The way it works. Well, the bright lights remind me, as some of you know, I'm in a movie now, so I'm used to the bright lights now. You set up the bright lights, start the cameras going. I'm not sure if it will get to America. It's opening in Berlin the 12th of February at the Berlin Film Festival. So, if any of you want to come over with me? What's the name of it? In English it's called How to Cook Your Life. And the movie is mostly in English, but when it's being shown in Germany it will have German subtitles. But if it gets here, it'll just be in English without the subtitles.

[01:02]

So I hope you all get a chance to see it. I mean, I hope, I hope that, I mean, you know, I haven't seen it yet, so I'm assuming that I hope that. I mean, it might be that once I've seen it I go, oh my God, I hope nobody sees this thing. I have seen nothing of it. And, you know, it could be like, what was that movie, Borak or something, where he photographs all these people to embarrass them, you know, and for laughs. And so I hope that's not what they did with this movie. Doris, I trust you. Well, she did get the jazz group. I don't think it's trombones, so I'm assuming a jazz group is, there's not usually trombones in jazz groups unless it's a Dixieland band or something, I don't know, so. Anyway, well, we'll see. So maybe next year when I come back, next year we can, you know,

[02:08]

watch a movie together. It's funny, you know, what happens, you start sitting and your life unfolds. That reminds me, you know, that, just to remind you that sitting meditation is beyond your conception, it's beyond your agency, it's beyond your doing or your, you know, structuring it. You can sit down here, but then life is unfolding, you know, without your directing it. So that's the good news and the bad news. It's out of your control. And isn't that nice? Because if it was up to you just to control things, how interesting

[03:10]

would everything be if it just did what you told it to? Not very. Although it seems like it would be pleasant. Well, I want to continue with just a little bit with my, where I started with posture. And I want to mention to you a Taoist saying by Xuanzu. He said, easy is right. Begin right and you are easy. Continue easy and you are right. The right way to go easy is to forget the right way and to forget that the way is easy. So easy is a kind of colloquial way of saying ease, you know, and ease is one of the traditional Buddhist

[04:13]

virtues. Ease is a kind of feeling of happiness or well-being, like being at home and making yourself at home in your body, in your mind, or welcoming home your experience to your heart. So there's different points of view of home, right? You're making yourself at home in your body. One way you make yourself at home in your body is, well, you know, you don't just kind of let your body hang out. You're like, let's make this a nice little place to hang out. And you help your body find its stability so that you can feel at home and be easy in your body. So the right, you know, to easy is right. Begin right. So begin right. You begin by

[05:17]

establishing your stability and balance and then you have ease. Begin right and you are easy. Continue easy and you're right. This is different than, how do I do this right? As though right was some kind of moralistic thing or, you know, conceptual thing, or you could judge right and wrong, good and bad, but you could be at ease. And this is saying, you know, to be at ease is right. Make yourself at home in your body and then welcome your experience home to your heart, into your being. And this welcoming is a little bit of a stretch for some of us, you know, because, you know, the things that come along are not, you don't want to welcome all of them. Some of them you just as soon tell them to go away, but this is also different. This is the sense of, you know, welcoming. It's like the, you know, the Rumi poem, The Ghost House. A joy, an anger, a sorrow,

[06:25]

you know. Every morning a new arrival. Welcome them all. Even if they're here to clean you out. Anyway. So begin right, your stability, and you will be easy. Continue easy and you are right. And then the right way to go easy is to forget the right way and to forget that it's easy. Because otherwise you might get a little discouraged when it's not so easy to have ease. And the ease, again, being at home in your body, in this life, in this place, in this time. Letting things be at home in your being. So this, you know, another word for

[07:28]

welcoming things home to your heart is to be willing to experience what's arising in this moment. And usually we want to be sure that the moment is doing what it's supposed to or what we'd like it to do before we're willing to have it. So this gets challenging. How can you be at ease when you're, is it okay? Is it alright? Do I like this one? Can I be at ease with this? And you're wanting to make sure that before you're willing to be with it, that it's the one you are willing to have. So part of just sitting upright, right in the middle is you've got no defense and it's all coming at you and you just let it. And you sit with it. So my teacher, Sipakirishi, would say occasionally, sitting meditation is to be practice being ready for anything. So being ready for anything is different than, you know,

