And we just had this wonderful time being together. And the scroll that I was mentioning is written by Sawaki Kodoroshi, a very famous teacher, Japanese teacher. And it had to do with a cloud just passing through the sky and then vanishing, which is that when she read the scroll, I was quite moved, you know. close to tears, not quite there, but very close to tears because that was the feeling of it. These clouds, these formations that have been living together for many years are now slowly drifting away and we're going to disappear. So it was wonderful to be able to express profound and deep sentiment toward one another in this quiet way. There weren't any speeches, there weren't any trophies or anything like that. It was just like... you know, would you like a bowl of tea? And a sweet. And that's what we did.

[01:09]

And we talked quietly and then went out in the yard for pictures. And so I just got back from that gathering. And I'm feeling a lot of glow. What a wonderful, lucky thing to have lived with these good friends for so many years in a dharma, you know, inspired and committed to the Buddha Dharma, which is... It is a great privilege for my life. So that's where I've been. That's why I'm dressed in my nice clothes. I have on my fancy raksu and my tea clothing. So a good way to begin a discussion of Dogen Zenji's wonderful essay called Uji. I love Uji and I've read it years ago and I'm reading it again in order to talk with you about it. Uji means time being, time being. And it's really kind of the core philosophical understanding that Dogen has about what's going on here.

[02:13]

What's going on here that we all are sharing? And all living beings are sharing, what's going on here? What is this place where we've come and have come into being? And how did we get here? And what are we to do now that we've arrived? And all of those wonderful kind of esoteric questions that will never be answered, but they're wonderful questions for us to be asking. What is it that thus comes? So Dogen wasn't shy about making suggestions. about reality and how to look at reality and how to inspire others to consider his vision which he you know was deeply moved by his own encounter with with his teachers a very simple instruction like drop body and mind and he did And so somehow whatever that did for Dogen was the transformative experience of his life. And he brought that inspired transformation back to Japan.

[03:15]

So what we're reading when we read these fascicles are his very earliest efforts, which I'm going to talk about a little bit this evening, at conveying what he felt was the shobo genzo, the true Dharma I. The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, which is the name of his collection of stories or essays, is called the Shobo Genzo. And there are 96 of these essays. They're different versions, but this one that we're looking at is 96 essays. Uji's one of them. It's not right at the beginning, but it's pretty close in those early years when he's returned to Japan. Not knowing what's going to happen, is anyone going to come to study with him? He doesn't know. Is he going to be able to... bring this passion and insight and wisdom into the world, into his home country. He doesn't know. But he is really wholehearted, which is certainly emblematic of Dogen all the way through, is wholehearted endeavor to offer this liberative understanding to all of us.

[04:23]

And it's still coming. It's still coming. All we have to do is drink it up. That's our job, is just have to expose ourselves to it. And I'm feeling deeply grateful for having turned the page to Dogen in the Transmission of Light and gone back into reading his, you know, as Dr. Kim calls, mystical realist. Dogen is a mystic and he's a realist, and it's a great combination. You know, he gives us a little taste of both sides of that, of what we are. mystical appearance and magical creation and we're pragmatic. We've got to get things done. We've got to get food and we've got to protect our something. I have to try to protect something. Our offspring and our cultures and our heritage and the beauty of our art really is what needs to be protected. Not much else matters as much as beautiful writing and

[05:23]

and expressions of great love, deep love, as Dogen does. So first of all, I wanted to reflect a little bit on the impact that I've been feeling these last few weeks from having been reading the last fascicle, the essay we looked at, which is the Tenzo Kyokun, Instructions to the Head Cook. And I've really been noticing... I think this comes and goes for all of us who practice is a kind of renewed awareness of the intimacy of my life as daily activity. You know, the things I do throughout the day are it. I mean, I don't have another life. There isn't another thing waiting for me next week. You know, it's really going to have to be happening in each and everything that I do in my life. And it's a very easy thing to forget. You know, you get kind of busy. You've got your list. You've got your calendar. You've got your watch. And you're basically, you know, rushing around a lot of times, if you're anything like me, trying to take care of all these different things and kind of losing track of just this is it.

[06:32]

You know, each of these things is not a thing. It's your life. You know, it's the total expression of this moment is always where we are and what's happening is right now. It's right now. So... Coming to hold that is really what the practice is for, to remind ourselves again and again. Wake up. Here you are. It doesn't matter. You don't need to know where. Just here. You're here. You are here. So I've really been appreciating some of these gestures and movements that are part of the Zen training curriculum, like walking. That's a big part of the Zen training, how you walk. You know, how you hold your body? Is your posture? How's your spine? Is your head balanced on your shoulders? Are you rushing? And if you are, why? You know, maybe leave a little earlier if you have an appointment. It's sort of like, I remember reading this study about people who are chronically late.

[07:36]

And they're never late like a huge, wild... different amount of time it's usually the same amount of time so they actually studied this like you're always late five minutes so what's going on there and basically what they discovered in most cases is that people if they have to be there somewhere at three o'clock They leave the house at three o'clock. Instead of factoring in, it's going to take them five minutes to get to this place, this meeting place. So for those of us who tend to be a little late, it's good to kind of back it up. Remember, oh, three o'clock, that means quarter to three, you know. So that's one thing. That's part of practice is making an effort to be on time, you know, time being, uji, time being. how you stand, how you sit, all of these things that are so familiar that we do all the time. How do you put your body into a chair and how do you stand up from the chair and all the things you do in between, you know, the tidying up your workspaces and your living spaces so that they greet you warmly when you come home, that there's that feeling of, you know, of caring.

[08:47]

of really caring for the person who lives in this house, and that's you. So all of these are parts of traditional training for monastics and for all of us. As I'm moving out into the world, away from the monastery, I feel like these are wonderful skills that I've been given in my years at Ebsen Center. So the things that, you know, those are familiar. Those ones are the kind of the daily food. that we train the students and we also train for ourselves. But the things I was starting to notice this last few weeks is the unfamiliar spaces. Like, you know, between what is familiar and ritualized, there's a lot of other time that I'm not necessarily keen into, well, this is practice too. You know, what you're doing in between. You know, when you're putting out the trash, that's a ritual. That's ritual practice. Or backing the car out of a narrow driveway, you know, that's a ritual practice. Working at your computer, you know, how to add in all of the activities of your life.

[09:53]

So Dogen didn't have too much to say about activities that were not part of a monk's daily routine because that wasn't his experience. He was a monk from a very early age, I think from... And so he really lived a ritualized life in a monastery. He didn't have partners that we know of, offspring that we know of. Sometimes I think maybe he had a cat. That would be nice. I wished him a cat, so something there, a little warm, furry thing. But really his emphasis in the Tenzo Kyokun is on this wholehearted, really being wholehearted. And all of these things that we do... that we think are so important but all the things we do that we don't think are so important. It doesn't matter. It has nothing to do with valuing or not valuing. It's just wholehearted. Both hands on the wheel. Both eyes on the person you're talking with. Everyone you meet is the one and only.

