Sometimes my feeling is not to disturb you anymore. I get tired of talking about practice and it's more, I just practice. I don't know what word to use, but to talk about it we have to say something like practice. And if Buddhism becomes something like, we follow the precepts, then it

[01:12]

will be rather unattractive or difficult for people. By follow the precepts, I mean if it becomes something like follow the precepts rather than a real understanding of do not kill, do not take what is not given, etc. You should maybe make up your own precepts in your own life. What things do you follow? And how fully do you see the consequences of your actions? So you really should be explaining practice to me or presenting practice to me. It's interesting how difficult it gets to feel our practice the more you're in it. If you're somewhere, say, and you're asleep before you know anything about Zen, and you hear bong, [...] bong in the middle of the night, four o'clock or 3.30,

[02:56]

And you got up and you went downstairs and here was somebody all dressed up and putting claws down and banging on things and offering incense. You'd think, that's quite strange, isn't it? What's he doing in the middle of the night, you know? And you'd have some feeling, some mysterious feeling for anybody who would be motivated to get up that early in the morning. and go, boom, boom, boom, boom. Bowing. One day, I think I told the last sasheen, I don't know, can't remember, but maybe in my daily course of my life, I bow 30 or 40,000 times a year, something like that. I don't think about it, I just do it. But we lose perspective on bowing and chanting and our practice because for us it's just, oh, I'm now sleepy in the morning and I'm going to zazen or I'm chanting and you're just experiencing your sleepy self and you can't experience that other feeling.

[04:24]

I remember at Eheji, I was always rather moved by, when we get up in the morning around 3.30, I can't remember, something like that, about the same time as Tassara, you're going to the zendo or to some place to be ready to hit a drum or bell, at the beginning of something. And one of the old priests comes along, being led by a jisha with a lantern, paper lantern with a candle in it. And he's doing what I do in the morning, is coming and opening the Buddha Hall and going to the various buildings, offering incense. And there's some, there's always some interesting power in that or feeling to get up early in the morning and do that. Recently I was invited to go to see the Gurdjieff movements and

[05:57]

The woman, Madame somebody, who was head of the Gurdjieff movement in the world, I guess, in Paris, was there, and Lord Pentland, who I think is head of it here, the Foundation is head of it. I never ask questions, but anyway, Lord Pentland came to Tassajara when it first began, and they, for some reason, are quite interested in Zen Center. every time they have come here they have invited me to visit and see their movements, which are not shown to the public, they are all secret. And I always can't go because of something, Tassajara or something. But finally, it's been five years, every year I'm invited two or three times a year. So finally I went. And it's rather interesting to see. They emphasize that feeling I'm talking about. And when they practice, they dress in a kind of toga,

[07:26]

some kind of simple hanging robe. But in that way they set aside a time for putting on something that makes you feel more comfortable, some looser clothing. And they, by their movements, and description of their movements, try to achieve a certain kind of state of mind according to the movements. And Gurdjieff people that I've met, and quite a few people I've met who are heads of groups or on the Foundation have been interested in Zen. In fact, Mr. Segal, whose wife used to be on, William Segal, whose wife used to be on

[08:29]

head of the foundation, was the first Westerner, first American ever to be an Eheji, I think in the 1930s or something. And also they have some, like Zen, they emphasize everyday life or layman's practice or just having some job and your job being part of your practice. And it's somewhat also similar to masonry many years ago when masonry wasn't so much a local club as international masonry still is rather like that. but some secret group of people who tried to do good and tried to have a spiritual life. And like George Washington was a mason, and many leaders of countries and kings were masons, and they emphasized maybe those people who are influential.

[09:52]

And today, many people are Gurdjieff people who are in the government, and they don't tell they're Gurdjieff people, but they're influenced by Gurdjieff's way. Anyway, they feel some comradeship with Zen, not because of the latter, but because of everyday life and their practice, and that the practices Our practice isn't on the surface esoteric, but actually it's rather esoteric. People who've been doing it one year don't really know what it's like to be doing it five years or ten years, and there's no way of explaining. Anyway, for Zen, that sense of putting on some comfortable clothes and trying to practice to achieve some kind of state of mind is something Zen practicers have decided not to do. But rather, maybe wearing robes, as we started talking about yesterday, is that, but you just do it all the time.

