Well, it's very nice to be here this morning. Take a little rest, you know, it's nice. So, continuing, I've been, many of you know, studying the Blue Cliff Record, so thanks for listening in while I study case number 81, Yao Shan's Shooting the Elk of Elks is the name of the case, and the pointer of the case says, he captures the banner and seizes the drums, the thousand sages cannot search him out.

[01:07]

She cuts off confusing obscurities, ten thousand devices cannot get to her. This is not the wondrous functioning of spiritual powers, nor is it the suchness of the basic essence, but tell me, what does she rely on to attain such marvels? So that's the pointer, and this is the case. A monk asked Yao Shan, on a level field in the shallow grass, the elk and deer form a herd, how can one shoot the elk of elks? And Yao Shan said, look, an arrow! The monk fell down, dead, not really, but pretending to be dead.

[02:14]

And Yao Shan said, attendant, drag this dead fellow out, at which the monk leaped up and ran away. And Yao Shan said, this fellow, playing with a mud ball, will there ever be an end to it? And Suedo commented, saying, though he lived for three steps, after five steps he had to die. And the verse, the poem on the case, The Elk of Elks. Take a look, Yao Shan releases one arrow, the monk runs three steps, if he had lived for five steps he would have formed a herd and chased away the tiger. The correct dharma eye has always been given to a hunter.

[03:22]

In a loud voice, Suedo said, look, an arrow! So, that's our subject for today, for this morning. And it's traditional, when you discuss one of these cases, to talk a little bit about the life and character of the people in the case. So we have to say a little bit about the background of Yao Shan, Wei En, who is the hero of our story today. Yao Shan was one of the great masters of the so-called Golden Age of Zen in the Tang Dynasty, when the school was first coming into its own and many great teachers appeared. He lived from 751 to 834, quite a while ago, before even Y1K.

[04:35]

And Yao Shan is in our immediate lineage. In Japanese you say his name, Yaksan, so every day we chant the lineage from Buddha and we chant Sekito Kisen Daisho, Yaksan Igen Daisho, Ungan Donjo Daisho, Tozan Ryokai Daisho. And so this is Yaksan Igen Daisho, for those of you who chant the lineage every day, so you know. So he's a disciple, as you know, from the lineage of Shir Do, or Sekito Kisen, who is the author of the Sandokai, which is a poem that we also chant frequently. So for those of you who don't know about these things, it doesn't matter. So it's very interesting how Shir Do worked with his student, Yao Shan.

[05:54]

Yao Shan, like many typical kind of biography of a lot of the Zen adepts of this period, was that they were ordained usually in the most conservative traditional schools of Buddhism. And they studied the Vinaya, the monastic rule, and basic teachings. And they tried to purify the mind and become holy. And at some point, they felt that they wanted some other way of really enlivening the teaching, make it really alive. So they heard about the Zen adepts, and they would go to visit, and usually have a revolution in their understanding. So this is what happened to Yao Shan. He went to Shir Do, after having studied for a long time in the older schools that were existing. And he said, you know, I've done all this stuff, studied everything, and yet it doesn't

[06:57]

feel complete. Can you really help me? And Shir Do said to him something like, well, the way of Zen is not about negation, and it's not about affirmation, and it's not about both or neither of these things. And Yao Shan was completely mystified by this saying. And Shir Do looked at him up and down, sized him up and said, I can see that this is not the right place or the right time for you here. You shouldn't study with me. Go and study with Matsu. So he sent him away. That's how he taught him, by sending him away to another teacher, which happens a lot. So Shir Do was a very famous, eminent master, and so was Matsu, and in different parts of

[08:02]

