sesshin ends. last sit together. sitting with those here. sitting with those who left. with those who never came. with those who couldn’t stay much longer with the pain. who left the pain and carried the pain back with them. to sit with fear and with the intimacy of fear. with the joy that comes after the pain, or doesn't come as it is already here. to sit with the joy of what blossoms when no one does the sitting but there is just the sitting. in soft mist sitting with verdant hills rolling over the plains. sitting with what is present and what is absent. sitting with what is left behind, with what is here, and with what is yet to come. sitting with what may never come for coming and going is not part of its nature as it is time, not time leftover. sitting with both the visible and with the invisible. sitting with the still-burning flames and sitting with extinguished fires. sitting with the ashes and sitting with the low clouds and the wind rising from resuscitated ashes. ashes of me, ashes of you, no one's ashes. pain of everyone and no one's ashes all blessed in the bird song fusing from the trees. sitting in silence in the background where the world comes to disappear and reappear, where bubbles of banks and rivers all burst. all bursts. sitting with what is and with what is not known. letting what is life and what is death be the sitting, do the sitting, and undo the sitting. the sitting that undoes the sitting is zazen.
hidden radiance in the heart of darkness. the breath of darkness beyond counting and accounting.
tongue of the tathagata cut off.
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