[10:57]

The other privilege I have is to meet with the students here privately and I don't know a lot of them, so I meet them for the first time. They come into this tiny room that I have now for meeting people, and we bow, and then they sit down, and then we start to get to know each other. And it's just such a gift. Today I met another new person, and yesterday I met another new person. And it's just like... I don't know why they trust me, but they seem to. They come in and they're telling me all this stuff about themselves and what they care about and their worries. I just feel so grateful that they are able to do that and that I can receive what they care about and their wholehearted effort. I can see that and I can cheer them on, which again is a great privilege. So Dogen's view on reality is this all-inclusivity. That's it, all-inclusive, which allows everything, every part, to come into focus with equal value.

[12:03]

Every part of your life has equal value in terms of your attending to it. If you're angry, take care of it. Pay attention to it. What's going on there? Or if you're jealous, or if you're bored, or whatever it is. That's your life, you know, and give it all you've got, you know. Really figure it out. Really give it a good shot, whatever's happening. So it's kind of reminded me again of these three wooden plaques that I mentioned that are in the kitchens at Zen Center, which are taken from Dogen's teaching on these three minds, which he tells the head cook must be considered in striving to maintain the bodhisattva spirit. So just to review those briefly, you know, there's joyful mind. These are the minds of our work, of our endeavors. What kind of a mind are you bringing to the things you're doing? So there's a joyful mind, which is characterized by buoyancy and gratitude. Gratitude, Dogen says, for having been born into the world where we are capable of using our body freely to offer food or a smile or a helping hand to the three treasures.

[13:15]

to the Buddha, out of gratitude for this teaching, the Dharma, and to the Sangha. That's all of us, you know, the community of those who treasure the awakening and the teaching of awakening. So that's joyful mind. Second one is grandmotherly mind. Grandmother's mind, which, you know, I mean, we could all... fantasize that iconic grandmother with flour on her apron. My grandmother wasn't like that at all, but I can fantasize that kind of her grandmother that is just got a great huge body and a great big warm lap and is full of laughter and making cookies. Every day she's just making cookies. Suzuki Roshi called that the mind of a parent. The mind of a parent. And with this mind we care for all life as a parent cares for their only child. It's grandmotherly mind that handles water and rice and everything else with affection and concern of a parent raising a child. So again, in your daily activities, you're the parent to each of these things.

[14:18]

If you were at Jiryu's talk this morning, he was talking about that, you know, using the lecture that Arshu sew, Steph Wunderski, who's our sewing teacher here, a wonderful young woman, also a mother of two children. lovely children, and how that mother who just basically receives each and everything as if it's her only child. That you welcome, you have this openness to being a parent and to taking care of whatever's coming to you. So that's the second mind. And the third one is magnanimous mind. Magnanimous. A mind like a mountain that's stable and impartial. A mind like the ocean. It's tolerant. in its views and with the broadest possible perspective, refusing to take sides. In a very famous quote by the Buddha, which is kind of coming to mind to me as we're so struggling to figure out how to take sides or not take sides and what's going on in this world right now.

[15:19]

And the Buddha said, you know, I find no evidence for or against anything, which doesn't mean he wasn't trying to figure it out, he was. He was looking at all the evidence. And the more he dug and the more he asked and the more he looked, there was no way to take a side. You know, because everything's included. All-inclusive reality, everything's part of everything. And so how can we benefit what's happening? We don't know. But it's probably helpful to be able to keep weighing all of the options and not shutting down. you know, not shutting down on this one or that one. Not so easy. So that's the third one, the magnanimous mind, refusing to take sides. So he ends the Tenzo Kyokan saying, whether you are the head of a temple, a senior monk or other officer, or simply an ordinary monk, do not forget the attitude behind living out your life with joy, having the deep concern of a parent for their child, and carrying out all of your activities magnanimously.

[16:26]

So I was really touched in hearing some of you talk about your own practice in your daily life this last time we were together. And I was really inspired to try harder to include this feeling of just this is it into the many moving parts and changes throughout my own day. Not to skip over things that aren't so interesting to me, like putting the dishes away in the morning or hanging out my clothes. flossing my teeth. I hate flossing my teeth, but really trying to get into it, you know, it's like, okay, okay, okay. It's so many teeth. But anyway, just to try and be generous with these activities that I know are just essential to my well-being and to your well-being, right? So just to take more time with the spaces in between the activities that I have scheduled myself to do in any given day, including that, you know, little 20-minute intermission between the time that you put the rice on to cook and when the table needs to be set, there's something going on in time being.

[17:30]

There's something there. What is that time? How are we using that time? Or how is it using us? So in turning toward uji, I already see a great resonance with the ground that Dogen has been laying for his life as a Buddhist teacher, beginning with his return to Japan in the year 1227. One of the nice things about Dogen's life is that he was born in 1200. So whenever we know a year of something happening, we know how old he was. So 1227, he was 27, and he returned to Japan from China. And then he continued writing these essays until the year of his death, which was 1253. He was very young, and he didn't finish. I think maybe you know that the Enso, which is that circle, Enso Village is named after that circle that a Zen teacher often draws toward the end of their life, or maybe they offer it as a gift, as a calligraphy. And it's not complete.

[18:32]

The circle isn't closed. It's not a zero. It's an open, it has an open end. So it just goes around and then it flows into space. So that's one of the things that Zen helps us to understand. You'll never finish. You're not going to finish your projects. You're not going to finish your essays for the show Bogenzo as much as you'd like to. He didn't get, he was writing 100 essays and he got to 96 and then he died. So we'll never know what those four essays might have been there as an even more mature man, you know, if he'd made it to 60 or 70 or 80 or whatever. We'll never know. So that's Enso. That's the Enso. So he started writing what became his legacy with the teachings that we're really familiar with now because we've been looking at them. You know, the Fukanzazengi, Guidelines for the Practices of Zazen, was written in China in fact, before he came back to Japan, and then he redid it again when he returned to Japan.

[19:39]

So he actually wrote it when he was even younger. He was maybe 25 when he wrote Fukanza Zengi. And so then the next one that we looked at is the Bendawa, on Endeavoring the Way. So we looked at that one. That was written in 1231. And this one, Bendawa, is... the one that kind of expresses his understanding of Zen based on this enlightenment experience that he had in China when he saw the primary insight that practice and realization are inseparable. This wholehearted practice that I was just talking about all through the day is realization itself. So that's hard for us to grok. That's hard for us to understand how that's possible. You know, we're kind of like puppies at the glass trying to go, I don't get it. I don't understand. But still, you know, this is the teaching that your practice throughout the day and awakening are inseparable.