China, and they would have, you know, historically you would think that they were rivals, and they actually were ancestors of different schools. So you would think, you know, they would be rivals. But he said, no, go over there and study with Matsu. So Yao Shan did, and brought the same kind of question to Master Ma, and Master Ma said to him, sometimes I make him raise his eyebrows and roll his eyes. Other times I don't let him raise his eyebrows and roll his eyes. Sometimes it's really him who's raising his eyebrows and rolling his eyes, and sometimes it's not him who's raising his eyebrows and rolling his eyes. And Yao Shan understood this perfectly well, and was very happy to study with Master Ma

[09:10]

for a number of years, and he became awakened and finished his training, and then he went back to Shir Do. And so even though he actually studied with Master Ma, he's listed in our lineage, because his official transmission was from Shir Do. Of course, this story is all, I'm sure, quite streamlined and telescoped. It makes it sound like, you know, he went over here, and then he went over there, and that was that, you know, but actually he probably spent some time here, some time getting from here to there, and some time working with Master Ma's understanding. But, like I say, the stories are made, like fairy tales, made to sound simple, more simple. So this is a kind of striking saying, don't you think, from Master Ma, sometimes I make him raise his eyebrows, sometimes I don't let him raise his eyebrows, and so on. It sounds funny and odd, but actually it's a very simple thing.

[10:10]

But for all of us here in this room, who have been born and will die, we always have a question. What is this life? What are we actually doing here in this life? And I don't think that there's anyone here in the room who, if you really consider it deeply, could possibly be satisfied with just this very small me, this very small person that we all are, with our preferences and our strengths and our weaknesses and our confusion and our intelligence and all this, it's pretty small, pretty unsatisfactory.

[11:12]

And yet, we run away as we might, there is no other person that we can be. This is our destiny, this is our life. So how can we find the me that is also not me? How can we find endlessness in this short span of life? So that's the basic human problem, don't you think? And this is what Master Ma was talking about with Yaoshan. And I think that Shrdo was a very good teacher, but maybe he was a little too abstract. He could see that his way of expressing himself was not going to be useful for Yaoshan, so he sent him to Master Ma, knowing that Master Ma would be able to express himself in a way that Yaoshan could understand. So Master Ma was much more practical in a way.

[12:19]

He expressed in terms of eyebrows and rolling eyes. And for us, every moment of standing, walking, talking, eating, licking your lips, coughing, blowing your nose, breathing in, breathing out, all of these things, we have to ask, you know, who is doing these things? And what kind of activity is this really? Yaoshan eventually went on to become the abbot of a monastery, and he had two very famous disciples that we also know about in our school, Dawu and Yunyan. And one of the most famous and important stories of the school, maybe some of you are familiar

[13:23]

with, it appears as one of the early cases in the Shoryu Roku, the case of Yunyan sweeping the ground. And so, since we're sitting around the campfire telling stories, I'll tell again the story for those of you who know it and those of you who haven't heard it before, a very short story of these great disciples of Yaoshan. Yunyan sweeping the ground one day with a broom, and Dawu said to him, too busy to sweep. And Yunyan said, you should know there's one who isn't busy. And Dawu said, oh, you mean there are two moons? And Yunyan held up his broom and said, which moon is this?

[14:26]

I think that's the story, more or less. If it's not, it's another story. I didn't have time to look it up, you know, I'm just saying it from memory. Anyway, that's a good story, too, no? And it's the same point as raising the eyebrows and rolling the eyes. In the middle of your busy life, there's someone who isn't busy. In the middle of you, there's someone who's not you. Actually, whether you know it or not, you desperately have to meet that person. It's necessary that you meet that person. Are there two people? Which moon is this? So this is very much our practice.

[15:32]

This is the discovery that we are trying to make. Another little story about Yao Shan. Once a monk asked him, how can one not be confused by phenomena? And Yao Shan said, if you go along with them, how can they obstruct you? The monk said, I don't understand. Yao said, what phenomena are confusing you? So, this is also a very important teaching for us. Our way, Zen practice, is not a way of holiness, or religiousness, or spiritual practice, even. It's not that special.

