that doing this much, the other things we're doing is doing dozens of benefits to people. Taking care of the center, doing stuff for the community. Benefits that people help themselves, they do, to the tune of, I don't know, $100,000 at least in this year contribution. So we have, I guess, two main things we can do. One is we can cut expenses, and the other is we can raise some money. So trying to cut expenses, we try to rethink it so it's more realistic. So we thought in terms of, okay, $375 a month would be expensive, and everyone would get an automatic scholarship of $200 a month. If we say $215 comes out to, what, $160 a month? Is that right? That would be a raise from $140 to $160, which would be rough,

[01:02]

I don't know, that may be close to what inflation would be anyway in the last year. So that's just staying even. Maybe we should raise it. I don't know, but partly I'd like to hear your view on that. Second, we thought we could cut our food budget by 10%, which means less nuts and cheese, but not so much that our protein is too low, I hope. Cheese and nuts and things like that are by far and away the largest percentage of our budget. I guess vegetables are 8%. Is that right? Vegetables are 6% or 8%. And what? For vegetables? Arnie says 6% or 8%. Well, anyway, it's low, okay? And dairy products are the biggest single chunk. Yeah. Do you include butter in that, not in the dairy product?

[02:05]

Coffee is a big chunk, too. We have a great drink of coffee. That's fine. Coffee is 17% of what you get. We have carbs, and I would say it's 40% of what you get. I mean, I can speak to that. I'll bet you it's easier to cut down on cheese than it is on coffee. I don't drink coffee, so it's all right with me. We'd like to have cows, but that's very complicated. You don't do it, and green grass just maybe doesn't work, and it's expensive. We don't have the skilled people to know how to do it. But we're thinking about it. That's like one of those steps that we do. Do we get 30 cows? How do we feed them? Who takes care of them? It's harder than horses. Horses take their time and skill. Okay, what we should really try to do is cut back everything we can think of.

[03:23]

Now, we're going to put signs on the phone that say, phone less, talk less. If we only talked less, our phone budget and phone bill would go way down. If we talked, you know, cut out some of the chat and say, well, I've had enough of your money. What about phone bills? We'd cut out some of those things. Talk about phone budget, we'd get 20% more. And then we'd make, you know, draw up a new phone bill. Concentrate. Yeah, Mike Phillips has worked out a system, supposedly, and he's got somebody to maybe donate it. That's required. Put in a relay station at the top of Flag Rock. Go back in, put in another relay station somewhere else, and then we have to give it to you. We'll take a year or two to get it in effect. But then you don't, there's also no private conversation anymore.

[04:27]

You leave it in the radio. And it's perfectly all right. But it's a personal call. But anyway, we're thinking about that. Yeah. A couple things. One thing about what you said about radios. Stephen Gaskin's clients are all through radio communication. That's how they communicate. And also, in reference to food, I just wanted to mention, but probably everybody knows, or many people really don't think about them, is that it's entirely possible to get along and be quite healthy without eating any cheese. So a lot of people do. And you get all the protein you need from it. I spend a lot less money on food when I live outside the building and my share of food is uniform because we have a commercial food chain.

[05:29]

Well, that's true. But we found from experience that people who have created their bodies with meat and eggs and stuff, that they must be very worked out and they eat very carefully. And a fair enough percentage of people get sick. This is the first year, I think, that we haven't had complaints about health. In fact, we had complaints on a diet too. Previous to that, we had a lot of people, I'm not feeling very bitter, but three or four years it's been centered really on health. I'm not saying that that's completely changed over. I wanted to put that idea in your head because I have a feeling that a lot of people tend to think that it's impossible to cut down on the amount of cheese and eggs because they're starving. But that's really not true. I think a lot of the cheese we eat is to make our food more palatable. And that's good, that's all right. But at the same time, you don't need much in the way of the protein you get from nuts and cheese

