Thumbs up if you can hear me okay. Great. I see some thumbs. So it's a joy to be back with you all again. And it's, you know, this time together twice a week for me is very special. And it really supports me to practice together in Sangha, even though we can't be physically together. this virtual connectivity is a lifeline for many of us. So I really appreciate how we come together and create sangha in these times of duress and how nurturing it can be for our practice and also for that part of us that really feels what it is to be this human life at this particular challenging time. and how it is that we might navigate it together. So again, you probably already know that I'm David Zimmerman, and I just want to welcome you.

[01:06]

And if you're new to these practice sessions, what they usually entail is 25 minutes or so of zazen meditation. And then afterwards, I give a short dharmat, a brief dharma expression of some sort, and then open up the floor to all of you to share what it is that you're practicing with at this time. And that's when I think it comes most alive, our chance to sit together and the opportunity to hear from all of you. So without further ado, let's enter into our meditation together. So I invite you all to find a posture that is alert, attentive, relaxed, which you can settle into your position for about 25 minutes. And I'm gonna ring the bell. And as I do so, again, you might wish to take the opportunity to just note when the sound first arises, the time which endures.

[02:13]

And then when it passes and fades away, what is it that remains? What is it that's always present, but doesn't come and go? It doesn't fluctuate in any fundamental way that is always abiding. as I've been doing, offering a few guided words to help those who might be newer to practice to settle into the meditation a little bit more, and then eventually fading into silence altogether.

[03:25]

You might find it particularly helpful in first sitting down to just notice your contact with the environment, the sensations, the way you're sitting, body either on a cushion or against a chair or laying in a bed or a wheelchair. Just noticing the sensation of contact. And then directing mind's attention to make contact with the breath. flow of breathing in and breathing out. Focusing not on the idea of the breath, but the actual sensations. How do you know that you're breathing? What information from your senses informs you that breathing is happening without you having to do anything?

[04:41]

seeing if you can allow mind's attention to stay with the flow of breath for a few moments, settling more deeply into the body as you do so. Maybe even inviting the breath into particular areas of the body and feel a little bit more tight, have some sense of tension or grasping or holding. Inviting the brethren to this area is not to change them, not to fix them, but simply to be witness to them, to be a spacious, aware presence, being a friend to the experience, whatever it might be. Zazen is the endeavor to befriend the entirety of our experience.

[05:57]

Everything is welcomed. Even if we don't like it or don't prefer it, the vast mind of Buddha turns nothing away, acknowledges all experience with equanimity and composure. Knowing that fundamentally there is no separation self and other, no subject objects, just this direct, immediate experience, which is timeless. during our breaths to presence the experience.

[07:07]

Resting, opening a little bit more to it as best we can. Continuing it to hold it with the same spaciousness that we may experience in the breath. So allowing whatever waves of thoughts, feelings, and body sensations to simply make themselves known in the ocean in the present moment.

[08:22]

And just doing our best to surf those waves. Some sense of balance. Not needing to get carried away by the waves of thoughts, concerns, worries about the future. being tossed over the waves of fear or anxiety, allowing them to pass through us as if we were a large, boundless ocean. Just holding

[09:36]

all experience with the same open, invitational, befriending orientation. If you notice a particular tightness in the stomach, the abdomen of the hara, allow your awareness to rest there for a little bit. Just defending that experience. And as you do so, as you listen to it, in a non-judgmental way, if you can,

[10:38]

allowing it to be what it is, to make itself known, to honor it. As you do so, notice if anything happens. Does anything change? So continuing together in silence now, allowing as best we can the waves of experience, thoughts, feelings, body sensations, to simply pass through the boundless ocean mind of Buddha.

[11:49]

Not holding on or grasping anything. allowing them to, in time, also change and fade away, leaving us to rest in stillness and quiet. Thank you, everyone, for sitting together in this way.

[30:05]

And now I'll offer a few Dharma, a little bit of a Dharma encouragement. I was realizing that for those of us who live in the Bay Area and San Francisco, we've been under the shelter-in-place order for a month now. I thought it was the 16th, so coming up on a month. And some of you may have heard me share a particular analogy when all this originally began, that of all of us having had to hurriedly jump into life rafts in order to protect ourselves from some kind of pending threat. So we pushed off from the familiar land of our daily routines and our comforts and have become refugees on the wide open and unfamiliar waters of a pandemic of COVID-19. course, we've had little time to properly pack or prepare. And despite the predictions by certain experts, we really don't know how long we're going to be out here on the ocean and whether or not we'll return to shore in any particular way.