[16:36]

It's not that different from everyday, ordinary life. Our way is just to see the actual empty nature of self and other, and to enter into our lives fully, just the way it is, without imposing some ideas from outside. Because there isn't any outside or inside. Outside and inside, and me and you, these are powerful habits of mind that don't represent fundamental realities, but only designations from long habit. When you see that that's so, and appreciate that, then how could anything obstruct you?

[17:39]

Who can be obstructed? Where would there be something from the outside that would obstruct? So this is, for all of us, a very, very hard point to appreciate, because we always want something for our lives. It's very natural that we would want something for our lives. This is being human, is to want something for our lives. But to see things the way they actually are, has nothing to do with wanting something. The things just are what they are. Life just is what it is. Death just is what it is. I guess maybe the equation is, A equals A equals zero. So in this, there's no room for confusion.

[18:41]

It's pretty straightforward. And we see all of human emotion, all of human longing, all of human confusion, which still comes up in our lives, against this background of A equals A equals zero. And like a color, you know, against the background, the color is the same, but it looks different, and we experience it quite differently, depending on the background. Big, spacious, endless background. One more thing about Yehoshua and his life. A lot of times Zen masters often have great fun when they pass out of this world. Sometimes they tell really big jokes, you know, when they're dying. And Yehoshua was like that. When he was dying, he suddenly burst out saying,

[19:46]

The Dharma Hall is collapsing! The Dharma Hall is collapsing! Everybody, quick, prop it up! Boom! And he died. This may or may not be true, but it's a good story. And I like to think that it's true, you know. You know, one good joke, and then see you later. So that's the background. That's Yehoshua. A little bit about Yehoshua and how he fits in with us and so forth. Now I'll go back and discuss the pointer and so forth, like I read in the beginning. So the pointer begins, He captures the banner and seizes the drums. The thousand sages cannot search him out. So the Zen person, you know,

[20:48]

Yehoshua, in this case, is being referred to, is somebody who's always on top of things. But not in the sense of, you know, dominating things and never being wrong or something like that. But in the sense that when you really are clear that fundamentally there's no one there, or you can't really find anyone that you would be able to put forward, then there's no one who could win or lose anything, or be right or wrong about anything, or be on top of or underneath something. So this is considered to be the ultimate winning. We think of the ultimate winning as like the lottery. But in Zen, the ultimate winning is not the lottery. The ultimate winning is being beyond winning and losing. So the great master is called the great victor. This is actually an epithet for the Buddha in the early sutras, is the conqueror, the victor.

[21:49]

Because going beyond victory and defeat is the true victory. So that's how the great Zen person is. She cuts off confusing obscurities. Ten thousand devices cannot get to her. Or cutting off complicated things, complications. So that Zen adept doesn't get entangled in things. Goes beyond complications. Like Sherdo said to Yaoshan, it has nothing to do with negation or affirmation or both of these. The complications also means, you know, winning and losing or yes and no. Going beyond both of these. It also means in a narrower sense, koans and teachings. The Zen person doesn't get tripped up in koans and teachings,

[22:53]

but just cuts through to the essence. No matter what devices in life or in the teachings that you would bring up, these would be immediately untangled and fall to the floor in a puff of dust in the face of the Zen adept. So this is hyperbole, great praise for Yaoshan. This is not the wondrous functioning of spiritual powers, nor is it the suchness of the basic essence. I was saying a minute ago, Zen practice. I mean, I've gotten inured now to using the words spiritual and spiritual practice, which I avoided for 10, 15 years. Now I realize that we better use the word because you have to say hundreds of words instead. But it really isn't about spiritual practice or the development of the personality or anything like that.