[06:30]

to make your whole diet work. It's not a matter of quantity, it's a matter of having an impact. So we thought of cutting down food 10%, and we went through all of the food budget and see if we could cut them down 10%, and we put it in the past. It would be the responsibility of the directors to keep the budget down. We decided that it would be good if we can, if everybody was willing to accept it, we'd have all stipend salaries 10%. So if we could get $75 a month, you'd get $750 less. Or you could volunteer, cut it up, don't kill yourself. Other things, we'll try to cut back. We've cut out all things that we don't actually have to do, we can put aside. So we reduced the expected deficit from $25,000 a month and $175,000, to getting through this month and last month, and it being $15,000 a month

[07:31]

starting in December sometime, or January, probably would start in December, and it being of the order of $60,000-$70,000 instead of $170,000 a month. So we started in January. So the other thing is, one is to cut down, the other thing is to try to raise money, and we have not had a real fundraising effort since... really, actually, since Tassajara. We had the property fund effort, which helped a great deal, and it cushioned us over the last year, and made it a little less harrowing to get through the year, but it never was sufficient to actually build. So it might be useful, I think, just to communicate. It's a very good way to communicate with people, and the tension and difficulty of it is, I think, actually helpful to raise money. One thing, we've never tried

[08:31]

West Coast foundations for people, and I think that there are many indications, which I don't know if you want me to, I won't discuss, that indicate that, that suggest that the West Coast is now where foundations and individuals are, would like to help us. Particularly, we can get help from every foundation we run. That's fairly... presenting itself could be more difficult. And there are many people in the East who want to help. In fact, Lucy has gone East and will stay East for another month or so, and she, Nancy Wilson-Roth, wants to ask for her to come, and wants to help her get some support. She's already lined up, it looks like, maybe up to $5,000 from the Whitney Foundation, and another one or two contributions from other people. So some money will come in. So those are the two efforts. If we're going to raise money, though, in this year, next year looks like, because of what I was saying earlier, a very difficult year,

[09:32]

but generally what you do this year ripens the following year. In fact, all of that work that Yvonne did is just beginning to bear fruit now. All of those people she met and who got interested in it are now actually coming to the point where they're really saying, OK, we can do something. I know of a couple of small foundations which are thinking of helping, too. So if we're going to do anything for this year, we have to do it before the 15th of December. There'll be some kind of thing, out in the mail, before the 15th of December, because actually anybody who had their eggs in order has already given away the money they will give away this year. But by the 15th of the month, by the end of the year, it's all over. It's all over until next fall, basically. Doesn't some money become available to people right after the beginning of the year, people who can't give money? People who've already given their allotment for this year

[10:33]

can give immediately after the first of the month. Yeah, but usually they don't. But the large fundraising, large gift-giving by everybody is after they see their yearly picture in the fall, and before the end of the year when they have to close out. That's a foreign way of looking at it. Okay. I think it will help us. Because they're cheaper than any other place to go in the year. What the people will do is first they'll shut down the long-distance travel. People will still take vacation. They won't go to Europe. They won't go to New York. So the recession actually helped.

[11:35]

The recession of last year actually helped. We didn't know what would happen in March, but the recession actually helped the reservation. So, is there anything we're trying to do in the next few years? I guess I heard we're trying to create a revolving fund. We're trying to do that. We are now 85%. Which is phenomenal. You talk to people, most people, there's no church, school, community that's 85% of the board members. No revolving fund. Maybe a farm? I don't know. So, I haven't quite understood. It doesn't seem like really we've ever done anything like that. We're always going to have to create a space where people can donate income. Yeah, so two things. We'd like to be minimally self-supportive

[12:36]

so we don't have to wonder how we're going to get through the year. We have to cut out cheese and nuts. But there will always be things that we'll want to do. What people will want us to do is to acquire money. Now, it's like the Wheelwright Center. Work has stopped in the Wheelwright Center, or it should stop. There's no money to continue. But if the Wheelwright Center stops, there's a problem. At least we'll be here next year. Then we can start the Wheelwright Center again. That kind of project will always become money to come in for. But if we stop it, then it does come in. We don't stop eating. I don't like that. But if they're willing to just throw their line with the rest of us, then we'll stay. They're trying to... Didn't you say that 85% of the actual income will be spent on