[31:10]

So it's been four weeks now. And frankly, the point of novelty has worn off for me. I don't know about you all, but for me, it's getting a little old. And I noticed that I and a number of the others of us who are in the same could say Beginner's Mind or Zen Center raft with me. I'm beginning to feel some kind of psychological and physiological fatigue, you know, from just being in this stressful situation and for an extended period of time. So I'm beginning to feel like we're kind of stuck right now, right out in the middle of the ocean somewhere with no clear land in sight and We're here making a lot of efforts, paddling to stay safe, to stay afloat, to take care of ourselves. But we're not actually sure whether we're making any progress. Are we getting anywhere? And there's this occasional reported sightings of land, you know, or this idea there's an end to this particular ideal.

[32:15]

And yet oftentimes these kind of reports are kind of vague and unconvincing. And so we're kind of left with just basically feeling like we're treading water. We're trading water and maybe we're even beginning to question whether all this effort is worth it. So perhaps all kinds of thoughts, feelings, and body sensations are coming to the forefront for you. A lot of them tossing your bout more than the actual situation that we're finding ourselves in. Especially, you know, we're fortunate enough, privileged enough to have a comfortable home. to have access to food, to have healthcare and a reliable source of income, you know, we might still feel ourselves kind of really unsettled by this. And these waves of thoughts and emotions and physical sensations are actually, in some cases, appearing larger than we might expect given the actual circumstance in which we find ourselves in.

[33:16]

So it can be a little surprising to us. And Suzuki Roshi used the expression mind waves to describe the turmoil of the egoic mind struggle with the vicissitudes of life. Waves, he insisted, were whether in the form of thoughts or feelings or perceived external challenges, like the challenge we find ourselves in, are part of the ocean, they're part of the ocean of life. So if you are trying to find the peace of the ocean by eliminating the waves by getting rid of whatever thoughts, emotions, body sensations that you're actually feeling, you're not going to succeed. These waves are part of what it is to be human in this ocean of life. But if we learn to see the waves as part of the whole, to not be bothered by the mind's fluctuations, for example, your sense of

[34:17]

yourself as cut off or separate a lesson and maybe in some cases unworthy will kind of shift in some way. So after enough practice, we notice that the egoic mind's grasp and preoccupation begins to give way to something that's more open. And it kind of, you know, my sense of it begins to, the edges begin to dissolve. And we slowly kind of is eroded by, the sense of separation is eroded by a sense of the infinite, something much more vast and boundless. I was observing my own feelings of being stuck in the middle of the ocean, and it was kind of strong for me today, feeling like I'm just treading water, and that I'm getting somewhat tired and irritated by the whole situation. And as I was experiencing this, a particular poem came to mind for me, which I thought I would share with you today.

[35:20]

Because I think the poem speaks to the capacity to be in the midst of the ocean waves of the current situation with some degree of composure and resilience. And the poem is titled, A Little Duck, and it was written by Donald Babcock. And I'm going to read a slightly abridged version of it. Now we are ready to look at something pretty special. It is a duck riding the ocean a hundred feet beyond the surf and he cuddles in the way in the swells. There is a big heaving in the Atlantic and he is part of it. He looks a bit like a mandarin or the Lord Buddha meditating under the bow tree. He can rest while the Atlantic heaves, because he rests in the Atlantic.

[36:21]

Probably he doesn't know how large the ocean is, and neither do you. But he realizes it. And what does he do, I ask you? He sits down in it. He reposes in the immediate, as if it were infinity, which it is. That is religion. And the duck has it. He has made himself part of the boundless by easing himself into it just where it touches him. I like the little duck. He doesn't know much, but he has religion. I'll read this again. Now we are ready to look at something pretty special. It is a duck riding the ocean, a hundred feet beyond the surf. and he cuddles in the swells. There is a big heaving in the Atlantic, and he is part of it.

[37:23]

He looks a bit like a mandarin or the Lord Buddha meditating under the bow tree. He can rest while the Atlantic heaves because he rests in the Atlantic. Probably he doesn't know how large the ocean is, and neither do you, but he realizes it. And what does he do, I ask you? He sits down in it. He reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity. I love that line. He reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity, which it is. That is religion. That is spirituality. And the duck has it. He has made himself part of the boundless by easing himself into it. just where it touches him. I like the little duck. He doesn't know much, but he has religion. Or he has practice, we could say, practicing Zen, right?