[23:55]

And the marvel of our practice is that we would have the courage and the depth to simply be ourselves, simply be the persons that we are. Raising your eyebrows, rolling your eyes. These are the marvels of Zen practice. Not seeing visions or having profound insights, but raising your eyebrows. I've been up and down all over the place, but last time I was around, we had that great day, maybe some of you were here, where we had all these great disciples of Suzuki Roshi. Were you here that day, some of you? In front of the room, all these people. And I looked out and I saw so many people had tears in their eyes seeing this. Because all these people who were up here all had deeply appreciated Suzuki Roshi's teaching

[24:58]

and each one had made it their own. And each one was a totally different universe. Maybe you saw that. Lofty Zen masters, ordinary people. Not too much difference actually between them, but each one completely unique. We're all thinking we have to improve, we should be somebody else somehow. But one is never somebody else. It would be good just to be you and not you. Spiritual practice, you know. A day or so ago, I was in the high rocky mountains on the full moon night at midnight. And I was looking at the moon

[25:58]

in that clear mountain sky. It was so bright and beautiful. So what shall we call that? Shall we call that spiritual? Shall we say it's extraordinary? Shall we say it's ordinary? Shall we say it's profound? So the case. A monk asked Yashan, On a level field in the shallow grass, the elk and the deer form a herd. How can one shoot the elk of elks? So the monk presents this question to Yashan. And the whole story with the monk falling down and Yashan shooting with an arrow and all this is a very typical style of Zen. Kind of funny.

[27:02]

Jokey kind of thing. Zen's a big joke of course, you know, in the end. We sit for 92 hours in a row, breaking our knees and our feet are falling off and our ear smoke is coming out of our ears. And it's hilarious. Someone was saying, I went to a workshop that I gave with my old friend, Rabbi Alan Lu. And someone said that you and Rabbi Lu really have a good sense of humor. They said, but of course it's very usual for religious types to have a good sense of humor. But most of them, they tell a joke in the beginning or two to kind of warm up the audience and then they get into the real serious part. But the thing about you and Rabbi Lu is it's all one big joke. You don't seem to ever get to the serious part at all. And I was talking this over with Rabbi Lu

[28:04]

and we were agreeing that yes, we do think that religion is hilarious at the beginning, in the middle, and also at the end. But I don't think it's just us, you know. Maybe. I don't think it's just us. Like in this case. It's, you know, actually I've noticed that profound spiritual teachings are becoming more common all the time. Sometimes I read ads in magazines and they're all about spiritual teachings and fulfillment and all this stuff. So there's no use in my saying the same thing that it says in the magazines and in the ads and in the newspaper. And people know this. I was in Mill Valley yesterday and I went in a shop and they had these beads called Bodhi beads which were kind of, I mean I didn't say anything, but they were kind of like off-kilter version

[29:06]

of regular Buddhist beads. They were sort of the same except a little bit off-kilter either because they didn't want them to be Buddhist beads or because they didn't quite know how to make Buddhist beads, one or the other. But anyway, they were, and each one came with a little thing which explained to you the meaning of these beads and what they would do for you and how the different spiritual depths that were attainable by wearing these beads, which I thought that was pretty good, you know. So the necessity for religious people to give profound teachings is long gone. You don't need to worry about that. Because that's anywhere you look. They'll tell you about this. No problem. So it's easy, you know, and becoming quite common to be profound and wisdom. I really feel that everybody understands all the wisdom, everything. It's no problem. Everybody understands everything.

[30:07]

So that's not a problem, but the problem is living it. Of course, this is more difficult. You can get the beads. But how is your life? And of course, what can I do for you? Nothing, right? Nothing whatsoever. So we have fun. And in these cases, like this one, the fun is true political fun. And our practice is true play. Playing with reality. And real play means not holding on anything. That's the source of play. And the source of real fun is nothing to hold on to. So every moment, one doesn't know what to expect.

