This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. It's very wintry feeling out there. Gray. I usually only give one lecture during a practice period. Greg and I each usually give one lecture because... The head of the practice period is here for just the three months, and it's kind of their time to impart their teaching to the people who come to the practice period. I've been here for many practice periods, and it's a wonderful thing. It's wonderful that each one of those people who has led a practice period

[01:00]

can come and feel their way through how would they bring forth the Dharma in this three months. And then, besides the head of the practice period, there's a shuso each time, and it's their time to come forth, you know, for the first time. And really so much of the practice period is looked at from one way as this bringing forth of the shuso. you know, the invitation ceremony that we already did for Anne and her way-seeking mind to talk, which would give her a lot more time than we give everybody else, right? And then, you know, as we go along, there'll be, and now she's meeting with each of you in tea and sort of maintaining the practice period by running the wake-up bell every morning and doing the compost. And then those other, you know, lecturing and things.

[02:01]

So the practice period is very full already without a lecture from the abiding teacher or the tanto. And yet, usually once a practice period, I get an opportunity to say something to you. And I was just thinking about on the, you know, I started preparing for this lecture a little bit during seshin and then this morning and then just before... Ryan and I were walking over here, I thought, oh, this is the only time, this practice period. Is this really what I want to say? So I don't know whether it is or not, but I think I can make it work to say what I want to say. So I'm going to read you a quote from Dogen and then try to work it into what I want to say. When Dharma fills body and mind... we think something is still missing. Or sometimes we use the word lacking. Something is still lacking.

[03:02]

When Dharma fills body and mind, we think something is still missing or lacking. For example, when we sail a boat into the ocean beyond the sight of land and our eyes scan the four directions, it simply looks like a circle. No other shape appears. This great ocean, however, is not round nor square. It has inexhaustible characteristics. To a fish, it looks like a palace. To a heavenly being, a jeweled necklace. To us, as far as our eyes can see, it looks like a circle. All things are like this. So I picked this text because several times recently in my own life and for people talking to me, it feels like something's missing.

[04:10]

Or sometimes the word lacking is even more activating for people. It feels like something's lacking. And sometimes when people hear that phrase, they're like, yeah. Yeah. It touches something in them. It touches something in us, I think, where we feel like something's lacking. And usually we feel like something's lacking in us, or we might feel like something's lacking in our life or in some particular situation or some particular person or people. So this touches on a note. There's that word, missing or lacking. And then maybe something says, oh, maybe that means I'm filled with the Dharma. Not usually. Usually our logic doesn't go back like that. It says missing or lacking, yes. But our ears perk up and our heart perks up at that because we have this kind of dreadful feeling that something is missing or lacking.

[05:14]

And the thing is, it's true. Something is missing. Something is lacking. Something is missing in us and in our capacity to do various things. So in thinking about this, well, there are at least three things that I can pull out to share with you that are missing or lacking. So maybe the first one is the one that is really obvious to us intellectually. which is that we are missing the future. We don't know how to tell what's going to happen in the future. Intellectually, this is very clear to us. We've never been able to tell what happens in the future. I mean, maybe sometimes we get an intuition, and maybe some people get more intuitions of the future than others. Still, we're pretty much in this tiny little circle of light surrounded by darkness.

[06:15]

We have a memory of the past, but going forward, really, if we're honest with ourselves, we know nothing. It's not that we don't know anything. We're pretty sure that after this lecture, we will leave for Kin Hin and then come back for Zazen. We've got the surround of our life, which has a, it's got some energy to it and it continues on, and that's the way the universe seems to work, right? Things continue. But we also know that we don't really know what might happen You know, there might be a catastrophic earthquake during this lecture and things might be very different at the end of it. We know that, but we live our life pretty much as if we know what's going to happen in the future, not just like what's going to happen after this lecture, right? But what's going to happen after this practice period or what's going to happen, you know, when we're during the break, after lunch, you know, a time for a tremendous amount of...

[07:19]

things to happen, right? There's a break. And we emotionally attach to those things that we feel like are going to happen. Either we want them to happen or we don't want them to happen and we proceed to plan our life to try to make things happen that way. And yet, you know, the reality of life breaks in on us regularly. Since I'm not here on the weekends, Keith and I did a very unusual thing for us a while back. We went to a movie at a theater, and we saw Lincoln, which I'm sure probably many of you have seen, and if you haven't, I definitely recommend it when you're not here. But one thing that struck me about it was, is there anyone here who hasn't seen it? Oh, my goodness. Good audience.

