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. A lovely green culture, everyone. And another bright and sunny day. Somewhere the sun is shining, I think. We haven't seen you here for six weeks at night. So we're taking a lot of vitamin D tablets. For you folks who haven't been here before, this is the first Sunday of the month. And this is the children's day. Always the first day of the month. So welcome to our parents and kids.

[01:00]

Somebody asked me about this. Why do you carry a stick? The stick is called a kotsu in Japanese. When you receive diamond transmission, your teacher gives you the stick, entrusts the stick with you as being worthy of passing on the teaching of the Buddha. I guess you might say a symbol of the lineage, acid, not the lineage, and it's carved like that. In fact, my teacher, Mel Weitzman, carved a specialty for a tree, a piece of wood that came from a special kind of tree, not in the days, but in Africa. So I have a special feeling for it. You see it's shaped Some people say shape like long tongue.

[02:05]

Long tongue. Well, they have a long tongue because there's so much to talk about in patients. It could be a dragon song, too. I just make that up. Okay, we're called a kotsu, and I feel very honored to bring it in here. It's a reminder that today I want to carry this, that I have to who should or feel responsible for not these merchant teachings. The first thing we do for you folks who have been here is that even as talking to the kids, they will start in June. And after 10 minutes or so, they'll go out and then the gate, who all the children will continue. So I do have a little thing to read to you today in the story.

[03:07]

I'm sure that most of you have heard this. I'm positive that most of you have heard this. Most of the parents, almost everybody in this room has heard this. I hadn't heard this particular story until I saw a movie in which it was featured. I'll come back later. And the story is called The runaway bunny. Do you know that one? Do you know the runaway bunny? How many of you know the runaway bunny? Sleep. How many youth folks know the runaway bunny? Oh, that's enough. The runaway bunny by Margaret Whites Brown. Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away. So he said to his mother, I am running away.

[04:09]

If you run away, said his mother, I will run after you, but you are my little bunny. If you run after me, said the little bunny, I will become a fish and a trout spree and I will swim away from you. If you become a fish and a trout spree, said the mother. I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you. If you become a fisherman, said the little bunny, I will become a rock on a mountain high above you. If you become a rock on a mountain high above you, said mother, I will become a mountain climber and I will climb to where you are. If you become a mountain climber, said the little bunny, I will be a flower in a hidden garden. If you become a heart flower in a hidden garden, said the mother, I will be a gardener and I will find you. If you are a gardener and find me, said little bunny, I will be a bird and I'll fly away from you.

[05:18]

If you become a bird and fly away from me, said his mother, I will be a tree that you come home to. If you become a tree, said little bunny, I will become a sailboat. And I'll sail away from you. If you become a sailboat and sail away from me, said his mother, I'll become the wind that blow where you want to go. If you become the wind, said the little bunny, I'll join a circus and fly away on a flying trapeze. If you go flying on a flying trapeze, said his mother, I'll be a tightrope walker. And I will walk across the air to you. If you become a type of walker to walk across the air, said the little bunny, I'll become a little boy and run into a house. If you become a little boy and run into a house, said the little bunny, I'll become your mother and catch you in my arms and hug you. Shucks, said the bunny.

[06:21]

Might as well just stay where I am, if you get the little bunny. Have a carrot. You know that's right? Have you ever wanted to run away? Is there anybody here who hasn't wanted to run away? We'll talk about this a little bit, but in the movie, which is called Movie Wink, many of you probably saw it. The woman who plays the teacher of in a counselor who was a student of metaphysical court, Dr. Dunn in particular, said at this point that she's reading it, Torella Carson, who's lying and dying in lead cancer, and once the curious read it, they're called by Dunn.

[07:25]

She says, oh, what a lovely terrible result. She said, the soul tries to fly away and hide, but God will always find it. Somebody will always find you when you hide. Okay, that's one story. Do you have any questions? Who liked that story? Who didn't like it? Go ahead. Somebody said, well, that's just to control him up. He said, I can do what he wants. So there are many ways to read this story. Yeah. Another thing I just want to talk to you about is I want to ask you a question.

[08:25]

Well, I asked this question before. But it's a few years ago, and I think right now all the kids that heard this question before have grown up and have not raised. The question is, among people, people like us, just among people, what is the most powerful thing, the strongest thing among people that we do every day? What do you think it is? What? Hurt the earth? Well, that's certainly something that we do. I had something else to learn about politics. But that's good. That's a really good thing. We've been right there pushing a lot. We do a lot of things. Anybody else say, what is it? We do a lot of time. I'm ready right now. What is a powerful thing that we do? Teaching? Teaching? What am I doing with my mouth?

