I vow not to miss the truth, but to talk it out as it were. Good evening. Abbot Norman Fisher is devoting the Wednesday night talks to Dogen, to different fascicles of Dogen, and I was just, I thought, well, I'd like to do that too. But not one of the fascicles of Shobo Genso, but from another book called Shobo Genso Zui

[01:10]

Mon Ki, which is a collection of talks that Dogen gave, kind of like this, evening talks. They often say, in the beginnings, in an evening talk, Dogen said, and then the, and then the Dharma talk is set forth. And the person who wrote these down was Dogen's disciple, Ko Ngejo Daiyosho, we chant every morning, and he was one of Dogen's first disciples and his successor, his Dharma heir, one of his Dharma heirs. So he would, this is how I imagine it, this was before Dogen had established Eheji, Ehe Monastery, and he had come back from China after being dissatisfied with the practice in Japan. He had gone with his teacher

[02:17]

Myozen to China to study and find the way. And there he met Rujing, his teacher, and received Dharma transmission from him and then came back to Japan. But for a number of years he didn't really have his own practice place. He went from place to place and then was finally given a kind of dilapidated old temple. And he renovated a building, the meditation hall there, and that became a new temple, kind of like a temple within a temple. And he began to practice, then people began to come to him to practice, and there was about 50 monks who all studied with him, practiced together. And this is in about 1238 or something like that. So you can imagine these 15 monks or so and their teacher together in this monastery

[03:23]

practicing and an evening talk is given and his disciples writing it down to remember, since there's no tapes at that time. So this was one of the first books, this translation is Tom Cleary, and it came out maybe in the 80s or 1980, but there was an earlier version of this and the title in English was Primer, which I always pronounced as primer, but Primer of Soto Zen. It was one of the earliest books you could get about Zen, and I read that very early, so it imprinted on me very strongly as ways to practice and what to look out for and Dogen's very, sometimes very intimate conversations with his monks. So the audience were monks, they were all ordained, but I think it actually speaks to

[04:26]

our situation here very well and how we practice together. So I also want to mention that I was recently interviewed by someone who's writing their dissertation on, it's kind of complicated, but one of the aspects of it is what is a mature Zen student or practitioner, and we had a very interesting conversation trying to tease out what are, you know, as soon as you try to tease out qualities, of course you see that those are not anything to hold on to either, but what makes a mature student, and what, so maturity is ripeness or being developed, and I feel like these stories

[05:30]

and these short talks to the community that Dogen gave are, the thrust of them is to develop and mature his students. So I just have a selection of ones that I wanted to read and then, or parts, and then make some comments. I can see here. So the first one is pointing to not clinging to ideas and all these things I think we've heard many, many times, but when we hear them again I find it always very refreshing and encouraging to hear those teachings. It's like the sweetness of the Dharma. It's sweet every time you hear it. The first one really, it points to difficulties that we have nowadays too, even though this

[06:33]

is from the 1200s, but it says, it starts at one day he said, and then it says, he also said, just because disciplined behavior and vegetarian diet is to be maintained, yet if you therefore insist upon these as fundamentally, I think I have to have the lights up a little bit, I'm sorry. Thank you. Is it echoing? Could you turn the volume down a little bit? Can you hear me okay without the volume? Okay. So this is about vegetarian diet and kind of clinging to these pure food and behavior. Just because disciplined behavior and vegetarian diet is to be maintained, yet if you therefore insist upon these as fundamental, establishing them as practice and think that you can thereby

[07:35]

attain the way, this is also wrong. Do not take this to be fundamental just because it is a good thing. Yet, and then of course right away, yet I do not mean to say that you should therefore violate precepts and be self-indulgent. To cling in such a manner is an erroneous view. It is that of an outsider, meaning someone who's not practicing the way. So I think what he's pointing to is clinging to anything and attaching to it. And it reminded me of Suzuki Roshi, this cute crooked cucumber, which I know a lot of you are reading, and he was not very fond of all the food trips that were going on. It tells her at the time what you could and couldn't eat, and very, very strong ideas about brown rice and what should be served and not. So there's this wonderful part where there's a cabin that

[08:43]

has to be moved in Tassajara. One of the wooden cabins was moved from one place to another and it was a major job that Paul Disko, who was the master carpenter, he rigged everything up and they had rollers and they had machines and people were yelling directions and there was all this stuff going on. And the quote from Suzuki Roshi is, I hate food trips but I love work trips. So his, you know, being aware that he really, this is what he really was attached to, he was out there excited with everybody else as this cabin was pushed down the middle of Tassajara. But he hated food trips. And so I think it's just pointing it out, this kind of, it's not that we don't have a vegetarian diet here, it's not like well let's now eat meat, but it's being attached to it as if, you know, notions of holier than

