This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everybody. the point of zazen, the hub of Buddha's activity. The turning of the ancestor's hub moves along with beyond thinking and is completed in the realm of beyond merging.

[01:01]

As it moves along with beyond thinking, its appearance is immediate. As it is completed in the realm of beyond merging, completeness itself is realization. When its appearance is intimate, you have no illusion. When completeness reveals itself, It is neither real nor apparent. When you have immediacy without illusion, immediacy is dropping away without obstacles. Realization, beyond real or apparent, is effort without desire. Clear water all the way to the bottom. A fish swims like a fish.

[02:10]

Vast sky transparent throughout. A bird flies like a bird. So, you know that poem? That's Dogen's famous poem about Zazen, Zazen Shin. The point of zazen. And the point, the word point, I believe, is meant in two senses. The usual one, the point of something, meaning the purpose, the essence of something. But he also means the point as in acupuncture point, needle point, subtle, very small, but quite precise. In Zen discourse, we are often baffled by the ungraspability of what's being said.

[03:17]

It all seems so slippery and paradoxical. You sometimes wonder, are they just fooling around? Are they just trying to fool us? But I don't think They're trying to fool us, these ancient worthies. I think they're just trying to tell us the truth as they have seen it. And it inevitably happens to come out that way. Because this is true, they're saying, but also that is true. The truth is this and that, not this or that. So it comes out that way. But within that conceptual difficulty, there actually is a point, a subtle, teensy, teensy, tiny, almost imperceptible, actually, yes, imperceptible and yet findable, when you find it, point.

[04:29]

And when you touch it very gently, Everything opens up. So that's what this poem is about, this acupuncture point of Zazen. The hub of Buddha's activity, the turning of the ancestor's hub, moves along with beyond thinking or non-thinking and is completed in the realm of beyond merging or non-merging. And this we were talking about before, and we talk about it all the time. We read it in Fukunza Zengi, this beyond thinking or non-thinking, which is neither thinking in the usual sense, our ego-driven, desire-driven, fear-driven thinking, nor not thinking in the sense of no thinking at all, a blank mind.

[05:32]

It's neither one of those. It's free and easy thinking. without grasping. It's sky thinking, cloud thinking, serene and undisturbed arising from nowhere and passing into nowhere. And this non-thinking, beyond thinking, is completed in the realm of non-merging, beyond merging. Since the thinking, and experiencing isn't really you anymore. It doesn't feel like yours. It doesn't feel like it's really about you. It is a kind of merging. Because you are really merging with everything around you. The world is you. You know, the stream, the rain is you.

[06:34]

And you are it. The world is others. Others are you. You are them. So you feel harmony and intimacy with everything. So it's merging. But at the same time it's not merging because, as you know, you are still you. You're the one who puts on your pants in the morning. You don't put on somebody else's pants. You put on yours. And you still come from your hometown, not the other guy's hometown. So just like non-thinking or beyond-thinking isn't thinking and it's not not thinking, so non-merging or beyond-merging is not merging and it isn't not not merging. It's non-merging, beyond merging. It's merging, but also it's not merging.

[07:36]

You're you and also you're not. And it's too bad that we have to use all these tricky, you know, words to describe this as if we were describing it. But it seems like this is the tradition of discourse that our ancestors hit on and So we're following it. We haven't figured out a better way so far. So now in the middle of all this stuff is a hub, a circle, a wheel, right? And all of it's turning around this wheel. And you can imagine, you know, a wheel turning, turning, turning your whole life, all of your zazen, turning, turning. around this wheel. And this luminous hub, Dogen says, is the circle of the 93 generations of Buddha ancestors from Buddha's time till the present.

[08:46]

And those 93, of course, in their very specific particularity, each one with a name and a place, stand for Myriad persons and myriad things. And there they are, standing together in a circle, facing one another in that circle. And you're in that circle too. One of those people, one of those 93 in that circle is you. And you are looking across the circle and you can see all the faces and they can see you. with smiles and with a great love. And you're all turning, slowly, slowly in a dance, linking arms maybe, slowly turning, beyond thinking, beyond merging.

