I keep thinking, you know, that one of these days I become a real Zen teacher and I'll plan my talk. Anyway, I thought, you know, I would say something about... such as in the big rain for 40 days and nights, in the Buddha and not taking refuge in the Buddha?

[01:41]

Or where else would you take refuge? Or where do you hang out? Where is it you're hanging out? And is it a place of refuge or not? So the usual idea of life in the Buddhist context is that there's not much refuge. to what is Dharma or what is the Buddhist teaching, you know, that everything is changing, that things are impermanent, and the impermanence is associated with the, you know, the unsatisfying nature of life or the suffering aspect of life, that there's nothing that, there's nothing that to get and have and hold on to and keep and where you can hang out there and it's taken care of. Got it. It's okay. Or, you know, life is described as the ocean.

[02:44]

and consciousness which is considered to be a never get to the bottom of them or find out the real one. It's said to be like a plantain tree or we could say like an onion. You know, there's all kinds of layers, but there's no core to it. Conscience is like a magic show. So what would you depend on or what would you rely on? You know, what can you have and keep and depend on? Relationships, you know, life. come along, you know, are going to come to an end.

[04:15]

The painful things that come along, they're already painful. And there's no way to control that or fix it or, you know, of course, mostly as human beings, we do try to do that. And, you know, people end up living in gated communities with and centers and create life. You're safe and sound and nothing happens. So some of us, you know, we have some sense like, gee, that wasn't what I wanted. And so the point being to all of that is that, you know, life itself, there doesn't seem to be a refuge here. to find permanence in a world where everything changes and to find ease in a world where there's endless kind of sorrow or suffering or unsatisfying things aren't as good as they could be and where there's no self there's no way to establish yourself and depend on

[05:53]

do that to get fame or notoriety or accomplishment and self-esteem through all of that. That doesn't seem to be us. in my Buddha nature, my nature which is not already determined as being one thing or another. My nature that is undivided and all-inclusive. So, you know, on one hand this is great because

[07:19]

this is, of course, a good news, bad news kind of thing, right? The good news is you have a place to take refuge. You know, the undivided nature of things. Your truths As I mentioned this morning, you are more than the descriptions you and other people have given you. Self is not just good or bad or, you know, I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm this and that, I'm scared, I'll always be, etc. So there's a kind of freedom in remembering that your essential nature is unconditioned and unformed and unshaped. take various forms and shapes and do various practices and actually have some shift in our lives.

[08:40]

So this is the good news. The bad news is, you know, in a certain way this doesn't change the fact of that everything is undependable and unreliable and there's nothing to no special weapon or skill or tool or something that you want you can wave to make everything better just because you're relying on the Buddha so of course the bigger nature of this or the other way to look at it is you know to take refuge in Buddha is to decide to take refuge in all the things that are changing treating all the things that are changing is something to be gotten out of when there's no place to get to. So usually, you know, we're actually trying to find some refuge from all of this stuff.

[09:42]

That's the answer. And so in a certain sense, to take refuge in Buddha Dharma Sangha is to take refuge in life itself. Rather than trying to get out of it, why don't I... with all this this is an interesting kind of turnaround of course there are many things in our life which when we are trying to get rid of them you know are a problem and when we If you're in a relationship and the other person wants to get rid of you, you don't feel so good. It's a classic situation where kids in that situation will act out or they will run away.

[10:55]

If they're not wanted, they will tend to misbehave. Actually, I want to be here. I want to work on this. And I will take on the problems associated with this. Then, you know, it's rather different than I don't want to have anything to do with the situation. I want out. I don't like this. I don't like you. I'm tired of this. I'm out of here. There's not much. developing, you know, for things to change and shift. So taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha is, you know, to actually decide to have the life you're having and take refuge in it as opposed to, I want some other life than the one I've got.