[08:41]

gearing yourself up to defend or attack or, you know, things as they come towards you. Just like you sit and you're ready for anything. This is like, and this is very classic, you know, in Buddhism that, you know, the Buddha sat and then Mars' armies attacked and he sat there. And these arrows and spears and everything are coming and somehow as they get close to him, they turn into flowers and fall to the ground. So none of us are going to figure out how to do this or to put that another way, you find out how to do this by absorbing a lot of those spears and arrows while you're learning the technique of having them turn into flowers on the way towards you. Oh well, there's no help for it. So, you know, I don't know if this makes sense to you

[09:49]

and, you know, I'll say various things tonight and you'll hear various things and, you know, they'll either something that stays with you or it doesn't and, you know, our lives will go on and, you know, okay. So I will distribute various bouquets or whatever they are and, you know, you know, use them or not and that'll be the way it goes. So somehow sitting here tonight and sitting upright right in the middle here, there's two stories I wanted to tell you about and that for me at least are related to this being stable and at ease and welcoming yourself home, making yourself at home in your body, in your mind, you know, making an ally of your mind rather than setting

[10:52]

your mind against your mind, setting the mind against your body. How do you meet and work with things intimately and carefully and closely? So some of these stories, you know, some of you may have heard before but not all of you would have heard them before and anyway you'll get to hear them again now. So the first is, you know, when I was the cook at Tassajara back in the 60s and we were just starting up at Tassajara and we were actually sitting in our temporary Zendo and it was the first that we'd started having meals together in the Zendo. Before that we'd been having family-style meals at tables and at the family-style meals at breakfast we would serve hot cereal and then we had out on the table we had white sugar and brown sugar and honey because some people didn't want to be eating sugar. Sugar is bad for you. There was a lot of Zen

[11:55]

macrobiotics, it's two yen. And so some people wanted honey and then there were people who didn't like honey so we also served molasses and you wouldn't want to deny anybody, you know, what they wanted. Everybody should have what they want, that's the American way, have it your way. The way you want it to be. Watch what you want when you want to watch it and let your desires come up and then act on them. Let your desires come up and be a slave to them and let us sell you the things, more desires. Anyway, and so then we had milk and because some people, this is a whole different area now, so some people wanted milk, not the low-fat or non-fat milk, but some people wanted the more fat milk, otherwise known as half and half. And then some people wanted,

[13:02]

for some reason, canned milk. So we had, and this is before 2% milk and non-fat milk and then almond milk and rice milk and soy milk and all these different flavors of all those different milks. So we, this is, we were, you know, we only had to deal with so much choice. So this kind of worked out when we had, you know, communal tables and then you had one setup of these different items for all the tables. When we started serving the Zendo and, you know, we would, so we started serving, we'd take the pot and you'd go down the row and then you serve a person and you serve the next person, you pick up the pot and bow and to the next two people and bow and put the pot down. Some of you have done this sort of thing. And so then the condiments are there, you know, on a little

[14:03]

tray that people are passing down the row. This is a lot of things to pass down the row. And if you have just one set of condiments at the beginning of the row and you have ten people in the row, it takes a long time to pass down all these things and for each person to get the milk of their choice, the sugar or sweetener of their choice. So we found that we wanted to have one set of condiments for every three people. So if there's 45 people in the meditation hall, that's 15 sets of condiments and there's about eight different dishes with each of the different condiments. You know, we're talking 120 or something little dishes and then after breakfast, do you want to put those things away and clean all those dishes or do you want to leave them out or do you put saran wrap over them? How do you do this? So we were kind of baffled, those of us working in the kitchen. So about the fourth morning we had done this, we'd finished up serving