[13:38]

the best performance and the best statement in the world? Will you make that statement? I don't think I'm going to make that statement, but I'd better read it. I don't think it's worth it. Lou? I don't care. Can you respond to the gentleman on the couch? Yes. I think I remember reading in the windmill that 85% self-support that's covering all our basic living and 50% are short and I would like to find more things to do in the future. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I think that's the way that's described by the poor people in the education system. Am I going to be in that position?

[14:38]

You're asking about how to get an education. Well, the gentleman said that self-support are our basic living and I'm wondering if we could just look here at the If we did that, the position would fall. If we did that, the position would fall. The fact that we share our practices, the fact that we're being positive to our practice is not in that same relationship. We concentrated just on working with the farmers. We supported them. And that gap, there's some balance. If you do too much, if you don't do anything, then you don't know how to do it. Cover the gap.

[15:40]

So there's some balance. Also, I think that what's mentioned now is we would probably have more money than we need, as I said before, in, I don't know, five years. If something like the bakery works, if the farm begins to work, we'll have more money than we need. If we're in a few little tents, which we are in a number of little, we get those notes in the mail. There's a lawyer in Houston, San Diego, wants to know the real name, real legal name for the little. Now, eventually someone will lose that money. If we don't keep getting, if we don't keep figuring, eventually we'll have more income than we need. So we're trying to think through now how we give away. Because if we don't want to be in a position where everyone's in a position

[16:41]

to live indefinitely, we have to have some way to think about it now as a group about how to give away. What do you mean by that? What do you mean by that? What does that mean to you guys? Now I feel like

[17:45]

there's no use trying to figure out what we're going to do. Buying bean dough completed the size of our package situation. Now, if we want to get another zinda somewhere else, that's probably not going to work. But I mean, there always are decisions we may make. One decision we may make is, okay, let's run through one business, okay, which I did several times. We have say that out of 200 committed people, which we have roughly 200 people who are going to be staying around, 100 people decided to get married. So 100 people, out of 100 people, maybe

[18:45]

50 of them picked someone else in their family. 25, that doesn't increase our size. 75 picked someone from outside their family. So that increases us by 75 people to 275 people. And then they have babies, so what do we I can't remember how to figure this out, but 325 people, and you end up with, say, 300 people instead of 200 people. Now that's repeating our basic number of people that we're working with, about 200, unless we say don't get married. Now that's a decision we can all make, people get married later. If you want to, you have to have a fascist

[19:48]

regime that will say, okay, in 1970 we're going to we won't change our size. To actually maintain that kind of vision, you have to say, okay, no children. So obviously there has to be some play in that. If you make a focus like that, things happen out of that focus. So then we have to figure out how to cope with it. So, maybe we have, say we're trying to stay at 200 people, and I said probably not, about another 10, it may be to our benefit to say, okay, there are a lot of folks in the community who actually want to have this relative policy, two children, three children, more children, and we want various things which they're not willing to sacrifice to the extent that it necessitates a green bill. Or one of them isn't practicing and one is practicing, and one isn't practicing,

[20:49]

and doesn't want to live in the community. Then what happens? We might say, okay, let's do a vendor and work out some situation where there's cheap housing and people can live there. Now, if we did that, we probably would not be part of Pennsylvania. It would be like getting a vendor, but it would be administratively separate. Or we might say, this is Louie Johnson, if a thousand or two thousand acres turns up between here and Pasajara near Watsonville or near Sacramento, why don't you arrange for them to have it, and we'll have families move out there and farm. Now that's something you might do, but that's to prevent ourselves from getting bigger in ways in which we can't get people to move out. And by moving out, our basic