[31:12]

Every moment is very surprising. So that's the style of Zen, and that's how these guys are relating to one another, with that spirit of real, of true play, moment by moment, shedding, letting go of absolutely everything. And that's what stands behind their joyful bantering and pantomime. Of course, even that can be formalized and gets formalized. Zen is probably the most formalized of all possible religious traditions, even down to the point where these kind of fun and pantomime and jokes are all formalized and ritualized, and you're supposed to fall down now, not over there, but now we're here, you're supposed to fall down. That happens too. So we have to watch out for that. It's always a danger. Can we keep our life alive? Can we keep our practice really alive? So the monk, this question of the monk,

[32:16]

on a level field in the shallow grass, and so forth, that's actually a very sophisticated pun, which, how would we ever know this, because we don't speak Chinese, but the commentary tells you that it's a pun on the name of Yaoshan's monastery, which was something like level field, was the name of his level field temple. So in a level field, he says, there's a herd of deer. How are you going to shoot the kingpin deer, the real tough deer, the deer who has very sharp horns, and when the tiger comes preying on the herd, drives them off, how are you going to shoot that elk, the monk says, meaning, okay, here I am. I'm the elk of elks. I'm the strong student. What are you going to do with me? So the other deer, deer are very easy to shoot

[33:19]

in a herd, you know, a herd of deer. You can easily shoot one, but the elk of elks, that's another matter. So that's his opening question, and the commentary says that this is called, it tells you, it says this kind of question is called a question that uses things. And then one, Zen-worthy in the past, wrote a little treatise where he talked about the 18 different kinds of questions. So there's a list of 18 different categories of questions, like, I'll give you some of them. I have the list written down here, I won't give the whole thing, but questions like, these are the different kinds of questions. Meeting of minds, asking for instruction, presenting one's understanding, not understanding, real question,

[34:24]

fabricated question, so on, 18 different kinds of Zen questions. And this particular type of a Zen question is called, bringing up, a question that uses things. So, you know, in Zen practice, there actually isn't a theology, or a set of doctrines or beliefs, certainly. Zen practice is more about a kind of feeling for life, a sense about the nature of our lives, kind of what I've been trying to talk about this morning, which comes out of our practicing together. This feeling is not something you can read about in a book, or somebody could tell you, it comes out of relationship and being together and practicing together.

[35:25]

We pick up the feeling for life that the ancients talked about. And so the teaching can't be something that's written down, or, you know, we could study exactly. It's dynamic, and it's relational. In a way, we could say there is no teaching in Zen exactly. But this is not to say that Zen teaching is relative, it could be anything, you know, it could say anything. We can look at a case, a koan, and any meaning that anybody could come up with is the right understanding. No, there is a particular absolute understanding. But as soon as you try to say what it is or define it in a fixed way, automatically you're off. And the absolute truth just appears in different forms according to conditions. And that's why in Zen practice, dialogue is so important. Questioning is so important. I've spoken before about the endless questioning, bringing up the teaching, questioning, questioning, questioning,

[36:28]

as a way of engaging one another. And in the engagement comes the truth that we need. This one teacher said there were 18 kinds of questions. We could get all upset about that and try to figure out what the 18 kinds of questions are, but he could have said that there are 81 or 8 kinds of questions. It really doesn't matter much. They express the fact that questioning is a very complex, rich, and subtle necessary matter. And questioning is endless. In a way, there are not any final answers. There's only the answer now. Questioning never stops. I would say myself there's four kinds of Zen questions. Make it simpler. One kind of question is actually asking

[37:29]

a question. You're actually trying to find an answer. You're asking a question, either because you're very much beginning and you have no idea about anything, so you're asking, or because maybe you've practiced for some time and now you have some questions that have developed through your practice and now you're asking something about the answer to that question. Or maybe for people who have studied many, many years, you begin to become interested in the means of understanding. When you realize that the means of understanding and the understanding itself are not actually two different things. It's like shop talk. You're asking questions about, this case there, why did he come to me like that? So those are the kind of questions where you're really asking something. Then there's a whole bunch of different kinds of questions which are, in effect, not really asking for any answers at all, but just testing reality. Bringing something up just to bring up the Dharma. You're not really looking for an answer

