This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good Sunday morning to all of you here in Green Dragon Temple. Also hello to those of you joining online now and perhaps sometime in the future. My name is Eli. I'm one of the resident priests here and also currently serving as Actim Tonto. So let me know how I do. Before I get started, I want to extend a deep bow to Abbot Jiriu for not only inviting me to give this talk, but to serve in this way. It's hard to express to those of you who may not have had this opportunity, but getting to support the Sangha, getting to support the students and the practice container here, I'm really, really looking forward to it.

[01:12]

I also want to give a big thanks. I think my teacher, Ed, is watching online for supporting me to actually do this. I did not... Let's just say I was in heavy consideration when the opportunity came up, but he somehow made it possible. So a little background to me, I was originally supposed to come to Green Gulch and be here for decades. To explain that, about 15 years ago is when I arrived to Zen Center, and they have this great thing you can do, you can still do, If you go to Tassajara, our monastery in Carmel Valley area, you can spend a summer there. And then in return, you get to earn a practice period, a time to dedicate towards deep practice and zazen, a lot of it. And so I originally came, spent the summer, and kind of surveyed from far, didn't visit here, our city center.

[02:22]

and said, I'll go to Green Gulch. And so that was the plan. The summer ended. Green Gulch said, hold on, you can't come for another two weeks. So I ended up going to City Center for those two weeks, and then about 14 years later, ended up moving here. The reason I bring that up is, some of you may do this, and it's not the most practiced thing to do, but play the game of what if. And so for many years, I would come here for a day-long retreat or a sort of sashin and be like, oh, what it would have been like if I practiced here? And so I'm starting to touch into that, starting to play with the quails, chasing them around. I don't know. That's what it reminds me of. but also more intimate things. We have a beautiful practice on Wednesday mornings.

[03:23]

I wish you could come. Maybe you could. I don't know. But the residents stop Zazen early, and we all go out to the fields for community tending. I think that's what I'm going to call it. And it's wonderful. We all, for the most part, ho. But I was taught the other day by Drew. I don't know if you're in here. how to carefully pick morning glory. I don't know if any of you have done so, but morning glory has these long kind of windy roots. And so I was at first trying to hoe them and it just kind of smushes over, doesn't really work. And then I'm like pulling them because I'm somewhat of a brute and they were just snapping. And Drew taught me, you got to tend to the soil, use your hands a little bit, loosen it up. And there's this really beautiful individual thing with each piece of morning glory that you get it and it wiggles and it just comes out. And so that's one of the touching points besides having tea on the bench out there with my eight and a half year old.

[04:33]

Furthermore, it brought up a practice that I had been engaging in in the city and had brought out here. And it... it's kind of a honing maybe of my way-seeking mind. And so it's a question or maybe an instruction to be as kind, excuse me, to be as kind as silence is to sound. And for me, that means meeting things where they are, being with things as they arise. So the last couple of weeks or about a month now have been very supportive, this environment to soften, to slow down. And when we meet in here or out there, we're just tending to one big Buddha field. So how can I do this with the same kindness that silence gives to sound? How can we meet ourselves with that kind of kindness?

[05:37]

So that's some of what I wanted to talk about today. It's going to be practice-based for the first bit. The students here know that I'm a fan of practice. So I'm going to invite you to just settle for a moment. You can lower your gaze, close your eyes. But just taking a moment to let ourselves settle in this barn collectively. If you're in a chair, just feeling the chair, your feet on the ground. Feeling a couch cushion perhaps if you're joining online. But just taking a moment to ground in the space that we're in. Collect ourselves. Noticing the sounds. the temperature, the light.

[06:50]

And just noticing so much of our lives are spent leaning slightly forward into the next thing, preparing, managing. solving. And this practice of Zazen invites something very different. A moment not to add or change or edit. Just noticing what's already here. So this morning, I'd like to explore that a little bit more, not as an idea, but perhaps a direct experience.

[07:59]

So you can come back into the space now that you're here. So I want to talk about a... trauma-informed mindfulness somatic, I've added extra words to it, exercise that was inspired by David Treliven's work. It was quite brief, but I just kind of spiraled with it. And so before we start, if you could just take a look at your open hand for a moment. Wiggle your fingers. Maybe softly caress your palm. And just to notice that there's something kind of beautiful about an open palm. If you've ever looked at a baby, examining their hand, reaching out for years, recognizing that this open hand can reach, it can receive, it can offer.

