It feels kind of strange to be speaking. You know, I come and it feels very much, except when I'm here and then it feels like I'm here a lot. But to be dropping in, having missed so many Dharma talks and so many classes and so much of what goes on here, on the one hand, it feels presumptuous. How would I know how to fit in with what you're doing? And on the other hand, you know, I've had this blessed life. I can't believe how wonderful my life has been to be able to be at Tassajara as much as I've been here. And, you know, still have a family, still have a husband. But just the... Being at Tassajara, it's a miracle. You know, not many people, as in none, have been able to do this.

[01:06]

And so, you know, I want to say to you, make use of it. You know, it's an amazing, effective experience at Tassara practice period. And it's not for everyone all the time. It's, you know, it's not always the time for everyone to be here. In fact, it's rare that it fits into our, you know, feels like the right thing to do, even if that was like a few months ago when it felt like it was the right thing to do when you signed up and came. I would say if you're here doing, try to really do it for the three months and then see. whether it's time to do another one or not. As my mother used to say when I was a teenager and doing this thing, she said, don't do. She said, don't wish your life away.

[02:10]

Don't wish it was over. Somebody assured me yesterday, I'm sure they know, that it was either yesterday or today is the halfway mark. So it's only half done. And yeah. And it speeds up. Just like life, it speeds up. So that's kind of the main message I want to give is do it completely. Do it as completely as you can, whatever that means for you. So one way I thought to talk about that today or maybe to talk about in some ways what I... how I think Tassajara functions, one way that I think Tassajara functions is, and this thought, as I was starting to think about that I was going to give a talk, this thought cape, keep your eyes closely on the boat.

[03:18]

So I think Tassajara helps us or forces us to keep our eyes closely on the boat. And so, you know, that passage in the Gendro Koan that we say every week here at Tassajara of... You know, if you're riding in a boat and you watch the shore, you might think that the shore is what's moving. And as I was walking out to the bathhouse yesterday, you know, thinking about this, and I thought, okay, here I am riding in a boat, and I'm watching the shore. And yeah, yeah, it's definitely moving. You know, the leaves were falling down, and, you know, I'd been talking to people, and I could tell they were moving. You know, things were going on, and, you know, there's things going on with my... daughters and grandkids and husband, and there were, you know, Tassara was pretty peaceful right at the moment, but nonetheless, I had this feeling of, yeah, there's movement out there.

[04:27]

And I noticed when I looked, you know, just backed up from that a little bit to peek inside, there's, I think there's like three kind of, that the shore is moving. is one way of describing a kind of normal state of mind, the one that most people walk around in, and there's kind of three modes to that, to that normal state of mind, which I kind of noticed one of them when I was trying this experiment yesterday, which you can also try, which was a kind of, there's everything moving, and there was a really, unquestioned certainty, just an assumption that over here was something. Something, you know, there was me. I was here watching things move.

[05:28]

And it was very palpable when I turned my attention toward it, which mostly I didn't, but I could tell I am walking around with that. You know, you could say certainty, but really it doesn't, mostly it doesn't rise to the level of certainty because we're not thinking about it. It's just, but it is a real experience. It's like, really, I think, at least that's what I noticed, and I think you would notice it too. There's, like, if I'm just glancing over here, or I'm not even glancing, I'm looking, there's an experience of there's a me, and it's a thing. If I go a little more deeply into it, I care about it. If I'm just walking around and nothing's bothering it, great, no problem. It's just here, well-fed, warm enough, safe enough. So that's one mode.

[06:31]

Then there's another mode which follows right from that, which is threat arises, some kind of threat. Myriad, myriad, myriad threats, of course, can arise at any moment. Someone can, you know, they can do anything. They could not look at you. They could look at you. They could say something. They could not say something. They could, I don't know, the weather could change. They could serve the wrong food. They could give you the wrong amount. They could, you know, in our lives, as I've said before, our blessed lives where... you know, bombs are not falling out of the sky, we are not starving to death, these tiny little things still can bring about a feeling of threat. And when mode two comes up and there's a threat, generally we go into some kind of defensiveness. And mode two of that is defend from what's happening.

