this morning's talk may be a farewell talk. Now may be a good time with us sitting quietly for me to express gratitude for your great effort during this intensive and during this sashin and also to speak for others who have expressed to me gratitude to you. Many people are grateful to you for your great effort. And for those people who are in residence at Green Gulch before and after this intensive, I want you to know that many people who come here for the intensive are grateful to you for providing and supporting and maintaining this temple so that they can come here and practice.

[01:17]

People here wonder How is this practice, how is taking care of this temple and practicing here helping free all beings so they may dwell in peace? And as I said before, let me tell you, I don't know. And yet people come here and say, thank you so much for taking care of this place. It's such a great help to me. That's how they talk. That's how they feel. Maybe we're not really helping them, and that's just their dream. But that is their dream. And they thank you. And I thank you. We're planning to have a ceremony tomorrow to bring the intensive to completion, to close the circle.

[02:55]

And the form of the ceremony will be what's called in English recitation and invocation and circumambulation of the hall. So in the ceremony, we recite the names of Buddha. Nenju means recitation. But nenju also means invocation. we recite the names of Buddha and we invoke the presence and compassion of the Buddhas. We invoke the presence and wisdom of the Buddhas by reciting their names, Nenju, by singing their names,

[04:04]

We don't just say their names, we sing them together. After invoking their presence, we come into this room in groups of three. And some of you are not familiar with this choreography, so We'll try to have at least one person in the group of three who knows the roots so you don't get lost wandering around forever. After morning zazen we'll go out into the Cloud Hall and get together in groups of three. Try to make one person in the group maybe the first one who goes in, somebody who knows where to go. And follow that person and you'll be okay.

[05:14]

And if you don't, you'll be okay too. So we come into the room and we come in front of the altar and one of the three people, the middle person, offers incense. powdered incense and then the three walk around counterclockwise around the altar circumambulating the essential working of all the Buddhas and come and bow to the abbess's seat and then walk counterclockwise around the room with your hands in gassho and bent forward somewhat You walk around the room and when you get to this seat, you bow again and then walk back to your place along the tan in this, with your hands clasped at your heart.

[06:28]

And when you get back to your place, when other people walk by you with their hands joined and bent forward, then you join your palms and bow to them. So this circumambulation is an opportunity for us to express our gratitude to each other and recognize our community. Then we'll do one more short service and after all that you're entitled to work at eating your breakfast. So if you're around, please come to that ceremony. I do wish you well. I wish you farewell on your great journey on the endless path of the Buddha way.

[07:38]

I've been dreaming of the practice of Zen masters with you. I've been dreaming of Avalokiteshvara's practice of perfect wisdom with you. I've been dreaming how she practices zazen and sharing my dreams with you. How does she practice zazen? Think, not thinking. How does she practice zazen? Form is emptiness. And how do you practice not thinking?

[08:44]

Non-thinking. Non-thinking is the essential art of Avalokiteshvara's zazen. So I propose to you again, non-thinking is not thinking, and it's not not thinking. And it's also not no thinking. And yet it is intimate with both thinking and not thinking. Non-thinking is intimate with all your thinking and all your not thinking. Non-thinking is not form and it's not emptiness. It's intimate with form and emptiness. It's intimate with form is emptiness.

[09:49]

It's a field of virtue far beyond form and emptiness. And it's beyond intimately. Intimately beyond. It's kind of like a third truth. The Buddha taught two truths. This is kind of like a third one, but it's also like the first one. It's also like one truth that has two truths. It's an intimacy with the two truths. It's intimacy with the ultimate truth and conventional truth. It's right thinking which is wisdom, it's right thinking, which is free of thinking, which is freedom from thinking, which is our true life.

[10:59]

But again, freedom from thinking is intimacy with thinking, and intimacy with not thinking, and with intimacy with thinking not thinking. This is my dream of Avalokiteshvara's Zazen practice, which of course is also my dream of Yaoshan's Zazen practice. And it's my dream of Dogen's Zazen practice and Suzuki Roshi's Zazen practice. The Buddha taught that right thinking is renunciation, nonviolence, and non-harm. Non-thinking is renunciation, non-violence, and non-harm.