[09:09]

And like I said, in many ways, that's how we enter this world. With curiosity, with a bit of openness, wanting connection. So you can even imagine now that in that open hand you came into the world with, you're holding something very precious. Perhaps your authentic self, your Buddha nature. or just simply your aliveness. And over time, through causes and conditions, sometimes something happens. We learn to protect. We learn about boundaries. We encounter fear and our identity. Sometimes what starts to happen is this hand starts to close slowly or quickly.

[10:15]

So go ahead and make a fist. You're protecting that essence. And making a fist isn't bad. At first, this fist is formed quite intelligently. It helps us survive, belong, protect ourselves. But at some point, Many of us notice that the hand is kind of stuck. It may not be working as naturally or as openly as we may want. We feel like we might not be able to fully touch life, express ourselves, receive connection that can go in deeply. And so sometimes this is the moment that we enter practice. We come to a Zen center. We might go to a therapist.

[11:18]

And in one way or another, we say, can you help me open this hand? So take your fist, and typically this is our approach, is we try to open up the fists with force. So go ahead and just do that for a moment. Not too violently, but just enough to notice the experience. If it helps to close the eyes, you might notice what happens to the body. Often the fist will tighten more, and there's a sense of resistance in the body. And of course, more effort appears. And I think that's how a lot of us relate to ourselves, trying to force our hand open, trying to force healing, trying to force awakening, force change or force release.

[12:28]

So go ahead and you can put your fist down to the side for a moment. And we're going to take that... that pesky hand that was once trying to do things with force. And you could consider this your hand of awareness or presence. Before we re-engage with the fists, just take a moment and you can put that open hand on your chest, your heart, or even your hara, right below your belly. And for a moment, just breathe deeply. perhaps generating feelings of compassion, of openness, curiosity, or even love. When you've brought some of that forth, you're going to take your hand of awareness and just gently place it

[13:33]

under that fist. And then in a silent type of communication, you can just kind of communicate, yes, you have every right to be closed. I'm not going to try to change you. I'm not going to try to pry you open. I'm here with you. You do not need to change for me to be present. I'll just sit here with you. So just notice what happens if the hand

[14:34]

naturally softens or opens, that's fine. And if it doesn't, that's okay too. Just notice the difference between trying to force compassionate awareness versus just supplying it. In some ways, this is the basis of our Zazen practice. You can go ahead and open your eyes for a moment. Just take a second to reflect on that difference between force and compassionate awareness. You ready for another exercise? Sorry. And if you fall asleep, that's quite okay too. So this next one, I honestly mean that, it might require a little more imagination.

[15:35]

So if you're a downward gazer, you might want to close your eyes for this. become comfortable in whatever position your body's requesting. So we're going to take, I guess, a deep dive into our historic past. So you're going to imagine, and you can source this from your heart, But imagine the beginning of this universe. Whatever language you'd like to prescribe to that, the Big Bang, creation, big mind, or the original unfolding. Starting with immense energy.

[16:35]

Stars are forming. Burning. And then collapsing. Exploding. elements emerging, hydrogen, carbon, iron, calcium, ingredients for the ocean, mountains, plants, bodies.

[18:03]

Over immense stretches of time, the universe becoming Earth. The Earth becoming life. Life changing. adapting, learning to survive, ancestors breathing,

[19:17]

protecting children, loving, working, grieving, continuing. generation after generation, and eventually this body. This breath.

[20:34]

This awareness. And this hand. the current edge of the universe touching itself. The carbon in one hand may have originated from a different exploded star than the carbon in the other hand. So this hand is not separate from the cosmos.

[21:55]

It is quite literally the cosmos temporarily appearing in this form. No separation between stars, earth, ancestors, body, and this moment. And this hand can close. Or this hand can open. It can protect or offer the universe expressing itself through conditions.

[23:09]

What appears through us depends partly on whether we experience ourselves as separate. And yet, the hand never leaves the universe body. Neither do we. So universe, you can gently return to the room, breathing, hearing, sitting. This moment. And I think this is important because sometimes we hear teachings about causes and conditions, interdependence, conditioning, so on and so forth.