[12:08]

George, if I choose to last and say, no help is There you go. This is very similar, yes. So this also is in reference to your question now, this morning. What's the practical thing about this? Well, there is a difference between I want out of here, I want out of my life, I want some other life. of my life. So we call that taking refuge in Buddha Dharma Sangha, but that's some language for what does it practically mean? And that's very interesting for us. What does it mean for my life? We're not just studying Buddhism, we're studying my life. And sometimes it helps people too.

[13:10]

that to call it Buddhism. But like this morning, you know, if we say, Thich Nhat Hanh says, you know, why don't you enjoy your breath or enjoy your walking? Then if we call that Buddhism, oh, okay, I'll do it then. It's Buddhism. Otherwise it's kind of like, I've got problems. I don't know. I'm, you know. I'm not ready to enjoy myself. I have to get this all straightened out first. I have to make sure that this is taken care of and that's taken care of. And when everything is taken care of, then I can relax and enjoy myself. So then, how many things need to be taken care of? We actually have endlessly, you know, things to take care of and solve and handle. or not in some sense you know finding some enjoyment in the midst of that when will we ever get there so anyway on one hand the idea of refuge is we could take refuge in the Buddha as his enlightenment

[14:45]

nature. We could take refuge in ourselves. We could take refuge in that as distinct from, you know, I who am an ordinary person. But we could also, this also means taking refuge just in the life we have rather than wanting some other one. Choosing to live your life. us from time to time in our lives and sometimes you know literally am I going to go on living or sometimes you know do I stay in this job or relationship or and then to choose to live the life you're living, you actually have a chance then to move from where you are to someplace else.

[16:02]

If you just want out of where you are and you don't want to have anything to do with it where you are, you don't make very good choices about how to do that. And then you just try to shut things out and wall yourself off and then it gets harder and harder. To actually make things work because you're not with the way things are. You're just trying to get out of there. So we make better choices when we choose to have the difficulty we're having and then that doesn't mean we're stuck with it. That means we can actually make some real decisions about it. Anyway, to go on to Dharma. There is, again, there is and in your teachings about what Dharma is, the Buddhist teaching. You know, historically the Buddhist teaching goes back to what he realized in his week of meditation.

[17:16]

I think that's where this idea of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism and the suffering and you know unsatisfying as we've been mentioning cause of suffering is desire or wanting out wanting it to work better wanting everything to be perfect third truth, of course, is the truth of nirvana, that there is an end or a stopping of all of this. You wouldn't have to get caught up in things in quite the same way. And the fourth number of truth is the eightfold path to nirvana or extinction or stopping.

[18:21]

And the eightfold path starts with right view, and then there's the of Dharma, we could talk about all that. There's lots to talk about in terms of Dharma. We could spend years on this stuff. But of course, you know, my effort as a teacher would be, let's just get right to the heart of it, and in a word or two, you know, cut it short in a nutshell. So in a nutshell, things don't work or things to be different than they are.

[19:57]

So what we can change is our resistance or our wish for things to be different than they are. Anyway, in a certain sense, the truth of extinction is that there is there was some end we thought we could reach through our striving that we've already arrived. But anyway, you know, in a certain sense, the first of the Eightfold Path right view is the understanding that my failure to make this work better is not my failure alone, it's the way things are. This should be a big relief, you know, not my fault.

[21:02]

This is messed up as it is. Yeah, it's not their fault either. So given the fact that things are as messed up as they are, what do you want to do?

[22:04]

second of the Eightfold Path is intention. In other words, in other words, in a certain sense, the First Noble Truth is, or not the First Noble Truth, but this first of the Eightfold Path, the right view is no one's to blame. Nothing is to blame. Life is fucked. You know, let's face it. And one way or another, it's like that. You know, whether it was your parents, your kids, your women, you know, you, we don't care. It doesn't work, does it? Not the way we'd like it to. So now what? So the right view in that sense is not to blame. So-called right view is don't, you know, stop blaming. Because blaming essentially means you're a victim of the circumstances. So the right view is no, we don't have victims.

