turn away from that sounding, from that call, from the fathoms, from the depths. And we're here, Thich Nhat Hanh would often say, we're here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness in whatever way, to remember that I am not this. This world is not mine. And this is not myself in the teachings of the Buddha. I am not this. This is not mine. This is not myself. And nothing exists outside the nature of contingent relationship.

[35:32]

Everything leaning, imagining this universe. How do we do it? There are ways that we can practice. What are the simplest ways? in this not simple time. I have a fan from Thich Nhat Hanh's home monastery, a gift from my dear Dharma sister, Barbara Gates, who visited Thay's monastery in Hue, this beautiful fan covered with, you can see, made of sandalwood, a lattice work of cranes. I imagine them flying over the ocean and fanning the winds. with their wings. So fanning toward Thich Nhat Hanh and toward each other, finding a way, what are the practices that can help us meet the challenge of birth justice? Quite simply, I appreciate the simplicity.

[36:36]

I remember that these four suggestions from Thich Nhat Hanh came from a retreat we We did in the early 1990s with children, 90 children in the early 1990s at La Casa de Maria. And in this time, in order to deeply hear and respond, here are four offerings that Thich Nhat Hanh suggested can help us in desperate. First of all, can you actually find some way to stop? To hold still. I remember him telling the children of a man being run away with by his horse and people in the village saying, whoa, whoa, where are you going? And the man looking back over her shoulder saying, I don't know, ask the horse. I love that story. We're moving so fast through the shipping lanes and beyond. We don't feel the vibration from the deeps.

[37:36]

We forget what it means to be alive. So can we stop? And stand still. And I remember Ty teaching the children Chinese character, the ideogram for stop. And each child, those 90 children, babies, our daughter Elisa was, she was a few, she was maybe not quite a year old during that retreat. But I remember together standing and making that gesture for stopping. On the same spot I sit today. Thich Nhat Hanh offered us this poem. On the same spot, I sit today. Others come in ages to sit. One thousand years, still more beings will come. Who is the singer? Who is the listener? What will it take to stop and sit still? Because practice begins when you can actually stop and be still.

[38:39]

And then secondly, find a way in extraordinary, dangerous, and unjust times to calm the mind, to deeply calm the mind. The soul of jazz, a good friend reminds me, a music friend reminds me, the soul of jazz is repetition with revision. And to repeat and revise takes a calm and open heart, one that's ready to stop. and start afresh on every breath, to repeat and revise, to find real calmness. Thich Nhat Hanh telling us that when he assisted boat people in escaping from Vietnam across the Gulf of Tonkin to Malaysia to so-called safety, although many boat people were returned to Vietnam, one calm person in a boat could settle the whole anxiety and churlishness of the boat. And calmnessy, one calm person chanting or sitting still and calmly looking.

[39:46]

One calm person able to recognize, I'm afraid and I know there is fear in me. And to accept, I'm afraid and there is fear in me. Even to embrace, I'm afraid and there is fear in me facing this world. And then to look deeply at the causes and conditions. that give rise to evidence of how we're living, and then to have some insight through a calm and quiet mind to the great cause of fear, anger, and sorrow, and to turn it. This may sound grand. It's not at all grand. It's absolutely primal, ancient work. When we can stop, when we can actually calm down. The next point, the third point, is the importance of rest. Even in the calamity and the enormity of the death of the whale on the beach.

[40:54]

Yesterday, even in the cold, cold wind, until Peter came and joined me, when I realized how cold I was, standing by the shore, I felt a deep rest in watching the whale. become liquid, be reclaimed by the great ocean. Watching the waves bring her back, animate her tail, bring her back, call her home to the depths. I could feel a kind of rest and restoration from that. And animals, when they're wounded, heal by resting. Perhaps this whale had a moment to rest in the great waters before she washed ashore. Find a place, Frank Ostasevsky reminds us in his five invitations, find a place to rest in the midst of full activity. Find a place to rest in the midst of full activity. And don't turn away from full activity and from rest.

