What I meant to say was I wanted to share with you some of the changes, big changes that are going on here at Green Gulch that I think I've been talking a little bit about, but it's actually happening. Like just now, I've just come into the house from this rather wonderful ritual that we just did for four of the most senior people here at Green Gulch who will be leaving tomorrow. Moving van is arriving around 10 to get their things and drive them north. or they'll drive themselves north. But anyway, they're going to Ansel Village. So Maya Wender, who's been our tea teacher for many, many years, and Emila Heller, who's been the farm and the buyer and all kinds of a guest program for, I think, each one of them. Mick Sopko, who's been the baker, and Suki Parmele, who's been the grounds and the garden and everything that grows and is beautiful at Green Gulch, other than the farm. That's somebody else, but that's been Suki. So the four of them are all leaving. tomorrow.

[01:10]

So we just did a ceremony that I wanted to just describe to you. It's very meaningful. I'm still feeling quite a lot of both joy and sadness because it's so joyful to be in their lives. And it's sad for them and it's sad for us that they'll be leaving. But then as I said to them just now, well, I'm the caboose because I'm leaving in March. It's not for me. I'm going to be there with them very soon. But still the feeling of Gringold's changing. is really potent. And so, you know, Berkeley Zen Center went through a very big change when Mel Weitzman passed away a few years back. And we're going to go through a big change with our senior people moving away from the ground. So I just wanted to tell you about this ceremony, which was so lovely. And one of the things that Maya, the tea teacher, said was that we were talking... this morning a little bit about the feeling of it. And, you know, she said that there's a way in which, you know, this has been her whole life.

[02:16]

I think all of them have been here 50 years. So they were young. They were probably in their late 20s when they came to Zen Center. And each of them has a narrative and a story and a long, long list of people who they've... been close to and they've taught and they've shared their feelings and their teachings with and so on. And they were saying just now during the ceremony that Green Gulch for them is like the Garden of Eden. And then as Mick said in his closing words, he said, yeah, but Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden of Eden. We all have to leave the Garden of Eden. No matter how much it suits us or how good it is for us, at some point we will be leaving the Garden of Eden. And that's one of the facts of life. So the way the ceremony went is that all of us gathered on the lawn by the bancho bell, the big bell, which is ringing, you know, to 15 hits on the, I mean, 18 hits on the bell to signal the beginning of the ceremony.

[03:17]

And then we lined up somewhat in an order of our hierarchical positions. So the abbot and his attendants, and then the senior dharma teachers, so Reb and Linda Ruth and myself. And then these four very senior people. We're right behind us. And then this very large group of people came to join us from all over different places and different connections. Some of them gardeners, some of them tea students, some of them a bakery. People have learned baking from Mick and so on. And anyway, tremendous feeling of community. As someone said, oh, this is Sangha. This is Sangha, you know. And every once in a while, it's invisible. You know, we're a Sangha. We have a piece of that together. So this feeling of what that means, you know, we kind of know it when we're in it. So we started at the bell and then we processed and we went to each of the places where these people have been really important in the kind of this mandala that's called Gringo's Farm.

[04:22]

So first we went down to the farm and Emala, who's been down there cutting lettuce for 30 years and packaging it and selling it to all the restaurants and around the Bay Area and so on. So she offered incense at the farm altar and the head of the farm for many years, Sarah Tashker, said some very kind words to her about, and everyone's crying, you know, sort of like this is opportunity to really express these deeply held feelings. And then we got, and the bells were ringing and we got back into our procession and we went to the garden where there's a garden altar and we did the same. celebration for Suki and her longtime garden partner, Carolyn, gave these lovely words to Suki. Suki also spoke in a beautiful way. And then we get back into formal procession and we went around and down behind the Zendo and over to the bakery. And there was an altar. Each of these places had a little altar with flowers and a candle and a lovely cloth and incense.

[05:27]

So we offer incense first. And then in the back of the bakery, Mick spoke, and his apprentice, Sam, could hardly speak. He was crying. And so he was saying how much Mick had meant to him as a mentor and a teacher and really helped him to grow into the fine young man that he is. He really watched him go from an 18-year-old to now he's in his almost 30, and I think he's doing beautifully, and he's a master baker in his own right. So this mentorship was very tender. And then back in procession, we went around Green Gulch to the tea house. And then at the tea house, I had the invitation to offer the incense to Maya, Maya Wender, who's our master tea teacher and has been for a long time. So I wanted to tell you what I said. I gave her incense, and then she spoke of her gratitude for her teachers, all of the teachers, her tea teacher, her Zen teacher. And again, there's 50 years of people who've had a major influence on her. becoming this master tea teacher and Zen teacher as well.

[06:32]

So her name is Luminous Knight. So I said, Luminous Knight, Dharma sister and dear old friend, your decades of devotion to the way of tea and the way of Zen as one has transformed a mud hut into a radiant jewel for the benefit of all who enter here. May you continue to share with us not only the warmth of the fire and the sweetness of the white tiger treats, which is what she makes, white tiger tea treats, white tiger treats, but your presence here at the gate to welcome us in again and again for a frothy bowl of bright green tea. So, yeah. So it was a lot of... Oh, I know what I was going to say. So a lot of... A kind of love that's really hard to express to one another, I think, without this ritual form. And maybe some of you have had other experiences where you really felt like there was completion in expressing this kind of gratitude to people that you really care for.

[07:40]

The ritual form is so evocative. You know, we go in the zendo. We clear the space. The people come in. There's incense offering and bowing. And then they go around the room, you know, and everyone, as they walk by, puts their hands together and bows. So it's called the jundo. So each of these people, one by one, went all the way around the zendo and then back to the front of the altar. And then they go to the back of the room. And they stand on the back, and then the abbot said some very lovely words to them. He was saying, now I'm feeling like it's true, it's happening. You really are leaving. This has been something we've known about, but it's happening now. This is something that's hard to imagine. And how will we do without you? All these years of your devotion to caring for this temple. And then we all processed out and they joined us. And at that point, it becomes more informal. Lots of familiar kind of hugging.

[08:40]

Everyone was hugging. And so, you know, tomorrow, like I said, the moving van comes and they go off. And in March, that will happen for me. The moving van will come and off I'll go. So... Because of this ceremony, and also for another reason, I have been involved for the last four days in a workshop here. It's a workshop I've done several times, and I don't know if any of you have ever come to Tassara or here when we've done these art workshops, but there's a wonderful art teacher, Suikol, who used to live on here, was a farmer apprentice, and she's a wonderful artist, very creative teacher. And so we agreed to do a workshop. We've just been doing that. So I do the Zen part. She does the art part. And then we had a woman who's trained in Chinese medicine, an acupuncturist, and also can teach a great deal of Taoist teachings and so on.

[09:41]

So we had the three of us were offering different aspects of looking at our lives from these different traditions. And so, you know... I asked Maya, so what I did was I asked Maya if I could, I was trying to think of how could I offer something that would connect with what the, Li Jing is her name, what Li Jing was offering, which had, it's called the five elements. So the five elements are traditional Taoist teaching. Now there's earth and there's fire and there's metal and there's wood and... And there's one more that I'm forgetting. Oh, water. And so I was thinking, well, how can I use the Zen teachings to relate to this traditional Chinese teaching? So what I came up with is the idea of the four seasons, because also the five elements correspond to the four seasons, plus the fifth being integration, where everything actually is brought together, very much like a Zen teaching, too.