[38:26]

He has practice. I appreciate the combination of subtle humor and the profound that this particular poem offers. And I think right now, particularly humor is very important. Whatever we can do to bring a sense of lightness and ease to the situation, You know, to be able to hold it in a slightly irreverent way, recognizing, yes, there are profound serious things happening, but also can we step back from them and also see what are some things that we can bring us a little likeness. So you could say that the little duck is practicing equanimity and perseverance without attachment, right? No attachment to a particular outcome, just persisting, just making the efforts. to be in the ocean, to be with the waves of the ocean, to rest in the ocean without expecting to get any particular place. So he isn't trying to transcend the ocean of the situation.

[39:28]

He's not turning away from the situation out of a subtle or not so subtle aversion or resistance to it. So the capacity of the duck is that he can rest while the Atlantic heaves. while the ocean of life heaves. Because he rests in the Atlantic, he gives himself over to it. He settles deeply into this is what is. And so, although the duck probably doesn't know how large the ocean is, as the poem says, he realizes it. And this realizing is the poem, that is, he intimately knows it. He intimately is aware of his relationship to it. As he sits down in it, he's one with it. He's not separate with it, right? Fully experiencing his contact, fully experiencing what it is to be right here and now. He reposes in the media as if there were infinity, which it is.

[40:31]

It's this moment, this ocean is endless. It's timeless. It's a timeless, endless, vast presence. So how do we settle into this? despite the surface waves that we might be encountering it. So this humble yet noble duck has made himself a part of the boundless, right? Not separate from the boundless. We could hear the boundless, we could say, is the immeasurable heart-mind of Buddha. It's Buddha nature. And he's made himself a part of it by simply pausing his furtive activity, this idea of treading, right? Trying to get somewhere. He's pausing. and just coming to rest in the ocean of life. And this resting allows him to be held in a larger unfolding, knowing he's an essential manifestation or expression of this ocean. He's not separate from it, so he doesn't need to grasp onto in terms of being a separate self in some way.

[41:36]

In the last... session, I spoke about the Brahmavihara as divine attitudes. And the Brahmavihara is also known as the boundless abodes, the boundless heart qualities. So we can ease our sense of being a separate self into the boundless infinite, allowing ourselves to kind of rest this sense of separation of By allowing, solely allowing the edges of our being to soften and relax and to extend into the unknown. So when we're sitting zazen, for example, what is it to notice? What is the edges that we feel in our mind body? How are they making themselves known? And the edges for me, I notice are the places of contraction. Wherever I'm like, I'm okay, I'm okay. I get to this certain place where there's a sense of tightness, contraction. happening. And if I can get to those edges and start to open and relax to them, to enter into them a little bit more, to see if I can extend myself into the unknown that's beyond them, I find that gradually they soften and open.

[42:55]

And I find myself still on the ocean of experience, but I'm surfing it. I'm able to navigate it with a bit more ease. I think I'll end there and open it up now to what it is that you might have to share in terms of your experience of being in the ocean of life right now, how it is that you might navigating the waves of whatever thoughts or feelings, sensations might coming up for you. I don't know if any of you kind of resonate with the feeling I'm having of just treading water. you know, and like, it's just over yet. And noticing yourself kind of, despite the circumstances being generally okay for you, that there's still this turmoil that's rolling inside of us in some way.

[43:57]

So what are you practicing with is basically what I wanna know. And how are you practicing with it? How is your practice alive as you find yourself in the middle of the ocean? So I'm gonna ask Tim to once again help to support any people who are raising their hand. He's posted in the chat field how it is that you might raise your hand. And I see, is it Carol Ann has a question? Thank you. Thank you for sharing. Let me get my video going. Is my video going now? Yes, we can see you perfectly. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that wonderful poem. I can feel that you're resting in it. I can feel your connection to that poem. That's coming along, of course, alive and strong. So thank you. But my question is not about that. It's about something. It's the very first thing you said. I typed it in the chat box. Do you see it there?

[44:58]

One second. Let me grab it. The question you asked at the beginning of Zazen is difficult for me to get a hold of. What is it that remains, that doesn't come or go, that is always abiding? How can I answer that without reification, without positing something? That's a beautiful question. Thank you for that. It's an important question for me. It's a very important question. So the thing is we can't get a hold of that which remains. Once the sound goes away, there's not something that we can grab onto to fill in the place. So basically what this is pointing to is the open mind, open awareness itself. So we might notice when the sound of the bell fades and nothing else immediately takes its place. There's just this kind of open receptive curiosity, just an openness. And if we rest in that openness, not trying to like look for the next thing that comes up because something else will arise.

