This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. My name is Christina Lenher. My Dharma name is Kiku Hoetsu, which means loom of emptiness, Dharma rapture or Dharma joy or Dharma ecstasy. I'm currently the abiding abbess here, and I want to welcome all of you to have come through the rain to be here. And I'm curious who amongst you is here for the very first time. Raise your hand. One, two, keep your hands up. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Special welcome to you. Thank you.

[01:00]

You know, every Saturday somebody else is sitting in this seat and sharing the Dharma. So if you don't like what you hear today, just come back. Because, you know, we all have a particular way of expressing ourselves and it might just not meet you. So give yourself and us a chance. Just keep coming back till you have enough come to really have a response from your heart more than from your head, whether there is something here for you or not. And you're the ultimate authority on that. It's not us or anybody else. But often we, you know, a lot of things may be foreign to you and they get in the way at the beginning, you know, all that stuff here and the forms or other things. So just if you feel it, you have it in you, just come a few times when it works for you and find out for yourself.

[02:08]

That's also what the Buddha said. He said, don't believe anything, what I'm saying. You have to examine it. You have to take it into your life to find out if... If it's something for you, if it's a help for you to wake up. David last week said, you all came, everybody who comes here comes because there's a longing to be awake, to be living your life fully. Whatever that is your life, not the one you think it is, but the one that actually is your life. Which leads to one part of what I want to talk. about today is, you know, here we're practicing one form of the Buddha's teaching. There are many different forms. There are Tibetan forms. There are Theravada forms in different countries.

[03:12]

And even in the same school, which is Mahayana school we're in, the forms are different. The Korean... practice different, the Vietnamese practice different, the Tibetan practice different, and amongst the Theravadan there are differences too. So this is just one form we're practicing. But all the Buddhist schools go back to some very basic tenets of Buddhism. And I'll just reinstate those, because without having those kind of as the background, it's very hard to understand or very easy to completely misunderstand what we're doing or what the practice is about. So the first are that there are three, that reality has three characteristics. And those are, one is all phenomena, all phenomena, everything that

[04:19]

we see and perceive as form is unstable and unworthy of confidence. Isn't that interesting? Even this is unworthy of confidence. You know, it may stand up for 10 years and one day we pick it up and it just falls apart on us. So that means everything is changing continuously. And because of that, there is an unsatisfactoriness to it. It doesn't satisfy us in terms of being stable, trustworthy, reliable. But we want that, so we run into trouble with that. Because we keep thinking, well, this is now the stable partner I'm having. And then the next thing you know is... They might get sick or they might die or they might have, you know, wonderful sides.

[05:25]

And sometimes exactly the same thing that's wonderful in certain areas is what kind of drives you up the wall in other areas. So that's the second one. The third one is there is no permanent... inherent self or identity in anything. Everything is compounded from innumerable things that come, circumstances and conditions that come to bear to make it arise and keep changing. So you might move in with your best friend with which you have traveled and you had wonderful times and you think that's the best person to live. in the same apartment with. And then you move in. And then suddenly you discover that you may have different standards in terms of taking care of what needs to be taken care of every day or you deal with things in a different way, with time, with commitments, with space.

[06:46]

And it's like you discover a new person. And then we think, well, we get upset rather than say, oh, maybe living together in the same space is actually not really working for us so well, but we can still be friends. So friendships break apart based on that. And you would not have been able to know that ahead of time because those circumstances of being, sharing the same space, Didn't occur. It's not the same to live there every day when you work, then, for example, to go travel and sharing space. So we can't know ahead of time most of the things that may change. So these are the three things. So neither I nor you have a permanent self. The way we perceive and the way we look usually doesn't tell us that so clearly. Then there are four truths that Buddha discovered that are called the Four Noble Truths, that life, where there is life, there is inevitably also suffering.

[08:01]

It's not life equals suffering period or all of life is suffering, but there is no life that has not some amount of suffering in it. And it may just be that you get ill or that your house burns down or you lose somebody you like because everything is subject to change. So in life, where there is life, there is also suffering. And there are two types of suffering. Some, I would say, is just objective, neutral suffering. Like you get I get sick. Somebody else gets sick and I have to take care of them and can't do what I want to do or thought I wanted to do if I don't want to take care of them. Or a plan I had or a job I wanted is not coming into being.

