As many of you probably know, Dr. Schumacher, Ernst Friedrich Schumacher, died during our Sesshin. No? Yes, during our Sesshin, Sunday, last Sunday. Last Sunday? Last Monday, I don't remember. I think Sunday. of a heart attack, I think, in a train in Switzerland. He was taking the train because there was an air controller strike in Europe, so he had to take the train. Can you hear me in the back? Yes? You can, all right. And not because of his work, his writings, the content of what he said, but because of the presence of the man, of Fritz Schumacher. I felt, in the times I spent with him deeply, encouraged by him,

[02:00]

moved by him, turned around by him, and feel in a rewarding and unique way a contemporary, especially a contemporary from a different background and tradition, can be a teacher. He has been a teacher of mine, and many, many people, and probably many of you, coming out of the sincerity of his own life. So we talked about... about him during one of the Sashin lectures, and I did help to do a small memorial service at Grace Cathedral for him. So I don't have anything today.

[03:32]

more to say except what I say today in lecture, I don't know exactly what it'll be, and it's equal to an offering to him, but I have the feeling that what I do today, and those of you who have some feeling for him, what you do today, I'd like you to think of, feel, as an offering to Dr. Schumacher and to continuing his work and intelligence. His intelligence, by his intelligence I mean his freedom from maps, his ability to see things freshly and directly. What I usually talk about after a sasheen, seven-day sasheen, is from the feeling that

[04:58]

I like to keep the people, the community and others who were not in the sasheen informed of what we talked about, at least in a general way, because always together we are developing a more and more specific way of talking about our life experience and Buddhism. But today I went over, what did I talk about? And what I talked about was form, and I found I There was no way I could condense for you what I talked about. It struck me as interesting to be talking about form and then have no form, no way to talk about form with you. But as I said last Sunday, I believe,

[06:29]

I came into the, as I mentioned, I came into the zendo pretty late at night, after everyone was asleep, and was... I felt something, seeing everyone asleep, feeling everyone asleep, as I said. On the one hand, it struck me, you know, sleeping is the time when we are maybe most a generalization, most an anonymous form, a simply described fact. So-and-so is sleeping.

[07:30]

They're not doing anything, just sleeping. But that fact was, for me, inseparable. In fact, the description of how I would describe the sleeping was what I was feeling. Everyone was sleeping with, very clearly to me, the feeling of sleeping during a session when there's an alertness in our sleeping. And people were conscious of my walking through the room. And people were sleeping in the zendo, not in their beds, in usual beds, here in the zendo. For those of you who don't come to Seshin's, it's rather interesting. We sit all day here. Then at night there's all these heads in a row, you know, making various noises. And then in the morning, usually we sit a little or a lot before

[08:58]

lying down even after putting out our bed, bedding, and then in the morning we get up and sit again in one place, you know. As much as possible in a Sashin we get very acquainted with one place, our cushion, the mat, you know, the space, the sounds in the room, in the particular place we're in, and our body, the place of our body. and the effect of the various places our body can be – slumped, you know, straight, cockeyed, etc. So, what I'm suggesting to you today is contemplation or attention to form, the idea form, the generalization form. And in many ways, I'd like to come in here and holler, Form! Form! and run out. Like hollering fire.

[10:30]

Don't walk, don't run to the nearest exit, you know. And then, for a little while, a few minutes anyway, what was he talking about? What I'd like you to do is to take form. I'd like to be able to make you subjectively and objectively act on, think about, form for quite a while, the rest of your lifetime, a few hours, very directly. If I give too long a lecture or a pleasant lecture, you know, then you listen, you say, well, that was rather interesting to be reminded of those things, to think about those And I'll come back next week to be reminded again of those things. And I don't think you, at least I know as much as I would like, take the responsibility of form, or what I'm talking about, as your own subject matter.