[09:29]

Talking. So what do I can do when I talk? What do you do when I talk? What do you use? We use the tongues, yes, but what we're going to call this stuff? Words. What is the most powerful thing in the world? What is the most powerful thing in the world? Words. Words and how we use them. You know that? Have you heard the saying, sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me? Have you heard that? Do you think that's true? It's true that sticks and stones can break your bones, but how about words? If somebody says, oh, you're so beautiful, I just love you. If you're good. If somebody says, just an opposite, somebody says something that makes you feel bad, You see how strong that is. So words are very important because we make the whole world out of our words.

[10:32]

And so how we use our words is different. How we use our words is important. If somebody calls you a dumb guy, you don't feel very good. If somebody says you're the smartest person in the world, you feel good. So how we, before we say something to somebody, what's a good practice? Think, well, yes. But I have another one that was caught to leave by a friend of my mother's. And she said, she's a very popular woman, a lovely woman, very simple and direct person. But she never offended anybody that she held back. She said, I always taste my words. I taste my words. I will always remember that. So let's taste our words. Before we speak.

[11:36]

To ration too quickly. Sometimes when I sit here, I taste when I go so long, I forgive myself. You have any question you want to ask me? Do you think I'm scary? Well, if I were you, I think I'm scary. I remember when I used to go to church, I'd see people all dressed in black, and they'd work funny things on their heads and so on, where they could get you a shorter church. I had a cousin, and the cousin would sit there and say, look at the ghosts. Look at the ghosts. You think I'm a ghost? Yeah. Anyway, I think you're anxious to go and do something with all that energy that you have. I wish I had a little more of your energy.

[12:40]

Okay. Thank you for coming and listening to me. If you'd like a seat closer to the front, please come on down. You never know what kind of seeds you're planting as you sit here and talking to the young people.

[13:59]

I love that story because, of course, it's such an allegory for our life. And if you've seen that movie, it's called Wick. And it is about Emma Thompson and Eileen Atkins, two extraordinary English actresses. Just extraordinary. And I watched recently again parts of people, actually watched certain scenes on YouTube. The last was a couple of scenes that always left in my mind because it was a play, it wasn't, before it was an off-Broadway play. I'm not sure, but it was made in a movie for HDO and Mike Nichols directed it about 10 or so years ago. And I think the movie covers so many bases because it is essentially about a woman who learns the love words, but it's very much about learning words early in her life.

[15:09]

And she became engrossed in the power of words and the power of language, an English girl growing up. And she becomes entirely, as I said, a professor of metaphysical literature. And at one point in the movie, in the movies about her dying of cancer you've seen, but for flashbacks, there's a scene in which she goes to see her teacher, her thesis teacher, her master teacher, and that's Eileen Atkins playing the part. And apparently she has presented a translation of that one of God's poems that the teacher finds fault with. And what the teacher said, I think, is very important to her. And I think the whole play, in a sense, revolved around this particular thing, a statement that the teacher makes to her.

[16:19]

And it goes, I wrote it down, it goes like this. Well, she said to her, If you want to translate some translation, I think, some dramatic translation that you've just done, you should maybe study Shakespeare. And not done, not a metaphysical quote you've done. She said, now this is Eileen Gatman's, it's a features thing. But it is ultimately, well, maybe before I, I should be from home. I should keep publishing. You know, John Banner is very difficult. He's called Death Be Not Proud, though some have called thee so. And this poem keeps coming back to her because she's died, of course, of cancer. I think ovarian cancer. Death be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful. For thou art not so.

[17:20]

For those whom thou thinkest thou dost overthrow, die not for death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep which but thy pictures mean much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow, as soon as our best men with thee doth go, rest of their bones and souls deliver. Thou art slave to fate, Chants kings and desperate men, and dust with war and sickness dwell. And puppy or charms can make us sleep as well, and better than thy stroke. Why, why swellest thou lemon? Once short sleep past, we wake eternally. Once short sleep past, we wake eternally.

