On Saturday, I gave a talk for the One Day Sitting, and I was describing how I was feeling a state of mind and body that I was in right before I started, or right at the beginning of starting to practice, when I felt I couldn't relate to the world, there wasn't much flow, so I would see some beautiful scenery or some beautiful day being a beautiful day, and I couldn't feel it, I knew that this must be a beautiful day, but somehow I had no connection with it, no relationship to it. And the same with any kind of work of art or beautiful music, I knew that this must be some masterpiece.

[01:20]

But it didn't come in, because I was in a lot of pain and depression, so nothing seemed to get to me. And as I was talking on Saturday, I was describing standing in front of the baptistry doors in Florence, for those of you who have sat in the sitting and heard this, Gilberti's golden doors, called the Gates of Heaven, and they're big, very tall, and they're all wrought in these small figures, some of you have probably seen them, many of you maybe, in bas-relief, and they're just fabulous. And I knew they were, because I had studied them in art history class, and I couldn't wait to see them, but there they were, and I couldn't feel anything. And what I said on Saturday was, come on, what I remembered saying to myself was something like, you numbskull, this is a masterpiece, look at it, numbskull.

[02:27]

And afterwards I was thinking about that term, numbskull, numbskull, and realizing that that was, I think that's true, there was a numb, my skull was numb, and not only my skull was numb, but I think the rest of me was kind of numb, actually. So I had been thinking about how it was that that numbness came about, or I should say, the moment at which I realized that I'm a numbskull and a numb person, and I hesitate a little bit to talk about this, just because I,

[03:31]

why do I hesitate? I don't want to presume upon your ears, I guess, because you're this captive audience, but I've been wanting to try to get to this kind of material and look at it a little bit, and I thought, well, maybe to do it as a talk, talking with people, something might happen, because thinking about it by myself is very different from speaking, because it's a two-way street here, and what's coming from you will actually inform how I talk about it, so I thought it might be helpful. But as I say, I don't want to presume upon you is what occurs to me. So anyway, I was invited to participate in this book that's being written by Susan Moon,

[04:40]

our very own Susan Moon and Lenore Friedman, and the working title of the book is something like Buddhist Women and Their Bodies, I guess. I actually wrote it down, that's not the title, but it's sort of like that. Let's see. The name of this book is going to be... Don't tell me. Oh, excuse me for doing this. The name of the book is called Being Bodies, Buddhist Women on the Paradox of Embodiment. Being Bodies, Buddhist Women on the Paradox of Embodiment, and what they're attempting to do is talk about the body in all sorts of different ways.

[05:42]

A number of people have been asked to participate, contribute, in terms of sickness, old age and death, in terms of motherhood and giving birth, in terms of healing, zazen practices and so forth. So looking at the body in a lot of different ways and how it interfaces with practice. So I have been trying to kind of work on what I'm going to write about for this, and looking at how important the body practice is for all of us, and how many cases what happened to our bodies or the bodies of others, meaning the death of a loved one or something that happened to ourselves,

[06:45]

often was a pivotal point in one's turning towards practice, for men and women, both. So the other day I was at soccer practice, actually there was a soccer game, and then following the soccer game for Navy Soccer, there was picture-taking time, and all the teams had to go to this one field and you had to fill out your order form and get all gathered and then they'd be called and you had to line up. I think every soccer team in Mill Valley was there in this field trying to do this event, and there were all these pens and leaf order forms to fill out, and you couldn't get your picture taken until everybody on the team had filled them out. So I was there trying to fill out babies, and I saw a pen over there,

[07:48]

and I sort of grabbed the pen and started, and I was writing away, and all of a sudden someone grabbed my arm, like really hard, and it was shocking, you know. And he said, would you give me back my pen? And I said, yes, you could have asked for it, I would have given it to you. He said, I did, I've been calling or yelling or something for you to pass it over. I said, well, I really didn't hear you. There was all this going on, all these kids. He said, I don't want to discuss it. And I was just, you know, had to practice very hard. Because I really was upset. I mean, it's not very often that I get sort of physically, you know, grabbed hold of like that. And this was minor, you know, this was a soccer game. I thought, you know, he's a coach, and he's, I was kind of practicing with him, getting into his own shoes, you know, exchanging self for others.