[11:23]

You don't set aside one time for practice and one time for something else. Of course we do, it seems, by zazen, et cetera, but for a beginner, he invariably experiences some different difference between his state of mind and in Zazen and his usual state of mind. But our emphasis is not to encourage that difference but to keep giving up, seeking outside yourself. And as long as you're seeking for something, looking for something, looking for a practice even, you're looking outside yourself, seeking outside yourself.

[12:30]

As Suzuki Roshi said, for a Zen master, every activity is Zen practice. There isn't one activity that's more Zen practice than another activity. Every activity is exactly the same. So you don't have some seeking outside yourself for this activity over that activity. So it's trusting what you are, accepting what you are on each moment. There's no other way. To think it's outside yourself or in the future, you'll never understand Buddhism that way. It must already be here, and it's not even like some schools try to teach as if you had a light bulb which was dim, and the more you practice, it'll get brighter and brighter, gradual way. But for Zen, the light is as bright as you would like to describe it, but you have a piece of cardboard over it or something. That's all. Just remove it.

[14:21]

Anyway, it's easy to say, just trust your self already, your Buddha. But actually, most of you can't do it. You are always criticizing yourself or something. And our country is based on such ideas, the pursuit of happiness. Our countries seem to have the idea that the best way is rather materialistic and that happiness can be found through acquiring material or the satisfactions of life. But it emphasizes a person who's able to pursue and to trust process while communism, you know, trusts

[15:57]

doesn't trust human nature. Everyone is greedy, so you have to have a system which limits greed. But again, they're trying to adjust by material circumstances. Anyway, if you live in a country that has those kinds of ideas, those penetrate us very deeply, and it's very difficult to see the futility of going to the moon. Moon is already here, as you know from last night's ceremony. Moon affects us many ways. We want some, you know, our restlessness is we get bored with everything being the same and we want things to change. But the problem with that is that we don't want ourselves to change. We're afraid of our own discontinuity because we think we will discontinue, we'll die. So we want to perceive our own continuity constantly and yet we want our surroundings to be varied and amusing and change.

[17:23]

Actually everything is changing, but you are too. So if you want to... If you're a restless person and you want to continue your restlessness, you have to accept your own discontinuity. But with that feeling, if you really felt that way and lived that way, it's almost the opposite of our American way of life, because you wouldn't be interested in going to the moon or changing your circumstances much, because it's changing already. And you wouldn't find one thing depressing and another thing

[18:30]

exhilarating. You see that it's your own mind that makes it depressing or exhilarating. And the more you can be detached, the less circumstances will get you down. No matter what happens, it won't get on your nerves or get to you. But you can't practice because someone tells you it's a good thing to do or it's good for you. Practice isn't really practice, you know. It just means, for someone who's practicing, it really isn't practice. It's just having an accommodating state of mind.

[19:56]

which is very practically related to sashin or eating or talking with someone, in which, because you don't make so many conscious and unconscious distinctions anymore, you are more, when you're just talking with someone, it's quite, enveloping experience, completely fulfilling, no matter who it is, because each of us is such an extraordinary being, and we get into, well this person is boring, and that person is kind of interesting, etc., but actually if your eyes are open, each person is extraordinary, you know, more interesting than a beach stone.

[21:03]

But we appreciate beach stones more easily than people often. Anyway, if you can be a beach stone talking to someone, you'll appreciate everyone. about practice or sashin. Do any of you have any questions? Yeah. Right effort. Why?

[22:06]

You find it easy to confuse right effort with just what? Remaking yourself, renewing yourself, your same old self, you mean. Well, as you describe it, I don't know about right effort, I just stopped making the effort to renew, to make your old self over again. Pardon me? Oh, I see, yeah.

[23:17]

If you want to do something, you know, if you want to practice Zen, just straighten your back. If you want to eat, just take a bite. If you want to get from there to here, or rather here to there, Just take one step, you know, and one more step. The path, you know, is the practice. So it's not getting over there, it's just one step. So if you want to stop remaking yourself in old patterns,

[24:19]

When you notice you do it, don't. If it occurs to you, I don't have to do it, don't do it. But usually it occurs to us, oh, I can see now how I don't have to do it. Next time I won't do it. No, that's too late if we always put it off till next time. Right now, if it occurs to you, the fact that it occurs to you is something wondrous, you know, in a hundred thousand million kalpas, etc., you know. Actually, to be able to even notice, you know, is remarkable. If you can't notice, say that you can't, you find yourself obviously remaking yourself always in the same old pattern, or you find yourself in the same old situations and with the same fears, etc., that you created. First you should, I think, recognize that you like it, you know, or you wouldn't do it. It works for you in some way. Whatever we do to ourself, instead of looking at