[09:06]

It's not happening. So that is objective. That's just... The way it is. The suffering that Buddhism talks about is the suffering that we actually create by how we relate to those things. Why me? Why is this happening to me right now? I just had a case of that. I was sitting in my room preparing to talk and I had put some milk on my little pot plate to warm it up. And the next thing I know is kind of shh. and the burnt milk smell. And, you know, and then it didn't stay just on the hot plate. It kind of, you know, kind of spread out and on the floor and everywhere. And I had an attack of, that's so, why is this happening now and that's so unfair? And, you know, I was just mad at the universe, which is, of course...

[10:06]

It doesn't change anything in the universe, but it actually changes my well-being radically in the moment. So that's the kind of suffering that Buddha is talking about. I'm attached to it going smoothly. I don't even think, oh, too bad, I forgot that I put the milk on and... Because it was definitely clearly my fault. It wasn't the stove's fault, not the milk's fault, not the pan's fault. It was my fault. I forgot. But I'm mad. First, I think, why is this happening to me? And then I can be mad at myself that I forgot, which just doesn't help either. So this kind of suffering, why me? So somebody once said, they always use, they start, when that comes up in them, they say, why not me? Why should this happen better to somebody else than me? To kind of get out of that a little bit and help them. So the cause of suffering is the I and mine and attachment to what the I thinks should happen or what it would like or what it doesn't like.

[11:22]

And that's the other thing about no... no permanent self, actually ultimately there is no I and mine if you really understand that everything is continuously influenced and changing. And then that's the second truth that there is a cause to that kind of suffering that we create and that's attachment and craving and this idea of I and mine and how I want things to be and how I don't want them to be. and trying to manipulate the world according to that and organize everything. The third truth is there is an end to suffering. It's possible to end that kind of suffering. So it's not possible to not die. It's not possible to never get sick. It's not possible to never lose a loved one. But it's possible to end that additional suffering that we create by

[12:25]

not knowing that's just the way it is and how to feel what we feel without creating an additional story about it. And then the fourth truth is there is a path that helps us to become free of the suffering. That's called the Eightfold Path. So all of Buddha's teachings is And practices are geared to help us realize that it doesn't help us just to know it in our heads. We have to actually experience it. We have to actually begin living in harmony or in alignment or in accord with those truths. Then that frees us from suffering. So This is a practice that is actually pointing to a transformation at the base of our perceptions and of our thinking.

[13:40]

Our perceptions and our thinking don't really function on that deep realization of everything is impermanent, everything is changing, everything is fleeting. There's no moment exactly the same as the moment before. But we treat usually our lives like it's forever. And that... even when nothing big happens is a kind of continuous suffering because we are not fully alive. Everywhere we kind of try to create fixed, stable, that seem to us stable places, we are diminishing the life of us, ourselves, and around us. And we all suffer from that. So it's not about this is bad or this is we should be guilty or it's just can we start studying that?

[14:48]

But that takes an effort because it's kind of one way of saying it is step back and turn the light around because we are oriented outward. When I have a craving, I look outward where it can be satisfied. If I feel unhappy, I look around outside, what is it that makes me unhappy? Oh, this person was unkind to me, or they're asking something of me that I find unfair. So we tend to look outside rather than inside. When we are hurt, we get involved in story that this is really I should be hurt because this person was really mean to me for example or unkind to me and then we stay thinking about the unkindness of the person rather than taking responsibility that actually any feeling that comes up in me is my responsibility nobody is the cause of how I feel

[16:11]

That is, for example, is really hard for us to really practice because everything tells us, no, no, you did blah, blah, blah, and then I felt this way, so you're the cause of how I feel. So to change that and really take in nobody, nothing and nobody is the cause of how I feel. The cause of how I feel has to do with my conditioning, my inclinations, my way of perceiving, and my way of processing what I perceive. So, and that is... really it takes an energetic, it takes a big effort to start really looking at things each time we get triggered to turn that around and start taking care of our own state of mind, our own body, our own energy.

[17:28]

The habitual tendency that we all share is to be focused outward, to fix it outward, to fix the other person, and it doesn't work most of the time. So it is really, and this is a teaching that is a way of life, and it's not the habitual way of life we usually do. It's really deconstructing on some level that way of life with kindness and with the understanding. So the Dalai Lama says, my religion is kindness. And there was a story, it's a story in the, I think it's in the Middle Length Discourses, it's from the old canon of Buddhist teaching, of the Pali canon, that there was a quarrel at Kosambi that was a community of monks, And one monk didn't do, and he was a revered teacher, and didn't do what he was supposed to do.

