I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit on July 17, 2024. A recording follows the text.

This is a translation of “Nothing Twice” by the late Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska:

Nothing happens twice,
Nor will it ever. For this reason,
We were born without proficiency,
And will all die without routine.

Though we be the most obtuse
Pupils in the school of this world,
We will never be held back to repeat
A single winter or summer.

No day will be repeated;
There is no such thing as two similar nights,
Two identical kisses,
Two equivalent gazes into someone’s eyes.

Yesterday, when your name
Was said by someone as I chanced to overhear,
I suddenly felt as if a rose
Had fallen in through an open window.

Today, when we are together,
I’ve turned my face toward the wall.
A rose? What does a rose look like?
Is it a flower? Or perhaps a stone?

Why are you, O evil hour,
Thus admixed with needless fear?
You are — and therefore you must pass.
You will pass — and therefore you are beautiful.

Smiling, in a mutual embrace,
We will try to find accord,
Although we are as different from one another
As two drops of pure water.

Our group meets most days. Follows the same routine. Bows. Bells. Chants we chant again and again. Sitting still in the same posture as before. Rehearsing familiar forms. Talks and dialogue on familiar themes.

All this seeming sameness is a call to awaken to the reality of nothing twice.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus tells us no one can step in the same river twice, because it’s not the same river and we’re not the same person. We can take his thought further: no one can step in the same river once.

What is “this river”? What is “once”? Useful constructions, but constructions, nonetheless. All impermanent. Nothing ultimately graspable.

Dōgen equated ungraspable activity with Buddha nature, with emptiness, with realization.

From not one perspective, the perspective of our everyday perspective, ceaseless, ungraspable activity. From not another perspective, absolute stillness. 

Just this not one, not two perspective.

Nothing happens twice,
Nor will it ever. For this reason,
We were born without proficiency,
And will all die without routine.

Though we be the most obtuse
Pupils in the school of this world,
We will never be held back to repeat
A single winter or summer.

No day will be repeated;
There is no such thing as two similar nights,
Two identical kisses,
Two equivalent gazes into someone’s eyes.

Yesterday, when your name
Was said by someone as I chanced to overhear,
I suddenly felt as if a rose
Had fallen in through an open window.

Today, when we are together,
I’ve turned my face toward the wall.
A rose? What does a rose look like?
Is it a flower? Or perhaps a stone?

Why are you, O evil hour,
Thus admixed with needless fear?
You are — and therefore you must pass.
You will pass — and therefore you are beautiful.

Smiling, in a mutual embrace,
We will try to find accord,
Although we are as different from one another
As two drops of pure water.