[07:38]

to the best of your ability, whatever that means. Blame them. Yell at them. Avoid them. Just tell yourself how wrong they are. Use your powers. Defend yourself. It's natural. Mode three comes right along with that, which is, blame yourself. You know, it can be one of the defenses very similar. It's like, there's this feeling of me and it's being threatened and I must have done something wrong to get into this situation. And again, you know, use your powers and it can go many, many places. What you should do differently

[08:41]

how you're going to make yourself do it differently, who you should turn yourself into, how you're going to do that. Usually it all gets pretty complicated at that point. But nonetheless, we can spend, I was going to say hours, but actually years, doing that. So, who shall we say? Buddha, Dogen, Tassajara, practice period. Zazen are all encouraging us to do, just make a different movement at that point and actually put your eyes closely on the boat. Come closer to the boat. Notice what happens over here on the boat. And when we do that, surprise, the boat moves. The boat is moving.

[09:45]

It's actually not like this, you know, sometimes cozy, sometimes threatened, little or big, but mostly, well, I don't know, little or big thing that is, you know, securely or insecurely embedded in us. It's moving. There's all kinds of things arising and... falling away. And this takes some time to see, you know, because at any given moment, something might be pretty solidly there, but if you keep your eyes closely on the boat, then you might have noticed that very solid thing. What happened to it? It goes away, or sometimes it changes, and often it comes back. But there are, anyway, the movement becomes apparent to us. And, you know, I think, as I said, this is kind of like how one of my views of how Tassara functions, it kind of forces us to see that, like, whatever we're doing, we spend all these hours sitting there with a whole lot of the world being fairly quiet.

[11:06]

And in some ways, as it gets quieter, the internal world starts acting up more and more. It starts yelling things and it starts hurting. Anyway, many things happen and it's like, notice me, I am moving. I mean it. I am really sad. I am really, really, really sad. I hate it. I hate it all. Ding, ding. Oh God, it's so beautiful out here. It's talking to us. loudly it's saying impermanence impermanence impermanence is happening dependent core rising is happening oh now I feel great the sun is shining oh now I feel terrible that person's frowned at me oh you know it's it's showing us in ways that are hard to argue with that the boat moves that this and as we stay with it

[12:10]

even longer, you know, there's maybe... In some ways, freedom is not... Well, let me stop. One of the things that I noticed when I was doing this, some of the times I was doing this, is that... I tend to stop myself a lot. That's a habit or a mode of coping, a way of protecting of this body-mind is like get smaller, quieter, and don't cause trouble. In fact, if possible, make them happy. They're so much nicer when they're happy. But where was that making people happy coming from or that quietness coming from?

[13:12]

Fear, basically. You know, the threat. And this was such a surprise. I mean, it came, the realization that that was where so much of where my way of being was coming from happened slowly over time. You know, it's like, oh, and that, then I'm afraid. Oh, and then I'm afraid. And then I'm afraid. And So there were lots of discoveries of what was I afraid of and turned out to be just about everything. And most of it, when I looked at it, truthfully, was not so scary. It wasn't really going to, again, in my blessed life, they might not think I was the best thing ever. They might, you know... They might not be totally, totally in love with me, but they were fairly unlikely to do major damage.

[14:13]

So not everyone's life is like this. Sometimes there are much more real dangers, either in the present, which need to be dealt with, or in the past, which cast long shadows still and need to be dealt with internally, if not externally. But to see that it was actually fear and that fear of something that was actually present at this time was not very accurate was hugely liberating. I'm like, oh, I don't actually have to figure out how to stop this from happening. I can't walk into that room. I can't... have this thought. I can't... Actually, it's okay. I can have that thought. I can walk into this room. And then that kind of habit of stopping myself was still functioning, but it didn't have the same unconscious validity.

