I appreciate this sort of spirit of practice, so I thought I'd share it with you. This is from one of Suzuki Roshi's lectures, Find Out for Yourself. When you try to understand things better, without any rules or prejudice, this is the meaning of selflessness. It's kind of nice, huh? People get all kinds of ideas about what would be selfless, and then, as Suzuki Roshi said, some of you would really like to be selfless. Doesn't that sound like a selfish idea? I'm going to be selfless. Anyway, when you try to understand things better, without any rules or prejudice, this is the meaning of selflessness. You may say that something is a rule, but rules are already a selfish idea. Actually, there are no rules, so when you say, this is the rule, you are forcing something,

[01:07]

the rules, on others. Rules are only needed when we don't have much time, or when we cannot help others more closely in a kind way. To say, this is the rule, so you should do it, is easy, but actually, that is not our way. For the beginner, maybe, instruction is necessary, but for advanced students, we don't give much instruction, and they try out various ways. If possible, we give instruction to people one by one. Because this is difficult, we give group instruction or a lecture. But don't stick to the lecture. Think about what I really mean. I feel sorry that I cannot help you very much, but the way to study true Zen is not verbal. Just open yourself and give up everything. Whatever happens, whether you think it is good or bad, study closely and see what you

[02:12]

find out. This is the fundamental attitude. Whatever happens, whether you think it is good or bad, study closely and see what you find out. This is the fundamental attitude. Sometimes, you will do things without much reason, like a child who draws pictures, whether they are good or bad. If that is difficult for you, you are not really ready to practice Zazen. This is what it means to surrender, even though you have nothing to surrender. Without losing yourself by sticking to a particular rule or a particular understanding, keep finding yourself moment after moment. This is the only thing for you to do. Thank you very much. So, today, I will give various instructions, but I want you to know that basically the

[03:14]

fundamental spirit is to be studying for yourself what your experience is like and what you might learn from your experience, and how studying for yourself to find out how to live your life. Zen and Buddhism are actually very radical in this way, because it is not telling you, do this, don't do that, with a whole set of rules. But, actually, it is honoring the Buddha, so to speak, in each of us, that we have this capacity to find our way in our life by experiencing our experience very closely, and that we could have confidence or faith in ourselves to find our way, rather than needing somebody else to tell us, do this, and not do that. So, you know, sometimes, I just tell people this, and then we just, you know, that's it.

[04:25]

Figure it out for yourself. And then they say, well, what are you doing here, then? Why do we need you? So, I thought I'd tell you a few other things today. Make it seem like maybe you do need me. But actually, it's interesting, you see, you do need, we do need somebody to give us permission to be ourselves. Isn't that interesting? You know, that you need permission or encouragement or support, rather than, shouldn't I try to be the way I should? You know, we tend to get stuck in that. And we have our own picture or image of how I should be, rather than, you know, couldn't I just be me? We have ideals to live up to and so forth. Anyway, today, as I mentioned, I want to talk about breathing. And as the day goes on, I'll give you various instructions or suggestions about being aware

[05:34]

of your breath. There's kind of, I realized in thinking about this yesterday, three ways of working with the breath, three basic ways, and I'll mention them now, because during the course of the day, we'll probably be doing, you know, each of these three in one way or another. So first of all is to be aware of your breath. And basic awareness of the breath, in Buddhism especially, is to see if you can be aware of your breath, you know, and one of the usual expressions is to follow your breath, right? Following the breath, you can't actually let your breath go ahead and then you tag along behind it, right? If you, I've tried that. And when you try to let your breath go ahead and you're going to tag along behind it, nothing happens. You start holding your breath, waiting for it to, could you just go ahead of me? Please? So following, though, has the understanding of following rather than leading or directing

[06:36]

or telling your breath what to do, like you were in charge, right? So the sense of following is more like, I don't have any idea how this is supposed to go, could you just inform me about how you are and how it is to breathe? You know, can I give my awareness to my breath in such a way that, as the Rilke quote said, you know, things have the opportunity to fulfill themselves, right? So your breath has the chance to breathe exactly how it would like to. When you're not busy telling it, slower, calmer, deeper, sweeter, nicer, more careful, do this, don't do that, stop being so agitated. So if you're busy telling your breath what to do, your breath will get even more, I have a lot of experience with this, your breath will get even more upset.

[07:37]

This for me is like, you know, for instance, some of you were probably at my famous cooking class here in Sacramento, and nobody in Sacramento has ever invited me back to another cooking class after this one, but I don't think that's true, I'm exaggerating, but, you know, I sometimes get temperamental at cooking classes, mostly because other people are not behaving the way they should. I'm behaving fine, but people get to talking and laughing and carrying on, and then I'm trying to give instructions or teaching or, you know, what to do next, but nobody can hear because they're all busy having a good time with each other. So from time to time, I don't know how skillfully to bring people's awareness back. Sometimes I try a mindfulness bell, you know, hit the bell, we all be quiet and breathe and, you know, let me talk, and sometimes that works.

[08:46]

And sometimes I've asked somebody else to hit the bell and then that person gets to be busy talking and visiting so that when the time comes to hit the bell, they don't. But anyway, I get upset and then people say to me, Ed, calm down. Now, how well does that work, do you suppose? Anyway, it doesn't work very well for me when I'm kind of angry or frustrated and somebody says, calm down, relax, it's okay, behave the way I'm telling you so, because, but what they don't say is, you're being upset is disturbing me, and if you would stop being upset, I wouldn't have to be upset either. So calm down. Anyway, that's what I feel, you know. You control yourself. And so I'm doing the same thing, we're doing that to each other, but anyway, it doesn't work very well for me. I would rather somebody says, you know, is there anything I can do? Rather than, you know, like, what do we do now, you know, to actually work on things?

[09:55]

That's one good way and then, anyway, I could give you various suggestions, but anyway, when we tell our breath what to do, you know, our breath can get, doesn't necessarily agree. So we're studying in the sense of following the breath, is there some way to bring our awareness to the breath and allow the breath to be however long or short, deep or shallow, smooth or rough it happens to be, and just let it be however it is, without any particular ideas about, it would be so much better if you could just. And you know, and so, if it, to the extent it's possible, we say follow the breath. And in Zen, you know, Kadagiri Roshi and Suzuki Roshi both used to emphasize, you know, this is how to take care of your breath. So simply speaking, you might notice, like, well, what, when you bring your awareness to your breath, what attitude do you have towards your breath?