[15:10]

breakfast and somebody came out to those of us who had been serving the meal and said, Suzuki Roshi would like to give a lecture. Please come into the meditation hall before you go to the kitchen to clean up and have your own breakfast. Please come in and hear Suzuki Roshi's lecture. So we went in and Suzuki Roshi said something like, basically, I don't really understand you Americans. When you put so much milk and sugar on your cereal, how are you going to taste the true spirit of the grain? It never occurred to me to try to taste the true spirit of the grain. I mean, whatever comes up, whatever moment it is, don't you want to just make it be the way you'd like it to be? And he said, what, do you think you can add milk and sugar to any moment of your

[16:16]

experience and make it just sweet and creamy enough or just the way you want it to be? I don't think so, he said. Why don't you taste the true spirit of the grain? Why don't you taste the true nature of each moment rather than trying to make everything taste the same way, just the way you want it to? How about that? So those of us who worked in the kitchen, we were actually, you know, overjoyed. This was like, you know, maybe not quite 120, but, you know, 105 less condiment dishes. And so we thought after that, well, why don't we just serve some sesame salt? That's kind of

[17:19]

traditional in Zen, that sesame salt is served like with the rice. So we thought with the cereal, we'll serve sesame salt. And so now in the Zen-do, ever since then, in the Zen-do, when we have cereal in the morning, we have sesame salt. And sometimes, you know, we do serve yogurt and fruit with the cereal, but, you know, the food that's in the first bowl, that's known as the Buddha bowl, and that's Buddha's head that you've got that food in, and you wouldn't want to mix his head up with other food. In other words, you know, you can't put the yogurt in with the cereal. No, no, no, you've got to preserve the purity of the first bowl. The one time that we, there was one time where, well, it was April the 1st. And so I had specially ordered on the town trip, sugar smacks.

[18:30]

And we had sugar smacks in the first bowl, milk in the second bowl, and sliced bananas in the third bowl. And we gave everybody permission to mix it all up. And, you know, with this large contingent, about a third of the people there being serious macrobiotics, they were outraged. Because that's way too yin, and that's way too much dairy, and it's mucus causing, and, you know, too much potassium in the bananas, and you never quite know what is going to push people's buttons. And, well, I mean, we knew that that was going to push their buttons. At the time, I didn't realize it was going to push their buttons when, you know, I endeavored as a cook, and you might think this way too, like,

[19:39]

is there some way that you could cook that everybody would be pleased and happy? And you wouldn't have, you know, people, what do you call that, you know, when they kind of come into the kitchen on a kind of a mission? You wouldn't have these forays into the kitchen to attack you for your, you know, but because there was one day where the oatmeal was rather thick, so then this whole group of people comes into the kitchen. How could you do this? Where did you go wrong in life? Don't, I mean, what was, didn't your mother explain this to you? Cereal in the morning, you know, your digestion is just getting started, so you want to have cereal that's well cooked and thin and easy to digest. And if it's so thick

[20:45]

and you have to chew it, I mean, that's just so hard on your digestion. Didn't you know that? So then if you make the cereal thinner, okay, okay, I get it. I make the cereal thinner. There's this other group of people come in and they say, we are working really hard, you know, we are digging right now a septic tank by hand in case you didn't realize, and it's cold, you know, and we need energy and we need fuel because we're working outside in the cold digging a septic tank by hand with a pick and a shovel and buckets. If we don't get any meat, the least you could do is make some thick oatmeal, something that we could sink our teeth into and chew. So then I thought, okay, let's put some raisins in the oatmeal.

[21:51]

Maybe that'll be, you know, that's when the macrobiotics come in. You're poisoning everybody. How can you do this? Raisins? Poison? Anyway, that's one of the ones like you don't know, like that's coming, but anyway. So not only is there not any way to please all of you as the cook, I mean, what do you think God or, you know, anybody's going to try to do to please you? I mean, there's just no way to provide you with the menu items of your choosing. One time when I was at IMS, you know, it was the three-month retreat, you know, in the fall, and it was down to the last 10 days, and so Joseph, it's Joseph Goldstein, right? Joseph gave a talk and he said, some people do, and most of you have done 10-day retreats.

