We were having lunch and noticed that the air quality had really shifted, very smoky. And then we found out that there's a fire. It is fire season in California. And up near what's called Lake Sonoma, which is a bit north of here, there's a wildfire that is now at about, I guess, about 100 acres or so, maybe more. Started off kind of small, but the winds are fairly high right now, and a lot of dry grass, which is what these fires really love, just dry grass. So we haven't been given any warnings in terms of evacuation, but one of the areas near Sonoma Lake has been evacuated, and there's another warning, which means an evacuation might be ordered for a little further south. We're not in the path of that evacuation order. Yet. So I was thinking I would maybe just let you know I was going to be, I don't know what, walking around thinking about what to do this evening, but I think it's just fine to talk about the Dharma and wait and see what our fire crew and our fire department tells us to do and when.

[01:25]

So right now it's, yeah, things change really fast. And then how we respond is, you know, that's our life. So today's a little more exciting than usual days here at Enso Village. I hope you're all well and not in any kind of harm's way. So last week I talked about quite a bit about what happens when you stop talking. Kind of ironic. So when we really listen, you know, what is that like? And what happens when we turn our attention to the signals that our senses are picking up from what we think of as the world all around us, you know, all this sensory input that's happening all the time. And I'm hearing some buzzing. There's a lot of smoke. I smell smoke. It's all kinds of sensory input that's happening. And I'm pretty alert right now, tuned in to whatever might be coming.

[02:30]

whatever information I need to know. So, you know, all of that sensory input is, you know, in advance of the story making that we do about our senses. So we get kind of excited. I'm a little bit excited right now, but I don't want to get too excited. I don't want to start to make up stories, which is really easy to do about what's going on or what's happening. So we have this gift, story making, and it tells us what we think is happening right now. And that's all, just what we think is happening. So we don't really know what's happening. We may never know what's really happening. It's so complicated. Dependent core rising means everything that's gone into making everything that's appearing right now. Pretty complicated. So the verses from the 3rd century, BCE text called the Dhammapada, which I'm very fond of, I read to you before many times, calls on us to notice the sequence of what it is that we then call the truth, the ongoing truth of our human existence.

[03:44]

And the sequence is the sensory events followed by our story making. That's how we live. That's how we know life. So as the Buddha says in the Dhammapada, What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday. Our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow. Our life is a creation of our mind, of our thoughts. Our life is a creation of our mind. That's a pretty big claim. So I was thinking I would invite you all to think a little bit about that teaching of the Buddha, how that affects you. What does that feel like to you to think that it's how you're thinking that makes your day? and that how you're thinking now will make what comes tomorrow, and so on. And by extension, the future, you know, many, many days to come. How you're thinking, how you're relating to your life and to yourself, you know, is creating your life. I don't really remember being taught that when I was a child, you know, or a young adult, much before I read the Dhammapada.

[04:48]

So this is kind of radical, radical teaching. So... In the last few weeks, I brought up another teaching that gives us some instruction on how to practice with that basic insight of the Buddha from the Dhammapada. Our life is a creation of our mind. How to practice with the power of our thinking and how it creates what we call our life. How powerful that is to know that. It's how we're thinking is creating our life. So these instructions that I've offered to you... repeated several times, were to Bahiya of the Bark Cloth, a young eager monk who wanted so much for the Buddha to help him to understand reality, help him to understand his life. And as the Buddha said to him, Bahiya, in the seen, there will be just the seen. In the heard, just the heard. In the imagined, just the imagined. In the cognized, just the cognized.

[05:51]

That's the instruction for how to live in a world where just this is it. Just this is it. Just this. Just this thought. Just this energy that I'm having at the moment. It doesn't need any more added to it. So this encouragement to pay attention to our senses appears again and again throughout the centuries of Buddhist teaching and Buddhist practices. Pay attention. Pay attention. Someone, Monk West, asked a teacher, I don't remember which one, you know, what's the secret of Buddhist practice? And the teacher replied, attention. And he said, yeah, yeah, I understand that, but what's the secret? And he said, attention. No, really, what's the secret? And the teacher said, attention. So... In the talk that we're looking at this evening from Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, Suzuki Roshi is elaborating even further on how to practice in a way that avoids leaving traces of our thinking as we go about the activities of our daily life.

[06:54]

This talk is called No Trace and it begins with a rather simple sounding instruction. When you do something, you should burn yourself completely like a good bonfire. leaving no trace of yourself. When you do something, you should burn yourself completely like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself. And then the rest of this talk is his effort to help us to understand what it means to leave no trace. So in the first paragraph, Suzuki Roshi is pointing out this activity, about this activity of thinking and how our thinking works. which is often confused and very busy, is complicating our life. So it's just kind of repeating that idea. It's your thinking. It's your thinking. Not just your thinking. How you're thinking. How you're thinking and how you're falling into believing your thinking. So complicated thinking complicates our effort to do things in an uncomplicated and straightforward way.