[08:54]

He was one of the coaches, and he was trying, and he was upset, and he was this and that and the other. But meanwhile, I could feel it just reverberating through me, this feeling of these hands on me, you know, and kind of giving me a shake. It was so, you know, in the middle of Mill Valley, it just was. So then what arose was, if it had been a man, you know, there was this kind of gender issue that came up. Would he have grabbed a hold of a man like that and given him a shake? And I thought, well, probably not. Because he might have gotten shaken back, you know, or something. But maybe, maybe not. Maybe he would have grabbed a guy. But somehow I felt like here was this instance of, you know, karmic, this psychophysical stream is in a woman's body.

[09:57]

And that means there are ways in which people view it, and social customs, and all sorts of things that are all constructed around that, which we have to deal with all the time. And the same is true of being in a man's body. Certain things happen to men that don't happen to women by virtue of being in a man's body, or being a man's body. So this particular thing of kind of physical, what I experience really is physical aggression at a very kind of, you know, in a scale of one to ten, it was not too bad, right? But I couldn't shake it, you know. It was like I was walking around and kind of breathing. And what was it about this violation? And eventually it kind of wore off, wore off. And his daughter was very embarrassed. I remember she was like, yeah.

[10:57]

Anyway, so. Let's see, I'm having, holding this here. So the point at which I became numb, or realized that I was a numb skull, there was actually a point before which I didn't feel numb and after which I felt I'm numb. And the point had to do with a choice I made, it was an actual decision to go numb for my own self-preservation. I actually decided I will not feel any of this anymore, this pain. And I was actually able to do that, I think we're actually able to do that, to really switch off an emotional life or more than just emotional, actually a physical, physical sensations, emotional, physical, physical, mental sensations and relatedness.

[12:17]

We can actually cut that if we have to and might do that for kind of self-preservation at a certain time. But then it's very hard to kind of get back, to get un-numb again, to thaw out, you know, how do you do that? Because somehow the decision to defrost, even though I wanted to later, wasn't, it didn't just happen because I wanted to. I was encased, you know, in front of the doors of heaven, you know, just. So this event of clicking off had to do with the reaction from my family, my parents really, well actually my whole family, around the fact that I defrosted.

[13:24]

My freshman year in college, got pregnant in the first quarter of my freshman year in college, this was in 1966. And this was like a major, major event for me and for my family and sort of what began coming my way, I actually chose to click. And then nobody could hurt me anymore and I didn't cry anymore in front of anybody that mattered and I just said, send me away, you know, which is what happened. So this event, this body event, was a major event for, well I didn't know it at the time, but for my practice life, you know, for actually turning my whole, my life was definitely turned around.

[14:28]

But I didn't know that it was, you know, when it turned backwards, I didn't realize what it was going towards, I just knew that it turned basically upside down. So the events of being sent away, this was pre-Roe v. Wade, right, so being sent away to a foster home was, you know, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't easy. It wasn't very easy and, but the most difficult part, that was not as difficult as feeling the kind of withdrawal of affection from people that mattered to me, you know, that was the kind of most painful, the kind of emotional withdrawal.

[15:31]

So, I don't want to necessarily write tonight, during this talk, go into kind of the details, but the sort of body events of having the child and not, not knowing how to, you know, how to deal with it. This was kind of before natural childbirth was really in vogue, you know, and so there wasn't very much, those of you who have given birth and there's a lot of instructions about breathing in your body and relaxing into sensation and lots of stuff I feel gleaned from meditation practice and self-healing things and all sorts of different things. Different traditions and cultures has been, you know, drawn together into this natural childbirth movement, you might call it, but there was none of that at the time and so I was basically told nothing about, you know, what might happen.

[16:48]

And I was very afraid, you know, I think because my view of labor was like from Gone with the Wind with Melanie, what was Melanie's last name, what, Ashley Wilkes, Melanie Wilkes, you remember, you know, that scene. Anyway, that was kind of what I thought it was going to be like and my mother didn't talk about it, you know, so I had a lot of fear and I sort of self-educated myself by going to the library and reading whatever I could and I remember this one line in one of these books, which were rather antiseptic books, it wasn't like, you know, The Farm and Spiritual Midwifery or anything. It was kind of, but there was this one line that said, breath, it didn't say, I think since that time in my mind it was awareness of breath or paying attention to your breath, but it wasn't, it didn't say that. It said something like, breathing during labor might be helpful or something.