[10:56]

This is something very basic about, you know, who we are or where we're at and something we're studying then. You know, is the breath like your child, your baby? You know, sometimes you watch your baby sleeping and you just love your baby. You don't, it doesn't have to be doing something particularly pleasing, you just, there's just love, or there's just a feeling of kindness or warmheartedness. Is it possible to have some feeling like that towards your breath? So we say follow, or like the quote I read to you from Suzuki Roshi, sometimes you will do something like a child draws pictures, whether they're particularly good or bad, just because it's kind of fun. And couldn't we do something like that with our breath? So we tend to be, you know, we tend to have the feeling like more, you know, we're part

[12:04]

of an acquisitive culture and human beings generally, you know, can be rather acquisitive. And when we come to spiritual practice, it's often possible to have the sense of what can I get out of this? And if I'm just following my breath, what can I get out of that? And when there, isn't there something around here, someplace that I could get? And of course, you know, we're shifting in spiritual practice from this kind of sense of what could I get out of this to how could I give myself to my life? So how could I give my awareness to my breath so that my breath has a chance to fulfill itself? I just can let my breath fulfill itself. So this is the first sense of the breath, and I'm just going to briefly talk about the other two. We're going to do yoga in a few minutes, and both in sitting and yoga, there's a sense of taking various postures, which is not the way, it's not your usual posture, right?

[13:04]

In meditation, we're studying something about how to find a stable, upright, stable and a posture that embodies stability and also some ease, a balance of some energy and alertness and some repose or calmness. And that's in our posture. Because you know, if you're sitting like, you're not going to have much in the way of either repose or ease. Because you might think this is easy, but you know, it actually gets tiresome too. It's actually more ease to have a balance and to be in the center and not be leaning or slumping left or right, front and back. We'll talk more about that. But if you change your posture in sitting from your usual abhisha posture, and in yoga we'll be doing various postures, and that means that your breath will in a certain sense implicitly needs to change and expand or open into the new posture you're taking. So as you do various activities, you're finding your breath opening or shifting in various

[14:09]

ways as your posture changes. So we're going to be working on that. And the third thing we may do, just a little bit, is to, you know, we may actually study, especially in the yoga here that Patricia is teaching, that we may from time to time be asked to breathe in a particular way that might be a little bit different than your normal way of breathing. So these are the three possibilities. One just to be aware of your breath, give your awareness over to your breath, letting it fulfill itself, letting your breath expand into the various postures that you're taking throughout the day, and thirdly, possibly, you know, directing your breath a little bit. So what we'll do this morning, we'll have a period of yoga, we'll come back and sit, and then we'll probably do some outdoor walking and some sitting, and at some point we'll have lunch. And this afternoon, and I'll give little instructions when we have the sitting, I'll give you some little more hints about being with your breath, and I'll give you some walking meditation

[15:11]

instruction, you know. So throughout the day we'll have little bits of instruction as the day goes on, and then after lunch we have a question and answer period, and we'll see how the afternoon goes. So, thank you so much for being here. Right away this morning, once we started sitting and I hit the bells, you know, it was very still, very quiet in here. And one of the main things that happens when we're sitting is not so much that we're doing anything or accomplishing anything or getting anywhere, as much as anything, we're sitting in silence, and we're starting to resonate with one another. And just being in this company, in the presence of good-hearted people, you know, in the presence of good-heartedness, and we're re-tuning ourselves to that sort of feeling in the room. This is very much like, I appreciated the story I heard about Mother Teresa who was asked one time, you must pray a lot, and she said, oh yes I do.

[16:11]

And the interviewer said, and when you pray what do you ask God for? And she said, oh I don't ask for anything, I just listen. And the interviewer said, and what does God say? And she said, oh He doesn't say anything either, He just listens too. So, this isn't, you know, some meditation, you know, this as much as anything is just our spending the day together, and it's not even as though you have to make a particular effort or get somewhere or have any particular experience, but just in this room with others, in this practice, by the end of the day, you know, we will be like the Rilke Palm, you know, we're just sitting and we're waiting and it's wide and expansive and open, and there's a shift in our being as we do this together over the course of a day, regardless of whether you think you're doing well or poorly or you're getting somewhere or you're not getting anywhere, it's just hanging out in this kind of rather sweet presence of one

[17:16]

another. So, thank you for, you know, coming together like this and giving each other this kind of gift. Blessings. So, I'd like to introduce Patricia. You know, usually I've come up here and led the yoga myself, and my partner Patricia has agreed to come this weekend and actually offer you a yoga class, you know, because sometimes we do Zen and yoga workshops and things. So, it's a great, so to speak, honor to present to you the yoga goddess herself. Patricia Sullivan and Patricia, Patricia and I actually met in a yoga class, so this goes back, you know, to 1980, is it 1983 when we met and then we got together in the spring of 84, so this is the 19th anniversary of our relationship. How about that?

[18:17]

As someone said recently, I should get a medal, and then she said, oh, well, he should get a medal, too. We're going to resume this afternoon with some talk. So if you're in the mood for silence, you'll have to go somewhere else. I thought we could take a few minutes, as I often do after lunch, for a period of question and answer, question and answer period, or if you have any questions or if you have anything you'd like to share about your experience this morning or so far today with meditation, particularly if you found any of the instructions useful or some of them that were annoying I would be, you know, I'd like to know so that I can... Sometimes, of course, it would

[19:22]

be the same instructions somebody found useful, somebody found frustrating and annoying, so we don't know, but... So if there's anything either you'd like to share or if you have any particular question or interest right now, you're welcome to bring it up. Yes. I'm afraid, you know, I'm not sure. I'm guessing it's actually from Letters to a Young Poet, but I'm staying at Susan's house, and she happened to have a copy of Harebrained Tortoise Mind there, which I've read previously. The subtitle is, How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less, and he has that little passage from Rilke at the beginning of the book, but he doesn't say where it's from. The nerve of him. But it looks more like Letters from a Young Poet than it looks like, rather than a poem, so if you'd like to borrow this, also

[20:26]

my apologies, because if I had thought of it, I would have Xeroxed it ahead of time, so you could pass it out, but if you want to borrow the book and copy it down at some point, you're welcome to. It's an interesting book because he explains how, you know, they now have done scientific tests showing that people do better with all kinds of things if they think less, you know, and most of our life can't be figured out, you know, logically, or, you know, two plus two equals four. Most of our life is not two plus two equals four, it's like, I guess, I'll, you know, stay home now, or go to the one day sitting today. I guess I'll do that. And that actually is a good way to do things, rather than, I'm going to go there, I know that's the best thing for me to do today. I've toted up the pluses and minuses of the various things, and this would obviously be the best thing, so I'll do the, you know,

[21:28]

you can't figure out life, what to do, you know, so he says, don't even bother, just guess. And there's things in there like, they put people in, you know, they have people spend the afternoon in a jet plane simulator, teaching them how to fly a plane, and they test their eyes beforehand, and then at some point while they're busy flying the plane, they say, oh, out the window there, there's a plane across the way, can you see what the insignia is? And people have, can read way better when they're pretending to be plane, airplane pilots than when they're just who they are. So, we could all, you know, stand to guess and pretend, and, because it's so, it's so easy to believe that we're kind of nobody. It's pretty easy, I don't know about you, it's pretty easy for me. I'm such a worthless