[07:57]

And that's because, Suzuki Roshi says, that we think... before we act, and this thinking leaves a trace. Our activity, therefore, is shadowed by some preconceived idea. Ideas about other things we could be doing and other people that we could be doing those things with. Those ideas are what he calls traces, leaving traces. When on the other hand, we do things with a simple, clear mind, without notions or shadows, or without other ideas of better possibilities, then our activity is strong and straightforward. You know, justice is it. So usually, as we all know, our thinking is not so clear or so simple. Usually, our mind is complicated, you know, which is the result of our relationship to other things. to other people and to other times and other places. We're all the result of very complicated events from the past.

[09:00]

So this aspect of our mind is what the Buddha has taught as the relative truth or the relational truth, all about our relationships, the truth about those complex activities that are made up from our relationships. And it's very complicated for all of us. So Roshi uses a familiar example from our culture of trying to catch two birds with one stone. He said, you know, I've heard that. I heard that as a good thing, you know, try to catch two birds with one stone. He says that that's what people usually try to do. But because we want to catch too many birds, we have difficulty focusing on just one thing, like on just one bird. And as a result, we may not catch any birds at all. So this is the kind of thinking that is leaving a trace or a shadow. And he calls this our small mind thinking. This is all familiar teachings. And I like it that he repeats these again and again from a slightly different angle or slightly different examples, metaphors, koans, and so on that he uses.

[10:07]

But really, this is stuff we've been hearing and repeating again and again. The small mind and the big mind. The relative truth. and the ultimate truth. These are the two major aspects of what it is we need to understand in order to straighten ourselves out. To be simple is a little complicated. So the small mind often looks at itself in relationship to others, how others are doing. Who has more of something or better of something than I do? Who is more popular? That was very popular when I was in High school? Who's more popular? Who has a better car? Who has more money? Or a nicer house? Or a better dog? And so on and so on. All familiar. I even noticed today at lunch, talking with some of my new friends here at Enso Village, that it's very hard not to notice what level of wealth and privilege some of my new neighbors have grown up with.

[11:11]

Where they lived as children, where they went to school. their professional lives or the lives of their parents and their accomplishments, which here are a great many, many accomplished people. All of these markers of status and value that we humans have been trained to notice and for which we all have our own emotional responses. For me, sometimes it's envy. Other times it's admiration. I'm not really in control of that, but I notice it when it comes up. So I wonder if any of you have yet gotten to see this new film that's come out that my daughter was telling me is great, called Inside Out 2. If you haven't seen Inside Out 2, I suggest you do, but you might want to see Inside Out 1 first, which was really delightful. I saw that years ago when it came out. So I understand from the trailer for Inside Out 2 that they've added some new characters that show up inside the young... woman's mind who we're getting to be inside of.

[12:13]

So this is a cartoon. And inside of this young girl's mind, she's about to enter puberty, it's a very exciting time, are all of these little animated characters who represent her feelings, her emotions. The main one that we like is joy, and then there's the anger, and then there's all these other ones, and they're all depicted in various ways as emotional. icons of her emotions. So now what they've added now to the panel of emotions are anxiety, boredom, envy, and embarrassment. So these are the new characters, which are all familiar emotional chords that make up our capacity for small mind responses to the challenges in our lives. We all have a complete set of these feelings and emotions, right? So Roshi then contrasts this kind of thinking, which complicates our activity, our relational thinking or our small mind thinking, to the kind of thinking that clarifies our activity.

[13:16]

The kind of thinking is the kind that he calls big mind or right thinking. Right thinking. Right view is the first of the Eightfold Path. Right view. How do you understand the world? How do you understand yourself and your relationship? How do you understand your own mind? And so on. So right thinking is inquisitive and curious and really interested in what's going on here. So right thinking is also somewhat suspicious of itself in a very healthy way. And when we notice that our thinking during the day, you know, the projections, the mental elaborations, the assumptions, the convictions, you know, when we notice how much of that is going on, it's not hard to understand. what Suzuki Roshi is talking about. It's not hard to understand how much extra we are adding to simple sensory events. You know, someone walks into the room. Rarely ends there. So he then uses an example of how we talk about our lives and the things that we've accomplished, even though none of what we remember is very accurate.

[14:26]

In fact, none of it actually ever happened in the way that we think. The way that we think and remember is really limited to one very small point of view, and that is mine. So what I think I did back then was very big for me, but it might not be very big for everyone else in this situation. Maybe I wasn't the center of that whole version of reality as much as I think I am. I can remember one time saying to my mother, I said, I really, really enjoyed. I was just remembering those two parakeets we had on the back porch above the washer and dryer when I was a kid. And she said, we didn't have two parakeets. We only had one parakeet. And I'm still to this day, I'm convinced. No, Mom. There was a yellow one and a blue one. And even though I'm convinced and I know and I remember the two parakeets, I happen to believe that my mom was right.

[15:29]

There was only one parakeet. But it's the kind of thing that sort of cuts into your confidence about what you remember and who you are, which is a good thing. That's the kind of thing we're looking for. It's like some humility about ourselves and what we remember. Because being attached to what we think that we have done or who we are is always self-centered. It has to be. It's my memories, my point of view, always from the point of view of me, you know, me and my small mind. Roshi says that it's okay to remember what we've done, but not to add that extra part that is self-centered in such a way that it makes us feel special. So he says that that's what we call attachment. It's just those traces of being special that we attach to our thought and our activity. Those are traces. That's the shadow. In order for us not to leave traces, we need to learn how to do everything with our entire body and mind.

