I don't know how you expect a lecturer to just show up here without sort of coming and getting him. Tonight I had, I was reminded that, you know, when I was younger I didn't have this problem, but once in a while now I notice I get a little constipated, but if you ever have that problem just plan on giving a talk to 150,000 people. See if you don't go to the bathroom a fair amount ahead of time. I may not look anxious or nervous, but I don't know how I look. So in that vein anyway, I wanted to remind you of the well-known Zen expression that the Chinese master Oumong said, every day is a good day. This is a kind of a Zen expression, you know, because a good day compared to what? Compared to which other day?

[01:05]

Every day is a good day. Anyway Suzuki Roshi said about this saying, every day is a good day, he said, it doesn't mean you can't complain, or you can't get nervous, or a number of things. So I'll get to the book eventually, I guess I'll just leave it wrapped up for now. So we've had a Zen and cooking workshop this week, and in the workshop and in my talks this week I've emphasized certain points. One is careful observation of the obvious. The other night we ate a potato chip, you know potato chips are pretty obvious, but

[02:10]

we did the rarely attempted event of eating just one potato chip each. So we noticed something about something that we usually think is obvious, we actually experienced it rather carefully. And so we noticed various things. And some people probably liked the potato chip and other people didn't. We noticed that one person said it was really memorable, the sound in the room, when everybody was eating that one potato chip, he said, I'll always remember that. Anyway, most of our life things are rather obvious, and because it's so obvious we tend to neglect giving what is obvious our full attention, or carefully observing it. And in many ways this of course is considered one way to think about, in Buddhism the cause

[03:17]

of suffering is some opposite of the ignorance, ignoring the way things are, or not observing, not carefully observing the obvious. Classically it's understood that carefully observing the obvious you actually notice how transient everything is, how much kind of, you know, uncomfort or discomfort or unease there is, otherwise known as suffering, and how there's nothing to fall back on, there's to rely on or turn to or keep hold of or track of. And this careful observation then generally is what we call enlightening, and it changes

[04:18]

our life. And to carefully observe something we find out actually what we can trust, what we can rely on, and basically it's our effort to carefully observe, and when we carefully observe we notice. When I first carefully observed the potato chip I had the experience of an instant of salt and grease and then a kind of tasteless pulp in my mouth, and I wondered, like, why would I be attracted to this? And for, you know, a year or two after that I, prior to that I used to walk past those rows of chips in the grocery store and I'd think, oh I'd love some chips, you shouldn't have them. How could I like some? They're not good for you. Why am I always having to deny myself? And so on. But once you know something, it's not so easy, I mean it's pretty easy then, it was pretty

[05:28]

easy for me after that to walk by the chips for a while and now I'm getting back to where they're pretty good again. But this is true not just with, I mean, I like using something ordinary like chips because they are very obvious, but our whole life, you know, is like this, you know, if you get a job, do you stay here or does it hurt, do you leave, or, you know, when do you know you've fallen in love or it's just infatuation and so forth. There are decisions and, you know, our life unfolds and we go in various directions and it's quite fascinating to find out how did any of us arrive here tonight.

[06:31]

So careful observation of the obvious, I've also been emphasizing that practice and our life is a practice of Zen is to be present and to be receptive when vulnerable, to actually receive something in that, to receive something in our life is an activity, it's an action, something we do. It's better to practice receiving and letting something touch you and come home to your heart than to wait for, you know, something to, that's going to get through. It's the things that are going to get through aren't very, aren't very, are pretty rare. So we can actually practice being open and receptive and seeing what our eyes see and what our ears hear and our feelings and thoughts and in that way, you know, knowing ourselves,

[07:43]

knowing what our life is. Something, in a sense, you know, something about why we're here. People sometimes ask why do you meditate, why do we meditate and Suzuki Roshi used to say it's wisdom, seeking wisdom, it's actually we already have some wisdom so it's wisdom to sit and feel our way along in the dark as we do in Zazen. Anyway, this, to be present and receptive is different than most of what we do in our life, which is called performance. For performance there's some standards and so you try to assess, am I doing Zazen good enough? Am I cooking good enough? Am I a good cook? And then you have to, you apply the standard, you know, how do you have some standards to