[17:52]

This one phrase in one of these books and I remember thinking, oh, at least that, it was the only phrase of help that anybody had given me, breathing, and okay, well, I'll remember that. So when the time came, my mother happened to be there, she came to the foster home to be with me, but during that time nobody was allowed to be with you, so you were separated. My mother couldn't go with me into the labor and delivery room and I was kind of left to fend for myself on this, I remember this very narrow gurney, kind of this gurney in this room that had these curtains around it, kind of partitions with all these other people, other women in labor, left to their own devices, screaming. There was nobody who was your labor coach who was kind of, you know, okay, breathe into it and all that. There was nothing there, you're just left there. So I remember, breathe, oh yes, breathing might be helpful during labor, breathing, I didn't know how to do it, you know, but I was going to try.

[18:59]

That and whistling from the king and I whenever I feel afraid, you know, that was kind of the extent of my labor coaching. And then at a certain point I was just put under, you know, so I think they just assumed you didn't need much help because you were going to go unconscious anyway. So anyway, this is a body event, you know, this is really sort of a big-time body event with not much instruction about how one deals with the body and sensation and the emotional realm, you know, fear and nothing, you know, it's just... So, let's see where I want to get to that. So after that time, after that was over and the child was given up for adoption, which was also, you know, there's these major events in women's biological life, not every woman's, but that can be menstruation, defloration, pregnancy, lactation,

[20:17]

those are some of the main ones. So, and they're all very based in changes, big changes in the body. So after the pregnancy, then there was giving away the child and then there was, I guess I will get into this, then there was, the baby was gone, but then there was lactation. There was all this milk that came in. They gave me pills so that the milk would come in while I was in the hospital, some kind of medicine of some sort. But then after I left, for whatever reason, it all came in. So there I was, kind of ready for the next thing, but there was no next thing, you know, this kind of strange discontinuity and sadness, you know, utter sadness. So, and I came back to go back to college, you know, as a freshman, you know, and to pledge a sorority. And it was like, I just, it was like I was in another world, you know, I had just gone through this amazing transition and I was an old woman, you know, is how I felt.

[21:44]

And my body had totally changed. I had stretch marks and, you know, I was, the body, the impermanence of the body was, had come home, you know, at a kind of a young age, since nobody had ever died in my family, except our various pets. So this impermanence had not really come home, but it came home for me in my own body because it had changed, you know, it was, but everybody else was sort of young and fit and hopping around. But I was in another realm, you know, I really was, I couldn't, I was out of sync. And not only that, I was numb, you know, I was kind of numbskull and I couldn't relate to anybody. But I went through the motions, you know, went back to school and was living at home and so forth.

[22:45]

But I felt sort of dismembered, you know, I was like, and I think I physically was because part of me was, I didn't know where, this child, and it really was a part of me and it was gone, you know, and it was very hard to, I couldn't integrate it. And along with that, nobody ever spoke about it again, ever. It was never mentioned at home. It was like, well, now, what are you going to take in school? And I was like, so there was, you kind of get the feeling of why someone might feel disoriented or numb. So in this state of being, and I was doing extremely well in school because that's all I did was study, you know, I was introduced to Zazen practice. It was right that year, my freshman year.

[24:04]

So, I actually, no, it wasn't that year. It was soon thereafter. It was about, in about nine months or so from there. And I, what happened was, well, I don't know what happened, but there was a kind of re-membering that went on. You know, mindfulness is sometimes called, another name for mindfulness is re-membering. So from a dismembered being, I was showed some ways of re-membering. Very simple things having to do with breath, you know, counting one's breath and sitting quietly and various body practices like set the teacup down or set the teapot down where there's a coaster and not, I remember that was pointed out to me as I was trying to put this teapot down.

[25:10]

Don't put it on the table, put it on the coaster. So, in various small ways, I was beginning to re-member and it was through practice. So, mindfulness practice, you know, at the beginning of each year in tea ceremony, the tea teacher, Christy, who is the Urasenke teacher, always, every year at the New Year, goes back to the basics of mindfulness. Tea ceremony, so you take your cloth, your fukusa, and you, even though you've done it hundreds and hundreds of times, you go through how you fold it and do all these things, it's like reoki, you know. You go through that very carefully again and handling of the whisk and all the different implements and the most simple movements, you go back and this year for me, I'm not, I haven't been studying tea all that long, but I think if you were to ask some of the people who are studying, who have studied for a long time,

[26:39]

and those going back to the basics fresh every year, it's, you always, there is something to be discovered endlessly about handling your fukusa and setting down the whisk and all of it. It's an unending practice, and I feel that that's the same way with mindfulness practice, which I think of as one of our most basic practices. And what I found, and it is the mindfulness practice has the ability to take a mind that's dismembered, or I don't know if mindfulness takes, but the mind of mindfulness can, takes dismemberedness and re-members it.