[18:35]

And a group of other monks felt he should apologize, and he felt he shouldn't apologize. So they started to be divided and have a lot of quarrels and different opinions. And so somebody went to the Buddha, and the Buddha said, you know, can you just loosen up, and can you apologize, and can you not be so rigid about... saying what he has to do to make it right. And it didn't work and so they kept quarreling on. And finally they went again to the Buddha and wanted to have his support. And so he said there are six qualities that... support harmony in communities. And the six qualities, and then it's very interesting in that old text, he always says, it's very short, he always says the first quality in public and in private.

[19:50]

Maintain physical harmony. Maintain bodily acts of loving kindness. So physical harmony is the first one of those. And it's in public and in private. And I thought that was so interesting that he really made a point to say both because we may... Be kind in public or be aware or more self paying attention, more mindful in public. And then in private, do I throw the pan into the sink? I mean, I definitely have the impulse. Do I do it? You know, so and I, you know, and I would I would have the impulse or it would be much easier for me to do in my own little space than I would do it here in the main kitchen. Right. So, but he says in public and in private.

[20:55]

Both. There's no distinction. Maintain bodily acts of loving kindness. So most. Um. Battered wives don't get battered in public. They get battered in private. Most children get abused in private, not in public. These are extreme examples. But I think we all have actually more awareness when we're in public than when we're private. And he says it has to be in both places. If we make that distinction, it won't transform us. It won't wake us up. Kindness also, loving kindness and kindness has the word kin in it. It's kinship because it's what connects us to the realization how interconnected we are all the time and that whatever we do affects the whole universe every moment.

[22:04]

The second harmony is... So it's respecting the physical well-being of others, not physically harming, and taking care of each other. Sometimes we have to take care of somebody because they fall in, and you had a different plan for the day. And are you willing to just wholeheartedly drop that, not go, I, I, I wanted to do this, and now I have to do this. The second one is verbal harmony. Verbal acts of loving-kindness. And that's way more difficult. Thupen Chodron is a Tibetan teacher, and she wrote a whole lecture about those six harmonies, which I actually will feel like I want to discuss with the whole community at some point. I find it just interesting. She says, we each have our own little arsenal of verbal weapons of mass destruction.

[23:10]

Located in our minds that cause great damage. Saying a few words exactly at the time we know it will hurt somebody's feelings. Putting somebody down. Make someone feel guilty. Deligate. Badmouth. Ridicule. make fun of, gossip, forming cliques, scapegoat and exclude. So in the Yom Kippur ceremony there is a place where there is atonement and everybody says, I have scapegoat. I mean, I'm making it up now, but we have engaged in scapegoating. We have engaged in denigrating.

[24:10]

We have engaged in harming people. And it's very stark, but it's also incredibly freeing to actually not hide that. And these are functions of the self that tries to protect itself, and we all have that. So it's not we're sinners and we're bad, we should feel guilty, but we should really wake up to what we do and how it works and how it makes us feel. So honesty and transparency and admitting having made mistakes or having had a... mean thought or having been mean and ask for forgiveness are part of harmonizing in a community. And we've all come here to train in this community. So also people often think this is a holy place and we have no problems.

[25:12]

We have the same problems everybody has everywhere. The third one, and that's because we're human. And Because we live so close together and can't get apart, actually our problems get on the front burner. They get cooked. They come up. We're in a steam cooker. There's pressure because we can't get away from each other. We can't have a problem at work and then go home and forget about it till we go back to work or get that distance. No, we run into the person right the next moment in the kitchen, and they're in front of the line to the food, you know, right there, and take a long time to serve themselves, looking and taking little, you know. We have so many opportunities to do things differently and rub each other the wrong way. And it's an opportunity to practice. It's an opportunity to see, oh, that's I, mine, my way, you know.

[26:17]

So, for example, in harmonizing physically, what is for me always wonderful, the Shuso. Where is the Shuso? Hi, Shuso. The Shuso does, in the morning, treats all the people in the meditation hall by walking along the sitting places with their hands in Gashot. And first she offers incense. So our incense is... straight most of the time it has often a little bent at the bottom or at the top at one end then other people make the ashes so sometimes the ash is very loose sometimes it's very firm so there is a way when the ash is somewhere in between where the incense actually goes in and just stays the way when it's very hard It's hard to place it and it starts falling over because on the way it creates a channel in the hardness.