[38:29]

particularly, but just to bring up, to activate the teaching. You bring up a question. As you see in some of the dialogues, when you're bringing up a question like that, this kind of testing question, it's very difficult not to fall into right and wrong, see. In a kind of a contest with someone that you're going to be right and they're going to be wrong. Very difficult not to fall into that. So that becomes the point of the question is can you question and be right and be wrong and it makes no difference? Can you be wrong understanding that there's no right and wrong? Can you be right understanding that there is no right and wrong? So that's an interesting kind of question. Then there's the question of just simply harmonizing, bringing up a question beyond testing anything, but just because that's human to make music together with the teaching.

[39:31]

So that's a wonderful way of questioning also. And so we do that sometimes. We have formal question ceremonies sometimes where the teacher sits there and everybody comes and asks a question one after another, bam, bam, bam. Sometimes the head monk of a practice period also engages in this kind of questioning. It can be quite wonderful. I like this myself. It's great fun, this kind of questioning. And the fourth kind of question is the best of all, silence. In silence you see, you express that there are no questions and that this itself is a question. Every question is most fundamentally only silence, nothing to hold on to. So anyway, this monk comes forward

[40:38]

with a question, this kind of question, throwing himself right in Yaoshan's hands and saying, okay, here I am, what are you going to do with me now? Look, an arrow. So Yaoshan could have easily fallen for this and said, whoa, how do you see the elk of elks? Well, let's see now. I would think that the best way to go about this would be, and then the monk would have cut his head right off. Yaoshan, forget about speculation. Let's be together right here. So Yaoshan, being a very ready teacher, how do you shoot the elk of elks? Look, here's the arrow right now. What are you going to do? Boom, the monk falls down. I did that once in one of our

[41:40]

questioning ceremonies. I think what happened was, if I'm not mistaken, a monk came forward to ask a question and she was maybe a little nervous or something and she tripped a bit on her robe. And when she tripped on her robe, I fell out of my chair. I think that's what happened. Something like that. Was that what happened? Do you remember? It was Mary. Mary was tripped on her robe. Anyway, it was a while ago. I don't think I've fallen out of my chair since. Anyway, that's what the monk did. He fell down dead right away. So they're very ready, these monk and Yaoshan, are very ready to work with each other. No fooling around. There's no distance there, see, between the monk and the monk or between the monk and Yaoshan. So the monk falls down and Yaoshan right away says, let's get rid of this corpse.

[42:41]

Can you come over here and drag this corpse out? And at this, the monk comes back to life and runs out. And Yaoshan says, this fellow playing with a mud ball, when will it ever end? And Suedo, commenting, says, though he lived for three steps, after five steps he had to die. So the commentators, Suedo and Yuanwu, seem to think that the monk only could go so far. Yes, he was an adept. He was pretty good. He fell down. He died when he got shot. He was ready for that. But then Yaoshan said, okay, drag the corpse out. And he wasn't ready for that. So he got up and came back to life and ran away. So he had some insight, in other words. But in Zen practice, insight is fine. It's good. We should all have insight. But it's a little bit like

[43:44]

the advertisements in the magazines. It's easy to have insight. But what about 10 or 20 or 30 years of practice just being there, willing to give up everything, anytime? So you could have insight in Zen. It's possible, you know. You could have Zen enlightenment and go on to other things. Definitely possible. But so what? You could also get a new car. That's good too. You see? So they say that the monk only goes so far. But I'm not sure I agree with their assessment of this monk personally. After all, isn't the Buddha also just a fellow playing with a mud ball? And there's no end

[44:46]

to our playing with mud balls, right? Our life is a mud ball. So there's many other stories. The commentary gives you many other stories in the tradition of Zen masters hunting with bows and arrows, you know, the kind of like fake, pretend bows and arrows like I have right here. And some cases of masters sticking out their necks and having their heads chopped off, these kind of pantomime swords. So the good teacher is always being hunted or going hunting, hunting for students with her bow and arrow, trying to kill everybody dead

