I'm just going to unmute the audio. Unmute the room. So this is the state you want to return to. After you've done that check with David. I'm waiting to hit send on. I can't find the monitor. I was like, I'll wait until Zazen is over in case. Yeah, we had the Suzuki Roshi Memorial tonight. So we were up in the Kaisando at the very end. I don't know what that was. I was like, what, upstairs? Yeah, just once a month. Once a month. We'll do the same tomorrow morning. Yeah, so... Do these record internally? No. They can. Do you bother doing that? We haven't been. We haven't been. I'm looking into possibly getting these or seeing if Dan Belsky will get these for Green Gulch.

[01:30]

Everything we set up there. Green Gulch already has a set of these. I do? Yeah. I bought and gave them a set six months ago, eight months ago. It's what they should be using. No. No, they're not. They're not. Okay. I bought them their own set. I labeled them. They were labeled. They were like, how do we record a vent? I was like, well, you can record it in the ATEM. Just audio only. I was like, well, you can record it in the ATEM, in the hard drive. There won't be any video coming in. Or we can research getting microphones that record them for you. The drawback of recording on here is it chops it into individual files like every... 15 minutes or something like that. They stitch back together just fine, but somebody would have to, somebody has to stitch it. Yeah. So a recorder is probably a better solution for them. Yeah. Which they have, which they have, but they, I think they just need to be taught how to plug an audio, an audio out into that recorder so that they're getting the sound from, rather than just the ambient room sound.

[02:39]

Uh, group comes in and does their own thing. We set up a cable for them, and it's like, we should just have that cable be for our stuff, and they can put it on. That's maybe not ideal, but... Yeah, it can be moved. He's not... Is that in yet? Oh, here he is. Yeah. And we need to do the audio check? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So let's do the audio check with David. So I'm going to want to mute a room. Oh, is this not plugged? Oh, that's done. It's right there.

[03:43]

Okay, this is not the ideal mic placement, but it is on. How do we find out from David? Just ask David if he can hear us. David, can you hear us? David, your Zoom is muted if you're... Is this the last thing to do, is the audio check? Yeah. And he is going to He's going to do recording, and a message will pop up on both of these computers that recordings happen, so I just need to go over to that computer and dismiss that message.

[04:49]

Yeah, we could start the recording. It's different. How about this talking voice? Does that sound okay?

[05:50]

Hello? Hello? This is Marcus. Can you hear me? Okay. If you're hearing me okay, then I guess our sound check to Zoom is okay. Okay. my audio is muted, and now you can hear me. Yes, hello, I can hear you. Okay, great. Thanks for the audio check. If you didn't get the email I sent out last week, the Tuesday after our Monday class, if you didn't get that, please let me know.

[12:13]

And if you're still trying to find how to join your small group, let me know, please. Or anything else. It was just a straightforward email to your email address. You didn't get it? Nobody got it? I went to the portal to find the homework and the recap. Was the text the one-pager about how to engage in Dharma conversation? Or was it a different text? It was different. There was a summary of the class, which I left upstairs.

[13:20]

But it looked something like that. It would have said Monday, January 27. That was on the website. Yes. And then there was another one-pager. I got that one page in the email. The email there was that one page. Like you mentioned the Dartmouth talk. Yeah. The one you sent me earlier. The one you sent me with the scan. You asked me to send out everybody. It was posted. It was posted. But then you also said... Yeah. I did receive from my panel. It was a scan of a... That was unreadable because it was so blurry, even with my reading glasses on, so... Sorry, you just posted on the portal.

[14:23]

Yeah, I didn't see it through there. So now I'm confused. Have many people got the email delivered to your email address? Oh, no, last week. It would have been last Tuesday. And it would have come from Michael. I got that. I got that, but it wasn't from you. I didn't receive any emails that said they were directly from you. They were indirectly from me. I sent the copy... to Michael, and then he sent it out. Wait. It was posted, though. It was posted right away. Everything is on the portal. Yeah. Yeah, I was just duplicating. The email, we've had that one page with the rules like Dar was sharing, you're sharing, that there was only that.