[08:45]

see if you live up to them. And those standards, of course, are kind of, it's not clear what they are, but you know whether you're a good cook or not. Mostly that means you're not. You know whether you're, you know, a good friend or not and mostly after a while you say, well, I could probably do better. So anyway, when we get involved in the performance mode, we're usually not good enough. In the mode of receiving our experience and, you know, dropping performance, we actually find out what's going on and we can do something. So in the realm of cooking, you know, this means actually tasting something and finding out what it is. And then, you know, it's not about whether it's as good or not as something else or whether,

[09:46]

you know, what it indicates, but, so this week, you know, we've been tasting things and we've, you know, just to see, is this salty? Is it sweet? Is it sour? Is it bitter? Is it peppery? So in lieu of performance or when you're not so involved with performance and comparing what you've done with some standard, which is often a kind of hidden standard, then you actually get some information, called information. And information is something that you can act on. After a while, you know in your being what's salty, what's sweet, what's sour, what's peppery. And then you know what something is and so then you know if it should have more salt, more pepper, something tart, some lemon or something, or if it should have, if something is bitter.

[10:46]

You know what all those things do because we've been carefully observing and you've been receiving your experience and not so worried about performance. In this vein, Dogen says, encourages us to handle the ingredients with sincerity and make a thorough effort and offer what you have to offer. And that's about the best we can do and as I was telling my group this morning, and people say various things about it. I found out pretty quickly when I was the cook here, which is getting to be more and more years ago. If the oatmeal is too thick, people complain, it's too thick. You had to chew it. You couldn't just eat it, swallow it. If it's too thin, it's not hearty enough. You had to just swallow it, you couldn't chew it. We have hard work to do around here. We need something substantial in the morning. And then if you put raisins in it, some people would come in the kitchen and say, why are

[11:50]

you poisoning us? Because they were macrobiotic. So basically, no matter whether you're afraid, you know, that's a sincere, honest effort and some people like it and other people don't. So there's actually, interestingly enough, you see, no way to actually live a life that everybody says, oh, thank you very much. And yet we keep trying to do that. That's another way to say, what is suffering? Just try to please everybody. I also want to, I want to remind you because some of you weren't here. I gave a talk or two during our Zen yoga workshop and I wanted to remind those of you who heard it before, but some of you didn't hear it. Because I've also been thinking lately about different places in the body to be aware of

[12:56]

that might be interesting or instructive for you. One of the things I mentioned is the sides of the body. The sides of the body are in many ways how we connect with others or connected to others through the sides of our body. Here, most of you are sitting, you know, side by side with somebody and actually you're already connected. But often, even though we're connected, we try not to acknowledge it. So I want to encourage you to, you know, allow others to be there through the sides of your body. To let yourself notice the sides of your body and to receive others through the sides of your body. And it's a big relief that you don't have to actually hold yourself apart, unsupported by others.

[13:58]

Another place is the back of the heart. We do a lot of things in our life, bending forward, sitting over a desk, cutting board, we have activities we do in front of us, computers. And often there's a little bend in the back and often that little bend, where we bend in the back, is the back of the heart. And the back of the heart is a place where it can easily become hard, a little bit hard. It's where we harbor a kind of resentment or, you know, something kind of unforgiving. So it's a place in Zazen where we sometimes try to straighten that area. But it's also a place then that when I come around and I just pass through,

[15:07]

I mostly just touch that area, if I notice. And sometimes I take my hand to move down someone's back to feel. Is there some place that is curving out? And so I want to bring some awareness to that area. And then I don't usually, you know, just push somebody's back forward. Get in there. I usually wait, I have my hand there and I wait for some change in the energy there to acknowledge my hand being there. So, you know, my hand in a place in someone's back, it brings your awareness there. And usually bringing the awareness there, something shifts in that part of the back. And then if there's a shift in the energy and there's a kind of acknowledgment of my hand being there,