[22:29]

piece of a piece of a, so, yes? I'm just curious how you're coping with the whole war thing. I find it extremely painful and extremely difficult, and quite disheartening. I, I found myself in a kind of dilemma because, on one hand, you know, a lot of the time it seems like people aren't talking about the war or acknowledging it or that possibility or anything. And a lot of people I talk to say, I can't do anything about it, so I'm just not going there, I'm just going to concentrate on me and what I'm up to. And I think it's a little strange to

[23:31]

think, well, I can't do anything. Is that true? We don't know what's true. And at the same time, if I think about it, I get overwhelmed. And now and again I, I find like I have, I don't have the energy I usually do, I take more naps. And now and again I cry, especially in talking to people about it. And I thought I would, for a while in January I got inspired and I thought, oh, well maybe I'll go to Washington and just sit someplace. And I somehow couldn't imagine just canceling my life, like coming here and going places. But maybe you

[24:32]

all would have appreciated my not being here more than my being here, if you knew that I was in Washington sitting someplace. And I don't know if that would make a difference, but my body would be there. So in the meantime I've been, I decided finally, you know, I've never done this before, but I sent out emails to my whole list, you know, three or four hundred people. And first I asked people to send rice to the White House. There was a big rice sending campaign there for a while. And I suggested people send postcards, and now I'm passing on all the messages from moveon.org. They just had a huge, well they had their virtual march on Washington a week ago, and then they were just collecting names for a petition to the U.N. They had 550,000 in 24 hours to start with. So that's supposed

[25:35]

to go to the U.N. on Monday. But it's overwhelming. I can't, I can't get my email anymore. I mean, you know, I can do my emails every three or four days, because as soon as I get emails it's, it's hours of responding to things. And there was also, and by the way I have, later this afternoon I have various things I'm going to put out on the table, you know, so I got a great poem over the, on the email. It's about as good as anything, you know. Let's see. Here we go. This is a poem called Pray for Peace. Have you heard this? Pray

[26:44]

to whoever you kneel down to, Jesus nailed to his wooden or marble or plastic cross, his suffering face bent to kiss you, Buddha still under the bow tree in scorching heat, Yahweh, Allah, raise your arms to Mary that she may lay her palm on our brows, to Shekinah, Queen of Heaven and Earth, to Inanna in her striped descent, hawk or wolf or the great whale, record keeper of time before, time now, time ahead, pray. Anyway, she goes on and says, why don't you make eating and drinking a supplication, slicing of carrots a holy act, and so forth, you know. I don't know what else to do, but I don't feel it's useful to believe I can't do nothing, can't do anything. We'll do some compassion, you know, meditation later today too. I believe in the power of prayer, but that's just to say that all other

[27:45]

things being equal, prayer works. So we don't know what all other things are at this point. It's pretty bad. And I find it fairly, you know, personally fairly discouraging because I've spent my life being a Buddhist, meditating. So it kind of calls into question, was I doing the right thing? Look what happened. But I also see where Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama and, you know, various Buddhist teachers go on being Buddhist teachers and teaching Buddhism. There was also, so last week, you know, I got three messages the same day. One was that MoveOn had extended their deadline for the petition until yesterday afternoon, from Thursday morning to Friday evening. And they're actually going to present

[28:49]

it on Monday, but they needed to send it in to something on Monday, Friday afternoon. So I don't know if you can still sign up for that or not at moveon.org. They seem to be a fabulous political action committee, whatever it's called. And then I got another email from a friend that said you can go to True Majority and they'll send faxes to your representatives and the president, free. You just need to sign up with them. So I forwarded these things to my whole list now. I made it all up so I could do it easily. And instead of doing it to my whole list, I made it, you know, ten different lists. So I wouldn't be sending my whole list out to everybody. Whatever. And then there's a new one now that Helen Caldicott started. Helen Caldicott now has started a campaign for people to email the

[29:52]

Pope, please go to Baghdad. And somebody added, you know, because, well, various people have gone to Baghdad, from America and other countries, as so-called human shields. The thinking was that the Pope would be maybe effective at this. And then somebody added the Dalai Lama to this too. The Pope and the Dalai Lama. It, you know, all of these things have been true, but, you know, after, you know,

[30:58]

9-11, we all felt more vulnerable and fragile. And suddenly, you know, the Buddhist so-called truth of impermanence was a little truer. And every moment, you know, is life and death. And we're only here because, you know, there's death in other places. It's very painful. And it's so strange, I don't know, it's so strange, because it seems like only a few people want to believe in war, in this particular war. And all over the world, people are standing up and walking, voicing the wish for peace. And it's not even as though we're defending America or democracy or... I can't believe we have the idea that, you know, we could reform Islam or straighten them out or make them ours, or... It's very strange thinking.

[32:05]

And so, if nothing else, I'm... You know, I do understand, you know, like, for a while, at times, Thich Nhat Hanh has said that he would only get his mail and phone messages one day a week, because it took him days and days to recover. So I kind of do that. I can take in only a little news at a time, and a little information and so forth at a time. And I stopped, you know, after the election, I stopped, you know, getting the newspaper and watching television. Even before... I mean, right away, I knew, I mean, I decided, it looks like Bush is going to get this. It's in doubt. So I stopped. I can't... It's too much. I can't take it in. And I can't take in that daily sort of... So much of the

[33:32]

news is oriented toward grabbing your fear. So I don't want to get grabbed like that. And if I hear things, I hear things from friends or through my email. Seems better than being... opening myself to the media. But it's all... I do find it disheartening, and at the same time, people... You know, on one hand, you can go over towards, I'm not going there. On the other hand, you can go over too far in the direction of, I'll take it in and be an inept, discouraged bag of bones or something. So people have told me not to go there, that the world needs me. Whatever. So if nothing else, it seems useful not to get caught in

[34:35]

any particular belief. I can't do anything. I can't do something. This is going to happen. That's going to happen. We don't know. So it's easy to get caught by something. So I try to disentangle myself. Come back to my breath and my body and my life. When you walk to your car, to the mailbox, to the video store, let each step be a prayer.