[10:42]

Of course, that's where Zen got its start, was in Taoism. And so a lot of familiarity with these ancient Chinese teachings as well. So what I did was I thought, well, maybe I could borrow the scrolls that Maya has in the tea house that she uses depending on the season. So she has quite a wonderful collection of scrolls. And so I'd gone over last week to look at what she had, and I selected four of her scrolls. I'm going to show them to you now. That corresponded. to each of these five seasons. And then I talked about that a bit and who the calligrapher was and then the Zen saying. So for any of you who have done tea, and perhaps most of you haven't, tea ceremony is kind of like an enactment of a pilgrim going on a long journey into the forest and they come across a little hut. So the journey into the forest is along this pathway, and as you go further into the tea garden, so the tea house, at the beginning, in the entryway of the tea house, there's a gate, and then you go into the garden, and the garden is laid out in a very special way.

[11:56]

It's an art form all in and of itself, and our tea garden is quite beautiful, and it's been really well cared for and well designed by one of our craftspeople who studied tea. tea gardens in Kyoto for many, many years. He's also doing the gardens and the design of the landscaping at Ansel Village. His name's Mark Bourne, and he's quite a masterful when it comes to plants and stones and pathways and so on. He's also doing our memorial garden here at Green Gulch, which is behind our formal garden. So if you ever come to visit Green Gulch, it'd be lovely to show you around these different The gardens, basically, that we're creating here. So the tea garden, when you enter the tea garden, you're basically going deeper into the woods, and then there is this hut where the hermit lives, and the hermit makes you a bowl of tea. And when you enter into the room, which is pretty dim lit, there's not bright lights in the tea room, tatami mats on the floor, and the first thing that...

[13:08]

strikes you in tea ceremony is the smell of the incense. So as you come into the room, there's this wonderful odor of incense. There's a fire, a charcoal fire that's going. They have this amazing way of creating charcoal that doesn't smoke. So you have a kettle that's steaming. And underneath that is this bright red glowing charcoal fire that's boiling the water for tea. And then in the center of the room, there's this alcove that has a scroll. And the scroll is the heart of the tea ceremony. It's what gives some kind of meaning. And a lot of the scrolls that we have are quotations from Dogen. And so a couple of the ones I chose are Dogen, from Dogen verses. So anyway, so I... I was able to find one that seemed to fit well. So I'm going to share each of these with you. And the reason I'm doing this is because what we've been talking about is Uji, this Dogen fascicle of time being.

[14:17]

And these scrolls and these tea ceremonies are really a wonderful enactment of time being. You know, for the time being, you are... Deep in the mountains. And for the time being, you are meeting with the host, and you're the guest, and this is the host. That's a classical Zen connector, is guest and host. If you remember back to the five ranks, it's all about the guest and the host. First, you're the guest in the universe. You feel like this kind of insignificant, you know, small thing looking out at the great universe. And then you have a little glimmer of that's not separate from you, as the Buddha did when he saw the star. And then the next rank, everything is illuminated. Everything seems like the magical universe in all of its formations. And there's this kind of celebratory feeling of the second rank. And then the third rank, you go back into deep concentration, meditative state, and it's all dark. You go from the kind of glimmering light, a little giddy, to dark.

[15:17]

So you're back into samadhi. You're back into this concentrated state, which is the one I'm going to talk about first, is this... Deep mind, what Dogen is referring to in this verse. It goes like this. In deep mountains, snowy night, inside thatched roof hut. So that's the third rank. It goes along with the idea of seclusion. You've basically separated yourself from the busy world, and you've entered into this concentrated samadhi. You know, you're really trying to see deeply as you can the nature of your mind, the nature of your thought and your reality and your ideas about the world and trying to let those just drop away and drop away and drop away and settle in to calm and quiet. So that's the feeling of the third rank. The fourth rank is all light. You know, now you've done that. You've done your work in the cave. You come out of the cave and everything is just bright. It's bright light, but you're stable.

[16:19]

First time you saw the light, not so stable, kind of, whoa, you know, like a teenager, you're just excited. But this time, after you come out of the Samadhi experience, the light is steady. It's kind of a steady awareness of basically the tremendous amazement of being alive and of being in a place like this, where we are, this amazing planet with its sky full of stars. And then the fifth rank is integration. You know, you've basically the journey's over. You're no longer striving for understanding or looking at teach. You're trying to find a teacher who can tell you something. You basically have matured to the point in your own quest that you've settled. Your questions have been settled and you're basically your home. You kind of come home. And the image for the fifth rank is kind of an old guy who plays with kids, and he just likes to giggle and laugh and hang out with people who are joyful. And he's joyful.

[17:20]

So that's the five ranks that you remember back to Dongshan's depiction of the five ranks. So I wanted to start by showing you this. So this is, again, what I'm saying is this is about time being. The time being, one understanding of tea ceremony and what I was really reminded of when we were in the tea room, again, with these people who were leaving, we had a special tea that Maya made for us. And so we were all there. I think I mentioned it last week. It was quite special. So being in the tea room where you know this is a one time only, that being together with these people, these precious people that you've been living with for, as I said, for close to 50 years now, And now they're leaving. But before they go, you have this tea. And there was a beautiful scroll that May had hung for the occasion and a single flower from her garden. And there was wonderful incense and the heat from the kettle, the steam from the kettle. And I don't know.

[18:22]

I can't imagine a more joyful celebration that isn't about, you know, like... It's not a party. It's kind of the opposite of a party. It's just like being together, time being. You know, being in time together. You've been in time together for 50 years, and now your special time that you're being together, which is the last time you'll be together in this way. So there's a tremendous poignancy in these events, these gatherings, which makes tea very special. You get to have that kind of opportunity to... do more than celebrate, to really receive, you know, this kind of profound sense of this really matters. And it's going away. It doesn't last. The primary teachings, the impermanence, impermanence is swift, as it says in the Han. Time is passing. Don't waste your life. So, you know, this showing up for these occasions that you know are...

[19:26]

The only time, time being, this is it. It's complete. And it won't come back. It's a non-repeating universe. So whatever that was that we did together, it's now become like this memory. You know, I can go in the tea house tomorrow and it's just empty. There's nothing in there. There's no kettle. There's no scroll. There's no people. Just a room. You know, just a room. And Zendo's like that too. If I go in there, you know, tomorrow afternoon, there's nobody in there. just quiet and empty. So it's the coming into the space together, like we're doing right now, coming into this space, living together, being alive together. That's what brings it. That's what brings this time being. It's the being that completes the time. There's no time without the being, right? And we're the beings. We're the ones who are bringing our life to what we do. So let me show you this first scroll, which I think is quite... Quite lovely.

