This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Sound check. And I have a tendency to become... lower with my voice, so if I don't speak up enough, please let me know. I got the feedback that I don't speak up enough, so that the people in the back, please let me know. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. For the ones that are not parents, family, or coming-of-age people, this is the Sunday to complete the coming-of-age ceremony that will happen this afternoon or later this morning.

[01:03]

Just that you wonder that there are so many people in case you wonder that there is such a big crowd. It's not because of me. It's because of you. It's because of you. You get a lot of support here with family and friends and other Sangha members. I thought, of course, about the topic, what is something that might interest you, all of you. It might be interesting for all of you. And I had a story in my mind for a long time, and I felt there is some juice in there. It's a good story, there's a lot in there, a lot of different levels. And I carried that story with me for weeks, because I know, I've been knowing for a longer time, that I will talk today. And today came closer and closer. And although I thought the thinking was that is a good story, you know, that's not all.

[02:06]

It needs some other juice or response that something really works for us, right? And I noticed there was not really my energy coming up. And I thought of that story, and I sat down, and I worked on it, and I wanted to go into it. It all kept intellectual. I was not connecting to that story, and I was a bit disappointed. And I stayed with it anyway, and then I went back and forward. Yesterday we had a one-day sit, so we sat all day, and this morning we had another two sessions of sitting, and in between I tried to sneak out, and I have to get back to work, to my desk and laptop, and think about that story. And because I wasn't ready yet. And I panicked yesterday, you know, oh my God, what will I talk about? But I, and there was a second part, and that will be one of the topics, trust.

[03:12]

Somehow I knew something would happen besides my intellectual wish that that is a good story. So I stayed during the one day sit, I did sit, and I did sit this morning. And I got rewarded. Suddenly, I don't know why, something connected. And what I want to talk about today, connected to that story, although the story isn't even in the middle, in the center anymore, but the story gave me the impulse to that journey I want to take you on with me, this journey of growing up, some stories that came up. The story that I was carrying with me, you might or might not know it. In Germany people know it because it's by Bert Brecht. He wrote a lot of plays. His poetry is even better, but not many people know his poetry. He's famous for some plays.

[04:15]

And one play is called The Good Woman of Sichuan. It is settled in China. It is a parable. He wrote in parables, what means the time is sometime in history. The place is usually China or somewhere in Asia, far away from our Western world, to make it more like a fairy tale or people have an easier access relating to that story or open their heart to the story if it's not too close. Does anybody know that story, the good woman of Sichuan? No. One, two, oh yeah, some, not so many. Okay. And that story goes that three gods come down to visit us here on Earth, and the three gods are looking for a good person. They traveled around the world, and what they found was greed and hate and delusion, but they didn't find

[05:19]

a real good person. So it's at night, and they want to rest, and they are looking for a hostel or motel or a room where they can stay overnight. And they are in Sichuan. It's a little village or a little town, and only one person is willing to take them in, and that person is a woman called Chen Te, and she is a prostitute. And she has a room, and actually she had a customer that night, but when she saw those three men who were asking for a shelter, she gave them shelter. So that looks very much like a good person, and the next morning the three gods give her some money and tell her that she is a really good person, you know, hosting them. And she tells them that it's not easy to be a good person. It's a poor village, and they really don't have anything, and it's hard to be poor and good. So the gods stick and put their heads together, and they decide to leave her some money to say thank you and to help her.

[06:24]

And also as a test, what will she do with that money? With that money, she bought a little shop, a tobacco shop, And in the beginning, it's going well. But because she is so good, she's also a bit weak. Her goodness has a weak side because she wants to help anybody personally. So people come, hang out in the shop, take the goods, start smoking. The former carpenter comes and says he still has to get the money for the shelves. The former owner comes and... The tobacco shop comes and says she hasn't been paid yet. So actually the money is she's running out of the money very quickly. And a lot of people and then a family with aid move into the tobacco shop because they don't have a house. They don't have a roof. They don't have a shelter. And Shente says, yes, yes, yes. She has no boundaries. And it's a downhill circle. Then she has an idea.

[07:26]

She invents a male cousin called Shuita. She tells people that she has a male cousin who is a really strong man. And she puts on a male mask, a suit, and she turns into that male cousin herself. And in the role of that male cousin, she can be strict with people. She sends people out of the shop. because she's not the good Shente, right? She's the male cousin, Shuita, different person. And that male is actually very capable of turning the small tobacco shop quickly into a whole factory, tobacco factory. So Shente, the woman, is going back and forward in these two roles, being the good, female, soft and also weak, and the strong. strict and even vicious, not nice, man, Shui Ta. That goes on for a while.