[24:33]

And at least I know for myself, I can subtly move into either blame or kind of this state of helplessness. I once heard Tension Reb Anderson, former abbot of this temple, say, we are not responsible for all the causes and conditions that have come together in this moment. You're not responsible. But we are responsible for this moment and how we move in it. For me, that's something I find deeply compassionate because it's the truth. We didn't individually create this hand. We didn't create the stars, evolution, our ancestry, or the countless causes and conditions that have shaped our body, our nervous system, our personality in life.

[25:39]

And yet, we're responsible for this hand. Responsible for how it touches the world, how it protects, how it harms, how it offers, how it gives. So this practice that we're engaging in is not about blaming ourselves for being conditioned. It's about becoming intimate enough with that conditioning that we can participate more consciously. So in a way, the universe has temporarily entrusted itself to us. Again, how can we... Practice in a way, how can we learn in a way to care for that responsibly? And yet, the hand never leaves the body, and neither do we.

[26:45]

So I have too much time left, but I'd like to talk a little bit about what might keep the hand closed. Excuse me. So there's a lot of ways that Buddhism could describe this. In our kind of day-to-day sitting, we have something called the five hindrances, which you could say are wanting things. I won't do the middle finger. Not wanting things. We have anxiety. and we have this kind of torpor, or you could call it some laziness. And then we have doubt. Doubt's always the good old thumb.

[27:51]

But I personally experience it a little bit different, and we all have different fingerprints. So just to give you a little bit of maybe understanding of how my fist got formed, comparing mind... walking into fear in general. These all happen really early in life as well. The fact that we get judged or maybe we have to earn love. Love isn't guaranteed. And for me, that started making me need to protect what was inside this palm, this body. And then thumb again, good old self-doubt, locking them all in. at least from my point of view. And like I said, it's good for you to study your fingers, the ways that your fists close. And of course, that doubt kind of signifies that we're separate, that we're perhaps outside of what we would call life.

[29:00]

And I must protect myself in order to exist. And again, I want to say and emphasize that none of that is bad. You can't just walk around like this. It doesn't work. You can't even hold things. The fist formed from intelligence, but through causes of conditions, whether that's family, culture, pain, protection, survival. The hand closes because life has taught it to. And in this practice, it's not that we're trying to destroy the self, but we're just trying to soften some of the rigidity, or maybe a lot of the rigidity around it. Our Soto founder, we all know is famous for saying, Ehe Dogen, to study the self is to forget the self.

[30:07]

But I do not think that this means erasing ourselves. It just means loosening the grip. And when the grip softens, we can meet the universe again. I guess the universe can meet itself again. Particularly in Mahayana Buddhism, we have a figure, Avalokiteshvara. How many have heard of Avalokiteshvara? Okay, great. That's the bodhisattva of compassion. And one of my favorite depictions, we have a big, about as big as the Buddha on the altar, Avalokiteshvara with all thousands of her hands. There's probably only like 150 on ours, but you get the point. And in this configuration of Avalokiteshvara, each hand has an eye, right, in the middle, representing awareness.

[31:11]

compassion in action. So it's important to remember that compassion is not just a feeling. It's awareness expressing itself through relationship, reaching out. And the reason that Avalokiteshvara has a thousand hands is because suffering appears in countless forms. And it's reality's way of... kind of reaching towards itself in countless ways. And it's kind of neat if you see it. It has different objects in its hand. But furthermore, each hand is offering something. Maybe a hand feeding, protecting. One hand could be grieving. One hand definitely is planting, right, Green Goal's hand? And a hand holding another hand. These are all ways of the universe meeting itself.

[32:14]

And perhaps awakening is not escaping the world, but allowing this hand to participate more openly in it. Again, not because the fist disappears or the self goes away, but because the fist softens, we can meet the moment with more sincerity, with more kindness. I also want to deviate and say this is also why belonging is so important. So for me, when that hand is receiving whatever this fist is holding and going through, that's a kind of an ultimate form of belonging. And also why in these temples or in whatever community spaces you occupy, it's so important to touch into people's sense of belonging.

[33:24]

Of course, here, we're doing a particular type of work with belonging, the type of belonging that's not impacted or dependent on external factors, just like the Buddha when he touched the ground facing off with mirror. In order to do that deep work, to meet ourselves fully, we have to feel a sense of external belonging. We have to feel psychologically safe. We have to see others that mirror us, a representation. And we need to feel like we can be ourselves. So that's an external sense of belonging. On the cushion, though, we're providing that for ourselves. a place where we can feel seen and safe for whatever we're bringing forward and held and appreciated as we are. Another kind of core Zen teaching that we typically chant during, I guess, noon service is the self-receiving and employing samadhi.

