Flowing Wisdom: A Dharma Talk on Water

tonight I'd like to speak about the water of the Dharma on various Monday evenings there's talks that have focused on instruction and meditation or spiritual topics Compassion or working with renunciation or um making one's life peaceful or centered in the world or various aspects of Buddha psychology for this evening the last few days I've been particularly aware of the change of seasons the two days of rain that we've had in the last few days at least here which is quite amazing all the smells start to come back and the land starts to feel different and the leaves are falling there's this whole sense of autumn having come so there's that change and and um last night I received a call that my father who will be 75 years old tomorrow um was in the hospital again he's been in hospital on and off with uh um heart problems he had grave heart problems uh some time in the past and he was thinking he wasn't going to make it to his 75th birthday but I think he's too um these two can't tanker us and difficult an old man to die that easily so we'll see but um he has been very sick and that also has just made me quite aware of change aware of the waves of change that make up life so I'd like to speak tonight in a symbolic or metaphorical language based on one of the sutras or teachings of the Buddha on the ocean and water the water of meditation the Earth and all of her plants and animals are nourished by the sweetness of rain water or nourished by the water of the sea in Buddhist psychology water is spoken about or taught as one of the four Great elements and the four Great elements earth air fire and water are described as great because of their enormous creative power and their enormous destructive power each of them our own body is 80% water we came out of the sea we were sea creatures a long time ago swimming around and in some ways we are now a kind of ambulatory bag of sea water with some bones to kind of hold it together but it's basically saltwater that's what we are so we carry the ocean with us one of the direct intentions of meditation is to help us touch or know or live quite directly in the world so that the four elements that are spoken of uh in Buddhist psychology are not a theoretical model of some metaphysics but they speak to direct experience the element of Earth is hardness or softness how you feel things the element of fire is temperature hot or cold the element of air is wind movement vibration and the element of water is cohesion or fluidity and when you pay careful attention to life the physical life of our body and senses these elements become produc dominant and they're always changing so during the introductory meditation classes where we teach eating meditation that probably most of you have been through and we use raisins you eat these raisins and pay attention the first thing we ask is that people look at the raisin and if you look at a raisin carefully or any kind of food look at a raisin you don't see raisin what you see is certain shapes and areas is of color and form and shade and light raisin is the name but the direct experience is in that moment something new and unique the colors and forms or you touch them with your fingertips and again if you pay careful attention you don't feel the raisins what you feel is stickiness or softness or particular temperature or a pattern of pressure and hardness the same if you take your hand and touch the floor floor or the chair where you're sitting you won't feel floor or chair those are the words what you feel is temperature hardness patterns of softness Earth fire air water direct experience fluidity or lack of it or you have a rose rose is the name but what can capture the smell or the color or the shape in certain forms or something equally mysterious that we have words for but is quite different in its presence is death if you're ever there at that mysterious moment when a person dies quite amazing thing there they are they're alive in some way there's this sense of relation and then in a moment later it's as if there's this shell of a body that has nothing to do with who they are it's just meat it's just something that starts to get cold and ready to go back into the Earth most mysterious moments we have words for these but the direct experience is something else so to meditate is to come more closely into relationship with our life with physical and emotional the the life of of our being and to meditate allows us to more directly experience the fluidity of our life if we focus tonight on water you know when we do the eating meditation of raisins teaching eating meditation one of the fun things that happens is as everyone's chewing their raisins all of a sudden the room gets filled with sound and you hear this kind of saliva in everyone's mouth and the munching and chewing in you know in all directions in room cohesion and fluidity the element of water it's a part of Buddhist teaching and even more deeply it is Central to the teachings of Daoism which has gotten mixed in Zen and other Buddhist practice over thousands of years the central symbol of Awakening in the da everyone knows that the softest substance can overcome the most hard it says in the da in yielding we succeed so water speaks to a certain aspect of our life fluidity yielding flexibility and yet water always follows its