[22:55]

Now you've done two and a half months of retreat to get ready for this last 10 days. So this is dessert. This is the 10 days that you've really been waiting for, so really, you really need to take advantage of this. This 10-day retreat that you've spent two and a half months now getting ready for. And somehow, I had a very difficult time with those days, and Joseph was one of my teachers, and I went to see him, I said, Joseph, this is not dessert. It's not any dessert that I'm familiar with. And he said, it may not be the dessert you ordered, but it's the dessert you're getting. But this is, you know, this business has, this has something to do with, you know, meditation and

[24:08]

you know, receiving the moment, and it's clearly true that, you know, every moment is not to your taste. You know, there will be some moments that are not to your taste or to your liking. What will you do? And the truth in Buddhism, you know, one of the sort of Buddhist truths in this context is, you know, there's no way to get moment after moment to be according to your taste, and it's not your fault. It can't be done. It's not because of your lack of skill or your lack of trying or your lack of savvy or competence or your lack of self-esteem or, you know, it's not your fault that you can't get this moment or the next moment or, you know, moment after moment to your liking. That's the first noble truth. Can't be done. So go ahead and taste the truth of the

[25:18]

moment, the true spirit of the grain, the true nature of sadness or sorrow, the true nature of grief, the true nature of pain, the true nature of joy, of pleasure, of happiness, of, you know, delight, of love. Go ahead and taste it, and let the taste come home to your heart, and digest it. Take it in and digest what you're eating. And in that sense, you know, this is, obviously there's some things that you don't want to just take in and taste, you know, and eat. You know, there's mushrooms that are poisonous, and there's experiences where if you can, you avoid them. But if you spend all of your life trying to get the moment to be just right and just to your taste, then you will overdo it, and then pretty soon you can't enjoy or savor much of anything because it's not quite right.

[26:21]

So, you know, in Chinese medicine, or, you know, this kind of Asian idea then is, eat widely. You know, eat widely so that you have the capacity to digest widely, rather than having a narrow diet and, no, I can't eat that, and I can't have that, and I can't, you know, and pretty soon it's like I have to be real careful about what I do, or how things happen, or I can't handle it. So how do I develop the capacity to handle a wide range of experiences is take in a wide range of experience. And meditation, just in a very simple way, you're not moving, you're not talking, you have much less capacity to orchestrate the moment. Because usually you can tell it, don't do that, don't say that, don't talk to me like that, you know, I need you to, or you can move away, or you can move toward with your sword out of my way. So through movement and talking and speech, you can help to orchestrate

[27:43]

moments and make them more to your liking. Theoretically, how well has it worked? You wouldn't be here if it worked that great. So you're here because you're learning to sit and eat, take in the moment, however, you know, tasty or, you know, however pleasant or unpleasant, tasty or, you know, however it is. And you're learning to taste and chew and digest, and your being will extract the nutrient of essence, whether it's a pleasant or unpleasant experience, and you let go of the rest. And so the idea in Chinese medicine, and this is also, you know, Zen then, is the capacity to digest food is very closely related to capacity to digest experience. Your capacity to digest experience is related to your capacity to digest food, to take in ideas, to take in emotions, to take things into your being

[28:48]

and be able to absorb them into your being, digest them and absorb them and pass them through you, you know, is related to digestion and then eating widely. So you practice meditation, you have a wide range of experiences. Some will be pleasant, unpleasant, happy, sad, you know, joyful, painful, calm, upset, you know, you'll have a whole range of experiences and you'll grow from all of that. That's how we grow. And so in a, you know, slightly different vein here, that, you know, is all pleasant enough and simple enough, you know, taste the true spirit of the grain. And let go of your endeavor to add salt and, I mean, sugar and cream,

[29:53]

milk and sugar to each moment of your experience so it tastes the way you want it to. And learn how to taste things the way they are and be nourished by a wide ranging diet. So another story that, at another time, Suzuki Rishi told, which is one that stayed with me since I'm a cook, and he said that when he was, you know, when he was, I forget, you know, nine or eleven or something, his father had been a Zen teacher and he decided he wanted to study with his teacher's teacher. So I think at eleven years old, you know, he went to join his teacher's teacher's community and there was a few young monks, young students, studying with his teacher,

[30:55]