[41:57]

When I met Thich Nhat Hanh years ago in Plum Village, my family traveled there and he was... suggesting work assignments for everyone, suggested that Peter might help take out a full fruiting vineyard so that the wine industry wouldn't be increased. And when I asked him, well, what work can I do? I remember him pointing to a hammock and saying, you need to rest and chill out, basically. Just rest for everyone here, please. Stop. Calm down and take a rest. The Art of Leisure by Piper. The Art of Real Education and Renewal depends on being able to rest. I love a broad margin to my life, writes Henry David Thoreau. Sometimes on a summer morning, I sit in a sunny doorway from sunrise until noon.

[43:02]

And I grow. in this rest, in this season. I grow like corn in the night. So please, in whatever way is genuine for you, find some true rest in the midst of your activity, in the midst of watching a whale be reclaimed by the waves of the deep. Find some way to rest. And last of all, to heal. The healing of spaciousness. Each moment dissolving into another. Wide margin. Beginner's mind. Suffering, says Thich Nhat Hanh, is not enough. Suffering is made up of non-suffering moments. And there cannot be healing unless you remember this. Unless we can remember to listen to the cry of the earth within us. And to recognize, encourage, and realize perhaps in our time together for conversation, we can look more fully at healing, what healing might take.

[44:14]

These practices are utterly simple. And they remind us, they remind me quite deeply of a primary teaching from the Buddha. The world is The origination of the world. The cessation of the world. And the past leading to the cessation of the world. All lie within this fathom long body. Our own human body. The world. The origination of the world. The cessation of the world. And the past leading to the cessation of the world. all lie within this fathom long body. So perhaps earth justice turns and opens and finds its own repetition through revision in us, in each one of us making music with what is discordant and broken.

[45:27]

and not turning away from that old song. So I'm grateful for the opportunity to meet with you today, grateful for the work of San Francisco Zen Center, for the beautiful food that's grown and shared, for the collaboration with San Francisco Zen Center and the Cultural Conservancy and Native-led organization, making sure that all beings in the Ten Directions have access to original food. to Native food, and by sharing the harvest together and distributing the harvest together, a huge amount of gratitude this morning. Gratitude for our teachers and friends, like Amigo Bob Contasano, Daigon Luke, Yvonne Rand, Bill Sterling. Great beings, all of them. In now, with the great majority, along with the gray whale of your beach. Off the great divide to the great majority.

[46:29]

Gratitude for their teachings and for their encouragement to live a full and vigorous life. So I want to close by just in whatever way, if this has been a long and intense morning, just shake off whatever you don't need. Stop thinking about everything that's been brought up. Find a way to calm down. To actually generate rest and healing. And if you'll allow me to just encourage you to sit still. Maybe we'll take three deep breaths and then I'll close by an adaptation of a poem called The Old Mindicant. By Thich Nhat Hanh. So you can hear these words.

[47:30]

And harvest from them. And then. Kogetsu will lead us in the closing chant. So just sitting. Deep sitting. Breathing in. I know I'm breathing in. Breathing out. I know I'm breathing out. Into a body that is. Breathing into a body. That is more than 75, 78% salty water from the depths. Most of the body, sweat, tears, semen, blood, carrying that inscription and identity with the fathomless ocean. Salty water. We're made of it. So, of course, we recognize. And then in the call of the spine, sweet water. Just in the call of the spine, in exact proportion to the waters of the world.

[48:34]

In our very bodies, in this fathom long body. So let's not turn away from this truth. Being rock, being gas, being mist, being mind, being missions traveling among the galaxies at the speed of light, you've come. To this world. Taken the path. Traced for you. From non-beginning and never-ending. You say that on your way here. To this very moment. You've gone through many. Millions of births and deaths. Innumerable times. You've been transformed. Into firestorms. Into whale song. Sounding in the deeps. and you use your own fathom long body to measure the age of mountains and rivers. The eyes with which you look out at this morning show that you have never died.

[49:41]

Your smile invites us fresh into the game whose beginning no one knows, this game of hide and seek. Suns, moons, stars blow out each time you exhale. Who knows that the infinitely large must be found in your very body. Upon each point, this truth is established. With each stretch, you measure time from non-beginning to never-ending. The great mendicant. of old, is still here on Vulture Peak contemplating the sunset. Gautama, Buddha, how strange. Who said the Udambara flower blooms only once every 3,000 years? In the sound of the rising tide, eyes of compassion, observing sentient beings assemble an ocean of blessing beyond measure.

[50:50]

Thank you very much. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[51:16]

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