Good morning. Last weekend, I was in Minnesota for the Labor Day weekend, Saint Paul, Minnesota, where I was involved in the labor of moving my parents into an assisted living facility, which is very nice. They have their own apartment and kitchen, and yet they have the advantages of a dining room, 24-hour on-call nurses, and so forth. But the experience of moving them, you know that saying it takes a village to raise a

[01:07]

child? It takes a village to move your parents from one place to the other. But when I arrived, there was lots of relatives, my aunts and uncles, and the fake aunts and uncles that were friends of my parents that we always had to call aunt and uncle, they weren't any relation, cousins, cousins, children, and they were all helping to unpack and unwrap and put into drawers and set up the icebox with food. And being in the midst of this support system of family and old friends of the family, I really felt how much these people have taught me over the years through their Midwestern generosity and friendliness and hospitality and just being willing to do what has to be

[02:20]

done. And I hadn't realized that before, how much they had taught me, and how much I appreciated all these people. It reminded me of when I first began to practice, I heard in the Dharma talk that there were, we may have teachers that are unknown to us, teachers in our lives who we don't even realize are teaching us, secret teachers. And I remember at the time thinking, taking this very literally, thinking, oh, I wonder who is my secret teacher, kind of like my secret Santa or something, who is looking out for me, I wonder if it's, I remember thinking, I wonder if it's Ed Brown, maybe he's my secret teacher, as if there was some plan and people chose their secret buddies or something and then guided them without them knowing.

[03:23]

Anyway, so I remember appreciating the thought that there were people unknown to me who were teaching me and wondering who they were, sort of like angels watching out for me. So these relatives and friends, I realized just last weekend, have been my secret teachers. And how many more secret teachers there are, I think actually it's immeasurable. So moving my parents and leaving them in this new place was very intense, emotionally intense. One of the most emotionally intense experiences that I can remember, which I'll tell you about sometime, but not this morning. There's a Zen priest whose name is Shundo Aoyama and she's the head of the, she's a

[04:41]

contemporary Japanese priest who's head of a nun's training monastery or training place in Japan and teaches extensively. She wrote a book called Zen Seeds and in that it's reflections, the subtitle is Reflections of a Female Zen Priest. She talks about her training and she at the, well actually when she was in utero, her mother took her to the, every day that her mother was pregnant with her, she took her to these Kanon, Kanzeon shrines. Kanzeon is the Bodhisattva or enlightenment being of compassion. And she, and also often there are images, pictures, paintings of Kanzeon watching over

[05:42]

the baby in utero, in fact the baby's shown like in a bubble and Kanzeon's looking over, watching over her, or him. Anyway, her mother went to the Kanzeon shrine every day and she knew that this child would go be given to the priesthood. I don't know if that's exactly how you say it, but would be dedicated to the priesthood, would become a priest. So when this little girl, Shundo Aoyama was five years old, she was taken to a temple and left there for, to begin her training. And she became the disciple, there were two priests there, her aunt named Shuzan and her aunt's cousin, Shunshu I think was the name, these two women who were the heads of this temple. And they took care of this child and trained her and it was a very rigorous training.

[06:49]

When she first got there they brought her into the, probably like a Buddha hall, this room is both a zendo, a meditation hall and a Buddha hall, but there was a large figure of the Buddha and she was sat down in front of it and told that the Buddha would be watching over and guiding her. And I think this was quite an intense experience for this little girl, with this great big statue. But the actual watching over and guiding her fell to these two nuns. And as she relates these experiences, Shundo Aoyama-san, she does it with the greatest of gratitude and thankfulness for the teaching that these nuns showed her. Even when she says things like, 365 days a year I had to get up early and go into the

[07:58]

cold Buddha hall and do service in the morning, hitting the wooden fish with her cold hands. But she says it without anger and has come to appreciate this as she's matured. So these women guided her and she maybe, when she was younger, didn't appreciate them as her teachers, but later she says she gets a lump in her throat when she thinks of the gratitude she has for these, her masters actually. One thing I found very interesting had to do with how they taught her about study. We were recently at a meeting in San Francisco of the Zen Center priests and we broke into small groups and I happened to overhear from not my small group, but another small group,

[09:00]

one of the priests saying, if we only had more time to study, that's the one thing that really drives me nuts or something, is that we have to do these classes and we have to do these classes and everything, but we don't have enough time to study. And I thought to myself, that's true. In fact, this weekend, this morning, I had the first of a series of six classes plus the lecture to give and nothing gets rearranged necessarily to find time to study. How am I going to find time to study? And Ayayama says that her teachers never would allow her any time to study, any extra time. The only time she had was on the four-mile walk to and from school and also at the time when she could be sleeping, that was her study time. And what these nuns told her was, the way to ensure a child to hate study and not to study is to say study, study, study all the time, to tell them to study. If you don't give them any time to study, then it becomes a struggle to find time and

[10:05]

it's so precious, those 10 minutes here and there, you put your complete effort into it and you just, there's no pussyfooting around, you just take that time and use it fully. And I found that very interesting and actually very true. When you only have 30 minutes rather than you've got the whole day, you know, a couple days to prepare, then you find yourself, you know, sorting Valentines from 1985 or something like that. It also reminded me of other people I had heard of like Hillel who was a Jewish scholar and writer, I actually don't know the dates of Hillel, but he, I remember this one image that I learned in Sunday school where he would get up on the roof of where they were teaching and listen to the teachings going on in the classroom and he couldn't enter

[11:10]

and, you know, straining to hear. That kind of effort to study is sometimes needed. So, this training that she had was very difficult and yet she appreciates what was given to her. When she turned 16, she was ordained as a nun or priest, I guess. In Japanese society, the women priests do not marry. There's kind of a double standard. The men priests do marry. As far as I know still, although someone may correct me, the women priests are actually more like nuns or they don't marry. Anyway, at 16 she was ordained and then she had a kind of crisis of faith maybe because

[12:10]

she looked at the Buddhist clergy and at what was going on in Japan and she was very critical and very despairing and very despondent about what she saw and questioned whether she should have been ordained and all this. And this aunt and her aunt's cousin, her teachers, basically reprimanded her very strongly Who do you think you are? Are you of such purity of heart that you don't do anything wrong? For everybody, there are some good points. If you can't learn from everyone and anyone, then what is going to happen to you? This was their admonition, very strong, about looking at other people's faults. And this looking at other people's faults or seeing other people's faults is a very human