Gyokuji and so on. Apparently Gyokuji and so on was quite a tall, large man for a Japanese. And, you know, that's where Suzuki Rishi got the name Crooked Cucumber, because his teacher would kind of tease him and say, you're like a crooked cucumber. Term of endearment. And Suzuki Rishi also, well, he said, you know, the other students were smart enough to leave, I wasn't. Which is another sort of a joke. But it may be that those of us practicing, you know, meditation are not that smart. We don't know. It might be true. You know, the smart people leave and get on with their lives. So it may be we're not that smart. But, you know, on the other hand, you know, I was

[31:57]

just listening to a tape by Thomas Moore on creativity and he says, if you want to be creative, you're going to have to be foolish, or at least risk being foolish. So I told Susan before we came over here, well, another chance to be foolish. Anyway, so the story Suzuki Rishi told when he was a young boy, then 11 or 12 years old, that each year, I think it's in the springtime, they would pick the large daikon radishes, you know, the large white radish. It's pretty fat, you know, and can be at least a foot long, sometimes, you know, 15 inches, white radish. And then, and we did this at Tassara. And you, because for a while, we're kind of trying to be, you know, good Japanese. People doing Tibetan Buddhism were trying to be Tibetan, and we were trying to be

[33:03]

Japanese. We got pretty good at it. But, so you take the daikon and you cut off the, I don't even think you need to cut off the, you leave on a little bit of the stem. Actually, maybe you cut it in half. I can't quite remember. But anyway, you put it in a big barrel. And in the big barrel, you put rice bran, or the husk from the rice. If you're making white rice, you take those husks, they've been removed from the rice, you can put it in the barrel with salt. And the brown rice husks are known in Japanese, nuka. So you combine the nuka and the salt, and you put that in the barrel, and then the radish, and more nuka and salt. And what happens is the salt draws the moisture out of the radish, and the salt then pickles the radish. And also then, you know, nutrients and things from the rice bran and the rice husks go into the radish and give it flavor. So you have a

[34:07]

salted-flavored pickled radish. So we did this. You can do it with radish, and you can do it with carrots and, you know, cabbages, all kinds of stuff, you know, Chinese cabbage. So you get these different kinds of pickles. And the traditional, you know, Japanese zen breakfast is rice gruel and pickles, or something like that, you know. I'm not recommending the Japanese zen monastic diet. Don't get me wrong here. So anyway, we did this at Tassajara, and we had these various pickles. Well, Suzuki said that one time, one year, they did the pickles with gyokoji and so on. And some of the pickles, apparently they didn't have enough salt in the barrel. And the pickles, instead of getting salted and preserved, rotted. And if you've ever been around

[35:08]

these vegetables, they have quite the barnyard odor. There are some excremental elements to this odor. It's very distasteful, even to smell. You don't want to be in the vicinity of these radish pickles if they don't make it. And Suzuki Roshi's teacher, gyokoji and so on, served the pickles anyway. Because in zen, you don't waste. And you receive what's offered. So 11 years old, 12 years old, 13 years old, 14 years old, these young boys, men, did not eat the

[36:23]

pickles that were served. And his teacher kept serving them. They kept not eating them. And finally, after two or three days of this, at least, Suzuki Roshi, young Suzuki Roshi, decided to take matters into his own hands. And what you do with something that's distasteful, he took it to the far end of the garden, dug a hole and buried them. So this is a good thing to do with things that are distasteful. You find some hole inside yourself, put them in there, cover it up, and endeavor to live your life so you never go into that spot inside yourself again. It's called repression. If you do it to yourself, and you wouldn't want to experience things, and you try to find a place to hide it, and then because you know where you hid it, you know where not to go. And you know how to walk so that area in your body doesn't get activated. And you know how to sit so that you don't get into that area. But usually,