[16:14]

that part of the body, then sometimes I push a little bit to see. And I don't push very hard, I push fairly gently to see if there's a willingness to shift there. Because I want to give people, you know, if I'm doing something with somebody's posture, I'm trying to, as soon as you try to change anybody. You know, I used to go around fixing people's posture. As soon as you fix somebody or change somebody, you make them wrong. And people come and say, well, what was wrong with my posture? Was something wrong with my posture? And you've made somebody wrong. So I'm not trying to say you're wrong to, you know, however you are. However we are is not wrong, it's where we are, it's what we're about these days. And we, you know, all have our karma and past and everything to, you know,

[17:21]

which is right here present with us as well as the present, and so on. So I don't try to say how somebody should be, but then if I notice some willingness from my hand to be there and the energy is shifting and some warmth is coming into that area, then I may push a little bit and see, does that area give? Because there's some willingness to let there be a movement. Because if there's not willingness, then I don't want to force it. I just, I want there to be, you know, I want to give you a choice. So choice is very interesting. And I think practice is about, you know, finding the places of choice in your life and where you actually do have a choice. It's often where you didn't realize you had a choice. But if you're feeling carefully with your awareness, one way you find the place of choice is to notice very carefully what you are doing.

[18:28]

This is so amazing, you know, it's, we call it mindfulness. You notice exactly where you are without trying to fix it. And to actually notice that what you're doing, you know, allows you, you realize then you could do something else. And you notice what you are doing. And you realize, I could do something else, I don't have to do this. So I also, you know, in meditation sometimes, I'm coming around the sandal and I have my hands, I put my hands on people's shoulders sometimes. And then, you can tell pretty quickly, you know, I practice what I've just told you about being present and receiving. And I'm not trying to fix anything or correct it or make it better. But one of the things that happens then is you can notice, you can notice where you are.

[19:30]

And once you notice where you are, say, oh, I don't have to be here. I could relax. I could let go of that. It's so amazing. So the capacity to relax or let go is to acknowledge where you are. So anyway, the back of the heart is also an area you can just bring your awareness to the area right behind your heart in your back. And notice, is it hard and kind of closed? Or is there some softness there? And that also is a place where we tend to connect with others. When that area softens or you bring awareness to that area,

[20:34]

you feel your connection with others. It's actually quite a struggle to maintain your centeredness. It's not to acknowledge how connected we are. This is actually a big effort. We could just be connected. And it's understood in Zen that the body has all of this awareness. And the body knows already how connected everything is. So much of the effort in meditation is just to come into your body, to move out of your head and your thinking mind into your body and to your being. And then I mentioned also the head and neck. We often say in meditation, to lift the top of your head, the crown chakra. We also say pull your chin in or lengthen the back of your neck.

[21:36]

For instance, suspend yourself from the ceiling. And I was mentioning the other night that another way to think about this is to allow a gentle breeze to come against your face and slightly shift your head backwards. And then as your head is moving backwards, you'll tend to notice a place where it starts to float up. So for this I have to sit up on the floor. Anyway, there's a place where your head moves back and it starts to float up. And this is the same posture, but you're doing it without so much effort. And your head doesn't have to be, you don't have to so much hold your head in some kind of position. The position of the head has to do with maintaining yourself in your thinking mind is having the chin this

[22:38]

and the back of the neck kind of pinched. This is a way to disconnect yourself. It's real hard to notice what's going on in your body. You can think really nicely. This is also a position of the neck which is no. I don't want it. So this other position of the head is okay. Yes, I will. And anyway. So when your head floats then you can let the rest of your body settle. So So in meditation it's especially useful to let your weight settle into your pelvis. Let your sacrum settle.