[16:35]

That means we need to concentrate our awareness within our body, be aware of our body, being a body, being a body, and the location of our activities of our thinking, which is in the body. So the body and mind are not separate. And so really being clearly present inside of our body and mind is step one. You know, I've noticed myself in these early days of settling into a new home and to new relationships, remembering how very helpful it is to place my attention on my spine and on my head. on top of my spine, and then to lower my shoulder blades down my back so that my back is straight, my head is balanced, and whatever tightness there might be in my abdomen, I loosen that up as best I can. And as soon as I remember to do those few things, starting with my spine, which I find to be really helpful, then my breathing slows down and I feel much more available to whatever is happening at the moment.

[17:45]

to the new person that's just walked into the room. So it's so easy to forget where you are and what you're doing. It's really easy. I mean, we're just so talented at distracting ourselves and moving away from the present and moving out of our bodies and so on. So just give that a try. Next time you're feeling a little off-center, try centering, physically centering. yourself in this place where you are standing or sitting or walking whatever your your activity are see if you can become a little more upright a little more a little more aware of your body and of your thought roshi then talks about bonfires which as i said right at the moment is making me a little anxious because of the wildfire that's a little north of here um But still, you know, it's just a metaphor. He's talking about a metaphor. And right now, I see smoke, but I don't see a fire.

[18:46]

So I'm still able to pay attention to my spine and not get too excited. You know, I don't want to get too excited because I might have to do something and take care of other people too. We have a lot of elderly people here and maybe all of us are going to have to be supportive as if something needs to happen here. So I have, you know, and even though I grew up in California and I spent time at Green Gulch and Tassar when there were fires close by, you know, still meeting such moments comes along with a twinge of anxiety. So that little character, that new character that's showing up inside out to a little anxious character. Yeah, that character can get quite strong and begin to take over the actions of the rest of our assortment of possibilities. So whether that fire burns it out completely or not in a memory, we don't know.

[19:51]

However, this fire that Suzuki Roshi is talking about is a metaphor for our activities throughout the day. And the fire that he recommends is one that burns without smoke. you know, burns with nothing and that nothing remains but ashes. And then he quotes Dogen saying, ashes do not come back to firewood. Ash is ash. Firewood is firewood. Ash should be completely ash and firewood should be completely firewood. When this kind of activity takes place, one activity covers everything. And then he completes this talk reminding us that this, Complete activity is the practice of Zen. Whether we're sitting upright or we're bowing or chanting or washing the dishes, speaking with friends, when you do your practice completely, there is no Buddha and there is no you. There is just bowing, just sitting, just talking, just being with friends, just hearing, just seeing, just as the Buddha said to Bahiya.

[21:00]

And just as the Buddha did when he picked up a flower and Maha Kashapa smiled. That's the story of the beginnings of Zen. Buddha picks up a flower, he twirls it slightly, and Maha Kashapa, the great ascetic, smiles. So that's it. That's all. There's one activity that covered everything. Roshi says that even though the style of practice may change according to the place and to the people, The secret of this practice cannot be changed. It is always true. Always true. And yet, even though it's true, ultimately true, we have to discover this truth for ourselves. Part of the difficulty in doing that is how simple the truth truly is. You know, we can easily say to ourselves, oh, that's easy, I know that. I know that about my spine. I know that about my shoulder blades and watching my breath. I've heard all that.

[22:02]

I know that. Everyone knows that. But if we don't find the value in ourselves, the value of practicing with these things, with our own spine and our own breath and so on, then it's the same as not knowing the truth at all. It isn't doing us the benefit that it would if we bring that into our life. He recommends that rather than criticizing our own culture and our society, we should devote our mind and body to practicing this simple way. And then the society and the culture will grow out of you. It's kind of a wonderful thought, kind of like a prayer. You know, if we practice this simple way, devote ourselves to this simple practice of completely doing whatever we're doing, then society and culture will grow. out of us. And at the end there, he says, we should not attach to some fancy ideas or to some beautiful things.

[23:02]

We should not seek for something good. The truth is always near at hand, right within your reach. Wanting something good means wanting something else, wanting something we don't already have. So this is quite a discipline for us to be willing to have what we have, to be where we are. to do what we're doing completely. It takes quite a bit of strength to be simple, to do just what needs to be done right now. And as the Buddha said, that is how you should train yourself, bhaya. And then when for you there will be just the seen in the seen, and just the heard in the heard, just the imagined in the imagined, just the cognized in the cognized, Then, bahiya, you, in connection with that, will not exist. You, in connection with that over there, will not exist.