[20:27]

Let's see. Yeah, this is the one for winter. Okay. So Maya has done this wonderful catalog of these scrolls. And I actually hadn't seen the actual scrolls when I asked her if I could borrow them. which she did tell me, you will protect these with your life, which I did. I knew better. Keep them away from the soup and from everything else. I was very careful with them. But she had pictures of them, and she also had translations of what's on them. So this is a scroll that I rolled out for the class, the art class that we were doing. I thought that it would be a really nice thing for them to see this type of art, which is done by Zen masters. So the thing about... about this calligraphy, it's always been done by a teacher. So it also has this intimate connection between a practitioner and their craft.

[21:35]

So it's not just this is somebody who practices calligraphy, this is someone who's deeply invested their life and their vocation is basically as a Dharma teacher. And this is one of the ways they express their teaching. So this one... Again, the verse is taken from a Dogen, a longer poem that was written by Dogen. And what's calligraphed here is, as you can see, is deep mountain. This character right here is mountain, this little three upward pointing right there. So this is deep mountains, a snowy night, thatched roof hut. And then the last character here is Naka, means inside. So, and another special thing about this scroll, which is true of all of them, is it's not only that this is Dogen's writing, and that it's beautifully written, and that it's in the tea house where you're having this gathering of people for this one time only event together.

[22:43]

And so you're alive in this situation, and this teaching comes to life in everything. in being part of your gathering together. But also, it's who it's written by. Who's the calligrapher? So this calligraphy is extremely special for us, and Mea acquired it and is part of our collection here. So the calligrapher here, his name is Kishizawa Ion, 1865 to 1955, not so long ago. And Kishizawa Ion, whose name I had heard for many, many years, was Suzuki Roshi's teacher. So here we have this person never, as far as I know, never came to America. You know, he basically was back living in a temple very close to Rinsoen where Suzuki Roshi's temple was. And so Suzuki Roshi would go there to study Dogen with him. So they studied Dogen together. So here we have a poem by Dogen, calligraphed by a Dogen scholar who Suzuki Roshi learned and studied Dogen with.

[23:45]

So all of these things coming together. And then here it is in our tea house. It's Suzuki Roshi's temple, which he founded, San Francisco Zen Center, way over here in California. So there's this wonderful network of relationships that in this very simple way, we're able to, you know, connect very intimately and with a lot of feeling. There's a tremendous amount of feeling. Once you know what's going on here, it's like, oh, wow. You know, oh, wow. Isn't that lovely? So... So he lived in Shizuoka, that's where Suzuki Roshi lived. Shizuoka, sorry, Shizuoka, that's his province or his area. And then these are the signatures of this teacher down here, the signature seals. And then here's the verse that Dogen wrote. There are a couple of translations of it. So Dogen Zenji, 15 verses on dwelling in the mountains.

[24:46]

So the ancestor way came from the west. I transmitted it east. So Dogen went to China and brought the ancestor way to Japan. Polishing the moon, plowing clouds. Polishing the moon, plowing clouds. I long for ancient wind. How can worldly red dusts blow here? Deep mountain, snowy evening, thatched hut inside. So it's really sweet because after having shared this with the art group, when I just did the ritual with Maya just now at the tea house, this is the verse she read. It was from the scroll. So it says, again, another touching, another touching of meaning and of value and of evoking these beautiful sentiments that are hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Dogen was having these feelings and writing these words. So these are just different translations of that same thing.

[25:50]

So I wanted to say a little bit about how I talked to the art students about this, because this is the calligraphy that I chose for winter, for the winter season. And again, as I said, the Dogen's poem is called Seclusion. So this is the third rank, it's all dark winter. So I also brought up a poem that, I first heard Brad Anderson recite during a session, I think it was in a session, that has the same feeling. It's a contemporary American poet by the name of, you probably know, Wallace Stevens. So I'm really very fond of Wallace Stevens. And this poem is called The Snowman. So see if you can hear the same feeling of seclusion, of winter, of quiet, you know, just... When you're in winter, if you've been in winter snow, I know some of you live in very wintry, snowy places. So that silence in the snow, when there's just a kind of a crackle of a twig or the sound of a bird or something, everything stands out because there's so much silence and the air is so clean and cold.

[27:05]

That feeling of wanting to be inside the hut. You know, be inside where this shelter is in seclusion. And also turning inward. It's all a metaphor for turning inward. You know, looking inside toward our feelings and toward, you know, our deepest longings, our deepest wish for the well-being of the world and, of course, our own well-being. So here's the poem by Wallace Stephen. One must have a mind of winter. One must have a mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs. of the pine trees crusted with snow and having been cold a long time to behold the junipers shagged with ice the spruces rough in the distant glitter of the january sun and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind in the sound of a few leaves which is the sound of the land full of the same wind that is blowing in the same bare place for the listener

[28:07]

who listens in the snow, and nothing himself, beholds nothing that is not there, and the nothing that is. So, this is basically, for me, and as I said to them in this workshop, this is like evoking the meditation, the meditation that many of you have done, and sashins or long sits, where you enter in a concentrated state, the mind of winter. You know, this is samadhi, drawing together, pulling in all of your resources, bringing everything into the hearth of your belly, your hara. So you basically are, you know, the warmth of your own body, and you're basically surrounding, your body's surrounding the hearth. You're warmed by the heat of your own, your own life is heating you. And so you have to have the mind of winter, to understand the true nature of reality. You know, if we're just kind of running around and everything's busy and we're kind of on our list and we're doing the thing throughout the day, it's really challenging for us to connect with that profound silence, the stillness and silence, which is the core of reality.

[29:21]

And it's the core of, you know, what the Buddha was doing there under the tree was samadhi. He had the mind of winter and he didn't know what was going to come from that. He just stayed with it. You know, day after day, he just coming back, into the hearth of his own body's warmth and his own kind of effort at silence and stillness and so on. So the true nature of reality, according to the Buddha, is basically aligned with the facts of life. And I know I've spoken to you about the facts of life. That's what I call them, the facts of life. And there are three characteristics of all things. And that this is what the Buddha saw and what he taught. He said all things are impermanent. You know, this tea ceremony is it's impermanent. It arises. It happens. We can see it and smell it. All of our senses are there and we're alive in it. And then it goes away. It's not meant to be there. You know, it's not like building a, you know, a bronze statue to something.

[30:26]

We're not trying to make something permanent that we can, you know, forever. It's going to be there forever. There's nothing like that. Not the bronze statue either. You know. I don't know if you remember that poem about Ozymandias, the king whose statue is in the dust. It's all covered with sand. It's like, this was a great king one day. But here he is. What's left of him is just this fallen down statue. Nobody really remembers anything about what this great king did, you know, except have a statue made of himself. So that idea that we can somehow grasp a hold of some permanent thing that we can have and that we can always count on, you know, that's not the teaching. Teaching is impermanence. And as a fact of life, winter is one of those facts of life that can be quite harsh for a lot of us. Or the darkness of winter, even if out here in California, it gets dark. And it can be a little difficult or very difficult for us to enter into winter. You know, there's some feeling of like, really, already? It's already December? And it is? It's already?