[21:50]

practice in this country invented that, Pasajara being built in the city. But now, as I said earlier, we are trying to control what level of responsibility we take in the community. And if you say we don't get that building, that means it's safe for children. That would mean that there's a very strong statement about whether couples are going to be able to live inexpensively with it or not. And whether couples can live in the city or not. Greenville can't accept more people. It's already poor. So if couples think, well, if we don't live in Greenville, we actually won't. So they'll have to live in the city. And if we don't control that building, that building's going to deteriorate, and we'll be sold, and what will be left of it? Will it be crushed? ...

[23:08]

Well, the main thing about not being segregated is we stay around people. Next thing is, what happens? What kind of facilities do we need? We don't want any more vendors. ... But what we do is we support each other. But to what degree do we support each other? ... We get this Victorian house across the street and open a Victorian vegetarian restaurant in Dayton. So because of our guest food, what should we do? Those kind of possibilities will come up. ... if that kind of thing is just a refinement of what we're doing, sticking to the three standards and 200 people, but there's a big decision. How do we take care of the community? To what extent do we take care of the community? To what extent does the community support itself? ... The priority in here is the community will continue to be part of the center as long as

[24:16]

part of our practice is to shift into a residential thing, a nice place to live. That portion of the community can't be pushed or divided apart and should take care of itself. ... [...] It will require not ... It requires compassion

[25:19]

not for the people who are coming ... [...] And we won't have a balanced and that was a good balance. What's happening? That happened.

[26:26]

It seems that watching. I didn't have any. That's all. Anyway. There's lots of things we can do. I think we should try to keep the basic conversation. One of the great things about sense energy and aspect of literature and the quality of literature is that we attract not just real serious type people. We attract a variety of people and what happens when you have a variety of people and you make the community open up, you have people who are sort of completely out of it at first. You make a transition. Because otherwise if you eliminate it very early on, you have space to make a transition and they may end up being active. So we want to keep that space open. We've had a transition in the community. There's already less and less.

[27:33]

Paul Diskoff moves to Kappahar. There's no space for Hoopla in Kappahar anymore. He says, where are all my old friends? But those old friends, if they're in Kappahar now, they couldn't move on. They couldn't move back. No one wants to go to New York. No one is prepared to go to New York. And people who can't do it, they can leave it. And Paul Diskoff goes, I'm sitting in New York. And we still have space for that transition. But soon they will be the same way because of that transition. So we have to keep that open in the community. I think we can do it. I think we can do it. So what really we expect is to keep it in the community.

[28:36]

And find out what we can do. Now, some people will, of course, leave. And we're going to start having people leave. And some people will leave. And it's tough to set up a group. We'll be pretty good. And this is funny. I was about to say this. But I didn't. We're much bigger than that. We can know each other. We can't know each other very well. I have a tendency because there's a certain way of surviving in the center. Say that ideally, say that the ideal student in the center has none as now. Because the person who can do it has a problem.

[29:39]

But if that's the ideal model, that will tend to be here, too. And you'll continue to have positions filled with people living in the building who can, before they even get to the building, do something. It will just be a reinforcing model. Okay. What are we going to do? You know, there's lots of people who do it. You have to have an impression of it. Instead of having, you know, there were 500 people in the building. They're sent out. The more you have, the more you stress. That's what happens with Harvard. And Harvard is a New England-based school. And there's people who have to leave, right? It's a nationally-based prestige academy. You only have people who have got grade A in Harvard. And it doesn't produce any better people. Harvard doesn't produce any better people.

[30:42]

Okay. We don't have to leave. Okay.

[32:06]

We did include a factor for non-residents. Yeah. We figured this out fairly carefully, figuring the percent non-residents and affiliate members. Yes. I was just curious about that too. None of the figures were broken down to show how much the student income came from non-residents. I mean, we've been talking about ourselves as a group of residents, but there are a lot of people who don't live here. That's factored in. Well, but maybe they'd like to be factored in. In terms of $70,000 a year. $70,000. It's a fairly small percentage, but it's a significant percentage. And it's also very encouraging, because it didn't exist before. That's very helpful. It's such a slow...