[27:21]

So the ash around it doesn't close again. If it's too loose, it falls over. So we only get one chance. We put it in and there it is. So I come after the chuseau and do the same thing. I walk in the other direction, but I come in, offer a piece of incense. So my eye wants to always have the incense right in the middle and straight up, right? So I come in, and very often the incense of the Shouseau is right in the middle and straight up, but sometimes it's not. So I have this little moment each time, and it's in my body, to feel what I would like to do and then what I do is I put my incense in exactly the way the other one was in as crooked or as leaning or as and it's when that happens there is a space opening that is not there before because it's

[28:36]

It's not what I want, but it's harmony. And that is way, way, way more heart opening and relaxing and joy bringing than my way. So this is physically harmonizing. So we have tendency, when I stand here each time in front of an altar, I notice when things aren't completely aligned and it does something in my body. And sometimes I align them, but often I don't. I just, I'm becoming curious, how do I harmonize with what I perceive as not aligned? Because there is an alignment with... with what is here, regardless of whether it's aligned. I could then get people and say, see, you're on my side.

[29:40]

Yes, it's not aligned or something like that. But that's not harmonizing. So the third is mental harmony, mental acts of loving kindness. So whenever more than one person is present, We will have differences in views, opinions sooner or later. There's no way around it. Even if only you are present, you will have sometimes different views and conflicting parts in yourself. And so it's not even if you're all by yourself. It's not like that. It's just more apparent and more highlighted. And the more people there are, the more... views and opinions and preferences are there. When I became the head of the meditation hall at Tassajara, the first morning I stood there in that position, one person came up from the right and said, would you mind turning the heat up?

[30:51]

I'm freezing. And the next person came up from my left and said, would you mind opening the windows and turning the heat down? I am cooking in here. I can't stand it. I'm so hot. And I realized off the bat, I will never be able to do it like everybody wants. But that's part of this training. We have this schedule and the whole setup is actually geared of helping us get out of the I want this and I need that. And if I can't have this, I can't. And that's not allergies or that doesn't include allergies. You should eat what's on the table, even if you have an allergy. But it's these things. I will prefer it this way or I will prefer it that way because. And we all try to do that. A lot of our conversations are about how we could make this place better according to my wishes, to what I see would be better.

[31:58]

But then that's again, how can we turn that around? And so differences are opportunities. Because if we can hear each other, we get a chance to see a bigger picture. We can see from more angles than any single person can. And that can inform us and whatever decisions come out are more informed and maybe include more. So very new people can see things that people that have been here for a long time don't see anymore because we've got news to them. So it's good to speak up. It's good to be heard. But also... The decision-making is not everybody can make the decision. It doesn't work. So Buddha, for example, said, you know, there's five years where bhikshunis live with their teachers and they don't make decisions about the whole place. They are invited to speak up, to share their view and their experience.

[33:04]

So, and Benedict... You know, the Benedictine monks have also rules like that. You know, everybody should be heard and not everybody makes the decision. But also the seniors should practice well so that they are worthy of the trust. So it's not just, oh, you obey, but also we have to live up to being trusted. and practice, and that has to be visible and tangible. So the monks from Kosambi went to the Buddha when the community started saying, we're not giving you alms anymore. We're not supporting you anymore. You're just quarreling all the time. That was when their livelihood didn't work anymore. Then they were willing to go and listen to the Buddha. So our... livelihood depends too to a big degree on how we are perceived.

[34:11]

And do speak up. Do share your views. So last time I put out the practice of appreciation and I have still some copies of that and I'll put them out again if anybody who wasn't here didn't pick one up can pick one up because in some ways to do this inner work which is actually quite intense to really look at your what motivates you how do you harmonize when do you not harmonize and what's the story you're telling yourself when you think I shouldn't harmonize with this but Yeah, it's really an abusive situation. No, then don't harmonize with it. But maybe it's just me having a preference. Then can you let go of that?

[35:12]

Like, for example, if we have different opinions, somebody came to see me yesterday and said, I'm, you know, I'm, we're two directors. One is the practical director and one is the administrative director. And I love the person, and we now have to make a decision. We have completely different solutions for the decision. And then she said, if I drop my view, then I feel like I'm betraying something. So then we talked about that very often, actually we don't look at the values that on which the view is based and we think when we drop the solution what we think has to happen to maintain these values means dropping the values but these are two things so if the two can meet together and say

[36:21]

about what is the value that I think is being supported in this scenario. And the other person can say, and these are my values that I feel are supported in that scenario. They may have very similar values, and together they may come up with a form that works and maintains the values. So when we To help us to become more, feel like we're more in a universe of abundance rather than of lacking, when we practice appreciation as a practice, that is supported. And it helps us to loosen up around opinions. It helps us to let go of fixed views. Because we live in a universe where there is appreciation. where we also appreciate our own efforts, where we appreciate the efforts of others and their work, even though it may need improvement.