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trait that we all have where we actually look at people and we see their faults rather than their virtues. They just come right out there and we see them. And I have been very clearly reminded of this in my life. Recently at Zen Center we've had a number of deaths among the Sangha, people that have been practicing for a long time, people I practiced with at Tassajara. And I know many of you know Jerry who is the Eno here. And the Eno, the head of the meditation hall in San Francisco, also passed away. And another woman who practiced at Tassajara with us was killed in a car accident. So there's been a number of funerals and memorial services. And I was very ashamed to see that when I went to these funerals, listening to all the

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wonderful things that people had to say about these people who I knew very well, practiced with a long time, and realized how much I had seen their problem side or their faults and their difficulties and focused on that. And to hear how these people had affected other people's lives and been a great force for people's practice, for them to continue their practice, having contact with these people, all three, I was just kind of woken up to my habitual way of seeing people's faults. And I think these two nuns were waking up their student about how she was going about seeing people's faults. And I wanted to read to you from the Dhammapada, which is a very old words of the Buddha,

[15:27]

talking about faults, seeing the faults of others. One of the Ten Grave Prohibitory Precepts is, a disciple of the Buddha does not slander. And it's also translated as, does not discuss the faults of others. So this is one of the main practices that is brought forth about seeing people's faults, discussing their faults. And the Buddha says, look not at the faults of others and what they have done or left undone, rather look at what you yourself have done or left undone. And the done and the left undone, done is all the errors and mistakes that you've made, and the left undone are all the things you've omitted, all the times you could have acted and didn't act. So rather than seeing that out there and pointing and seeing the blame out there, reflect on one's own what you have done and have not done.

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And it goes on, these are different sections of the Dhammapada, it's brought up several times. Others' faults are easily perceived, but one's own are difficult to perceive. A person winnows his or her neighbor's faults like chaff, but his or her faults are hidden, as a cheat hides the bad die from the gambler. So... So this, the easiness of seeing others' faults and the wanting to hide one's own faults is, for me, I'm giving this lecture for myself, is some area to really look at and question yourself about, question myself about,

[17:35]

Linda, you know, what are you up to? And it turns out the more we see our own non-virtue, the more we see the virtue in others, so those things go together. The... There's a teaching called the Eight Winds, and the Eight Winds are profit and loss, censure and praise, pleasure and pain, and respect and ridicule. So those are called the Eight Winds. And you know, when I heard about the Eight Winds, I could practically feel myself being blown about,

[18:36]

you know, like a leaf in the wind. And you can reflect in your own life on when profit comes, you know, how we're kind of, whoo, boy, that was great, and then loss comes, and whoa, depression, and how are we going to... You know, suicidal thoughts, and profit and loss, how we're blown about by this. These are the Eight Winds. Respect and ridicule. You know, someone offers you, they show signs of respect, they take care of you very carefully, and how that feels. And then, if you're ridiculed, the pain around someone speaking to you in a... you know, diminishing you, denigrating you, how painful that is, how you go up and down and over and around. Pain and pleasure and censure and praise, you know, someone criticizing you

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and then someone praising you. These... Even the words themselves, practically, it's like being on a Ferris wheel or something. When I was in Minnesota, we went to the state fair, and I went on the Ferris wheel, a medium-sized Ferris wheel. And, you know, you're... I was actually kind of crammed in with these cousins and my sisters. The carny, the guy who ran the Ferris wheel, said he had to get us out with the crowbar. Anyway, we were in there going around, and we'd go up high, and you'd overlook the fairgrounds, and it was quiet, and the stars were out, and then you go down into the fray of the state fair. So it's like that, kind of around and around with the Eight Winds. So when we feel like we're blamed, there's a story where one of Buddha's monks had heard rumors that he was being blamed about something, and he went to the Buddha to talk about these rumors,

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and the Buddha said very clearly, there is... I'll read it because it's kind of wonderful. This is an old saying. He says to this monk, they blame the person who is silent, they blame the person who speaks too much, and they blame the person who speaks too little. No person can escape blame in this world. There never was, there never will be, nor is there now, a person whom people always blame, nor a person whom they always praise. So this is like the Ferris wheel. There is no person who is always blamed or who is always praised or who isn't blamed for something.

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This is our lot. And how do we carry on in the world with knowing this is true? If you say too much, then someone's telling you you're a blabbermouth and strident. If you don't say anything, why are they so aloof? Who do they think they are? They're better than everybody else. If you say a little bit, they should have said more. Why don't you speak up? It's like that. You can't win, right? So we're reading the trilogy of The Bounty to my son. Mutiny on the Bounty is the first book. Are you familiar with the story of Mutiny on the Bounty? Many of you are. It was a movie with Marlon Brando maybe? I think it's been made several times. Anyway, in the first, there's three books. There's Mutiny on the Bounty, Men Against the Sea, and Pitcairn's Island. And in Mutiny on the Bounty,

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you get to meet the characters and it's a true story. This actually happened. There was a ship called the Bounty, and there was a captain called Captain Bly, and he was just the most ornery, mean guy, and he punished people for small infractions by whippings and putting them in irons. He was extraordinarily strict and accusative, and you'd say he was paranoid. And at a certain point, it got to be too much. This is after the water rations were down to like half a cup a day and the breadfruit trees were getting all the water. Anyway, Fletcher Christian mutinied. Now, this was after. The day Fletcher Christian actually took over the ship was the day after he had been severely ridiculed and accused of taking coconuts. And here he was, the second in command of this, of His Majesty's ship Bounty,

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an officer, and Captain Bly had just, you know, really ridiculed him and blamed him for taking coconuts, which he didn't do. And that was like the straw that broke Fletcher Christian's spirit, really. And they took over the ship the next day, unpremeditated, but that's what happened. So that's the story of the first book, and Captain Bly was put into a boat with loyal people. Some people weren't able to go into the boat because there wasn't enough room and they were cast adrift in the South Seas and the Bounty headed back to Tahiti. And, you know, it's like, Captain Bly is, he's just terrible, you know. You can't stand to even hear him talk. And yet, was this right? And it's not clear. That's all the first book, what happens. The second book is Men Against the Sea. And it's the story of Captain Bly in this boat on the open sea, and he was able to bring

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these 18 men, like 4,600 miles through the open sea with a ration of, an ounce of bread and a half of a pint of water a day, and he navigated this little craft back to safety. And he is incredible. Captain Bly is, he is courageous, he is calm, he inspires the men, he takes care of them, he is just like, they could not have done it without this man. Who is Captain Bly, you know? Is he, what is he? So there's no person who is totally always blamed and totally always praised, even Captain Bly, you know. And this is the same is true for all of us. And the third book, just in case you're interested, is called Pitcairn's Island,