[08:28]

So everybody in the village, of course, loves Shentei, the woman that helps them. And nobody really likes Shui Ta, although they honor him. And actually, he creates working places. So yes, they do like him because they need him. And he creates work, some wealth for people. But, of course, Shente has the hearts of the people, and Shu Ita is just capable. He's honored. And as Shente, it's still going downhill. You know, the downward spiral is still working. As Shente, she cannot survive. She cannot hold a position, especially not besides that strong... Alter ego, that she created herself. Alter ego means like an alternative, another, a second personality. She falls in love. She rescues somebody's life, actually. There's a young man, a pilot, who is desperate.

[09:30]

He wants to take his life. She helps him, rescues him. She falls in love with him, gets pregnant. He doesn't... Yeah, intend to marry her, take her with her to the big town, to the big city, and she is very lonely and she needs a lot of help, but she doesn't get any help. So more and more time she spends in her life as that man, the male cousin, Shuita. And as Shanti, she's crying and weeping and she doesn't know what to do. And the villagers become suspicious of Shu Ita, of that male person, because where is Shente when Shu Ita is present? There is no woman. And they ask him about her, and he just says, no, she's on a trip in the city. She will come back, and sometimes she does for a short while. And one day a customer hears a woman, he hears Shente crying the next door, and he thinks that Shu Ita, the male person, has done something.

[10:34]

to his female cousin. And he calls the police and the villagers pull that male cousin Shuita to the court. They want to know where's the female, where's that woman, where's Shentei, our good Shentei who helps everybody. And she is so good, where is she? And they find even clothing, Shentei's clothing underneath the desk. So everybody is at court and actually the three guards decided to return because they also wonder, where is Shentei? Where is that good woman from Sichuan? And they are the three judges now in one scene. And the male cousin, Shui Ta, says he's willing to tell the story if everybody would leave the courtroom except the three judges, because she recognized the three gods in the three judges. Then the gods, the three gods, and she alone in the courtyard, she takes off her mask and the suit, and she says, I am Shante.

[11:36]

I had no chance. I couldn't survive as woman, as the good person you wanted me to be, even with your money. It did not work out. I couldn't do it. The gods are helpless. They have no solution. They don't know what to do. And what they do is, A cloud, you know, that's Brecht, epic theater. Deus ex machina means suddenly there's a solution which is impossible, like a fairy tale solution. A cloud appears, the three gods go onto the cloud and fly away because they don't know what to do either. And Brecht leaves the audience and Chante alone. That's called in theater open-end. And Brecht... throws the question and the seeking for a solution onto his audience, what can be done? The epic theater that was interesting for me the last days, that that will be another talk, actually has very much to do with Buddhism.

[12:40]

I had forgotten that, because Brecht once, I don't know whether you know, he was a communist, a socialist, he wanted to wake up his audience. He didn't want to entertain, he didn't want that the audience identifies with the characters. Today, a lot of art is about identifying. We watch a movie and we feel with them and have empathy with them, with the characters. Brecht had another approach. He wanted people to wake up, shake them up. And that is one of his stories, one of his plays to do so. So maybe you can imagine what I see in that play. There's so much in it about politics, economics, the feminist view of having to turn into a man to survive in the business world. The psychology splitting up into two psychologies, into two characters. There's so much into it. So please Google it. It's online. It's worth reading the whole story. There's really a lot of material there.

[13:41]

Also about philosophy, the Buddhist philosophy. And I thought that would be my material. I thought we would talk about good, good person, good and evil. And then, you know, getting to, in Buddhism, there isn't really good and evil, because the moment we put a question that starts with good and evil, we are in the discriminative thinking, and where will that bring us? So there would have been a lot of material, but as I said, I didn't have much resonance from the heart coming up. So I said the last days, and during my sitting, something connected. and memories. I said with the question, is it possible for a poor person to be good? So not only is it possible for us, and that is a question for everybody, and you may take that question home. It's a good question to sit with. One is what is being good, but as I said, that is more philosophical.