[37:29]

But then we also can tell them, give them feedback with appreciation rather than with, you're compromising my position or my job. So how do we look and perceive the world would be a good thing to, for example, pay attention. Do I always notice what's lacking? Just as a general thing. What do I share with my friends? Do I share what didn't go well or do I share what went well? very often we grow up in environments where when everything goes well, well, then we don't have to say anything. We only have to start saying something when things aren't going well. And isn't that the sad thing? I mean, if we only talk when we have a problem, then we live in a world where there's only problems because then others will tell us their problems and then we are just in a miserable world.

[38:42]

So, you know, we didn't get praise in my family, but we got scolded when we had to improve, you know, our appreciation. So we have tendencies. And if we discover those tendencies, we can actually start practicing the opposite, which takes some effort because it doesn't go by itself. And we are practicing it. Wherever we are, we are always practicing something. And I want to read you two things. About kindness, Pema Chodron says, learning how to be kind to ourselves, learning how to respect ourselves is important. The reason it is important is that fundamentally, when we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is confused and what is brilliant, what is bitter and what is sweet, it is not just ourselves that we are discovering.

[40:04]

We are discovering the whole universe. Gandhi says it in a different way. We have to be the change we want to see in the world. We can't delegate it to anybody. We have to be the way we want the universe to be. And that takes this transformation. Dogen says, where is he? He talks about practice. On the great road of Buddha ancestors, there is always unsurpassable practice, continuous and sustained.

[41:07]

It is the circle of the way and is never cut off. Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment and nirvana, there is not a moment's gap. continuous practice is the circle of the way. This being so, continuous practice is unstained, not forced by you or others. It means your practice affects the entire earth and the entire sky in the ten directions. Although not noticed by others or yourself, it is so. So whether we practice our habitual ways or we practice ways that help us to wake up, it affects the entire sky and the entire earth always. We don't see it, we don't notice it, but still it is so.

[42:14]

So kindness is the most important ingredient. If you're judgmental towards yourself or others, it's not going to help. It's going to close down yourself or others and not open up our hearts. If we can be kind to our closed hearts, they will open up in their own time. So it really takes effort and it takes honesty and it takes looking with kindness, not with... I'll get you, kind of, or I have to be vigilant about myself, or there's bad stuff here. That's not helpful. It's just what you could call bad stuff is the stuff that makes you suffer. And if you look with kindness, your heart will go ouch. You know? It will go ouch when you get hurt and then you are angry.

[43:16]

It goes ouch. So then you take care of the energy of anger in you, you don't put it out there. And Hafiz has a wonderful poem that we've heard before, but that says it in a different way, the same thing. It says, now is the time. Now is the time to know that all that you do is sacred. Now, why not consider a lasting truth with yourself and God? Now is the time to understand that all your ideas of right and wrong were just a child's training wheels to be laid aside when you finally live with veracity and love. Hafiz or Hafez

[44:20]

is a divine envoy whom the Beloved has written a holy message upon. My dear, please tell me, why do you still throw sticks at your heart and God? What is it in that sweet voice inside that incites you to fear? Now is the time for the world to know that every thought and action is sacred. This is the time for you to deeply compute the impossibility that there is anything but grace. Now is the season to know that everything you do is sacred. And I think one definition of sacred is that it relates to everything. And God, when Hafez talks about God, for me it's the same as Buddha nature or the spirit that runs through everything that is life.

[45:34]

What is the time? Three after. We won't have... question and answer time because we're sitting a one-day sitting. So if you have questions, this will be the time to ask or comments or different views. You know, you don't have to wear robes, shave your head, move into a monastery or a place. You can start discovering what kindness is wherever you are, and that's the wonderful thing. It doesn't need any particular environment. It's just... And you can start again and again and again.

[46:50]

We lose it all the time. You know, we forget it. We talk here to remind ourselves all the time about it. We all talk about the same thing in different ways. But I just want to really encourage you that it's right in your circumstances is the possibility. Did anybody have their hand up? Yes, please. You mentioned that just now we consider that his idea of spirit being everything and everything is similar to what the food and nature. So before, this is the way the problem for food until before we were talking about Nothing exists. You're just talking about nothing material exists.