true course it always goes to the end of its course not only is water flexible and fluid but it's also quite powerful this summer we were visiting my uh daughter and new grandson in Upstate New York near Buffalo so we went to Niagara Falls and we rode the Maid of the Mist which is this boat that takes you right under Horseshoe Falls was quite fantastic actually and there's this enormous river wall of water that plunges over and you're just underneath it incredible sense of power there AR Falls is a strange Place actually I won't talk about the heart-shaped beds in our motel or anything that's a whole other thing anyway or a few years ago there was a meditation master from Burma leading a retreat for many of the teachers in this community in Hawaii on the big island this Retreat Center that was near the coast and then one day they got in the middle of the retreat they'd been sitting for 2 or 3 weeks weeks and all of a sudden the uh the phone rang and they got a word they had a tsunami warning for a tidal wave and their Retreat place was right there on the edge of the island so hearing it they had just a few minutes everyone grabbed whatever small thing they could and they all went uphill right and then they sat what else to do they were see they were on Retreat supposed to be side so they sat but with their eyes open and they waited to see if this huge W would come in and wash away the entire meditation center and everything they brought with them and how far up it would get on the mountain it didn't come it's actually just a very small wave from that earthquake came so there's a tremendous power in water even though it's yielding there's a tremendous kind of energy as well to go its true way water is also protective the South SE are some of the last places to get colonized or the Galapagos are places there they're protected by the water that surrounds them and certain Buddhist temples where I practiced the place where the most important rituals are held the SEMA it's called is a water SEMA where they make uh a beautiful temple on stilts in the middle of a lake or a pond and then you go across the water by boat or you go by a little Bridge and then take the bridge up and meet in the center of the water as a symbol of protection and Purity water cleanses there's this whole wonderful sense of Purity and we have it now water bills right it's a commodity it comes out of copper pipes and stuff like that but it isn't really it's our body and it's our life and if you ever have the chance to compare a glass of tap water even pretty good Marine water which comes from the lakes and mount tamilas and water that just comes freshly out of a spring a clear spring from the ground it's it's really different it's like wa water is living like wine when it comes out of a spring and we've lost that sense of connection again like the raisins or whatever we've lost that sense of the beauty of [Music] water ice forms cloud forms water in streams water in the oceans sand master dogen says speaking of Enlightenment if a person is in a boat on the ocean it seems circular and nothing else but the ocean is neither round nor Square it is a palace it is a jewel only for a moment only to our eyes does it appear round all things are like this infinite universes lie all around us it is so in the tiniest drop of water or he goes on the whole Moon and sky are reflected in a drop of dew in the grass if you look so there's beauty in all dimensions in water water like our life is full of all possibilities Life as we know it came out of water and another image is the ocean of tears that the Buddha uses which do you think is more my friends the Waters of the great oceans or the tears that we have shed through loss and sorrow misunderstanding on the long ways of Our Lives more even as the ocean of Tears the Dharma says the Buddha that is the teachings the law the da the truth is like the ocean Having Eight wonderful qualities both the ocean and the Dharma become gradually deeper both preserve their identities under all changes both the ocean and the Dharma cast out dead bodies upon the dry land as the Great Rivers when falling into the Maine lose their names and are thereupon reckoned as the great ocean so all the the casts and races renouncing their lineage enter the order and become the Sons and Daughters of the awakened one as the great ocean has only one taste the taste of salt so the Dharma has only one flavor the flavor of liberation of Freedom both the ocean and the Dharma afford a dwelling pace for Great and Mighty being both the ocean and the Dharma are full of gems and pearls and last the great ocean is the goal of all streams and the rain from clouds yet it never overflows and never empties so too is the Dharma embraced by all yet it neither increases nor decreases so just to play with these images and the meaning in terms of meditation for tonight the ocean and the Dharma become gradually deeper our spiritual life when we look into our hearts is like looking into Inner Space or into the depths of the ocean the further we look and feel and sense the further we can go it's like looking at outer space at night incredible how far in the images and thoughts we contain [Music] everything and although it's true there are moments of sudden Awakening or illumination for many people the experience of spiritual life is a gradual deepening