[23:11]

life doesn't work as well as we'd like it to. It's not. And we don't have nearly the power or the control we'd like to have. You know? Is that a relief? Yeah! And that's a relief. You could lighten up. Yeah. That's one of the possibilities. Sure, this is where it starts. Right view. And you get through, of course, and you keep getting right view. You know, you don't just Fairfaxing because you have some right view. And then you practice, and then you can have, you know, a deeper sense of right view. And, yeah, you could lighten up because there's nobody to blame. You're not to blame. Life doesn't work that well. And it's that way for everybody. And so, you know, what will be... is, you know, what will be some then, the second of the April path is the intention.

[24:13]

What will be some good intention here? Some right, so-called right intention or accurate or correct intention. You know, which means, you know, it won't be accurate then to blame somebody. It won't be, you know, accurate to try to get revenge. It won't be accurate to try to get evens. don't work very well, so, you know, so I'm out of here. So at some point, from the Buddhist point of view, you know, the right intention is I'm going to, I'll work on living in harmony. I will, I'm going to, I'm going to accept change. My intention is to accept change that occurs in my life. My intention is to accept things that happen rather than blame somebody and find fault with somebody and find fault with myself and then try to get them to do differently so this doesn't happen again and then, you know, be angry with them so that they would never dare to talk to me like that again or, you know, be ashamed so that, you know, etc.

[25:35]

Yeah. The world is undependable in life. Yeah. So what will be, you know, under the circumstances here of the way life is, what is some accurate intention? And so, you know, which is different than, you know, in other words, there are... that we can improve things and fix things, and we can do various things. We can treat people or ourselves certain ways, thinking we'll get them to straighten out and behave the way they should or the way I'd like them to. So then we treat people that way. We treat ourselves that way. Because that's the way you treat somebody that does this. You isolate them or you shun them or you get mad at them or you shame them or you humiliate them. You do all these various things. in order to get the desired behavior out of them. Maybe any of those are the desired behavior too.

[26:41]

So in a certain sense, you know, finally it's like, you know, the basic kind of Zen idea is take your best posture, hang out there. Okay? And then let it rip, you know. All of the... changes, all the stuff that happens, all the difficulties, all the pains, all the turmoil. Take your best posture and then say about hanging out there with all these changes rather than like, uh-oh, oh, God. And put another blow and avoid that one. How humiliating. So Zen has this very, you know, practical sort of idea. Let's just do it. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to take my best posture, and we'll see what happens. And as I find that I'm gone from there, I'll see what I can do to come back there.

[27:45]

I want to just be right here in the middle of my life, right in the center of things. So my intention is to just be present, clear, centered, focused, energetic. you know, open, aware. You know, this is my intention. Okay. See what I can do? Body love what it loves. Yeah. So I don't think that that's, you know, and this is not intended to exclude that now. This is intended to be an expression of that. Yeah. Yeah. So there's some intention, you see, to be centered, focused, clear, upright, in the face or in meeting everything. And, of course, that doesn't mean that you can stick to that rigidly because that wasn't quite the idea either.

[28:48]

And then this is extended through speech and there are various discussions about what is right speech, and this is, we're getting into later too, because several of the ten precepts are about speech. You know, not to praise yourself at the expense of others, and not to slander others, and so forth. And livelihood. Traditionally, of course, Buddhism had certain ideas about what was right livelihood and what wasn't. Monks weren't even allowed to work. Nothing was right livelihood for monks. But, you know, butchers were, you always have to have a little enclave of Muslims or Jews or somebody to do the butchering. Or bad Buddhists. Get them to do it. or energy and mindfulness and concentration.