[31:27]

We're in? Well, California winter is pretty benign, at least so far. But still, we feel that change. It's quite a dramatic shift through the seasons. So I thought of the word endurance, you know, when I was thinking of the mind of winter. Requires a kind of endurance. And endurance means to suffer patiently, to endure, suffer patiently. So patience is a practice. practicing patience with our suffering, with the winter, with the cold, with the changes, with impermanence, that we basically have this, because it's there, it's like we're not going to argue with reality because reality always wins. So here's winter. That's what our planet does. You know, it turns to winter. If you stay on this top of the planet, it goes to winter. We could go south. I think it's summer in Australia right now. But anyway, we know that it's kind of funny business what's going on here. But anyway, where we are now, winter has come.

[32:28]

Winter has come. And so this was the other of the three characteristics the Buddha taught was the suffering. You know, we don't like impermanence. We have a hard time with the facts of life. So then we complain, but we also really have desires that things be different than they are. And that's the source of our suffering, is wanting things to be different than they are. As opposed to embracing and trying our best to see, well, what is this that's happening here? How can I bring my whole body and mind into this situation? While I was doing this, it was really funny, while I was doing this, talk to these artists out in the yurt here they had built a fire so they were all sitting around in their t-shirts and it's pretty cold here right now so i got out there and i had my long underwear on and my wool socks and a wool shirt and i started talking all of a sudden i was like i was on fire i was so hot and i was trying to kind of maintain my decorum and do my job and teaching this stuff and all of a sudden just you know what you guys i'm

[33:38]

I am so hot. I'm just going to have to get rid of all of this stuff. And so somehow meeting what's happening and, you know, not, I wasn't, it was fine. I mean, I was happy to say, this is too much. I'm going to have to change this situation. So that's fine is we can do that. We can accommodate ourselves in whatever way we can, you know, go get some cold water and take off the jacket and take off the socks, which is what I did. And, and then it was okay. And then I was much better, much more content. My suffering had been reduced by taking that action. So then the other, the third characteristic... is there's no abiding self. There's no self there in the first place that we are basically so often desperately trying to protect or promote or appreciate or stand up. I was talking to a young student today. She said, I want to stand up for myself. And I said, well, we should talk about that. That's a big teaching about the self.

[34:40]

And what is it you're standing up for? Are you pretty clear about what that is and that... your sense of having been maybe wronged or whatever it is, are you really looking at that? Because that's our practice, is to really study this self that we believe we are. I was telling her that one of the best ways I've heard to locate that self that you think you are is when you're wrongly accused of something. Like, did you steal my lunch money? You know, it's like, I didn't steal your lunch money. So that's the self. That one who didn't do what is being accused of is the self that you're, most of the time, it's not so vivid. But still, we're activating mostly around self-interest. We're trying to do what we can to protect this non-existent entity that the better practice that we attempt to do is to really explore just what is that that I think I am? You know, who am I? As Bodhidharma said to the emperor, don't know.

[35:42]

I don't know. And that was Bodhidharma's exploration of trying to find himself and be able to say who he was. The emperor said, who are you? And Bodhisarva said, quite honestly, don't know. I have been looking and I can't really give you a good answer about that, about who I am. So it doesn't mean there isn't something happening over here, right? It's not that. It's not like annihilation. It's more like you don't know. It's really hard to know, to be exact or to be, you know... To stand up for that self when you're not quite sure what it is, maybe it's a better way to be meeting the world. It's not quite so aggressive. It's like, yeah, I don't know. It's okay. Can you help me? Maybe you can tell me who I am. I'd be happy to have some suggestions about that. So this experience of awakening the Buddha had under the tree was a result of this mind of winter, of him entering into that concentration and allowing the world, allowing the reality to basically inform him of what he didn't know, which was most things he didn't know.

[36:51]

But what he could know was impermanence, no abiding self, and suffering as a result of our objecting. to impermanence and no self. That's the suffering comes from these other two characteristics. So, yeah, then I talked to them about the two truths. I'm not going to do that again for you all because we talked about that a lot. The ultimate truth and the relative truth and how that helps us to orient ourselves around what's happening, you know, to understand better about our own life in the world. So that was the conversation I had around the mind of winter. And then the next season we did, so we went from winter to, let me see, I'll show you the next. We went from winter to spring. This one was, people liked this one quite a lot. So this is kind of a fun one.

[37:52]

So the poem that goes along with this, This calligraphy, and again, this is a scroll, beautiful scroll, that is, you can't see the brocade, but it's also, it's mounted, called mounted. They put a brocade backing on them, and then they're hung from a little, beautiful little cord. It's also another craft in and of itself. Everything in the tea world is craft. Every element. Everything you see, everything you use, all the utensils, the tea bowls, the scroll, everything is basically craft. And the core of the craft is the devotion to the Buddhist teaching. So these are like honoring the teaching in this way. The greatest effort that this culture has made is to honor the teachings. flower opens, butterfly comes.

[38:56]

Flower opens, butterfly comes. That's wonderful, wonderful. And this particular character is flower. And then butterfly comes, there's tiny little letters over here. So, this was written by a scholar who actually came to Zen Center. Again, there's this intimate connection with these people, so... This scholar, Yanagira Saison, he's a professor in Kanazono University in Kyoto, which is the Soto Zen University. So he is another very well-regarded scholar of Dogen. And so he came here to California, and he gave this scroll to the MEA for our tea program. And so the poem that this is taken from, Butterfly Comes, A Flower Opens, Butterfly Comes, was written by Ryokan, whose name you may know. He's a famous Chinese poet.

[39:57]

Oh, no. It wasn't a Japanese poet. Excuse me. So he was fairly recent, 1758 to 1831. And the poem that Ryokan wrote is called Butterfly Dreams. Butterfly Dreams. With no mind, blossoms invite. the butterfly. With no mind, the butterfly visits the blossoms. When the flower blooms, the butterfly comes. When the butterfly comes, the flower blooms. I do not know others. Others do not know me. Not knowing each other, we naturally follow the way. So that's Ryokan's poem. And I used this, I really was fond of this particular one. It really evoked this idea of the subject and object. So here the mind, the mind aware, your minds are, you're all aware. You all have awareness.

[40:59]

Right now you are awake. You have an awareness. And to that awareness, the butterfly comes, you know, in the form of maybe you're looking at me right now or maybe you're, I don't know what you're doing. But whatever you're doing, the butterfly comes. is coming to your mind. The object of your awareness just naturally arrives to your consciousness. And then we kind of make a funny story about being separate, that the butterfly and the flower are separate. They're not separate. The mind and the object of awareness are not separate. They come together. They're basically, and there's no plan in that. It's just like, you look over there, And if I look over there, now I'm a chair. If I look over there, now I'm a shoe. If I look over there, now I'm a lamp. So whatever is coming to the flower, the flower of awareness, is what the flower and awareness have now become one. It's non-dual. The non-dual nature of our awareness is that each thing that we're aware of is not in a dualistic relationship with awareness.