[25:45]

and it's where the bounty crew, some of the bounty, ends up settling, which we haven't gotten to yet. So these secret teachers of us are looking out for our welfare and encouraging us and helping us to practice hard. And these old nuns who taught Ayayama, in college, they let her really just go to college, and they didn't, they let her just do what she needed to do during her college years. And then she came back to the temple and led Zen retreats, and they would cook for the sashins and support these until their old age. One of these nuns was 94 years old, and she couldn't see anymore to cook for the sashins, but she was able to build the fire

[26:45]

and feed the fire for the bath. You know, they have these wood-burning baths that you get into. And she said, Please, at least let me do that. So until her, when she was an old, old woman, she continued to support Ayayama in her as she taught and began to take on students. And this was done out of compassion for her. Now compassion is an essential point, an essential quality. The mind of compassion, to arouse the mind of compassion, is essential for our practice. And I was just reading some treatises on meditation practice that are very specific about crossing your legs and eating moderately and so forth. But this particular one starts out with, in order to accomplish your practice, you must arouse the mind of compassion that wants to liberate beings.

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And the compassion, the mind of compassion is the condition for a bodhisattva to have this mind that has compassion for living beings. And sometimes compassion gets mixed up, especially with our family and friends, gets mixed up with attachment. But this is not compassion when we have attachment and are actually secretly trying to get things for ourselves. And being back in Minnesota, in trying to get my parents settled, they have a lot of things, a lot of, over, you know, they're in their 80s, so over 60 years of married life, or 56 years of married life, acquiring beautiful things. They have wonderful taste. And yet this apartment can't hold it all, and we got rid of many things to move there, but still once we were moving in,

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there wasn't enough room, there wasn't enough cupboard space and storage space. And with all good intentions, my aunts and cousins were divesting my parents of these items. They actually said, they can't use this, your mother can't, what's she going to do with yada yada? Why don't I take it for my kids and that kind of thing. And they would check with my mother. Some of the time my mother wasn't able to really be involved in the decisions, and I realized that it was getting to be kind of painful for me, watching like things I had been familiar with and used and appreciated over the years kind of marching out the door with some various people, and my sister saying, how about this, you want to take this? Oh, she can use that and this, how about that? It reminded me of the movie Zorba the Greek. I don't know if you remember that scene where,

[29:50]

this made a big impression on me when I saw this, where that woman, Zorba's friend is dying, but she's not quite died yet, and she's in her bed, and these little old ladies in black shawls come in, and they sort of perch the bottom of the bed like little crows, and they're kind of waiting for her to pass away so that they can get her items, her clothes and her things. But they can't wait. They're sort of impatient, so they began taking things and sort of, and the woman, this is very painful as her things begin to be distributed before she's ready. So I actually feel my mother and father did great and gave lots of things for this benefit for the Cancer Association. We just gave away tons of stuff, and they still have tons more beautiful things to still furnish the house.

[30:53]

But I began to feel like, especially when it was like, oh, that teapot I wanted. How come that's going to my cousin Joni? And other such thoughts were rising in me and thinking, you know, is this compassion helping my folks, or is there attachment here? Is there greed? And kind of studying this, trying to study this event, I actually feel in the long run or in the end, it was beneficial for them to simplify their lives. So these eight winds of profit and loss and praise and censure and ridicule and respect and all these things, it was very intense, as I said, as these things. And what is compassion? What is the mind of compassion?

[31:54]

Is this compassion? So the mind of compassion, which is essential for our meditation practice and for living in the world without misery, is the mind that wants to protect living beings and protect them from their suffering. It's not just a mind that wants beings to be freed from their suffering. That's part of it. May all beings be free from suffering. But where you yourself want to protect them from suffering, and the example that's used, one traditional example is if you see a child fall into the, if a group of people see a child fall into a stream, let's say, everybody will want the child to be safe, but there will be a few, like the mother and father, who will jump into the stream and go after the child, will want to actually protect with their own bodies and just completely

[32:55]

get in there. I want to mention something that Wendy Johnson mentioned to me about protecting. There's a stand of virgin redwoods, old growth virgin redwoods, in a place called Headlands, let's see, I wrote it down. You know about this, right? Headwaters Forest, and this virgin stand of redwoods, there's been a moratorium on the cutting of these redwoods, which is going to be lifted on the 16th of September, a week from Monday, and it looks like the people who own that land are ready with chainsaws to go in there, and there's going to be various demonstrations and people who will be trying to actually protect these redwoods, to actually not just wish,

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you know, may these redwoods stand and live, but actually we're going to be doing some on-the-line action. So I think there'll be some more information about this that the office will have during this week, and also at our own redwood, your woods are preserved. There may be some action or demonstration also, so you can find out more about that. So to throw oneself into actually want to protect beings is the mind of compassion, which is the condition for being a bodhisattva. And also, as this Tibetan teacher, I'm not sure I'm pronouncing this right, Tsong Khapa, who was the teacher of the first Dalai Lama, he, after many, many, many years of practice, realized that compassion was the key to enlightenment. This was the key.

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He had been basing his practice on other kinds of practices and emptiness and meditative states and so forth, and then he came back to the fact that compassion is the key. So there's a saying that if the one who is not blown about by the eight winds is the real mountain of jewels. The one who is not blown about by the eight winds is the real mountain of jewels. So to be the one who is not blown about by, you know, someone praises you and you go, whoo, you go off there. Someone ridicules you, oh, you know. It's like, my cousin was reminding me of this day camp I went to called Camp Ranana, which I haven't thought about

[35:59]

in about 40 years. And at Camp Ranana we used to sing the song called Yay Boo. I don't know if any of you know about, have you ever heard the song? It's kind of a game. You go, Yay Boo, Yay Boo, that's a lot of fun. If you like it, holler Yay. If you don't, you holler Boo, Boo, Boo. And then someone would call out, like, we're going to go swimming. And everybody would go, Yay, but the pool doesn't have any water in it. Boo. And then you'd do another one. Anyway, I thought maybe we could do this here, but no, we don't have to. So to not be blown around by the Yay Boo of our life, because that's what our life is like. And it all is in Buddha's hands. It all takes place within the mind of Buddha. So to be the one who is not blown about by the eight winds is the one who is the real mountain of jewels

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and shines for everyone. And these eight winds are our secret teachers. That's what I've come to after all these years. It's not necessarily Ed Brown and all the rest of the wonderful teachers in Dharma, brothers and sisters that I have, but it's when I'm criticized and ridiculed. And I'm not kidding. I actually am criticized and ridiculed and have loss and pain. It's not that we don't have these things. To not be blown around doesn't mean that you stop having pain and loss, I mean profit and loss, pain and pleasure, respect and ridicule. It's not that these sort of all go away and there you are kind of, I don't know what like, like some kind of vanilla ice cream, I guess. No, I like vanilla ice cream. Just some, you don't know

[37:59]

what it would be without these human things happening. It's not that they go away, but you are not blown all over by them. You feel the pain of loss and you receive this as your secret teacher, as the one who is guiding you and pressing you to use this time to study here's another, here's a few minutes of real difficult study. Take advantage of it. And pain, all of these things, these are our secret teachers that will never leave us, will never let us down. So I think, I think that's all for today. Thank you very much. May I be with you.