[18:21]

and death shall be no more, death thou shalt die. She says, I.e. Atkins says about that poem, but it is ultimately about overcoming the insuperable barriers separating life, death, and eternal life. Well, that's what all religious practices are about, isn't it? The insuperable barriers, seeing barriers separating life, death, and eternal life. In the addition you, meaning in a consonant, in the addition you chose, this profoundly simple meaning is sacrificed to the hysterical postulation. And death, capital D, shall be no more, semicolon, death, capital D, comma, thou shalt die, exclamation point. And then she says, now, I would choose, she said, Helen Gardner's version from 1610.

[19:27]

I don't know who Helen Gardner is, maybe some scholars do. It reads, and death shall be no more, comma, death thou shall die. She says, nothing but a breath. A comma separates life from death, from life everlasting. Nothing but a pause, a comma separates life from life everlasting. Death is no longer something to act out on a stage with exclamation points. It is a comma, a pause. Life, death, soul, God, past, present. Not as Super Bowl barriers, not a semicolon, just a comma. just a cow.

[20:29]

I thought the day's cow should be called just a cow. Anyway, before we go up, I would like to exhort you actually to see it remotely. Very seldom to be seen movies of all people dying, going through the process of dying and death and what they face. And done with art, done with great skill, done with great humanity, humility, power, and art. I can't watch that last scene, Ronald A. A. Atkins Townsend. And that scene comes in and Tim Townsend is on the very last breath. struggling for a breath of life. We had just agony and pain. And she'd tell me, it sounds wonderful, wonderful thing. It just brings tears to my eyes every time I see it. I get all weeping.

[21:31]

It just really strikes the heart, the center of the heart. And she asked if she should read her something. Well, first she looks around to see if she closes. And she lies down next to Emma Thompson. And she holds her close. Emma Thompson's life, we learn from Flashbacks have been actually dedicated to academia. But she lost her soul somewhere along the way. She became a very cold person and has no friends. So she's got it wrong. And the old teacher comes to see this and comforts her. And she says, shall I read you something from? I'll read you something from down. And then Thompson says, no. Yes, she says, no. And she said, Eileen Atkins is an old lady, very old. She said, I've been shopping for my great-grandson. And she reaches in and pulls out this book, this child.

[22:33]

And then reach up at home. Oh, so beautiful. So touching. A couple words at the right time and the right place make such a difference in her life. I was thinking also recently about, you know, the night that Buddha sat, you know, the legend of the Buddha sitting under the tree, the stump of a tree, as his mind turned over, as the world turned over. And then as Mara came forward, Mara being the power of the world, the worldly one who assaults him. Tries to make him move. Tries to move him from his place where he says, I shall not move from this place till I understand the truth and overcome birth and death.

[23:40]

I shall not move from there. He made that resolve. That was the whole purpose of his sitting finally after years of practice of asceticism. You know, I'm sorry. You've seen the movie. different versions of this, but this comes down to finally being assaulted with first of his lust. Mara brings on the dancing pearls. But Mara was very smart to do that because that girl Buddha had been a prince and he had access to innumerable beautiful dancing pearls. And he left that all behind. So that didn't work for him. be seduced by the death. So Mara brings forward armies and assaults of violence and so on. And finally, nothing seems to do with the Buddha. And he says to the Buddha, these armies are my witnesses. Who witnesses you? Buddha, of course, points to the earth as his witness. This very earth is my witness.

[24:43]

And he says, in some versions, he says to Mara, I know who you are. You are my own lying. So, the power of our thoughts, you see, the power of the images that we've ingested through language, through experience, that have become reified in our life, that have become solidified in our life, that have solved our minds, that have separated us by hysterical punctuation, from our true nature. The whole practice is to turn back into ourselves and see that whole process by which we have been seduced by the power of our thoughts, by the power of thinking.

[25:51]

Now, in most Eastern religions, native, all religions, probably Christianity and well, I'm sure, in the mystical traditions, there is this sense that this world that we call the world does not exist the way we think, or have been conditioned to think. And the reason that is so is because, you know, a lot of the teachings, both the Vedanta teachings and the Buddhist teachings, is because the self, as we understand it, cannot understand, that is to say, let's call the self at this point, consciousness. Consciousness and subjectivity cannot understand itself without the logic, you see. The word consciousness in Sanskrit. Vrijnana means two.