[47:54]

But there is the idea of spirit. This might be a long pause. You know, it's very interesting because the Buddhist philosophers... You know, like Nagarjuna talks about this. And in Dogen's writing, it's like it is not, but it also is not not. And, you know, it's kind of like our usual way of thinking that wants to say it is this or it is that. So it's actually befuddled by that or confounded because it's neither this nor that. It's something that is the phenomenal world is possible because there is no inherent continuously existing entity that is unchanging.

[48:58]

So the Hasidic Jews, or actually not the Hasidic Jews, so I hope I'm not making a mistake, Blanche. and otherwise speak up. But in the Torah that's read in the synagogue, only the consonants are written. The vowels are not written. And all the consonants have numbers. So words that seemingly in the conventional world have no connection, when you look at their numeric sum, they have a connection. they have the same number if you add all the numbers they have the same number so they point to connections that are not necessarily visible in the phenomenal world but they are connected and when you start looking you can start seeing it and the the rabbi who reads from the Torah actually has to add the vowels so it's his it's his

[50:06]

he becomes a channel for the spirit to make the words be what they are at this moment. So the spirit is not trapped. It's not this and it's not that, but it moves freely. Buddha nature is not something we have or can put the finger on, but in some ways you could say it's life, life itself that always moves towards life, that that lives itself. And that is basically if you're fully alive and fully awake and you become fully human and then you're a kind, compassionate, selfless, not codependent selfless, truly selfless, complete being that is not looking out just for itself because it it doesn't make sense.

[51:08]

It feels the interconnectedness. And that, I think, is what then in other religions is projected outward in God. So there can be fundamentalist ways of dealing with that, and they are separating, and there can be awakening ways of being with that. connecting us to the whole universe. That's the answer I can give right now. Yes. Yes, please. What if you're practicing or trying to practice patience and kindness, but you're working with a group who is incredibly impatient and really incredibly impatient? That is a wonderful environment to really practice patience and kindness. Yes. Because they keep testing you. I mean, this is the best environment because you have to always make a decision.

[52:11]

How am I being patient with that? How am I being kind with that? And what maintains my kindness? And if you look in your heart, you start feeling better because you are kind. And it will have an effect. And maybe the effect is that at some point you change your job. You know, I mean, it's... You just... That is, they say, our enemies are our best teachers. And we, of course, want to get away from our enemies. Instinctively, what we perceive as enemies. But they bring us... They help us to see where we get stuck. And you... You know, stepping in the other person's shoes and trying to see how do they see the situation? What do they see that makes them react that way?

[53:16]

And maybe it's fear, competitiveness. I don't know. Good luck. Okay. Yes. Yes. By being very creating a space for your response to the delay. The feelings that come up in you when it's not happening the way you would like, not as fast or not, then you really pay attention to what you feel and you pay attention in your body to what you feel.

[54:28]

Not necessarily the stories, the feelings, but but really how does it feel in your body? What kind of energy is it? Where does it sit? That is patience and that's also generosity because you create a space where you can actually learn about that. I can't remember already again, the lifespan of an emotion physiologically is one and a half minutes? Yeah, one and a half minutes. So when do we experience emotions just 90 seconds most of the time the ones we favor or we hate we drag out over days but that's our doing by themselves if we leave them alone and just feel them it's 90 seconds and they subside and something else comes up so if you turn inward that's patience and it's hard because everything the I I want this so the eight worldly

[55:30]

The hindrance is that I want what I want, and I do not want what I don't want. And I want fame, and I don't want to be ignored. I want, what are they? I want, no, I can't. Praise and blame. I want to be praised, and I don't want to be blamed. And I want gain. And I don't want loss. So see, we need all each other. Thank you. It's really wonderful. It's wonderful. So you want something and you don't like that you don't get it. So then rather than trying to get it, make it happen out there, force it, you turn inward and just really feel and let feel what you're feeling and not do anything outward. But inward, you tend with kindness, not judgmentalness, to how the disappointment feels, or the sadness, or the frustration, and what kind of energy it is in your body.

[56:45]

Okay? Good. I think we have to stop. So more questions, but thank you so much for coming, and I'll put the practice of appreciation by the door. You can pick up a sheet if you feel like it and haven't gotten one before, and I wish you much kindness. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[57:33]

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