[09:48]

thou or we're doing right and others are doing wrong and those kinds of ideas become hindrances. So another point is, what he talks about is concentrating on one thing, and that is, let's see, I think I'll skip that one and talk about this one, which is how we talk to each other in the monastery and how we help each other when we notice that there's a mistake or something. So it says in an evening talk, he said, do not use foul language to

[10:55]

chastise and belittle monks. Even if it is an evil and incompetent person, do not scorn that person or vilify them without consideration. In the first place, no matter how bad they may be, when more than four monks are assembled, this is the community of monks, or this is the Sangha. I'm thinking of monks as a term that includes just a practitioner, the way we kind of use it as not necessarily male, but leading the monk's life, leading a monastic life. When more than four monks are assembled, this is the community of monks, the Sangha, and is an important treasure of the nation. So if your disciples are out of line, or your fellow practitioners, you should teach and guide them with a compassionate heart, a kind heart, and this is translated as, this is the translation of the heart of a grandmother

[12:01]

or an old woman. So this is the translation of the heart of a grandmother or an old woman. And then he goes on to tell this story about Rujing, his teacher, which was one of the earliest stories that I heard, which was, his teacher was old by the time he was practicing with him, and he would go around in the meditation hall, and if the monks were sleeping, we talked about this in the practice period, the difficulties with drowsiness and sleepiness, and he would hit them with his slipper, he had, sometimes you wear meditation slippers, and he would whap, whap, whap, whap on the backs of his monks to chastise them, and as Dogen quoted as saying, they were glad to be beaten and they praised him. So this old teacher, finally

[13:05]

he said this once to his disciples, I'm already advanced in age, and by now I should have taken leave of the community and gone to live in a hermitage by myself and just taken care of my old age, but in order to shatter the delusions of each of you and to transmit the way I'm acting as abbot, therefore I sometimes bring forth words of chastisement and I do things like beat you with a stick, he also used a stick, for this I have great trepidation, nevertheless it is the way to uphold the standard of the teaching in place of the Buddha, oh brethren, please extend your compassion to forgive me for this. So this image of this old guy feeling like it mattered so much that he shattered the delusions and helped these young practitioners, or young or old, but these practitioners, wake up that he hit

[14:11]

them with the slipper even though he was kind of tired, and knowing that, and also feeling like this trepidation in doing it, but feeling he must, and please forgive me. And then, so needless to say it is wrong to point out other shortcomings and blame them for their faults when you are not such a person yourself. You should watch out very carefully when you see the error of another, if you think it is wrong and compassionately wish to guide that person, you should employ tact to avoid angering that person and should contrive to appear to be talking about something else. And to me that's a wonderful skill in means, and in Crooked Cucumber it talks about Suzuki Roshi often saying something to you that seemed

[15:18]

like he was talking about somebody else, but somehow it really hit home for you, so he had this way of saying something to somebody in your hearing or in a lecture that was meant for you, and he also said, you know, he might want to hit this one, this is Suzuki Roshi, but he hit the one closest to him, but it was meant for you and it's all the same anyway. So, this kind of feeling of... So you should contrive to appear to be talking about something else, and that allows people to be able to hear it and have it come in deeply without defending against it. It comes in kind of another way. Let's see, now this one I found very helpful, which is, well, I'll read it, in an evening

[16:22]

talk he said, the basis for understanding talk about Zen in the school of the ancestors is to take the mind which thinks it already knows and revise it step by step in accordance with the words of the teacher. So, this, you know, if you're aware of your mind, you find yourself sometimes thinking, yeah, I already know all that, you know, I don't want to... Or, you know, kind of leaping ahead to what you already know so that you can't hear what somebody is saying or what you're reading, because you're already putting in your own two cents, so kind of leaping forward with the mind. So, taking this mind which thinks

[17:24]

it already knows and revise it step by step in accordance with the teacher, and then there's this example. You think you know who the Buddha is, and Shakyamuni or Amida Buddha or something, and yet if your teacher should say that Buddha is a frog or a worm, you should believe that frogs and worms are Buddha and should abandon your former understanding. However, students of recent times cling to their own emotive views and base themselves on their own opinions, thinking that Buddhahood must indeed be such and such a way, if it is something different from what they themselves think. They say it can't be that way. As long as they are wandering in delusion, seeking something which resembles their own emotional judgments, most of them make no progress on the Buddha way. So, for me, often hearing something, I find