[45:49]

beyond birth and death. So this is what it means to appreciate me and not me, right? Is to be killed beyond birth and death. It says in the commentary, in the meeting of adepts from beginning to end, there must be an uninterrupted interchange of guest and host, and there must be an uninterrupted interchange of guest and host. Only then is there a share of freedom and independence. So guest and host, as I'm sure many of you know, is kind of like terms that refer to teacher and student, the teacher is the host, the student is the guest.

[46:51]

They also refer simultaneously to the absolute truth of our lives and the relative everydayness of our lives, which is what our relationship with our teachers is that interplay. And Zen masters, you know, are not supposed to be ordinary people. And it's not because they're different from ordinary people that they're not ordinary. It's because we, out of our own sincerity of our lives, give them that opportunity and they, if they're really teachers, fall down dead and work with us. And then, so they're like gurus in a way, but they're not like gurus because there's an interchange. You see? There must be an interchange. If there's no interchange of teachers and students replacing each other and switching positions, picking up and letting go,

[47:52]

and it's in that play of picking up the relative, oh, I'm just me. This is my everyday practical concern. And in the middle of it, putting down the relative and picking up the absolute beyond birth and death, right here, in our relationships with each other, starting with our teacher and beyond every relationship, every moment. So this is the secret of our practice. We have to live it. How do we live it? This is the problem. So, that's a nice case, don't you think? It's late, so I won't go any further, but I just, in closing, wanted to mention, it's a commercial now, a little commercial for, I guess it's a commercial for death. You don't see too many commercials on behalf of death,

[48:55]

so I thought I would give a little plug. I just got a call yesterday morning that a very close relative of mine, younger than I, died in the night. She was unbelievably, courageously fighting off death from breast cancer for years and years, lived longer than I did. She lived longer than anybody could ever imagine, you know, just on sheer love for her family and will. Anyway, she died. The funeral is right now, I think. So I couldn't get there in time, but I'm going tomorrow to be with her husband, who's my first cousin, very close relative. And I don't know about your circle of friends

[49:57]

and your life, but this has been the last month or so. Boy, so many people have died. Our altar has been a forest of name plaques of people who died, something in the air. So death comes. This is no doubt. And we must try to understand that which is not understandable. We have this word, death. Of course, there's no such thing as death. What's that? That's a word. If you are fortunate enough to be with someone as they pass on, you understand that you don't understand. And there's something very profound about this. Anyway, some years ago,

[50:58]

recognizing the importance of death, we at Zen Center formed a hospice so that we could have the privilege, in the spirit of the Dharma, of taking care of people who were dying. And it's a very wonderful program. It's now independent of Zen Center and goes on across the street from Zen Center in the city. Many of you here, I know I see some faces of people who have worked with the program as volunteers, and they do a volunteer training twice a year, and they're having another one in the fall. So this is the commercial if you are interested in joining the volunteer training. With any luck at all, there should be information about it in the office. And the name of it is the Zen Hospice Project, so you can just call them up over in San Francisco, Zen Hospice Project if you're interested. It's a wonderful program, and I still, I'm actually chairperson of the board

[51:58]

and very involved with the organization even still after all these years. It's a wonderful, it's a spiritually based, obviously, practice, and a wonderful thing to participate in. So I would encourage anyone who has interest. So, here we are. This is it. What else could we possibly need or want? Well, thank you very much for coming. I, having been running around so much, it is a real treat to be in the Zen Dojo for more than five minutes,

[52:59]

which is about usually how long I'm here, about five minutes a day. So it's nice to be here for like a whole hour. It's great. Breathing together, being peaceful together, considering our lives together. What a blessing. Thank you. May our intention of mindfulness and harmony of mindfulness bind us

[53:33]

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