[08:20]

Good Zen students. Anyway, it's just about the time of his life and our life from his second inauguration till the time of his death, which was very short. It's just when he saw that it was necessary, he felt it was necessary. He saw, almost like he saw the future, He saw that it was necessary to push through the 13th Amendment, which would end slavery in the Constitution, even though it would mean the war might go on a little bit longer and many, many more people would die. So it was a terrible decision, you know, but he really saw the importance of that over a long time. So he did that. And then he was killed. And that was one of the things that struck me so strongly about this movie and about our lives was the world, we don't know what the world would have been like if he hadn't been killed right then.

[09:24]

It was like out of the blue in this incredibly important time that he was so active in, he was just plucked out of the whole situation. And that's the way our lives are. We're going along, doing the best we can. assuming everyone's kind of a fixture, and then, dude, somebody's gone or changed or something. So that's one way that something is definitely missing. Then there's right in the present, which is sometimes, which we also know pretty much, and that's kind of the way Dogen's describing it here, like the ocean. Right in the present, there are many things that we don't actually know. you know, we look around us and the world looks like a circle. And we look at, you know, that person and we think, that person doesn't like me. Or that person's not trying hard.

[10:27]

Or, you know, that person's wonderful. We look at things and we have our circle view of them. And We look and we look and we look, and it looks exactly like what we think it looks like. And they look just like, look, they're doing it again. They're still that way. Or we can do that with ourself, too. We can look and say, oh, I'm still stupid, or I'm still wonderful, or still whatever circle we're sailing around in, It's pretty self-continuing with the help of the universe. We don't make it all up. We usually base our circles on some facts. But really, these things that we're looking at, these people, these situations, are like a palace.

[11:32]

They're like a jewel. They're like pus and blood to hungry ghosts. They're not simple. That's for sure. They're much more complicated than we can see. We actually cannot take in everything there is about them. We can't do it. It's not... The whole picture is not available to us. It's like... Like that only a Buddha and a Buddha can see the true nature of reality. Because we're facing one direction, we can only see what's in front of us. We need another Buddha, or several, looking the other directions to give us some clue about the whole situation. About what is this life really about? Who am I really? Sometimes we learn things about ourselves from other people that we shouldn't just dismiss.

[12:40]

They're not just mistaken ideas. They're somebody else's experience of us. So it doesn't mean either that they're totally accurate. So we don't have to say, oh, I was wrong. They're right, whatever they're thinking. Or even that they are right. But there's something that they're basing their experience on. There's some clue to who am I and what am I doing? What's going on over here? And there are some clues to also where are we? What's the world that we're living in? Who are these people that we're around? Who is that person who we're wondering about? I had a few examples. Somebody told me that there was, like I said, there was somebody here who they thought didn't like them, was pretty sure they didn't like them.

[13:45]

All their experience showed them that this person didn't like them. But one day they saw this person at the samovar, and they were the only two people there. And it wasn't a silent time, so this person decided to... just take a little leap of faith and explore it a little further. So they smiled at the person and said, good morning. And they said they could see relief just like rising on this person's face. They didn't know exactly what that was about, but it was different than... They kind of steeled themselves for some kind of rejection because all the evidence had been this person doesn't like me. And then there was this... You're like, oh, good morning. So who knows? Maybe the other person thought they didn't like them either. We don't know. Where I have some knowledge that I don't know what's going on, and for now, I don't actually know how to find out.

[14:50]

It's a complicated one, but there it is. We don't quite know what's going on, and then we get this peek into it, we see, oh, it's more complicated than we thought. So maybe the main way, or this may just be another way of saying the same things that I've been saying, but I think it's deeper or something. when we feel like there's a lack. I think whether we articulate... Often we don't articulate it to ourselves. We don't know. We just feel a lack. But I think that maybe the main thing that we're actually feeling a lack of is the ability to control our life, protect ourselves, make things go the way we...

[15:58]

are sure that they should, especially make ourself into the person that we feel like we should be. So we have, and usually or often, that feeling is somewhat vague. It's just like we have a vague sense of dis-ease. But I think that a lot of it is based on this true, true feeling of dis-ease. not being able to make things the way we feel like they should be, not being able to make other things in ourselves into something that would be safe, would be helpful, would be a benefit to the universe. So there's this pretty deep dis-ease that we have because we can see, oh, there's problems over here. You know, there's problems out there. I don't know what to do about them. There's also problems in here.