[15:35]

I think it was Thich Nhat Hanh. It was Thich Nhat Hanh. Yeah. Not the summary. The summary didn't come in the email. Well, the sharing from Thich Nhat Hanh was an attachment. Yeah. I saw that. But not a sentence. It doesn't sound like it. So there was... I just sent that. I didn't send that. That was only... Oh, you know, there should have been the summary of... And then was the summary of the class On the portal? Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I believe we can set up our own notification settings that, like, if something gets uploaded, like, we get an email about it. But I'm not sure if it's automatic. Yeah. I didn't know that. Oh, you can set it up that way? I think you can set up that you get an email every time. Okay. Update. Or at least a notification that, like, something was posted. I'll just probably see. So what we will do this week, I hope, is we will duplicate the summary.

[16:53]

And the summary will include some suggested practices. And it will be on the portal, if that's a preference. And maybe you can teach us all How to set up a notification? Sure, once I figured it out myself. I don't know how to set up right. OK. I thought you just knew how to do that. I know a while back I had turned it off because I was getting too many notifications. Yes. Any other concerns? Did you get a notification about your small group and did you manage to meet? Yes. Do you know is the portal, the times of the small groups,

[18:04]

Oh, it is clear. So you saw that. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's fine. Okay, thank you for that. And we'll just sit. We'll start by sitting for a little bit. Before we do... There is a way in which I think the most accurate verb in English is noticing. That's what awareness is. It's to notice. It's not to manufacture what's appropriate or suppress what's inappropriate.

[19:11]

simply to notice sometimes in the early suttas it talks about it's like you touch the experience very lightly if you if you can think of when you notice something you may have you follow it you may follow your noticing with a strong response but that noticing itself is just a simple activity of consciousness that we call awareness. So when we start to sit, before you get busy doing zazen or making something that should be happening happen, Can you notice? Can you notice what's coming into awareness as you notice?

[20:27]

Can you let that noticing teach you about noticing? Can you notice when what you're aware of changes? And then can you let the spaciousness of noticing, can you bring that to your body, to awareness of the body, or more particularly, to awareness of sensations in the body?

[22:15]

And then bringing attention to the breath and tracking the physical sensation of the inhale, the pause, the exhale, the pause. In that pause before the exhale, can you make available noticing? So the sensations of breathing out, physical sensations of breathing out are noticed.

[23:59]

Can you make a routine of the pause before the exhale? Can you come back within the midst of thinking? Can you just return to noticing? So in the pause before exhale, noticing, and the pause before inhale, noticing.

[26:20]

There's a simple teaching, simple in terms of ideas, not simple in terms of actualizing or practicing it. And it's sila samadhi panya. Sila is engaging in a way that, in this instance, engaging in a way that supports awareness. And then samadhi, in this phrase, means continuous contact, continuous noticing. And then panya is the Pali for prajna, which is what's experienced in the direct contact of what's happening in the moment.

[29:56]

So we open up and engage. We sustain the engagement, and it teaches us something. And I think if we were some kind of little worm that didn't really have a brain, that process would be utterly simple. But we're incredibly complex. We have developed a capacity for consciousness that's so intricate, so... interrelated with all the systems of our being. And who knows what we're picking up from each other.

[31:07]

So in the midst of that, we notice. In the midst of that, we find a... a method that sustains the noticing. And it's helpful to acknowledge what we're asking of ourselves when we do that. Once I was near Bangkok in Thailand, and I said to a friend of mine, I'd like to practice Vipassana. I've heard it's really wonderful.

[32:14]

And he said, go to Wat Plang. So I went to Wat Plang on the outskirts of Bangkok. And they said, well, the teacher's away. but you can just stay here until he returns. And they said, they put me in a room about eight feet long and about five feet wide. And they said, just sit there. And when you feel an impulse to change, Notice that. And then change. And just keep doing that all day, all night. They didn't say don't sleep. And then there was one single light bulb hanging in the middle of the room.