[33:41]

$30 a month. It's practically $30 a month, gentlemen. I don't know. We're thinking that guest students pay half of what it actually costs. Approximately, which turns out to be $6.50 a day. The... The reason for that being that guest students... We feel that guest students... We give them more attention than we give ourselves. And they're kind of... Oriented in a different sense. They pay more. They pay half. Whereas the regular residents pay about $1.60 a day, more or less. Now, we get more from guest students, too. Outside people ask us,

[34:50]

why can't you charge the... Why ask us for money? Why don't you charge the guests? Well, at some point, then you'd only have upper-middle-class people coming to the conference. And so we try to balance it. We're charging about the most that we can, and still have the kind of feeling and the kind of range of people we'd like. I think that's our... And they ask, well, why not charge the guest students? Why not charge your own students? Well, we figure that the... Our own members who are here with some commitment, or here with some duration, I should say, that duration itself is a contribution. You know the community, you know each other, and your presence here helps to raise money. The guest student's presence doesn't add to that duration. So, in a sense, the longer you stay, the more you share the burden for the modra, which produces the support of consent. And so the guest students maybe should pay a little more,

[35:55]

because the more... Your rate should go down if you're going to be here longer. What do you think? What would you say? People now save $140 a month to go to Tessahara. We could keep it the same in all three places. We could make Greenbelt a little less, because Greenbelt actually contributes to income, while the two guest students don't. So maybe, what should it be? A hundred students. Pardon me? No, two practice periods. The two practice periods don't. Yes, the summer we calculate differently. You get a complete scholarship in the summer. And so at Greenbelt maybe there should be a bigger scholarship. I don't know. Anyway, so, what do you think? Do you think the base could be about $160 a month, or should it be $180 a month, or should it be $140 a month? What do you think?

[36:55]

Do you have any ideas about it? I'm sort of confused about it. I don't know if there's a chapter on it. Suppose I'm on a scholarship, then wouldn't I be part of $148, $149? $149? With our own scholarship? Yes. So actually, it seems in calculating the $375, there's a line drawn saying, okay, you have these nine people paying the expenses. It's just $19 to $450,000. Right. So it must be $375 a month. Right. It's kind of confusing, because everybody is kind of speaking to... Well, let's take the college again. The college has its teaching staff and administration staff,

[37:58]

and the students, what the student pays, has to go into recovering teaching. You can't just say they don't all live together. Say they all live together, then you have to say, well, it costs us X dollars a month to support all these people. But actually, we're calling some of them staff and teachers. We're calling some of them students, and students pay. But of course, it's also true that the teachers and these things help raise the money that the college does. So you have to give some benefit to the teachers, too. Anyway, I guess... Well, in our case... Let me finish this. In our case, we are not simply divided between students and staff. Staff are rotating positions. Staff usually come in at the point that you're been long enough here to begin to take that kind of responsibility first. And second... The community is asking you to do something

[39:07]

for which doesn't permit you to have an outside job. So when you get to the point at which the community needs somebody to do the cooking or whatever the work is, and you can't have an outside job, then the community undertakes to support you. And that's a complicated line, the way you draw that line. Presently, we're drawing it with a staff of about 70, and 90 people not paying, and a staff of 70 rotating positions, and more coming in, and some going, you know, now. I guess, yeah, it tends to... Yeah, I just sort of think that. It tends to re-emote it towards the college itself, which is having teachers and students. I guess that's a pretty good model. I don't think it does, though, because it's a rotating situation. Not all the students at college will become teachers, and not all the students here will become staff, but staff is a student position. But we do have some of the...