[25:39]

But what we think we fear, it's more important to look at what we've actually done, which is to make ourselves fear. Do you follow me? Sometimes we threaten ourselves with something that will happen in the future. But the real thing that's happening is not that which we fear in the future, but that we just made ourselves afraid. Do you understand what I mean? So look at what's actually happening. What's actually happening is you torture yourself or bug yourself. So it's not so important what we bug ourselves about, but that we bug ourselves. So we like that state of being bugged. Maybe we feel more alive or we don't feel guilty or we feel dead if we don't bug ourselves. There's various things you can notice. So, first I think to notice what you're actually doing, your actual situation, feeling. And second, if you can't tell when it started, if you don't see the moment it started, do you understand what I mean? Then you need more zazen, more practice of mindfulness.

[27:08]

Because it's pretty difficult to practice minutely with the creation of our personality and attitudes unless you can see it at the moment it occurs. But usually, as I say, we're almost always out to lunch thinking about the future or past or not able to notice or terrified to notice. And I don't think most of us in our normal state of mind recognize how much terror there is in our attempt not to notice. Because we don't notice, we don't know we're terrified. But if you push a person to look at what they're actually doing, or the actual physical frailty of their life, when you actually look at it, this is all it is, a few tubes You know, going along and falling apart and, you know, when you actually look at that and you're breathing in that contaminated air, you know, and you know that thoroughly, it's maybe pretty scary because we want to think something, you know. Our mind wants to gloss things over.

[28:35]

and make them shiny. You know, as I said, materialistic way is to, deeper side of materialism is belief that our physical circumstances affect our state of mind, affect our well-being. Deeper side of idealistic way, idealistic way of thinking is that our state of mind affects things and changes things. Materialism, material things change things. Idealism is our mind changes things. And maybe, like Suzuki Yoshi always used to say, we were too idealistic. What he meant is not so much that we had some ideal that we wanted to follow, some impossible ideal, but that we had some belief If we think something, it'll come true. If we think we're not so physically frail, it won't come true, that we are. You know, like not wanting to go to the doctors, you know, it's simple. Not wanting to find out. But much more basically, we just don't want to face our own discontinuity. So,

[30:00]

To actually see ourselves at the moment of creation, we have to go through that terror, maybe, and not have such a distracted state of mind. A thought appears and leads to certain consequences. We see it at the moment it appears. Maybe after you can do that, which any of you can do it if your mind isn't so distracted. It's nothing remarkable or magic. It's just happening right now to you. If you can do it, then there's usually one or two or three or four or five years in which you don't do anything about it. You can see it happen, sort of. You sort of notice. But to actually make the decision, oh yes, I can stop. And stopping.

[31:31]

no longer a decision. Just every time it appears, you congratulate it on its appearance, or you tell it to go back and have a seat, or something. At that point, you're quite friendly with it, and it's not important. At that point, your life is rather different. But various things I mean by, I think the basic attitude of starting now, just begin, is essential. But what I mean in the context I'm speaking of now, most of us can't see our life in that detail. So it seems rather boring if I say, this moment,

[32:37]

You have every opportunity, but you look at this moment and it's, there's nothing there. And there's nothing there, it's true. Somebody else in there. Yeah? I'm wondering how relevant it is to think about, let's say if something happened in this room and we're all trapped and we're all going to die. Yeah, that's true. Well, the first question is Why do we want to create a situation like that? Why right now would you think of such a thing? Why do you want to put yourself in a situation where you imagine the room surrounded by angry samurai and wolves about to burn us down because Buddhism is no longer necessary?

[34:02]

First, why do we do that? We can constantly test ourselves by imagining incredible situations. How would we act? Oh, I would be chicken. And then you go around all day and say, boy, I'll be chicken when the chips are down. But you don't know how you'll act, actually. Right now, chips are actually down. This very moment, what you do, changes your whole life, each moment. And just continuing it is changing it. But of course, in some ways, Zen is a preparation for death. When we realize, when we're at that moment where you have absolutely no choice, but you can't prepare for that thinking, I've practiced Zazen all these years and when death comes, I know I'll be brave or calm. That's just not true.