[33:27]

So I noticed. And the teacher never came back while I was there. One Suzuki Roshi said he had a very strict... His first teacher when he was a novice was very strict. And all the other... students ran away. And he said, he was just too stupid to run away. It never occurred to him. So it never occurred to me to leave. So I just stayed in the room until they said, okay, looks like he's not coming back. I stayed there 10 days. So noticing we can bring it forth literally in any state of being we are.

[34:42]

In as much as when our mind is concentrated, we can notice concentration. When our mind is jumping all over the place, we can notice what jumping all over the place is like, briefly, because it's jumping. When there's a strong emotion, we can notice that. And around that simple process, there have been constructed over the centuries different approaches to sustain that noticing.

[35:55]

And the tricky part about it is when we pick up one of those strategies, We can get ourselves into a state of when I'm immersed in that methodology, I'm getting it right. I'm doing it right. And then when I'm not, I'm not doing it right. But that's a narrow notion. But it seems to be very appealing to human consciousness. And so what we're going to explore tonight is one of those methodologies.

[36:59]

But please, please don't go away thinking Well, that's the right way to be aware. And so I should always be like that, whatever you think that is. The methodology is to, but just the methodology of Pause before the exhale. Just come back to noticing and then notice physical sensations. I suspect that when I said just notice what's happening,

[38:04]

that sound became more evident. That hum of the... I think it's a fan. It might be the heater. That long tube is the heat. But these two are just the fans. So what we're going to do in an elaborate way we're going to do some stretches in in the hope that in stretching your body the blood starts to flow more easily some of the kinks and tight spots loosen up and

[39:07]

the capacity to notice physical sensations is enhanced. So keep that in mind when we're doing the stretches. There's a certain kind of effort that's really helpful. Can you relax into the stretch? And when the stretch becomes, okay, that's as far as I can go, can you notice it and explore Is there further stretching possible?

[40:09]

There isn't a goal. It's a method to become more thoroughly engaged in the sensations, the physical sensations of being. We're going to do that, and then we're going to add some breathing to that. So not only will you be a body, you'll also be a breath. And if you're not used to it, it might feel very demanding. And if it does, Just remind yourself there's nothing to accomplish.

[41:17]

And maybe later we'll say, I'm no one to accomplish it, but for now. We'll just go as far as that. And maybe if you can pull your zabhatan So at one point we're going to lie on our backs. So if you can pull your sabbatan in far enough that you have enough space to lie on the sabbatan, that's the big square one. And for those of you online, you can follow along if you wish.

[42:47]

We're going to start off with just some big movements to just get your blood flowing and get your muscles a little bit relaxed. So if you can bounce up and down in the balls of your feet, and swing your arms without knocking over the altar or knocking over another person. And then plant your feet

[43:57]

And then just move your arms, your hands in a big circle. And then reverse direction. Then pause. Come upright. Just close your eyes. Just notice the sensations in your body. Maybe some part of your body is tingling with the extra blood flow.

[45:06]

Maybe some part of your body is aching. It's a little bit more aware of stiffness or the uncomfortable sensation of doing those movements. Noticing. It is what it is. And then if you could bring your knees and your feet together, bend your knees so you can move your knees in a circle. In reverse direction.

[46:16]

And then come up. Move your feet. the hip width apart. And just let your body lean forward till you can feel the weight on the balls of your feet. Then let your body lean back so you can feel the weight on your heels. And just guided by those two sensations, can you rock back and forth until you find that place of balance where your weight's equally on the front of your feet and on the back. Find the balance.

[47:50]

Just pause in that balance. And as much as you can, feel the prominent sensations in your body. Feel how the weight is coming down through the body into the balanced feet. over to your right foot onto your right foot so your left foot is carrying less and less weight from your body. Then gently sway the other way until your left foot is carrying the weight of your body, most of the weight of your body. back and forth.