[17:00]

I don't know what to do about them. Or sometimes I think I do. But even when I think I do, I can't make it happen. You know, I think, oh, I shouldn't be so jealous. Or I shouldn't be so controlling. Or I should be braver. Or I should be stronger. Whatever. But then how do you make yourself into that? And sometimes we get an idea and we try it. And sometimes it even works for a little while, but a lot of the time it doesn't work completely. So this, I think, human feeling of incompleteness, of not being in control or not being able to be completely in control is really deep and really permeates our life and probably is part of why we come to practice. And I think in many ways is what Tassajara is trying to address, what practice is trying to address, what Zen practice is trying to address.

[18:05]

Soto Zen practice, as it's practiced at Tassajara, is trying to address. By setting up a situation that is safe enough that our unsafe conditions our unsafe parts, that we can happen. We can find ourselves in slightly unsafe situations, and we can find out whether it's safe to trust being this person in this life. So we can do a little experiment here at Tazahara. moment after moment after moment, many little experiments. Is it safe to be me? Is it okay to be this person, who this person really is? Or do I have to pretend to be, you know, something so they'll like me, so they'll keep me, or so they'll keep feeding me, or so, anyway.

[19:15]

So we, you know, in this, you know, I sometimes say, and some of you have heard In some ways, I think of Tassajara as like a big stage with a whole lot of props. We have these toys we can play with here. In the kitchen, they have spoons and bowls and vegetables. And then at the altar, we've got red trays and incense. And we've got our cushion and we've got our bodies. We get legs. We get to put one leg here and one leg there and see, does that work? And we've got minds. All of this is on this big stage where we can manipulate these things with the other actors and see how does it go. And the big question, I think, one way of phrasing it is, is it okay to be me? Is it trustworthy to be in this world as this karmic body and mind?

[20:18]

And that's, you know, that's where a disease about something's lacking comes because, yes, something is lacking. We, you know, yeah, it would be safe to be me if I just knew really what was going on here, you know, and knew what each of you were really up to. And, you know, I can get, then I would be safe to be me. And if, well, wait a minute, no, it wouldn't. I also would have to know what's going on over here. and how to make it behave. So there's a lot to test out. And I think what Dogen is saying is this is the way it is. There is this lack. We are not making our way, either sure-footedly or stumbling, ...toward someplace where we actually have enlightenment... ...or have realization... ...and then everything is just going to be clear... ...and it will be... ...obviously perfectly safe... ...forever... ...if we could just get that... ...understanding... ...and as Shoa Akua Okamura says... ...realization is not something that we get... ...in fact delusion is not something that we have... ...and then get rid of... ...to have realization...

[21:47]

It's rather in every moment we find ourselves where we are and practice occurs actualizing the fundamental point. So in every moment we find ourselves however we are. Find ourselves where we are does not mean the lack is gone. It means we just find ourselves here and we be ourselves and then the fundamental point is actualized and we get to see Is that trustworthy? And here at Tassajara, things are simplified enough, so there is some chance of seeing that. Like every day is, or most of the days are pretty much the same, so we get to see, oh, today I feel terrible. Oh, now it's after lunch, and actually I feel fine. Today looks pretty much like yesterday, but I feel great.

[22:50]

Anyway, we get to see a lot of things. The major scene, the major effective factor, I think, is not seeing and understanding with our brain the way we normally like to do these things. We are so identified with our mind, and we think this is... somehow I'm supposed to get this. I'm supposed to figure this out. Maybe I'm just supposed to figure out that it's okay to be me. Maybe it's no more complicated than that, but I'm supposed to figure it out. I don't think that's the major effective factor. I think the major effective factor is something more like settling. It's like we settle into this body and mind and function as it. It's something more like absorption. You know, I don't know if you experience sashim this way, but I think I've noticed after many sashims that after a sashim, it's like you go... We used to have... Sometimes we would have day-off breakfast after the sashim.