[34:38]

And I wanted to bring forth another example kind of read paraphrase quote. This has stayed with me deeply. In reference to this samadhi, he said that this samadhi is the Buddha sitting zazen, or you are sitting the Buddha's zazen. And eventually, the separation starts to dissolve. It's simply the universe sitting with itself. I always like that. We're not trying to transcend reality. Reality fully expressing itself through this posture that we take. So Zazen is you holding yourself upright in the universe. Or it's not, excuse me, you holding yourself upright through the universe. It's the universe holding itself in posture through you. Don't want to misquote read.

[35:38]

And Suzuki Roshi says, when you sit, the whole universe sits. And I don't think he means that metaphorically. I was listening to a talk, many talks my teacher has brought this up, but a koan about ordinary mind is the way. And I'm not going to go deep into the koan, but I did want to bring this forth. A monk said, what is the way? Nansen replied, Ordinary mind is the way. And so just to realize that not because ordinary mind is small, but because nothing is outside of it. Again, this breath, this body, this sound, this movement. Our everyday activity is the universe itself. appearing as ordinary life.

[36:42]

So it's almost 11. And the Tanta likes things to be timely. So I'll close just again reinstating that perhaps awakening is not becoming cosmic. So if any of you are still out there on the astral plane, please return. It's just relaxing enough to realize that we never left. This hand never leaves the body. Neither do we. At each moment, this hand, this Buddha body, is the universe extending itself. Oh, we chant after Q&A. Okay. So I think we'll have a little bit of Q&A before we chant the closing verse.

[37:55]

Thank you, kitchen folks. Going to prepare a delicious lunch. Hello. Oh, hello. Thank you for your talk about our hands. It was something that I've never, haven't thought about in that way. Mary Mussine, who just passed away, this is something that I sort of try to say every day, but the open hand is not the grasping hand. That's not exactly the way she said it, but it really is a... I use that when I think about what I'm doing in my day. Is it an open hand or is it a grasping hand? And is it correct? So, thank you. Thank you for those words. If you could comment on that.

[38:57]

I don't know what there is to comment on. I think that that's apropos. I really do not have anything to add or take away or edit. Thank you for your comment. And thank you for bringing Mary into the room. First, I wanted to express very deep gratitude. And your talk was very moving. And I actually haven't heard a Dharma talk quite like this. It was quite... interactive and grounding, so thank you for that. I also wanted to, I work with kids, I'm a child therapist, and I wanted to acknowledge your deep compassion for the closed fist and how accepting and how important that feels in order to heal, not trying to force change.

[40:09]

and to be better, and it's another way of ranking and judging and pushing ourselves to be all better, when sometimes what we need is to be very gentle and compassionate with that closed fist. And so I kind of, that's what I got, and if you have, I don't really have a question, but I have some very deep gratitude So, but if you have any responses, I thank you. I think these comments are just beautiful as they are. I'm really touched that you appreciated it in that way. And I am sometimes atypical. Normally I'm like blowing bubbles up here too. So I kept them away today, but thank you and well said. may uh thank you eli tanto um yeah my question is about that closed fist and like i think you mentioned that like we can't live our lives without ever closing our hands like sometimes we have to

[41:36]

And in the first activity when we were closing the fist, like I felt like this sense of like strength or power or like it reminded me of some like movement poses I've done with closed fists. So it made me think about like boundaries or like being more forceful in a particular way. And what's like the difference between like Yeah, having that closed fist intentionally, and then like maybe when that fist needs to open, but it's actually fear keeping the fist closed. Thank you for your question, Lene. So yeah, I think you've added in a whole other depth to where the talk could go. I think my intention with the fist or fascination with the The fist you could say is that I just feel in so many ways, yeah, a lot of us are overclenched.

[42:41]

We're not able to soften or open. You bring a great point. Some people might not be able to make a fist either. Their hand might be too open. This question you raise about how to know appropriately when or when not to to close it, I think that that's what we're in relationship with the moment for, or the intent is to see what's there, notice what we're holding, and try to be able to move the fingers appropriately. And of course, I think that's what we're trying to end up at practice, or with practice. But you're right. Strength, protection, A closed fist is absolutely needed. And there's not a, again, the emphasis in David Treleven's exercise is that the fist has every right to be closed.