[37:24]

meditation will get you into those places. And the closet door starts coming open, and the place where you've had stuff hidden away, those places start to open up, and your old memories and things start coming back to you. And you thought you were doing a spiritual practice. Oh, wow. I was telling some people today, I'm going to come back to the radish story, okay? But I was telling some people today, a friend of mine at Zen Center, I did a class many years ago where I had the people who had been at Zen Center for 12 or 15 years come and talk about what practice had been like when they started, and then what it was like after 10 years and 15 years, and what it was like for them now. So this one woman said that before she started Zen practice, she had problems with drugs and alcohol. And then she met these spiritual people, and they seemed so nice and so friendly and, you know, so together, and she thought, maybe I could be a spiritual

[38:25]

person too. So then she took all those difficulties and problems she'd had and put them in the closet. And then she put up a nice brick wall in front of the closet and hung up a Tanka, and became a spiritual person. I'm calm. I'm buoyant. I have equanimity. I'm detached. And, you know, after whatever it was, 8 years or 10 years or 12 years, somewhere usually after 8 or 10 or 12 years, you know, you can't keep the closet door closed anymore, even if you have a brick wall and a Tanka in front of it. But now you have enough stability to be able to meet the things that before drove you to alcohol and drugs. Now you have enough stability, physical and mental presence, to be with the distasteful experiences that before you

[39:26]

avoided with alcohol and drugs. So your practice is actually working to go through this initial stage of keeping it all in the closet, digging the hole, burying it. The only problem was the next day, the next meal, the pickles were back on the table. And his teacher said, his teacher didn't ask who did this or, you know, you need to confess or anything, but he said, we're not eating anything else until we eat these pickles. This is America, you know, so this kind of story is so, like, wrong. It's so, you know, like, child abuse, child abuse. They should have arrested him. But his teacher didn't want to know who did it or have people confess or anything,

[40:35]

just said, we're going to eat these pickles before we eat anything else. And Suzuki Roshi said, so then he ate the pickles and he said it was one of the most pivotal, important experiences of his life. Because he said it was the first time in his life where he experienced what Zen is called, no thought. Because he said if you had, while you're eating those pickles, a single thought, you wouldn't be able to do it. You would spit it out. This is, if you think this is horrible, you spit it out. If you think I can't stand it, you spit it out. You know, you throw up. So he practiced not thinking. Chew and swallow. Chew and swallow. So some things, you know, whether or not you have a mean and devious and, you know, child molesting

[41:35]

or child, you know, tormenting, you know, Zen teacher, you know, you're going to have experiences in your life that is chew and swallow. Chew and swallow. There's just no way not to have those moments, you know. And sometimes there are things that you put off for years. You know, certain kinds of grief or sorrow, you know, you put off your old, you put aside your old residual anger about your childhood or whatever it is or, you know, about the world. And it's the last thing you're ever going to do is to finally have this painful experience that you've got stored up, but it comes. And it comes usually at a time when you actually have the capacity to sit right in the middle and finally chew and swallow and just be with what is, what has been

[42:45]

up until then so distasteful and so much the last thing you were ever going to have anything to do with. And you're nourished. That's, you know, one kind of our nourishment. And then we don't need to spend the rest of our life, how do I stay away from that? And how do I get them to help me not go there? And how do I get the world to cooperate with me so I never have to be shamed again or never have to be humiliated or never have to be disappointed or, you know, and finally you have the disappointment you've spent your life avoiding. And it's not so bad. And you can actually realize I can have this distasteful experience and I can go on with my life and it's not the end of the world. And I couldn't have it when I was three. I couldn't have it when I was two. I couldn't have it when I was 10, when I was 20. And now that I'm a mature person and I've practiced and I've sat and I have some stability and ease in my life, I'm willing to finally have this pain and chew it

[43:50]

and taste it and digest it and let it go. And I don't need to spend the rest of my life, how do I avoid that disappointment, that shame, that humiliation, that abandonment, that betrayal? I can just be in the middle of things and let things come to me and meet it. And then the things that come start to turn into the flowers and drop in front of you. And the other thing about this, if I may say so, is if you're not willing to taste what is distasteful, how are you going to taste what is extremely pleasant and delicious and worth savoring? Because what happens is if you can't taste what's unpleasant, you can't taste what's pleasant.