[20:39]

That is the awakening. So, excuse me, sorry. So this fascicle was also his first effort. Bendawa was his first effort to express his understanding in vernacular Japanese. So almost everything was being written in Chinese. So he was now beginning to teach in the vernacular, which is something the Buddha did as well. The Buddha spoke to people in the language of the people. He didn't use courtly language. He didn't use what he was trained in, the kind of language. He would talk in the language of the people he spoke to. So Dogen's doing this too. He's speaking in Japanese to Japanese people. And then there's the Genjo Koan, which we spent quite a bit of time with, actualizing the fundamental point. That was written in 1233 at the completion of his first practice period. And he gave Genjo Kwan to one of his lay disciples on the occasion of the full moon, which followed this first practice period.

[21:42]

So that one is probably the best known of all of Dogen's writings and most studied, both because of its summary of his understanding, his teaching, but also because of its poetry. It's beautifully written. The poetic language is wonderful. And then in 1237, age 37, he wrote the Tenzo Kyokan, which we've just looked at. Instructions to the head of Kuk. So this was the beginning of a period of time for Dogen as a teacher when he basically was establishing his monastery. So students had come. They did look for him. They did hear about him. He must have been a very impressive teacher. So they stayed with him throughout their lives. And they went with him up into the mountains to found a Heiji temple. So During this time, he put aside the writing fascicles for the Choboganso, again, not knowing if he'd ever get back to that project again, and started focusing on the teachings of monastic discipline, like the cook, how the cook, and other ones that he wrote during that time.

[22:50]

Just one essay he wrote that was part of the Shobo Genso, and it's called Ika Miojo, meaning One Bright Pearl. It's a very beautiful koan, and it's about an ancient story about Master Shonsha and all the dialogues he had with his students. So that one's special. You can find that. All of these that I'm naming are in this Munan and Dudra. The Zen Center helped to translate and publish many, many years ago. First time I... got a hold of Dogen Zenji, was Moon and a Dewdrop. Now, there are many different versions of Dogen's teaching, but that one's sweet because it's the one we know best here in our community. So One Bright Pearl is in Moon and a Dewdrop. So a little more data points about Dogen's return to Japan. So from 1238 until 1240, so now he's a more mature adult male, He wrote a number of essays directly for the training of his monks. So this is this five-year period when he's really focusing on setting the students up for living together.

[23:56]

And so one of them is called cleansing. Another one is washing the face, receiving the marrow by bowing. And then at the end of the practice period in 1240, on the traditional day of repentance, which is called the full moon, we do that, We do the full moon repentance ceremonies as well here twice a month, new moon and the full moon. He wrote, refrain from unwholesome actions. Shô akumakusa, you know, avoid evil, which is one of the three pure precepts, avoid evil. Do good, avoid evil, and purify the mind. So these were all... directed at his monks, giving them a basis for their practice and their lives together. So in that fascicle, Dogen teaches that refraining from unwholesome or evil action is not about prohibitions. This is another kind of shocking thing about the way Dogen understands our tradition.

[24:59]

It's not about don't do this and don't do that. It's not about restraining yourself. It's about, again, thorough wholehearted engagement in practice, which is the same as the Buddhist teaching itself. So it's like Okuma Roshi said one time, he said, Soto Zen is really about keeping you so busy doing good that you have no time to do evil. And this seems pretty true, you know. We are busy all day long doing good, like taking care of things, cleaning, washing, you know, greeting guests, cooking, baking, you know. Who has time to, you know... Fool around. Well, we fool around quite a bit. But to really do evil, you kind of have to focus. You have to have some time to plan, plot your way to some evil actions. But, you know, we're just always having to go off and do good things. So that's kind of a strategy of Soto Zen. So wholehearted engagement in practice is the same as Buddha's teaching itself. Again and again, this is the message from Dogen Sanji.

[26:00]

And then on the first day of winter in 1240, Dogen... completed a short but very powerful philosophical text called Uji, Time Being, in which he encourages us to deepen our meditation so that we might grasp the unity of the body and the mind, of practice and enlightenment, of time and being, as well as time and self. So he's talking about the unity of these concepts, which also can be... assigned, you know, experientially to how we understand our life. So we're back to this question, like, what is this life? What am I here to do? What am I? How did we get here? All of these things. And so he's saying that, you know, there's the unity, the body and the mind aren't two separate things. Again, Jerry was talking about that this morning. He was saying that basically your guts, you know, your hara, that space below your navel, which is where your breath...

[27:00]

originates and resolves. Deep breathing is coming from below the navel, filling the abdomen and then expressing that air and then bringing it back in like a billows. It's wonderful when you get into a breathing rhythm during your sitting. I mean, it's one of the best things you can do while you're sitting there is to really, really invest in this energetic and relaxed breathing pattern. It really fills your entire body. The torso feels as though it's hollow and full of air. It's a wonderful feeling. So the unity of the body and the mind and that the real mind, the mind you can trust, is the one in your belly. He was saying this, Izuku Rishi said that that's the headquarters. The belly is the headquarters, and the mind is the branch office. You don't want to take orders from the branch office. You want to take orders from the headquarters. And our body knows.

[28:02]

There's a wisdom to our bodies. I think we all know that we have that intuition that I already know which choice I'm going to make, even though I'm saying, well, I don't know if I'm going to do that, I'm going to do that. But some part of me actually really does know and just have to be quiet enough to listen to my abdomen that's telling me what it is that I really care about, what it is I'm going to do, and so on. So the unity of body and mind, the unity of practice and realization, the unity of time and being, as well as of time and self. So time, when experienced as both momentary, so again we have these contrasting concepts, that we can consider when we consider reality. There's momentariness, like just this moment, and there's timelessness. Just this moment is located in a vast spaciousness of all moments. So those two things seem like they're opposites, or like one's a subset of the other.

[29:08]

But he's saying, no, no, no, these are both. This is a unified field theory. Time and self are of a whole. the wholeness of time and self, of time and being. So this is kind of the essence of Dogen's philosophical insight, that what we're doing each moment of being is all of time and all of being, all-inclusive reality. And how to have faith in that before you have some kind of confirmation, that you actually go like, oh, A couple of the students here who I just happened to talk to recently have had these experiences, and it's not uncommon when you spend some time sitting, and I think a lot of you have done that, where you actually have some experience of the walls coming down, the walls falling down, and this kind of vastness of your being. Not the limited sense that you end at the skin.

[30:13]

this is me, whatever's in this skin bag, that's me, and everything else is something else. It's like that falls away. And when that falls away, there's this sense of the timelessness and the vastness of what we actually are. So this is really at the core of what Dogen saw and knew. is teaching. So this is the text that we're going to be taking some time looking at for the next few weeks. And I think one of the first things you might want to do is read, if you haven't already, read Uji. And I'm sure you can find it online. As I mentioned, it's in Moon and a Dew Drop. It's also, I did get Shinji Roberts' book. I'm enjoying it, Being Time, which is all about Uji. So that's fun. And she has lots of interesting facts, some of which I'll share with you. So after completing 96 essays over the period of years that Dogen served as the guiding teacher and, in fact, founder of Soto Zen in Japan, in the autumn of 1252, he became ill, quite ill.