[46:04]

We don't need to look for it. A new experience provides in the next moment. But if we step back and rest is that open awareness and notice that awareness is always present. Regardless of what it is that's passing through the sky of awareness, through the open sky of awareness, there's still the sky itself, that open, illuminative quality that's there. So the invitation at that point, rather than focus on the objects of awareness passing through the sky or passing through our mind, for example, once the sound of the bell fades away, rather than looking and grabbing onto another object to focus your attention on, you might explore just resting as awareness, resting as that open space itself. Do you have a sense of that in some way? Yeah, I do have a sense of that. I have a sense of that. It's difficult. It's subtle to get a hold of that without it being a thing, you know, without it.

[47:08]

Exactly, exactly. And that's the tricky part. We want to get a hold of it, right? Our minds want to get a hold of it. We want to grab onto it, but we can't grab onto it. It's not something that can be grasped conceptually, right? So it really is this kind of letting go. And letting go and letting the mind relax. Letting the impulse to try to see anything, even the effort to see something, to reach out in some way, creates a tension in the mind body. And that tension is grasping. So just continuing to just like, see if you can rest in openness. I'm not sure how to better explain that, but to explore that. And the way that I sometimes explore it is, where is there grasping? So I was saying this a little earlier. Noticing, is there any place where there's a subtle sense of contraction in the mind-body?

[48:10]

And kind of exploring that, going to that edge, and then just pausing and resting there. Without a sense of permanence of any kind. Exactly. So not trying to reify it, not trying to fix it. Our minds want to fix things because that's how the mind works. It wants to grab on. It wants to make sense. It needs to create meaning. It's just what it does. That's okay. But it overdoes it most of the time. It keeps going over and over and grabbing on and trying to worry things. you know, worry, like worry beads. We just keep doing this in our minds rather than resting that activity. Rest in open awareness, like the little duck. Exactly. The ocean of awareness, to rest in the ocean of awareness. Ocean of awareness. Thank you. Which we are part of. Amen. Not even a part of. We are the ocean of awareness itself.

[49:13]

I want to be careful about saying a part of, because a part of makes it sound like there's something that we are separate from. Oh, yeah. We are the ocean of awareness itself. in the ocean. We are the ocean. We are the ocean, right? Any wave, any death that appears is just a manifestation of the ocean itself, of awareness itself. Thank you. Thank you very much, Carol Ann. There's a few more hands up. Masaki. Yes. I enjoyed your poem. First thing I'd like to say. I wanted to share some observations and a question, which is when I was reading your poem, when you were reading your poem, the duck and the ocean stood out to me because the duck seemed as something that was delicate and the ocean you'd typically think of as something that was powerful.

[50:14]

But when I was... the thought that ended my mind was that they weren't really that different. The duck wasn't a weak little creature riding a great, big, powerful wave. The ocean wasn't any more powerful or less powerful than the duck itself. I think, and I think in our own lives, people oftentimes, aside from us versus, you know, them sort of mentality is people make things out to be more than it is in that they see this event and they see it as this great big drastic event that's more powerful than they are when the event doesn't have...

[51:17]

when the event not only is not more powerful than they are, if you let go, the event is a part of your own consciousness, I find. And I think based on what I've No, the Buddha. One of the reasons why the Buddha was able to do, at least in the end, he was able to do what he did was chiefly because he spent a lot of time dealing with that exact question, I think. And my question to you is... I guess it's easy to me, well, I shouldn't say easy, but it's easier to establish that sort of sense of I'm one with the world when I'm meditating, doing walking meditation or Zazen or whatever.

[52:35]

How would you recommend, say, maintaining that sense of... I'm one with the world. The world is one with me when you're, say, in an environment where your boss is yelling at you or you're stuck in traffic or some other event that you might otherwise choose to get angry with or choose to get frustrated with. Thank you for that question. I appreciate it. To speak directly to the question you just asked is, I myself try to incorporate what I would call secret pauses outside of Zazen throughout my day, right? So a lot of times we think, well, we'll do this practice on the cushion of just opening, opening, seeing our interconnectedness, being non-dual with our experience. And then when we get off the cushion, we kind of go back into our selfing mode in our day-to-day life.