[15:27]

You know, like... This really is a life and death matter. I have to stop myself from having those thoughts or saying something bad or all the various things. But the habit was still there. So to actually break a habit, I was reading somewhere recently some scientific study that somebody was doing about habit and they counted up How many of people's actions were by habit? And it turned out to be 46% of our life. The things we do are a habit, according to this study, of the average person. Probably here at Tassajara, it's a lot more than that, but I don't know, really. Somebody could do that study if you wanted. Not now, because you don't have time, but...

[16:28]

And some of those habits are good habits, habits you want to have, brush your teeth, put on your clothes, various things. But some of them are habits that we actually, when we have that liberating experience of seeing how it's functioning in our life and kind of where it's coming from and that it's not accurate, then we might still have this habit. And the best way to break a habit is to don't do it. Just once. Don't do it. Like if you have a habit and you've seen, you've seen how it's functioning and you think this is not helpful and then it starts to happen and there's any way you can do it, just don't do it. Don't get all worked up into, oh no, I'm doing it again and how am I ever going to stop this? It's like, don't do it. Or scientifically, these must have been physicists or something, said friction.

[17:29]

Friction is a really good way to slow down your habits, break them, make them harder to do. So, you know, it was talking about how things that like to cause habits like advertising or, you know, companies that are selling things, the main thing they do is remove the friction, like make it easier for you to buy something or try, you know, taste something or So we can do the opposite. We can put a little friction in there, like make it harder for yourself to what? I don't know if I thought of any examples of this. Thank you. Very good. Tassajara provides a lot of friction to a lot of our habits, some of which you may really be sad about to be... encountering that friction, but some of it, even though you might be sad, you're probably also very, once in a while at least, grateful that the internet and Amazon are not as available and various other things that we might be in the habit of using, doing.

[18:47]

part of that phrase in the Genjo Koan. Similarly, something, something. I know you could tell me, but I'll just look. If you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind, you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. Same thing that we've just been talking about. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self. So it's not just that I don't have unchanging self. When we practice intimately and return to where we are, which we're called to do over and over and over again, actually everywhere all the time, not just at Tassajara, But at Tassajara, the friction of having to come and actually sit in one place where people will notice if you're not there, at least externally, you might be somewhere else internally, but externally, the friction for your mind of like, oh, I'm still here.

[20:23]

I was in France. I was having a great time, but I'm still here in the Zendo. It's kind of like friction, you know, like, whoop, come back, still sitting here. that kind of friction that Tassajara is providing us cannot get away from these people. This person who sits next to me, this person who's on my crew, this person who really what they're doing is like bringing up a me that I'm having trouble with. They're doing something. It doesn't feel good. And if we keep our eyes closely on the boat, we see oh, what I really don't like about what they're doing. I mean, we can keep our eyes out there and we can see, oh, I don't like it because they're hurting other people. I don't like it because they're making noise when it should be quiet. They're not following the rules. Or I don't like it because whatever. But if we keep our eyes closely on the boat, we see, I don't like it because it makes me feel a way I don't like to feel.

[21:29]

So keeping our eyes closely on the boat, returning to where we are and practicing intimately, we don't just see the boat moves. There's movement happening over here. We see that nothing has unchanging self. Somehow this... I want to say magic, but I don't know if it's really magic, but mysterious. Intimacy happens with everything. It's like we start to know, and I think it's kind of at the level, the percentage that we see how moving the boat is, how non-stable, how impermanent, how dependently co-arisen, how empty but fully there the boat is, our self is, to that extent, I believe actually we see that in other beings and things.

[22:48]

So if someone is really, really bothering you and you are sure that they are not Buddha... I would suggest go back. Go back to the boat. Not with looking for where do I think the not Buddha of myself is. I think it's more subtle than that. It's like just be there with the boat. You don't have to be happy. When my mother said, don't wish your life away, it doesn't mean make your life happy every day. It means be there with your life as it is. be willing to have an unhappy life for this lifetime, minute, however long it lasts. It doesn't mean, I should say, you know, sometimes people, nobody really accuses me of this, but they ask questions which imply that this is what I'm saying, so I want to correct it.