[09:54]

And this wheel of dharma is always there in your heart, turning and turning. It's there every time you sit and let go even a tiny bit of your small self-sorrow. And feel, if only for a moment, the largeness of your life. And then you're going to feel that warm disk turning in your heart so Dogen is saying this is the ancestral hub this is the timeless hub all this support and connection through the many generations including Buddha and the seven Buddhas before Buddha in the infinite past this hub is turning in you with all of that support

[10:59]

and depth whenever you sit in zazen. And you will feel it. You'll feel its warmth in your chest. Sometimes some of you I know feel it as a tightness. It's alarming, you know, a pain, a tightness, constriction. That's because when you first feel it, it's strange. Like, what? What? What? Where did that come from? And maybe it feels alien and it produces anxiety, but maybe that's just because you're not fully prepared for it. But little by little by little you will have confidence in it and you will feel its warmth and its support. You know, the idea of ancestors, specifically ancestors, is a really important idea in Zen.

[12:00]

It's unique to the Zen tradition. There are Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and ancestors. And ancestors are not exactly the same as Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are ideal figures. They're archetypes of human perfection. horizons toward which we walk. Their robes are perfect. Their smiles are beatific. Ancestors are human beings. They're quirky. Their socks are falling down. They are definitely not perfect. Linji seems to not be able to help himself from whacking people with a stick. Muzhou, when a student comes to see him, slams the door in the student's face and says, nobody home.

[13:10]

Deshan gives a loud shout and Chute responds to every question, no matter what the question is, by raising one finger. Weird individuals. And even those who were not that weird were very much themselves. Each one with his or her own expression. And as you have been discovering, you are like this too. You are weird. As it moves along with beyond thinking, its appearance is immediate. As it is completed in the realm of non-merging, completeness itself is realization.

[14:19]

So practice, or in this case, specifically zazen practice, it moves along. It doesn't stay in one place. It's never one thing, one state, one way. And this is why nobody can do zazen right. As soon as you do it right, immediately it moves, and now you're doing it wrong. The it in this verse, it moves along and so forth. The it means the ancestor's hub, the turning circle of endless practitioners who do this Buddha activity. This turning hub, this circle of light is always moving as life moves, never ever staying still, just as your breath is always moving with your beyond thinking and your beyond merging.

[15:30]

And every moment, again, it pops up. And it's you. How about that? Another moment of you. Did you ever think, like, why not some mix up in the arrangements and someone else pops up, it's not you anymore? No, it doesn't happen that way. It always pops up and it keeps being you. What a miracle. Somebody's keeping track. Wonderful. Because its appearance is immediate, which means literally without mediation, with nothing hiding it or covering it or interfering with it or defining it. Every moment is immediate. Every moment of you is immediate. It's always there. It's always given.

[16:34]

The true and always unspeakable you is all the time appearing immediately, available to you in this way, all of the time. But, sadly, we don't want to let it be immediate. We want to understand it. We want to know it. We want to mediate it with all kinds of conceptual frameworks, all kinds of words, desires, painful feelings, with old, old stories about our lives handed down to us from the ancient, ancient, painful, painful past. But the funny thing is that each and every such painful mediating thought is itself immediate.

[17:47]

My painful thought of how limited I am is itself immediate and unlimited. that I can think, that I can feel, that I can tell myself painful stories, is itself an immediate expression of life. And that's why in our practice we can cheerfully go on suffering, but at the same time not suffering. We can appreciate our suffering as a kind of miracle, as an immediate expression in us. of life's power. When you think about it, why would it bother you to think that you are a terrible person? Why would it really bother you to think, like, I'm the worst person that was ever born? Why would that be a problem?

[18:49]

Somebody has to be the worst person who was ever born. Why shouldn't it be you? Right? Why is that such a big problem for us? It's fine to be the worst person who ever lived. I mean, it's kind of a distinction, right? And it's a miracle that you could think, you know, such a thing. That you could think, oh, I'm such a terrible person. Wow, what a thing that you could do that. Why should it be as painful as it is? And yet we make it very painful. We don't have to. If we only could open our arms to it, feel it in its immediacy, then it would be okay. It would be just another quirky way Buddha appears in this world. My despair, my depression, my bad self-image is Buddha.

[19:52]

And to feel it as Buddha is to turn it into a gift. And this is very different from the usual way we hold it. Our usual way of holding it is to say, I don't like it, and I'm demanding, absolutely demanding, that it be otherwise. To hold it like Buddha is to open up our hand and just let it rest there in the palm of our hand, marveling that it pops up in just this way. with this beautiful, beautiful, ancient, ancient, twisted karma that inevitably would produce it. They call that compassion. And because it pops up like that, the feeling you have is it's fully

[20:59]

complete as it arises. Every moment pops up complete and so takes care of itself. All you have to do to appreciate that is stop wanting something else out of it. You have to stop wanting it to be your way. What you want anyway is always so small. There's not that much imagination in what you want compared to the awesomeness of what actually is in the way it is. And it might take a certain amount of painfulness for you to eventually appreciate this.