[35:37]

Sometimes now when I'm in the grocery store, it looks to me like every item in the grocery store is just a dead body. We live in strange times. David Letterman, did you know David Letterman said... Did you hear that? There's amazing things going around the internet these days. David Letterman said, President Bush has said he does not need approval from the UN to wage war. And I'm thinking, well hell, he didn't need the approval of the American voters to become president either. And, you know, this Thomas Jefferson quote is going around, war is an instrument entirely

[36:49]

inefficient toward redressing wrong and multiplies instead of indemnifying losses. And Winston Churchill, never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy or that anyone who embarks on this strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he's no longer the master of policy, but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. I don't know what these people think or if they do that are planning and so bent on this. I mean, I've got seven pages about that here, but I don't get it. Strange that we human beings could be around for centuries and centuries. I can't believe the Congress,

[37:53]

you know, wouldn't stand up to President Bush. Unbelievable. Oh, sure. You know, there's things going around that, you know, half the population of Iraq is 15 years and under. So let's go to war. I do, you know, at the most basic level, it seems important to me to take care of the things that will sustain your life. Sleep, you know, food, some exercise or meditation and or meditation, some basic things that renew you and sustain you and being careful

[38:59]

about what you consume in the way of news or, you know, what you take in so that you have the kind of strength and well-being to respond to whatever is arising in your life and life. So that seems pretty basic. And, you know, I read, you know, things like Rilke because what do we know? Maybe something will occur to us to do. People do all kinds of things and we don't know what, you know, in the long run, if we limit ourselves to doing what will be effective that we know will work and that we know will make a difference. We're in a position of hardly doing anything. And then, so then we tell ourselves we have nothing that we can do because we don't believe that it will make a difference. So it seems useful to let go of that kind of idea. Let's do all kinds of things that we don't know. We don't know it will make a difference or not, but let's go ahead and do them anyway because it's our spirit and it's our energy and it's our vitality, you know, and if we just shut it off, that's not going to help either. So people do various things. And I

[40:14]

think that's true with our life generally, you know, if we limit ourselves to things that we know will work. And why would you meditate? What, it's going to work? But is it said that there's one mind and one body? Is it what? Is it said that there's one mind? Is it said or sad? It's said. Is it said? Is it so? Oh, is it so? That there's one mind, and if it were so, then even what I think. Yeah. I do, you know, again, I don't know what's so or not so. I think so. And I believe, you know, that consciousness in, you know, from what little of my experience is that

[41:17]

in consciousness, consciousness is not limited by time or space. So we can send our consciousness out. We can touch people who are alive or dead or, you know. So I think that's useful to do. I don't see why not. And what we're thinking or believing, it's all, you know, it's things that, you know, scientifically speaking, it's hard to show these things, but I was very impressed, speaking of this, you know, with the Shambhala Sun Magazine this month has an issue, an article on, by Dan Goleman about the scientific studies they did on this Tibetan Buddhist monk. He's from Europe, but more than 30 years of training as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, and there's actually two of them, he and another Tibetan Buddhist monk who grew up in Europe originally, went through these studies. And he could, and,

[42:25]

but you see it's some, anyway, he could, they have, they're testing these people for one at the University of Wisconsin, there's somebody who's very interested in all of these, and so they were having, they had him in a functional MRI for three or four hours, and they had him do six different kinds of meditation. And he could do the meditation 90 seconds on, 90 seconds off. I mean, it was not like he needed to warm up. You know, get focused, get settled, you know, quiet his mind. He said, okay, time to do the, you know, the one-pointedness meditation. Are you ready? Five, four, three. And say now, and then, you know, his, and then his brain pattern, they would show, it would show his brain pattern. For, so he did the one-pointedness meditation, he did a meditation on vast open space, expansive space, you know. He did a meditation on compassion. He did a visualization, visualizing a deity or something. And I can't remember, he did six altogether. A fearlessness was one of

[43:36]

them. So then there was one more. And every one, and he'd do it 90 seconds. And every one had a very distinctive brain pattern, and they say that most people, the brain pattern does not change particularly except between wake and sleep. Most people they've tested. So there does seem to be something to be said literally about doing this practice, you know. And they actually are saying in the article that even a few weeks or days of practice can actually be, they can notice a difference on these tests. People notice a difference. And one of the ones they were particularly excited about, or Dan Goleman particularly remarked upon was meditation on compassion, because the meditation on compassion, the left prefrontals were particularly active, more so than the right. And it's well known from other scientific studies that when the right prefrontals are more active, you're

[44:39]

very likely to have a clinical depression or panic attacks and think sad and morbid thoughts. And if your left prefrontals are more active, you tend to be happy and buoyant and cheerful. So apparently developing compassion for other beings, you're the first beneficiary. And this is something that the Dalai Lama has said. And so it was pretty, it was very, to me, very moving, this article showing that science, you know, and it's also, you know, partly this is interesting because they said this is probably the first time that compassion has been scientifically studied. Because the kind of idea in science has been that there's a kind of, there's a kind of norm, and then from there you could, you know, get sad or depressed or, you know, and so they've been studying all these negative things that you could, you know, but they haven't been studying

[45:39]

that you could actually develop consciousness in the other direction through compassion or friendliness or concentration or one-pointedness. They haven't been recognizing that consciousness could be developed. You know? And just like, and one of the things they make the analogy to is world-class athletes or musicians or any of us who, if you spend 10,000 hours at something, that's kind of their benchmark for anybody. And these are people who spent well over 10,000 hours. But if you spend that number of hours, you know, your brain develops accordingly. Your brain develops accordingly to what you spend time at. So it's pretty encouraging, you know, to actually practice. So I'm starting to practice again. I mean, I, you know, one goes through various periods, and I do various things that are

[46:45]

actually like practice. But I actually, but I'm actually meditating, you know, every day because I've found it, lately I've found it, you know, for various reasons, the war among others, it's very hard to meditate. So anyway, and then, I mean, they did this guy with all kinds of studies. They also found that they took these two monks to the center in San Francisco, Paul Ekman's Center for Facials, the Study of Facial Expressions, and he's this, the world's expert now in facial expressions and which muscles go with which emotions. There was a long article in the New Yorker magazine last summer. And he's had 5,000, more than 5,000 people take his test, and they show images and pictures of people. And he first of all studied, you know, around the world and found that emotions go beyond culture. That humankind expresses emotions the same way no matter where. You know, they can show

[47:50]

somebody from New Guinea to Americans or, you know, Japanese to Filipinos or whatever. And people know he's sad, he's angry, he's scared, you know, he's contempt. So he's got this down to exactly which muscles are involved in which emotions. And he shows images of somebody for a tenth of a second or a thirtieth of a second, which is faster if you blink you could miss it. Anyway, these two monks scored two percentile above the norm, whatever that means. And basically they scored better than 5,000 other people who had ever taken this test, including, you know, policemen, judges, defense attorneys, Secret Service agents had been the previous best at recognizing what's going on with, because nobody can cover their emotions completely. The little, a few, a fraction of a second, you know, the underlying emotion will be there every so often, you know, because they're trying to

[48:54]

control their face or they're doing things, but the little gestures of emotion show through. So he's actually trained, you know, people to be able to observe this. But you could see from the monks that this isn't about training, this is about empathy. They're extremely empathetic to looking at somebody. What do they feel? What's going on with them? And then they also took them to some place in Berkeley where they test people for the startle reflex. And they have to shoot this gun off, right, you know, close to the person. And he was doing a meditation on vast space. And they'd never seen this before. They didn't think it was possible, but basically his face did not change. And even people, marksmen and people who are shooting guns all the time, their face will do a startle expression when the gun sounds. So there is something to be said for training.