[39:02]

To talk about what's come up for you in the lecture itself or further clarification of something I brought up and also just amongst each other sometimes people have comments for each other and so it can be a discussion as well as me, you know, answering things. So who would like to start? Yes. I have a question about the way it came about. Uh-huh. I have a book that is called and I'm looking for a book if there is one that describes in preceptual terms the precepts of Buddhism 101 Uh-huh. I don't know of any precepts. Well, what just came to mind when you said precepts is Eiken Roshi's book Taking the Path, let's see, Taking the Path of Zen. I don't know Mind of Clover Mind of Clover is the precept one. Yeah. Mind of Clover. And this is Eiken Roshi.

[40:12]

He's an American Zen teacher who's in Hawaii, Diamond Sangha and it does go through the precepts very carefully. Also, Thich Nhat Hanh's books are really accessible, very accessible. Um, Miracle of Mindfulness and, uh, so if it's precepts in particular also Thich Nhat Hanh's books I can't really name the books, but there's, he has scores, really, of books that are out that are very, all very, uh, accessible. I think for a 13-year-old too. Um, Mind of Clover by Eiken Roshi, A-I-T-K-E-N and you can look in the bookstore here for some Thich Nhat Hanh books, um, that might seem suitable. Miracle of Mindfulness is really wonderful and I'm not sure if the precepts are brought up in that, but, uh, that might be good.

[41:13]

You're welcome. Yes? There used to be one in the bookstore that was pictures. It was sort of like a history of Buddhism and describing all the different things. I can't remember the name of it. I don't even know if it's still there, but it seems like that was also in the books that, um, had cartoons. Cartoons? I'm not sure what that might have been. Beginning to See. Do you know who that's by, Sal? Beginning to See is another book that a couple people here have just recommended. It's different. Okay. Looks like there's things out there. So, what else would anyone like to bring up? Yes? I don't know

[42:32]

what that, I don't, I don't get that. Can you tell me why you said that or what your experience is with that? Yeah. Um, well, I think I'll start with seeing the faults of others, which, there isn't any problem with, do you see any problem with how that works? You got that one. Okay. So, I think what I found personally, I mean, I can just tell anecdotally, like, in these funerals that I was at, um, I realized in hearing about the virtues of these peoples how much I had seen their faults and that to me was, it was very painful to realize that I'm the kind of person that, you know, there's certain things that really, um, really become, uh, take on an importance like hygiene and, where, so much so that

[43:33]

I will not see kind of anything beyond that and I found that I was, I had shame arise and shame, I think, in the Buddhist sense is, I think shame has kind of a bad rap in psychological realms, but, in Buddhism, um, a sense of shame is one of the dharmas, one of the elements of reality, you could say, that is present in every wholesome state of mind. If you don't have any shame, you can pretty much do anything to anybody because there's no, uh, sense of shame. So, sense of shame is, um, actually a wholesome component and is in every other, you know, wholesomeness, it's there, that sense. So, in that way, um, feeling that sense of shame, it's like it just opened up for me how hard people practice, the effort they're making, from that,

[44:35]

from my own feeling of how I, my own lack of, um, uh, what's the word, um, good will towards people sometimes, and just parsimoniousness, just all of it, you know, it was very clear to me, and right along with that came, it just came up with that how hard people practice, the effort they're making, what good they do in the world, it was just like apparent, it just was right there. So it's, it's not so much forcing myself to see how bad I am, what a bad person, and then, oh, how good they are, it actually, within the practice it arises together, just so happens. Yes? I had an experience, actually, I had the same question, I've, uh, I've been part of a

[45:36]

12-step program for about nine and a half years, and part of that program is that our eight and nine steps that we make to lift all people we harm and become willing to make amends, and then we say we're willing to make amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so with each of them or others. And my experience with making amends was actually being, taking responsibility, going to people that I've had very difficult, a lot of difficulty with in the past, honestly saying this is what I've done in the past, based on my own self-centered alcoholism or whatever my problem has been, and, uh, my experience with that has been that it does actually give me more compassion for others when I actively own my own faults in my things that I've done in the past. And I don't know what the dynamics is absolutely, but it resonated completely with what you said. My actual experience with that is that the more I've been willing to do that, my actual experience with that is that the more I've been willing to do that

[46:36]

and take responsibility for my side of things that have happened in the past, the greater, on a daily basis, the more easy it is for me to accept other people and to be able to tolerate what the judging line is constantly telling me about other people. Yes, thank you very much, yes. I think this is not to, there is a place for, um, this is not like let me be a doormat and let everybody, you know, just walk all over me and, um, I don't think that's, because that's not compassionate for other people either, to have them treat you that way. That will, that's harmful for them as well, but it, so, we're not saying that you don't try and, um, change a situation or wake somebody up to how it is they are, you know, but that's very different from blaming them and criticizing them. You, you say something to them in the interest of waking them up to how it,

[47:37]

how it hurts when they talk to you that way, you know. So, I think you can take this kind, you can distort this kind of thing, um, and, you know, just, you know, everything's because of me and my, it's all my fault and like that, but this, this kind of a victim mentality, but it's not that, it's, it's actually, um, being very clear, a lot of, with a lot of clarity in where, what is your problem and what is your part, you know. So, I think there's probably a lot of circumstances and how to say something to somebody that wakes them up and is not, um, ridiculing or, you know, there's the eight wins without causing pain to them, without, um, blaming them, without making them feel like they're losing, losing something by their encounter with you. How do you do that? You know, so it takes skill