[35:36]

It is maybe so, you don't know what will happen when you die, which might be any moment, you know, tomorrow or crossing the street. But just practicing Zazen or Buddhism may also, may give you some false sense of being prepared. And actually it may, or you may find some circumstance in your life which had nothing to do with Zen prepared you when you faced something. But Zazen itself or Zen practice won't have any value unless right now you see that you have absolutely no choice. That moment of death, you know, when you have no choice, is right now. So if you should act right now as if next moment you are going to die, and if the next moment you're going to die, you're not thinking about what will happen if the building is surrounded by people who might attack us.

[37:04]

You wouldn't be thinking that because you're going to die the next moment, you'd say, you know, what the hell was all that? It's too late to worry about that. But it is too late to worry about that kind of thing. But if you, there's two ways to describe, not how you prepare for it, but the action of somebody who's not concerned about it too much. You told me the story of Kadagiri Roshi at the Eheji in the earthquake. Rev told me. Do you know the story about the earthquake at Eheji when Kadagiri Roshi was there? I never heard him tell the story but Rev told me the other day. There was a great big earthquake at Eheji.

[38:05]

Earthquakes in Japan are pretty big and everything was shaking and all the monks got up and tore out of the zendo, right? And led by the Goto Roshi who was quite a famous Zen teacher. And he got out and standing under a great big tree in the courtyard where it maybe seemed safer. He was saying, ha ha ha, big earthquake, ha ha ha. He was laughing away. And as Kadagirishi tells the story, he was this man's anja and he ran the wrong direction and came to the stairs which go down to the next level and slid all the way down to his bottom. I don't know how old he was at the time, and maybe he's just telling that on himself. I don't know if he actually did that kind of thing. Anyway, he said that, supposedly. Then, the slowest monk, who was quite slow and everyone made fun of him, and in Japan if you're slow or don't put on your robes quickly, people sort of kick you and push you and, you know, yeah.

[39:31]

Everyone has this Japanese pressure to just do it. It's partly cultural. Anyway, everybody running out of the zendo, he was the only one who thought to go back in and put out the candle. And that was interesting. And up in the hato, which is the lecture hall, Buddha Hall is right by the Zendo and up above that's the Hato. This is a Hato and Zendo combined, I mean Buddha Hall, Butsuden and Hato, teaching hall and Buddha Hall combined. Anyway, up in the Hato, one of the old Roshis was chanting and offering incense and his Jisha was sitting beside him and the whole building was shaking. And his Jisha kept saying, there's an earthquake, but there's an earthquake." And he just kept staying there chanting away. And finally his Jisha got up and ran away, which is terrible. And he stayed there chanting. And the Jisha, the Abbot of all of Soto school was taking a bath.

[40:57]

And his Jisha came running in, he was sitting in his wooden tub, you know, sloshing. And Jisha came running in and said, there's a big earthquake. He said, go away, I'm taking my bath. And he just continued taking his bath. But that's not even very Zen or anything, it's rather sensible. But actually, I don't know if you remember the introduction to Zen and the art of archery. Haragal was turned on by Zen because he was in an earthquake in a hotel. Do you remember that? And everybody got all disturbed and only the Zen person who was there just stayed sitting at the table. So he was quite impressed by that. But that's not some remarkable willpower or something like that. It's one side is you're quite used to the idea of discontinuity. So you're quite ready for dying or whatever happens next. So, you know, you don't panic in the same way. Or another way to describe it is you

[42:24]

Your identity does not come from your past or future. For example, if you're in an airplane and the airplane is going to crash. Two engines have gone out and the other two are smoking and the tail has fallen off. You're quite sure the end is near, right? If you're thinking, oh, my wife is waiting for me at the airport, or I was going to do such and such, or all my life I've been planning such and such and I don't have time to fulfill it, you'll be miserable, you know. You'll probably pass out, you know. But if you define yourself by your situation, You won't say to yourself, I am a person who's going to be met at the airport because you no longer are, you know? That's probably a fact, you know? Or somebody who's going to fulfill their childhood dreams, you know? At that moment you're a

[43:51]

passenger crashing bodhisattva, something like that. Anyway, you're a person who's about to die in an airplane, you know, probably. And there have been many people who have been a person who's about to die in an airplane. And actually, you should be willing to be such a person. Think of the people who have been in airplanes, who've gone through that, and they died. and it may occur to you. And even if it doesn't occur to you, our bodhisattva way is to be prepared to do that. Not prepared in the sense of strengthening yourself, but willing to take whatever is part of life. And part of life is to die or to have cancer or to be in airplanes that crash, or as Suzuki Roshi used to say, have your head cut off. Many people have had to have their heads cut off. That's an actual experience of thousands and thousands of people. You shouldn't say, that part of life I don't want. No. It's quite natural to say so, I admit. But if you're