[23:58]

It doesn't mean be passive. It doesn't mean be stoic, just sit there and with your discomfort. You know, to some extent we do do that, right? We sit tzazen and mostly we just sit there and discomfort happens and we learn a lot about how to be with discomfort and how, for instance, squirming doesn't help. It actually makes the discomfort more. So there's something to just staying, but in our lives, I don't think that's really a possibility. It's certainly not what I'm suggesting that we do, but also because I don't think it's a possibility because nothing at all has unchanging self. Everything is moving all the time, including... our external world, excuse me, including our internal world, it's all moving.

[25:08]

And that moving, that aliveness means we are going to do something. So if some situation is causing us pain and we want to practice with it, I would say, look at the boat. I mean, you know, If it's like you're in imminent danger, run. But if it's an ongoing situation, look at the boat. Try to see where is the discomfort. And putting yourself in a stable posture, sitting, walking, standing, or lying down, see if you can be there with the discomfort. Can you have the discomfort? If you can have the discomfort, then all your energy will not have to go into how you usually get rid of discomfort.

[26:10]

Usually we're walking around in this kind of looking out there state. Sure, there's a me in here. It gets uncomfortable. We do what we can do to get back to comfort. But if we're noticing, oh, the ways I do that are not really, they're making more suffering, then try to find your discomfort and see, can you not do, can you break the habit, can you not do your normal thing that you would do to get rid of that discomfort? If you can do that, you see the situation differently. You see nothing at all is without an unchanging self. Everything is alive. Everything is moving. You may not have time to think that right then, but you're living in that different world where aliveness is happening, including me, you.

[27:12]

Aliveness is happening. Being passive, not doing anything, is not an option. Not doing anything is doing something. And the whole thing is... interacting you're in a difficult situation like there was a friend of mine he's he definitely was a friend but he was one of those people would kind of like touch you you know in a friendly way just touching and i was just so uncomfortable i mean i'm not i'm not nervous about such things it's not triggering for me but i didn't like it And I spent a lot of time thinking, why am I not liking it? What is he doing that I'm not liking? And then I was like, whoa, wait a minute. What if I look, instead of thinking about what is he doing that I don't like it? Which is pretty unavailable to me, actually. I mean, yes, he moves his hand, he pats me on the back. Okay, I've examined that about as much as I can.

[28:18]

What's going on in here? So I did that. I just like, okay, I'm going to try to just be with me the next time it happens. So I happen to remember, that's already, that's a miracle, right? The next time he patted me on the back or something, and I miraculously just went here and... Didn't find much of anything. But I think the way I was standing, the way I responded was different in the external world. And he never did it again. I didn't say anything. I don't really know anything more. But I'm quite convinced it was connected. And I never asked him what happened.

[29:21]

But I think we are communicating with each other at that level that sometimes our conscious mind gets to participate in, and sometimes it doesn't. And yet, it's so alive. Everything is without an unchanging self. We're exchanging energy all the time, and our... vow, you know, one way of saying our vow, I think, in Mahayana Buddhism is I vow to try to live in a way that creates less suffering instead of more suffering. And our way to get there, to get closer to that, is actually moment by moment. You know, like, how do I create less suffering in this moment? And it's not Again, it's not something that we mostly have time to think.

[30:24]

It's the habit that we're trying to instill is how to be here with our eyes closely on the boat in a way that allows the boat, the current boat of this moment, to function freely. to not have to stop it because it's uncomfortable, to let it be there and let it be its part in the vast universe in an alive way, hopefully for the benefit of all beings. Didn't take very long to say that. Do you have anything? I could go on to something else, but I want to see if you have anything to make sure that I didn't say anything too confusing.