[24:05]

We gave that up because it's much better to have dinner... on the day after Sashin, I think because at breakfast everybody's still kind of in Sashin, and one of the things that we would notice then is you would find yourself in these conversations, and maybe you did also during the day, but it kind of wears off over the day and over the next days. Find yourself in some conversation, it's like totally absorbed, and suddenly you'd realize, I don't want to be talking about this. How did I get here? Because the absorption factor is just like you just like open okay oh you oh let's go there fine yeah let's talk about that no let's not let's go to our room and so so now we don't do day off breakfast after sashim usually to give ourselves a little more space to sort of come back let some of our filtering mechanisms come back up but i think that's a crucial part actually of of uh

[25:09]

Tassahara and Sashin and Zazen, is that we become more able to absorb things. Our defenses get worn down in some way. And part of that is that our mind, I don't know exactly, I think, or this is one way of saying it, I don't know if I think this, but our mind finds out it's okay to stay in our body. I think usually kind of walking around normal, maybe before you sit zazen ever and then after a lot, our mind knows that it's connected to an impermanent, fragile body, and it doesn't like that. So it thinks, oh, I'll just go there. I'll go far away. Or something happens that feels slightly uncomfortable. And our mind immediately says, what's wrong here?

[26:12]

Oh, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. It starts thinking about, why am I uncomfortable? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Which is, in part, a way to get away from the uncomfortable feeling. It's just a way to get further away from it. And it keeps us from ever finding out, is it okay to be uncomfortable? I mean, there are other things besides Tassajara that force us to this place, many other things. If something happens in your life that's big enough that you can't just go off thinking about, oh, why am I feeling so uncomfortable? It's like the pain doesn't go away in that situation, and there are many of them. Then we also have to find out, is it okay to be this uncomfortable? Here at Tassajara, we do it without like big, you know, like somebody dying in our life or losing our job or, you know, losing our partner or something.

[27:16]

Those things bring that up too. But here at Tassajara, we can just be, you know, like, oh, I don't feel so good. Why is this? Oh, I'm in Zazen. Maybe instead of thinking about it, I should just feel it and see, is it okay to be this person? with this lack of control over even whether I feel okay or not. So I think this lack continues endlessly. As I said before, we don't actually get to a place where everything is settled. We have to for our whole life. We have to keep meeting what comes, and see who am I when mixed with this thing, when mixed with this person, when mixed with this situation.

[28:17]

Find our place and let practice occur. Be open, be open-hearted to what is here, including the unknown that I'll never be able to put words on. And then reality is actualized. Actualization of the fundamental point happens there. And this, I hope, is not a big disappointment to any of you, but I think is what our practice is. It's like an endless practice enlightenment, practice enlightenment, practice enlightenment. And Tassajara is a... It seems to me a place that's been developed over thousands of years to allow us to do that in little, not too scary ways. A little bit scary, but not too scary. So I want to stop there and see if you have any questions or thoughts.

[29:24]

Anybody? Not knowing the future, actually, there's something actually missing that we need in not knowing the future. And we want to control things. We can't. We want to know all the details of ourselves, the universe, and everybody. We can't. But isn't that okay, too? Is there really something fundamentally lacking? Yeah, no. Because we can't. So it couldn't be.

[30:26]

You know, in our imagination, we might need to know the future, but there's no way to need to know the future because we can't. So no, nothing is really lacking. And yet we feel this lack. And, you know, relatively or, you know, if you want to talk about absolutely in a way, we're lacking something. But it's okay. That's what we are. Do you want to rearrange that again? Well, you know, you're not allowed to say that, right? In the realm of the ultimate, no, we're not liking anything. But I don't really know that much about the ultimate in my experience. If I think about it, yes.

[31:33]

But maybe that's not when I'm in big mind. But I also don't have a whole lot of experience of big mind. You know, Suzuki Roshi says, we can only experience things from our small mind. That's where we experience things. And big mind is knowing that that's the case. That my experience is partial. And that's, you know, I don't know. There may be some of you who have a full experience, and I would not argue with that, but I don't think I do. I think I have a partial experience, and it includes, you know, when I'm just like right there with my breathing or the pain in my leg or walking down the road, it doesn't feel like a lack because it fills up my experience. It's all my experience, right? But if I thought about it at all, I would know there's a person next to me, and they're experiencing something else, and I don't know what it is.

[32:40]

So, yeah. Thank you. Anything else? Yes, Ryan. If the lacking feeling is embraced, does it still feel like... Well, you can try it and see what you think. You know, I used to have a feeling of dread. I told somebody this the other day. Oh, I know who it was. I used to have, like regularly, a feeling of dread, a pretty big feeling of dread. And I was here at Tassajara. And I remember once, and it was not a pleasant feeling, very unpleasant feeling. And I remember once, one day, walking out of the Zendo here and going down those steps. And starting down those steps, this huge feeling of dread came up. And I just thought, what? What is it?