[31:18]

And it was a while. He was sick for a while, many months. And then he passed away at a lay student's house. He'd gone to Kyoto to try and get treatments. I don't know what treatments there might have been, and we'd have no idea what he was suffering from. But on the 28th day of August in 1253, without completing those last four essays, Dogen died. So here's the poem that he wrote about two weeks before his death. In autumn, even though I may see it again, how can I sleep with the moon this evening? In autumn, even though I may see it again, how can I sleep with the moon? this evening, you know, with this brilliance, this light of his awareness and of his insight and so on. You know, it's keeping him awake. And there's this, you can feel that he doesn't know if he's going to live through this sickness.

[32:19]

Maybe not. But still, that kind of vastness is there. In his death poem, he says something like, leaping alive, into the Yellow River. That moment of that last exhalation is this leap. It's your life that's leaping. The Yellow River is the river in Asian understanding that goes to the next world or the underworld or the upper world or whichever world it is that we're going to next and none of us knows. But leaping live into the Yellow River that completes our journey. So as we begin to look at Uji, we're hearing a teaching given by a fully grown man at the height of his intellectual and spiritual understanding. So I thought I would read the poem that Dogen quotes at the beginning of this fascicle as probably a really good place to start. It gives us a feeling for how Dogen is teaching zazen to his young monks.

[33:25]

What a treat. I mean, how amazing for them. To have this bright light offering them a way to understand what they're doing sitting there, you know, hour after hour. That's what makes the teaching so wonderful. It's like we really don't know. We forget so quickly, you know. Every morning I sit there and sometimes I'm like, yeah? And now what? You know? And then I hear some teaching and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right. That's right. You know? Just take it. Just be it. Time being. This is time for being. And you don't have to do anything. So again and again, we hear that Dogen Zazen is not limited to this ceremony of Zazen that's undertaken in the quiet mornings at the temples, such as we do here. But it again, it is the complete engagement in the activities of daily life within this cradle. of an all-inclusive reality.

[34:26]

So no matter where you are, you're in the cradle of all-inclusive reality, like a mother with its infant in its arms. That's where we are. So here's the first opening poem from Uji. An ancient Buddha said, For the time being, stand on top of the highest peak. For the time being, proceed along the bottom of the deepest ocean. For the time being, three heads and eight arms. For the time being, an eight or 16 foot body. For the time being, a whisk or a staff. For the time being, a pillar or lantern. For the time being, the sons of Zhang and Li. For the time being, the earth and the sky. So, it's very interesting. I remember reading that when I first got When I drew a drop, I happened to be Tasahara then, my first practice period down there.

[35:29]

And it was such an exciting thing to have this book. Many of the fascicles were translated by Tanahashi, who's been doing this work forever, with Zen students. So a lot of the people that were resident priests at Zen Center at the time helped with the English part. of these translations. So that was also very sweet, to have our own community people translating these texts. One reason it's kind of precious. Moon and a Dew Drop is, for me, the most precious of the Dogen translations. So in this poem that I just read, Shinju Rabas says in her book of Time Being, begins with two lines that are attributed to a Zen master by the name of Yao Shan Wei Yan and can be found in a text that was written in the year 1004, that's going way back, in a text called The Record of the Transmission of the Lamp, which kind of sounds like the transmission of light, which is what we've been looking at.

[36:31]

And it's kind of like that, because the transmission of lamp is one of the earliest collections of stories, of dialogue stories, between Zen masters and their students. So Zen became, as you all can feel... basically went from reading sutras and commentaries and so on, which was the older way of studying the Dharma, you know, it was more academic, certainly a lot of meditation, but there was a lot of academic study. But when Zen started to mature, it became a conversation between one person and another person, a teacher and a student, or a teacher and another teacher. Those are pretty exciting. And when you have a dialogue that's between a teacher and a teacher, both of them have names. So they would say, you know, so-and-so, Ru Jing and Dogen. So Ru Jing is Dogen's teacher, and then Dogen Zenji said this. And then other stories, it's just the teacher, a monk asks the teacher. In that case, we don't necessarily know if this monk went on to become a teacher in their own right.

[37:33]

But at that time, they asked the question, they were one of the people in the assembly. So this story comes from this really old collection of dialogue stories from the year 1000, 1004. And then the rest of the poem apparently was written by Dogen. So just the very beginning is this old dialogue. And then the rest of that poem is Dogen's own sense. And then there's this repeated phrase for the time being, which is what Dogen is basically helping us do. to catch a hold of here is that time being, which doesn't maybe mean much to us, comes out as specifics. It shows up as these specific events of our lives. Time being isn't just some kind of random vastness. It's actually the lamp that's sitting here behind my computer right now and the bell that I rang earlier and this little thing of... table salt you know time being are these events and these these objects that we connect to because when we connect to objects when we meaning me when my consciousness connects to an object that's a non-dual that's non-dual and that's happening all the time i have no i have no dual experience i only have non-dual experience but i can think dualistically that's the problem i mean we all know that

[38:58]

I can think as though things are, that's mine, that's not yours. I'm here and you're over there. That's all thinking. But my actual experience of life is of seamlessness. There is just intimacy with each thing that comes into my awareness is the content of my awareness. So each of these named things in that first poem, for the time being, is what's called... a dharma position. So let me get back to that fascicle again. Let's see. I'll go back. So for the time being, so here's an example of for the time being, you're standing on the top of the highest peak. So you go mountain climbing and there you are. You had a nice day climbing up Mount Tam. For the time being, that's the whole of existence for you. You are the mountain. Only the mountain remains. at that time because it's totally merged with your awareness.

[40:01]

There's no self and mountain. There's this experience of standing on top of the highest mountain for the time being. That is the time being. And the next one is walking along the bottom of the deepest ocean. Well, that's hard to imagine. But we can imagine it. And that's part of the thing I think that's also being brought up is someone was saying that to me like, oh, they were talking. This one student was saying to me, I find it – he was telling me that his parents didn't let him know until he was quite old, maybe eight or nine, that Santa Claus was not real. I mean he was so embarrassed and angry when his brother said, you know, you're getting too old to keep thinking this. And he got really unhappy and upset that people lie. It's about something that important like Santa Claus. And so when I said something in a class about Bodhidharma maybe being apocryphal, like we don't really know if there was a Bodhidharma. But we have this written record, which was written a century later, attributing stories and sutras and so on to someone called Bodhidharma.

[41:11]

So it doesn't mean that there's something wrong. you know, with telling stories, it just means that we have this wonderful capacity to imagine things like Santa Claus and like dragons and like yesterday, you know, and miso soup tomorrow or whatever it is. We go on and on and on imagining things and then we think, oh, but that's true and that's not true. Well, it's all just what we imagine. It's all that has equal value. in the sense that I can imagine walking on the bottom of the deepest ocean and standing on top of Mount Everest. You know, I can pull that up or, you know, whatever else. I imagine all day long, I do a lot of imagining. So these are all things that are part of how we actually experience our life. And then the next one is the three heads and eight arms. Well, these are the asherahs that guard the temples. You know, they have... Kuan Yin has three heads so she can hear all the cries of the world and all these arms to help people.