[11:58]

So really what I'm saying in this lecture only is I'm hollering once or twice at you, form. But since that's not an acceptable form to give a lecture, some of you would feel short-changed. I drove all the way out here in this foggy valley, it wasn't even sunny today, and he hollered, I could get away with it one or two Sundays, people would say. It's very Zen, they'd say. Someone would come to my room and say, but they wanted a lecture, and I'd say, I'm a Zen master. Go away. There's a famous story like that. But the third Sunday, you know, very few people. would show up to be hollered at. So I'll have to think of something to say to you, to give you your 50 minutes, 60 minutes. And also, if you would just sit here, I'd enjoy just sitting. I'm not going to do it, but I'd enjoy just sitting here with you, you know. But that also, after a while,

[13:31]

might as well come to Zazen then in the morning. So I'll think of something to say so we can sit together for a little while longer. But really what I want is for you to think about form in every way that occurs to you. You know, there's the generalization form, Does that really have any meaning separate from some specific activity? But there's the generalization sex, and that seems to have some meaning, for many of us at least, more than just some specific lovemaking or some specific person. And in fact, I think if you look at the generalization sex in your feeling, It has a lot to do with form. Particular forms of another person, but particular aspects of another person, the way their face is, particular way their face is, makes you feel something. Some identification or some need to be nearer that particular form.

[14:58]

And when we sit, when I'm talking in lecture during Seshin, what I'm saying is more intimately than usual. Part of our sitting for seven days and part of what we feel together is the subject of this particular seven days. Usually some subject is presenting itself to us. And some commonplace observation, some commonplace hearing or recognition of another person or seeing a tree, the great living being of a tree, may in that vulnerable and partially awakened state of mind be an overwhelming experience, one in which later, if you even think about it, you may feel it's a little corny, or if you talk about it you feel some ... or someone else talks about it, you know.

[16:40]

Anyway, you have some aesthetic reservation. You may remark big deal to yourself. But at the time, you may be completely overwhelmed. Rather common experience in Sashin, actually. And if it really comes through to you, you never can see that particular tree, at least, and sometimes all trees, or whatever the object or observation that came through to you like that, you can't see it again without realizing some mysterious quality of form or some esoteric symbol. You know, symbols get like that because symbols can reverberate that way. So the tree becomes a symbol to us, for us, of a much deeper experience of the tree. Now that sense of form – I'm just using tree, it could be anything – that sense of form

[18:03]

I would say maybe deep form rather than superficial form or form that arises out of emptiness rather than form that comes from form to form. And again, we can say karma is form to form and Dharma is form arising out of emptiness. And gratitude, form arising out of gratitude. When you have this state of mind that takes things for granted, you don't feel this deep form arising out of emptiness. But when you have the fresh mind that that is characterized by a flow of gratitude, I don't know how else to describe it, then form has that deep, mysterious quality. There's a Zen story, Fukutetsu, I think his name was, a monk asked Fukutetsu,

[19:31]

How do we get beyond the relativity of absolute and relative? Even absolute and relative are relative. How do we get beyond the relativity of absolute and relative? A question like that he asked. And Fukutetsu said, How well I remember Conan in March, the partridges calling and the fragrance of the flowers. How well I remember Conan in March, the partridges calling and the fragrance of the flowers. Puketetsu means this deep form. and form not separate from description at the same time. He remembers a konan in a particular time, March, and he remembers the fragrance of the birds and the sound of the flowers sweeping through him.

[20:58]

as sometimes there may be particular sounds, as I said last Sunday, I believe, that penetrate through and through you. It's not the same as ordinary hearing. You hear it in the center of your body. And actually, every experience can be that way, you know. It's not something you can force or try to have happen, but more and more You know, it does happen in Sashin, and if you practice more and more you find out how this form arising from emptiness can characterize, actually characterize all our perceptions when we're in direct, what we can only describe, I think, as direct contact with reality. There's no quibbling with our experience at that time. And what other measure do you have, you know? So I spoke again in Sashin about – well, first let me say.

[22:23]

Buddhism is not limited, Zen is not limited to some particular athletic ability to sit cross-legged or to sit still even. And what I'm trying to teach is a universal way that everyone is accessible to everyone and teachable to everyone. But it's so much easier if you are directly inside your own experience that I can't help but emphasize the importance of the shortcut and ability to stop your karma, for example. Inside your experience, the example I used in Sashin, was you may be, for example, a very calm person.