[30:05]

So those are classic, you know, Buddhist virtues or practices. So in a certain sense, I guess it's worth talking about those. There's actually two others energy or vigor it's sometimes called so as much as anything you know sometimes this is contrasted with laziness or indolence or sloth and torpor or you know but you know at some point what this means is are you going to show up or not are you going to be present or not so just a question

[31:07]

since we're talking about presence here, do you show up? Or, you know, and one of the things that happens, one of the reasons to go to sleep in meditation, you know, aside from it's a great big lunch and, you know, it's a hot day, which is obviously a factor in all of this. But, you know, if you're meditating and you're regularly falling asleep, Part of this is, well, did you really want to show up or not? Because what happens when we go to show up is we start being aware of things which we just as soon not be aware of, probably. And rather than be aware of them, I think I'll just check out now. Thank you. Anyway, this isn't what I thought it would be, and I think I'll just... What are you thinking? You could take a nap, and then some people can just nap.

[32:08]

And, you know, there are various schools, you know, of course, go around and hit everybody. I'm a little more of the Banquet school. Banquet says, you know, some people ask, you know, what about sleeping and meditation? And I figure, you know, if you're sleeping, you're probably tired. And, you know, when you feel like waking up, you will. When you decide to wake up, you will. And so I don't take it personally, you know. I don't take it like it's up to me to make sure you wake up. When you decide to wake up, you will. When you decide, actually, I do want to show up. You know, and that's vigor. That's that presence. I am. I will. There's some energy, and there's some, in a certain sense, there's some backbone to that. I mean, all these things have, you know, physical things, because if you're, you know, back on me, Yes, I will. My habit has been over the years, like, you know, because a lot of us do this.

[33:17]

You have to tuck the part of your chest and bend it forward. And you can try to be awake, but it's pretty hard. And it's because it's not so close to that. you know, you're showing up rather differently. It's physical. It's right here, and it's also across here, you know. This is, this is, you know, to shorten your collarbones, turn your, to turn your arm in, or your shoulder, and shorten your collarbones. This is to, you know, hide. I'm not going to reveal much. means showing up for what's out there, but it also means people are going to see you.

[34:19]

So this all has to do with energy or vigor or presence. And, you know, these are not, you know, again, these are like the things we were talking about earlier. These are not things we have or don't have. They're things we practice or don't practice. They're behaviors that we do or don't do, and whatever behavior we do, we're doing. We're doing, you know, one thing, that's what we're doing. That's the behavior we're doing. So practice, on one hand, is noticing, you know, as much as anything practice is just noticing what it is you do to and seeing if you want to go on doing it or to do something else. But we're not going to change all of our habits overnight. So the question, you know, at the point of right intention is, what's our intention? And then when we go to practice, well, am I practicing my intention? Is it clear? is there some other way I could more completely practice my intention? The youngsters have showed up, it sounds like.

[35:24]

After nap time. Yeah, nap time is over now. So that's, you know, I think of that as vigor as much as anything just presence. And presence takes energy. You know, it takes vigor. You're not going to have presence just like, I think maybe I'll be present here. I mean, it's a start, maybe. But at some point, no, I'm here. I'm definitely here. And I'm going to be here, and I'm going to show up, and I'm not going anyplace. Yeah, yeah. may not be quite the Buddhist virtue than a figure or, you know, energy.

[36:26]

It may be, you know, it's a little more, it may be a little more of the, or, you know, maybe it's bigger in energy without the mindfulness or, you know, focus or concentration or something. So it may be, you know, so yeah, maybe we, you know, we may need these other virtues too along with this. Sometimes people's life are energetic but not so focused or otherly focused or something. Mindfulness is probably the pivotal Buddhist, most important Buddhist practice, to be aware without judgment, good, bad, right, wrong, better, worse, which is quite a challenge, as you know, This is also to say mindfulness is to be aware without trying to control the object of awareness.

[37:34]

So Dogen says, it's like viewing flowers or the moon and not wishing for more color and brightness. Or like meeting somebody for the first time and not thinking about whether you like them or not. So it's just receiving things. this is a big challenge, of course, because the, you know, the basic kind of warrior problem we have is that it might hurt to let something in. It might be painful, it might be unpleasant. And, of course, the challenge, you know, the difficulty is then, you know, once we're aware of that, then, you know, we kind of have the idea, I'll kind of wait to open it up until I'm sure it's okay, but then, you know, things are changing, so fast. And of course, if you open up to a person, you know, they're not always going to be the person that you open up to. And so, you know, the basic Buddhist idea is you're going to have to, if you want to be open to anything, you're going to have to be open to everything, and otherwise you'll be closed to the degree that you're closed.