[22:04]

It might take a certain amount of disappointment and failure before you finally give up trying to arrange yourself and the world according to plan. But finally you do give up. You let go and you say, oh, Wonderful. I notice there's an expression that people use nowadays. It's very wise. People will say, it is what it is. You know that expression? It is what it is. It's a brilliant expression. That is true. It's very true. It is what it is. It is not some other way. It is what it is. So I think that's a brilliant expression. But usually, actually, people don't mean that when they say that. What they mean, really, when they say it is what it is, what they mean is, it isn't the way I wanted it.

[23:04]

And it actually sucks. But I guess, you know, there's not a whole lot I can do about it, so I will have to temporarily endure this unpleasantness. That's what they mean when they say it is what it is. But in Buddhadharma, that's not what we mean when we say it is what it is. In Buddhadharma, we are not enduring unpleasantness. We are celebrating the immediate and complete appearance of empty dharmas that neither arise nor cease. When its appearance is intimate, you have no illusion. When completeness reveals itself, it is neither real nor apparent. When you have immediacy without illusion, immediacy is dropping away with no obstacles. So there's a lightness to all this, a kind of ease and a delight.

[24:11]

And it's not so serious because basically it's not real. In Chinese philosophy, there's an old distinction between real and apparent. Pre-Buddhist Chinese philosophy had that distinction. And it's not a Buddhist terminology, but all the places where Chinese Buddhism took root used often pre-Buddhist Chinese terms. So that's what Dogen is doing now. The apparent means the phenomenal world, the world we live in. The real means some other more real world behind that world. Buddhism doesn't have that kind of distinction, but Dogen nevertheless uses these words probably more or less to refer to form and emptiness. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form, which means there is no form or emptiness, right?

[25:14]

Anyway, when you settle into your practice, when you're just content to do your practice, you're not worrying about it, you're not expecting anything special, but you're just happy to receive whatever comes, it sort of occurs to you that everything is real. Absolutely everything is real. And nothing whatsoever is real. The whole world, including your own mind and thoughts, then becomes light and easy. And everything is a surprise, a gift, a flow. And you always get what you need. And you always lose what you don't need, even if at first you don't think so. And your life feels intimate.

[26:19]

And it's pretty hard to explain. You're going to have a hard time after the practice period if you go home and someone says, well, what happened? What are you going to say? When your whole life basically becomes whether you're here or not, following the schedule completely, like the session admonitions say, and for the rest of my life, I will only hear it in Tanya's voice. When your whole life becomes following the schedule completely, that means, like it says, you drop off body and mind, and you simply live in harmony with all things.

[27:23]

Realization, beyond real or apparent, is effort without desire. Clear water all the way to the bottom. A fish swims like a fish. Vast sky, transparent throughout. A bird flies like a bird. I love this final stanza. I quote it all the time. I've always loved it. This mysterious Zen realization, what is it? Here he tells you what it is. It's effort without desire. You realize the path, but it isn't real. It's beyond real. It isn't apparent. It's beyond what's apparent. If somebody says to you, you wasted all that time down there, this pacifistic, life-denying Buddhism is a bunch of baloney.

[28:28]

You say, yeah, you know you're right. I know, I know. Because there's nothing to it, you know. We have nothing here to be defending, right? We have nothing here to protect. This great realization, this great, you know, vast edifice of Buddhism with so many sutras that fills up rooms full of shelves, is just comes down to the simple ongoing effort that you are making in your practice from this moment until you run out of moments. You are just keeping on, patiently practicing. Effort without desire.

[29:31]

That's the trick. That's the key. You're making a strong effort, but not for something, not about something. It's your vow to continue to be a human being, doing your best. and many, many good things come from this vow. Probably it gives you a whole new and entirely unexpected life, but you don't particularly notice because all you're doing is keep on going, keep on walking this beautiful path, keep on living this beautiful life as long as it lasts. And when you do that, you become completely yourself. And you feel like you're living the life you were born to live. You are the person you were meant to be. If you're a fish, you see beautiful clear water all the way to the bottom and you're just swimming along.