[43:45]

It's done that out of a beautiful need or response. It's just sometimes we become closed off. We lose the ability to open this hand more regularly. or it may close preemptively when we are trying to extend it, and it makes it very hard to give or to receive. So, you know, this engagement that we have with fear, it is going to be a personal endeavor. You know, we do have this kind of teaching around no hindrance, no fear. And so part of it is getting really comfortable here and understanding, talking to, relating to our fear in a way that doesn't have us reactive.

[44:47]

So I don't know if that answered your question, but I'm happy to dive into this later as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your talk. I particularly liked the part where you used the analogy of the closed fist maybe to represent the support one might give to a loved one to sort of cut that fist and to provide that base of support. I was wondering, what do you do, what can you do if their closed fist doesn't open? I mean, thank you for the question. Again, I feel that it's very situation-dependent.

[45:49]

When my daughter's fist is closed and we're 30 minutes late for school, the approach might be a little bit different. I don't know. Sorry, that's the pool of examples I have to pull from. When I'm sitting with a friend that's grieving because they just lost a loved one, I don't need their fists to do anything. My job is to just simply be with them. Acknowledge what they're going through. Hold them with sincere presence. So, I mean, there's a whole range, but I think that a lot of times we can err on the side of just being with someone. We don't realize how just amazingly, incredibly powerful that is, just to witness someone. Even if we have that thing, oh, what if you just did, oh. We like to twist knobs and edit.

[46:52]

And there may be a time for that, but usually, or at least first step for me is just to simply be with a person. Hope that helps. Thank you, Tonto-san. I did not know about Mary's passing, so that's news to me. I did not know that. And just speaking of masterful fist management, Mary Mosin. In early practice at Berklee Zen Center, she taught me a lot about anger. And she had a great... I just realized my first memory that came back to me about Mary... is relevant to today's talk. She was at Berkeley Zen Center, and she had done something. She had forgotten something, and it had the potential to really put Mel, the abbot, there at a disadvantage.

[47:59]

And I was the one who alerted her to that, you know. And she could have gone into one direction, but she said, oh, hell, and opened her body like that, you know. So you can see that what was once, oh, hell, she knew how to accept and love and make it part of herself that was even more Mary. Oh, hell. I'll remember that forever. Thank you for bringing that up, and thank you for your talk today. Thank you for raising that, Kika. And if any of you have a chance, you can go onto our website, put her name in the search bar, you'll get exactly what Kika was saying. She really... It was a rare one. Thank you so much. It's the first time I visited this wonderful center. It's really beautiful to be here and see everyone dedicated on this path.

[49:02]

Just a response to how we can be there for other people. And believe me, I've tried opening the fist. And for sure that doesn't work. And I've learned that the best way to be there is to find yourself. And in finding yourself, you get to be the change you want to see in the world. And that's actually quite difficult because the desire to... make other people change is very strong. It's almost selfish, I suppose, but I've learned that I take away their learning and their process by trying to enforce that change. And it doesn't work anyway. So, yeah, so I've learned to just work on myself.

[50:04]

And... and show the way in and be the light. I just wanted to share that. What's your name? Dina. Dina, welcome to Green Gulch. Make sure that you walk out. Too many people just come from the parking lot to the Zendo and then back to the parking lot. Please enjoy this wonderful land. Thank you for raising that point. It really reminds me, too, in this practice, you know, that's kind of the emphasis is to, you can consider these palms that we're just sitting on and allowing people to come into touch with their own heart and their own practice. You can't just tell somebody what to do. Another big thanks to my teacher, former Abbott Ed.

[51:06]

I felt like he's held me in that way, even though it's hard at some times. Everett? I'm appreciating how much effort it takes to keep the fist closed. Do we have any online? Okay, I just don't want to ignore. This is from Jane. from our online sangha. Jane asks, how do we feel safe in a country that is unraveling towards more fascism? It's important to feel psychologically safe in our environment, but not possible due to take over from political power. I don't want to pretend or be in denial. Perhaps move to a different country is important. Thank you for that. You know, I do not have good sound, non-maybe vulgar words to speak about politics.