[18:28]

myself fighting it, like, it doesn't make sense or that can't be true, and also trying to keep it out. So, this is pointed to as kind of this emotional clinging, not that we're trying to get rid of emotions, but to take the mind that thinks it knows and is clinging to what it thinks is right and revise it, let it shift slowly, slowly. And what this reminded me of is once when I first started practicing, actually I hadn't been to Tassajara yet, and I was in the city, I think I was working in the kitchen for a Sashin and the Tenzo, whose name was Beverly, Beverly White, and she had been to Tassajara, so she was an older student, I think she had been there for a year. And so, she was pouring cereal from the pot into a storage container,

[19:32]

a steam, a steam, steam container, steamer, and I was supposed to hold and help and scrape, so I'm watching and she's completely calm and moving very slowly and pouring, and I'm doing this with her and I was saying, it's not going to fit, it's going to flow over, it's going to flow over, watch out, it's going to flow over. And she looked over and it fit perfectly, it went right up, right to the top with a little space, she knew what she was doing, and I was very involved in what I thought was right, in my opinion, I better tell her, and so at that moment I saw how this mind of, you know, also in there was wanting to be right and wanting to be in charge and just a whole bunch of stuff, you know, and she quietly, you know, scraped and, oh no, she looked at me and said, would you please be quiet, that's what she said, would you please be quiet, and that stopped me.

[20:38]

So, the mind that's attached to what it knows, and one's own opinions and views and emotions and base everything on that, you know, it's a kind of closed kind of mind. So, so this is back to concentrate on one thing, that it was, yeah, so often we are, I feel like we are so fortunate to be at a practice place, practicing in a practice place, practicing together in the practice period or, you know, involved in supporting a practice period, and the effort that it took to get here, to arrange our lives, to make the space,

[21:42]

to commit ourselves to this, you know, and then when we finally get here, you know, there's this, oh my God, what have I done, you know, and wanting to kind of get out of it somehow, in various ways, you know. So, what he's pointing out here is doing one thing, and it says, even worldly people, meaning not ordained people, or not practitioners in monastic situations, even worldly people, rather than study many things at once, without really becoming accomplished in any of them, should just do one thing well, and study enough to be able to do it even in the presence of others. I appreciated that, you know, it reminded me of tea ceremony, where you practice and practice in your class, and then at a certain

[22:42]

point it's time for you to make tea for a real, not just in a class situation, but for a tea gathering, and to be, to have studied, and be able to do it even in the presence of others, and that goes for other things, you know, being Doan, or other kinds of things in the temple. But, I'll go on, our nature is, let's see, so, if even worldly people know that, you know, to study one thing, and put your energies in one thing, rather than dilettantness, where you dabble, jack of all trades, and do a lot of little things here and there, to actually pour your energies into doing one thing, and then in Buddhadharma, it's the same way. In this exalted and far-reaching Buddhadharma, if one takes on too many things at once, it will be impossible to perfect even one thing.

[23:44]

Even concentrating solely on one thing, those whose faculties and capacity are dull by nature, will have difficulty in thoroughly mastering it. Strive, students, to concentrate on one thing alone. And then he's asked a question about what that one thing might be to devote yourself to, and he says, sitting meditation. So, you know, this, I would say that for us, our concentration is on sitting meditation, but often that's one of the first things to be dropped, you know, as the more comfortable we are sitting, the longer we've been here, sometimes for some people it feels like there's more leeway in dropping the one thing, and

[24:46]

lots of other things become very interesting and draw our attention. So, at least in the practice period, I feel like to make that a priority, to really make that a priority, and you know, there's this practice of if you're ill or if you're sick, to not go to work, but if you can get up for anything, get up to go to the Zen Dojo, get up for Zazen and service if you can, and then go back to bed. And this is sometimes very hard if you're a regular staff member and you're part of the crew, they're depending on you, and you're trying to hold up your end of the work, it can be very hard to do that. But in the practice period I just wanted to say that, to make the emphasis your Zazen practice and forego the work. And that's a kind of out of Tassajar practice period.