and a ripening even in Zen they say of Satori that sudden illumination that today satory is tomorrow's mistake that is you may have this illumination but then there's the next day so the gradual deepening of meditation or the heart of this spiritual life is really a trusting of our heart a sense of constancy or patience as we sit trusting that within us things know how to open like petals of a flower in moist soil it open opens one pedal after another in just the right order our thoughts our memories The Unfinished things in us the physical Sensations we know how to open inside from the Dow to Jing rushing into action you fail trying to grasp things you lose them forcing a project to completion you ruin what was almost ripe therefore the master takes action by letting things take their course she remains as calm at the end as in the beginning she has nothing and therefore has nothing to lose so that's the sense of things gradually deepen and a way sitting meditation is to learn to trust to rest in this mystery of our being of our breath coming in and out our thoughts and fears and love and hope all coming and going and feel the Dow the movement spring comes and the Grass Grows by itself or again it says in the Dow don't the leaves fall down just like that we don't really know our own destiny what our task is so like water our task becomes to listen to be receptive to be open there's a story of the proverbial young man who climbed the Himalayas to find the guru and ask him the question the great Guru what is the secret of life and this particular Guru in this particular story answered he said having good judgment so this young Seeker said I see and how does one acquire a good judgment the guru looked up he said through experience H he meditated a little bit I see and how do you obtain experience then the groove smiled usually through bad judgment that's how it works isn't it it is a gradual process and we don't know so much where we're going to end up but we do know that it's possible to look around to pay attention to learn learn from that in the Tibetan tradition one prays to be granted appropriate sufferings and difficulties so that one will so that I'll really awaken imagine asking for it and one Tibetan llamas exercise I know working with Western students had them all write their life history and then had them Mark next to the years where they learned the most and then look at what happened in that year and usually as you can imagine it was the years that were the most difficult so again from the Dow and terms of learning to navigate through all of this do you have the constancy to wait until your mind till your mud settles and the water is clear can you remain unmoving and present till the right action arises by itself so this is the first sense of water of the deepening of the trust of a kind of letting go that meditate is really to learn that you can float that you can swim then the Buddha says both the great oceans in the Dharma preserve their identity under all conditions as we sit we can come to rest in a sense of space or water openness the ocean of experience that contains all things are thoughts and fears feelings plans Sensations as you sit arise and pass like waves the Indian Mystic poet Kabir writes I've been thinking of the difference between water and the waves on it Rising water still water falling back it's water will you tell me a hint will you give me a hint how to tell us apart so in many different mystical texts it speaks of our life as being waves for a moment we're in this form and then back again into the water and if you look life has that watery quality our childhood arises for time and it passes away decades come and go like a dream the 60s or the 70s or the 80s or now part of the '90s right go on like a dream and as the Buddha we rest in the midst of it all some children were playing beside a river or the ocean they made castles of sand and each child defended their castle and said this one is mine they kept their Castle separate and would not allow a mistake about whose was whose when the castles were all finished one child kicked over someone else's castle and destroyed it the owner of the castle flew in Rage pulled the other child's hair and struck him he spoiled my castle and got the others to come along and help punish him and ruin his castle so they came and they stamped his castle to the ground then they went on and played with the others each saying this is mine no one may touch it keep away don't touch my castle but evening came it was getting dark and they all thought they ought to be going home no one now cared what became of their castle one child stamped on his another pushed his over with both hands the waves came and took the rest later they turned away and went back each to their own home again from the Buddha we know our individuality in this culture pretty strongly but in meditation we also seek to discover this other aspect of the truth as roomie says sugar and salt dissolving into milk that's what I want dissolver of sugar dissolve me learning somehow that we have this life this amazing individual life for a certain time and each year passes away back into the ocean like that so that in the end the Tibetan Book of the Dead for example as it is read to those who have just died counsels remember the clear light the pure clear light from which