[49:54]

But then in the terms of the whole vastness of the world, you know, well, maybe, you know, there's so many things going on. But it's clear that, you know, people are not the enemy. Greed is the enemy. You know, Buddhism is saying, you know, people are not the enemy. It's greed. It's hatred. It's anger. It's delusion that are the enemies, so to speak. You know, it's not, it doesn't, it's not, you know, very accurate to attack people as enemy. You know, Solzhenitsyn said, wouldn't it be wonderful if you could identify evil and attack and eliminate it? But he said, unfortunately, or you know, you could say fortunately, the line between good and evil runs right through the middle of each person's heart. Very famous expression.

[51:00]

So, you know, if nothing else, I'm deciding it's important to stand up for, you know, manifest what I believe in, that kind of truth, and peace, and against war, and against this war, and, you know, that I ought to at least, I want to at least tell people and share that with people that that's where I'm at. And, but you know, all the time, I have no idea what the effect of that finally will be. You know, if I sit here and we just have a one-day sitting, and I can say various things, and I have no idea at the end of the day, was that good for you too? What do we know, finally, you know? We hang out with one another, and we're, as I said at the beginning of the day, you know, we're tuning in with each other, we're sharing our good-heartedness. We're creating a sanctuary, a space, a sanctuary for all of us. All of us together create that space.

[52:16]

So that's pretty nice, and then, we don't know what will come of that, but, you know, we have some confidence that that's energizing, or healing, or, you know, there's a power to that. And I also decided, you know, again, which I kind of decided before, but, you know, if it comes down to being arrested, or imprisoned, or killed, you know, for believing in peace, then that's my wish. I'd rather do that than, you know, attack other people. It's so that I don't quite see what's so important, personally, about the American way of life.

[53:17]

You know, with the, I don't know the exact statistics, but, you know, there's 12,000 people or something in the country who are extremely, fabulously wealthy, and they're getting wealthier, and everybody else is either staying the same, and the bottom 20% has gone down over the last 20 years. So there's an increasing gap between the wealth and the, you know, wealth and poor. The middle class is disappearing, and, you know, before long, we'll be a third-world country. And the empire's over. You know, the, um... $200 billion can buy one war with Iraq, or a million new teachers, health care for a million U.S. kids, clean drinking water for everyone on Earth who needs it, and a four-year full-tuition college scholarship for every graduating senior in America. Is this a complicated choice? Yes?

[54:24]

And he came, he was like 19 years old, and he came to the conclusion that he was too embarrassed not to go to war. He couldn't face going back to his small town. He had all these bad news about going back to his small town and going into the coffee shop. People say, oh, there's a guy that didn't go, or there's a guy that went off to Canada. He felt like a lot of people felt like that. He was too embarrassed not to go. I decided, um, in that vein, you know, that there's also people who would rather kill than feel shame. Or have feelings, period. One of the things that we do as people is, rather than have a feeling that we find painful or we believe,

[56:00]

is we just shouldn't have that feeling. I will die if I have that feeling. And rather than die, you know, have that feeling, you know, that we believe, I would, I will just die if I have to have that feeling. We would rather kill other people. Um, you know, the simple version of it, you know, just around the house is you get angry at somebody when they say something where you feel helpless or vulnerable or sad or disappointed. And rather than have those feelings, you can attack them or attack yourself. This gets pretty close to home. I told a friend a while back, you know, there are times when I just want to, you know, something, you know, somehow I put the sink, the sponge down on the counter, you know, and it falls into the sink. And I put it up there and it falls into the sink. And, you know, I just want to obliterate it. I just don't want it to exist any longer, you know, if that's the way it's going to behave. Because I just feel so helpless and so stupid and, like, can't I even get a sponge to sit on the counter?

[57:09]

And obviously it's the sponge's fault. And, you know, I can distinguish between a sponge and a human being. I think, but, you know, they're not that different. I mean, I have the same kind of tendencies, you know, to want to obliterate something that is kind of, you know, showing my failure, you know, highlighting my, you know, lack. So I was telling somebody about this and he said, oh, President Bush, huh? Anyway, we're, in some ways, we're, you know, all of us as people, we're not that different. But most of us don't carry it to that extreme. We're not in positions to do that and we wouldn't do that, you know. And there's, you know, and we have enough regard for other people in our life who can talk to us and, you know,

[58:14]

remind us that that's not, you know, a good thing to do. Obliterate sponges. You know, people want to do this with their computers from time to time. So, could anybody in the midst of all this find their breath this morning? Yes? Yeah.

[59:18]

You're bringing up a very, could you all hear about the breath and the end of the exhalation and you're bringing up a very good point which I was going to mention, you know, more or less next. So you're right on schedule. Good sponge. Which is... And, which is that many people have noticed and actually, oftentimes meditation teachers say, and Suzuki Rishi mentioned, why don't you concentrate on your exhalation more so than your inhalation. And in other words, if you take care of the exhalation, the inhalation will take care of itself. But, and not only at the end of... You can have perfect calm.

[60:36]

So this is an interesting place because we don't, we don't always settle or abide in that perfect calm. There's a tendency to, to go away from it. It's one of the places where our awareness goes, oh, there's nothing happening here. Why don't I look around for something, you know, for something that is happening? So it does take a particular kind of, or emphasis perhaps, on staying with the breath at that place where it's coming to, either you call it... That that's the place where you disappear into emptiness. And if you then inhale, you reappear in your life. And you say, oh, I inhaled. I guess I'm alive, fortunately or unfortunately. But there's the sense of being willing to disappear into emptiness,

[61:42]

and then maintaining presence or awareness with that perfect calmness or complete stillness. And having patience and waiting for the inhalation to come. So it is a very pivotal and a useful place to focus on and stay, you know. And in my experience, I had to... I had to make a kind of commitment, you know. I mean, I say a kind of commitment. I say that because, kind of because, whether you call it a commitment or a vow or whatever you call it, but I made a commitment, finally. I am going to do this. I am going to stay with my exhalation as it disappears. And I'm not going to go away, and I'm not going to be... Because there's also the sense of disappearing into emptiness. It's sort of the feeling of nothing will be there.

[62:44]

I, you know, literally you can have the sort of idea or feeling, I'm going to disappear now. If I continue to exhale, I'm just going to disappear. So there's... And then, who would want to do that? So you need a kind of commitment or some courage or fortitude or something there. Determination to, okay, yes, and stay with it and stay with the breath, stay with the breath, and going ahead and disappearing. And it's very powerful. Thank you for bringing that up. In this sense, I guess you could think of concentration as so-called continuous presence.