[23:30]

outside circumstances don't disturb you and you always are pretty calm, quite happy and satisfied with your life, perhaps. And it may take various forms, actually, of not what we mean by real detachment, but maybe unattachment. You may be quite, as I said, happy with your husband or wife, but unaware your husband or wife is unhappy with you. Happy with your life, but unaware, from Buddha's point of view, very dissatisfied with your sloppy life. or you may be in the midst of someone else being angry at you, you may be able to be very calm and infuriate the person even more. Why doesn't he get angry with me? What the hell's wrong with him or her? The person

[24:53]

who's angry may feel. You're outside their anger, untouched by the situation. I like those little posters that people put above their desks. I always find it kind of a form of Buddhism, that we turn into a joke because we can't quite deal with it, so it's a joke, but a joke with enough power and poignancy that we put it up above our desk for 40 years, you know, or 20 years. The one that comes to mind, I've probably got it mixed up, but like, if you're not mad, you don't know what's going on. Isn't there one like that that people put up above their desk? If you're not upset, you don't understand the situation. And that can be Buddhism, too. If you don't know the world is suffering, you don't know the world. So your calmness can give another person that feeling. But the kind of calmness I'm talking about, as practiced as Buddhism, is the calmness that if a person is angry, you're calm at that point where they are calm in the midst of their anger. So they feel your calmness inside

[26:24]

their anger. Or another example which happens to many of us nowadays since cancer is so prevalent, dying very slowly is very prevalent now. I don't know why, maybe pollution, maybe because we outlive our the ways we used to die, you know, more quickly. So for many of us we have the experience of going to some bedside and of a person who's really, you know, miserable. and has been miserable for months. And if your calmness feels outside their suffering, you know, you're not much of a resource to the person. But if you

[27:52]

If your calmness is the kind of calmness which we can have in the midst of intense suffering, the kind of calmness that can sustain itself even in the midst of intense suffering, then you will be very helpful to the person when you visit them. Not just giving them warmth and reassurance and friendship, but physically you will make their pain ease. And I don't know any way to learn how to do that. Maybe a very deep insight and your own life experience, direct life experience. But something equivalent to what we do over and over again in sitting a long time is it becomes very painful and very, very uncomfortable. And finally, to survive, you have to find out how to be calm

[28:53]

in the midst of agitation, of restlessness, and I think most of us would describe it as a great deal of physical pain. At the time, it feels like a great deal of physical pain. Enough pains, you say. Buddhism may be the greatest teaching of all time, but to hell with it, I'm getting out of this zen. I'm getting out of this zendo. Usually you stay though. Anyway, that's what I mean by the calmness in the midst of pain or suffering or discomfort. When you have that feeling, you are more directly in touch with people, because it's not a calmness based on shutting things out, but being in the midst of things, as we all are all the time.

[30:11]

So, the first thing I started to mention was stopping your karma, the practice that we do of stopping your karma, which means, for the most part, finding the ability to sit still, completely still, or at least to find stillness in the midst of our mental and physical movement, because their definitions slide. they so easily say, oh, okay. And it's not like Tozan Ryokai, a very famous Zen master, who as a young boy, when he was asked, when he heard the sutra, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no mouth, etc. It's not no tongue, He said to his teacher, he didn't just say, oh, well, as the sutra says, no eyes, no ears, all right, and he went on with it. Immediately, as a young boy, he said, well, what do you mean, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no mouth? I have eyes and ears and nose and mouth. And his teacher at that time said, you are too good for me. You must go to such and such a teacher.

[31:46]

he didn't let the definition slide. So someone in that spirit said, what do you mean by stopping your karma? This is right, you know, exactly what is meant? And it's actually difficult for me to describe exactly, and I use karma in various ways at different times. But over and over again I will try to make it more specific, even though really it comes down to your finding its specificity yourself. So, the best example I could think of is, for example, if you smoke, many, many things may lead to your picking up a cigarette, and it all comes down and converges and you pick up a cigarette and smoke.

[32:49]

Stopping your karma would mean, at the many things that come together to pick up a cigarette, you just stop and don't pick up a cigarette. You stop those things which lead to that and have the ability to do that. And I've talked about this in various ways before, the five stages of milkshake. I like milkshakes. You really want a milkshake, you know, and you have the ability to stop having, so you, no milkshakes. Then you really have the ability to stop having a milkshake and you, okay, so you say, no milkshake, but you find somehow there's one in your hand in a few minutes, and you're drinking it and it's wonderful. Anyway, there's various stages of the famous teaching of five stages of milkshake. But in this case, you know, I'm just talking about when we can sit until finally we sit inside and outside still.