[30:35]

If you're a bird, you see the vast transparent sky and you just move in it. You find your sphere of practice, and you make your own way. So this poem, Zazen Shin, The Point of Zazen, appears in Dogen's fascicle by the same name. And in that fascicle, he tells, again, the classic story about Zazen in the tradition. You know this story too, I'm sure. Nanyue polishing a tile. So here's how Dogen tells the story. Matsu was studying with Nanyue. After intimately receiving Nanyue's mind seal, Matsu was continually engaged in Zazen. And one day Nanyue went up to him while he was sitting and he said, virtuous one, what's your intention in doing Zazen?

[31:45]

Matsu said, my intention is to become a Buddha. And Nanue didn't say anything. He went over and I guess there was construction going on. There's always construction going on in temples, you know. So there was construction going on and he picked up a roof tile and he started polishing it on a stone. Matsu said, what are you doing? And Nanyue said, I'm polishing this roof tile to make a mirror. And Matsu said, how can you make a mirror out of a roof tile? And Nanyue said, how can you become a Buddha by doing zazen? Matsu said, then what do you say? And Nanyue said, when a cart you're driving,

[32:48]

Do you whip the ox or do you whip the cart? Matsu was silent. Nanyue then instructed, if you practice zazen, you practice sitting Buddha. To practice zazen is to see that zazen has no fixed form. It's not about sitting or lying down. When you sit Zazen, you go beyond Buddha. You kill Buddha. You go beyond Buddha. If you identify Zazen with sitting, you lose it. So that's the usual story, and it seems like kind of a Zen anti-meditation story, right? Matsu is like one of these contemporary Vipassana students who can't do enough three-month retreats. He thinks that, you know, the way you get enlightened is by doing a lot, a lot of sitting.

[33:54]

So he can't do enough three-month retreats. Sitting all the time. So that's Matsu, it seems, in the story. And Nanyue is using a little, you know, absurd physical comedy to straighten him out. You can't become a Buddha by meditating any more than you can make a mirror by polishing a tile. The real Zen meditation is beyond meditation, so don't be so stuck on meditation. So that's the way the story is always understood. But I don't need to tell you that that's not how Dogen understands it. No, no, no. One of the secrets to how Dogen always understands stories, in the usual Zen story, there's always a clueless monk and a wise teacher who straightens out the clueless monk, right? And the whole story has to do with that. But when Dogen reads the same story, he assumes that all the protagonists in the story are all enlightened Buddhists.

[35:01]

And the whole story therefore completely changes when you read it that way. So here it looks like Matsu's clueless and Nanyue straightening him out, but no. Notice in Dogen's telling of the story, in the very beginning, he says, Matsu had already received the mind seal from Nanyue. That means Matsu is a fully developed awakened practitioner. So that tells you that this is not a case of Nanyue straightening out Matsu. This is a case of two highly developed practitioners engaged in a serious mutual exploration of what zazen is really about. And when you read it that way, the whole story is different. So Dogen opens his commentary to the story by saying something like, look, don't be too sure about anything. Don't be too sure about what you think is going on, what your experience is, what your life is.

[36:05]

Do not be too sure about it. You're looking for the true and rejecting the false. But the false is also good. The false is very useful, as useful as the true. And the whole world is this way. So don't make assumptions. Don't take even what you see with your eyes and what you hear with your ears at face value. You may miss out on your life. Don't believe what you see or hear, he says. Illuminate your eyes. Illuminate your ears. That's what he says in the beginning. So when Matsu says, my intention is to become a Buddha, what is he saying? We talk a lot about intention in spiritual practice, don't we?

[37:07]

Intention seems important. What's your intention for practice? Maybe you're trying to explore and understand and clarify. What's your intention? What is your vow? What's your commitment? We have questions like this. We think about it. But what are we actually thinking about? What is our intention really? Maybe there's no such thing really as intention. Who would intend what? And on what basis? And in the case of intending to be a Buddha, what is that really? Dogen comments on that. He says, does becoming a Buddha mean being made Buddha by another Buddha? Or does it mean you being a Buddha and making yourself a Buddha, even though you already are a Buddha.

[38:10]

So now there are two Buddhas in you, one that you are and the other one that you made? Or is the intention to become a Buddha actually dropping the intention to become a Buddha? Is that what the real intention to become a Buddha is? How many ways are there, he says, to become a Buddha? Can you count them? to intend to be a Buddha and to be immersed in this intention, is itself already becoming a Buddha? By now, perhaps you're not so sure about what your intention is altogether. Maybe the intention we think we have is just another idea projected from our Vast storehouse of really bad ideas. We have a lot of them.