[31:33]

Anything that you want to add or ask? Yes, Mary. Could you say that again? Accountability, yes. Yeah, thank you. Good facet to bring up. In spite of, and it's very connected to this possibly being passive way of understanding being. turning toward the boat, you know. I'd say, you know, we're always accountable because it's so alive, because everything is interacting with everything. Everything we do has an impact. So there's accountability all the time for everything I do.

[32:40]

We can see, oh, I shirked away from that person what happened. If you mean account other people's accountability, accountability for. Yes. [...]

[33:49]

This was in the summer. So I think that kind of communication actually happens a lot of times without us being aware of it, consciously aware of it, but it's not just with people who are pretty self-aware. But what you're saying, sometimes actually information needs to be given, right? There needs to be, somebody needs to say, stop. And sometimes even more than that, you know, you have done damage and something needs to happen. Sometimes that, either I've done damage or I need to say to somebody else, damage has happened, you've been involved in it, this is... And in our world, you know, we're involved... much more complicated than here at Tassajara, where the damage that gets done is pretty limited, usually, so far.

[34:52]

In our world, a lot of damage has happened. And again, I think it's mainly dependent co-arising functioning in a very alive situation. So... We as individuals try to play our part in the way that to the best of our ability causes less suffering, but it's in a world full of suffering. So if we can see the situation as accurately as we can see it, which by the way is not, I believe, ever totally accurately, we will always see it from, I will always see it from my perspective which will never be the total picture. And I heard, or I read, I think that Suzuki Roshi said that essentially, you know, that we as human beings have our perspective.

[35:59]

We have these senses and the world comes to us through these senses, our particular senses, and that to know that that's my perspective and that's is a big mind. So that me seeing the world my way is small mind, but knowing that this is just my perspective and there are many perspectives out there is actually a big mind. So in the world of accountability, many, many, many voices get to speak. And because of dependent co-arising, they've been affected and they have things they want to say. liberated or not, and they all have to be taken, they have to be respected, which doesn't mean they all get to do what they want to do to hold a person accountable, but there are laws, does that come, is that at all relevant to what you're trying to bring up?

[37:06]

Yes. Yes. We don't ever, like, get there and then we're there. It's like we might get tunnel vision, but things will call us. You know, accountability will happen. If we are just looking at the boat and forgetting that the world is out there, the server will come to you and, you know, I'm here now. Or, you know, your crew will say, now wake up. You need to do this.

[38:59]

So the world... And where there isn't any, I think, in this lifetime, we will never get to the end until the end. We will continue to have self-clinging to study. And we might have moments of full enlightenment or moments of really deep understanding and freedom, or even hours, days, weeks. But actually living a human life and dying a human death, I think will continue to give us dependently co-arisen experiences that we can continue to practice with.

[40:02]

We can continue to see. Oh, I'm holding on there. Okay. Can I loosen up a little bit? Can I be upright with this? No. I'm going to close down. Oh, wait a minute. Can I open up? Okay. Thank you for your... It doesn't seem to be moving? Maybe not. It's not moving. Maybe not. Maybe it doesn't work. Dogen. Don't believe everything Dogen says. in our little perspectival limitations, these vascandas, then exclusively coming back to the vote could be really problematic, right?

[41:23]

Because you could make a whole story about how the world is. And I don't know. But I wonder, anyway, if you could say something about the way in which teachers in this practice provide a different kind of landscape, give you a different account of the vote, or not. distorted vision that we get from others and then the distorted vision that we may give ourselves. Yeah, and then maybe if you like, you could say something about feedback. You know, I feel like we have this kind of curve here where we go through the no-beaking period of like, don't give people feedback, just come back to the vote. And then, you know, people are offering each other feedback. So I wonder anyway about those two things. Okay. Well, let me say first, I think you're right about the boat. I guess I don't spend much time on boats, but in cars.