[27:40]

And so the mindfulness does not care, one of the most difficult things was that I had in my mind, along with these physical feelings and the depression and all, I had incorporated, and as Anne Klein calls it, been colonized by all these other expectations and ideals and wishes and hopes from everybody else, you know, and I had been sort of colonized, I had taken those on, and to such a degree that I didn't know where I was. And so if you have these kinds of ideals that you're never able to live up to ever, because that's the nature of ideals, so the contents of your mind are constantly, you're struggling, I was struggling with it and being

[28:54]

beaten down and beaten up by these kinds of, this kind of thinking, but mindfulness, it doesn't care so much about content. Mindfulness says something like, I feel anger, anger resides in me, you know, it notes I feel anger, anger resides in me, and it doesn't add, and that's a really bad thing to be feeling. Mindfulness is not, doesn't add that kind of commentary, it stays with, it notes, and that's a kind of, that's an emotional noting of anger resides in me, or I feel very angry, anger resides in me. But there's also, I remember when I first came to Zen Center, and I was really nervous, I remember someone gave me, it was after dinner cleanup, and they said, here, you'll like this, do this, and it was, I think I mentioned this before, it was putting the gomasio away, and there was little bowls of gomasio with little teeny spoons, and then there was a special little brush, and then there was a big gomasio container,

[30:18]

and you got to dump the gomasio, and then brush off all the little crumbs, and then stack, and take another one, dump, dump, brush, brush, brush, stack, well, I tell you, that was like, you know, to be given a job like that, that I could do, it was like, it was like heaven, you know, and all I had to do was lift, brush, brush, brush, set down, and I kind of, there was no colonized ideal, you know, in there about how it was to be done, other than, I mean, I got the feeling that we were taking care of things, and carefully doing things, but for me, the mind of just doing that which is before you with sincerity or with wholeheartedness, this was new, this was a new way to be in the world,

[31:29]

because I think I had been for various years doing things in order to be in the good graces of get approval for not rock the boat, stay very small so I didn't get noticed, get very good grades so I didn't get any problems about that, and that was my world, it was just filled with that, it was dismembered into living for everyone else's, what they thought I should do, and that, there was nothing else, so if you give somebody like that, like me, a gomasio dish with a little brush, the kind of relief of just doing that kind of body practice is enormous, it's unforgettable, you know, that was in, I think that was January 2, 1971, dinner,

[32:35]

so it's never to be forgotten, and it was compassionate, what I understood it as was this is deep compassion, that I am asked to do this fully with no questions asked, you know, you just help with the gomasio, and I experienced that as compassion, so I wanted to read something to you about compassion, this is from world as lover, world as self, Joanna Macy, she's talking about the world as lover, but she uses this particular example from Italo Calvino, who is one of my favorite Italian, he's a writer, and he also gathered folk tales,

[33:43]

he's got a big collection of folk tales, which Emma brought me in Italian, back when she came back from Italy, I have the four volume set, Italian was my major by the way, so I like things in Italian, anyway, he wrote this book called Cosmic Comics, Italo Calvino, and it starts at the time of the moment before the Big Bang, this is the beginning of the book, right at the beginning, before the Big Bang, and at that time, he says, we were all concentrated in a single point, everything in the entire universe was in a single point right before the Big Bang, we were all there, where else could we have been, says the narrator, and then he describes the experience, we were all in that one point, and man was it crowded, contrary to what you might think, it wasn't the sort of situation that encourages sociability, given the conditions, irritations were almost inevitable,

[34:47]

see in addition to all these people, you have to add all that stuff we had to keep piled up in there, all this material that was to serve afterwards to form the universe, the nebula of Andromeda, anyway he goes on, and then there was this family and all their household goods, their camp beds, their mattresses, it's all there in this one point, so then there was all this complaints and stuff, but there was this one person and no complaints ever were attached to her, and that was Mrs. Pavicini, and Mrs. Pavicini, her bosom, her thighs, her orange dressing gown, with a blissful, generous emotion, she used to sleep with these different people, Mrs. Pavicini, but nobody cared because she was such a great person, but in a point, if there's a bed, it takes up the whole point, so it isn't a question of going to bed, but of being there, because anybody in the point is also in the bed, anyway, so it goes on, and then Mrs. Pavicini, so this state of affairs could have gone on indefinitely, and then an extraordinary thing happened, an idea occurred to Mrs. Pavicini,