[48:57]

And again, just Try to find that balance between left and right. And then feel is to have a balanced body. And then very deliberately unlock your knees and let your arms float up, up over your head,

[50:23]

stretching up, and then move your hands back, keeping the stretch and your knees unlocked. Just arching the back a little bit and lengthening it, and just feeling how that is. And if it's painful, Don't do it. And then come back up. Slowly lower your arms. Feel your body.

[51:34]

Did something feel more open? Is there a nagging tightness somewhere? And then slowly bring up your right arm. and up through the shoulder, the whole way through the fingertips. And keeping that stretch, move the hips to the right. So you feel the stretch the whole way down, your torso on the right side of your body. And just feel how that feels.

[52:37]

Then slowly release. Then the same on the other side. out slowly coming up opening up the shoulder opening up through the fingertips and swaying the hips to the left And slowly bring your left arm down. And just awareness of the body from the feet up.

[53:57]

Weight balance left and right, front and back. Knees unlock. As you unlock your knees, your thigh muscles become active. opening up the front of your body. It doesn't have to be a big movement, just that making space in the front of your body. And then imagine your lower spine sinking down Your spine below your navel sinking down.

[54:59]

And then the upper spine reaching up the whole way up your back to the crown of the head. And imagine your chest opening across the front And opening across the back. Your arms and hands relaxed. Bring your right hand to the middle of your chest and your left hand below your navel.

[56:05]

And let your breath happen as much as possible without the mind telling it what to do. Imagine how you breathe when you're in deep sweep. And track the physical sensations as if you're learning how to breathe the body in a deep way. Can you start with the pause before the exhale?

[57:44]

And do that several times. And then notice if you can add pause, awareness, or noticing of the pause before the inhale. Exhale, pause, inhale.

[59:06]

And when your attention wanders and you notice, pause. Notice. Notice where you are in the rhythm of breathing. And slowly let your arms come down by your sides. And see if you can bring awareness to the breath in the body. Sensations of the breath in the body.

[60:31]

very slowly and very deliberately. Bow yourself down onto your Zabhatan. And lie with your spine on the Zabhatan. So probably your legs will be sticking over the front edge. And your head will be over the back edge. Just let your body sink into the Zabhatan.

[62:03]

Can you release the tension in your neck so that your head, the weight of your head is just supported by the floor? You just focus on noticing the physical sensations in your body.

[63:24]

Noticing the breathing in, the pause, the breathing out. And then switch to hearing.

[64:48]

Can you be aware of the signs of hearing? Then experiment with not having an agenda, not directing your awareness at all, your noticing.

[65:55]

What happens then? Then slowly roll yourself over onto your right side. Bring your knees up towards your chest. Push yourself up with your arms. The suggested practices for the next week are noticing.

[67:57]

Try to pause sometime during your day. Explore whether it's better for you destructure it someone told me once they they got out their smartphone and then they decided they were going to do this every 30 minutes or something and then their smartphone gave them a prompt and so that's one way another way is tie it to something like, connect it to something like each time you go through, especially if you go through a certain door many times in your day. Pause, notice, acknowledge.

[69:11]

What I'm noticing is my state of mind. I'm a little bit excited. Or I'm whatever, angry, upset, distracted. Or maybe you notice, oh, after sitting in that chair for the last two hours, my body's a little creaky. The noticing, acknowledging, you know, that the experience leads the acknowledgement. You know, usually we conceptualize and then we have a response to our own conceptualization.

[70:20]

So it's a little bit like trying to coach ourselves to stay closer to our experience. So last week we were offering, you know, like just before you drink, you know, or put your clothes on in a different way. And you might want to mix the two, or you might just want to notice and acknowledge. And in one way we can think that when we're meditating, our whole engagement is around noticing and acknowledging.