[42:04]

It is awareness. Awareness is now colored, is the color of a butterfly. It's the color of a shoe. It's the color of my umbrella. You know, there's no other thing that it can be except right now, impermanent, right? It's also impermanent. I'm not looking at the shoe anymore. So the butterfly comes and then the butterfly goes away. And then another butterfly comes and another butterfly goes away. So it's just like that all the time. But we're kind of used to it. So we don't really get the thrill of the butterfly. It's like, oh, whoa. Oh, look at that shoe. Look at my shoe. So trying to bring life back into our awareness of subject-object awareness and the excitement of that. The kids have that. Little kids have that. We try to surprise them with things. Oh, you want to see this? You show them puppets. You show them kinds of things and they get engaged. It's harder as we get older. buy really expensive opera tickets to get excited or something you know we really kind of lose track of that really sparkly fresh feeling of seeing something for the first time um so that was the this is the the uh scroll that i had chosen for spring a flower flower opens then butterfly comes um

[43:26]

So this Dharma teaching, this scroll brings to mind this insight of the non-dual nature of the universe, that all things arrive at once together and they leave at once together. You know, when Dogen went to China, that was his big insight. Body and mind drop, drop body and mind. Everything arises and then drops. It's all dropping. It comes and then it's gone. It comes and go, come and go, come and go, come and go. Like, as he said, as Dogen says, rain drops on the roof. The one true thing is the sound of rain on the temple roof. Just that dropping sound. Right now I'm hearing the big bell. Somebody's ringing a bell for something or another. Evening service. So I'm just hearing the big bell. And then it's quiet. And they hit it again. Nope, just hit it again. And now they're hitting a roll down. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I don't think you can hear it. Can you hear it? No, probably not. It's a little dim for me, too.

[44:30]

So, you know, again, this is reminding us of impermanence. This is, again, back to one of the major characteristics. And I also told them the story from the Book of Serenity about the first story in the Book of Serenity, which is case number one, called The World Honored One Ascends the Seat. So the Buddha, the World Honored One, gets up on the Dharma seat and usually signals he's going to give a Dharma talk. So one day the world honored one ascended the seat. Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, struck the gavel and said, clearly observe the Dharma of the king of the Dharma is thus. And he points at the Buddha. And when he does that, the Buddha gets down from the seat. Now you see it, now you don't. So here's this story. This is a story about impermanence. And also about what is Manjushri pointing at?

[45:32]

That's not the Buddha. Buddha's not a person. The Buddha is a quality. It's a quality of consciousness. Awake. Buddha means awake. It simply means a quality, and some people manifest that quality in their lives, and this tradition is all about manifesting that quality of understanding something about awakening, having taken the journey and made the effort, as the Buddha did, to go into the cave, and Bodhidharma did, and all these Zen fanatics, they all went into these deep samadhis in order to see the bright light when they come out of the cave and have some understanding. of subject and object are not separate. The butterfly comes. Flower opens, butterfly comes. It's so simple. And it's always there. It's always happening. But it's so common. It's like, that? That's it? Yeah, that's it.

[46:32]

Really? Yeah. Well, I know that. Well, of course you know that. Everyone knows that. It's what's happening all the time. Butterfly opens, butterfly comes. All the time. So the world not only one gets down from the sea. You can't point at the Buddha. That's kind of rude. You don't want to point. There is another saying that there are no teachers of Zen in all of China. There are no teachers of Zen. No persons. No self. There's no entities called teachers of Zen. There is Zen. There is Chan. There is Dharma. But if you try to link that or you try to grab a teacher and shake it out of them or make them the source of the teaching, like pointing to the Buddha, that's a big mistake. The Buddha said that. He said, don't look at me. Don't look at me. Listen to what I'm telling you. That's what matters. See if you can understand what I'm telling you and see if you can see it in yourself.

[47:34]

See if you can understand for yourself what I discovered here by sitting here with my little mind. and looking at how it works. So he made it really clear. But even if somebody makes it really clear, it's very hard for us to sidestep attributing whatever it is to some entity, like a teacher. Teachers are really in a dangerous situation, you know, because you really don't want people to fall into trying to get a hold of you. It's like, I'm not it. Let go of me. I'm not what you're looking for. You're looking for the teaching. You're trying to understand the teaching. So, I mean, we all do that. You know, I've certainly done that many times, like really trying to get a hold of the teacher. Hey, you, don't go away. You know, where are you going? And off they go. So later on in the same case, case number one, the Book of Serenity, which is collected by Hongzhi, a Chinese, very wonderful Chinese Zen master who authored the Book of Serenity and whose written comments all through are these comments that are given.

[48:38]

about each of the koans is by Hongzhu. And he's the person who came up with the idea of silent illumination. He's Soto Zen. Our tradition, he named it as silent illumination Zen. So that quiet time in the cave. You know, you're already awake. That's the big message of Soto Zen. You're already awake. Don't do anything. Anything you do to try to wake up is going the wrong way. You know, just stay with your own experience. Stay with the fact and believe it that you're already awake. And how do you then understand yourself? How do you then understand the relationship you have to objects? Flower opens, butterfly comes, right? Work on that. Work on that. So a little later on, Hongzhi says, he adds this verse to case number one, Book of Serenity. The unique breeze of reality. The unique breeze of reality. One time only in the tea room. Just this one time we're together.

[49:39]

Just this one ceremony we just finished doing. The unique breeze of reality. Changing. Always changing. You know, these formations like clouds appear and then they blow away. The unique breeze of reality. Do you see? Continuously creation runs her loom and shuttle. Continuously creation runs her loom and shuttle. Incorporating the forms of spring. But nothing can be done about Manjushri's leaking. Nothing can be done about Manjushri pointing and saying, look, look, the king of the Dharma. And so the sympathy with Manjushri is being expressed in this verse. It's like, what else can he do? He's the Bodhisattva wisdom. He's trying to get your attention and get you to listen to the Buddha give you a teaching and tell you the Dharma. But at the same time, he's pointing. And the Buddha says, you're confusing people.

[50:40]

You're both trying to help them, but you're also confusing them. So how do we get that right? Well, you get it right by doing it wrong. Nothing can be done about Manjushri's leaking. He's got a point. We got to set up teachers to get up there on the high seat and give talks, and people might fall for it, and they might project the idealized transference on the teachers. That happens a lot. little by little, that wears off. You know, that really is like an extra skin. You got to shed that one. And when you do, then basically you're about the teaching. What I want from you is the teaching. You know, that's what I want to understand. So it's okay. Manjushi's forgiven for his leaking. So water, which is one of the characteristics of these things, The seasons, right, they go through winter, the water freezes, and in the spring it melts, and in the summer it flows, and in the fall it sort of begins to dribble away a little bit, and the reservoirs begin to lose some of their fullness and so on.

[51:55]

So impermanence, I like the image of impermanence, these three characteristics, is like the rain dropping on the roof. So that's a good water as... the symbol of impermanence, rain on the roof. And as selflessness, the self is like the flowing river, the flowing water. There's no thing called the self. There's just process of change, constant change. That's all that we are. We're just constant change, like flowing water. So impermanence, rain on the roof, no self, flowing water. And then the final one is suffering, is this unquenchable thirst. We have an unquenchable thirst. We're longing. That's our suffering, is longing for something. We don't even know what it is. So there's, again, the water. I thought that was a pretty helpful way to use water as a reminder about our three characteristics. And, of course, the fourth one, which I'm not going to talk about, but I have a lot, is emptiness, the fourth characteristic of all conditioned things.