[42:16]

So I can imagine that. I can imagine Kuan Yin, an eight or 16-foot Buddha body. Eight foot is when the Buddha is seated and 16 feet is when the Buddha is standing. So you've got a seated Buddha and now you've got a standing Buddha. A whisk or a staff, now we're getting more down to kind of practical things. The teacher has a whisk. They have a staff. There's pillars and lanterns. So now we're down in a kind of like more familiar territory of pragmatic things, objects, you know. And then for the time being, the sons of Zhang and Li. Well, Zhang and Li are kind of like Smith and Jones, very common names. So just like all the people we know, you know, like the sons for the time being, just like the sons of John Smith and Michael whatever. So we have all of these common people, like all of us, we're just common beings, just like that for the time being. That's included. And then for the time being, the earth and the sky, you know, context.

[43:19]

So these different specifics are called Dharma positions. And it's funny because in Zen Center, we've often used this term, Dharma positions, for your work assignments. So we kind of elevated it in terms of our language. It's like, that's your Dharma position, you know, working in the kitchen or working on the farm or whatever it is. And it truly is. If you bring your practice to it, it becomes that. You know, we don't really offer work practice at Zen Center. We offer work. Practice is what you make it. You know, you go to work. And then if you just think you're working, well, you are. If you think you're practicing, you are. And that's the magic of this. It's like, how do you, how are you seeing, how are you calling, what do you call it? What do you call it? You know that story I've said before about the monk pointing to the fuzzy ball in the corner and saying, teacher, I call that a cat.

[44:23]

What do you call it? And the teacher says, you call it a cat. You call it a cat. You call it work. You call it practice. You call it love. You call it anger, you know. So all of these things are helping us to take responsibility that this is our Dharma position. And if we accept that, we see that, then that's what it is. That's how it becomes. So if you're a cook or a gardener or a baker or a maintenance worker or a farmer or a parent or a teacher, whatever it is you're doing is your Dharma position. And these Dharma positions are singular moments that have no fixed duration. You go to the kitchen and you do all kinds of things. It's not about 20 minutes, five minutes. It's not about that. It's about activity, expression, and moving through. Flow is about flow. So these activities, these events or objects that we're familiar with, each has a unique appearance, which is included in the totality of their being in time, time being.

[45:29]

So he's playing with this back and forth, back and forth. So in beginning this essay with this poem, Dogen is signaling us that his awakened insight encompasses both the particulars, like the mountaintop and the bottom of the ocean and sons of Liang and Jin. I forgot the name. So he's signaling us that awakened insight encompasses both the particularities, Ji, in that language we've used in the past, the relative truth, and the ultimate truth. Three. Both sides are there. One side is illuminated. You kind of forget about the other side. The other side's a little dark. But they switch back and forth. And we learn how to recognize which of those sides we've become intimate with right now. Vastness or particularities. And they're connected. They're not separate. They're non-dual. So one of the tendencies we humans have in trying to decipher what doge means by the particular and the universal is to treat them as though they're separate, as I'm saying.

[46:39]

Well, this is that one, that's universal, and that's, you know, we do that. That's kind of one of the things that we're very good at. You know, Melissa, I see your hand. I was just wondering, is there something, is that a real hand or is that a... Sorry, Fu Sensei, I was just going to make a comment at the end of your lecture. Please ignore it. No, no, no. That's fine. I just didn't want to – maybe I wasn't audible or something. I had no idea what was happening. Thank you. I'll be back with you soon. So I'm saying one of these tendencies we have is to get confused and separate the relative truth from the ultimate truth and then to relate to the particulars outside of their connection and their inclusion with the whole. So this – Dogen is again and again, he's drilling us on, just don't do that. Don't do that. And there's a very famous story from the Pali Canon that illustrates this tendency, which is called the blind men and the elephant, which you may know.

[47:39]

It's a really great story because this is exactly how we humans are. So here's the story. So a group of blind men hear that there's a strange animal called an elephant that has been brought to their town, but none of them is aware of the shape or the size or anything else about... what this elephant might be. So out of curiosity, they say, why don't we go inspect so that we can know it by touching it and see which of us is able to figure out what it is. So they go and seek out the elephant, and when they find it, they grope about on the elephant, and the first person whose hand lands on the trunk says, well, this bean is like a thick snake. And then the next one, whose hand reaches the ear, says, oh, no, no, no, it's a fan. It's a fan. And then the third person whose hand is on the legs said, oh, no, no, no. It's a tree. It's like a tree trunk. And then the next one says his hand is on the side of the elephant. And he says, this is a wall. This is not a snake or a tree.

[48:39]

This is a wall. And then the last one feels the tusk and states that the elephant is hard and smooth like a spear. Are they wrong? Is anyone wrong? Well, kind of. But why? How come? Because they only have a limited view. They've separated things, right? They've separated the whole into parts. So in some versions of the story, they stop talking and start listening to each other to collaborate on seeing the full elephant. They put it all together. And then in another version, a sighted man, a sighted person, enters the parable and describes the entire elephant from various perspectives. And then the blind men learn that they were all partially correct and partially wrong. While one's subjective experience is true, it may not be the truth of the whole, of the entirety. So this is our human thing. And Dogen refers to this story at the end of the Fukanzazengi. He says, Please, honored followers of Zen, long accustomed to groping for the elephant, do not be suspicious of the true dragon.

[49:44]

Devote your energies to a way that directly indicates the absolute. So, I think I'm going to leave it there because it's getting close to six. And I certainly want to hear, Melissa, from you, your question. And next time, I'm going to go into the beginning narrative that Dogen lays out for Uji. It's wonderful. Please, if you can, take some time to read it. It's not a very long essay, and it's quite beautiful. So we can talk about that next week. And now... I am open to Melissa. Hi, Melissa. Hello, Fu-sensei. Hello, Sangha. I jumped ahead of my time being and flicked up the hand really early. I know, I'm learning and learning. I wanted to share with you, Fu-sensei, and also with the Sangha, just something really interesting

[50:49]

kind of profound for me that is related to exactly this fascicle. So I had a recent circumstance that really had me spinning. And I had the opportunity to talk to you for something about it. And I was really rattled. And I am about to take the precepts for those of you who don't know me. And I was fervently not adhering to the one about disparaging the triple treasure. I was very much cursing the universe. And, you know, why me, why me, why me? And I happened in the midst of all of that to remember that I had a lecture that I had just signed up for with Ruth Ozeki and Paula Arai, the one that SFCC just hosted on Saturday. So I click on the thing and I'm listening and they're saying more and more and more and they're talking about things that are just really resonating with me, including the fact that they are both mixed race.