[25:48]

A protocol or whatever, that's what's suggested. So just do one thing, when I say one thing, I mean we're doing all sorts of things all day long, but devote yourself in this way to one thing. Because the practice period goes by very, very fast, you may never have another practice period, really, and you've made such an effort to be here, and actually not only in the practice period, to be at Green Gulch. So if I had slippers maybe I'd go around and say, don't waste time, let's not waste time while we're here. Because our life goes by so swiftly and we never know what's going to happen next. And he talks about that impermanence. So it says, thought after thought does not linger,

[27:16]

day after day flows away. The swiftness of impermanence is a fact right before our eyes. You need not wait for the teachings of a master or written scriptures, thought after thought, without making plans for the next day, thinking only of the present day, the present hour. Since the days to come are extremely indefinite and impossible to know, you should only think of following the way of Buddhas just for today, as long as you are alive. To follow the way of Buddhas means to abandon bodily life and carry out various activities for the sake of the flourishing of the teaching and the benefit of living beings. So our tendency to get caught up in what's coming, what's going to happen, what's going to happen, what we're going to do, and so this brings back to concentrating on that which

[28:20]

is before you, down to thought after thought, or moment after moment. We hear moment after moment so often that it's almost like a jingle, or a slogan or something, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard that moment after moment, sure. It's so overused, but I actually like thought after thought does not linger. Day after day flows away. The swiftness of impermanence is a fact right before our eyes. That kind of quality, if we can bring that into our daily life, I think we'll all feel that, actually. We'll feel that. Let's see. This is a point that he makes, actually in several of these little talks,

[29:33]

he really stresses this point, and I think we know it as, you know, no traces. You've heard that before. If you leave the kitchen, if you're going to make a snack with no traces. So this is bringing it further, I think. In an evening talk he said, in the present time most people, both the worldlings and those who have left the world, are concerned that others know when they do something good, and hope that others do not know when they do something bad. Because of this, there develops a lack of harmony between inside and outside. Be sure to harmonize inside and outside, repenting of mistakes, hiding real virtue, and not adorning outward appearance. One must maintain a spirit of attributing good things to others while

[30:33]

taking bad things upon oneself. So I think, you know, we can all resonate with that feeling that we have of wanting people to not know about our faults and blind spots and undeveloped areas, and wanting people to know about our virtue and our goodness, and actually going so far as to hide the bad stuff or the unwholesome, and promoting the wholesome stuff, you know. And he goes on to say, he's not saying that you should display bad behavior, or do bad behavior to show, okay everybody, you now know I do these unwholesome things. But what he suggests is that you don't put forth for everybody all the good you've done, but you

[31:42]

do bring forth your faults and repent, you know, we have our repentance, you actually come forth and say, and we have this practice, you know, in a very kind of mild way, where the Doan or someone who's in service or doing the temple, the sounds of the day for the temple, and if you make a mistake, like you rang the bell too late or you forgot, or everybody was late to the Zen door, those kinds of things, there's actually a practice which you've noticed of saying, bringing this forth and apologizing at work meetings, bringing forth this, and it's very mild, but it actually, I think, it's appreciated, and rather than hiding it or being defensive, you know, well, it wasn't my fault, you should have told me, or whatever we do to kind of deflect that. So, as you face the moment and meet the situation, you should just consider all things for the

[32:51]

sake of the flourishing of the teaching and for the benefit of living beings, which he said before, so when, so if you're doing something and you're doing it so that other people can see and say and congratulate you or whatever, then there's this gaining idea that's all laced into that, and it is disharmonious, and it actually has an unharmonious, even though the thing you were doing in and of itself was a fine thing, it has traces, it has these traces. So Suzuki Roshi has a wonderful story about hiding the good. When he was at Komazawa University, he had been a monk living in a monastic situation, and he went to the university and lived in a dorm, and he took it upon himself, he had this practice of getting up early before everybody else and cleaning the bathrooms, which he said really, it was like Soji, a Soji job

[33:55]

in the men's room, but he wanted to find out what his pure way-seeking mind was, pure meaning not tainted by this dualistic thinking or gaining idea. So he put this great effort into getting up early, making sure nobody was up, and if the light was on for the head of the school who stayed in the dorm area during the week, then he wouldn't do it, and it was very important, he was really, he says later, attached to this having pure way-seeking mind, but then it began to trouble him, why am I trying to hide, do I really want to be found out, do I really wish he would see me doing this cleaning in the morning, and his mind was just reeling with, was he pure, was it pure, was it impure, and did he want to do this or not? So this whole thing broke open for him in a psychology class at the university where the teacher said, it is impossible to get a hold of and know what is pure,