[40:07]

This was a decision years ago. Suzuki wrote... Some people said, Suzuki Roshi should go out and get a job. Then we were only seeing that. Okay, Suzuki Roshi didn't go out and get a job. Then... When we got Kasahara, we could not have gotten Kasahara without deciding to get staff. The decision to get Kasahara was the decision to get staff, which means that some students support other students who do the work full-time. Now, it doesn't make... You're still working, whether you're working outside or inside. It doesn't make any difference. You're still working. So it's not like you're sitting around... You know, you're not... We don't pay anybody to contemplate. Maybe we should, and monasteries in Japan do. But we don't. But if you do, then you have to have patience. We're 100% patient. It should stop pretty soon. So then, just on a practical level,

[41:08]

the question is whether people who work in San Francisco... Outside of Densetsu. Outside of Densetsu, whether the economics of individual students who work outside of Densetsu are permitted to pay $160,000. Well, it of course does. So it's a question of to what degree one wants to make the sacrifice of other things in order to pay $160,000. What occurs to me is that it might be even tighter for people who are working on salary at Densetsu. The people who are on scholarship at Densetsu are managing their commitments very much. Let's figure it out. The women board goes up. But people on salary at Densetsu are the people that are going to be caught. Yeah, because they're reducing all the stipend. That's... Are you also reducing the salary? Yes. No, not the salary. Not the salary. What? We're not reducing the salary. No, we're not reducing the salary. It's $2 to the wages.

[42:09]

The hourly wages. But we're not reducing the hourly wage. People on hourly wages at Densetsu... You're saying the people who are on scholarship are not the ones. Those... He's saying the people at Densetsu are the people who are going to be caught. But then they get caught. Yeah, we'll see. Because, I mean, I... Well, that's... I mean... Why shouldn't they? They should also have... Some people are going to have less money. Well, I mean, they're going to have to work for more money. Yeah, right. Or they're going to have to spend more money. Yeah. I don't know. All those sort of... In terms of... Basically, I see it as three different people. People who work outside. And they can get another job. Or one thing or another. In terms of their outside job market, they can ask for a raise. Whatever. If their expenses go up. And then there's people who are on scholarship. And then, I guess, their stipend would be lower. So that would be a different thing. But... You see, these people would be caught in the middle of all of this. And the least room to maneuver would be

[43:10]

the people on Densetsu's salary. Because they wouldn't feel right about going out on strike for a higher salary. You know? And so they would have to... But if they didn't... If they got a raise or something, then they wouldn't be able to go to work. So unless... Unless you're expecting them to be... You'd be saying to raise their stipend. To raise them for something. If they didn't raise their... If they didn't do anything for them, they wouldn't be affected by it. You're talking about residents, right? Yeah. Because they'll be... The residents will work at their center. Although they'll maybe lose a different job still. They probably don't want to be unaffected by the money. The salaries of people... Also, the salaries of people who work for some Densetsu thing, except for the carpenters, but the grocery store and the laya, are set rather at levels which allow them to pay the 140. So we have to adjust that. What I'm talking about, by the way, the difficulty there... One way to express the difficulty

[44:10]

is to imagine they're working $20 a month, and they're working $2 a week, and now they're working $9 a week. So it would be about less than $3, less than $2 a week. And also, this is, not to say that it ends right away, but we have this stipend decrease coming at the time when we were ready, we were thinking about we were going to increase stipend about the time we were thinking about increasing. Many people have been saying for months, I can't get along with this And they've been saying, I've already put $10 in my I don't need to get started with it all, and I have to write to my parents about $20, $20, and they were about to say $1. So, I mean, this is people in the city trying to get by with $1 or something.

[45:10]

they're saying more and more, I can't get by with $1, so we've been expecting that about this time soon, if we were able to increase many people's stipend for the day, we would been able with $1. So, if this is a difficulty for the people that are making money, I don't feel tremendous that eventually we'll be able to raise the amount of that we that we're to don't that we're going to

[46:15]

able to the amount we're going to be raise amount we're going be able to the amount we're going to we're going get we're going be that So if we're really trying to be self-supporting, that should be part of it.