[39:15]

When you think about it, of course it is. Of course it must be that. As Kathy read for us yesterday, do not think your idea of realization in advance is going to be what realization actually is. How could it be? So according to Dogen, what Matsu is really saying when he says, I intend to be a Buddha, what he's really saying is, Zazen itself is already the profound intention to become a Buddha. Not your idea of such an intention, but the actual intention. And the intention to become a Buddha is what a Buddha is. There is no Buddha. out there as an object in the world. There's only the intention to be a Buddha, the full immersion in this intention. So think about it. When you are walking to the zendo to go and sit, even if you're doing this because it's in the schedule and you have no choice and you really don't want to go, but you're going, that feeling, those steps are

[40:33]

Those thoughts in your mind, those movements of your body on the way to the zendo are literally what Buddha is. That's what the word Buddha means. The Buddha means the feeling that you have when you're walking to the zendo. The Buddha is the person slowly moving toward the zendo. You are not going to the bar. You are not going to the movies. You are going to the zendo. There are no Buddhas. There's only becoming a Buddha. And becoming a Buddha is the intention to become a Buddha, which occurs as you walk to the Zendo, in your steps, on your seat. It occurred when you first made the cockeyed decision for whatever bad reason to come to Tassajara in the first place, which now you probably regret by now, if you haven't already burned through that.

[41:35]

Whatever that was that made you come here, and before that, whatever it was that caused you, without a single drop of your wanting it or making it happen, to be born in the first place as a human being, that's what Buddha is. You express your intention to become a Buddha with every step toward the Zendo, and when you take your seat, and before and after you take your seat. This, apparently, according to the Dogen, is what Matsu is saying when he says, my intention is to become a Buddha. He is not naively saying, I'm sitting here working hard so that later on, this Shlomil that I am is going to turn into a shining Buddha. He's not saying that. He's saying, this is what Buddha is.

[42:36]

So that's when Nanyue picks up a tile and he starts polishing the tile on a stone. And then Matsu says, what are you doing? So, according to Dogen, when Matsu says, what are you doing? He's not saying the usual, like, what are you doing? He's saying, what are you really doing? Really, what are you doing? Meaning, what is actually... polishing a tile. What is actually breathing? What is actually human activity? What is actually being human? Polishing a tile looks innocently like polishing a tile, but really, what is it? You're cleaning your room. What are you doing? It looks like you, in this little life that we can describe in 20 minutes, Workday, evening. Looks like you doing this and that.

[43:40]

But really, really and truly, what are you doing? Do not be too sure. This is Dogen's point. Investigate this. Do not be too sure. You should constantly doubt yourself and always ask yourself with all seriousness, what the hell am I actually doing here? That's what Matsu's raising up. And Nanyue replies, I am polishing this tile to make a mirror. Dogen says, saying this is actualizing the fundamental point. Genjo koan. Genjo koan means the koan, the pivotal paradox of any arising moment. What is it? What is time? What is your life? A tile is a tile and a mirror is a mirror, but a bright mirror, a true mirror, an ancient Dharma mirror, is produced from polishing a tile.

[44:52]

That's how you make a mirror like that. All mirrors come from polishing tiles. When you understand what a tile is and what a mirror is, you understand this point. Of course, polishing a tile in the usual way won't make a mirror, but real tile polishing, full engagement with the fundamental arising question of your life while polishing a tile, openness of view, not holding to any view, that's how you make a mirror out of a tile. And that's what Nanyue is talking about here, according to Dogen. He really is making a mirror. He's serious. I'm actually making a mirror out of this tile. He means it. Which, of course, Matsu understands. They understand each other perfectly in this dialogue. So Matsu understands what Nanyue is saying.

[45:52]

And when he says, how can you make a mirror by polishing a tile? This is not a question. This is a statement. in appreciation of what Nanyue has just said. Because how is how you do it. How is how you make a mirror by polishing a tile, by this engagement with the question. By keeping your life an open question, you make a mirror out of a tile. Your life is so important, so precious. Also, Your life goes by like a spark from a flintstone. What is a whole lifetime about? To keep that question in thought and perception is to make a mirror out of a tile, a mirror out of a toothbrush, a mirror out of a bath towel.

[46:57]

Nanyue said, how do you become a Buddha by doing Zazen? And Nanyue appreciates Matsu's response here and he's saying, yes, yes, doing zazen is polishing a tile and making a mirror. It has nothing to do with becoming something later that you are not now. And so Matsu then invites Nanyue to say more. Nanyue doesn't need to say anything more, but... Oops. My web search turned something up for for but. Have a look. I was talking about the word how, and Siri is concerned about the word but. She has various thoughts about that.