[48:37]

a lot of skill and a lot of clarity about your part, that your, your attachments that are in there too. Yes? And you were saying, you know, how, like, we all find faults in other people. I was thinking, yeah, you know, I find a lot of faults in other people myself, and I thought, but, what would happen if I, if I stopped trying to find faults in other people and I had this feeling like, oh my gosh, then I'd really have to assess them and really, like, open up my heart to them fully. And so, I was wondering if the reading is why we cling on to finding faults in other people so much because it's really just that, opening up the heart to them. Maybe so, maybe so. I think one point that I had wanted to bring up in the talk has to do with self-love, and it's a story where there was a king of India during Buddha's time and he and his wife,

[49:39]

the queen, had both taken refuge in Buddha and they were sitting out on their terrace one evening looking over the, you know, the kingdom and he asked her, he said, is there anyone in all the world that you love more than yourself? And she thought about it for a while and then said, no, there is no one that I love more than I love myself and he said, this is the same with me. And they thought, they were concerned about this because they had taken refuge in the Buddha and they thought this was not in accord with the Buddha's teaching. So they went to the Buddha to tell him about it and the Buddha said, yes, this is true, each person loves themself more than any other being and therefore, since you know that about, sorry, since you know that about yourself, you know that each person also feels that about themselves too, that their self

[50:41]

to them is just as precious and they love themselves just as much as you love yourself. Therefore, since you know this about yourself, therefore, you don't harm any other being. So, your own self-love, which is part of our human condition, just admit it that we do love ourselves and know that each person feels that way and out of that you have compassion for others and then your love for yourself and their love for themselves, it's like pouring water into water, it's like it's just compassion and non-harming. So, I think you're right, you know, when you say we close this fear of what if we actually really treated people knowing how much they care about themselves and how precious they are to themselves and not wanting to hurt them, how would we be

[51:42]

in the world? And it's, you know, your whole life just turns around, you know. Yes? I'm afraid this is a question and I don't want to keep belaboring the shame thing. Yes. But, the lack of shame, the word that came up for me when you were talking about that, amoral, and it's one that's been in my consciousness for a long time and I'm really not straightened out enough and I think that gives me an insight that I didn't have before. Lacking shame, it seems to me, wouldn't that contribute to an amoral state or... An amoral state, yeah, I would think so. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, some... You just don't know the difference between right and wrong. Yeah, I mean... Yes, I think that's a component. I mean, I heard this interview

[52:42]

on NPR with a person who works with the worst offenders, sexual offenders and serial killers and people who are almost you don't almost consider them human and part of what they're incarcerated and part of what he found from they don't have feelings, they don't feel what another person might feel and they also don't have physical feelings themselves often. You know, they don't have sensation in the same way and, you know, one was, I don't really want to get in, it's so macabre but, anyway, part of this person's doing the things he was doing was so that he could maybe feel something in this violence. You know, he'd have a moment of maybe feeling something. Anyway, I feel like and the conditions, you know, the causes and conditions

[53:43]

of how a human being is raised and treated so that they have no feelings like this or have no sense of what another person might feel. No, none, no idea is, you know, the myriad causes and conditions. It's beyond conception, all the factors involved, you know. But, anyway, I think you're right, this kind of not having any shame for what you do leads to kind of an amorality. So, yeah. One of the great wins of my time was dealing with profit and loss when you're moving. Yes. I was, you know, pretty involved in the stock market for many years. To deal with that, winning for myself, making money in the market and moving it, I've experienced tremendous suffering

[54:44]

and when my clients lost money and, uh, this has gone up most of my life, learning how to find the middle road or some kind of balance and it still comes up. So it's been very difficult, uh, to stay in balance when, uh, when you're moving. Do you, do you have any words of wisdom for us? I mean, having, having been in that situation for all those years? No. I mean, were you able to find some balance? Let's say you did, your client, that you really had a good relationship with and you lost thousands of dollars for him or her. I mean, did you find a way to, uh, be? Well, I just, I was able to let it go and

[55:47]

just move on. Uh-huh. If I was not able to do that, I would have had to get out of the business. Yeah, yeah. So I could not have handled it anymore. When it came, when it happened, in the moment, you know, I had, sometimes I got pressed over or sad or anger but I was able to let it go. And the way I handle it now, because I'm not involved in that business anymore, if I lose money in the market, I sit with it. Uh-huh. And whatever comes up, I just try, you know, I try to be with it as best I can. Yeah. And in that process, it can be very intense in a moment but I was able, you know, when I do that, it subsides. Yes. And I'm able to move on. Well,

[56:50]

I think the, you know, the one who is not blown around by the eight winds is the real mountain of jewels is actually for me, and I didn't say this this morning in the lecture but it's like sitting Zazen, you know, where you, and it all comes up, all that, all the eight winds are just blowing fiercely sometimes, you know. Definitely pleasure and pain, no question. Profit and loss, you go through, I should have, why didn't I, oh, if only, and all that, and then ridicule, you know, you remember, I remember having this memory come back really strong of being, going to an immigration office as the secretary of Zazen Center School, which we have for foreign students to come, and pleading, trying to plead the case for one of our students and the immigration officer saying, you shut up and sit down, and sort of like, you know, just,

[57:50]

and dutifully doing it, you know, instead of saying, I don't know about, you know, I just sort of clunk, and then I was like, you know, I was dumbfounded, dumbfounded, I could not speak or anything, you know, that coming up and feeling the ridicule of that and all of it, it all happens in Zazen, so to find your composure, you know, upright, balanced, let it go, let these things come and go, because they will, that's what wind is like, you know, it blows, and then there's hurricanes, and then there's breezes, warm, bringing that smell of jasmine, you know, it's all, the winds are, they come all different ways. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

[58:56]

It may not be stuck, but there's, yeah, finally got it, yeah. In, uh, in Little League, my son plays on Little League, and if they make a mistake like strike out or do an error, the coach says, shake it off, shake it off, and, which is like, just let it go, you know, get ready, the next pitch is coming, get ready, you know, you're back, and, darn it, why did I swing? It was a ball, why did I swing? And you'll miss the next one, you know, so they say shake it off, which, um, I don't know if the kids can do it, but I found it very helpful myself. Shake it off. That's another secret teacher of those coaches. Let's see, who else, who else? Yes? I just wanted to mention, when you were talking about the big ones this morning, what you were just saying, um, I have found in the past that it's very easy for me to