[34:12]

Really still, our thought, thinking, all those things which lead to the present moment, being restless or going into some project or thinking about what kind of person we are, what people, all of that is stopped. Doesn't mean your karma's ended, but it's stopped for a moment, for a day, for seven days. Maybe often you can refresh yourself now by just stopping your karma. very important to do that, and when you finally do it, you see the provisional nature of reality, of our description. To more and more being able to do that, things come back into life, whether it's smoking a cigarette or whatever, much freer. It's not form to form anymore, it's space to form, recess to form. And it's the reason, I'm sure, we go to movies, listen to music, get drunk, some method of cutting those links for a little while. Smoking a cigarette, I think, is a way to cut those links for a little while and send it all up into smoke, just for a minute.

[35:39]

But all these things can be transformed and it always strikes me as interesting – and you can try this yourself – how a yawn can be changed into one of the more specific and specifically taught ways to do zazen breathing. For instance, if you feel a big yawn coming and you don't open your mouth and yawn, but you allow the yawn to happen but through your nostrils in a series of inhalations. That transformation of a yawn and the need for that yawn, you can see the need for a certain kind of zazen breathing in it. Or for example, before, this is the Buddha's robe, the okesa, which is one of the main things. Phenomenal things. phenomenal things of the phenomenal world which is transmitted from Buddha to us. And before we put it on, we put it on our head here, you know, very interesting place, and put our hands up and we say, Now I open Buddha's robe, a field far beyond form and emptiness, the Tathagata's

[37:13]

for all being, the tathagata means, the thus coming and going being of everything. And then we put it on. And saying that is as much a part of putting it on as the cloth you know, as the rope we tie it with, as how it's folded and we put it on our shoulder and take two corners and do that. All of it, you know, when we pack it in a suitcase we put it on top, the okesa. All of those descriptions. And description is always, you know, what is your description? Description is always something lifted from the situation. We don't say the description. There's no the description. It's a description. So we forget, though, the value which some practice like Buddhism reminds us of. Before you put it on, and you adjust your body to put it on, you also adjust your mind

[38:46]

express in your thoughts that you're putting on the road. And we tend not to do that in our activity, it seems like a nuisance. Unless you're scared, you do it. For example, if you are about to make a phone call, which you are somewhat anxious about making, maybe quite a bit hangs on it, or your relationship with the person is such and such, For some reason, you know, you're calling somebody and you've really kind of put it off. You may find yourself saying, now I'm going to make this phone call. Some feeling the same way. Now I'm going to make this phone call. Uneasiness beyond all description is filling my, you know, you may have some feeling like And like the yawn, that can be transformed. It actually, I think, occurs to prepare us for the phone call, to note that we need mental preparation for the phone call, but the need isn't forced on us unless we're anxious. And then it becomes hesitation and an expression of our anxiety. But if you look more carefully, it's the opportunity to concentrate on the phone call.

[40:17]

So, if we're not lazy, you may recognize that it's also good to do that before a phone call which you're not anxious. So, if you're making a phone call to a friend, if you physically and mentally compose yourself to the phone beforehand, and this sounds like something ridiculous, you know, or maybe a nuisance every once You see everybody ready to make a phone call and they sit down cross-legged and put the phone in front of them and get ready to make a phone call, you know. You'd be fired in the office for that. But it happens very rapidly, you know. And I would guess is in a society where everything counts, like when we were fighting the fire at Tassajara, everything counted and you did it. Now I'm going to get a shovel, now I'm going to go up the road and check. You composed yourself in relationship to it, and I'm sure that when you're farming or living in a way in which it counts, you are composed to what the weather is, what you're going to do, but we just don't, it's not forced on us, so we get so sloppy in our

[41:42]

So I bet you, if you would try, before you call somebody, very easy to call, just for a moment, you let it flash through you, I'm now making a phone call, it's to that person. And for that moment, or as you're getting the phone or dialing, you just have in your mind that person. And now you're making a phone call to them. I'll bet your friend will feel something very direct coming over the phone at them, some very affirmative feeling. And this affirmative feeling is the same kind of experience or gratitude which occurs, too, we stop looking at our dirty face in the mirror, when we stop finding fault with everyone's practice, finding fault with everybody around us, and start changing that into, for a moment, appreciating the beauty of human life, the beauty or virtue of the person or situation in front of us.