[24:04]

You will not be found in this world or in another world or someplace in between. This, just this, bahiya, is the end of suffering. So... With all of that in mind, if possible, I would love to hear from you what you have to say and how you're doing and what you think. Cynthia, wonderful. Thank you. You are muted. So I'm going to Father's Day dinner in about 15 minutes. So I wanted to say hello and thank you. I think this is terrible. So, so very helpful. And I had a question which was actually answered while you were speaking. This practice of your spine and finding your center and my favorite, I say it multiple times a day, even if the sun rises in the west, the Bodhisattva has one path.

[25:14]

And then I was thinking... But there are times when things happen that are so catastrophic that practice, it's like, whatever happened to that practice? And I think what I came from, the epiphany that I got was, well, you practice when you can, and then you use the result. Then you hope that the result of that practice will carry you through whatever disaster shows up. I don't know. But do you know what I mean? It's so easy to practice when it's like, okay, I have to think of what I see, what a scene I see, what a ear is heard. I can keep my spine straight. And then it's like the whole diagram that I have, it's like, well, what if you just blow that apart completely? How do people you know who have a strong practice make it through?

[26:18]

really, really earth-shattering events. That's my question to you. Yeah. Well, there's all different versions of that, answers to that, as many as there are people who've been practicing, right, and how they've managed when armies invade, when their families die, when their friends die, when they are dying. I mean, there are all these things that are happening to each of us in our lives. And I think, you know, for those of us who practice, It's this idea of practice, not even practice what? I mean, yeah, that's a good question. Practice what? Well, like you said, there's all kinds of things you can practice. But being present in your body is probably foundational to anything else you might want to do. And if I'm given an order to evacuate today, my practice will be to figure out how to do that without being hysterical because I don't think that's going to help. And I often say to people, you don't want the fireman showing up to your house hysterical.

[27:22]

You know? That's not the kind of training that we are working for. We're working for training that allows us to sit quietly when someone we love is ill or when we ourselves are injured or whatever it is that's happening. Not adding that extra layer of emoting. You know, it's just taking away from your ability to respond. So we want to be responsible, able to respond, not reactive. So training, you know, I mean, sitting, as you've done and I've done for a long time, is a training for that. And training to be able to respond when something happens. And sometimes something did happen in the Zen, or something I didn't want to have happen, like someone would faint. You know, that's probably the worst thing. I caught Reb's head going down one time because he fainted. I just happened to be next to him and I grabbed his head. You picked me up when I fainted.

[28:24]

I picked you up and I wouldn't do it again. He picked me up when my turn comes. But it's just, you know, don't, like someone once said about us, meaning practitioners, you know, you guys move. You don't just stand there looking, you know. You actually do something. You actually trust that your activity is going to be useful, hopefully. You don't know, but you're going to do your best to do something useful in this situation. So it's just, I think I've often told you all about the Bruce Lee quote of, you do not rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your training. So you're well-trained as a teacher of young people and... You've raised your own young people who are not young anymore, and so you have a lot of experience. I'm writing that down. You do not rise to the occasion. Fall to the level of your training. Okay.

[29:27]

You've said it many times, and then I... That's the way I like to hear it, the way you say it, because I'll turn it into something a little less... that has less impact. You know who he is, right, Bruce Lee? Yeah, he's a movie singer, Kung Fu guy. Kung Fu guy, yeah. Okay. All right. This is, it's helpful. I'm just thinking of those, because I'm dealing with a cousin who is in a catastrophe, and I feel like my practice is helping her. But I don't know what could possibly help her. No. Well, she, you can't go inside someone else, right? No. what will help her is her finding her way through. Right. And that there's some, they're like dolphins, you know, there's others around who are saying, you can float, you can keep swimming, you can keep moving. So when we're in hell, you know, one of the advantages of hell is others will come to help you. I remember once you telling me when I was saying, I'm in the hell realm, and this is really bad, how am I going to get out?

[30:36]

And you said, you know, you'll be out one day. You won't even know that it never happened. It will just one day you're not there anymore. And I think that's how great suffering starts to ease up and end. We're struggling and then, oh, it's, you wonder how, you don't even have a memory of having moved out of one room into the next. Yeah, it's kind of a blessing. You know, getting stuck in a room, locking yourself into a room is not recommended because our natural tendency is to go toward the light, to go toward the water, to go toward the nourishment. And so when we block that natural tendency in ourselves, it's pretty hard. You know, we know that. We know the examples of that. Well, your idea of wash your spine, you hadn't said before that. the top of your head, but watching my spine has been really helpful.

[31:38]

And I get into a lot of kind of chaotic situations just because I'm around all of those little cuckoos that are filled with anxiety, boredom, shame, and envy. Yeah. Yeah. And they're spilling out all over the place. Have you seen the movie yet? No. I'm going to go. I invited my principal to go with me. You need to go. How's about we go together? So we're going to do that. Good. All right. I don't want to take up everybody's time. Have a nice Father's Day. I'm in the scientist library. Very impressive. Oh, that's just one of many. Okay. Goodbye. Goodbye. Hello, Echo. Well, something just came up.