[71:21]

So our engagement can be like that, but it can also that we're learning something about pausing. in our meditation. We're learning something about noticing in our meditation. And then can that help us make contact with, in the early Buddhist canon, noticing and contact, it's like reaching out and touching. And in that particular sutta, it says, okay, there's touching, there's holding, and there's grasping, you know, a grasping like, I do not want to let go.

[72:35]

Notice contact, hold, grasp. And in some ways, as we explore that, we can bring a certain kind of awareness to holding. Like usually when you say something like, Oh, be aware of the muscles in your thighs when you unlock your knees. It's kind of a neutral activity most of the time. And so you just hold awareness on the muscles in your thighs.

[73:37]

When you think of something you really want to have happen, or something you really don't want to have happen, and you're excited about the possibility, or you're dreading the possibility, it's like you're grasping. Or that often leads us to grasping. And awareness, in a way, doesn't include judgment. It's just, it is what it is, you know? When you're grasping the striker, you're just grasping the striker. So can you pause and dip down into making that contact can you pause the world according to me and all the mental and emotional activity involved in that can you pause and just ask what's happening now is assigned of that horn is it pleasant unpleasant

[75:11]

I thought it was unpleasant until it stopped, and I thought... Then, in that dipping down, noticing what's... influences your state of mind. Sometimes you notice you're in a certain emotion, and that emotion is coloring how you're relating to something or someone. And then you pause. Oh, I'm upset about that.

[76:35]

And then usually that creates a contraction. But when we can just notice, we're kind of inviting ourselves. You don't have to contract. It's not necessary. It's not necessary to suppress your contraction, but it's not necessary to get caught up in it. So to explore that. And then if you could, I'd like to switch gears, but before I do that, Do you have any comments or questions about the principle of noticing and acknowledging? And how, when we pause, we can reset our awareness?

[77:40]

Any comments or questions? Don't try to change anything. You can mind wonders and just observe it. Should we put a little effort to stay present? Sometimes if I let it wander, it would be for a while. Here's the interesting thing. When you notice it tends to move towards a kind of neutral awareness. Whereas what we usually do is, well, this thought has a psychological significance. It may be it also, along with that, it has an emotion, pleasant or unpleasant.

[78:58]

and then given psychological significance and, say, unpleasant emotion, they energize the dialogue, the narrative that's going on in our eye. When we can notice it and just let it be, it invites It sort of takes that energy that we've put into the narrative and just let it float in the moment. And that's much, much easier said than done. Because we've spent a whole lifetime. It's like what's psychologically significant for us is psychologically significant for us. Like if someone yells at you, maybe you're shaking with anxiety or fear or something.

[80:15]

But even noticing, acknowledging, shaking with fear, it moves towards that kind of, it just is what it is. And then, even when we move just a little in that direction, our capacity to see it rather than be utterly caught up in it. And that's the significant part. And that seeing helps us start to see more deeply what's going on for us. Because we were just conceptualizing and then living inside our own concepts.

[81:25]

It's like we're in a waking dream. What just came to mind was there's a sangha that I visit twice a year, and there was someone in that sangha who was almost like ashamed to be themselves. And as they started to practice that self-denigration started to loosen up and their body started to loosen up and open up. And then what came out was a quick-witted person who had a lot of musical talent.

[82:28]

And it was a little bit like a miracle, you know. To... In a way, if we want to get fancy, we could say, The gate of liberation is awareness of what's happening now. And it's a learning by doing. If you can watch yourself, OK, I'll be aware of this moment. And then how complicated or how simple is that moment? And if we can notice it and acknowledge it,

[83:46]

it starts to move into being a teaching. Oh, look at that. And sometimes that's a little poignant, you know? You think, hmm, yeah, that really bothers me. I just can't help it, I'm bothered. the last presidential election we had, there was a certain person I didn't want to win, and I would practice metta towards them. And then that would work for a while. And then my mind would do all sorts of other things, you know, think about stuff. And then I would see a photograph of them and I'd realize, oh, somehow I'm right back in that aversion.