[48:02]

Thank you, Siri. I always bring her to my dharma talks. She's invaluable, invaluable assistant. Not as good as Hiro, but she's good. So anyway, Nanyuwe says, when driving a cart, if it stops moving, do you whip the cart or the ox? Of course, Dogen wants to defamiliarize every word in that statement. He starts out by saying, you know, there's no such thing as moving or not moving. Is anything ever still? Now the creek is rushing, so it looks like it's moving. But when the creek is a little stiller and you look at it, it's moving. But it looks like it's still, you know, because the movement is always constant in the same place.

[49:04]

Does your breath move in your belly? You could say, my breath is moving, but it's not moving. It's always in this point. So in the world at large, the answer to the question is quite obvious. Of course you whip the ox, not the cart, you idiot. And from that knee-jerk, unexamined response comes the whole catastrophe of human pain. In Buddhadharma, of course, we don't whip the ox, we whip the cart. We're very gentle with the ox, but we whip the cart. Our effort is to return here to the intimacy of our experience. and to let activity flow according to conditions. Since there's nowhere to go anyway, we don't have to worry.

[50:07]

Still, there are occasions when we too whip the ox. What kind of an ox would we be whipping? An ordinary common variety Chinese water buffalo? Would it maybe be like an iron ox? Maybe it's a clay ox? What kind of a whip would we be using? Would you whip the ox with a horsehair whip? How about whipping the ox with the entire world? Or with your entire mind? Anyway, these are some of the questions that Dogen raises about whipping the ox. Hearing this Matsu is silent. In the ordinary story, it sounds like he's flummoxed. But in Dogen's version of the story, this is like the profound silence of Vimalakirti. Nanyue says, when you practice sitting Zen, you practice sitting Buddha.

[51:18]

It's not about sitting or lying down. In the practice of sitting Buddha, the Buddha has no fixed form. If you sit Buddha, you kill Buddha, you go beyond Buddha. If you are identified by the sitting form, with the sitting form, in other words, confined, stuck on the sitting form, then you haven't reached the heart of the matter. Within the practice of zazen is letting go of zazen. Zazen, we understand, not as a little Zen exercise that we're doing, but as our whole life, at its most profound and sublime. There is nothing more important. There is nothing more valuable than Zazen. And when you sit in Zazen, no matter what you think your experience is, you are clarifying the entire world from top to bottom, past, present, and future. But then the bell rings, you get up, and it's over.

[52:21]

And you forget about it. When you're sitting in Zazen, Zazen is the most important thing. But when you're not sitting in Zazen, Forget it. Whatever you do then becomes your zazen. Zazen is precepts. Zazen is six paramitas. Zazen is four noble truths. Loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity. Zazen is mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of feelings, mindfulness of mental states and dharmas. Zazen is talking truthfully, warmly with friends. Zazen is having some fun. Zazen is sky-watching. And of course, of course, Zazen is scuba diving. Because your sitting is like striking a bell of emptiness,

[53:25]

its reverberations echo throughout the whole past and future. Your faithful sitting during the days and weeks and months of this practice period possesses a virtue that will pervade your whole life from now on, no matter what you do. You can't escape it, and you will not want to escape it. So today I will close my talk with a short poem of my own, which I'm reading by popular demand, which means our Eno has commanded it. That is why I'm reading this poem, which I wrote a few days before Sashen. And it's called The Floating Symphony. The Floating Symphony.

[54:27]

We rally round the cage in which the body lies surrounded by light. All the lowing cattle, all the wide, wild range. We say it's peaceful, but it's not peaceful because we're not peaceful. Peace is a bubble. I am a needle. Peace is a needle. I am a bubble. Peace can't be found anywhere in my flesh, but is everywhere evident in the spaces shot through the disassociated recesses of the flower we lift, looking at it curiously, wondering what it is. on the last human day on Earth.

[55:39]

The flower is a needle in a haystack. It's a joy forever, a nameless pinprick. Meantime, the light-filled body reminisces about all the meals it ate. Thank you all for listening to my long, long Dharma talk. And I want to wish every one of you a happy Valentine's Day. And I hope you'll have a peaceful and loving rest of this final day of session please take care of yourself and by now I'm sure your Zazen is very pleasant I hope so thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center our Dharma talks are offered free of charge and this is made possible by the donations we receive

[56:59]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[57:12]

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