[52:57]

But you've heard a lot about that, so I'm not going to... Go through that one again. So this one, is there anything else to say about this collection? Oh, here's, I read you the Butterfly Dreams. So, okay. Then the, how much time do we have? Two minutes? Okay. Quickly, I'll just show you the other two scrolls. This one is for summer. Really wonderful scroll. Okay, made it look too big. Okay, so singing in the wind, a single chorus of pines. Singing in the wind, that's what this scroll says. That character right there is wind. That's my name, Fu. So singing in the wind, and there's a single line, a single chorus of pines.

[54:01]

So the sound, when the wind's blowing, and I'm sure you've all heard that you're out. The eucalyptus here mostly are like, wow. When there's a big wind, you just see this rustling of the eucalyptus trees, giant eucalyptus trees all around Greenville. And they get going, and it's like, oh, amazing chorus. And this poem is about the chorus of pines singing in the wind, evoking, again, evoking object awareness. You know, in this case, it's sound. We're aware of sound. You know, there's the sound of the rain, there's the sound of the wind, and so on. So it's bringing us away from our conceptualizations, the narrative, ongoing blah, blah, blah part, taking us away from that awareness of what we're thinking about, which is one of our sense consciousnesses, as you remember from the eight... the eight consciousnesses model of the Yoga Chara School, the five senses we have that are so in the present, they're always in the present, smelling and seeing and hearing and tasting and touching, that brings you home.

[55:08]

Anytime you're in touch with your senses, you're home. Flower opens, butterfly comes, that's home. The sixth sense consciousness that we're aware of is awareness of thinking. And that's the troublemaker because we are so drawn to be aware of what we're thinking. We miss what we're hearing or what we're seeing. We can go walk along. I don't know if you, of course you have, been out in the woods with a friend and you're on blah, blah, blah, talking, talking, talking, talking. And you probably didn't even see a tree the whole time you were walking or notice the little pebble that you just slipped on a little bit there because you're really not, your whole body is not attending to the experience of your senses. you're attending the experience of your thought. And so that's where we get lost. Dreamwalkers, what dreamwalkers we humans have become, says Dogen. So this chorus of Wind in the Pines is evoking that awareness of your senses, you know, coming to your senses. So this is a cold mountain poem written by Hanshan, who was one of these very famous, again, a very famous poet, this Chinese poet, I think 8th century in this.

[56:16]

case way back when and um and that the uh let me see singing in the wind hanshan so also the complete poem by hanshan is wonderful this road to cold mountain yet there's no sign of horse or carriage in winding valleys too torturous to trace on craigs piled who knows how high A thousand different grasses weep with dew, and pines hum together in the wind. Pines hum together in the wind. Now it is that. Strayed from the path, you ask your shadow, what way from here? You ask your own shadow, what way from here? So this is evoking this... Basically, a state of consciousness. They're really talking, it's metaphorical about, again, always about the spiritual journey. So you're in the cold mountain. This is, again, evoking the mind of winter here.

[57:17]

There's no sign of a horse or carriage on this road that's going through your mind. There's no horses or even fellow travelers going through the train of your consciousness. And the valleys are torturous. There's lots of crags and places to fall off of in our thinking, the way we're tormented sometimes by our own thinking. And then we are called, we're called by the sound of the pines. You know, we suddenly, it's like, you're calling us, you know. Yoo-hoo! Come here, come back to your senses. Come back to your senses. So, okay, and I think I should just pull up this last one for you to look at, and then I'll I will end my chatter. This one is fall. So we've done that. That was summer. And following summer, we have fall. So I'm going to share.

[58:18]

Share. Okay, this is the last one I shared with the artists. It's rather beautiful, calligraphed. This one is calligraphed by a woman abbess. She's the only woman abbess I've ever heard of in Japan. She also visited Gringos, and she gave this to Maya, and Maya had it mounted. And so this is the mounting. When I say mounted, they put this brocade, and they put rollers on it so you can roll the scrolls up, and they have special ties and so on. So this one, the sound of the valley streams are Buddha's great tongue. The colors of the mountains are the pure body. Again, we're evoking nature. And Aoyama Shindo Roshi is the calligrapher. She's a very fine hand. First woman to do graduate-level study at Komazawa University and so on. I think she's getting to be quite old now. I think she may be close to 90.

[59:21]

But she wrote a book called Zen Seeds, which has been translated into English. It's quite a nice book. And she studied tea in the Emoto-senke tradition, which is the one I also studied in with Mrs. Suzuki, which is a little different. May is studying this other school, not that it matters, except that we do things differently. And so we kind of tease each other about it. Why are you doing that funny thing when you're whisking the tea? And then she teases me about things I'm doing. So there they are. Those are the four scrolls and the four seasons. And, you know, in terms of time being, seasons are time. And each of these, we are... We are being the time of these seasons. So I thought this might be a nice thing to share with you since that's what I've been doing these last four days is sharing these thoughts with these lovely women, mostly women. There were two men. It was very nice. They were very sweet, and they were appreciating.

[60:21]

One of them said, I think I'm becoming more and more like a woman. We all went, oh, yay, welcome. So he was really, really a sweet person, and we all did art together, and we all studied time being. together show them my my partner say show them your painting oh it's over there i'll show you my painting it's right there in front of you right there yeah we did this isn't really a painting this is like i don't know if you can see it it's kind of an accident it's because the way we were taught to do art but the art teacher was put some Blobs of color on the paper. Okay, that's really not great. Don't mess with it. Don't judge it. And then she had us do some dropping water on the blobs, and then things happen. And then she had us drop more colors on the water blobs, and more things happen. And then when everything dried, she gave us these white pencils or pens that we could then make circles on our drawings.

[61:22]

And after a while, they started like, hey, that's looking pretty good. It didn't look like a mess for a really long time. I don't really know if this... You can see this, but back a bit. So that is what we did. That's what I did. That's what I did. And I was like, oh, that was pretty fun. It really was more like giving up the idea that I'm doing something. Like she knew we were all trying to do something. She kept saying, stop doing something. Just let the water flow. And then watch how the ink follows the water around the page. Just move your page, which we were all doing, you know. And then the ink would go over here and then we'd go over there. And it's like these wonderful – everyone came up with something that looked museum-worthy, you know, to my eyes. And it was like, this is great. So there was nothing but success in our – and then she had us cut up our paintings and make little books and stuff. And we're going – to cut up oh yeah yeah cut it up it's really important you don't attach to these things so all in all i think it was a joyful very joyful time to be with other people and um and teaching dharma and sharing sharing these beautiful scrolls i was very happy to be able to show so that's my story for today um love to hear your thoughts or your questions or anything else you'd like to share uh and there's tim hi tim hi tim

[62:49]

I want to thank you for talking about this tonight because I have very mixed emotions. I may share this with the group that they may feel the same way about you. We really appreciate everything you do. You know, as you say, the teaching of Dharma is the essence of what you're doing, but we still really like you. Oh, I like you too. Separate from that, you know what I mean? And so I was trying to kind of parse it to and say, interestingly, your talk tonight really made me feel much more at ease with that. And I had a similar experience with my friends, the Bakunis up in Placerville. And I met you about the same time I met them, just by coincidence. But they... I love them dearly, and they dissolved their monastery.