[12:02]

Whenever we chant Dogen's vow and we get to the part where it says, and upon meeting it, meeting what? meeting the true Dharma, we will renounce worldly affairs and maintain the Buddha Dharma. And in doing so, in maintaining the Buddha Dharma, the whole earth and the entire sky, no, no, the whole earth and all living beings together will attain the Buddha way. When we meet the true Dharma, we will renounce worldly affairs. When we meet the true Dharma, we will practice non-thinking. Non-thinking is to renounce worldly affairs. Worldly affairs like violence, like harming, like being stingy, like speaking unskillfully,

[13:11]

like abiding in anything. Non-thinking is the mind of no abode of the bodhisattva. When we hear the true Dharma, we will renounce worldly affairs and maintain the Buddha Dharma. When we practice non-thinking, we will meet the true Dharma. When we meet the true Dharma, we will practice non-thinking. round and round we go. Renunciation, hear the true Dharma. Renunciation, maintain, meet and maintain the true Dharma. Nonviolence with thinking, meet the true Dharma. You got thinking, I got thinking, everybody's got thinking, How wonderful to practice nonviolence with thinking.

[14:17]

No matter what we're thinking, wouldn't it be wonderful to be nonviolent with it? And in that nonviolence, we will hear the true Dharma. We will meet the true Dharma. No matter what we're thinking, we renounce it. Let go of it. Don't abide in it, no matter what story. The mind of no abode, the mind of non-thinking, renounces the story. And in the full renunciation, we hear the true Dharma without touching the story at all. We're listening to this story and we hear another voice singing in the middle of the story. the voice of the Buddha, the gently roaring lion that releases us from the suffering of attaching to our thinking.

[15:24]

And then when we're released, we renounce the release. And we're released from being released. This is my dream of Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva's Zazen practice. It's simple but difficult. It is simply renouncing any thinking that appears and renouncing any emptiness that appears. Simply. But it's hard to renounce some stories because they generally look so true. And they even come, as I mentioned, with subliminal messages on them which say, this story is true. Including the story that that person's story is false.

[16:31]

It's really true that her story is really wacko. And by coincidence, mine is true. And even if I don't say mine is true, it looks like mine is true, and it looks like anything that disagrees with mine is wrong. Now, how about renouncing that? That's the essential part of zazen. All day long when we're practicing, we have these thinkings appearing. All day long we have the opportunity to practice non-thinking, right thinking, to renounce every single story. But again, that renunciation is also very kind. We do no violence to the story. We don't adjust it a little bit before we let go of it. We don't fix it or make it worse before we let go.

[17:34]

We don't do any violence to it. We don't do any harm to it. And this nonviolence and nonharm is not another thinking. It is intimacy. Intimacy is not my idea of intimacy. It is liberation from whatever we're intimate with. This is the essential art of zazen, to be intimate with everything and everybody and thereby realize liberation of everything and everybody. It's hard, though, to get that close and then not grasp. Some thinking is not that difficult to renounce, like the sound of a friendly airplane.

[18:55]

Ah, yeah, I can let that go. How nice. Well, sometimes zazen is easy. Just enjoying the sound of airplanes and rain. And a little baby, a baby crying, just gurgling. Baby's gurgling is easy to let go of. But babies screaming may be hard to let go of. It sounds so real. Babies gurgling sounds like almost a joke. Jokes seem kind of easy to let go of, don't they? This is not a joke. You cannot let go of this. It's not a joke. This is a joke.

[19:58]

You can let go of it. That was a joke too, wasn't it? You let go of it, didn't you? Or it was let go of. There's essential art of zazen. You just did it. Good work. So if I get silly enough, you'll start not letting go and you'll start saying, he's getting too silly. This is not funny. And that's true. He can be a little silly and I can renounce it. But when he gets really silly, it's going to be a crackdown. I'm going to call Soto Zen Headquarters. So don't tell the people that I said there was a third truth, okay?

[21:09]

I didn't say there was. I just said, it seems like China almost made a third truth, but really it's not true. They're just one truth. That's two truths. Which is like a third truth. But not really. So don't tell anybody I said that. But it's okay if you tell people that once I had a secret fool. It's okay if you tell them that. That lived inside the heart of me. You can tell them that. And all too soon, that secret fool became impatient to be free. That fool wants to be free and wants all the other secret fools to come and play with nonviolence. That fool wants all the other fools to come and practice the essential art of zazen.

[22:16]

which is totally culminated liberation. So, I will shout this fool from the highest hill and I'll even tell the golden daffodils, my secret fool's no secret anymore. and I renounce my secret fool, and I am nonviolent with my secret fool, and I'll do no harm to my secret fool, and I'm confident that that's the central art of zazen. And as long as I can remember that and practice that, I will be very happy and encourage others to practice Avalokiteshvara's zazen.

[23:22]

Thank you for helping me find my faith in Zazen again and again. I'm so happy. Here comes Sarah. She looks like she's on a mission. She had that, I'm sorry to come in like this, but I have to, posture. Please excuse me for abducting one of the people. May our intention equally extend to every being and place.

[24:35]

With the true merit of Buddha's way, beings are numberless.

[24:47]

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