[63:58]

What Buddhism suggests actually is that concentration, that every moment of consciousness has an element of concentration. And... So the concentration is actually there whether we call it from our usual point of view concentration or not. And we usually think of concentration as, I will pay attention to this and not that. Selective concentration. So this is a more boundless concentration, which is, I will be present for whatever is or isn't, so to speak, there. But the tendency with consciousness anyway is that the more quieter your consciousness becomes, the more you tend to fall asleep, this end. And then in order to have a wakeful state, you're more likely to have a kind of agitation. And that's being awake.

[65:01]

And so then, especially as you're beginning to meditate, there's a kind of fluctuation between falling asleep, agitation, going over to stillness, you know, disappearing into sleep. So is it possible to be present, a sort of level of presence throughout all of that, rather than this sort of idea that concentration was just one place in all of that? Yes, there you go. The real Kapam. He got a copy. Someone else over here had their hand up at some point? Yes? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Great. Yes?

[66:02]

Uh-huh. I think what I mean by that is energy is released. Transition. Healing. And what happened was I sat down and I just got waves of energy. Maybe this is kind of a hokey question. What's the relationship between Buddha's father and his shoppers? Energy stores. I don't know. Maybe that is a hokey question. I wouldn't know. I don't know. What's the relationship between Buddhism and the chakras, or energy storage?

[67:14]

One of the things that baffles me about Buddhism is that there is so little talk about this. To me that's just baffling. I don't understand it. Because my experience is, if you're sitting in meditation and if you do any of the three, particularly Buddhism is emphasizing the first two, following your breath without regulating or controlling, your breath will naturally start to go into places where it hasn't been in a while. And when your breath goes into places it hasn't been in a while, then you tend to encounter some debris, whether you call that energy or you call that feelings, emotions,

[68:23]

you know, memories. People can sit and, you know, they're two years old, they're three years old, they're remembering their mother, they're remembering their father, they're yesterday, they're tomorrow, they're, you know, all kinds of stuff is happening and that's partly your breath is weakening a little place in you that hasn't been wiggled in a while, as far as I can tell, as much as anything. Because if you stay busy, you don't have to go to those places. If you stay busy and you don't pay attention to your breath, you don't have to remember or feel or sense or touch those places that you were made a point of deciding long ago to stay away from because they were too bothersome. Of course, now as an adult you may have a few more skills you had than when you made that decision. To abandon those places in you. So, and I also see where you change your posture, like, if you make a point of, you know,

[69:29]

stabilizing yourself and, you know, leaning, you know, tilting forward and back and finding, you know, where is, you know, your stability and centered and balanced and you're right here, then your breath has to, your breath will start filling the space that you give it and become more expensive. So again, you're starting to, the breath will move in places that you're not used to having movement and you'll be feeling and thinking and releasing, so to speak. Sometimes this is described that there are energy channels. Tibetan Buddhism, if anything, talks about this from time to time, you know, energy channels. And basically, if you're sitting still and you're not talking, you're not spending in the way that you usually are. Most of us, you know, are running a deficit and we're spending faster than we're earning. But if you sit quietly and still and you're not talking, the energy is actually building up and then it starts to move in the channels where it hasn't moved before or in a while.

[70:34]

And when you first, it's like, you know, turning on the faucet that hasn't been used for a while and when it first comes out, it's rust, there's rust in the water, there's some debris. And after it runs for a while, it's clear. But that rust and debris is feelings oftentimes or memories, thoughts, associated with certain things that, like, I'm not going to experience if I can help it. So you're opening yourself to experience more widely and what's called re-inhabiting yourself and then having energy move through you more fully, just as you're saying what happened for you. And for you, you're emphasizing energy. For other people, they have more the sense of feelings or memories or something associated with that and they're less noticing it as energy per se, warmth, sense of movement, sense of flow, vitality. So people experience that kind of shift or release of things, you know, in various ways.

[71:41]

And sometimes it seems more, you know, sticky, you know. Having greater vitality also has to do with acknowledging and letting go of the things that you've been doing or the places you didn't want, the things you didn't want to experience. So you were holding yourself and keeping yourself from going to this place. It's just like all those fairy stories. We have this great palace here and here's the key to every room, including this one room, but don't go in that room. But here's the key, here's the key. So following your breath is like the key to all the rooms. And then especially if you follow your breath, then you're doing some yoga, you know. I mean, and then sometimes it's, you didn't even, you know, we want, at some level of our being, we want to go into those rooms and we want to air them out and we want to open them up and we want to re-inhabit them and we want to acknowledge the secrets and, you know.

[72:45]

But at the same time, we don't always feel like we have enough support or enough resources or we're, you know, overwhelmed. You know, various things can happen. But anyway, I am surprised that, and maybe it's a difference in language, you know, between Buddhism and Hinduism and, you know, and I don't think it's necessarily just chakras. You know, my own experience of places in my body isn't just chakras. So that seems, you know, fairly limited to just think of it in terms of chakras. But I'm just surprised that there's not more sort of just general understanding that that's what, you know, practice is about. You're going to open up some doors and windows and air the place out and when you, if you move back into a house that's been abandoned for a long time, you know, there's all kinds of debris, there's dust, there's, you know. I was one time on a trip to Japan with some friends and we went to this house

[73:48]

that had been closed up for months and, you know, the dust is really thick. We had to, we had to spend about two hours cleaning, you know, first thing. You know, the floors and the walls and the counters and, you know, before, you know, we could, you know, and you want to open up the refrigerator for a while and, you know, I mean, you have to do some cleaning, you know, when you re-inhabit a place that hasn't been inhabited for a while. And this is true in our own bodies and our own beings and with old memories and old feelings. And it's a little, it's a little, and the, you know, the... So then on one hand you have that we have this wish to re-inhabit ourselves and to be as big and full and energetic as we could be and to, and then on the other hand we have the idea, well, I'm going to be a spiritual person. I'm going to be happy and I'm not going to have anger. I'm going to get rid of my anger.

[74:49]

So if anger comes up as you're doing this cleaning, it's sort of like, you know, oh, I better not, then we have, you know, we have some sort of conflict. Now, is this what I, is this for me to be doing or is this not my spiritual path and I should have a spiritual path where I don't have to do any, you know, this terrible cleaning stuff? Shouldn't I have a spiritual path that, where I don't have to, you know, get dirty? And I don't have to have any of these painful feelings? I thought that Buddhism would help me do that. So we go back and forth, you know, what am I up to here? And how do I actually clean and acknowledge and open and become more energetic over time? How do I do that? So today I was just going to, like, I wasn't going to, you know, mention all of this, you know, that you're bringing up, you see. I was just going to, like, we'll just work with the breath. You know, feel your breath and you can enjoy it.