[59:57]

define my whole life by what's happening right now, and if there's a point of crisis or a point of real difficulty in defining my life that way, you can get pretty depressed about that. Um, what I've learned, um, in the past few years is to see the feedback as well as the good as kind of a whole picture of my life. It's not, this, this moment is not my entire life as a whole. It is what's happening now, I guess it's important now to let go of the attachment of defining myself and my life as what's taking place right now. And that's helped a lot. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that up, because it's nice to be in a hall and remember that's, that seems to help. Yeah. Um, as you started

[60:57]

the lecture today, I started thinking about my case, because I have my parents, my father is 81 years old and had a double bypass last year, and his mind is losing clarity. And my mother is 82 years old. And she's clear, but, you know, because of the age, they have problems. And it's in relation, my question goes into relation with respect. Because as they, you know, they start losing their clarity, sometimes they have clarity, sometimes they don't. But you have to be so careful to have their respect or their esteem high. And, you know, there's the case now that my mother wants to fire the person that is taking care of them, because my father is relying too much on her, and she's getting jealous. So, you

[61:59]

know, what to do, where to keep the balance, because my mother is still, you know, the person that takes care of the house, and she needs to have respect on herself, so she doesn't like to make out. But, at the same time, it would be something chaotic, because this person has been four years over there. And I was just wondering, since you are somewhat involved with your parents, in this part of clarity, you know, where one takes the role of the parent, parental type, and where do you stay as the son? You know, it's kind of a difficult Yes, yes. Oh, you're just totally, totally described it. How many of you are taking care of older parents right now, or dealing with that? Yeah. Well, I think you're right, this, their own self-esteem and self-identity, you know, it's like all the things that they've identified with, how they identify

[63:00]

themselves, are slipping away, you know. And, you know, and then it gets down to even the most basic things, like bodily functions and that kind of thing, where it's, even that they need help with, my parents do. And, you know, so you're talking about their dignity and their, how do you, you can't maintain it artificially, and yet, how do you, you don't want to take it away too soon, you know. So you're right, it's just this subtle thing. You know, I found that this question of relying too much and becoming very dependent on the helping people was definitely happening. And on the one hand, the anger, and I think for my dad, who's now in a wheelchair partly, feeling that he's now at the disposal of, kind of

[64:01]

like, at the pleasure of everybody else, things happen for him. He can't get up and open the window. He's got to wait, or he's got to ask, to live at the pleasure of others. If he drops something, maybe they don't want to pick it up right then, and you can't get it. That degree of need that someone might have causes an enormous amount of anger, and that's in there too, as well as the helplessness and powerlessness. And then, unless someone has a very stable, kind of, wide view of who they are, that begins to disintegrate, their sense of self. Like my dad, when he was a He was not a big drinker or anything, but after the heart attack, no alcohol whatsoever. And I think, you know, social times included a beer with

[65:02]

his friends and da, da, da. So now he drinks this O'Doul's non-alcoholic beer, and it's like, I'll see if he goes out with friends and family and they're ordering something, he can have an O'Doul's, and he'll, you know, he pours, he feels like he's a man again, you know? Really, I see it, it kind of, he recreates himself again as the man he was, and he can drink with people, socially. But it's all like, it's all fabricated, you know, it's all so dependent on these little things. And so, you know, for you as the son, we have, this is why I said it was so intense, we became the parents, and they were like little kids being left at overnight camp by themselves with all the incumbent, all the fear and terror, really, and holding on, literally, I mean, it was, it was really

[66:02]

incredible, but we were the parents, we actually took that role, it's going to be okay, you're in the right place, you're going to be supported, you know, and not to do that too soon, but when it's time to actually go in and take that role. So, I mean, you've got to work it out with your mother, you know, this person is probably very, very helpful, she's going to have to train somebody else, she can't take care of dad, so, you know, but if it's driving her nuts, you know, you've got to get in there with her, because the clarity I've found is not there, and they really do need help, my parents do, in making simple decisions now. Linda, one thing that has become very clear to me, but sometimes I doubt about it, it would be good to lie at one point, you know, let's say my father said, you know, I left the car on the freeway, you've got to go and pick it up, and we know that he hasn't been driven in a car

[67:03]

or anything, so he gets upset, and, you know, there's no car in the freeway now, yes there is, and he gets upset, and would you lie? You know, I haven't lied so far, but I am very tempted sometimes, in some situations, just to, you know, come up with a lie, and I understand my brother's done it, and I'm trying to tell them not to do that, and I don't know, to me I think it's bad, because if in a moment of clarity they realize that they are lying, then they won't trust anybody. Have you any thoughts about that? I have some thoughts, it sounds like somebody else has over here. You know, I think you maybe brought that point up because before you did, the thing that I was raising my hand about was that what I tried to do with my mother was always tell the truth, and to always look at what was going on, and not shy away from it, and to

[68:03]

be fully present with what was really happening, and I found that extremely useful because I wasn't taking away her dignity by pretending something that was unpleasant wasn't happening, and my mother is a really brave person, but she's not in touch with a lot of things that aren't positive, you know, like her, the whole situation with her health, she can't remember what happened yesterday because she's always been kind of a Pollyanna type, like it didn't really happen, it's over with, I'm just thinking ahead now, and it's be positive, and so she does well on those things, and so it was an artful kind of process having to, you know, be fully in tune with what was happening, and be truthful, you know, but I think it really was the right way to go, and it still is, but you have to be compassionate and understanding and know that

[69:03]

the person is afraid, and talk about the fear, and not run away from it, that's what I found. Any other people who know about this point? I have the same, we have the same situation, if the parent is losing touch with reality, then I believe that that is their reality, and you do have to go along with, because if they honestly believe that something is happening, we comfort and say, it'll be okay, we'll fix it, because that's their reality. I don't think there's a formula for how to handle it, it's kind of case-by-case probably for each person, but the skill for having the compassion as a component is important. Jenny? I think it's

[70:05]

kind of neat, I have a post-doc with a mental elder, and she's in and out of clarity, and one time she was having a really bad time and she said, I was wavering around trying to figure out how to deal with it, and she looked right at me and said be straight with me, and from then on I realized that was tremendously important to her, regardless of mistakes, and she has trusted me tremendously since then because, but she told me. She asked for it, yeah, yeah, and that was very wise as it came from a real clarity. Yeah. Her understanding that I was, that it wasn't easy. Yes. So I think that's an answer possibly for older people too.