[23:39]

We say, you know, put the small of your back in a little bit. Have the small of your back in. So sometimes people really emphasize putting the small of your back in. So you're sitting this way. And it's useful to, you know, if you're letting your head float up then you can also let actually your sacrum settle and release down. So the small of your back is in but just slightly and it's not exaggerated in. And that's a very comfortable place for your sacrum. And you let your sacrum, as I've been mentioning also this week, it's useful to let your body be your body. Not to have strong ideas about what it should do or where it should be. It's useful to let your sacrum be the sacrum and find out and realize being the sacrum. So you don't think, I know better than my sacrum how to be the sacrum.

[24:43]

This is also true with your breath. Each part of your body. How would we think that we know better than our breath how to breathe? But we have various ideas. I want a long, deep, calm breath. Thank you very much. And then we start trying to make it that way because that's what we'd like and that's the standard. That's performance to make your breath a certain way. And to let your breath be found in its own way is what we've been emphasizing this week. So the sacrum, and another place I want to mention which I've been forgetting to mention is the corners of the jaw. The corners of the jaw are a very interesting place because this is where a lot of judgments are. So if you're busy thinking about how well or poorly you or someone else is doing you can notice it here. The corners of your jaw get kind of like

[25:51]

worked up. Sometimes the corners of your jaw get worked up because somebody near you is doing a lot of that kind of thinking. It's contagious. Very interesting. Anyway there's a simple antidote for this which is called smiling. See what happens to the corner of your jaw when you smile? You can't do that stuff anymore. It's very hard to smile and assess the standards of performance. So one of the things smiling does really immediately goes right to the corner of the jaw and it's just smiling for no reason.

[26:51]

Here's a good reason though it's a nice way to just immediately for a moment, a brief moment drop the assessment of standards and you just smile. Doesn't seem to mention smiling very much but as most of you know Thich Nhat Hanh who is a Vietnamese Zen teacher teaches smiling. When he first came here in 1983 people at Zen Center had a very difficult time and there were many arguments suppose I don't feel like smiling should I smile anyway? That would be insincere, wouldn't it?

[27:54]

And suppose I'm angry am I supposed to just smile then? Shouldn't I let people know that I'm angry? You could smile at someone who's angry then. Anyway he said, you know, this doesn't have to be a big smile. And if you're, especially if you're someone who has difficulty smiling you could have a slight smile for someone who has difficulty smiling and if you're not very good at this practice you could have a slight smile for someone who's not very good at this practice. So he suggests, you know, a half a smile or a quarter smile or, you know, even a thirty second of a smile. It's just a slight smile. You can start with that. Anyway even a slight smile goes right to here

[28:58]

and lets go of some of those standards. And the busyness of our thinking mind and assessing how well or poorly we're doing and in effect making ourselves and other people wrong by the application of some standard. I remember then he was down here and then we had a retreat at Green Gulch another year I remember we were doing walking meditation I remember right where I was in the center of Green Gulch and I was walking and I heard this voice some of you are not smiling you're wasting your time

[30:00]

It was really amazing it was really such a change for us and then he used to say you know, you can mix hot and cold water when you have those two handles the hot water and the cold water it can come out the same tap so just because you're angry doesn't mean you can't smile you know, slightly you can mix them together so check it out if you're busy with judgments see what's going on in the corners a slight smile doesn't help soften it a little bit so moving on well, there was the hands and feet too but I'm going to leave that aside

[31:06]

well, can I say just I take that back I'll say just a little bit about the hands I just want to remind you that hands love to be hands and so please allow them to be hands and that it's basically you know, the mind that's weak the hands love to do things it's the mind actually that says I don't feel like it we'll put that off until tomorrow that's not your hands saying that your hands love to do things they love to touch things and cut things and chop things and wash things and pick up things and put them down and hands love that and I told my group, after you've done something and you could even sit here now but especially right after you've been working just do your hands and they just feel so great they just love it and if your hands haven't been doing anything lately they're sort of like dead they're sort of like whoa, this is depressing you know it's like somebody's not letting me