[75:55]

And then if you get into any deep doo-doo, we'll talk about that later. Well, we've been at this just about an hour or so. Was there, were you raising your hand or stretching? Okay, one more. Yes. Yeah, thank you. And for me it was, it helped me kind of fix on the edge of myself. Oh, uh-huh, yeah. Sometimes it's been, like, me and the breath. Yeah. Somehow it brought us together. Closer, yeah. And in the same light, also, my mind too, a lot of times. There's me and then there's my mind. There's bad things I'm not supposed to do. The mind isn't supposed to be unmeditated. Yeah. And you've got to bring that into your mind. Yeah. And again, some of the edge.

[76:55]

Thank you, yeah. In your breath, yeah. Uh-huh, yeah. It's a combination of those two. It got me. Ah, wonderful, yeah, yeah. Yeah, classic Zen, settle the self on the self. All right, well, thank you. Yeah, there's... One of the sort of just, you know, very simply, classic Zen... saying is that the disease of mind is to set one mind against another mind. You know, self, mind, body, mind, and to, you know, to make a separation and then... and then have the idea that I can tell the other one what to do.

[78:01]

So this is just classic, and... So one way or another, we're saying, you know, is there some way to be friends with the other? You know, friends with the mind that doesn't seem to be. And being friends with that mind or body, which is not performing the way we would like it to, is partly, you know, listening, the quality of listening, or, you know, as I was saying this morning, you know, reposing with or, you know, appreciating the way you appreciate a baby sleeping or your child playing. And your mind is just playing. And as you start to appreciate the other, your breath, your body, your mind, you start to appreciate and feel grateful for, then you have a different relationship. And rather than telling the other what to do, it's more like you're inviting or calling forth the other to, you know, in response.

[79:04]

One of the basic things that I do, finally, is... I'm sorry, but if you don't like the way I'm meditating, why don't you show me how you do it? And, you know, the trick here is that you're not going to... your mind, you know, you're not saying to your mind... Your mind says, well, why don't we just get up and walk out of here, you know? And we could go have a good time someplace else. And you say, no, we're going to just stay here, but why don't you show me how you could have a good time just being here, you know? I know that the way I've been telling you how to meditate, and you know that we need to do this in order to be spiritual, I know you're not liking that because you're not, you know, you're not following the program I've created here. So, why don't you show me how... what would you do, you know, as long as we're going to be here? You know, come on in and show me how you meditate. And, you know, how would you like to sit? Would you like to sit a little straighter? Would you like to, you know, slouch a little bit more?

[80:05]

You know, what would... is there anything I could do, you know, to make this, you know, more enjoyable for you, you know? And sometimes your mind or your body that, you know, hasn't been behaving appropriately is not very articulate. So, you kind of have to... it's kind of like a two-year-old or something. You see, you have to create the suggestions. Would it help to sit up a little bit more? Would it help if we relaxed a little bit? You know, should we follow the breath? Should we count the breath? You know, should we follow, you know, concentrate on the exhalation? You know, what would be, you know, engaging for you? Anyway, what do I know about your life? All right, thank you. I suggest we... I think, you know, I think it would be good just to, you know, go for the outdoor walking now. Get a little, you know, awake after lunch and talk and everything. So, those of you... there are some of you who probably have outdoor walking, you do.

[81:11]

And I can give some instruction for those of you who don't. But... so if you want to stay for instruction, you can. Otherwise, you can go out and walk, and I'll give some instruction. So if somebody's doing an outdoor walking that you don't know, don't worry, I've instructed them. That's what I've instructed them. So if it doesn't look like what you're familiar with, you know, it's okay. Oh, so you can walk in here or, I don't know, the parking lot, the dining room. Probably not out on the street, but usually it's easier to do walking meditation kind of... I don't know, is there a park here? There's a lawn, there's a meridian lawn down the middle of the street here. We can have a little loop around the little median lawn there. Anyway, I'll give some instruction and we'll take about, well, with the instruction and everything, 25 minutes or so. 30 minutes. So I'll hit a bell probably in about 25 minutes to signal you to come back.

[82:13]

About 22, I'll hit the bell and then we'll plan to be sitting again by about 2.45. Thank you. A passage from Nelson Mandela. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your plain small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

[83:20]

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. So my suggestion is, as you walk, go ahead and be tall and large. Thank you. So we'll take about 25 minutes or so. Thank you.

[84:38]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[85:53]

So today we've been... Perhaps, I don't know what you've been doing, I've been talking about giving your awareness to the breath. Letting your breath be however long or short, deep or shallow it is. Having perhaps a warm feeling or kind regard for your breath, taking care of your breath. Letting the exhale come to a completion. Disappearing into stillness. Perhaps noticing the breath in the back of your body as well as the front of your body. In your pelvis as well as in your chest. In your shoulders as well as your abdomen. After a while it may seem that there's a lot of...

[87:09]

It's hard to know, we kind of objectify things. So there's you, your breath, your body, your mind. A lot of things. A lot of different characters here too. See if they can all be friends with each other. Live in peace and harmony. Not attack each other. Find something to do together. So of course it's probably useful to have a little feeling of communication.

[88:09]

Friendly communication or careful communication. Usually this involves a great deal of listening. And rather than making demands or... You're telling your mind how it should behave or your mind tells your breath what it should do. You kind of ask very carefully or make a suggestion. How can I help? Would it be a help to sit up a little straighter or if I relaxed? There's a sense here of...

[89:19]

Again, of how do we help something fulfill itself? Letting the breath come to fulfillment. Letting the mind come to fulfillment. The body come to fulfillment. Expressing itself. I want to mention a couple of other principles. As we're beginning this last period, perhaps this goes without saying, but nonetheless. If there's any pain in your body, any aching or tension,

[90:23]

probably a general rule of thumb or basic principle is to see if there's some breath. Any sense of the breath in that part of your body. Any subtle feeling of inhalation, exhalation. Or do you notice yourself carefully not breathing in that area that's tight or tense or in pain? Either drawing your awareness away from that area or trying to push the pain away from you. If you're trying to hold your awareness apart from or push the difficulty away, it will be more painful. If you can breathe with it or breathe into it, there'll tend to be more movement and flow and less stiff or stuck or pain. Basic sensibility of just simply touching some difficulty with your breath.

[91:35]

You let your breath touch it. This is a great, sometimes miraculous healing. To let your breath touch what is difficult or painful. Inside your being. Your breath can do this very gently, very carefully, very tenderly. Your breath touches the difficulty. As your breath touches the difficulty, that's your awareness. That's being willing to be in touch with things rather than struggling to be separate from, apart from, at a distance from the difficulty. So let's see if we can just breathe with who we are today at this time.

[92:48]

And let it be a healing. Tenderness. Liberation. Awareness. [...]