[32:52]

Of course, you mentioned Inside Out. It would appear to me that, well, it would appear that I have more control of my thought and less control of my emotion. I mean, I can make a story, and to the least, I can interact with my thought. If I catch myself making a story, I can tell myself, that's cuckoo, that's bullshit, stop it. And maybe I don't stop thinking, but... I can response to that, thought with thought. But emotion, it's totally different. When something arises, there are strong emotions like anger, but even the what we usually think joyful ones, like there were times

[34:05]

occasions where, like, I really shouldn't be laughing, but this comes up. I really shouldn't be smiling, but this comes up in my head. And I cannot talk to myself. I cannot talk to my joy. This is time to... Your joy is talking to you. Yes, but I cannot talk back to it. Not very well. You can ride. It's like a pony. You can ride it. Like a pony. That's a good point. Yeah. Well, that's our common ground. I think we all share that, you know, that those feelings. Someone described once that, you know, breaking a thought is kind of like breaking a rock. Yeah. It's just, we have this thought, and then somebody interrupts you, and it's like, what was that thing?

[35:07]

You know, it doesn't very hard for me to have my thoughts kind of dissipate. But feelings, as you're saying, someone described those as trying to take apart a jellyfish. You know, it's really gooey and ooey, and they've got these long tentacles. You keep trying to cut it in half, but it's just going to go on and on and on. So that sounded pretty familiar. Like, feelings are really gooey. They're very... tenacious and you know basically kind of ride the waves like a pony just ride them don't give them too much don't make them into a rhinoceros or an elephant or anything just ponies good enough and just allow them to take you around the ring a few times I kind of somebody say it's like cutting a mochi cake like you cut it Yeah. Ooze right back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[36:09]

That's right. So we have to, patience is a really good practice with feeling, you know, being patient. Like that saying, you know, just stop at feelings. Just stop at feelings. Meaning, not stop the feelings, but just stop where the feelings are really arising and allow yourself just to live them. You know, they're not going to go away because you tell them to. You know. But they will go away. Nothing is permanent. Everything changes. That's the law. So we can count on the law. This will change. This will pass. I think I mentioned to you all that I used to have these panic attacks when I was young. And my therapist said to me, well, they last about 20 minutes. So that's a couple of times around the ring. And sure enough, You know, some years back I had one, and I thought, oh, 20 minutes, that's not so bad. So I just went for a walk for 20 minutes, and sure enough, something else was happening.

[37:18]

So I think there's a lot of wisdom for us, you know, from other humans who've worked it through a bit, you know. Yeah, just wait. Wait at the stop sign. Keep your engine running. And then when the light's green, you can go again. Thank you. You're welcome. Hello, Fu. Hello, Sasha. Are you always in the dark like that? It seems as though I am. I have constant Zendo lighting. I don't have a way of adjusting it very well. I'm getting very bright, unfortunately.

[38:20]

It's hard to avoid the extremes in here. Yes. I remember what you look like, so it's okay. That's good, yeah. I apologize. Hopefully a different... There we go. No, I wanted to... thank you and and echo i think that question and um that response was was very helpful for me i think it really ties into the um the talk from suzuki roshi as well where i've always felt this similar way where thoughts as powerful as they've they can be once they start snowballing there is a way of dismantling them or at least um letting letting them roll out do their thing where um emotions really seem like um they're in the atmosphere right like it's it's there's no you're breathing it there's no um stepping away or distancing in in any way um not that we would do that with thoughts

[39:30]

Anyways, but emotions, it's as though they're a smoke that fills the house and not just a guest that you can allow in and show the door, show them their way out as well. So it was very useful to hear that really it's about learning how to write it, how to face it completely. And I think it's also helpful in those moments. Well, what do we do? We just do whatever there is to be done and do it completely and burn ourselves completely. Hopefully a little bit of the emotion gets burnt up with that. And ash can be ash and fire can be fire. Wood can be wood. Yeah. Well, there, you know, we come with all of this equipment because we need it. We need to know. how we feel. We really need to know. I mean, I think we do anyway. Being one of us, I feel like I need all that.

[40:32]

I need all those feelings of fear and a little anxiety just to help me to know what's happening. Not just trying to walk into the fire like little kids. They don't know. Watching my daughter burn herself once, I'd say, oh, God, don't do that. But she didn't know. Now she knows. So, you know, we kind of have this need of these feelings and these aversions and attractions. We need to make babies, right? I mean, that's the attraction part. And I don't know if we need to, but we do. And so on. So, you know, this is our whole life is really requires that we have a hopeful set. Not having emotions is a very sad state for humans. You know, that's, I don't think any of us here are burdened with that. Hopefully not. But that's hard if you don't have feelings or empathy. You can't tell where you are. Where are you? Who are you? Yes. I personally, many years ago, when I had very bad anxiety and depression and agoraphobia, you name it, was taking a lot of different medications for all of these different things.

[41:49]

One medication will cause a side effect, which would I have another medication. And I remember reaching a point where that was exactly what I said to my psychiatrist is that I just want to feel something. You can just feeling the sadness I used to feel would at least be something because to live without it really is. Well, to live with it, what is. life not that i would know one way or another but i do feel as though it distance you distances you even more right so and that at the same time the chemical imbalance that we can find sometimes becomes very very tricky right where where do things fall and and i think at least in my practice um it's a lot of just recognizing that I don't need, I won't know.