everything in the universe comes to which everything in the universe Returns the original nature of your own mind the Natural State unmanifest both the Dharma and the ocean have this one identity under all conditions let go into the clear light trust it merge with it it is your own nature it is home the Visions you experience exist only within Consciousness the forms they take are determined by your past fears and attachments these Visions have no reality just let them pass away if you become involved you may be lost for some time let them pass like bubbles in the ocean or clouds in an empty Sky no matter how far you wander the true nature the clear light is only a split second a half a breath away it is never too late to remember the clear light then the Buddha goes on he says both the ocean and the Dharma casts out dead bodies on dry land strange image and I take this to mean that the true Dharma or authentic spiritual practice is always alive it's not imitation or outer form or following some empty ritual although it may use rituals or forms they are used to bring us in touch with our liveness the Dharma is called the bachana Dharma in P or Sanskrit which means the ad Dharma of this moment immediate alive here and now there's a kind of passion or living quality to spiritual life when our whole body and heart and mind come together as roomie says the Persian Mystic poet when you do things from your soul you feel a river moving in you a great joy so the Buddha said that when we pay Attention our life is a river a stream thoughts and feelings and possibilities and physical Sensations the ocean cast out that which is dead meditation is being alive it's sometimes as simple as just doing walking meditation and instead of walking and being half asleep like a zombie and thinking about 20 other things and forgetting the fact of the blue sky or the fog or the trees or the crunch of the leaves Beneath Your Feet it's to walk and take our steps and be present actually alive in that moment or eating the raisins and that raisin exercise at the end people say wow those were amazing raisins what did you do to them of course you know what we did nothing but some other remarkable event happened you were there that makes them extraordinary raisins so there's an aliveness it's like going out we don't do it very often anymore and just looking at the stars at night those two or three or 4,000 stars that we can see or looking for a moment in the eyes of someone that we love not trying to get anything or work anything out or process something or do your schedule or any kind of arrangement just looking for a minute amazing life is right there or the aliveness that comes in the change of season like zen master rokan wonderful poet he writes the Autumn has just begun as we walk to matsuno a solitary Goose flies overhead the chrysanthemums are in full bloom the children and I have come to this Pine Forest we have only walked a short distance its odors fill us and the world is hundreds of miles away we're so present under these pine trees the smell that the world is hundreds of miles away he writes again during a lull in the Autumn rains I walk again with the children along the mountain path the bottom of my robe become soaked with Dew just that simple attention the water touching his robes his cloth so if it is the Dharma if it's spiritual life it's that which keeps us moving feels alive brings a passion a life in each moment as the Great Rivers lose their names all casts all classes of people lose that identity and become Sons and Daughters of the awakened one in its time this was a radical political act the Buddhist said in a culture that was hierarchical and had casts and Priests undercast upper cast lower middle he said a true Brahman a true priest a true Noble being does not arise by birth or by skin color by Family nor by ritual but by the nobility of heart alone and action that is what makes a true priest a true Noble being so the invitation of meditation or spiritual life is to the Sons and Daughters of good families is what the Buddha said to enter a life that is wise and joyful and full of compassion to everyone equally this is our Birthright our true Heritage no matter what condition we're born into our original nature in that sense there's a kind of letting go or emptying a release of our background being conservative or liberal our name our class working class or upper class our ideas of ourselves our nationality and an opening of our heart to the common heart of humanity our Buddha nature jangu writes he says if a man is crossing a river and an empty boat collides with his own skiff he will not become very angry but if there is a man in the boat someone in the boat he will shout and if the shout is not heard he will Shout again and yet again and all because there is somebody in the boat yet if there were no one in the boat he would not be shouting and not be angry if you can empty your own boat crossing the river of the world no one will oppose you and no one will seek to harm you so this is returning back to to our true nature our common nature and it goes even deeper than our common Humanity Beyond race and class and all of that is our interconnection with all beings we inter breathe with the trees and the rainforest we drink of the clouds that come out of the sunlight on Ocean become the streams again