[14:42]

I turned the question, I turned the question, what does it mean? And is it possible to live a good life In this complex world, with all its challenges, we actually don't know anymore what is good and what is bad. If we give money to a beggar, like in Berlin, and I know that beggar is a junkie, how much help is my money? Even our help is complex. Or we give money to the so-called third world. We don't know where the money gets to. Then we might even travel there, bring the money ourselves. We are very challenged with this question of what is good. So I want to make it more personal. Is it possible, even for a poor person, in the story it is a poor person, to be good? And then something opened up because I didn't have to go far. I grew up as a very poor person.

[15:46]

changed later a bit, but when I was really young, we were really poor. We were five kids, my working class, my father was in the construction, he was a worker in the construction business, and my mother worked half-time, so as kids, we had to grow up very early, you know, being responsible for making the fire, working very early. When I was 14, I started to work, getting my own pocket money. So there was... Poverty, although I must say also there was always a second part in me feeling rich because of my parents, I think. I tell you more about that. I didn't feel the poverty so much. So I didn't have to go far because we were poor. And I remember I was, I think, 10 or 11. My father was paid twice a month as a worker. And on his paydays, two people would knock. at our door, or ring the bell.

[16:46]

It was a shrum-shrum bell. And my mother went to the door. She knew already two beggars who knew that my father just had gotten paid. It was one man my father knew who drank a lot. Emmis, see? Even his name is still there, Emmis. So the two poorest people of our little town would knock at our door because they knew my father would give them money. It was always my mother going first, you know, trying to protect the money and her five kids and us as a family. And she said to my father, and I overheard that as a young person, she said to my father, Kurt, how can you give our little money to other people. We don't have enough ourselves. And it's true. Sometimes, you know, I had to go to the shop and we didn't have money, so the shopkeeper wrote down what I got. And it was not about luxury things. It was about milk and bread. And then I had to go back and pay whenever my father came back with money.

[17:47]

And that was not like the 40s. That was the end of the 60s, 70s. So it's not that long ago. For me, for you, it might be a long time ago. So my mother... protective, and it's good because that side is important, saying, how can you give away our little money? We don't have enough ourselves. My father cut her off and said, Ruth, Ruth, be quiet. We have everything we need and more. And as a 10 or 11 year old, you see, I never forgot that phrase. It was a transmission. It went into my brain, into my heart, and the way he said it, I never forgot it. He was so confident, and it was true. So my father transmitted, I am safe, we as a family are fine, we have more, we have plenty, we have more than we need.

[18:51]

He was somehow capable of transmitting, we are fine, and it's not depending on the money. And I felt that he was true. And I remember that that moment, I loved him a lot. I loved my mother, too. But at that moment, that was more important. And that's why the story is about. And that's why he is more in the focus. My mother is important, too. And I love her. But I know in this story, the emphasis is more on him. Because he brought that part in of it's not about money. So there was some trust, again. I started out with trust when I was sitting, trusting that the stories of what I want to share would come to me. And then I went back, where does that trust come from or came from? And then I ended up, yeah, it actually comes from my father. So somehow parents, grandparents, our family is able to give us something besides money, education, time, their love.

[19:54]

There's so much more given to us that we will need. when we grow up that we will need any time, any place. So when I grew older, when I was 17, 18, 19, I traveled a lot and scared my parents to death because I did everything by hitchhiking. Parents, please don't freak out. And of course, you will never do that. Right? Maybe you don't have to. I had to. You know, I had so much money that I had some travel expenses, but I didn't have the money for the next motel. So I had always so much money that I could go somewhere, but there was not much, you know, much to spend. And with the trust and confidence that I got in my childhood, I trusted people. And it was, that's work. I say to the parents, don't freak out, because there's more than just trusting.

[20:59]

There's also common sense, and there is something like an inner voice, if you ever, you know, when you ever, if you ever, when you ever go traveling and when you're on your own. So there's more to trust, but I start out with trust. So I hitchhiked a lot, and because I didn't have much money, again, you know, when you You meet poor people. You are among the poor, but not only. Also rich people pick you up and they give you a shelter and they drove, you know, a whole bus stopped and picked us up. I was never alone. I was with my younger sister or with a friend. So I got to see a lot with little money and something I hold precious until this day that I could trust people even or because, I think, I exposed myself as being, I needed help, I needed a ride, I needed something to eat, and it was given. Years or decades later, the same principle showed up, because all that was before I met Buddhism, right?