[53:38]

So what I find is I try to actually pause throughout the day, different circumstances, whether or not it's in a conversation with some, whether or not I'm walking down the street, whether or not I'm doing the dishes. Throughout the day, just pause and look inward, check inward, and see if I can reconnect with the sense of non-separation and with the non-dual awareness itself that's always presence. And see if I can rest in that awareness without reifying a sense of separation or other in some way, right? And for me, that often I go down into my heart, you know, into the center of my being and see if I can rest my breath there. And from that place, open up to whatever I'm engaging with and encountering with. Because I find a sense of spaciousness down there is not informed by the conceptual mind. you know, in the same way.

[54:40]

So by actively incorporating throughout these days, these mini, you know, Zazen engagements, you know, I find I'm able to extend my Zazen all day long. So being on the cushion, off the cushion doesn't become such a separate thing happening for me. And just as in Zazen, our effort is to be present with and at one with the experience to be in harmony, you could say, with the experience itself, not fighting and not resisting it. Our exploration when we get off the cushion is, how can I be in harmony with the way things are? How can I resist? Because any resistance, and you can study this, my experience is any resistance I feel comes from a place of a separate self. it's always manifesting from a sense of separation in some way, right? So if I look at and study that sense of a separate self and look and understand the teachings of nonsense and emptiness and remind myself that there is no abiding self here, there's nothing separate existing here, then that study itself helps me to relax a little bit in the situation.

[56:02]

and open to, and be a little bit more in alignment with, okay, this is how things are. And that, this is how things are, allows me to, on my own, not my own, but to serve, if you will, the vicissitudes of whatever the day is offering me in some way. Is that helpful in any way? Yes, that is. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah. It is, especially because I don't know if this is common or not, because the only measurement I've really had in my meditation is really myself. But when I meditate, like you said, you have boundaries. When I meditate, I tend not to feel... feel anything at all. Almost that there's nothing.

[57:03]

It's just... It seems almost like it's just me. Not in a selfish way, but in that everything else has just kind of melted away. Almost. So... Maybe in order to move on to others, I'll leave you with the question, who is that me that remains? So study that one. Okay. Great. Thank you, Masaki. Terry is next. And then after Terry, Mitch. Hi. Thank you for the image of the duck floating. I think a very helpful image. Um, and thank you for that, David. I, I was caught by something you said, which is, um, not really about this whole thing about the ocean and the duck.

[58:13]

Oh, maybe it is. I don't know. Uh, when you talked about, uh, we need humor, we need irreverence now. And, uh, I think I, maybe I've mentioned before I'm writing a blog every day and, um, I wrote a very irreverent blog this morning, and it just occurred to me very recently that I might have offended people. I might have gone too far. There was sort of a mocking thing about ventilators, okay? I haven't looked yet at the responses. I get a lot of replies from my followers. And I just wonder if people are upset, and I guess at some point I will go too far if I haven't now, how to deal with evoking that in people without

[59:21]

apologizing. I don't, I feel like, yeah, I mean, I have a resistance to say, oh, I'm sorry if I offended you. But just that thing of maybe being yourself and in other eyes, people's eyes going too far. I think, you know, I find with my own sense of humor, which can, you know, sometimes be irreverent. You know, that I just acknowledge if people have an experience with my humor that they find uncomfortable, I look more deeply to see what that's about. You know, what was I trying to accomplish in that moment? And could I have maybe expressed it maybe in a slightly more scalable way? And just, you know, I just apologize, you know, and just take that into account. But I think humor is tricky. I think humor can be not an easy thing to bring forward in a way that appeals to everyone.

[60:29]

And so I think to offer the intention, is this funny in a way that it doesn't dismiss or diminish anyone? So I think that's the question. Is it funny in a way that's inclusive? rather than derogatory or putting down or creating a sense of separation. So a lot of humor, I think, that works is humor that we all resonate with. We all have a shared, oh, yeah, I see myself do it. And it's pointing it out to me in some way that I'm like, oh, you know, that kind of thing. But it has an honesty to it because of a shared experience versus if it's putting someone down or undermining someone in some way. So I find that kind of humor of inclusive conclusivity really resonates more than the kind that isn't.