[45:20]

You know, if you're not so attached to your own particular combination of chemicals, you know, then this life has various possibilities, which the meaning of our practice is to be available to them. Otherwise, you can't understand people's sufferings. You can't participate with people. If someone has cancer, you're so afraid of having cancer, you don't want to think about it. And all you can communicate to the person who has cancer is, I'm glad I'm not in your shoes, you know. And you go to see them in the hospital and you're filled with the feeling of horror that it might happen to you. And that's all you communicate to the person who's lying there suffering. But if you can genuinely feel, I would take this person's place, you know, if they could be relieved of this suffering, or know that this is something that we all may have to go through, then you can genuinely be of some help to the person.

[46:50]

not increasing their own horror and physical disgust at having this disease, but if you can accept it, it helps them accept it. Suzuki Goshi used to say, because I am here, you are there. Because you are there, I am here. And if I think something, you will, or feel something, you will feel something. If we do the ceremony, With some feeling, everyone will have some feeling. Not exactly the same, but some feeling. And if I feel something, it's because you let me feel something. We have that intimate connection, actually. And to pretend it's not so, or to not know it, gives us a false sense of power or independence or permanency, allows us to try to think that we're never going to have cancer, never going to be in an airplane that will crash, never going to lose our daughter or son.

[48:28]

our parents, our husband or wife. Each day may be something, any day might be something extraordinary. And if you live each day hoping that this day you get through it without something extraordinary happening, it's a natural thing to do, but you kill yourself doing it. because actually something extraordinary, if it's not happening right here, it's happening over there or over there. So only when you can look at that and not have it disturb your state of mind, have your state of mind as wide as it really is, able to accommodate or accept anything, as almost like a mirror.

[49:52]

Sukhireshi said his teacher when he was young, 14 or 15, told him to have mirror mind, and Sukhireshi said it was too simple an image, but it is useful image. Mirror just sees. And your feeling may be some deep feeling, but not usual feeling or attachment. some deep appreciation, you know, some thankfulness. You know, we're able to be upset if one molecule of our body is sick. making our stomach upset, but we're not able to appreciate that hundreds of billions of molecules are okay. The accessibility to us of, because we're always trying to have one more thing or make it perfect, we're unable to actually appreciate life.

[51:13]

And strangely enough, to appreciate life, you have to be able to actually see and accept the difficulties and suffering and the inconceivabilities all around us before you can see that in its actual scale and just appreciate things. You know, the word thankfulness and thought, we say thoughtful, that's interesting, thoughtfulness, but the word thought or thinking and thank are same root. And when you have what in Zen is called pure thinking, you don't have distracted thinking anymore. Your thoughts are just what's possible. You don't think things that aren't possible. If you think it, you know it's possible. And you don't have so much past and future anymore. At that time, your thinking is mostly thankfulness, just some appreciation, not trying to work things out.

[52:37]

David, do you want to say something? I hear sort of two things coming up. One, the sources, one of which you said, are a dogma or a sutra or something. In certain ways, they say that such a thing as Buddhism doesn't exist. Just what's here in plain and simple and clearly is what it is. Deal with that. Just you can't do it. It's kind of, again, I can't really make clear questions, so I have to talk to the situation. I mean, I don't know. Different things are saying. You can give up what you think is right for you. Just do whatever, regardless of how you feel about it. Does Buddhism give us that on all the structures? I get very easily moved to things like ceremonies.

[54:18]

I guess I was caught up in, oh yes, this is the way, and it doesn't last, and some other thing. But that's happened in my life, and it just kind of, essentially, evens you all of it, which I can accept. I see sometimes no reason to do rules or actions or something which Each of us sort of knows what to do every moment. And eventually, even if we're wrong, everybody can really practice in some way or another. So do we have these kind of formalized ways of practicing so that we can be free of them, like a test or something that we can do and get caught by them and then not get caught by them

[55:44]

Can you all hear him? Well, if it was a test, I couldn't give it away. It wouldn't be a real test then, right? If I said it was just a test. Hmm. your mind is always putting things together. They don't exactly belong together because you maybe want to work out some program of practice that you can follow. But we don't really have a program, you know, of practice.