[52:21]

But, you know, just returning to the kind of the content of the talk, before we do anything, just to, you know, as we say in Zen, wholeheartedly sit. And just be with the deep frustration, the anguish, the pain, the insanity is important. Just like the fist in the hand, feeling your breath, noticing some nature would definitely help. And then collecting with community, those not folks that are going to rile you up perhaps, but just that can be with you in acknowledging how imaginably painful and hard kind of this many situations are. You know, if you go back to the exercise of sourcing the beginning of the universe and this through line, this continuum that we awaken on, rise and fall.

[53:29]

I don't know how to answer the particulars of our political state, but to trust that our heart, our body, and even that that is going on is a part of the same collective universe. And from there, You have to take your own personal action. You can revolt. You can move. You can protest. You can run for office. But let it come from that grounded place first. Sorry I don't have a better answer. I've been looking for one too. I'll circle back if I come up with something. This is more of an expression of gratitude from Lori Thomas.

[54:36]

Mostly wanted to thank Eli for helping me see how tightly my fist has been closed and that I have been trying to pry my fist open instead of supporting it with the other hand. She says thank you. Deep bow to you, Lori. Sending you a high five through the screen. She's laughing at that too, I know. Trust yourself, Lori. You have so much more wisdom than I think you know. Keep wiggling your fingers, and hopefully we can do one of those next time I see you. One more. My daughter's like, when are you going to be back? She has this thing. So I'm going to be back after this question. What do you mean by compassion? It seems to me it could be an action or a thought or a feeling. I don't believe I can feel somebody else or what they're feeling.

[55:40]

And I suspect it's not an action. And I can project what they're feeling, and that's a thought. I think compassion is inherent. It's also something that we can, on an individual level, cultivate those teachings that this whole being is compassion, meaning you too. But it can, I think, be hard to touch into and to recognize. I think what's helped me is just becoming intimately aware of how I respond to things I actually care about. And then growing that circle, growing that circle, noticing where I have points of contraction or restriction breathing into them.

[56:45]

That's an act of compassion. And so I think practices of giving, even if they did feel foreign at first, can also help cultivate that energy. Let's start with a deep out-breath. What do I got for you for right now? I think Cam's going to... I'd like to ask one more question. Again, appreciate it. You were talking about that sense of belonging. And as someone who's, I've lived a rather unconventional life, and I travel a lot, and I don't have the same grounding and reading that most humans in different societies have with close families and routines and homes.

[57:53]

And for a long time, I was on a quest of finding that sense of belonging and feeling like, oh, I don't belong anywhere. And now just through some of my healing, I'm really trying to transition into I belong everywhere, not that I don't belong anywhere. So I was just wondering if you could speak a little bit about that sense of belonging. And I think it is something that's such a human quest to belong when we evolve and change. And maybe we don't feel the same sense of connection to our loved ones or... things that are happening around the world, but how to come back to that sense of belonging no matter where you are and no matter what's going on. I'd just love to hear more about that. Thank you for the question. I'm a tanto now, so I guess sitting, actually recognizing in a somewhat, you know, practice-based, routine, ritual way that I am here. I am made of the same elements of the... you know, surround me.

[58:55]

Feeling the ground, feeling the earth's elements that are always here supporting you. What I like to do when I travel is set up an altar wherever I am. So I have this little, I got a new little stone, little Buddha that's about that big that a student gifted me. I have a little mini... It's about that big. What I like to do is wherever I'm at, go out and just collect some foliage somewhere and place it in there. And so it's a good way to just ground myself in the day. If you have yoga practices, any kind of body practices, again, because usually when we feel connected to our body and our emotional state, we kind of are able to vibe with wherever we're at. Besides that, as I said in the beginning here, some of my expressions sort of be as kind as silence is the sound.

[60:03]

Basing yourself in something that allows you to feel more connected or to more curious to the world. If appropriate, find something that kind of elicits a strong connection or bonding, like smile. That usually is a good way in most places, offering an attitude of friendliness. And then when we don't feel a sense of belonging, give yourself a hug. This really works somatically with both arms. Long exhales, that seems to be an answer. Phone a friend. Those are just a few of the things. But, yeah. If anybody else has any tips, she'll be standing right outside the door there. And I'll be over there later for tea after I go get the young one. But thank you all for coming. Please take a walk.

[61:09]

We have tea in Cookie City, right? Okay. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[61:43]

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