[47:16]

And if people decide, geez, I can't, Zen Center requires this amount to stay alive, so I can't pay that working for Zen Center business, so Zen Center business aren't functioning, then it should disappear. It's a good reality factor, isn't it? That's how I would look at it, yeah. So, let's see what happens. I thought one of the factors in having income-producing within Zen Center wasn't just to support ourselves, but the bright light of that factor, of working and doing something that we felt good about wasn't destroying us. Even, just from an economic point of view, even the, like, Alaya is losing money, but Alaya still pays the number of people salaried, which is actually to our benefit, because that money circulates through our community, rather than in and out, and that circulation in our community actually makes money in the sense I was talking about. Also, those salaries remember, too. I mean, Maya was talking about it.

[48:18]

I mean, that went up as the minimum wage went up, and as... What is it now? I'm just 15 when I left. I have a three-year-old now. And also, the commissioner said that he didn't agree with rent when the salaries went up, too. So, it's not like the minimum salary is going to fix it. Yeah, well, last time we raised the rent, we raised Alaya so that they wouldn't be... We raised Alaya salaries, so that they wouldn't be hurt by it. But this time, we're raising and also lowering the cities. So, it's a good thing we came up with it, because Alaya's cities have been raised. So, maybe this time, we can leave the salaries and things like that to Alaya and see how that works. If it doesn't work, just... I mean, if we're lowering... If Alaya doesn't work, if it doesn't work, we won't be able to do it. That's going to be a 50-50. So, that's a good thing to wrap it up.

[49:20]

Hey, that's the case. Maybe it's more than that. If not, maybe we can change this. I mean, I think that would be a good thing to do. Well, I don't know. Yeah, especially if we put it together. We'll figure it out. Well, $20. $20. You really want us to continue? I think we ought to try to stop. You all seem to have the picture of what's going on. To get to it in more detail than we've done now would take you several days. We've done about as much detail as we can. The next level of detail would take a lot of work. And Arnie... After the meeting, Arnie can go through papers with you or look at those charts with you. Could he publish those? Publish them? We can make them available. Do you have some of those charts? Sure.

[50:24]

Sure. All right, that's a good idea. And I think we're certainly going to... We certainly reasonably should. Now, first of all, it shouldn't... Assuming salaries have been going up with the economy, to raise from $140,000 to $160,000 isn't really a raise. It's going along with the inflation. So probably we should actually go up to $170,000 or $180,000 as we get more realistic about our expenses. And I don't think that's too much, myself, for what... You know, if you talk to... Again, you talk to foundations, and you say it only costs them for room, board, housing, and everything else, and security, under $140 a month or $200 a month, I think it's nuts. It's too low. But we know that you can also... We have another factor. We can also band together, two or three people, rent an apartment with brown rights, and you can live a lot cheaper. Maybe we... I just thought of this. It might be interesting if Arnie, at some point,

[51:25]

was taking full control of people that aren't needed, and just to find out what their income is now. That would be an interesting thing to work with. Well, it's also so that if you change it, people change their job site. You know, people tend to get jobs which just cover their basic needs. You can have a little different job. So that's true, but at the same time, it's... Right, but that also has an effect. You know that some people are incapable of getting... Or to do that requires a caliber of students to come in. That's true. That would certainly be true if it cost $500 a month to stay here. At the range of $150 to $250 a month, I don't think it makes much... I think it excludes very few people. And it would be beneficial for a lot of people to try to get a little different jobs. Yeah. So... I don't think we'll go up... I don't think we'll seriously go up to $180 because none of us could stand the shock.