[57:20]

If a baby is learning English, it just does what's in front of it, just tries to speak. But at that point it shouldn't say, you know, why do we pronounce it this way? Why don't I pronounce it that way? It's just sound. But sound, particular sound, has many words linked to it. There's no way to practice except to, how else could you practice except with what's right before you? Just what your situation is, there's no Buddhism, right? How thoroughly we do that is Buddhism, right? We call it Buddhism, but there's no Buddhism, just what's right there before you. But we do need some restriction.

[59:06]

Restriction is the essence of practice. And you need some restriction of rubbing against other people. Some restriction of rubbing against somebody who knows exactly how you're rubbing. And you need to be more conscious in your body You know, as we say, we are all one or something like that, but we don't even know where our feet are and we trip. So we make some rule. It's somewhat arbitrary, but there is some difference between left side of the body and right side of the body and things, but mostly it's maybe somewhat arbitrary. So you leave the door by your right foot, or if you're on the right side, or left foot on the left side. There's no reason to follow that. And it's true, if you can't follow it, it's then just a kind of test. So that automatically you go out that way. Or I think a good example is bowing at the little altars outside the toilets. That's just a nuisance to bow at the altar.

[60:32]

before you go in and bow when you come up, particularly if you're in a hurry. But we don't always know what's right before us. You're in a hurry. I mean, you're afraid when you are in a hurry to get to the toilet because you haven't been there for 10 or 12 hours or something. You're very attainment-oriented. Your state of mind is rushing, you know. So you don't know what's right before you at that moment. So it's good to have something to do. Even I can stop, you know, and do that. And when you come out, eventually as I've said before when I've used this example, Eventually, real space and time is that bowing, not running to the toilet or coming out. Running to the toilet and coming out are tiny little events, but you don't have some experience of that. Practice and ceremonies are not restrictions, are restrictions in the beginning,

[61:57]

but eventually are seen to be arms and legs and a mind of a much bigger being than we realized. What kind of restrictions are you? What kind of restrictions are you? Every now and then, I can see that I'm stuck in the bathroom. I'm doing certain things in certain ways. It gives us a way to look at ourselves. Something like how much did the seven Buddhas before Buddha? Every meal, how much to all? I guess, you know, say we have to say something, so we might as well say, I'm in Stavropol. That's one hand on one hand. But for people like me, I tend to think, oh, really? I'm in Stavropol. You know what I mean? There's so many things like that. Buddha's dogma, especially, is so much

[63:28]

Why? I can't understand why someone would urge people to, you know, reverence what are the major arts, as opposed to something else. And he really doesn't. I mean, I can see reverence for the major arts in the same way that you reverence everything. But who is in the major arts, you know? I don't know why all this comment issue. That's the kind of thing I was talking about. I don't really understand it so much. I don't know actually whether or not to believe in something like a world of potential, or as something outside myself. I don't think I can respond to that question fully because it'll be lunchtime and I imagine some of your legs are hurting, something I should stop. But that's a pretty interesting question and not to be answered. Trust the Buddhas and Patriarchs.

[65:14]

And, just do it, you know. It's interesting why the Lotus Sutra is the biggest booster for the Lotus Sutra, you know. This sutra more than any other sutra. And if you just retain four lines of this sutra, all practices, you know, dadadadada, That's rather interesting, why it would do something so sophisticated as the Lotus Sutra would do that. I know, they all do it. It gives life to it somehow. Anyway, it's rather interesting. But we do say homage to the napkin, you know. But if we say homage to the napkin, we should say homage to you know, homage itself to Avalokiteshvara or something. And we opened the Tathagatas eating bowls. Those bowls themselves are the Tathagata. So we do many rituals, of course, just shaving in the morning or washing or whatever you do in the morning is a kind of ritual, you know. And if you could see the sun rising in your mirror,

[66:45]

every morning. But why to do that when we're practicing with others? And if you do it when you're alone, and what kind of practices you have, why there should be something that's always so, that you always do? To understand that completely maybe is a long time. And to understand, you know, I say there's three practices and a fourth. Survival or precepts, jhana or samadhi, and service or compassion. And a fourth lineage, or your guru, your teacher, that one is most difficult to understand. But it's the only way we can be free of hubris, the only way we can be free of our culture, to have some way of acting which is independent even of your own culture.

[68:13]

So something very deep is awakened that way and there's no way to describe it. And that kind of teaching is maybe after you've worked with that question for many years and you're ready, someone will. No one will have to, maybe. Okay. Oh, excuse me, you wanted to say something?

[68:44]

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