in the springs and rivers lakes of our land we can't separate our life from that that is part of who we are when we open in meditation we are all beings in the same boat the boat of this Earth together and we're all beings who want happiness every being and want to avoid pain yesterday here with a Tibetan llama friend Ken McLoud a western llama we did a day of medit ation on compassion including this Tibetan practice of breathing in the Sorrows of the world taking them into your heart and breathing out goodness and breathing out your love in exchange and exchange it was very poignant and also quite difficult meditation to do to really do it genuinely and at one point one woman spoke up she said several years ago I was very ill and in my illness I had great pain great great physical pain and at that time it got so bad that I thought I would never wish this pain on anyone else on any living being I wouldn't even wish this on Hitler she said I just wouldn't wish pain on another being like this and this is part of that water of the commonality of our life we or our life is connected with all life the water of plants and animals and the future generations of children and being on this Earth depends on our breath and our actions and we all share this common seeking for that which is happy and by happy I mean that in the deepest sense of well-being and avoiding that which is painful difficult just as the great ocean has but one taste the taste of salt so the teachings of the Dharma have but one taste the taste of Liberation the Buddha went on the purpose of spiritual life is not good deeds or Merit or Sublime states of concentration or Bliss or Joy or any of that nor the absence of those things but the sure heart's release the freedom and Awakening of the heart this and this alone is the true purpose of spiritual life to find a freedom in our being not to learn a philosophy or a new Credo or collect something or hold on to something but to discover the possibility of taking the one seat in the midst of the world in the center of our life and to learn to let go to see the causes of sorrow and to release worry the body of fear the small-mindedness that has come from the conditioning of our life and to open to something much greater that freedom that's there for every human being to step outside that limited or small sense of self again as the Tibetan Book of the Dead said remember the clear light the pure clear light the original nature of your own mind so the taste of spiritual life is to find a sense of freedom in the face of pain and beauty and love and loss and all the things that make up life to be unafraid and to have the heart of compassion open in the midst of them it is like um that freedom that allowed Rodney King's mother to go and embrace the men who are on trial for beating him and say that she'd already they asked her forgiveness and she said I've already forgiven you amazing Freedom or that saying from Victor Franco we who lived through the concentration camps can remember those who walk through the Huts comforting others and giving away their last piece of bread they may have been few in number but they attest to the great possibility of human life that everything can be taken from us but one Freedom the freedom to choose our spirit in the midst of any circumstance the great ocean and the Dharma are the dwelling place of great beings and again it's really a reminder of the possibility of the greatness of heart for each of us like the Buddha or quanen the bodh SATA uh of infinite Mercy the goddess of compassion again from the da Jing nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible nothing can surpass it the soft overcomes the hard the gentle over becomes the rigid the master can keep giving because there is no end to her wealth she acts without expectation succeeds without taking credit and doesn't think that she is better than anyone else therefore the master remains Serene even in the midst of Sorrow because he has given up helping he is people's greatest help [Music] there is a kind of wisdom that it rests in each of us and sometimes it only arises in the last moment in the places of the greatest difficulty in our life the wisdom of our true nature so the da says the master has but doesn't possess he acts but doesn't expect rioa again the Zen poet wrote Oh that my priest's robes were wide enough to gather up all the suffering people in this floating world if I could take them all into my robes that's that greatness of compassion or karmapa wonderful Tibetan llama I remember the first time I met him was in this country actually not in Asia they said this great Tibetan llama like the Dal Lama head of one of the schools of Tibetan Buddhism is coming um to Boston which you like to meet him and I thought well I'm I'm busy I was working that day but I could they said he's coming to the airport there'll be this reception party it was like 1974 or five or something I don't remember when it was and I said I'll go I'm curious I've just you know come back from years in Asian monasteries and I'm certainly interested in different teachers so I went out of some curiosity there were all these people waiting with flowers and kind of re ception and then karmapa got off with a number of young monks with him and I thought why didn't he bring the senior members of his community because it was his