I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen sunrise sit on October 21, 2026. I recording follows the text.

This is Case 16 in The Gateless Gate:

Yün-men said, “See how vast and wide the world is! Why do you put on your seven-piece robe at the sound of the bell?”

Why? Why?

Here we are: first thing in the morning, lighting incense, bowing when the bell sounds, sitting still, dedicating our practice to all beings.

Why? Why are we here? Why do we do this?

Do we think we gain something by doing this? Merit? Peace? Liberation?

How vast and wide the world is! Do we imagine the world depends on our practice? Folly! Delusion!

Do we imagine our practice is the world doing its thing? Now we’re touching down. Touching ground.

Is showing up here day after day a routine? A structure? A habit?

Do we really think we can step in the same river twice?

Even once?

What are we doing here? What’s happening?

Why do we put on our seven-piece robe? Our sweatpants and t-shirt?

To enjoy your company.

To greet the day.

It’s cold.

What will you say when all the bells have sounded and the moment for dharma dialogue comes?

I’ll end with Gerard Manley Hopkins’s lovely poem, As Kingfishers Catch Fire:

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Christ — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.