[38:52]

And you're not gonna be able to turn it on and off and open and close and open and close depending on the circumstances so you only get the goodies and not the bad ones. It doesn't work. So mindfulness, you just decide to show up and mindfulness is then to be aware without trying to control, without trying to fix, without trying to improve the object of awareness or straighten it out this is a big problem for us, big difficulty or challenge. But it's actually possible, of course. And in a simple way, of course, this relates to your breath. Buddhist traditions often emphasize following the breath as a way to practice. And in Buddhism, where the idea is to let however long or short, deep or shallow it is, and just be aware.

[39:56]

So this is different than the practice of pranayama, deep breathing exercises, or inhaling and responding to the chest, holding your breath, etc. Which if you do, you know you don't, when you're just starting to do, you don't do it for very long because you can get pretty you do. You can get pretty disturbed by, you know, voluntarily changing your breath around. So, Patricia and other yoga teachers, you know, the tradition that you just practice for a few breaths and then go back to regular breathing for a little bit and you don't try to sustain that anyway. But the Buddhist idea is just to follow the breath however it is, however long or short, deep or shallow. And you're aware of long breath being long, a short breath short, and so forth, but you don't try to improve it.

[41:01]

So this is one way to practice mindfulness or to let something be what it is without trying to control it. And the wonderful thing is that as you follow your breath like this, of course, awareness. Doohickey is not trying to boss you around anymore. That wasn't deep enough. That wasn't long enough. You could be more calm about that. You know, after a while, your breath will be very frustrated and go like, That's the way you feel. I'm not breathing. Because whenever I breathe, you always have some way to criticize me. Oh, gosh, I guess I'm going to have to breathe a little bit. But I'm not going to relax because I know you'll criticize me.

[42:08]

It's not going to be right, however I do it. So then we think, what do I do? My breath is resisting me. this resistance, get my breath to behave the way it should, calm, deep, clear, smooth, long. So actually the more we practice mindfulness, just being aware without controlling, you know, everybody can relax. Our breath can relax. Our body can relax. Our hands can relax. You know, the people around us can relax. And not everybody's on guard. Like, what's the next criticism? You know, what's the next problem here? So this is quite, actually quite wonderful.

[43:12]

You know, this is the basis for Buddhist practice in many ways. This kind of awareness without control. you know, we can't just do it. So one of the things that will happen is we'll start judging and trying to fix and improve, and then, you know, when we notice that, we will be judgmental. We tell ourselves, well, the teaching was not to judge. Now you're saying your breath is too short. Look at you. You can't even do this. So in this way, it tends to be rather endless, you know, this kind of It's a lot like that story of the four men who go into the mosque. And the first one, you know, says, it's really quiet in here. The second one says, you shouldn't talk. And the third one says, listen to the two of you. What's wrong with the two of you? And the fourth one says, it's a good thing I haven't been talking. So this is the kind of problem we have in practicing mindfulness.

[44:20]

So the idea is, anyway, start somewhere and stop judging. Whether it's your breath or the fact that you judge, well then don't judge the fact that you judge. Stop telling me not to judge. Yeah, stop telling me not to judge and so forth. So go ahead and judge. But this is exactly what I was talking about earlier. You know, you get a teaching. And mindfulness in some ways is very similar to, you know, what people call wisdom. Or prajna. And it's very similar to what, you know, actually Dogen said. Being unsurpassed in enlightenment or realization is like viewing the flowers and moon and not wishing for more colors and brightness.