[71:05]

Yeah. She said they were in and out of clarity. Yes. Just another approach to this, it may not always be so easy to really know when Clarity was there or not. When my father was dying, he had been in intensive care for quite some time. Shortly before he died, he kept insisting to me that he had an apartment upstairs, and he was in the hospital. The nurses in attendance were all going like this. I didn't know what to do, but he was quite insistent, and got very angry at me for not taking him to this apartment. After he died, I found out from the doctor who treated him at night when I wasn't there, that he had been taken up to intensive care upstairs every night to be treated. It really taught me something about trying to look for the truth and not just assuming that someone is actually crazy and not clear.

[72:11]

I don't know what to do with that, except I know that it's becoming a situation again. I think I would really try to look deeper rather than just deciding they're clear or they're not clear. Yes? I wonder if one aspect is one's own relationship to oneself. Earlier on, you were talking about if there's anyone in the world one loves more than oneself, I think it's a difficult question. It looks like the person you hate is a chicken. Does the other come before itself or self before the other? And in that situation with aging parents, for example, seeing their sense of self may be slipping away One gets irritated at the lack of order or certain things that seem very important

[73:15]

and then become less important. And I think one's reaction often has to do with one's own anxiety about one's sense of self. It can sometimes become a situation of power where you become reassured that your sense of self is from someone who no longer has such a hold on themself. Or it can be anxiety, sort of panic, seeing someone lose their sense of self and you all of a sudden become aware of their own vulnerability and that someday this is going to happen to you. So there's probably a lot of healing in which these problems can also become experienced with maybe letting go of that sense of self that is an obstacle in your relationship with someone who no longer has such a hold on themselves. Yes, I agree.

[74:17]

I feel like watching my different siblings with my parents, my mother for a while didn't want to live anymore but medically it wasn't that she was that terrible. It was just she was very depressed and one of my sisters just yelled at her and said, I need you, I need you as my mother. I still need my mother. And I felt she could say that truly and she couldn't stand that my mother was... She's having difficulty with her daughter and wants her mother there in on it. And the anxiety of losing my mother's kind of disintegration... Anyway, it was interesting because I felt I couldn't necessarily say that. And each one has a different relationship and the anxieties come up in different situations for different ones

[75:19]

even if you have siblings who are involved in this because you certainly do get involved with each other. So you're right, you come face to face with your own mortality, your own attachments, your needs, your fears, your sense of identity which is bound up and if they're like that, then that means you're like that, but if they're not like that, well, who are you and all that. It's like you go down into the underworld together, kind of. And the landscape has all changed like that. So, yes, your whole sense of self, everything is shifted, everything gets shifted. Those of you who are in on this know exactly. Let me just see if there's somebody who hasn't spoken yet. Yes? Could you speak on the boundaries of compassion,

[76:20]

to find the boundaries of the balance? Because I can't speak all the feelings, I don't know where my boundaries are, what the thoughts were. Boundaries. I don't know where the heart is, though. Yes. And if you mix them up, and it is strange if you don't find the boundaries. Yes. It's a difficult time for me. Yes. Well, I actually don't feel like there are any boundaries to compassion. But there are ways in which we give, and give, and give, and are not aware of a human tendency to have expectations for something to come and return, or some attachment there. It's all of the shadow side of our giving. The light of our giving, there's also the shadow of what's in it for me. And so,

[77:21]

to be very aware of how those come up together is, I think, helpful. But I don't feel like there are boundaries to compassion. It's just, the more you practice, the more you understand that there is no boundary to self and other, the more you see there's no boundary to compassion. It's just... So... Physical... Oh. Yes. Yes. Yes, definitely. Well, you know, sometimes you feel like you're running on... When you're in these intense situations, you're just running on pure adrenaline and will, or something. You know, you're just... So, yes, to be very aware of how you take care of yourself in those situations,

[78:23]

which is compassion, too. It's not like it only goes out. How you take care of yourself. Are you getting enough rest? Are you eating regularly and good food? Are you getting away from the situation to kind of recoup and take a walk and all that? You know, I think for women in particular, there's a kind of... We've been inculcated with this idea that anything we do for ourself is selfish, you know? And if you even take an afternoon off from caring for somebody, that's too much. And the person you're caring for might say, Where were you? Or be angry at you. But it's very important to know your own physical limitations, to rest, so you can be ready to go again. Otherwise, you just... You can't help anybody. You need help. So... And sometimes we need our friends to say,

[79:26]

It's enough already, you know? Go home. I remember this one time I was sitting... We were sitting late in the evening on a session, and I think the admin... Some people were sitting up all night, and I wasn't going to sit up all night, but I was definitely going to sit up late. But I was sleeping, and I was kind of... You know? So the leader of the session, I won't mention, who came up to me and said, Why don't you go home? And I thought, Oh, okay, sure, great. So, you know, I was just going way beyond. It wasn't helpful to anybody. I wasn't sitting zazen. I don't know what I was doing. So, you know, we can help each other by saying, Go rest, take a break. But if we can say that to ourselves, we probably know sooner than another person when it's time. We have the capacity to know sooner. Yeah. Yes? Let's see.

[80:42]

Let's see. Well, I feel like when you say, I feel sorry for somebody, it's a kind of pity. And I don't think pity and compassion are the same. Pity... Compassion means suffering with. Passion, like Christ's Passion, it's the suffering, and compassion is to suffer with others. So you actually feel the suffering with them. And it's not... Pity is like a little bit separating from, where you feel sorry for them or pity for them, but you're kind of... You're not touched by it so much in that way. So I think that's the difference. Although... You know how people say, they don't pity me. You can have compassion for someone, and they do...

[81:44]

I think people resent pity. Look, I'm making it, I'm making my life meaningful, and yes, I'm having a hard time, but don't pity me. I'm practicing hard here. There's this wonderful story in an unpublished lecture of Suzuki Roshi's where... It was at Tassahara, the gardeners, there were all these gophers in the garden and they set traps for them, and one of the gophers... And it was a big deal whether to set traps or not, long discussions and all, but anyway, they ended up, if you're going to have a garden, we have to take care of the gophers. So it was a decision that was made. One of these gophers was hurt but not killed and was in the trap, and they found him, and they didn't know what to do. Shall we kill him? They had pity for him. They felt sorry for the gopher, I think. And they came to Suzuki Roshi with this dilemma, and he was very strict. It's like, you don't know what that gopher is going through.