[32:08]

be a hand anymore anyway, check it out and again let your hands be hands let them find what they love to do and what they enjoy doing this is a wonderful way to realize your life so I'm going to tell you a story tonight and I have to I'm going to introduce the story with a Zen teaching Dogen in the guidelines for studying the way he said, Zen gives you a key which other schools don't give you this is the key, sometimes you turn the dharma sometimes the dharma turns you when you turn the dharma, you are strong the dharma follows when the dharma turns you, you are weak the dharma pushes you around it's you know, colloquially we say sometimes you're going to be on top of things sometimes things are on top of you get used to it this is the

[33:10]

key, to get this is the way things are, rather than thinking if I practice Zen, I'll always end up on top of things, I'll be able to just ride along at ease I will never be at the mercy of you know, my experience anymore anyway, we have ideas like this and then every time you're you know, kind of confused or upset or something, uh oh, what a poor student I am, you know, I've been done in by things again, I've been turned around by things, I guess I'm, you know, a failure anyway, Dogen says hey, that's the way it is sometimes, you turn the dharma sometimes, you get turned around okay, so I'm going to tell you a story like this, it's also about cooking and various things, so this starts last year, because a friend of mine who comes to my sitting group in San Rafael is the head of the Jewish Community Center's nursery school in San Francisco she's been doing this kind of work for years so she asked me, would I be willing to help

[34:11]

with the benefit? I said, of course I'd be willing to help with the benefit, for you? Great, I'd love to so she said, well we're planning to have, you know, you could be one of the um, what are they called now? um, it's like celebrated chefs, celebrity chefs, you could be one of the celebrity chefs, we're also asking Nancy Oaks over at the boulevard and, you know, somebody somewhere else, and so, and I said, you know, excuse me, but I'm not really a celebrity chef, like they have restaurants and things, I just wrote a couple books years ago, I'm kind of this, you know overgrown hippie, and she said, oh no, no, no, we want you, you know you're going to be one of our celebrity chefs and and your name is going to help sell tickets and, you know, so on and she said, the celebrity chefs you will plan the menu and then, you know you'll each make some part of the dinner and then, you know people will come we're calling it the Magnificent Mingle so I said, oh, okay

[35:16]

so a few weeks went by and then she came back to me and she said, well, our plans have changed a little bit, you know it turns out that Dianne Feinstein's daughter Kathleen is like the president of the Jewish Community Center or anyway, my friend Ronnie's boss so, and so she said well, Kathleen's mother Dianne and her husband Richard Blum have offered to underwrite the catering of the event and have this Magnificent Mingle at their house in Presidio Terrace and so the celebrity chefs now are just going to make dessert would you still be willing to participate in this event? and I said, well, yeah I guess so, you know, I'm really not much of a dessert chef, but I guess I could make, well, something I mean, I know I'm not much of a dessert chef I mostly like to eat I concentrate on cooking the meal and, you know, what's the matter I've never been like a pastry chef well, I guess I could do that

[36:22]

so the day goes along and then she said, well you probably should bring somebody with you to serve the dessert and then later she said well, it changes their minds now that the caterers are going to serve all the desserts so you don't have to worry about it, the caterers will take care of it and that was nice, and I had planned then to make a strawberry rhubarb tart cake sounds a little complicated but you cut butter into flour and sugar, we did this in our class today then you take half of it and put it on the bottom of the pan and it makes a layer that's the crust that's the tart part, then after that's baked, you put the strawberry rhubarb on top of it, puts the rhubarb and then the freshly sliced strawberries which have been seasoned and flavored with maple syrup and aniseed anyway, and then you take the other half of the crumble and you mix in egg and sour cream and vanilla extract and that goes on top and then that bakes it some more and that's the cake

[37:25]

so there's a crust, rhubarb strawberry cake I tried it out, it was great and this is good and I wanted to make something fairly simple so I could just make these sheet pans and cut them in the appropriate sized pieces and I figured out how to make them into little triangles as opposed to diamonds or something and I could get 45 per tray half sized sheet pans I could get 180 desserts I was aiming for 150 I'd have some left over so I thought about all this and then a couple people from my sitting group agreed to come over to my house and help me do this so we started around 8 o'clock on Saturday morning and I started cutting up rhubarb and cooking it and stewing it and then they were cutting the butter and the flour and sugar and measuring it out and putting it in pans and we baked them and then along about 2 o'clock or so we took the first ones out of the oven