[52:02]

Both of them are both mixed race, which I did not know. And I'm hearing a lot of resonance to my own experience. And so for those of you who... may or may not know, Ruth Ozeki is the author of a novel called For the Time Being, which is a meditation on Uji. And I was just listening to her lecture the other day. She was talking. She is Norman Fisher's student. And she was talking about this novel that she wrote. And so they were talking in interview, and I just raised my hand at the end of the lecture. And I said, you know, I'm a biracial woman who's really, has always been looking for belonging. And that is kind of my core sadness. And Ruth Ozeki, who I admire deeply, says to me, you know, writing helped a lot. When I was feeling in that space of never, ever really belonging, I could turn to writing and recognize that the skewed perspective that I had, the one that never really fit in anywhere, was what made my perspective interesting.

[53:19]

And it just hit me like a lightning bolt. And I wanted to share that with you and all of you that, you know, when I'm cursing the universe, I... you have to talk to one of my icons who tells me to write. And one of the reasons she's my icon is because I want to write. So it just was a really sweet and profound moment for me yesterday, and it was connected to this fascicle. So I wanted to share. Wonderful. I'm so happy for you. Are you writing? Yes. Oh, wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, I look forward to your fascicle when it's ready. Thank you. Anyone else like to share some thoughts, enthusiasms or confusions? I panicked and sent you an email.

[54:24]

You got it, right? I don't think I saw it. I was meditating right before. I'm sorry. Oh, well, there you go. I don't know what's happening. I don't think I can get online. What do I do? I had three minutes left or something. It was fine. So I thought, oh, okay. It's funny how in those moments there's nothing else, right? It's just whatever. Exactly. Just let it go. Yep. Exactly. Drop everything and sit Zazen wholeheartedly. Well, I was doing the sitting Zazen part. Thank you. No, thank you so much, Fu, and to the Sangha for us all being together again today. This was such a wonderful talk, and I remember reading one of Suzuki Roshi's books. I wasn't sure which one, I can't remember now, where he would say that he... Tomorrow at one o'clock, he's going to be in Altadena or somewhere.

[55:25]

And he would mention, but it's not going to be me that's there. The me that's there can't be separated from one o'clock. One o'clock is the me that's there. And I remember reading that and being like, oh, okay. Having no idea what it was referring to. And it's so wonderful to... sit and to experience the universe unfolding into then deepen into these writings and really you know catch these these glimpses of what suzuki roshi was trying to uh to to bring forward to us in his ways but it's wonderful to keep keep speaking of it and and learning from it um and when you started your talk talking about uh the Tenzo Kyoken and in that wholehearted effort in every moment. It reminded me of something discussing with my wife today.

[56:25]

We were talking about how, you know, the like Suzuki Roshi said, well, how we're time travelers, right? How we were always in the future worrying or excited or whatever it might be, or thinking about the past. And I remember telling her. and this just came to mind when i was in middle school i was late as always to class i had a certain amount of time couldn't be late again because i was late multiple times and i remember looking at the door that i had to go to and just just walking as quickly as i could then all of a sudden my face hit the ground and i had no idea what happened and i just knew that i was on the ground and and that was it and uh and then when i looked back it was just tiny little lip on a pot, you know, or a pothole cover, I'm not sure, like a sewer cover. It was just the tiniest little thing that just, you know, just completely ended my stride. And I remember in this walk that I had with my wife telling her, I can't tell you how many times I've tripped over what's literally right in front of me because I was so focused on wherever I needed to get or wanted to be.

[57:40]

right and um and i feel like that's what that practice helps us to not trip over uh whatever is that's right in front of us and to to enjoy it carefully so or if you do all the way down all the way down one whole heart of the ocean i remember you you had said one of the falls that you had recently and I've had those two where time slows down time being right what what is it how can it stretch how can it and those are one of the falls where I wish I could have it was just immediate somehow I could be up and down that quickly so but um something really wonderful to focus on each step so thank you so much yeah thank you always good to see you ah Ying. Hi, Ying. Hi, Boone. I sent everyone I can think of, I sent him a panic.

[58:41]

I don't think I can get online. I'm so sorry. Yeah, but you used I'm not sure, so that was helpful. Oh, good. I thought there was a chance you might figure it out. Yeah, I didn't. It just worked. I don't know what happened, but anyway. Hi. Yeah, as you and Guy were talking, I just thought about this question. It just came to me. you know, the thinking just hit me. Like, what if someone say, like, I wholeheartedly live in delusion. I mean, maybe they don't know it's delusion. Like, you know, before I learned then, I was very wholehearted in my life. It's very delusional. Like, is that wholehearted as well? To know you're deluded? Yeah. Oh, no, you don't know. Yeah, I guess you don't know you're like people. No, you don't. You know, we're ignorant. That's ignorance is you have no idea. You just think, well, no, this is this is who I am. And I know who I am and I know what I'm doing.

[59:42]

And I'm, you know, and that's my name. And this is where I grew up. And we're all used to giving a lot of facts when somebody says, well, who are you? Just say all this stuff that doesn't even get close. And because we don't really know. You know, Bodhidharma, when asked by the emperor of China, who is it facing me, said, don't know. And that was the truth. And I think that's a profound truth that all of us can say, I don't know. Or don't know. I didn't even put the I in there. Don't know. How could I possibly know what I am? You know, the number of factors that go into making me right now talking to you and you talking to me are beyond measure. It's inconceivable, you know, and we don't reflect on that so often because it's inconceivable and it's a little scary to not know. Not knowing is most intimate and it's also a little scary. Yeah, I like that.

[60:44]

You mentioned the body is more like the boss, but the frontal cortex, which we call executive function, is just a branch manager. I think it's just like... It also is very consistent with my understanding of my recent learning about some neuroscience. It's like, yeah, I never realized how limited this branch manager can be. Yeah. Right? A little arrogant. You know? Yeah. I don't know how to run the bank. Yeah. I think the delusional life that I led was like wholehearted led by this branch manager. But the wholehearted now we're discussing this by the whole... I guess, body or things we don't know. Yeah, and your kids and your lovely husband and your new in the place where you live. All of that is you. And it's just flowing all the time and changing. It's like, you know, those things you look through, the colors change and the shapes change. We're so good at like thinking it's steady, thinking things are not really changing all the time.

[61:51]

You know, we're sort of adapted to that, you know, like, oh, yeah. There's nothing weird going on here. It's actually quite strange. And yet we're adapted to it, right? We can do it. We can live. I can live. I'm doing okay so far. And it's a good problem to be alive. It feels so good that I feel like I don't need to trust my branch manager that much. It's just... And now it just feels so good. But before it was like, it would be crazy not to trust myself. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Trust your belly. Trust your belly. Yeah. The boss. Yeah. Thank you, Fu. Thanks a little. You're welcome. You're welcoming. Alicia and then Kate and Paul. I see him. I see Brex's hand. Wonderful. Hi, Alicia. How are you? Hi, Fu. Hi, Sanga. Oh. Am I unmuted? You are. Okay, good. I see another one. Okay.