[42:23]

I do spend time in cars. But I think that is different than this boat, than coming back to our bodies. If we come back to our bodies and we're treating them as if they were the shore, and we're kind of like looking at them and deciding what they're doing and all, but if we're actually like... open to the experience of what's happening it's the same as what's happening everywhere but the intimacy is so palpable here it's like it's if we stick with our story yes we can definitely confuse ourselves but if we let ourselves be open to the actual experience of being this being I think The truth is... I mean, that's the point, right? It's like, what is really happening here? What's the nature of reality? You know, what's... I know you like that phrase. She goes, ah!

[43:26]

But in fact, you know, like, what is it to be this person? Yeah. So I think there is truth here and that actually we... meaning our senses, it's available to it. Whether we can understand it and put it into words or put it into poetry like Dogen tried to or whatever, that's who knows. Maybe some of us can and some of us can't. But our senses actually are such that we can experience what's life. We can experience life. So teachers... What's the usefulness of teachers? That's maybe one way of saying it. The teacher has their own boat, which, in fact, they have to keep returning to.

[44:34]

If the teacher is just trying to teach, oh, yeah, and I'll teach this one that way, and I'll be blah, blah, blah. it's just going to be their story about you. But if the teacher is doing this intimacy practice with themselves, then I think mainly what happens, at least in my experience, is with, let's say, with a student or with the students, people do things and they drive you crazy. And you think, Or you look and you say, I'm going crazy. What's going on? Oh, yeah. That makes me really uncomfortable. Okay. Can I, because it's happening over here, can I be with this uncomfortableness? Or do I have to stop seeing that person? I can't stand to be in the room with that person anymore.

[45:38]

But why? Because it's making my stomach feel bad. is usually what's going on for me. You know, it can be other places too, but it's, you know, something's happening over here. Okay, can I live with that feeling? Turns out, so far, basically every feeling I've had, actually, I don't remember. There have probably been a lot of feelings which I've managed to get rid of, and I don't know if they've all come back. But the ones that I've actually noticed, like, I don't want to have this, but okay. It turns out that when I do that, they're not as bad as I thought they were. They don't last as long. I don't fall into them and drown, which I usually think is what's going to happen. And then, so then the person comes and they're being themselves and the feeling happens and the

[46:41]

You know, the containing the feeling, the being there for the feeling, the not having to do the habit of, oh, but I'm sure you actually feel better, right? Making them feel better doesn't have to happen. And it feels to the person like acceptance. Because it is. Because it's okay if you are who you are. I don't have to get up and run out of the room one way or another. figuratively, or, you know, I can actually stay here while you are who you are. And then they can stay there much better. You know, there's some message that you are not really the worst thing that ever happened, which they very likely are telling themselves. There's some message like, oh, and there can even be interest, like, oh, why did you say that? Or why are you acting that way? And they might be able to actually go there themselves.

[47:44]

Thank you. Feedback. Feedback. Well, it's related to accountability, and it's related to this alive, fully alive, responsive world we live in. So... as I said, in a way I think we're always giving feedback. It's just like, you know, that's what we're talking around, we're having experiences, we're putting experiences out. Sometimes it is very beneficial to actually try to explain your reaction, you know, to actually put it in words because we humans are so used to interacting in words and also because you know we put out feedback and other people receive it and it gets all mixed in with what it does in them and there's some interpretation that goes on and because we're living this kind of mutually described and verbal life sometimes it's very useful to say whoa you know when that happened it was really hard for me and

[49:11]

And they might say, oh, yeah, I saw that you made a face when I did that or something. And I thought you hated me. And you'd say, well, I didn't actually hate you. It kind of reminded me of something that happened before, you know, something. So to call it feedback feels kind of like aggressive to me. It's like I have something, and I'm going to feed it back to you. this insight about you and I open your mouth because here it comes so I know that's not what we always mean by feedback but I think there is kind of that feeling about it too like you need this and here I got it and you need it here it comes catch you know Yeah, so I think of it more as like communication, living fully, living openly.