first trip to America later on I learned that they were the senior members they happened to just have recently reincarnated but it was it was actually his teacher jamun ruche who is now 12 that he was teaching it was the whole company you know they have a very different system but they were the senior teachers anyway so I went and I saw him and he was kind of of round or fat is another way to put it you know and pleasant and kind of happy and I looked at him and I'd seen lots of monks having been in monasteries all around Asia for a long time and I said to myself well he seems very sweet another sweet fat monk that's kind of what I thought to myself and then it was time to go and pay respects kind one of one at a time we went off to Bow and pay our blessing so I went up to him and I bowed a bow at his feet and he took my head and he just pushed it down on the floor which I think was for that comment about a kind of a sweet fat monk or whatever okay get down there some somehow he knew I could use it anyway so I stayed down there for a while he kind of rubbed my head and then I got up and I thought well that's nice and I started to walk away thought well he's a nice man and I got about 10 or 15 ft away and all of a sudden it felt like I had walked outdoors in Winter I got cold my whole body was cold and I turned around and I looked and I had this sense of this huge warm field all around him and it was the warmth physical warmth but it was really the the warmth of some kind of presence of his heart and all I wanted to do was go back and kind of hold on to his robe and sit next to him for a while because it felt so fantastically beautiful and loving so when it says the ocean is the dwelling place for great beings or the Dharma it's really a reminder of that possibility the great heart of compassion that's there in each of us we can each sense that possibility and when you touch it for a moment in yourself or you meet it for a moment in another person sometimes in Asia they talk about the glance of compassion it's not very much people will go all the way to see this teacher like ramama Mahari and South India who usually said very little often he was silent but sometimes he would just look at someone one with eyes of tremendous love and compassion and it would change their life like no one had ever seen us in that way [Music] before both the ocean and the Dharma are full of gems and Pearls the gems like the man Stone om Mani padm the gem of is the diamond the crystal Clarity of mind or the diamond that cuts through all illusions and as we become still and open there are the gems that come the simple Clarity of seeing there is always in and out of the breath night and day sweet and sour praise and blame it's just how it is that's the gem to see that or the Insight that we can't possess a single thing we can love and care for things but we don't possess it and sorrow is caused directly by our clinging our fear the joy that comes the Insight of Joy from the presence and the love that we bring to the world when we see who we are there's this great possibility of Freedom the less self and struggle the more we return to our true nature as Kabir [Music] says this guest is inside of you and inside of me you know the Sprout is hidden inside the seed we're all struggling none of us has gone far I know let your fear and arrogance go and look around inside the Blue Sky opens up the ocean farther and farther the daily sense of failure will go away the damage you have done to yourself Fades a Million Suns come out with their lights you hear the bells ringing no one is shaken Inside the Rain Pours Down even though the sky is clear of clouds there are rivers of Light how lucky Kabir is surrounded by all this Joy he sings inside his own little boat his poems amount to One Soul meeting another these songs are about forgetting dying and loss they rise above both coming in and going out so it's a kind of Jewel of Awakening of clarity of letting go the joy of not possessing a single thing loving it but not holding on to it the pearls the ocean has pearls I read you a short story I finally entered the magic Monastery they asked me what I was looking for frankly I said I'm looking for the pearl of great price the master slipped his hand into the pocket and Drew it out and gave it to me it was just like that I was dumbfounded then I began to protest you don't want to give it to me don't you want to keep it yourself but when I kept this up he said finally look is it better to have the pearl of great price or to give it away well now I have it I don't tell anyone from some there would be disbelief ridicule you you have the pearl of great price H others would be jealous or someone might try to steal it yes I do have it but there's that question is it better to have it or give it away and lastly the goal of all the streams the rain of the clouds is to come back to the ocean the Great Adventure of water or our life and the ocean never overflows and never empties the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time says TS Elliott and every Adventure has its Joys and Sorrows so at the Zen Center hospice dinner this year wonderful woman writer Isabel aende who lives in San Rafel spoke as for the benefit and she told a story very difficult story about the death of her daughter last year whenever it was at age 28 but she