[62:53]

I love that analogy of the branch manager and the gut. Because I was just reading recently about how the vagus nerve connects the whole thing. So it's easy to confuse the branch manager as the head because it's at the top. I mean, like in charge rather, but it's actually reversed. But actually, what I wanted to bring up was I was thinking about, as you were talking about, I was thinking about how the essay really supports the three marks of existence, impermanence, no self, and then dukkha. But I was thinking, it's really clear to me how there's no self in time being, like how Dogen's pointing to it, and even impermanence with the time being. I was wondering if you could talk about maybe how wholeheartedness could connect to The suffering. Yeah. Well, it does seem like turning towards suffering is the only place you can find resolution.

[64:01]

You can't run away from it. I mean, people, we try. Run, run, run, run, run. But really, it's just chasing right out. The dragon is just right on your tail. Don't be afraid of the true dragon. Get on its back. Take a ride. You're going to need to work with these emotions and these passions and these opinions and all that sort of thing because, you know, as someone who has said, compassion is combed passion. So we're really... are in a training program, you know, I don't think we should just kind of run around wild. I don't think that's worked so well. I think we really do need training to be able to meet these challenges with some uprightness, with some, I like this term, tensile strength. You know, that I grew tensile, tensile strength grew through this practice and these trainings. You know, everyone helped me to get stronger by giving me things I couldn't do. And that I really would try and I'd fail and I'd try again and I'd get better at it.

[65:03]

And then I'd try. That would be really kind of good and I'd get a little arrogant. And so then I'd come back down to the beginning, you know. So it's this whole journey that we're all on that has all those parts. Top of the mountain, bottom of the ocean, dragons and monsters and everything else, you know. These are our fairy tales that we're living. And we're kind of the core. We're the one, the passenger who's moving through and finding our way. through this puzzle, but not alone. We're all in the woods together. We can call out, Alicia! I think I got a little lost here. This way, Fu. Come over here. So we can help each other, which is what makes the Sangha treasure. The Sangha treasure. So it's not that scary when we have each other. Yeah, it helps a lot. I was thinking as you were talking about leaving Green Gulch, I was wondering... What you personally, like what rituals, what will you miss the most about the rituals that you do there?

[66:04]

And I was wondering what rituals you will create for yourself. I don't know. I don't know. I can't get there yet because I haven't embodied it. You know, I've gone to the site. I've looked at my room. I mean, our room. my partner and I. And I went on the balcony and I looked down at the Zendo. I haven't been in the Zendo yet. So the parts are there and familiar parts. There's a big dining room and tofu stew, all kinds of stuff. It's familiar. So I think there's a lot of kindness in those who are putting this together to not have us be completely freaked out. This is like, where am I? So there'll be a lot of familiarity and a lot of difference. So I'll miss Green Gulch, but I think like all of us imagine, we'll be asked to come back and give talks and classes and visit and so on and so forth. So I don't feel like I'm losing anything. I'm just adding a whole new experience, a new wing to the castle.

[67:08]

Add a whole new space over here and venturing over there and see how it goes. I'm excited. I'm excited. Some of my friends are not happy. I'm so sorry you're not happy. I wish I could make you excited, but I know you're not. So they really don't want to leave. And I appreciate that they really do feel that, you know. But I'm okay. I'm like, yeah, something new, you know. You'll get to see, you know, if we keep in touch, you'll get to see how it goes, whether I'm talking the same tune a year from now. I don't know. I just feel the adventure of it. That's exciting. Yeah. I'm glad we get to continue as a sangha as you go through your adventure. Me too. Me too. We're all having adventures, aren't we? You'll have to tell us about yours. Yeah, please.

[68:11]

Okay, is Kate and Paul? Okay. Hi. Hello. Yes, we were just at Enzo last week and experiencing the same thing of impermanence, that things change, and trying to accept that gracefully. But we can't hang on to how it's been indefinitely. And there comes a transition point, and this is a relatively sudden big one. It's not a slow, gradual change. That's right. That's right. I think the ones coming up are going to be like that. What? Yeah. I had a reaction to Jerry O's, all thoughts are garbage. Oh, uh-huh. I wanted to share one more thing about this branch manager concept and gut.

[69:15]

There actually, I believe, is scientific research that measures the time delay in the nervous system, and that actually are... branch manager brain actually gets the message several milliseconds after something actually happens. Have you read that too? I have. We're running in a delayed reality. We're not present exactly when it's happening. And it's kind of, it adds to this disconnection of what we think is real is something that happened a little while ago. Yeah. The thing is, we're so used to that. Even you tell me that, and I go, well, that's interesting. But it doesn't change my way of thinking I'm making the decisions. The branch manager is not the headquarters. I still fall for that. And I really like that science is telling us that and about the vagus nerve and all of these other things that I really find fascinating and seem to be very true.

[70:21]

But I can't close that gap. The branch manager cannot be the executive function. It cannot actually know the decision it's about to make, you know. So it's more like, okay, what do I do with that information other than I believe it? The gut's already made the decision. But what I think the branch manager does is it comes up with a story of why that decision was made that way. It was a good one. That's right. Or why it was your fault. The things didn't go well. Yeah, that is the branch manager's job. Is to make up stories. Save face. Yeah. Yeah. And so not buying it. I mean, a lot of, I think, practice is loosening the grip on our views. You know, rather than holding views, it's like offering them.

[71:23]

Having them is fine. The Buddha said I don't have any views. He said I don't find any evidence for or against any of my views. So that's a pretty powerful position for an enlightened being to say. I'm not holding one or the other side of this. But I'm not going away either. I'm not abandoning the problems. I just need to find a way through. you know, that will help others also somehow. So, yes. Thank you for that. And I was wondering your reaction to Jirio's all thoughts are garbage. And there was somebody else in the Q&A that responded to that too, but that one hit me. Yeah, yeah. It was the all part and that I understand Thoughts, as we're just talking about now, thoughts are sort of things going on in our head.

[72:28]

It's not really what's going on. So there is a sense that thoughts are garbage, but there's a sense that that's not quite the right word because some thoughts, it seems, are wholesome and are, I don't know, good or promote good. And a lot of things, unfortunately, maybe a majority of thoughts are garbage. Well, maybe it's more like compost. Yeah. You know, rather than garbage. Yes. Compost is healthy and it's good for things. And you can put all that stuff in there and you don't have to worry about it anymore. And it takes care of itself and it makes yummy soil. And, you know, so maybe garbage is the wrong thing. Yes. All thoughts are compost. Yes. You know. It's conditioning the next set of thoughts. They provide the soil for what's going to come next. It's how we condition our life. So I think he kind of got himself on the hot seat a little bit. He knew that. He kind of was backing up from it and saying, yeah, well, I was quoting someone else, actually.