[50:22]

Yeah, something more like that, which is happening all the time and we have the possibility sometimes of making it more clear. Anything else? Yes, Kai. I've been thinking about . And it seemed to go with your description a well-defined question.

[51:30]

In this tradition, Samantha Padra doesn't seem to get much screen time. But it seems relevant to your talk. Thank you. Yeah, well, I say Samantha Padra doesn't get much name. It doesn't get named, but in terms of action, it's like all the time. Maybe you thought you were going to come to Dazar and just sit there and be with yourself. But no, you had to be the shoten and the jikido and the servana serving crew and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and do things, learn things, do things. And I think this is really the only practice that I've done, but I've heard a little bit about other practices, and I think they all have their kind of balancing factors. You know, so, and maybe in Rin's Aizen, you get up and you run to Dokusan or something, and we don't.

[52:32]

But we do, like, once, this is one of the few people who's come to Tassar, which I felt like this is not a good place for this person. They came in the summer, a guy, and he sat Zazen. And then one day, at that point, we were doing Kinhin in the summer. which we don't do now. And one day he didn't get up for Kenyon. I was like, hmm. And then he didn't get up for service. And I was like, okay, not okay. So I went over to him and we said, come outside. And we went outside and he was, you know, yeah, like stuck in some trance state, right? So action and just like doing the next thing It's a major part of Tassara. It's like, oh, you like your break and you wanted to go take a nap? Too bad. Time for work meeting. You're enjoying your Zazid?

[53:35]

Too bad. Let's do service. You want the meal to go faster? You want the meal to go slower? Too bad. Just do it the way we're doing it. You want the Doshi to bow faster or slower or the Chanter to do it different? Too bad. You know, just get on track. We're doing this thing together, acting. So, yeah, I think Samantapadra's well represented. And, you know, in the, what's it called? What kind of action? Samantapadra, what do we chant? Great activity. Cool. Nothing about good or bad activity in there. Just great activity. Yeah, thank you. Anything else? Yes, Miriam, it's okay.

[54:37]

Yes. So I think if, because we aren't really trying to deconstruct ourself, but the practice is kind of deconstructing our small cell. So if, and somebody said to me the other day, something like, this person is doing it, is that crazy? And I said, not a good question to ask. because, in fact, we're all somewhat crazy. It's really a question more of, like, how crazy? You know, are we too crazy to be here? Or are we, you know, not too crazy to be here? So we all, you know, do we have a solid sense of self-solid enough so that it can be deconstructed by practice? I think is a question, but one that... you know mostly gets answered here by for practice periods by it's not that simple to get here you know that's part of why we say you know you have to have done a practice period somewhere else first you have to pay somehow to get here either by working in the summer by paying money and you have to fill out an application

[56:49]

and you have to sit five days of tangario. And that's actually a fairly high bar for having a self together enough to be able to do those things. Now that you've done it, it may not feel like so much. And especially when your self starts to become deconstructed and you wonder, am I really together enough to do this? Because I think it is pretty intense, actually, what happens. And it's maybe most palpable or noticeable during a tangario practice period, you know, where, as I've said many times, I think of it as kind of like a cocoon, like Tassara is a cocoon. Well, where we have been like building a self and trying to maintain a self a small self, and we may have a solid self, a solid enough self to do practice period, but besides doing that, we've been for years and years trying to make sure it's okay and building things that say, I know who I am and I know what I'm doing and I'm a person who likes to do this and I'm a person who likes to do that.

[58:09]

For instance, on Sunday morning, I like to read the newspaper with my bagel. So then you come to Tassajara and you don't even know when Sunday morning is. You don't have access to a bagel or a newspaper. So that little part of, you know, way of keeping your feeling like I know who I am and it's okay. You know, I'm doing my best to keep it all together. And just like, it's frustrated. It's deactivated. It's, you know, it's dis... It can make you dizzy. It can make you feel really disoriented. So that happens. And there have been a few people who I think have come here and have not been ready for that. And it's been, like, too disorienting for them. But the container is so tight that it becomes apparent. And it's like, oh, they... Anyway.