[34:57]

your past mind, and so your effort to do that, like to have this pure mind that he had, that he felt he had before, if you're trying to get a hold of that now, there is no way you can do that, and thoughts do not linger, you cannot hold on to them. So he said it was like an enlightenment, that's what he said, where he was freed from having to worry about pure or impure, whether he was seen or not, he just did it for the sake of doing it, just clean the bathrooms, they need to be cleaned, just do it. So he dropped this concern, and it didn't matter to him anymore whether he was seen or not seen. So this hiding our unwholesome stuff and bringing forth our good stuff, and we often don't even realize how we're kind

[36:02]

of trotting out how good we are. I talked about that a little bit on Saturday, I think, right? Sticking a thumb and pull out a thumb, sticking a thumb and pull out a plum, and say what a good boy am I, that kind of feeling, say what a good girl am I. So we do things for the sake of Buddhadharma, for the sake of the teaching, for the sake of our practice, and that's it, and that's this teaching over and over, which we have to ponder that, what that means in our daily life. So, this was about boredom, which I thought was very helpful also. So he's talking about

[37:09]

practice and study, just realize that practice and study are fundamentally the Buddha way itself, without any object of seeking. Even if in your heart you want to do things like the unwholesome deeds of the world, do not do them, and do not weary or take notice of the boredom of the practical exercises of the study of the way. On the basis of this practice, cultivating it single-mindedly, it is when you carry on without any quest from your own mind, even as to fulfilling the way, or obtaining the result, that you would be in conformity with the principle that you should not seek outwardly. So, bringing up boredom, doing these practices over and over and over, and this boredom may come up, and so he's encouraging them to just go forward without... See, often boredom is not just

[38:09]

if we're not bored, often it's because there's self-interest involved, we're looking for something for us that really interests us, or we want it for ourselves, that's what's kind of fueling it. So when boredom is arising, there's non-seeking as well. We're not so interested, we're not looking outside, and this boredom arises. Usually what we do is if we're bored, get rid of it as quickly as possible in any way we can. But this is looking at boredom as some closeness to what it might be like to not be seeking outward. What is that? And if you stay with boredom, what we call boredom, there may be some other quality there that's new, fresh, that's not constantly looking and seeking. So I think part of the repetition over and over of the schedule and the rounds of the day and the

[39:10]

services and all, the boredom's okay in long sittings and so forth. Do not weary or take notice of the boredom, of the practical exercise of the study of the way. On the basis of this practice, cultivating it single-mindedly, it is when you carry on without any quest from your own mind. So this quest of getting things for yourself to boredom kind of is dropping that. Are you getting bored? Let's see. Now this one, this one is a little bit I remember reading this, you know, years ago. One day he said, basically he says there was a Zen master named such and such, and there was a man who had grasped the truth and awakened to the way, and his practice and attainment excelled, even that of the elder, even the,

[40:12]

I think, the person who was running the temple. It doesn't say abbot, but it says the elder. So one night this practitioner who excelled went to the abbot's quarters. It must have been the abbot. Burnt incense, bowed and said, please allow me the head seat of the rear hall. At that time the Zen master, at that time the Zen master, this abbot, wept and said, since the time I was a novice, I have never heard such a thing as this. For you, a meditating monk, to seek the head seat or the position of great elder is a serious mistake. You have already awakened to the way better than I have, but is your seeking for the head seat for the sake of advancement? If I were to allow you, you could be allowed even the front hall or the position of great elder. Your attitude is base and ignoble, and so on and so forth. Anyway, I remember the impression that made on me of, now this

[41:19]

is a particular kind of culture, I think now someone is interested in doing something, they may come forth and say, I'd really like to be head carpenter or whatever, and you have ideas about it, and you'd like to get a crew, and so this happens. But also what happens is, and maybe some of you have experienced this, that we are excelling in one way or another, in either our job or our practice, and then what creeps into that is wanting acknowledgement. I think the part that really hit me was that he wept. At that time the Zen Master wept, because here is this primo student, and yet there is this gaining idea that was disharmonious. So as I'm saying this, I don't want to put a damper on anybody