[33:43]

So what are you dreading? What's like the worst thing that could happen? Which I don't think is, I don't think I was actually dreading that, but I was just like trying to push myself about it. And it was some years ago, it was like a nuclear bomb would drop and something terrible would happen with my kids. Either they would die or there wouldn't be enough food. Anyway, I didn't go into the whole scenario, but it was that. And then I thought, okay, and if that happened, what? And then I thought, I'd just do what I could. That's all. And that huge sense of dread has not come back since that day. There's some dread about my sister and my mother, but it's not like this overpowering dread. So I think, yes, if we're willing to have our experience, sometimes we go far enough to the bottom that it kind of dis...

[34:49]

probably experienced the same thing like in sesheen with certain pains if you're really just there with them they the pain might still be there but in a way they're not pain anymore they're more like pulsating or something and with certain emotional pains i think that's you know this like possibility of like one of the worst emotional pains for me way worse than the dread because it was anyway i don't know why it was uh a feeling of, this was after I got together with Keith, some of you have heard this before too, and had started to rely on him for my identity, my value of myself, you know, like, oh, I'm this person's partner. Then, if he would do anything that would threaten that, like once he left me for six months, and it wasn't like I'm leaving you for six months, I'm leaving you, and This terrible, like terrible panic, hole, anxiety, you know, which some of you may have felt.

[36:00]

It was terrible, you know. And then it happened at other smaller times, too, you know, like if we would have a disagreement about what to have for dinner. You know, it'd be like, oh, I'm not... Okay. Or he's not, he's the wrong one. Or anyway, it would start up this whole, you know, big anxiety thing. So that, that feeling is one that I have worked for, worked on for years and years and years and years because it was there enough. I mean, I really worked on it during that six months. It was, you know, like a massive fire turning away and touching was impossible, actually. Couldn't turn away from it. because it wouldn't go away and couldn't touch it because it made it worse. You know, if I would start to hope that maybe we were going to get back together or something, you know, that it would just get worse. So it was just like, there it is, there it is. And somehow in that six months, but also in these other times, to just like turn toward it and actually have this feeling, just have the feeling.

[37:14]

was miraculous, actually, in terms of liberation, in terms of finding it's possible to live with a hole in the middle of you, in terms of its shrinking over time, but then coming back and there being some remnant of it and seeing, oh, okay, instead of just trying to get away from this, there's the possibility of just going there again and having this feeling. just have this feeling like it was a pain in my knee. So does that address you? Thanks. Yes. Can you talk about how we know that our experience is limited? Is that just an intellectual idea? Like, oh, I'm fully experiencing my experience, but I know that the person next to me is experiencing something really different. Is it just an intellectual understanding of that?

[38:17]

Well, I think they prove it to us. It's been proven to us over and over again that our experience is limited, that we don't know what's going on with somebody else. I don't know when it's limited or how much it's limited, but I think by this age, I don't think children don't know that or babies don't know that, but by this age, probably we all know it. And it's, you know, it is intellectual, but it also has been, we've experienced it. Interesting. Yeah, I hadn't thought about it, but yeah, maybe so. Say it again, how we... How we interact with things and things interact with us that spontaneous co-arising, I guess, is experiencing ultimate reality or is knowing that our experience is limited.

[39:31]

Yeah, it's knowing that our experience is limited and it's also knowing that our experience is what it is. Not like in some stuck way, and it's definitely flowing, but that... You know, if I experience, what, dread around, let's say, around a certain person I experience dread, that's okay. You know, that's my experience at that moment. And I have to hold it lightly and not say I always experience dread around this person because I don't know always. But the fact that that's what's happening for me right now... is also part, that's another shamanistic, you know, like, that's this moment for this being. And that it is okay to play my part of the mandala, you know, to sometimes that's verbally saying, I don't feel safe right now. And sometimes it's not.