[63:56]

Well, they were on the edge of the Calder fire, and it actually burned a cootie on their property at 12 acres up near Placerville, and I'd gone there for a number of events, and I was helping them out in different ways. But they sold their house and their property, and now the Bikunis are just scattered to the winds, but... I still stay in touch with them. I mean, they're in, you know, one went up to Canada, is in a Theravadan monastery there. And then my other friend, Ayasanta Chitta, established a little tiny monastery in San Rafael called the Aloka Earth Room. So I'm still in touch with them. So that's almost like two in one year for me. So it's a little... You know what I mean? It's a little hard. I do. I do. It all passes. It all passes. And we do love each other. I mean, that's a wonderful thing. Knowing that it's impermanent, you know, makes it even sweeter.

[65:02]

It's like, oh. Your talk helped me put that in perspective also. So I appreciate that. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Which you remind me that I wanted to invite everyone who can to come to the ordination on the 21st at 3 o'clock here at Green Gulch. You're all very welcome. It's a sweet ordination. I think Tim asked me about that, if it was transmission. It's basically receiving the Buddhist precepts, which is the first step for laypeople. That's when you receive your raksu, which is what will happen. And I'm going to write on the... back of their Raksus, their Dharma names, and they will receive a Dharma name and so on. So it takes about an hour altogether, and we'll have a little reception after. But I just wanted you to all know you're very warmly welcoming. Melissa and Ying will be receiving precepts. Well, I emailed you. I want to join in that, too. Great. My wife, Joni, she's a big fan of yours, so she's coming also. Great. Great.

[66:03]

Well, the more the merrier. You know, it's really nice to have. Most of the students are on a holiday at that time, so it would be sweet to have us take over the Zendo. We will take it over. Take it over. Great. All right. Thanks, sir. You're welcome. You're welcome. Hi, Guy. There you are. Hi, Fu. Hi. Hello, Sangha. I also wanted to... to thank you very much for the teaching today, especially for sharing, and I think you do this throughout, sharing what's going on at Green Gulch and all the happenings. It really helps me feel closer and connected. So you've always been able to transmit that, but also having the... The relative truth is great of it as well. All of the little details of what's happening and everything. So I really, really appreciated that.

[67:04]

And I also felt that especially your teaching today really exemplified how we can practice, right? And bring that, bring Uji to our life right here. How could we not, right? But it's easy for us to... To slip. And I was wondering when I thought of this slip, is this the hairbread's deviation that's as far as heaven and earth? That's it. That's it. It's just what you think. You think you're separate. You recoil. You feel offended. That's slippage. And then when you figure out that you're just making that up, there's some laughter there, right? Oh, silly me. I just forgot. I just forgot that, and I fell into that thinking that things are really separate or outside of me, which is very easy to do because we spend more time thinking that than we thought that it's not.

[68:05]

So, you know, it's an old habit, and it's hard to break. Exactly. I am just thus, right? You are definitely thus. You are the most thus of all the thuses. So no, thank you. It was everybody, right? We're just this. Just this is it. Oh, I forgot. That was the last scroll that I shared with them was one that Rabbit done. So these other ones were all in calligraphy, Chinese letters. And then I shared with them one that Tension Roshi did that says just this person. And it's quite beautiful. Maybe I'll show you that next week. Oh, not next week. I won't be here next week. You got the little banner says that I will be gone on the 10th, which is Hanukkah. We're celebrating Hanukkah with friends. And then the next one is for Christmas. So we've got those two holy days coming up with family. So I won't be here. But I'll be between.

[69:06]

I'll be here on the 17th if you all can come. And maybe I'll show you that last scroll to start off that day. That's great. Well, thank you. So I don't know if there's anyone. Yes, someone else has their hand up. Okay, Greg. Where are you? You look like you've got the mind of winter going on in your background there, Guy. Oh, I'm in a different room this time. It's a more well-lit room. You have a little Zendo, but it doesn't have a door. So here, since we're hosting my wife's friend, I'm in what is her office of a very blank, still slowly but surely acquiring our things, but it's been slow. I've been very impressed with our restraint because it's been very slow building of stuff, but I'm sure over time. Yeah, well, you keep us informed about that. Oh, of course.

[70:07]

Thank you so much. You're welcome. You're welcome. Hi, Breck. Hi, Fu. Can you hear me? Yeah. Oh, okay. A couple of comments. So, going back to front, the artwork that you held up, maybe it was only me on my phone screen here, but it looked three-dimensional. Oh, yeah? Yeah. The coils. Yeah, yeah. They look like they're coming out of the page. Hmm. Well, there you go. You should make it a digital artwork. Yeah. And the other thing is, you know, as I commented, I think, last week, the departure of all of these people that, you know, it's not, it's like the fabric of Green Gulch. It's not just people who live there that are going away. And

[71:09]

You know, it feels profound. And I think it's tied in, too, that I'm going away next probably July, August, September. And this is just a lot of change, significant change for me personally. And do you remember the Neil Young song after the gold rush? No, no. What's the lyric? um I dreamed I saw the silver spaceships flying in the yellow haze of the sun there were children crying and colors flying all around the chosen ones all in a dream all in a dream the loading had begun they were flying Buddha nature's silver seed to a new home in the sun wow I took I took it was mother nature's silver seed but I think silver seed works yeah

[72:09]

A little prophetic. Yeah, when you said about the moving vans are coming tomorrow, I just thought, well, the loading has begun. Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, it's both just mundane. Like, oh yeah, we've all had a moving van and we've packed up our stuff and we've probably done that multiple times in our lives. But it's combined with this poignancy that you're pointing to. It's like, this is an end of an era. I've been saying to folks, you know, the elves are leaving Middle Earth. So we're the hippies. You know, we came here back in the 60s and created a place with a lot of other people, a lot of elves. Many of them have gone on long ago, but we're the last of the elves. You know, we're the last of that, those founding generations. So it's, and it has to happen. I mean, this is a better way of going than we all died. You know, that's coming too, but at least we get this kind of, you know, time to be together in this lovely retirement phase. of our practice.

[73:10]

And we will have a Zendo at Enzo Village and a music room and an art room and all kinds of toys. So I feel like, you know, for us, it's a very kind way of transitioning. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So you're going to a promised land with your family. Yeah. London. Yeah, yes. And we visit there because that's where my partner's from. So we will plan a yearly visit to London. So that would be lovely to stay in touch. I would certainly be. Yes, very much so. And then, so you're not around next Sunday. So the session won't occur. And then on the 17th, if I can get connected, I'll join from the airplane because I'm flying that day. That's when you're going to Europe? Yeah. Oh, Albrecht, that is big. Wow. Yeah, well, it's just for the holidays. Oh, okay.

[74:11]

This isn't the big, this isn't the moving net. No. Not yet. No, no, that's the one next summer. Okay, okay. Yeah, so. Yeah. Anyway, if the connection's bad or if you just see some weird presence that may be me trying to get through the airplane Wi-Fi. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for letting me know. Yeah. Thank you so much. Helene, how are you? There you are. There I am. I'm fine. How are you? Fine. Good to see you. It's good to see everybody. And I was taken by It always grabs my attention when I hear wanting things to be different than they are.