[22:07]

I was just a young person knowing nothing. Later you do that again in pilgrimages, that you expose yourself. Like I walked through southern Germany and I did a lot of walking, not knowing where I would sleep at night and begging for food, like in the old days. And often we didn't even have to beg. People, somehow we were a group, saw that we were on a special mission because we didn't talk. And the way we sat down, I think, in the middle of the marketplace, they saw these are pilgrims and they brought us food. We didn't even have to ask. So this experience of early childhood, of being actually rich and we are taken care of, kept continuing and I'm very grateful. I know also it could be different and it still can turn. Now we have sort of, you know, we are taken care of, we have a beautiful place here, we have something, we have clothing, we have something to eat, we have more, more than we need to eat. Professions is a bit unsecure, and there we get fearful around that, where we have a future, you know.

[23:11]

Trust. The conditions you have are ones of the best. And again, the conditions don't have to be good. They could even be worse, and you would be safe. And the more you have good conditions, so there is not so much that can happen to you. And if now, after some years or decades, you know, getting older, I'm ready for also, you know, for the bad times. We don't know what happens tomorrow, right? Will there be a third world war? Will there be climate change? Will there be an earthquake in San Francisco? We don't know. And with the Buddhist practice, I'm ready for that as well, because it cannot always go well. What we are trained in Buddhism, what we are trained here, what we try to transmit is even if there is no money and even if it looks for a week or longer that there is not enough to eat or if there are phases of a year or two years and we don't know, you know, we have no ground under our feet maybe for a while, that at one point we will fall back into what?

[24:29]

Into... Trust or some hands, helping hands, friends, family. We have plenty of help. So we have good conditions. Yeah, when I was 17, I hitchhiked to the States from the West Coast to the East Coast. My host mother broke out in tears because she thought when I left, she would never see me again. It was in the 70s. It was a little bit the end of the hippie time. People were still hitchhiking, but not from the West Coast to the East Coast, more between Berkeley and San Francisco. And to make a long story short, everything was well. And it also was well because of my mother's part, what I called before, there's not only trust, there's also some common sense. Of course, I didn't go with anybody. Like once I opened the door and smell of marijuana came out and I said, thank you, no, I didn't fold my hand then because I wasn't Buddhist then.

[25:31]

But I said, thank you, no, I rather don't go with you. And that was fine, you know. Or when some strange, weird vibes came from that car or outside from the car, I wouldn't get that right. So there was the possibility and the need to say, no, you won't go off. I'm not Shentee, you know. There's not only... kindness and willingness to help. There's also, we need common sense. And sometimes it needs a know. And not only a know to protect ourselves, but a know that is good for everybody, for whole situations. And then it needs wisdom. When do we say what? So there's the wisdom part. And I think from my mother's side, the protecting, having common sense, looking at the whole situation. I think that's what I want to acknowledge that she brought in. So I felt safe and I felt rich in my life. So when I was 19, I hitchhiked through Europe and we landed in Northern Africa and Egypt.

[26:42]

Basically also hitchhiking. We didn't hitchhike from Greece to Egypt because there's what in between? The Mediterranean? There we had money. What did we do? No, we didn't take the boat because that would have taken three days. We took a plane that we got a cheap airfare flight, I think. Yeah. So we were in Egypt, same thing, not much money, but a lot of trust. And the Arab world, it was really, whoa, it was different, different smells. And Cairo also then at the end of the 17th, 70s was huge, and it smelled, the air pollution was huge. And we had nothing better to do than traveling to the desert, because we were naive. We were already 19, but I was very naive, thinking, oh, an oasis, the desert are oasis, and there were. And oasis means trees, and you can pick oranges and dates.

[27:46]

That was very naive. Somehow, I don't even know how we got to that oasis, whether it was with a military truck or with some family member that went to that oasis in the desert, really close to the Libyan border. And in that time, there was war with Libya. And there was a lot of military, and they checked us several times, actually. They always came back to us. I didn't say me. That was a female other. She also was 18, 19, and me. And, of course, everybody was wondering what we were doing out there. That's why they were a bit suspicious. They were suspicious, the police and the military, and they were helpful because we were young and they thought we might need some help. So we were in that oasis. No orange trees, no dates. As a matter of fact, all that the people had to eat there was flatbread. They had flour, and they made their own aish, their flatbread, which they baked on an open fire with petroleum.

[28:54]

So even the bread tasted like petroleum. That's all what we got and what they had. Then we heard one person was speaking some English, the teacher. Usually a teacher in the village speaks some English. That was all. And I had learned, we were on our journey for several months, I had learned some Arabic, basic Arabic, so I could do some conversation. So we found out, actually, that they were running out of flour, and they couldn't even make the bread, the aish, anymore. And thinking of that first story about Shente and Shuita, about that we as people, as young people, or as growing up people, because what does it mean being growing up or getting, grow up? Besides being responsible and self-sufficient, not needy, there are so many expectations and thoughts about what growing up means. And I didn't say that in the introduction. For me, growing up also means being able to handle complex situations, holding complex situations, because sometimes you have no solution.