[40:35]

Sometimes, either because we decide to or because that's just what happens, we don't say anything. Yeah, so to speak. Along with all the other mountains. Yes, Catherine. I was hoping you could say more about intuition. I know we can't know the future, and yet sometimes we have things that aren't quite intellectual. Right. What is it? Yeah, I don't feel like I'm... I know very much about that. I have some sense of sensateness, internally and externally, and that paying more attention to that than I ever used to, anyway, I think helps me be more in touch with

[41:44]

as it's going on right now. And sometimes in that, you know, settledness, something like floats into my mind in a way that I would recognize it. You know, we may be having intuitions or pharognomes or something that are happening all the time, you know, that are, I mean, I think we are, we're being guided by so many things we don't even know what they are. And I think it is a good question. Myself, I still rely a lot on my brain, but I try to make room for these other things. Like if I decide I should talk to that person about this thing, it's bothering me, and I should talk to them. And then there they are, and I don't say anything. Then I go away from there, and I used to get really upset with myself. What happened? You chickened out, you know? Now I think, I don't really know what happened.

[42:49]

Did some part of me intuit that either they or I was not ready for this? Maybe. I don't really know. But there's no more reason to think I chickened out than I intuit it. One is not more true than the other. So why not just go the next step? So I try to, for instance, if I'm upset with somebody, I try not to talk to other people about it. If I find myself talking to other people, then it's like, okay, now you really have to talk to this person. It's leaking out in other ways. So, yeah. Does that somewhere in the foggy area of your question? Okay, thank you. Jeff, did you have your hand up? Or did you change your mind? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[43:51]

Well, I'm not sure I know either, but I think that it's like each moment, or what did somebody say? Paul said the other day, 60 in a second or something. Six in a second. I don't know. Some... Judith isn't here. Each thing, each has... that I'm in or that anything is in has a fundamental point. Not like a point, like a meaning or something, but like a way of being. And, of course, we're always actualizing the fundamental point. There isn't any way not to. The world is made up of us doing it whatever way we do it. Doing it, meaning being me in whatever way I am me. But there is a more relaxed, kind of settled way of joining the present that I think is called actualizing the fundamental point.

[44:59]

But there might be other views of that. Yes. Could you say more about when the mind is filled with dharma? Yeah. Yeah, interesting. The sentence before that says, when you first meet Dharma, you think it is already sufficient. So we might have some idea of what when we first meet Dharma means. Either way back when we first heard our way-seeking mind talks, somehow those convoluted ways that we actually were starting to meet the Dharma without knowing it. Or when we first hear some teaching that is somewhat liberating to us. And then when we're filled with it, yeah, I don't know, maybe we haven't gotten there yet. Maybe that's why it feels like it's lacking.

[46:04]

So when, what did I say, when you're filled with the Dharma? When the Dharma fills body and mind. No, one thinks something is still missing. Yeah. I, you know, what was he, what was he meaning there? Since he's talking to regular people, maybe he means that there are times when Dharma fills our body and mind. You know, when maybe it's that moment in Zazen when you're sitting there and it really, you know, feels complete, and yet, you know, here I am. I'm not everything. I am everything, but I'm not everything. One thing that Shoah Kokomo says that this is talking about, it's Dogen saying, just experiencing oneness is not enough.

[47:09]

You know, that actually, so if we experience oneness, that's wonderful. But it's not enough. We still have to meet each moment from now until we are no longer meeting moments. Until we die, we have to meet each moment and meet it with this body in mind. And it also says, he said, Chola Kumar says that Dogen, and probably a lot of you have read this, that Dogen, he was visiting some temple and they had a picture of an enzo. And he asked, what was this about? And they said it's representing Nagarjuna and his enlightenment. And Dogen did not like that. He didn't like the Enzo, this all-is-one kind of thing, representing Nagarjuna's enlightenment. He thought it should just be his human body. There should be a picture of his human body sitting there, and that's representing his enlightenment.

[48:14]

That this idea of everything's one, and if I can just experience it that way, then I'm enlightened or free. Something was misleading. We actually needed to have whatever experience we can have of that, but come back to moment by moment by moment, this body and mind. Did you say forget the mind? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, it's not that you are exempt. You don't get any exemption. You just have a very full practice from the beginning. And although your mind keeps trying to interact with it, your body is talking very loud. It's saying, listen to me, listen to me, listen to me. And your mind's like, no, we have to figure this out. We have to find a different place.

[49:16]

But your body, blessedly, is saying, and will, whether you're here at Tassajara or not, it's going to keep saying, pay attention to me, pay attention to me, pay attention to me. And it's just some mirage that I need a different one. That's exactly what he's talking about. You need a different one? This is the one you've got. You just have to, like, go there. Just whatever, however uncomfortable it is, however wrong it feels, whatever, this is the one you've got. And you're not alone. You know, we've all got bodies. Thank you. Is there anything else we should end? Okay, thank you all very much. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[50:32]

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