[26:56]

Two sides. It's split because there cannot be a subject without an object. They have to arise together. And Buddha said, when this is, that is. When this isn't, that isn't. When you're in deep sleep at night, where is the world? Where are you in deep sleep? When you dream at night, You're dreaming something. There's some sort of paradigm, you could call it, some sort of seemingly real place of which events are unfolding one way or another. That's another state of consciousness. There's a subject. And then you wake up in the morning and there's the world, you think. And immediately all of our condition comes back and there's this separation in this world. That must do so as the subject devised into an object. So in the beginning, there is only the one which you cannot know.

[28:01]

And the one devising the two. Who crossed the stream, what's his name? And looked down and saw his face. Saw his face. I can't remember her name. Saw his face in the street. All at once he woke up, he said, I suddenly understand. I am not it. It actually is me. Everything is me. Now that's how, of course, we think that's hysterical punctuation. Everything is me. But how would a subject know itself if it wasn't at home? You see? We're always objectifying ourselves. So both the Vedadric tradition and the Buddhist tradition tells us that when you look at others, what you're seeing is yourself.

[29:05]

But that self is not the self that you've been conditioned through thinking and so on, to believe as yourself. All the stories that you've told yourself have been told. That is to say, the mind-body complex is not the real self. suffering lies beyond that. In Buddhism, we call it the Dharma Datu. Some schools do. They don't all agree what that means, but they serve the ground in being. That which is the condition of the conditions before the arising of all of this and cannot be known directly except when it divides itself and creates a world. How do we get in touch with that? How do we experience the one of the systems? How do we drop our stories? How do we give up the hysterical punctuation? How do we finally get to a place where there's just a comma and putting this and this? Well, that's what all of our practices are about, you see.

[30:07]

The best practice being probably silence. Getting to a place where all of this hubbub up here slows down of the stories beginning. Slow down a little bit. That's what Sazam does. That's what any meditation practice does, is to slow down the hysterical population that we're involved with. And it's becoming more hysterical all the time. We're getting bombarded from all sides with information. We're trying to program every more information. And our identities are understood as And when that changes, then it all will not change. And the self that is watching seems to change. We become dissatisfied when you look for the next thing going, don't we? At least, it seems real.

[31:09]

Never quite satisfied that we have the final answer. So we're always searching to get something. We're looking up, and if you understand this teaching itself, It's absurd because you don't exist in that way to begin with. You are that out there. There is nothing to get, you see. But we don't know that. We haven't learned that. So the practices will slowly unveil all of these layers that we have folded ourselves up into. We call the self, which is always unsatisfactory because it's always dying and changing. We're always searching for the scent that is ourself, says the scripture. Well, that's the kind of, you see, I'm using assertions of all sorts. I'm using language to try to overcome our language.

[32:15]

And if you're programming the scent, oh, I don't think I understand. Watch out. Because for paradoxical, we have to, thus have I heard first. Always thus have I heard first you hear it. We practice with it. We meditate on it. And then you let it go. Because there's nothing to hold on to. The whole practice is trying to help us to let go. And we can't do it. I say, I yell out. I can't do it. And the asshole comes back. Do it. [...] There are people who have done it. There are three people. We understand that what this is is perfect perfection. The word was perfection. Exactly obvious.

[33:16]

Because it does not exist the way our minds interpret it as being. That does not mean that we don't take care of the world. It does not mean that we just lie back. You can't just lie back. The life that I am living and you are living according to these teachings, this is a perfect life. Right now, in this moment, right now, it's a perfect life. Nothing needs to be added to it. Nothing needs to be subjective. Do we believe that? No. We should have thought, well, 80% I believe, but I feel there's a 20% of something missing. We kind of like, in our lineage, it was then, then you can refer to this particular monk too. His name was, well, he's called E.Q. Zenji. He celebrated because he was a really nonconformist and kind of a radical figure and lived in the 17th century, 17th century, 16, or around 169, something like that.

[34:25]

About the time that the great civil wars were in Japan. kind of in response to the Germanic chaos, and the Christian body gives energy was what, but he was actually the emperor's son, so he's high-war, he was more of the lady in waiting, who, as some writers have said, perhaps wait too long, and he was more of the way back to the emperor, because this lady in waiting fell into this favor with the powerful clan, So early in her life she took her son and left when he was six or seven years old at the monastery. And he was brought up in a very strict environment. Very, very strict indeed, but he was a very wild kid. And he's being foreign, but he was also a super scholar. And he did beautiful collaboratively. In fact, eventually he would be Partly responsible for tea ceremony and calligraphy and many of the arts that have come down to those traditions.