[30:00]

Like Shente and Shui Ta, we were not left with a solution. We were not given a solution. And there are many, and there will be many, and there are many, many situations where we just can hold situations, and we don't know yet how will it develop, you know? Climate change or finding no work, our diversity work. How will it continue? We don't know. We just can hold the space, two steps, going two steps out, one step back, finding out what is right, holding a complex situation. So my friend Uta and I, we decided not to go into the village anymore because we knew they wouldn't have anything to eat for themselves. So we stayed in our guest room a little bit on a hill. We were for ourselves hungry. And that went for several days. And there was no food inside. So we were told that. Someday a truck from the military would come and bring some sacks of flour, but the days went by and we were hungry.

[31:09]

And of course some fear came up. Will we ever get out of here? Will we starve to death? And there was hunger. And there was that notion of, or we agreed on, we cannot go to the village and take away their little food they have. So we had such much dignity that we said, you know, if it's not really necessary, we don't show up. Because the moment we would go to the village, they would make us tea, and they would give us something to eat. As a matter of fact, one man, later I heard it was his only eggs, brought us two eggs, two raw eggs, to our guest room. So the Arabs are really very good hosts, very kind. And I never forgot that, that besides the United States, where people were helpful when I was 17, also in an Arab state in Egypt, Sudan, then we traveled on to Sudan, people helped, helped, helped.

[32:15]

And I was pondering, yeah, again, where does this come from, this trust? And then came up my father again, that he was a prisoner of war in North Africa in 1944. And I found that very interesting and that I had forgotten that. And now, doing over this talk and work, these stories fall into place that I actually, as his daughter, repeated his life 40 years later. Because in the 1940s, he was a prisoner of war in Morocco. He went to war when he was 17. got caught during the first year or first two years. Then he was 19. And it was the English or French. And they had these prisoner camps in North Africa, just fences, gates, some guards, and all the Germans. And I don't know whether they had even barracks. And once in a while, my father didn't talk about the war much.

[33:21]

I think he was ashamed. I know he was ashamed. I don't think I know he was ashamed. But sometimes he told us stories, and usually it was good stories about how good people were, how good the Arabs and the people treated him when he was a prisoner of war in Morocco, Morocco, in the 40s. He told that one story that they were starving. I mean, the whole world was starving, and who... about some German enemies in North Africa in a camp, in a prisoner camp, nobody. They were the last ones who got some food, right? And my father sneaked out of the camp. That is the story he told. He, how do you call it, he... bribe. He bribed the guard and said, I will come back with some food and you will get something, let me out. I don't know what the God. There were some black people, he said, and some Arab people.

[34:24]

You know, it is mixed in North Africa, so I don't exactly know with who he negotiated. Well, my father went to the market in the next little town, to the souk, to the market. Souk Kabir, big market. Who has ever been to an Arabic souk market? Very exotic. But for him it was not exotic. He had to find something to eat, and they had no money, and they had nothing to trade for. So again, he was begging, actually, and people did give him food, although he was a prisoner of war. I mean, they probably could have told where he was coming from, by his clothing, or I don't know whether they shaved his head. And what I also will never forget, he had a stamp on his underarm. It was the African continent, an outline, and the number 1944 stamped on him. So I grew up as a kid. I thought it was just a cool tattoo, because as a kid it's a cool tattoo.

[35:26]

I never knew that it meant prisoner of war and what it meant to him. So he got food from that Arabic population in Morocco. He went back to the camp. The guard probably got his share, and then his comrades, and he shared the food. And I found that so interesting that he never told me, this is what you can learn, Doris. My Western name is Doris. He just told a story, and somehow it sank in. And now, like 40, 50 years later, I tell you that story. about trusting people, that even poor people might give you something to eat. They will help you. And he transmitted that trust through some of his stories. So now to you and your parents and family.