[52:25]

So probably something like $160 will occur. I wanted to dispel some misconceptions that I think may be in danger, and that is there's no problem with getting a job that you like. If you think it's a good job, it doesn't interfere with your practice in some ways. It's a good, complicated work or a graded work. Don't worry if it means a lot of money. It may be all right. Some people think it's bad to make a lot of money. One person in particular happens to be quite skilled and can get a good job which is perhaps more interesting. In other words, he thought perhaps he shouldn't take the job because it was higher for $100 a month. But that's not necessarily so. One thing... Yeah. One thing that I'd like to say is that this is a little off, completely off the cuff, but it looks like another thing that's happening,

[53:29]

this is a very abbreviated kind of historical trip, is that national states no longer can supply our security because of atomic bombs, etc. So there are many reasons why it's become clear national states can't supply our security. The result has been, I think, over the world, is the rise of individuality within states. Bretton or... Scotland. In what? Scotland. Yeah. All right. Scotland, people in Canada, all over the place. People are saying, Why the heck do I have to be part of... Why do we have to submerge different differences? What's happening is all over the world there's an emphasis on differences coming out. This is going to have, again, a pretty strong effect, I think, on the way states and economies work in the next few years, even the next few years. And we'll see a lot more things left...

[54:33]

Either we'll move toward fascism, or we'll move toward a lot more things left on their own. And in that sense, we are again being looked at as an example of people trying to... things being left on their own. Do you want to say something, Drew? I wanted to, in case people didn't see our advertisements, there's going to be a new agency, that Neighborhood Foundation, that's going to be based in Gothenburg, and they're going to be in charge of dollars for adults. We'll probably be doing this on an ongoing... and we have a movie coming every week. Where will it be shown? Over in the Neighborhood Foundation office. And that's going to be going for Christmas food packages that we are working with all the other agencies in this neighborhood. Redfield, and this is once a month at Donner School, and it's an association that we do. And we've been having meetings, and it's a way that we build up some kind of trust and communication points. So we're going to give up our contribution,

[55:33]

we're going to give up a slight energy, but we've got to give some money back. So those of you that don't want to come and see the movie, in fact, we need the best regards. Lighten the mood. We would also, we would accept donations. We'll have a box made available. This will be the only time that we'll actually move forward in asking for any kind of money after that movie. This is Winston, and... Donner School. She's a social worker up there. And Sacred Heart, and the group, and the tennis association are getting together and drawing up a list. In this neighborhood, right. And then we'll have a little argument. You know when the single,

[56:35]

in all crimes, when the single highest day of all crimes, Christmas Eve, it shows to go yet. Everyone's stealing for their kid, for their mother. That element is in all. Suicide too. Christmas. So we should get some toys over too. We're going to try to do that. Let me say something about fundraising. It's the secret of fundraising. And the secret actually, too, of communicating about Buddhism to people is you don't discriminate. So if you're raising money, or somebody expresses interest in Buddhism, whoever it is, whether it's a taxi driver, or a bus driver, or somebody you meet in the store, everyone you treat equally. The same with fundraising. If you're raising money,

[57:39]

you don't just go to the foundation, and the foundation officer, you try to raise money from the secretary, the door, and the receptionist down in the lobby, and the elevator man, and everyone you expect to give money. You just say, you have a feeling, well, this is what we should be doing. So everyone should be able to reduce their expenses within Zen Center, and we should expect everyone we know to give something, $5 or $20. If you don't, everyone sends you to someone else. Oh yes, I really agree. Why don't you go see someone else? You're going to stop that trend. But you too, if you give us $20, we'll give you $5. I think, my own feeling is it would be pretty interesting if we can do it, to have a fundraising effort this year. I think we have some valuable things actually to communicate about what we're doing, and some of the things we're doing are part of the reason we have to raise money. So, I think we can have fun doing it. I guess the...

[58:45]

I would like you to, as many as possible, go and see Paul in the office, or Arnie, or Red, and talk to them about, if you have something to say about it, about what you think we should do, or how much the monthly fee should be, etc. I think that's enough for now. Thank you.

[59:08]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