[35:59]

and this is what she said, oh boys, if only I had some room, how I'd like to make some pasta for you, and in that moment, we all thought, this is the longest sentence in, this is the favorite longest sentence of Joanna Macy in literature is this sentence, this is the one sentence, I don't know if I can read the whole thing, but in that moment, we all thought of the space that Mrs. Pavicini's round arms would occupy, moving backward and forward over the great mound of flour and eggs, while her arms kneaded and kneaded, white and shiny with oil, up to the elbows, and we thought of the space the flour would occupy, and the wheat for the flour, and the fields to raise the wheat, and the mountains from which the wheat, from which the water would flow, and so on, and so on, and Mrs. Pavicini uttering those words, ah, what pasta, boys, and it was Mrs. Pavicini, she, who in the midst of our closed, petty world, had been capable of a generous impulse, boys, the pasta I could make for you, a true outburst of general love, initiated at the time, at the same time, the concept of space, and properly speaking, space itself, and time,

[37:18]

and universal gravitation, and the gravitating universe, so forth and so on, making possible billions and billions of suns, and Mrs. Pavicini scattered through the continents of the planets, kneading with flowery, oil-shiny, generous arms, and she lost at that very moment, and we mourning her loss. So, this one general, generous impulse, a generous impulse, like here, what, I actually felt this person saw my pain, and said, here, you'd like to do this, this kind of compassionate impulse to help me with a mindfulness practice, you know. So, I feel that, just to say it again, this mindfulness practice has the possibility of dropping the content, dropping away the content, other than noticing, dropping the kind of judgmental, critical content, critical mind of looking at the content,

[38:29]

and, you know, what mindfulness does is, it focuses on the object, and stays steady with it, and meanwhile, everything else is moving and swirling around, the billions and billions of universes. So, you have the juxtaposition of the stillness and the complete awareness of the flux and the impermanence, and that happens, it's not paradoxical in experience, it actually can be experienced that way, where you're steady and feel the total movement. So, this quality, the qualities of mind of things like calm and clarity and intense, it doesn't depend on content or ideals that you're not living up to or anything, it's just enough to be there at that point.

[39:31]

So, this being introduced to sitting and mindfulness practice and breath, and all these practices that we have been lucky enough to have been exposed to, I don't know how to finish that sentence, besides, I just feel extremely grateful, and this numbness, you know, the numbskull in that, over the years, it, I don't know what to say, it evaporated, is that the word? I don't know how to describe it, it let go, life force began to break through the cement like little tendrils, you know, until there was a whole bunch of grass, but that's what happened.

[40:44]

And, you know, through the years, coming back to this body practice, you know, the wisdom of the body practices and the, for example, you know, at Tassajara, during the time that I was down there, I started doing involuntary movement, and those of you who were there with me remember quite well what that was like, and it was wild, it was just wild. It wasn't just a little bit, it was like wild, like crashing over from one side of the Zabaton to the other, and just holding on to the Zabaton, because if I didn't, it was like a magic carpet, just, in the Zendo, you know, and everybody else sort of sitting quietly. And then the bell would ring, wow, get out, fluff my cushion, walk out, and then the rest of the day everything would be fine and dandy and do my work, and then back to the Zendo, wild woman.

[42:07]

I mean, I, you know, like, people next to me, I had these impulses to start pummeling them and pummeling the divider, and just wild. And then, ding, you know, wow. So what was this? You know, this was a koan for years, ten years, ten years I did involuntary movement. Not as wild as that, that was the beginning, but then it, you know, moved into a smaller, you know, radius of, but, so what was that, you know, what was going on there? And getting to the bottom of what that was, you know, and finally being able to sit still was a kind of major event.

[43:07]

So all along this body, and I feel this for everyone actually, it, to listen, you know, listen and watch and take care of. You know, someone recently talked to me about, I don't know if they use the word, but about self-care, you know, finding almost the impossibility of taking care of themselves, you know, and I think in this culture, in terms of, you know, this book and women as a gender issue, women are socialized often to take care of everyone's needs before their own. It's a kind of, not everyone, that's a generalization, but in many cases your own needs come after family members and everyone else until you don't know anymore how to take care of yourself.