[73:31]

I wanted to add the Zen part, which is... Treat garbage with respect, you know, when you have a wholehearted relationship with your garbage. And so I think he did his best to kind of back away from that one because it was a little shocking. But I thought he – He may get some more feedback from that one. He might. You know, he's a new abbot. He's got to get a lot of feedback, you know. A lot of garbage thoughts. A lot of garbage from other people's garbage. Yeah, the concept was good. I think he was on to a good point. It was. He was making some good points. I was going like, yeah, that's a good one, that's a good one. So I like Dharma talks because I always learn something, and that's really sweet. I like your elaboration of compost. That was what the comment of the person at the Zendo said. didn't have the negative connotation of garbage.

[74:33]

That was what she was reacting to. But it isn't necessarily negative. No. Where you're going with the compost is that it's supportive, but it may not be what makes it not be real. We can't make, yeah. Yeah, good. You don't want to hold on to our garbage, right? Carry it with us. We want to recycle, basically. And we want to store our garbage. And we want to put the bottles here. And the food scraps over here, right? So we want to be responsible for our garbage. That's really what we're after. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Maybe two more. Breck and Tim. Hi, Breck. See you again after two days in a row. How nice. Yes, very nice. Thank you. I have a three-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter and a six-month-old.

[75:35]

And that's part of the reason I'm moving to London. And I was listening to something you said just a few minutes ago about... Well, in so many words, you were talking about resisting change. And thinking that things are a certain way and then being surprised when they become something else. And I just, you know, I was raised pretty much conventionally Western, you know, 1950s, you know, mindset. And I just wonder what we can do for people six months old or a little older, you know, but... three, four-year-olds, five-year-olds, and so on, because it seems like instead of being attached to things, or to wanting things to be the same, or to be consistent, or to be unchanging, there must be another way of developing a mindset that just organically accepts

[76:53]

dependent co-arising and, you know, the impermanence. Yeah, you know, the first thing that comes to mind, Brett, because having raised a child, a six-month and a three-year-old, you know, and all the way up to 30 now, I was really impressed with a lot of children's stories that were being, you know, are being written, certainly in the last 30 years, that were so awake. And so full of like not the expected thing and really, you know, like sitting quietly and all the animals come and talk to you. If you're making noise, they run away. Just these really wonderful insights for children. So I think that's one place to look at these, you know, these excellent writers for children at various ages. I... I would probably like them better than she did. Spectacular. And there is wonderful material.

[77:55]

There's so many other points of view that have come into children's education and how to help kids learn and, you know, like the Montessori and the beads and the different ways of thinking about the world. So I think there's a lot of material. And also, you're grandpa. You're magic. However you... you relate to them is going to have a big... They're going to remember you, you know, and how you are with them. So I would say whatever you bring through to them is going to have a big influence on... I love getting down on the floor and being silly and ridiculous and playful. There you are. And that's not what kids expect necessarily from big grown-ups. Yeah. You know, it's so... So I think you're probably in good shape. Yeah. And I want to say just a little slight digression, but as I've been talking to you, and I saw Maya a couple of weeks ago, and Reb, and so on, the idea of going to Green Gulch, and six months from now, or whenever it is, and all these people that I've come to find there,

[79:10]

consistently for 30 years is unsettling at best. Yeah. It doesn't mean it's bad, but it's unsettling. I know. I know. And it is a sea change for all of us, but please don't forget about Healdsburg. Oh, no. No. Because we're going to all be up there, so you can find us, and we'd love to see you, all of you. Thank you. They can come to Healdsburg by all means. Yes. See, and Paul's going to be there too. Oh, good. Everybody's going to be there, and this is a good suggestion because we can introduce this into the system of having sort of time for Zen Center people to visit. Yeah. We'll do all kinds of fun things. Sit. Well said, for sure.

[80:11]

Well, it was a lovely image of all of you elders, I guess is a fair term, having tea today. It was wonderful. Yes, thank you. Yeah. Now it makes my eyes tear. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. Maybe Tim. And then I think it may be good. Oh, and then we got two more. It may be. My thing is a little bit abstract and the time has kind of passed. I'll talk to you about it on Sunday when I come to see your talk. Okay, great. I'll see you then. All right, good. Thank you. And Ben, is that Ben? Is that how you say that? Yeah, it is. Thank you. Actually, the discussion on the Hills work is a really good segue to my question. I have family elders who is dying. So in opposite to the newborn, how do we, you know, spend quality time with them?

[81:20]

Yeah. People who are going, who are living with us in the absolute world, but maybe some are still there. I know they're still there and they're part of us because we are the next generation to them. But still for the remaining time, while they are suffering from the illness. Yeah, yeah. And I've actually done quite a bit, and there's areas, there's things I couldn't influence much because I'm not a direct relative, but it's someone I care a lot about. And, you know, I... There's just so much... I don't want to go into details, but I just want to hear some general message from you. Thank you for your question, Ben. That's really a hard one. I think we're all facing that. We're going to face it also from the side of being the ones who are going, too.

[82:22]

When our time comes, how people are going to help us to transition. These are big life changes. It's all part of what it is to be alive. Birth and death, the great matter. This is all of our journey, and I've certainly gone through that with my parents and my siblings. I just lost my older brother and friends. As you get older, more and more people that you love are growing sick and are passing away. So I had a really very wonderful aunt who was in her 90s when my father passed away, which was terribly... Big grief for me because he was my guy. And she said, she came in toward me and she said, this is your first time, isn't it? She said, everyone I've ever loved has gone. And it's not that I've gotten used to it, but somehow I understand this is part of life.

[83:23]

And she was the only person of all the people who were saying very kind things that I really felt the... kind of penetrating truth of her presence and her wisdom. So something about this is life, this is how life is, and the more you are able to sit with those who are passing, like I did some hospice work years ago, and they just said, just be in the room with them. Just let them be with you. You don't have to do anything. Just be present. And that's a lot that you're able to be present. And if they need something, they can ask you. And I felt it took a lot of comfort from being able to go in and be with people who are passing. And then the one young man said, can I have some water? And I thought, I can do that. I can get you some water. And then he wanted his channel changer. He wanted to watch something on TV. I can do that. So somehow to be open to what they need, how can I help? And maybe it's just to sit there with them.

[84:29]

So we can talk again. I think that's a wonderful question, and it's one that I think we all, you know, have experience of and will have experience of. So, you know, take care of yourself. That's a really important thing, too, that you're feeling nourished, you know, in your own life. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, everybody. Very good to be with you tonight. If you'd like to unmute and say goodnight, please do. Goodnight, Fu. Goodnight, everybody. Goodnight, everyone. Goodnight, everyone. Goodnight. Goodnight. Goodnight. Goodnight, everyone. Bye. Yeah, take care. Much love. Bye-bye. Much love to you too.

[85:31]

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