[36:31]

Of course, my father and your parents cannot always be at our side and holding hands and take care of us. So this is about growing up and finding our own way. A lot is about opinions, but not only. It's really about finding our way in a good way, finding an expression that our lives want to take. We are all persons, and there are millions of different expressions how life can be lived. And you may choose, and you will find one expression to live your life. So when we are kids, we start out with obeying and listening to our parents. Later, we listen to our friends. What do they think about me? What do they say? We might listen to teachers somehow. When the teachers are good, we are willing to listen to them. I know that my teachers had a big impact on me concerning what I studied. Later, like here maybe, your family brings you here, or you bring your family here, and there might be some spiritual teachers.

[37:37]

So there's a lot of listening and meeting going on. And growing up actually means another kind of listening to, listening to others, of course, but this listening to ourselves. What we develop, what you developed the last month, what we keep developing, what it is all about is that we cultivate this inner voice, a connection with what our inner voice says, what the circumstances, what the present moment wants from us. So we train in becoming sensitive of getting in touch with the present moment. And that happens through us, through what I call the inner voice. You may call it something else. Maybe you learned the term term, our Buddhist nature or the Christian among us, not everybody might be a Buddhist because we have a lot of family today. Not everybody might have a Buddhist background.

[38:39]

Everybody has an own way of saying there is something in us that guides us and leads us. For now, I call it, we develop our inner voice that we listen to. And actually, obedience, I don't know whether you ever looked that up. Obedience means to hear, to listen to. So there's an outward obedience. In the beginning, as I said, there's school and parents. And actually, it turns more and more into an inside obedience, what we listen to, our inner voice. And then it will have to happen... I'm sorry, parents, you will have to leave home. That is what growing up is about, too. There is no way of not leaving home. If there were one, it would be permanence, and we learn, no, everything is changing, everything is moving, and it's a process, so we will have to leave home, and that is actually also an ongoing process, you know, then that might change again.

[39:49]

I mean, that's leaving. is ongoing, not only leaving home. So you actually have to, and that word I had to look up, you have to cut again the umbilical cord. Umbilical cord, a second time. That is this initiation this afternoon or late this morning, this ceremony about, yeah, we grow up. We learned about ourselves the last month. We looked inward. We learned sitting meditation. We learned sitting still, being upright, receiving the coming, the comings and goings of what the moment brought, physical pain, emotional pain, mental, you know, a lot of thoughts. And we sit still and receive everything and anything. This is a next step of growing up, this leaving home.

[40:50]

And actually, every fairy tale is about leaving home. You know, the boy and the girl leaving home and returning as prince and princess. Every fairy tale is an initiation story about growing up. Returning home as prince and princess, meaning returning home, growing up as an adult, being ripe. Can you say ripe? A ripe person, a mature person. So I want to wish you well on this next part of your journey. In the name of our Sangha, in the name of Green Gulch, not everybody will say it to you, so it's my role today to wish you well. to tell you we know about you. We know you have been here around the last month and you are here today and you might be in the future.

[41:53]

We are thinking of you. We know some of your faces and some names. And we wish you very well in this process of cutting the umbilical cord again and bringing together. And if you take anything from today, I think it would mean for me either the two hands, you know, that there's something going on in the world, there's a thing, a problem, a person, a difficult situation. There's always something going on, always. There's always an object. There's always something. And then there's another hand, another part of you that learned how to stay still. And that part meets this unquiet part. You know? and can maybe have some positive influence. And it's about meeting anything that comes up. And sometimes it's also about holding, right?

[42:56]

And we learned this mudra. One holds the other. You might not know Bert Brecht. Who knows Hermann Hesse? Hermann Hesse? How do you pronounce him? Some more people. Hermann Hesse. Stages. It's a poem, and then we are done with this part. Stages. Stages in life. Since life may summon us at every age, Be ready. Be ready, heart, for parting. New endeavor. Be ready bravely and without remorse. To find new light that old ties cannot give.

[44:00]

That would be the family, right? The old ties cannot give. In all beginnings dwells a magic force. Life is a mystery. Life is exciting. And I have to get out there. There's a magic force for guarding us and helping us to live. The cosmic spirit seeks not to restrain us, but it lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces. If we accept a home of our own making and familiar habit, familiar habit makes for indolence. We would get stuck, right, in habit. and comfort, we cannot stay home. We must prepare for parting and leave-taking, or else remain the slave of permanence. Where to then, heart? Where will it lead me to?

[45:01]

Where will I go off to? And this is interesting now because the English last sentence is very different from the German last sentence. The English last sentence says, take your leave and be well. That's a nice farewell. The German sentence says, take your leave to be well. For me, it includes, you have to leave to be well. May it be so. Thank you very much. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[46:04]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[46:07]

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