[35:34]

But anyway, he grew up and finally went to, gave up the kind of establishment and went into the hills outside of Kyoto and practiced with a teacher named, I think his name's Kisu. Very hard teacher, did not develop any ego at all. And at one night, well, Ikkyo was out roaring, and they'd be well. He heard a crow. His mind opened. That is to say, everything fell away. Everything that he had been holding on seemed to dissolve. It wasn't as if the world managed. Everything was there. But there was no substance. There was nothing left to hold him. He was free. He had always been free. We realized that. We rose back quickly to show him as a teacher. The teacher is very happy to see this. Gives him a certification. He gets certified. Now I understand. And of course, Ikkyu being Ikkyu tears it up and walks away from this.

[36:40]

Later, he did regret that he did this. Not because the subject had meant anything, but because it was simply an acknowledgement from the teacher that he finally understood. He had his teacher smile. He passed him on his thing. It was just a comma, after all. Well, anyway, Ikki was famous for his poetry. Ikki was the one who made it many poems, and they made it love poems. He spent a lot of his time eating pork and spinning it in brothels. He had a lover when he was 78 years old, a blind musician. He made more, and he writes many lovely love poems about it. And, but, and he also lived a very isolated life, in mountains and so on. And a very disciplined life, and when he was 80 years old he was made the abbot of that kokaji, one of the great Zen temple was the children. And he was ashamed to have to put on the purple rope, but he did.

[37:41]

In fact, the temple had burned down during the interlacing warmers and he built it up again. But, at some point, there's a story about it which trying to get to here. And the story is this. He's serving tea to one of his, I think it was, I don't know if it was a stute to another priest. Anyway, someone came to have tea with him. And Ike poured him a cup of tea, except he didn't pour anything. He just simply poured the pot, but there was nothing in it. And he said, I would love to give you something, but in the Zen tradition, there's nothing at all. But there was nothing at all. And the answer of the other one was, the nothing at all that you have served me has the most delicious taste in the universe. And E.Q. recognized a fellow that E.Q. understood as well. This is, of course, the doctrine of emptiness, that nothing has inherent existence.

[38:46]

Nothing that should ever grasp the groundlessness of being itself. They understood that we live in this groundlessness of being that nobody can finally get hold of. And he was happy. He was a happy man. That's what we all wish for, isn't it? To be like that, to have that fall away. But you see, the thing is, we can't make it happen. The only way we can make it happen is by giving up everything. And if we give it up to make it happen, it'll never happen. One of the reasons that we, in monastic practice, and one of the reasons people do it is because you try to give up your own preferences, you have a schedule. The schedule becomes the teacher. At 4 a.m. you do this, at 5 a.m. you do this, at 5.30 at this, at 6 a.m. this, at 7 a.m. this, at 8 a.m. this, and so on, all day long. And of course, human beings being what we are, sooner or later walk against that, you see.

[39:50]

I like this, but I don't like that. I want to do this, but I want to do this now. I don't want to do what I have to do now. I don't want to go to the kitchen now, I'd rather sit now. I don't want to sit now, I'd rather go to the kitchen now. I don't want to go to the kitchen, I'd rather sit now, I'd rather sleep now. But what this brings up, you see, this kind of pressure and so on, this kind of, is how it actually works, how we're listening to our minds, how Mara comes forward and the world comes forward and entices us. So until we are ready or until something comes along and takes it all from us, well, of course, all of our dreams will come to naught eventually. You'll bury me or I'll bury you. That's basically, that's what we come to do. But that's okay. That's the way it is. But what the eyes, you see? We give it all up and what, everything has been given up, what is left? What is left?

[40:53]

when you get everything up, there's nothing, no thoughts, no people, no places, no things, it's all gone. And you're still here. What is left? What is left is who you are. That's the teaching. Sometimes called Buddha Mind, sometimes called the Atman, sometimes called God, sometimes called Christ Consciousness, Allah. But it's a paradox. You can't get it if you try. But what you can do is practice. What you can't do is be humble. What you can't do is be helpful. What you can't do is hear about it, think about it, practice it, lift it with silence, reach out a hand and cuddle somebody, take care of your life. Because the other part of this is that when this happens, it's strange enough, when this happens, everything is seen the same. Everything from the smallest to the largest is understood.