[59:12]

they start acting weird in some way. And then that doesn't mean, you know, we all act weird every once in a while, or enough of us do, that it's not like that. It doesn't mean like, oh, this one was over the edge. So we go and talk to each other and see, you know, can I find the boat that's here right now enough to... Be with it as it's kind of floating around in the ocean. I don't know where it's going to turn up next. Who's it going to be next? Is there enough stability to be there with that pretty deep unknowing? When we get a glimpse of how much we don't know who we are, it is pretty disorienting. So it's something that luckily, mostly, in this practice, seems to happen fairly gradually.

[60:13]

And then I think what happens is our trust builds. It's okay not to know who we are. In fact, we never knew who we were. We were just making it up all along and trying to hold it together. So that's actually where we live. Pretty unknowing place. And it's trustworthy. It's okay to live here and take the next step, even though we don't know Who's going to meet us there? Okay. Thank you. Again. Yes. Marie. There's so many things in this world that are so, like, they're so loved to you.

[62:04]

Yes, yes. And immediately my body's thought comes up, tension arises, and it's like, and in that space, I'm like, well, there's good and bad action, but I want good action. More of it, faster. I think there is suffering and there is more suffering and less suffering that I think we experience, you know, any minute we can experience that. And we can see how we can contribute to any situation And we may not know ahead of time, but when it happens, sometimes we say, oh, that just went to more suffering.

[63:08]

Is there anything I can do now? Can I apologize? Whatever. So that kind of vow to I want to live my life in a way that it leads to less suffering, not more suffering, I think is true. To say that something is good or bad, it's just things are so much more complicated than that. There isn't a way to divide the world that way. There's not a good or a bad person. I don't think there is. There are people who do things that cause more suffering. And we could look at any one of them and try to determine, do they add up to bad or not? But I think in most of the world that we're living in, our own lives, It's more like there's something that is. There's this moment that is, which is way beyond good and bad. It's like great activity, which includes suffering and more and less suffering.

[64:19]

And things are calling to us, saying, this is bad. This is terrible. This is suffering. This is great suffering. Can anything be done here? And I think we're all hearing that, maybe to different degrees or about different things, but we're hearing a lot of the cries of the world, you know, or calling, calling. And I think we have to be like, is there something to be done? Is there something to be done? And if we see something to be done, do it. A lot of us have tried doing various things and found out that we actually caused more suffering by trying to do them, and sometimes that's why we're here for the time being. It's like, I need a way to be with myself that will allow me to be with the world in a way that causes less suffering instead of more suffering. When does that call us back out? You know, I myself have had this thought many, many, many times, is it okay to be?

[65:23]

B, my blessed life I was talking about, is it really okay to hang out here when there's so much going on in the world? And so far I have had this thought, managed to convince myself, maybe, I don't know, I think it has to be kept looking at, right? That actually Tassajara is providing a really major benefit and that it's in my life with its particularities, this is actually a good way to be spending my time so far. But that doesn't mean forever. I don't know. I don't know when something is going to say to me, no, you need to be somewhere else. Or where the whole world might say, like I said, not many people stay here very long. And it's really, really true. I hope enough people stay at Tassahara that Tassahara can go on being. But if... But if not, if everyone is called to other things, then Tathara won't be this anymore.

[66:26]

That's the way the world gets made, is by each of us trying to be here, trying to be as completely open to what is here, what is interacting with the world as possible, and then living fully. Living fully in a way that the best of our ability causes less suffering instead of more suffering. And the world appears. And for now, it appears, you know, we're here. Great. But how long? Yeah. Thank you. That's probably enough. Thank you all very much. May I Intention equally extend. And just swing. Is the true end.

[67:38]

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