[84:55]

Can it be humbling but not humiliating? There's a difference there. Oh, yeah. I really do get hooked by that. It's the human condition. So there was a couple of other... We have like 15 minutes left. And in the summary... you'll see that we didn't get to the triads. We could do. The notion of a triad is you get to watch the two people. You get to watch them interacting. One person's asking a question and the other one's answering it.

[86:14]

And you can sort of see how it is for them. And in a way, watching the dyad happen, it's a little bit like how we would watch ourself happen. Maybe next week. And then the other thing to mention is the role of the leader of your small group. That you're welcome to have a one-on-one exchange with them. The whole notion is that you... share with someone else, okay, here's how I'm practicing, and here's what I'm noticing when I do that practice.

[87:22]

There's something about articulating, taking the acknowledgement and articulating, especially when it's something we care about, something we put our heart into, it teaches us. Sometimes you might hear yourself describe your experience a certain way, and learning that in hearing yourself, learning that, no, that's not quite what happened, or that's not quite a skillful way to put it. Maybe this is more skillful. So we encourage you to bring that kind of openness into your small group.

[88:38]

When each of us is willing to open up and demonstrate that, it really creates a kind of compassionate, kind safety. We have about 13 minutes. Shall we do the dyads? That would simply be... Or shall we have a general discussion? General discussion?

[89:47]

I'd like to clarify a few things for myself. Okay. Sorry, if we're going to do a question and answer, we need to use this microphone so the online people can hear us. Okay, so you said that the small group, that we could engage with the small group leaders in a one-on-one? Yes. Does that mean like a practice session separate from the group or during the group? Are you... Separate from the group. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I could also use... I don't know. I mean, maybe I should save this for my small group, but I know I'm going to have a hard time with the homework because I've attempted to do these types of exercises many times. I'll probably have to set an alarm even though I don't want to. But, yeah...

[90:54]

It's just easy to, I mean, I tend to notice things during the day a lot, but it's very random. So you're asking me to do something intentional. That's very hard to do just something intentional unless I'm immediately aware of that attention when I wake up and I'm constantly somehow reminding myself of that intention. And, yeah. I don't know. I just don't know how I'm going to do it. Leave it to me. I guess I have to make a choice. I would say to you, maybe as a kind of consolation, is that being aware can sometimes feel like it's like I have to stop being me I have to stop being all caught up in the world according to me and be in this more spacious acceptance.

[92:12]

And that's a big jump for us. Maybe if you have a quiet, safe, to pause, that might work for you. Someone who worked in the financial district in downtown San Francisco, he told me once that he spends his lunch hour by walking around and thinking, looking at someone, not staring at them, but just thinking, this person is Buddha. And then he would just walk around doing that for as many people as he could. So to the homework, can I add a question to contemplate throughout the day that might... Maybe if you could hold it up a little bit. So I guess where I'm getting tripped up with the homework is, you know...

[93:18]

Like I say, I randomly notice things a lot during the day, and I notice myself noticing them. But to do it in an intentional way, I think I need to add a question, unless I'm going to set an alarm. What would the question be? What's happening now? I don't know. You know, something like that. Yeah. I could try that. You could try that. I'll probably forget to ask the question, though. It's just the same thing. It's just the same problem. That's why I would say find something you can hook it on. I'm going to have to do an alarm, I think, because I remembered... probably six times in the middle of dressing to watch how I was dressing.

[94:20]

And I never was able to build on it, so I got to the point where I knew what I was doing and that I could switch it up. So I think I'll have to set an alarm. I think I just have to do it. As much as I don't like the idea. Thank you. Sure. Anyone else have a question? We have a question from Griffin online. Okay. Hi, Griffin. I've been noticing about the quality of my experience sitting Zazen in the Zendo, and I'm lucky. I have a Sangha and a Zendo, and I sit upright in a cushion versus the quality of... my experience when I'm home in the midst of the challenge of my mistakes and delusions. And it's not so much that my practice is different or that I don't remember to pause or that I don't have moments of even feeling a deep connection to something in the background.