[94:10]

We have just a few minutes left. I'd like to... I guess I'd like to do a few minutes of compassion meditation. If that would be alright with you. And I'll just guide for a few minutes. And then we'll close. I don't know, maybe I'm too ambitious here. To start with, you know, we've done all the preparation.

[95:18]

We've spent the day here. So why don't we go ahead and, you know, if you would like, if you're willing, bring to your... Bring to mind someone that you cherish, someone that you love. And let this person sit in your heart, or bring to mind an image of them in your heart. And perhaps you can feel the warmth or softening in your chest as you bring to mind someone you love or cherish. It can even be an animal. And we'll wish them, this person or animal, I'll express some words and if you're comfortable with them you can repeat them perhaps or not as you wish.

[96:34]

May you be held in compassion. May you be free from pain and suffering. May you be free from suffering. May you live in peace. May you live in peace. Why don't we try repeating silently to yourself.

[97:38]

And let's bring ourself to mind now. And the kindness, the compassion that you wish to someone you cherish and love. Let's go ahead and offer that to ourselves. Offering your heart to your heart. May you be held in compassion. May you be free from pain and suffering. May you live in peace. May I, may I be held in compassion. May I be free from pain and suffering. May I live in peace. And we'll take just a minute or two to bring to mind anyone you would like.

[98:58]

Others in the room, family, friends, companions, people in the world, all people, all beings. Anyone you would like to extend. Or willing to extend this compassion to. We'll go ahead and extend our hearts as wide as you would like. May you be held in compassion. May you be free from pain and suffering. May you live in peace. Thank you.

[100:07]

I have one last poem to read. This is a poem by Pablo Neruda. It's called Keeping Quiet. Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still. For once on the face of the earth, let's not speak in any language. Let's stop for one second and not move our arms so much. It would be an exotic moment, without rush, without engines. We would all be together in a sudden strangeness. Fishermen in the cold sea would not harm whales and the man gathering salt would look at his hurt hands.

[101:09]

Those who prepare green wars, wars with gas, wars with fire, victories with no survivors, would put on clean clothes and walk about with their brothers in the shade doing nothing. What I want should not be confused with total inactivity. Life is about what it is about. I want no truck with death. If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death. Perhaps the earth can teach us as when everything seems dead and later proves to be alive.

[102:19]

Perhaps the earth can teach us as when everything seems dead and later proves to be alive. Now I'll count to twelve and you keep quiet and I will go. Thank you. Blessings. Would you like to start with the announcements and then I'll see if I have any after you're done. Please. Susan's going to start the closing announcements. I always feel much larger. Blessings. As well as Patricia.

[103:39]

And we have the funds that you gave us to be together today all go to the renting of this, not all of it. Would you like to clarify? The important point is that the teachings come to us through Ed's generosity and so it would be wonderful if you could use your generosity in his direction and to give to Patricia's generation. Direction. In the dot box which is on the table. It's hard to get the link right. Also in that direction is the sign up sheet.

[104:49]

If you haven't picked your name off, I don't know what you've done since then. And I would like to be sure that I know what you've done. Blessings. So also in that there's some books and cards that I offer for sale. Also some very sharp Japanese vegetable knives. But I also put out there, as I was mentioning, I have various things that have come to me about prayer for peace and Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem and various odds and ends of writings and letters and things. So I've made a limited number of serifs and put those out. So if you're interested in any of those things, those are also over there. As are our flyers of, and many of you already have picked them up, of events that Patricia and I will be doing.

[105:52]

In particular, as far as events go, we have a weekend coming up in May at a place called Oz, which is on the Garcia River north of Guadalajara. Which is quite a fun event. I'm afraid it's not very much of a retreat atmosphere. We are silent part of the time, but we also eat good food and drink good wine and have a good time. So if the combination of Zen, yoga, and some conversation with other people as opposed to silence with other people is appealing to you, you might consider coming to that. So there's a flyer about that. Also the events that we do at Tassajara, if any of you are interested in, it would be worth your while to investigate soon because they tend to fill to capacity quite soon. And the flyers went out about the middle of February. So it would be timely to, if you were interested, to call the Zen Center or go online or something and see if you could get an actual application or that sort of thing.

[106:54]

For the retreats at Tassajara, which are in July and August, we do Zen and yoga. Also in August I'm doing Zen and Vipassana at Tassajara with Philip Moffat. I don't know if you know Philip. We taught together for the first time last Sunday and we had quite a good time. Philip provides structure, which is pretty nice. I tend to not have much structure, although today wasn't that bad. Do you have some other announcements now? Yes, I really wanted everybody to know about getting nutritious. So I did that. I got that in? Yes. And having participated in both the weekend retreat at Oz and their week-long at Tassajara, all I can do is recommend it. Experiences these days only seem so short.

[107:56]

And so it's nice to know that we're all going to be here. So, thank you. If we all live long enough, there's more. On the other hand, it's all here now. What we've always wanted. For those of us that are new to the Sacramento Buddhist Meditation Group, I hope that you will pick up one of our newsletters. I have another retreat not here, but I don't have it because of problems with locks. So it's on the website. Sorry.

[109:02]

The date is April 5th. Yes, I'll meet with you individually. And that was my last announcement. Ed still has some time tomorrow. And both of you are on the list. Two things. This meeting is borrowed by an SBA. It's on the website. And also, as you're gathering up stuff, you might not know how to do it. But we always end up acquiring what it is we do. So we had to lose one. So please make sure you take it home with you. Thank you so much for helping me. And may I say just a couple more things?

[110:05]

I always, I generally tend to just remind you that after a day like this, when we've settled into ourselves, it's rather like Susan said, Where's my mind? It's hard to get it working again. So if you have this problem, don't worry. It does start working again. And if you feel a little disoriented or confused or emotional after a day like this, then that's alright too. There tends to be a little residual kind of time to absorb the day. So hopefully you don't have busy schedules to resume just this evening and tomorrow. And you have a little time to absorb what's happened in the inwardness of today. And then, it's useful, you know, the Suzuki Roshi's expression with Zen is to feel your way along in the dark. Rather than, I know what I'm doing. And you go along gangbusters, but then knock a lot of things out of your way as you go.

[111:08]

So, a day like this kind of, you kind of have probably ended up a little more in the dark than when you started today. This is to be expected then, you see. You might think, why don't I feel more energetic and, you know. But actually, you know, we're a little more in the dark now and so you can kind of be kind and careful with yourself. And ease back into your life and find the way into the life that you want to be living. And doing things in the way you want to be doing them. So, you don't resume necessarily the sense of speed. Quite the sense of speed or haste, you know, that you might have had before. So, we'll just see how it goes. And it'll be what it is. Anyway, thank you so much for your presence here and sharing your good heartedness with one another. I appreciate it very much. Many blessings. Thank you.

[112:06]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