[42:51]

And some things I will never know. Why do I suddenly feel this way when yesterday was exactly, I would say exactly the same, but today is, I feel this way, right? And to just write it out and trust that it's about the seeds that I'm planting. I can't do anything about what's in the soil, what's already been planted before. I can only hope to cultivate. positivity as best as possible and i think it's only with giving 100 to the moment at least that's really really changed my life uh where i'm very uh fond of complaining as you may probably know with no with no reason and to remember that it doesn't it doesn't matter right it's it is reality always wins. Like you always, why not burn it up completely? It's already caught fire. Let's, it's just no, no, no traces. Nobody likes a smoky fire.

[43:53]

Right. No, no. Just spare Heelsberg, please. No. Yes. Yeah. Well, no. And everyone else, of course. Yeah. Yeah. No, thank you for that. No, thank you. Thank you. I think these are really, um, really, difficult and important questions that I think, like you said, taking refuge, being in hell and remembering that we're all here together. I think I read, I don't know if you shared this with me or if I read a koan where the student once asked the master where I... And I may be repeating this incorrectly, but it was something like, well, where are you going to go after you die? And he's like, well, I'm going to go straight to hell. And then he's like, well, what do you mean? Why? How else am I going to teach you guys? Exactly. So I'll go wherever it is needed.

[44:55]

I'll go where I'm needed. And we'll all follow suit wherever it may be. So taking refuge. Namu kieso. Namu kieso. So thank you to the Sangha. And we all share the ups and downs together. Thank you, Kakon. Paul and Kate? I wanted to just add in a little piece. I'm wondering whether it might help on this. The example of fire guys getting hysterical. And so it is the firemen train every week by putting on equipment that protects them. And they can run into burning buildings calmly and know that they can deal with what's coming at them. So it isn't about thinking about.

[45:57]

So this is the point is, is that the training converts to just the reaction. And so I'm wondering if this doesn't kind of translate to the meditation training, too. It's that our reaction is calm to these, you know, life-threatening circumstances. It isn't about helping us to think about it differently. That's my... because the fire guys don't have you don't think about what you're doing you go and you have a training that you are implementing your body it's body memory of how to react to the situation that you're in totally i think that's absolutely right and it's accomplished accomplished exactly the same way as the zazen sitting it's again and again and again every week over and over again to different examples. But it's physically doing the action that's needed in a safe training situation so that when you get into the dangerous real situation, your body just reacts correctly and calmly.

[47:13]

Yeah, I think that's right. I think the training, Zazen training is, you know, also done with your back to the room, which is not a really safe human posture to have your back to people. So, you know, they kind of up the ante a little bit on the potential for anxiety. And, you know, the fact that people are looking at you, you think, you know, the teachers there looking at you, you know, what are they thinking? You don't know. And probably they're not. So it's really, I think it's really a very sweet and subtle, I don't know sweet, but very subtle and powerful way to do what you're saying is to get us into that hazmat suit of our body and our ability to be in the body, you know, and let the mind kind of run around a little bit if it needs to. But I'm still going to stand here and I'm still going to stay upright. figuring out with this help of this thing, what's the best next thing to do?

[48:18]

You know, if my body's doing that, I'm kind of going to be very confused. I'm going to be running around, you know, looking under rocks or looking under things or trying to figure something out. I really need the stability. My body needs to be stable. And that's the training. And I think it's a wonderful, you know, it's, it's, it's wonderful. And it's, it's sweetly benign, like the next level of anxiety, they give you a bell and tell you to hit it when the priest gets to the altar. And like, you know, you just like, I use one little stick and one little bell and you have one little thing to do. And then just all of a sudden the ante just goes way up, you know, like, I wonder if I hit it at the wrong time or wonder if they, you know, I don't ever hit it wrong or whatever. And, you know, we all go through that and it's so, it's so, it's so uniting. of our effort to practice, to know that everyone's going through these same things and becoming more stable, you know, more confident in a certain way that I can do this.

[49:22]

I can sit here. I can hit the bell. At the right time. Yeah. At the right time. At the right time. And if not, it's okay. You know, I like that thing Suzuki Roshi Jr. said about, When Zen masters get together, they ask him, what do you guys do? And he said, we laugh a lot. All the mistakes we've made. All the mistakes we've made and how silly we are. And like, isn't this just amazing? But it's that good humor, laughter, you know, of kind of connection. You know, laughing together. Yeah. So that was my comment about training. Thank you. It's not... In the head, it becomes harder to integrate it into the body, too. Well, I wouldn't leave the head off. No, no. Right? Headless firemen coming.

[50:24]

Where's the fire? No, that isn't going to be good either. No, it's like, you got to have the kind of focus, concentration, that isn't running around making up alternate scenarios. So really also being... wise wise and trained well you know also have the listening aspect too yes there is thinking going on figuring out the situation analyzing the situation yeah checking on past experience but it's the confidence of having done all the training that I'm safe running into the burning. I know how to be safe running into a burning building. Right. And my supervisor, who's done this before me, and knows how the team is going to be safe. So you have the whole operation is based on that training and confidence and experience and thinking. I mean, I think it's the whole thing. So there is thinking. I'm sorry, I probably overstated the just reacting part of it as we're talking about it now. I think it's good to go to both sides.