[41:53]

Really nothing else but God or Buddha or that. You can't run away from it, you see. That's why we're here. It's chasing us. Once we know this, we know we are this, but we can't get there. Finally, you know, I never know what I'm going to say when I get here, so I want to also listen to one more thing. I say this to everybody now. When you listen to somebody, particularly somebody who's sitting here, or anybody, instead of just trying to digest the words, turn your attention back to yourself and notice what your reactions are. Because we're either doing this,

[42:56]

We're not going to try to pull it in. Oh, we're doing that. We're going away from it. Oh, we're just indifferent. And if we keep our minds turned back into the reactive patterns that we have developed and watch out reactions over and over again without judging them. It's possible without judging. And notice all the negative reactions. Oh, I don't like this. I don't like her. I don't understand this. I'm too fat. I'm too fat. I'm too tired. I'm too something. And not judging. Just notice it. Get acquainted with that. Get to know it yourself. Though he says, when that happened to him, body and mind fell off. It seems to be what happens. Body and mind disappear. And yet consciousness is here. And we are that subjectivity. I am that.

[43:59]

I am thou. Thou art me. All mystical traditions say the same. In fact, I wrote down this poem. St. Augustine said, My mind in a flash of trembling glance came to absolute being. My mind in a flash of trembling glance came to absolute being. This is this bhagadhatu, this Buddha-like is also called still being. Reality itself. I think it's important that we have some faith in that is so. That our life is workable in that direction. Otherwise, Mara has a field day. It's in that right now. To say that in any literature, Mara is not as heavy as the devil in the Western. In fact, there are certainly not Stories about Mara and Buddha dealing together and complaining about what they have to put up with Buddha, complaining, I don't really understand.

[45:02]

Mara says that people are always going over to the other side of Buddha, and the commissioner can shut up. But we can't have Mara without Buddha. We can't have God without a devil, and so on. We see that about it. It's always broken in the picture. We can't have a president, you like it. If you don't have a president, you dislike it. And so on and so forth. Right down the line. Right down the line. Finally, I just want to bring this up. And then we'll quit. And have a global or something. About 40 some years ago, when I was doing this in San Francisco, it was a time, you know, it was a time, you know, so many of you didn't remember that time. It was a time to do infinite possibilities. We were young. That was about 38 years old, years old. And there was a lot happening out here, and it seemed that the world was opening up to new possibilities, and the music seemed to support that.

[46:07]

Anyway, it's so-called counter-culture, and there were possibilities, abundant possibilities for us to present. And there was a band back then, called The Incredible Strip Band. I don't know if you remember that. the incredible string band had a wonderful record called the Big Huge. And then the Big Huge, I think it was the Big Huge, and then the Big Huge versus the tiny note. There was a song called Maya, Maya, Maya. And the word for Maya, Maya, all this world is better playing be thou the joyful player. I remember that hit me so hard at the time. All this world is but a play without a joyful play. I even wrote it down and wrote it in big letters and put it up on the wall. I felt like a joyful play. Everything seemed joyful. So I looked that up, and some of the lyrics were, God is his soul, infinity is gold.

[47:15]

The mystery was sourced, is what God is it saying. They also saw the great ship, the ship of the world, long time sailing. Mariners, mariners, and their sails. Jesus and Hitler and the rich of the Lionheart. Three kings and Moses and Queen Cleopatra. The cobbler, the maiden, the mender and the maker. The scender and the butcher and the glad and the digger. The shepherd of willows, the harper and the archer. All sat down in one boat together. Troubled voyage. in calm waters. Isn't that beautiful? Troubled voyage in calm water. That's the world. It's trouble. If we want the calm water, we know there's the calm water. But when there's trouble for it, truthfully, all of this world is part of pain. We got a joyful prayer. When that was solved, but eventually my usual old habits came back and I became less than a joyful prayer.

[48:16]

Then I began to do devotion. And then the others. Wonderful teachers. Chokwe and Trampard. That was a great job in those days. Alan Watts. Brother David. Who wrote the seven stories. They were all brilliant. You're all gone. They pass it on to us. They pass it on to you. We have to carry it on. We try to carry it on. It's a joyful prayer. Even though what you'll see here from me, it might run. Underneath, I know. I should, but underneath, there's a joyful prayer. Otherwise, I couldn't sit here and talk to you. I really couldn't. You can ask my wife if it's true. Thank you very much.

[49:28]

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.

[49:59]

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