[45:22]

So you see mindfulness is actually right there. It's not so, you know, they make these little subtle distinctions which I can never understand the difference between mindfulness and pride or enlightenment. You know, viewing the flowers or the moon without wishing for more color and brightness sure sounds like mindfulness to me. In that particular case, they have been called the supreme, unsurpassed, perfect enlightenment. Wow. Or meeting somebody for the first time and not thinking about whether you like them or not. Yeah, instead of worried about whether you'd like them or not.

[46:24]

is the right concentration. I don't know, you know, there are all these different understandings of these things, and, you know, I kind of don't know the real ones anymore, so I just make it up. of concentration of being absorbed or focused or one-pointed. But clearly, if your concentration is a way to shut things out or dependent on shutting things out, then this will have its limitations. So over time, certainly, we're aiming to have concentration which we can be concentrated in a variety of circumstances.

[48:01]

We all lose our concentration so easily. And this depends on whether or not we're trying to shut things out. 1.8. Two sensibilities about, or not two sensibilities, but two, as far as, you know, there is an interesting question here. I find it interesting in a way, like, where does your attention go, or where should you put it? Which I think is partly what you're bringing up. Because concentration has the implication of you stay focused on a particular object, that's what being focused is, as opposed to having your awareness go in various places.

[49:10]

So these things are not intended to be exclusive of one another. And it's considered actually in Buddhism that every moment of awareness there is an element of concentration. A concentration is considered to be one of the factors of awareness that is always present. There's always some factor of concentration because it's considered if there was no if there was when there's no so-called element or dharma of concentration then we don't call that alive anymore. This is what the early Buddhists decided. So even what we usually call distractions actually has a kind of element of concentration. It's very weak. And then when it's weak enough, we call it distracted or confused or unfocused or something like that.

[50:15]

So partly this is semantics, but it's also to say that, you know, concentration is always there. But it's considered that, you know, to some extent we turn our concentration various things, and there's a certain usefulness in that, and at the same time, you know, our awareness will be drawn to things that are strong or predominant. So if there's a loud sound in the area, we hear it. Our concentration pretty much will go there, or our attention will go there, or if there's a strong feeling, or if there's a strong physical sensation, our awareness tends to go to certain places, to be drawn to certain things, and we also have a capacity to our attention in various places. So this is the kind of question, where do I put my attention?

[51:17]

What do I put my attention on? Where do I turn? What do I focus on? So it is an important point. I don't know that there's any simple answer for that. one of the things I use is, well, come back to intention and go from there as to what I would, where I would, you know, and then how can I, how can I manifest my intention in this situation? So that's one of the ways I think about it. and then I'll catch one and tell me, why am I putting information on you? It is interesting, isn't it?

[52:18]

Yeah. Did you have something? There was something that you said about, I can't remember, I think there was something about the attention Well, in order to not make judgments, you actually have to, you know, you can't establish a state of mind of not making judgments just by some power of will. This is, you can't muscle it through so that the judgments then, you know, it's not like you can mow them down with your lawnmower of no judgment, you know, and you'll just mow down all the judgments and, you know, you can just clear them out of the way and they won't be there.

[53:22]

And one of the problems about practicing and mindfulness and not judging is that pretty soon, you know, what our practice becomes is not noticing the judgments that we're making. And then we can just go right on making them because we're not noticing ourselves do it. And we get to keep on doing it because we don't even acknowledge that we're making those judgments. I'm doing great practice. I don't do judgments. This is what happens to people around Zen Center oftentimes. I don't know what they call it now, but it used to be that people around Zen Center would not want to admit to having a preference. whatever, I don't have any preferences. You know, I don't have any judgments. I don't have, I don't say, you know, this or that, but actually they do, but I'm not going to admit it, and I'm not going to notice it if I am. So, in that sense, it's actually very important to notice the judgments that you're making, and then you, and then, and to notice the judgments you're making

[54:36]

with as much as possible without judging, oh, stupid me, I'm making judgments again. I got that wrong once again. Because then you're still doing it. Or if you do that, then, well, anyway, notice that without judging that, et cetera. And at some point, it's like, just be with what's going on without judging it, and then you have a chance to actually let go of it. But until you notice, how you're doing it, you can't let go of it. You know, letting go of it without actually noticing and acknowledging that you're doing it is denial or it's repression. You know, it's not actually letting go of it. So this is why, you know, over and over again, Zen teachers, you know, meditation teachers say, well, I notice how just now I am. I notice how scattered my mind is, or I notice this, and, you know, why do I have this monkey mind, and I can't do anything about it.