[61:31]

I hope that, I'll be curious what kind of responses you get. I think mainly I do do that kind of humor, but perhaps this time I don't know. I'll have to see. Yeah, you'll have to find out. Maybe it's exactly what people need. Maybe. I guess I'll find out. Okay, Terry. Thank you. Mitch? Hello. I'm trying to see if I can. There you are. Okay. Okay. So I'm having lately, it's been really, so thinking about resting in the ocean of awareness and being like the duck, I've been having a really hard time not judging my practice lately and just resting in it and being okay with the judging. So how can I get past that hurdle?

[62:33]

get past the self-judging of your practice. Yes. Right. Well, number one, I think it's never a good idea to, particularly when you're on your cushion, to be evaluating your practice. You know, sometimes we sit there and we go, oh, this is terrible. I'm a terrible meditator. And our minds just kind of, you know, chew over self-evaluating while we're just actually trying to do zazen. So I just noticed you know, that that's, you know, just making things worse. And also for me, oftentimes when I notice self-testament arising, it's the inner critic, you know, the inner critic coming forward. And really, I think the inner critic is wanting our best, wanting the best for us. And yet it doesn't quite know how to express support. So rather than saying, I want us to, be able to engage in a practice that is very satisfying and nourishing instead just kind of puts us down out of fear, out of a place of concern and a sense of not being somehow good enough in some way.

[63:53]

So when I usually have the inner critic come up, I kind of turn around and look at it. And just acknowledge, oh, there's the inner critic again. There's that self-judging mind. That's just a thought. It's just a thought like any other cloud passing through the sky is just a thought. So I don't have to reify it. I don't have to give it authority. I don't have to make it the one that knows what's right. I can just note it's another kind of wind, you know, this swoosh of hot air passing through the mind. And acknowledge it, but actually don't buy into it. And in some cases, I just, you know, I can turn around and just say, I'm fine. Thank you. And just leave it at that. So part of the effort might be to befriend our inner critic in some way. And that's a whole nother conversation. But actually to not give it authority.

[64:56]

And it's not going to like that. In some cases, it might get a little louder. you know, and stronger, but to actually, you know, to instead practice gratitude and appreciation for the effort that we are making, you know, to say to ourselves, thank you, Mitch, for sitting here, for being with this experience. You know, I appreciate the effort that I'm making and I may it be a benefit in some way that I don't realize yet. But just acknowledging the effort that we're making as good enough and just again being with the experience whatever it is so if critical mind comes up just noticing oh there's critical mind okay you know and not not get involved in it and if some other mind arises just noticing that and also not getting involved in it so the main thing is trying not to latch on to the thoughts that arise and the judgments that come up not to empower them you know in any way

[65:58]

but simply allow them to be like everything or just another wave passing through the ocean, right? Just observe them passing through and not get involved in them because then if we do, we get tumbled about in some way. Okay, thank you. Is that helpful at all? Yeah. Is there a practice or something I can read, like a story or tidbit about the critical mind and how maybe the Buddha or others have thought about it? You know, there's a couple books. You might want to kind of do a Google search on inner critic and Buddhism. There is a book that I can't bring it to mind right now that talks about the inner critic and working with the inner critic from a Buddhist perspective in some way. So why don't you start with that? There's a whole other story about Mara. you know, and Mara and the Buddha having a conversation and how Mara is kind of this forum in some ways you can see Mara as this kind of, you know, inner critic that keeps coming up a sense of doubt, undermining doubt that keeps questioning the Buddha and trying to, what's the word, pull the Buddha off his seat in some way.

[67:22]

So there's a whole story that I won't go into right now. related to how Mara continues to show up even after Buddha had reached enlightenment. Mara would sometimes come back and judge or criticize the Buddha, which is basically our, you know, again, our mind, our conditioned karmic mind coming forward and trying to grab onto power again, you know, to reify the sense of the separate self in some way. Thank you so much. You're welcome. So I'm aware that it is past 6.30, so I think we should wrap things up. I just want to appreciate you all again for being here. I think what I'm going to do in the next couple of sessions, I want to look at resilience and patience to carry this theme on in some way. So that's what I will intend to...

[68:23]

bring up in the next couple sessions. Resilience and patience. Since we're all kind of in the middle of this ocean journey, and we're going to need some patience and resilience to continue treading the water, if you will, in some way. And again, I invite you to study how is it that you are either one with the ocean in harmony with the ocean, or somehow you're resisting it. Can you float on the waves, even if they're uncomfortable, or are you finding yourself fighting them in some way? Okay, my friends, thank you very much for being here. I wish you well.

[69:06]

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