[51:27]

And if you say, yeah, it's the body, and then you say, yeah, it's the mind, and you say, yeah, it's both. You know, it's really, you really need. Oh, I forgot about everything. All at once. All at once. That's it. All-inclusive. Firefighting. Yes. Which we're doing here at EnzoNit. Yes. And I'll be checking in with you if there's anything I need to know. Okay. We'll talk to you later about it. I think they have it under control, but we'll kind of, we need to monitor what's going on. Yeah. All right. Okay. Thank you. Hi, Senko. Hey. Nice to see you. Hi, Boo. Nice to see you. I hope everything will be okay with the fire and, yeah. Thank you. Thinking of all of you. so I'm very grateful about the conversation about reactivity on the spot because it's something I'm like thinking I mean trying to work on like every minute I for myself I just find myself have this very I used to be like even faster in terms of how I react to things I think my practice has really been helpful so to me like I feel meditation definitely is helpful because

[52:54]

I don't know how to describe it. I can sense the impact. Also, how do I practice on the spot? This is something I struggle a lot with. I usually find myself a little bit faster in terms of I have a shorter time to come back. Finding myself like, oh yeah, I was doing this. I can find what I did There's some issue about mine. Can you hear me? A little breakup, a little bit of breakup. Yeah, there's some problem with the Bluetooth. So, but I think it's still like it's hard on the spot, like with someone. If I'm reacting, have big emotions coming up, like how do I don't forget about my practice? And then facing a situation, I cannot just say I have to run away.

[53:56]

Like this person will be standing there looking while I just run away. So I find that a little bit like, how do I remind myself? Maybe the body, memory, the breathing at that point, it's challenging. It is. And it is. It's, you know, that's all of us. Again, all of us have that. And, you know, something, again, it's for me, and I'm trying to think of my own, like, what do I do? I really try to, again, go into a straight spine. My eyes are open. I'm facing, I try to, I notice that my feet are turned this way because I really want to get away. I'm standing there kind of sideways and someone's got me. I try to turn my feet toward them so that I'm fully facing the person. You know, not signaling them that I can't wait to get out of here, but really letting them know that I'm here and I'm going to deal with whatever this is, is happening.

[55:02]

And that's when breathing is really important because my exhalation is my speech. So if I'm not inhaling consciously and I start talking, if I'm just talking, you know, I lose track of my breathing. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of it is really like yogi, like being a yogi, learning to work with your equipment so that you're less kind of involved with them and more with how you're being with them. How am I holding this space? It's my space. I have a boundary here. I have permission to have this boundary. Most cultures in the world allow me that permission. Some don't. But your culture and mine allows me permission to have my own space. And so I can basically meet you there, not here. I don't invite people to come into my space and mess around.

[56:05]

No. If we have to have something strong between us, let's find out how to do that by affecting each other's boundaries you know it's complicated because i don't know the example you're thinking of but probably adults yeah i guess both situations like because kids i feel like it's more effective i have to hug them just really physically hugging each other right you know right right both soften a little bit but you know with uh friends or adults it's a little bit different i cannot just go hug them and i don't want to do it and so yeah We're not going to just hug right now. We're going to work this through conversation and talk. We're going to talk. And, you know, one thing, there's a lot of instructions or trainings around talking to people and how to have difficult conversations. There's a book called How to Have Difficult Conversations. And those are really, really useful. Because those folks have worked that out.

[57:07]

They've been studying that for years, enough to write a book and so on. So I find that I found a lot of useful things in some of those books about, you know, about listening and repeating what you've heard. Let me see if I understood what you just said. Yeah. Yeah, yes. But I find what you said earlier, like, just remember this breathing, exhale. Because I would keep on talking. And I realize I'm like out of breath. I sometimes like becoming more aware that I'm actually out of breath. And I get very like, more emotions coming up because of that. I have to stop. Yeah. Like remembering that. Yeah. You know, when we chant, when we practice chanting, one instruction that we give people is don't try to chant all the words and like in gasp for air, make sure you get all the words. Like when you're chanting the heart surgery with other people, Just chant as much air as you have and then take a breath.

[58:07]

And other people are going to chant those words that you're not chanting, and then you come back in with a full breath. So, you know, it's kind of like learning how to use your voice like an instrument, kind of like that. You're going to need air to talk. So then you want to kind of use your speech in such a way that it uses up just that much air, not all that much air, because you don't have that much air, you know. So again, it's sort of beginning to train yourself into ways that you would really like to feel more confident about your own exchange with other people. Yeah, I know how to do this. This isn't so bad. I can do this. But it is training. I think there's lots of ways to train ourselves. Yeah, I like that. It's a lifelong practice. There's no... like ending point. And I really love that. I just saw like a recent, maybe Wall Street Journal article about someone saying, how do you like keep the way of living after like you're really old?