[42:26]

ever coming forward and volunteering to do something. In fact, please volunteer to be head Chidan and all these different things. But to just have that spirit, to understand the spirit and asking to be the head seat, asking to be, make me the head monk, please, rather than, and it's a, what is it, I feel like it's a family way or something, family way meaning this way that we've inherited of waiting to be asked and allowing other people to acknowledge you rather than coming forward, like praising self at the expense of others or something. So it's, I don't mean to criticize anybody here who's ever come forward and asked, but I just know how strongly that imprinted me as a new student. And I think this is the last one that I wanted to share. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm going to

[43:37]

read it. This is a quote, two things. One day he instructed, familiarity, this is an ancient Zen, and I'm not sure if that's Confucian or, because often it would say Zen master instead of ancient. This, by the way, is from Koko, the gorilla, which arrived in the mail today. It's Love by Koko. Koko's painting. It's nice, isn't it? You all know Koko the gorilla. Koko is a gorilla that was at the San Francisco Zoo and has been taught sign language, ASL, or a combination, I guess. And she does all sorts of, this is fundraising, she did this for fundraising, but anyway. Yeah, that'd be great. Anyway, this wonderful conversation she has with, you know, like Zen, they're like Zen dialogues where you

[44:44]

ask Koko what she thinks and she'll say, she says whatever comes into her mind. She has no kind of social constraints, she just, anyway. I want your purse, yeah. She's very direct, direct communication. So, and they're trying to get a preserve for her in Hawaii and they and Michael, the other one, the other gorilla that's, so they've been fundraising for a long time and it's, yeah. So, let's see, oh, this, I think we're all, many of us are familiar with the quote from Suzuki Roshi about if you walk in the rain, you know, you get drenched, but it's on the outside and if you walk in the fog, it slowly seeps in. So come walk with me. So this is from Dogen. Familiarity with good people is like walking through mist and dew. Although they do not drench your garment, in time it becomes imbued with moisture.

[45:45]

What this means to say is that if one becomes well acquainted with the good without realizing it, one becomes a good person. In sitting meditation as well, if you do it for the good for a long time, you will spontaneously become suddenly aware of the great matter and should know that sitting meditation is the correct entrance. So that image of walking in the mist or the fog, you know, with Suzuki Roshi and getting your garments wet through and through down to the skin rather than just drenched from the outside, this is drenched through and through. I think I knew at some other time I remembered that it was, I found out that it was Dogen who had said that, or that it was a quote from Dogen, but anyway I just found this today and wanted to read that. So this is also the importance of having good friends, you know, Kalyanamitra's good friends, because when you spend time with

[46:54]

good friends or anybody, you become influenced and it seeps in. And the last one I wanted to read, I think this is the last one, is just this, you know, we just had this new student entering, not new student, Shuso head monk entering ceremony just the other day. So here's, for this little monastery that just opened up on January 28th, 1236, Dogen first requested me, Ejo, to occupy the first seat, meaning the head monk, Kosho temple. Thus after an informal meeting he first asked me as head monk to take up the whisk and preach. I was the first head monk of Kosho temple. I just felt so connected, you know, with what they were doing since we just did this. So this is the quote from Dogen, he says, Now this temple invites its first head monk, and today for the first time let the taking up of the whisk, meaning the teaching, be carried out. Do not worry how

[48:00]

small the congregation is. Do not be concerned that you are a beginner. At Fenyang there were only seven or eight people, and at Yaoshan there were no more than ten. Nevertheless, they each carried out the way of Buddhas and ancestors. This was called the flourishing of the monasteries. So, you know, whether the practice period is large, or if we're comparing it to other ones, larger or smaller than other ones, or if there's less people in the zendo than we would like, even so, do not be concerned with the size. Somebody else can be concerned about where those people are, but for each person who's practicing, if it's not your responsibility to track where people are, to not be concerned, just know that even a small group practicing together like that is carrying out Buddha's way. Do

[49:13]

not worry, just don't worry about it, just completely practice thoroughly yourself, and that will be the flourishing of the Dharma. When I was once visiting Kadagiri Roshi, who was the abbot of the Minnesota Zen Center, some people from Zen Center came, San Francisco Zen Center, visited there to talk with him, actually to invite him to be abbot for a year with us, and we went to Zazen in the morning, and there was three of us, and like three, I think there were about three other people, and he came down, he did full morning greeting, he, you know, walking around this room, all of us, six of us or whatever, did a full service, he just conducted himself, it didn't matter if there was one, two, if nobody was there, he was completely practicing the way, and you could feel that the Dharma was flourishing

[50:13]

there, not dependent on numbers, so I hope we could have that spirit here as well. Thank you very much. Thank you.

[50:35]

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