[75:13]

That, like, is a whole lifetime of suffering for me. Yeah, yeah. And I was reading about it, and in keeping with suffering, it's also desire. That's right. And it's also greed. Yeah. Yeah. You got it. The triple treasure, the negative triple treasure, greed and delusion. Yeah. So that's something I really, I spend a lot of time longing since I was a very, very little girl, longing for my father. But that's turned into a whole line of people I have longed for. And just that little package of desire and greed and wanting things to be different than they are and longing, just...

[76:29]

Sort of makes up my idea of suffering. Yeah. Although there are more ways to suffer. Well, there's a variety. Yeah, you can be very creative when it comes to suffering, you know, if you're kind of used to that. Yeah. Part of it is breaking the spell, you know, finding a way to not take that step or make that move, you know, to really come back into your upright posture. Yeah. Take some breaths. I've been saying that to our poor friends. Are you guys breathing? Are you breathing? I mean, I think it's so simple and it really helps. You just come back to your senses. Breath is a sensory experience. It's not an idea. If we had to have ideas about breathing, we would be dead very quick because we couldn't maintain it. So it's basically our embodied wisdom that breathes. And when we come there, there's some great comfort and safety. But it seems so simple.

[77:30]

Really? That's it? Yeah, that's it. That's it. Don't forget to be breathing. And paying attention to being in the here and now. Yeah. Because this longing is all about wandering off into the bushes and whatever. That's right. It's for the ghosts or? The ghosts, yes. And I find it really takes up a lot of my... I notice this during the day, on and off. Well, that's the practice. Noticing attention. What's the secret of Zen? Attention. Well, okay, that's fine. Is there another secret? Attention. Yeah, what other than attention? Attention. So, yeah, paying attention is the key. It's the way to freedom from all the ghosts, you know.

[78:32]

Yes. Yeah. Yes. I am discovering that. So, yes. Also, I'm interested in taking the precepts with you. I have your name down. And anyone else who's liked to do that, I'm pretty sure I'm going to start another precept. class online. I did one this last year and that was really sweet. And that's how come these folks are ready to take the precepts because we studied them together. So then the last class is the ceremony. If people can come and you're close by, that would be very nice. And there's going to be one and another precept ceremony for the other members of the class in January. Lisa's coming out to Green Gulch and he's going to fly out, and I think there's... Who else is going to be in that group? Maybe Chris, I think, is able to, and Elisa. Are any people driving from Zen Center? Well, I don't know.

[79:34]

We don't have a date yet, but when we do... You know, even for the 21st. Oh, I don't know. Maybe that's a good question. You know, it's just too expensive to get out there by my... I don't have a car. Oh, there is a woman. Her name is Ellen. Ellen. I don't know her last name, but she is the person who sewed Ying's rock suit. So very kind to sew her rock suit for her. And I invited her to come to thank her for doing that. And she'd be very happy to come. So she'd be coming from the city center. So you might connect with her. Just get a hold of the city center. Ask for Ellen. I think she's David Zimmerman's assistant. Okay. Paula Simpson. Her last name is Simpson. Simpson. That's right. Yes, thank you, Ying. That's right. Thank you, Ying. Ying, are you here now? Not yet. I'm going to fly in on the 17th. Okay. Okay. Sounds good.

[80:35]

Great. Because I can take the day off of work. I just need help getting there. That would be great. Well, yeah. That would be so nice if you could come as well. Yeah, that would be. Okay. Nice to see you. Let's see, we've got two more, Kate and Paul, and then, hi. Hi. Hi. I just wanted to report from the inside. We spent our first night at Enzo last night. Are you there? You're inside Enso Village. It sounds very echoey. There's nothing in this room but a hardwood floor and hard surfaces. We do have a bed of sorts on loan because this was delayed. So we've had some adventures.

[81:36]

And the people are quite wonderful. And the energy is... Also wonderful, but exhausting. Yeah, yeah, I'll bet. It's going to be a while. You got some new friends coming up tomorrow. We're going to be up there on Tuesday. Oh, we're going to be up there on Tuesday. You're going to be there? Oh, when are you coming on Tuesday? Oh, you're going to go back to Mammoth? Probably early, because we're going to help Maya, who's moving in on Tuesday. And Emily's coming in on Tuesday. Tuesday, Monday, I guess. And then Nini, you know, our Linda, Ryan, is arriving also on Tuesday. So there's a whole bunch of folks coming up this next week. And we'll be there Tuesday. We'll probably come up a few times, too, to just hang out and, you know, see how people are doing and stuff. Are you leaving early in the morning? You don't know? Don't know.

[82:37]

Don't know. Okay. Well, what's your room number? 4.30. Okay, so we'll knock on your door, and if you're there, that would be really sweet. Okay, okay, good. 4.30. Oh, you're just around the corner from us. Yes. Are you 4.26? Yeah, that's it. Right around the corner. We've been looking at your door. You have, thank you. It looks like... We have to walk by to go to the elevator every trip up and down. We're going to bump into each other a lot, especially around mealtime. Already bumping into a lot of people a lot. Yes. There's a contingent city center here last Friday. Wow. Taya and Barbara and Arlene and...

[83:40]

I can't think of her name. Oh, Rosalie. Rosalie. Oh, that's a good crowd you got there. Sweet. I hope it goes well. I mean, you're there, right? I hope it really turns into this. This is really like homey and happy thing for all of us, right? We really have to work on that part. Somewhat chaotic. They have a problem that the heating isn't working. Oh. I guess you can't build a fire, can you? No. So it seems like they can generate some heat, but it's not controllable in the individual units. It's all kind of chaotic startup things. Yeah. And the staff. And the guests. Nobody knows what they're doing. Well, welcome home welcome home i look forward to being there with you and whatever support i can give you and you can give me okay all right and and there was one other hand with lisa are you are you gone did you have to go okay

[85:03]

All right. So I'm going to need to go. I got to run. I got a message from Tom. My email. I'm happy to give you guys my email. I'm not sure how to do that. I guess I could type it. Oh, I know. I'll type it into the chat to everybody. And then, Tom, you can. Everyone. Okay. F-U-R-Y-U dot S-U-R. Yeah. Okay, there it is. I'm going to hit enter. Okay, that's my email. So if anyone needs to contact me about something, or as I said, if I set up this precept study class, you're welcome to. I'll give more information, and we can communicate with each other about that. You're welcome, Tom. And whatever else, I'm happy to meet with people as I can. And so... Zooming is not so challenging.

[86:05]

Okay. Well, nice to see everybody. I'm going to go on the gallery view. I'm going to go on gallery. I'm on gallery. There we are. I'm on gallery. Yeah. Okay. There you all are. Hi. Hello. Hello. Hello. There we all are. You all take care. And next week, know us. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Hanukkah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. We have a couple of Israelis in the workshops who we had some very touching conversations about suffering. A lot of suffering. So I will be grateful to be with friends on Hanukkah as well and wishing well to the world. Yeah, you all. Good night, everybody. Good night. Thank you.

[87:08]

Have a good night.

[87:10]

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