[59:10]

And she was talking about how she found a new hobby just to become like compete in something in a month who I don't even remember. But she's saying, because I have no ending point, I'm still trying to improve. And she was talking about herself being like really bad at sports before, but then she was trying to improve, but not competing with other people. And I keep her, like, some sense of living. And she's trying to, like, use that as a helpful experience for other people. And then I thought about Zen and how we're trying to improve and there's no ending point. And it's such a strong way to live because of that. It's like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just, like they say, the Bodhisattva path is a 10,000-mile-long iron road. You know, there's... Not easy, but it's long, but it's like, don't worry about getting to the end of it. Just keep walking. Just keep working on whatever it is you're working on. And that's it. It's the journey, right? It's not the destination. Yeah, and it makes it so much fun and you want to go on with it.

[60:12]

Because the article was talking about, oh, if I just got a gold medal or something, I was like, oh, this is done. I have to find something else. But this is like, I don't have a medal. I just have to work on it forever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good. Yeah, so very grateful. Thank you, Fu. You're welcome. Thank you. I just got a message from Malaya, Malaya, Malaya, about the passage from Bahia. It's in the Sutta Pali Canon. And I bet you if you did a Wikipedia thing or the, whatever it's called, you know, what is it called? When you go into the... Google. If you Googled the teaching to Bahia, B-A-H-I-Y-A, you would find it. And if not, let me know. I'll see if I can get an easier way to access that. Tim, do you happen to know where that? It's a sutta passage.

[61:14]

It's the... Bahiya sounds very familiar. I think we studied that one, but I couldn't give you a... You can't pull it right out. It was probably from the Anguttara Nikaya, the number discourses, A.N., Bhikkhu Bodhi translation. I'll look for it and email you. Yeah, yeah, Bahiya. Okay, well... No problem. I'll Google it. Thank you so much. Okay. Well, good luck with that. Let us know if you find an easy way. Okay. You're welcome. Hi, Tim. I was going to say one thing, but I'm going to say a different thing. It's kind of off topic and maybe more positive than the thing I was going to say. We were having pseudo-contemplation with Aya Himsa. She was at Aloka Vahara, and now she's at a monastery in Canwar.

[62:16]

Calgary, near Calgary, and I like her. She's very funny. She, we were doing this, looking at the pseudo where a deity is basically approaching devata, I think like a female deva is approaching a monk. And I won't even go into the story of what it was, but They were talking about it, and I realized I had often thought this when they have these stories about devas, these ethereal beings. They have extremely long lifespans. I told Aya Hempstead and the group, you know, every time we read about a deva, I realize they're still alive. They're not gone. They're listening to us talk about them. So I always make sure I say something really nice about them. Oh, that's so sweet. Well, it's interesting, right?

[63:18]

When do you think they, they said they might live 30,000 years. Well, you know, 2,500 years ago, that was just like a long weekend for them. So they're, they're around. Okay. That was the good thing. I'll, I'll leave you with that. It's good to see you. Oh, Cochran put something in the chat, I think. I found a translation. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you so much. No problem. It may not be the exact one you're referring to, but at least one. I can't share it with everyone, but... Oh, that's it?

[64:19]

Copy and paste it, yeah. Oh, Bahia of the Bark Cloth. I love that name. Bahia of the bark robe or the bark cloth. It must have been a very uncomfortable garment that he was wearing there. Yes. Great. Thank you. Appreciate that. All right. That seems like a good place to, to, to stop for this evening. I thank all of you for coming and maybe I'll see. I'll get on the Karina. How do I get on gallery? There we go. Okay. I want to say goodnight and nice to see all of you. Lovely, lovely faces. Good night, everyone. Thank you, crew. Thank you, Simon. Thank you all. Thank you so much. Thank you. We caught the fire, turned out. Yes, best of luck. No, it's good.

[65:21]

Thank you. Take good care. Stay safe. Bye. Have a good week. Bye. I was wondering, does this happen every Sunday? Yeah. Yeah. So far so good. So far so good. Okay, great. Well, we'll be taking a little break. I'm going away in September and October, but August, no, August and September. So we'll figure out, oh, we're going to talk about that. I forgot. So next week, we'll talk about that, what you all want to do while I'm gone. And, you know, we can just, you can tell me. Okay. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Good night. Take good care. Did you find something online? Can you say the title? Oh, so I, Fu, would you be able to, or maybe Karina, if you could copy and paste what I sent directly to Fu and re-share it in the chat so I don't have access to send to everyone. Karina? We're so, you know, we're such boomers.

[66:24]

We don't know anything. It's okay. Do what? I'm going to try. I'm going to try. Yeah, it's just copy and pasting what was in the link. And then when you hit the two, you can select everyone. Okay, copy. And then, okay. In the chat, send it to everyone. One in the meeting. And then paste it there. I'm going to try that now. Paste. Woo. Did that happen? Didn't come through yet. Maybe you need to send it. Oh, send. Oh, yes. There it is. There you go. That's it. I got it. Got it? Great. Thank you very much. No problem. Thank you. You're such a great teacher. Thank you. Have a good one. Bye. Bye. Thank you.

[67:19]

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