[82:45]

That gopher is a bodhisattva. That gopher is saying, I am suffering and staying with my suffering and living through it. Don't you pity me. I can die with dignity, you know. So don't think you know about me and what works for me and what doesn't. Very strong. I read it, I didn't hear the lecture, but this feeling of, I am a bodhisattva and I am working out my karma and my life, you know. Anyway, I found that to be very helpful. So you see someone in dire straits, and we have this thing, oh, I want to fix it. To suffer with them is one thing, but you don't know necessarily what is the best thing for that person, or how to be with them, or what is helpful and what isn't. You have to be with them in some way before it comes out of the situation, what to do, you know. So we should be very, what's the word,

[83:47]

humble, you know, about when we think we know what's best for somebody and what isn't. And I think the pity we often, that will come along with it, is feeling sorry for someone sometimes that we think we know what's best. Compassion also has this tough side to it, I feel. You know, and you read that in the stories where someone will get, you know, like Dogen's teacher, when he got old, went around the Zen dojo and hit people with his slippers to practice harder. He wasn't strong enough to hit with the kyosaku, the stick that's carried, which we don't carry anymore, but he would go, I always picture this little guy kind of shuffling, probably about four feet five, you know, boom, boom, boom, practice harder, you know. That's compassion, you know. Yes? I'm glad you asked that.

[84:51]

I often struggle with the difference between empathy and compassion. What's the difference? They have a lot of empathy, but he's like, I would picture our compassion to be more on the compassion side than just compassion, which to me is like putting yourself in someone else's shoes and walking around them. He's more active in a way, more of a joining, than just empathy. Yes, I think this is historically a problematic thing in Buddhist countries, you know, where it hasn't been so active. But I actually feel like, you know, the whole movement of Engage Buddhism and Thich Nhat Hanh, social activism, if you feel compassion suffering with, how do you, like the trees, how do you protect? It's not just may all beings be happy

[85:52]

and free from harm. How do you protect somebody and yet not get in there and fix, you know, it's... So our doing things, you know, in this, are socially active. And yet how do you do it where you don't postulate a self and other and that you're going to... It's... This self and other thing is like key, you know, the Don Duel, where you do things where you give and there's no giver and no recipient and no gift, there's just giving. That's the perfection of giving. So it's the same with compassion. The perfection of compassion, if you want, is like that, where it's not so self-other, me doing this for you. That drains us, really drains you.

[86:53]

Drains us. Yes? Different from ridicule? Well, censure is paired up with praise. So I think censure could maybe be... Praise and blame also seem to be a kind of duo, but when you're censured, you're kind of... Well, I'll start with the praise, you know, and personally speaking, you know, after I give a talk, if somebody comes up to me and says, that was a great talk, that was really wonderful, it was really helpful, it's like I can feel this warm feeling come over me, you know, and I'm very wary about it, the warm fuzzy, you know, hmm, that really was a nice lecture, wasn't it? It's like I have to practice really hard there because I can just go swooping off

[87:56]

into the tropical breeze of praise. And then, like, I came out, I was getting my shoes and there's somebody who I saw right then and they didn't say anything and I could feel myself being censured. Why didn't they say anything? Didn't they like my talk, you know? I guess it wasn't, maybe it wasn't clear, maybe I should have said, I don't know, and right away it will come up and I was watching very carefully because I was ready for it, you know, I'm really on to this, especially after a talk, I am like Miss Vulnerable, you know, and Miss Vulnerable. So, you know, this is like being blown around by the wind, so somebody not saying something, is that praise or censure? You don't even know how they felt about the talk, you know, they're not saying anything. So, to be censured is where you try something, you put something out, you know, and you get kind of criticism and, you know,

[88:57]

somebody kind of pushes you down, you know, and it hurts, it's pain, you know, that's a kind of pain too. Does that... The ridicule, I think, is like active, where someone calls you, taunts you and calls you a name and, you know, uses swear words, like that, it's a little different from censure. Censure is, you know, you put out your idea and it's not well received, you know, and everybody says, you know, they just kind of, nope, that didn't really work, you know, you get like blocked, kind of, and that hurts. But I feel like ridicule is more of an active, you know, actual slurs and like that. Ridicule, respect, where someone treats you very well and they, yes, reverend cuts, and where would you like to sit?

[89:59]

You know, I mean, you get that too. And, oh, gee, nobody ever called me reverend, what is reverend anyway? So, you know, that's... I mean, respect means to look again, but when you treat someone with respect, you know, you look again. So, you know, there's that wonderful Zen koan which completely talks about this, it's the one where the ant, the thing is, is that so? You know it probably pretty well. I don't like it so much. It's a Zen story. But it's so perfect. It's the one about the Zen master who lived in the village and was the priest of the village temple and one day, I don't like it because I feel like there's sexist overtones, but anyway, I'll tell it anyway because it's very useful. But anyway, the young girl of the village comes with her family and they're all yelling at him and saying she's gotten pregnant and had the baby, and she says he's the father,

[91:00]

the priest. And they're yelling, you're a bad priest and how could you do this and a young girl like this and da, da, da. Here, you take care of the baby. And he says, is that so? Is that so? And they go off and he's got this baby and he finds a wet nurse and he takes care of the baby. This isn't in the story, but I know this happened. And he sets up his hut for the baby and he wakes up and he walks, he does everything. The baby gets to be about two years old and the family comes back with the girl. She's admitted that it was her boyfriend, the village young man, and he's the father and it's not him. Oh, such a wonderful priest and oh, you took the baby and oh, such Buddha's, you know, Buddha incarnate and all this. And he says, is that so? And then they take the baby away, the two-year-old, that he's Kate. Is that so? So, you know, there's problems with this story, like how can they take the baby away from him? But aside from that,

[92:04]

this mind of, is that so, in the face of, you know, the villagers coming and practically ready to, you know, kill him, right? And then, oh, such a wonderful priest. How do you, that's really the upright, the mountain of jewels and not being blown around by the winds. And that's, our lives have, those instances are happening all the time, to be accused falsely, you know? I mean, for him to say, it wasn't me, in some way he was kind of protecting her, I feel, you know? If it wasn't, you know, not calling her a liar and all that, she maybe knew he would do that for her. I don't know why she chose him, but probably she thought, you know, he'd take care of her in some way. And so it's, and to not, so you're ridiculed, you're yelled at, you're, this is very difficult practice. We all know this. This is like, and also in terms of,

[93:09]

you know, the doormat thing, if someone, if you're being harassed at work, it doesn't mean that you don't report it or something like that, but how about your state of mind when you report it? Because the person harassing, they're gonna get in trouble and they're, you know, so you take care of them through reportage, maybe. But what's your state of mind like? Can you, can you be in the state of mind of, is that so? And then do what you need to do. So it's, I feel like it's, this is endless, very hard practice situations and opportunities. Yeah?

[93:44]

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