[44:52]

And you're so concerned about not having the experience just in case it's unpleasant or painful that, okay, well, I'm going to kind of have it and kind of not have it and I'll kind of see if I can kind of have it and kind of not have it and it'll kind of be okay. And so then we're not fully alive in some way and fully in our life and letting life flow through us because it might be distasteful. It might be unpleasant. And then when you're willing to have the unpleasant and the painful, you can have delight and joy and energy and exuberance and vitality and creativity and determination and intensity. You can have all these things in your life you couldn't have when you were being careful and cautious and being sure that you don't get anything like that and on guard and all the things we do to protect and defend ourselves from the possibility of this unpleasant event. Am I making sense here? Anyway, just the way it works. Sorry. I didn't

[46:01]

dream this up. It's not like you can say, Ed, don't tell me it's like that. I didn't make it like this. I'm with Rumi. He says, who came up with this idea? Why organize the universe like this? That's one of Rumi's lines. You create things that are pleasant and then you go to chase after them and you can't get them and he says, you go to get it and then you end up in the pigsty and then you want this and you end up there. It just doesn't work out the way it's supposed to. And it's not your fault. What a relief, you know. There's also, I appreciate, for instance, a line in Rilke.

[47:20]

One of Rilke's more Buddhist sonnets. He said, be ahead of all parting. Be ahead of all parting. You know, everything that arises disappears. Friends and companions who come into our life are, we're going to, you know, when we have connection we have separation. Be ahead of all parting, he says, as though it already were behind you. It's like some people say the cup is already broken, remember? So now you can appreciate it, being here for one last moment. The other day I saw a robin in the tree outside my house. It's a tree with little berries.

[48:25]

The robin was right outside the window and then it found one last berry. Came down to that branch and chewed on it. And later I thought, that might be the last robin ever. That's the kind of world we're living in now, you know, where we don't know if the birds will still be here tomorrow. And the climate is changing. So there's the possibility of appreciating, you know, a moment, a bird, a teacup, a friend. Be ahead of all parting as though it already were behind you, like the winter that has just passed by. For among these winters there's one so endlessly winter that only by wintering through it will your heart survive.

[49:27]

You're not going to change winter into summer, you know, you winter through. And things shift and you finally are willing to winter through. Among these winters, one so endlessly winter, only by wintering through it will your heart survive. Let Eurydice be dead, more glad arise into the seamless life proclaimed in your song. Here in the realm of decline among momentary days, be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang. Be and yet know, let's see, and yet know, something about the void, be and yet know the infinite void,

[50:38]

the source, the innermost source of your vibration, so that you may give it your perfect ascent, giving your perfect ascent to this moment, your perfect agreement, tasteful, distasteful, receiving this moment. And then he says, the last stanza is, to all the muffled and dumb creatures of this world's full reserve, the unsayable sums, joyfully add yourself and cancel the count. But anyway, among these winters, one so endlessly winter, only by wintering through it will your heart survive. So we have, you know, the possibility of joy and well-being in our life because we have the capacity to taste each moment, pleasant, painful, tasty, you know, delicious, unpleasant.

[51:45]

And to finally, you know, let things come home, you know, sitting in our stability, stable, with our ease and our stability, we can be with what has been, you know, difficult and that we've put off. And then we have some freedom. Okay, thank you. My clock here says 8.58. Does that mean like we're going to stop now? No, it means we stopped 12 minutes ago. Oh, we stopped 12 minutes ago. You see, I keep forgetting this. I'm sorry, I didn't, you know, nobody mentioned. Okay, so we stopped 12 minutes ago. You can, I like to end the evening with, you know, as you know, as many of you know, chanting the syllable ho, which is Japanese for dharma or teaching.

[52:50]

And it's a chance for us to share our hearts with one another, letting the sound wash through us, receiving the sound, generating the sound, and to also send our prayers and blessings and turning over the merit of our practice for the benefit of all beings. If there's anybody in particular you'd like to share your heart with or your prayers and blessings and you can bring them to mind while we're chanting, letting our prayers and blessings go out into the world. So I'll hit the bell to begin. We'll chant ho for about a minute. If you run out of breath, just enter back, you know, inhale and enter back into the sound, and then I'll hit the bell to end.

[53:29]

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