[55:42]

Actually, that's very important. Congratulations, you know, you notice something, and you didn't just gloss it over and say, I'm really doing great practice. I'm probably doing better practice than anybody here. Yeah. time actually making these judgments and not even noticing that those are judgments and not even acknowledging that to yourself that you've been making these judgments. And the more you, anyway, in a certain sense, you really can notice exactly how you do it. And then it's like it's not something that happens to you anymore. not just a victim of the fact that you're judgmental. You kind of, in a certain sense, you're taking responsibility. I just did it. Here's how I did it. So if I'm doing it, then I could choose not to.

[56:45]

I could choose to do it or not. But until you acknowledge that I'm doing it, you can't just sort of like, you know, then you're just, otherwise it just comes on you. You're the victim of it. It's like people saying... Oh, I got angry, but, you know, that wasn't me. I couldn't help myself. I didn't do that. I'm not somebody who gets angry. I couldn't help myself. So then how can you ever, how can you stop being angry if, you know, like, you never do that? That wasn't you. Speaking of ready-made excuses, you know. couldn't help myself. So that's putting yourself in the position of being the victim, not taking responsibility for your life, or as Suzuki Rishi called it, owning your own body and mind. You should own your own body and mind.

[57:46]

And owning doesn't mean owning in the sense of control, it means owning in the sense of acknowledging, here's the way I do it, and I lose it here, and I get angry there, and here's how I get angry, and I get angry when I'm frustrated when things don't turn out the way I want, and I had my heart set on this, and here's the whole progression of what happens. And I get angry because I got scared, I felt helpless, and then I get angry. And we're trying to notice exactly what it is we do, and then the more clearly we notice it, the more we have a chance to say, oh, so that's what I do. Oh, okay, I can not go to that. I don't have to keep doing it like that. Until then, it's all just happening to us. There's no way to let go of it or change anything. So if I just put it out of my mind, it's not going to get rid of it. That's like mine. Yeah, yeah. You know, there's a certain usefulness to that. I mean, you know.

[58:47]

But in the long run, we... There's a certain usefulness to establish in a kind of little space where you're not judging or something. But then at some point you're going to come up against all that stuff that you sort of put out of your mind. It doesn't, you know, how far out can you, I mean, you know, it's out of your mind, but actually your mind is out there too. You know, you can't actually put it out. It's all your mind. Well, you're putting it out, and out there is your mind, too. You just put it out of what you're defined as, you know, the kind of what I'm going to pay attention to. And it's going to be outside of what I usually pay attention to, so it'll be outside of that anyway.

[59:49]

Great. I'm better already. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you dig a hole in the ground, put it in there, put the dirt over it. We got rid of that. A little hand would help. I think we could take a little break, and it's getting towards 3.30 now, so I said we'd go into a 4, but anyway, we could take a little break. We could have some refreshments. No. Huh? No. What? No refresh. What? It's always dessert. You know, when you eat calories with other people, they don't count. Oh, wow. It's only when you eat them by yourself that they count.

[60:52]

I'm not really eating this. It's not me. This is going to be outside of my mind. I don't know if my house is cooler. The windows, I think, are all open. Oh, yeah, we could open the other door. We could try that. All right, we could try the fan. I have a fan. I have two fans. I have three fans. Okay, there's... All right. Thank you.

[61:56]

We are going to have a short intermission now, and we will reconvene, and then, you know, we will have taken care of, you know, we'll open another door and we'll get a fan. That will be that.

[62:09]

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