[43:16]

I think it's getting too late to continue. I wanted to talk more about stopping your karma, about insight, about ending your karma, arising out of stopping your karma, insight, and the humbleness of not putting another head over your own, and It means equality, it means also not putting your own head over someone else's, and essentially it means the ability to have a teacher. Now, those three together can lead to ending your karma. By ending your karma, I mean those things which lead up to a specific point no longer lead up to what you do. The present situation

[44:37]

we can say creates you, each moment. There's a rather amusing Zen story about a man named Zuigan. Whenever Zuigan, first thing he'd get up in the morning, he'd say, "'Good morning, Zuigan,' and he would answer himself, "'Good morning. Are you awake?' Do not be deceived by any one, any time, night or day. No, I won't. You might try it. Get up in the morning and say, Wendy, are you awake? Well, I don't know. Not so sure today. Yes, I am. Do not be deceived by anyone. Well, no, I won't. Do not be deceived by anyone means to stop your karma, to not let the phenomenal world form to form to form, attract you.

[45:56]

how much we like flowers, you know. Their color is ephemeral, smell is ... dried flowers somehow, even though they're very beautiful, don't quite make it. But flowers that only last a short time, the smell, the color, the folding out into space, we appreciate, because it so characterizes our life when we are more directly in touch with it. and how we describe space, how we can turn place into space, into dharma, into sangha. Anyway, I've barely touched on the power of form. meaning or experience of form, of description. As Gregory Bateson again has said, the map is not the territory, but a map's

[47:28]

Your body is a map. Your decision to practice Buddhism is a map. Your awareness of the greater map, the totality of which there's no outside, which we call Buddha's life, the immensity of our human life, the immensity of our human birth, what does it contain? It's not just your parents. definition. As I asked in Sashim, what is your original face? Dr. Schumacher wrote something about maps, and in his new book I'd like to read just the first bit about maps. It's only a page. It's called, A Guide for the Perplexed, which is good for us. He says, on a visit to Leningrad, this book was just published. I'm so glad. When I was in England with him, he told me it was going to come out and he felt, after Small is Beautiful, this in Small is Beautiful described where he was at, what he felt out of his lifetime. So this came out.

[49:15]

He released this just before he released himself. I'm very glad for that. Even though I selfishly wish, as a friend, he could have stayed here. On a visit to Leningrad some years ago, I consulted a map to find out where I was, but I could not make it out. From where I stood, I could see several enormous churches, yet there was no trace of them on my map. When finally an interpreter came to help me, he said, we don't show churches on our maps. Contradicting him, I pointed to one that was very clearly marked. That is a museum, he said, not what we call a living church. It is only the living churches we don't show. Zen Center is, I hope, a living church, which is not on the usual maps but on your map, at least. It then occurred to me that this was not the first time I'd been given a map which failed to show many things I could see right in front of my eyes. All through school and university I'd been given maps of life and knowledge on which there was hardly a trace.

[50:52]

of many of the things that I most cared about and that seemed to me to be of the greatest possible importance to the conduct of my life. I remembered that for many years my perplexity had been complete and no interpreter had come along to help me. It remained complete until I ceased to suspect the sanity of my perceptions and began instead to suspect the soundness of the maps. The maps I was given advised me that virtually all my ancestors until quite recently The maps I was given advised me that virtually all my ancestors, until quite recently, had been rather pathetic illusionists who conducted their lives on the basis of irrational beliefs and absurd superstitions. Even illustrious scientists like Johannes Kepler or Isaac Newton apparently spent most of their time and energy on nonsensical studies of non-existing things. Enormous amounts of hard-earned wealth had been squandered throughout history.

[51:52]

to the honour and glory of imaginary deities, not only by my European forebears but by all peoples in all parts of the world at all times. Everywhere, thousands of seemingly healthy men and women had subjected themselves to utterly meaningless restrictions, like voluntary fasting, tormented themselves by celibacy, wasted their time on pilgrimages, fantastic rituals, zazen, sasheen. It doesn't say that. wasted their time on pilgrimages, fantastic rituals, reiterated prayers and so forth, turning their backs on reality, and some do it even in this enlightened age, all for nothing, all out of ignorance and stupidity, none of it to be taken seriously today except, of course, as museum pieces. From what a history of error we had emerged, what a history of taking for real what every modern child knew to be totally unreal and imaginary.