[44:08]

You know, what is self-care? And if you take care of yourself first, someone, and yourself included, say, well, that's pretty selfish, you know. So, you know, negotiating that, how you, where do you, what is self-care and what is selfishness, you know, and what is the negotiating around that? This is, and I feel like your body, one's own body for men and women can be a help in, you know, tipping you off to what is self-care and what isn't self-care. It often will say, you'll often know from that aspect of your life, maybe before you know from how you're thinking about things. So this is for me an on, this is not over, you know, it's not over till it's over. This is a never-ending tale.

[45:11]

And there's pitfalls, you know, there are pitfalls along the way. And I just, I want, this is the Vasudhimagga, I remember I mentioned it last week, or the last time I spoke. This is from the 5th century, the path of purification, it's meditation text. And I just wanted to read about a pitfall that I feel really spoke to me. And it has to do with scheming on the part of one bent on gain, honor, and renown. And there's three different ways that they're talking about. The first one is called rejection of requisites. Requisites are things that the monks have to have. For example, a needle, food, you know, alms, certain robes, and medicines. And so I found this very interesting. To accept robes, alms, food, resting place, and the requisite of medicine as cure for the sick. One who is of evil wishes, a prey to wishes, wanting robes, alms, food, resting place, the requisite of medicine as cure for the sick, refuses the robes, refuses the alms food, refuses the resting places.

[46:45]

No, no, no. Refuses the medicine. He says, what has an ascetic to do with expensive robes? Is it proper for an ascetic to get, no, it's proper for an ascetic to gather rags from a charnel ground or from a rubber sheet from a shop and make them into a patchwork cloak to wear? What has an ascetic to do with expensive alms food? Is it proper for an ascetic to get his living by the droppings of lumps of food into his bowl while he wanders for gleanings? And he goes on, you know, what's an ascetic going to do with expensive medicines for all this stuff? And then the people, the householders say, oh my goodness, this person has so much merit and he's so, he or she is just so lofty and wonderful and has so much faith in everything. And this ascetic has few wishes, is content, is secluded, keeps aloof from company, is strenuous, is a preacher of asceticism. And then they invite him more and more to accept, oh please accept these robes and these alms and please go ahead with the medicine.

[47:57]

And he says, you know, he basically says no again and then finally he says, well, I'll accept them out of compassion for you. Rather will I accept out of compassion for you. Accordingly he accepts many robes, he accepts much alms food, he accepts many resting places, he accepts many requisites of medicine as cure. You get it? The kind of turn that could take, you know, where someone may feel, because they're being deprived of the chance to give dana, you know, which is very meritorious, because the person says, oh no, you know, I'm an ascetic. And I just, it really, the kind of scheming, you know, you kind of get this, but our minds sometimes work that way, even without our knowing it. And then the ammunition is such grimacing, grimacery, scheming, schemery, scheminess is known as the instance of scheming called rejection of requisites. And then there's two more like that. One is about hypocrisy and the part of one of evil wishes who gives it to be understood verbally in some way or other that he has attained a higher than human state and should be understood as this is an instance called indirect talk.

[49:14]

And then it goes through, here's someone of evil wishes. Is this interesting? Or are you getting bored? No comment? Should I stop? Let me just do this one. Here's someone of evil wishes, a prey to wishes, eager to be admired, thinking, thus people will admire me, speaks words about the noble state. And he says, he who wears such a robe is a very important ascetic. He who carries such a bowl or metal cup or water filler or water strainer or key wears such a waistband or a sandal is a very important ascetic. And he who has such a preceptor or teacher, who has the same preceptor, who has the same teacher, who has such a friend or associate or intimate, he who lives in such a monastery, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, is a really important person, you know. So this is indirect talk. You never say, I am this wonderful person, but you say, you make all these inferences, you know, around the edges. So this is an instance of scheming called indirect talk. I just think it's so great how this book kind of gets into, you know, the way our minds work. It reminds me of a line in a song that my uncle, who's a jazz pianist, wrote where the song is called I'm Hip.

[50:28]

And this person basically talks about how hip they are because one of the lines is Sammy Davis. Do you know Sammy Davis, Jimmy? Sammy Davis knows my friend, I'm so hip. That's the line. So it kind of reminded me of that. That's indirect talk, scheming, indirect talk. So this is for me. Take any of it that's helpful for you, but it was very helpful for me to kind of look at that. So, that's all. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

[51:15]

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