didn't tell it as a plain story because she's a great Storyteller and a great son Soul or Spirit she told it by saying that a long time ago there was born a beautiful young girl named Snow White and at her birth there came fairies to give her blessings of Grace or beauty or happiness or a lovely voice and one fairy came unhappily and planted in her the seed that she would die young planted in her a gene because her daughter died of this genetic disorder so that even with this grace and beauty that gift of that last fairy was also there to be experienced and she told the whole story very poignant story of her being with her daughter as she died in the terms of this Fairy Tale of Snow White the universe says one poet the universe is made of stories not atoms the goal of all the streams and the rain of the clouds and the Great Adventure is to take the adventure and come back to the ocean so sidartha writes finally he's sitting by the river he'd heard all the numerous voices in the river before but today they sounded different he could no longer separate the voices the merry voice from the Weeping one the childish voice from the manly voice all the voices in the river belong to each other the lament of those who yearn the laughter of the wise The Cry of indignation they were all interwoven entwined in a thousand ways and all the voices the goals the yearnings the Sorrows the pleasures The Good and Evil all of them was the music of the world when sidartha listen listened to this River to this song of a thousand voices and didn't listen to only one voice or bind himself to it but heard the whole then the entire chorus of voices consisted of a great song A Thousand voices of Harmony and from that hour sidartha ceased to fight against his Destiny there shown in his face the serenity of knowledge of one who's no longer confronted with with conflict desires who's found salvation who is in harmony with the stream of events full of sympathy and compassion surrendering himself to the stream belonging to the unity of all [Music] things in the end what we most deeply long for our seek is here already Kabir says I laugh when I hear the fish in the sea is thirsty what you seek is in your own house in your own heart so the question from tonight is how fluid is your life how open is your heart can you rest in the Dow in the water in the Dharma can you drink deeply of the present with your full attention can you find the flexibility of water the strength of bamboo in the flexibility water is receptive and there's all kinds of other aspects of the Dharma maybe some night I'll do fire that's a whole other piece but can we find that and trust and let go and drink to let ourselves be carried Downstream to meditate is to feel the Water of Life to feel our life as a stream and to really trust that we can move with that so let's sit for a minute [Music] I [Music] [Music] feel your own life breath as you sit and the arising and passing the waves of thought and the waves of feelings the temperature of warmth in the room coolness of the air and touches the [Music] warmth the aliveness of this moment [Music] [Music] [Music] and let yourself reflect on your life and bring to mind any place or situation which would be served by your being more fluid more flexible more yielding and allowing more trusting sense how that could serve you in the situations of your life [Music] [Music] [Music] sometimes when I speak here actually most of the time I feel like I'm really talking to myself sort of giving myself reminders for things that I need to get through the night or the day depending or the situations of my life and in some way I think that's what Sango or community of uh practices about that we Inspire one another or we simply remind each other of something that we know ourselves already very deeply and we go oh yes that too that too and there's this beauty in just sharing that understanding together all right then let me read you one more thing a poem kind of a Pros poem from Thomas meron about water and rain and then we'll do a little chant the begin this is for the beginning of the rainy season which I hope is as plentiful as last year the rain I in is not like the rain of cities it fills the woods with an immense and Confused sound it covers the roof of the cabin and its porched with insistent rhythms and I listen because it reminds me again and again that the whole world runs by rhythms I have not learned to recognize rhythms that are not those of the engineer I walked out here from the monastery at night slashing through the fields put some oatmeal on the stove the night became dark the rain surrounded my cabin with its enormous virginal myth a whole world of Purity meaning secrecy Silence of rumor think of it all all that speech pouring down selling nothing judging nobody drenching the thick leaves soaking the trees filling the gullies with water washing out the places where men have stripped the hillsides what a thing it is to sit absolutely alone in the forest at night cherished by this wonderful unintelligent perfectly innocent speech the most comforting speech in the world the talk that rain makes by itself Over The Ridges the talk of the water courses everywhere in the hollows nobody started it nobody's going to stop it it will talk as long as it wants to the rain and as long as it talks I'm going to sit here and listen