[38:27]

and that was nice and they looked great they smelled terrific and then pretty soon we had them all out of the oven and they were cooled off and these people were getting ready to go and I said well you should take some with you and I started taking I got the cutting all done so that they're nicely cut and I started taking off the end pieces to give to them and I got that off and I got it onto a little spatula and then I went to put it onto a plate or something for them to take and the crust stayed on the spatula and the goo all slid off onto it and I thought oh no I didn't have this problem the last time I made these and I started thinking about this is Senator Dianne Feinstein says this is the I already know my dessert compared to celebrity chef desserts from

[39:29]

you know the boulevard and catahoulas and calistoga and you know my little desserts are kind of homey you know homey compared to the other desserts that are going to be there and then I think if my homey desserts you know also are going to distribute themselves various ways this is a real disaster and the more pieces I tried to get you know to do this and the more they kept coming apart and everything the more upset and anxious I got and I literally you know I had a fit I started I couldn't help it I started screaming why did I ever agree to do this stupid thing how did I ever get myself into the situation where my homey desserts are going to be no compared with these astounding things from these other restaurants and I just and pretty soon

[40:31]

my students were saying excuse me we do need to leave now and this was even more embarrassing because here are my meditation students teachers having a fit and screaming and my daughter is there later she said dad you know it's really hard to respect somebody who's screaming like that so these people got some these people the people who had been helping me got their desserts and they went home and Laika was there and she said dad it's probably not as important as you think it is you're probably the one who really would notice the difference in the way this has come out and you know it's going to be okay and I'm saying like look I'm the one who has to take these things to Dianne Feinstein's house and I'm the one who's going to have to be there it's easy enough for you to say everything is fine it's okay

[41:33]

you know it's all going to be fine you don't have to show up at Dianne Feinstein's house with these desserts in your hand and have them compared to the other desserts you know you don't have to be there I'm the one who does it's all easy enough for all of you to say you know how it's all fine but I'm the one who's going to have to show up there and this is true a lot of the time with a lot of things it's easy enough for you to say but you're not the one in the circumstance in the situation then the next thing so I sat down I had a cup of coffee I was trying to get calmed down I had a shower and then I started getting ready to go and my friend had said they're going to be really dressed up at the Magnificent Mingle and I said I don't have any dress clothes my dressy clothes is my black robe she said oh that would be great could you come in your robes so then I'm thinking

[42:33]

I'm thinking oh god I have to go to this thing and now I have to I'm going to go to this thing with my desserts and my nice black dress and and I started loading up the car and I realized I need to buy gas oh god I have to go buy gas and my black dress and then I got all the desserts in the car and I was trying to get them so they're not sliding around too much and I started out and I left my house in Fairfax about 5 o'clock I thought that would be plenty of time or 5.30 I forget it was around 5.30 and I looked on my way where is there a gas station with full service I was not wanting to get out and pump gas in my black dress and I couldn't find one of these gas stations and I thought well maybe there will be one in San Francisco and I got to the bottom of Waldo Grade

[43:39]

this is a Saturday I got to the bottom of Waldo Grade at 5.00 to 6.00 and the traffic from the Gongate Bridge was backed up to Waldo Grade and I thought only for love only for devotion only for the Jewish community I was sitting here in traffic running out of gas in my black dress anyway it took me 35 minutes to get to the toll plaza so I got to the toll plaza around 6.30 and then I headed for the Richmond District and I stopped at the Shell Station on Gary there was a Chinese man there and he seemed very happy to see me in my black dress and I don't know if he realized I was a Buddhist or what but he kind of smiled at me and maybe he is used to seeing you know all kinds of people there I don't know anyway I got my gas and I headed for Dianne Feinstein's house and I parked right across the street so I could take my desserts in and I got my desserts into the kitchen and then I went and reparked my car