[95:35]

It's sort of an unwillingness to not have like a layer of tension, like as if I had a second body of tension under my skin to really be willing to abandon that in the midst of what's going on in my home. You know, I remember, I connect, but there's an unwillingness. There's an unwillingness. I would say there's an unwillingness in all of us, you know, that we've spent a lifetime, we've put a lot of energy and resources and ingenuity into crafting our world and who we are and how we're going to get what we want and how we're going to avoid what we don't want.

[96:44]

It's not an easy matter to think, oh, I'll just, with a flick of the wrist, I'll just give all that up. I think we work with that unwillingness daily. And can we do that with a benevolence? Why would I be prompted to practice metta towards a certain person that I instinctively actually don't like? It's trying to loosen up something.

[97:51]

Just being disappointed that, okay, it took me a lifetime to put this together. And I've been practicing for five minutes, and it hasn't fallen apart yet. So it's just that's who we are. And I think when we keep turning it over and relating to it, It softens. It softens our attitude towards life. It's like, oh, yeah. And we see someone else stuck in their patterned behavior, and we think, oh, yeah, I've done that.

[99:07]

And instead of having an internal judgment, negative judgment of them, there's just a kind of compassion. Oh yeah, that really hurts when we get stuck like that. Like that person who I don't like, thinking What must it be like to have those tendencies? What was it like when you were a child? Do you ever have a place where you can just let them all go and just cry? Yeah.

[100:14]

Thank you. Go ahead, please. Yes, this is Janosch. I'm not sure the woman who spoke earlier, but I could relate to forgetting to these reminders to practice. I totally forgot about dressing in a different way until you mentioned it, Paul, tonight. So I like the idea of setting an alarm, you know, because we are in that age where we have the cell phone, and it's the first thing that I check in the morning, oh, yeah, what's my calendar? And then, you know, I could just put in there notice today. Or I like post-its.

[101:24]

So I think I'm going to use that as, you know, maybe a post-it there in the bathroom notice. I need some reminders. And to just trigger, oh, yes, that is my intention for practicing. But I'm... novice, so I forget. Well, I've been at it for quite a while, and I still forget. So maybe a novice is... We're all just novices. Okay. Any last comments? that may work for people? Maybe like writing something on your hand or drawing something on your hand?

[102:29]

Oh, drawing something on your hand? Yeah. And then you'll see it several times throughout the day if you write a letter or something. Could be one option. Yeah. Seems like everyone's forgetting, including me. amazed. Is this working? Maybe turn it up instead of being horizontal rather than vertical. I'm amazed how helpful the noticing is. It's not working. Is the green button on? Oh, it is. Okay. How's this? Yeah, that works. I'm encouraged because when you start noticing, even if you're not doing it very well and you forget and you don't do it enough, when you do it and you notice it and you touch it, acknowledge it, it does make a difference.

[103:55]

I mean, it's slow, but it does loosen things up. And it's so helpful. So thank you. You're very welcome. And it is random, but I find that it happens more. When I set that intention and when I try to get back on the horse of this, It does loosen things up. And you go, wow, I am. I'm noticing it. And it's really helping because this is a very difficult time, I think, for all of us. So thank you. Thank you. So we need to stop. And we need to put this endo back together. We've run over just a couple of minutes. And so if you need to leave, there's plenty of us here.

[104:56]

So don't be shy about, if you need to rush off, don't be shy about rushing off. And for Friday, if people come to the Zazenkhai and they get here after 9.30, please just go to the main entrance and ring the bell. And then you can come down from the inside. If you want to put the cushions, there's two rows here. Those cushions can go out there. I will hook the curtains up. Thanks, Mike.

[105:37]

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