[44:41]

and I came back in and somebody handed me a glass of champagne and I thought well and then Dianne Feinstein appeared and somebody said oh would you like to meet Ed Brown and I said you know come and meet Dianne Feinstein and I had actually met her briefly years ago at Green's a couple of times she had come to visit when she was mayor so I said oh yes I met her briefly and she is all cheering how nice you would help us with this this is great thank you very much I don't say anything about my desserts actually yes of course I would love to do this for you and then her husband Richard Blum showed up who used to be on the financial advisory board so I had met him years ago then he proceeded to show me around and he is actually a Buddhist you see and he has been to Nepal many times and Mustang and Tibet and he has brought back all these art objects

[45:41]

and he has got these standing Buddhas and little Buddhas and these things with the 18 arms and the 16 legs and the deities that are making love with one another and fabulous and we are walking around and we are chatting and various things whatever happened to Baker Rishi and so on it is all pretty amazing isn't it now I see some of you looking at your watches so I guess it is time for me to look at my watch I am going to come by Well I have two things left to say so I will try to make it quick One is I would like to encourage you I get just a little discouraged sometimes

[46:42]

I read Dogen and I read the instructions to the cook and he says take care of each grain of rice and treat the food as though it was your eyesight and don't change the way you handle something whether you think it is important or not important, handle everything the same take care of each thing so sometimes when I come to the kitchen there is like a bowl and there is actually one or two cookies in the bottom so the other day I cleaned up the bowl and I baked myself an extra dough cookie kitchen that can do the same thing what I would like to see is clean up bowls in the kitchen to make that kind of effort anyway you will have to decide for yourself what you want to do but I wanted to tell you

[47:44]

what I have learned when bowls clean up sometimes it is you know things get dumped out and there is all these mashed up spatulas and there are different things but there is like a cup, two cups of food in the bottom of the bowl and it has all been prepared and it has gone through a lot to get here and I understand that in a certain sense even if it goes to the compost pile it is not wasted it is all returned to the universe nothing ever gets apart from the universe it is all going to get composted but at the same time I think about it as a way to take care of yourself as well this is what Zen says because we are also at times in our life just a little piece of a leftover and that is what we feel like anyway so if you take care of the leftovers that are in the kitchen the stuff that is in the bottom of the bowl this is also taking care of you

[48:44]

yourself it is taking care of something that seems kind of insignificant but we are all in that situation at times and it is a big shift and it is Dogen also says don't treat the food with ordinary mind or ordinary thinking so it is ordinary mind or ordinary thinking that is not worth the bother this whole big bowl most of it that is not worth it so that is ordinary thinking and Dogen and others have encouraged to take care of that and then this also is you know with the food we eat especially my students here

[49:49]

to try to take what we can actually eat to actually eat what we take as opposed to taking some food and then I don't quite like it a lot and then discarding anyway it is a simple thing to work on and think about and I am not saying this in terms of performance I am saying it in terms of some place that you could if you are interested look into and treat something differently than you might and handle something differently than you might and find out what that is about so I thought maybe once a summer you might try it because you have to do it at least once to do it more than that

[50:50]

so it is interesting how much I know for myself I had tremendous resistance to doing that now I just do it all the time and as I say anyway it is how you take care of you yourself when you are also someone who at times you feel very insignificant and you are worth it no worries with taking care of and touching and knowing if you do that with the things in the bottom of the bowl then you will know what to do with yourself and finally many of you are familiar with the poem that I like a lot by Derek Walcott so I am going to tell it to you and I will leave that I use the same thing over and over again if you don't mind it is the poem that is called

[51:58]

Love After Love One day you will greet yourself arriving at your own door in your own world each will smile at the other and this is you you will know again the stranger of what you felt give wine give bread give back your heart to the stranger who has loved you all your life when you are ignored for another he knows you by heart take down the photograph the desperate note feel your image back in you sit in peace peace on your life

[52:46]

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