[53:01]

Our entire past, until quite recently, was today fit only for museums, where people could satisfy their curiosity about the oddity and incompetence of earlier generations. What our ancestors had written, also, was in the main fit only for storage and libraries, where historians and other specialists could study these relics and write books about them, the knowledge of the past being considered interesting and occasionally thrilling, but of no particular value for learning to cope with the problems of the present. Now someone asked Paul Goodman, don't we need a whole change of values, a new approach to life to satisfy the terrible situation we're in? He said, all we need is courage, honesty, etc. Anyway, he goes on. I'd like to read you this too. Not surprisingly, the more thoroughly acquainted we become with the details of the math, the more we absorbed what it showed and got used to the absence of the things it did not show. The more perplexed, unhappy, and cynical we became. Some of us, however, had an experience similar to that described by Maurice Nicole. Once in the Greek Testament class on Sundays, this man has written, taken by the headmaster, I dared to ask, in spite of my stammering, what some parable meant.

[54:29]

The answer was so confused that I actually experienced my first moment of consciousness. That is, I suddenly realized no one knew anything. And from that moment I began to think for myself, or rather I knew I could. I remembered so clearly this classroom, the high windows constructed so that we could not see out of them. the desk, the platform on which the headmaster sat, his scholarly thin face, his nervous habits of twitching his mouth and jerking his hands, and suddenly this inner revelation of knowing that he knew nothing, nothing that is, about anything that really mattered. This was my first inner liberation from the power of external life, from maps. That's Zui Gan saying, do not be deceived by anything, day or night. He also quotes Ortega, E. Gasset, who says, Life is fired at us, point blank. We cannot say, Hold it, I'm not quite ready. Wait until I have things sorted out. Decisions have to be taken that we are not ready for and aims have to be chosen that we cannot see clearly. In the end of the book he says,

[55:54]

The main thing he comes to in the book is – I haven't read anything in between, by the way, so that's up to you – the modern experiment to live without religion has failed. He also says, somewhere here, that the economic problem has already been solved. There is a way to feed everybody. He says, significantly, young people of varying ages are looking in the right direction finally. They feel in their bones that the ever more successful solution of convergent problems is of no help at all. It may even be a hindrance in learning how to cope, to grapple with the divergent problems which are the stuff of real life. Above all, we shall then see that the economic problem is a convergent problem which has been solved already. We know how to provide enough.

[57:02]

and do not require any violent, inhuman, aggressive technologies to do so. There is no economic problem in a sense there never has been, but there is a moral problem, and moral problems are not convergent, capable of being solved so that future generations can live without effort. We have that idea, don't we? Moral problems are not convergent, they are not capable of being solved so that future generations can live without effort. No, they are divergent problems which have to be understood and transcended. And can we rely on it that a turning around, and as we often talk in Zen about turning around, can we rely on it that a turning around will be accomplished by enough people, quickly enough, to save the modern world? That's a moral question many of you ask. Can we rely on it that a turning around will be accomplished by enough people quickly enough to save the modern world?" And he gives the same answer which I think anyone has to give if you think about it. This question is often asked but no matter what the answer it will mislead. The answer yes would lead to complacency, the answer no to despair. It is desirable to leave these perplexities behind us and get down to work. So please, get down to work.

[58:24]

I was asked to say to you, which is just that, as you know, the fire at Tathagata, which has become, since it's very nearly burned, we were told, in fact, by the Forest Service it couldn't be saved in the beginning. And with their help, their professional advice and our work and good luck, we did save Tathagata. And it becomes, in a way, a re-founding of Takahara. Very lucky to have it reappear. But it cost, as many of you know, about $100,000 to fight the fire. And it's the most immediate financial calamity in the midst of a year when we're finally getting in the best financial position we've been in still. needed to raise quite a bit of money, but this $100,000 of lost income and a truck, renting a truck to drive, to evacuate Takahara, and... Anyway, the overall cost of trying to save Takahara,

[59:58]

We need some kind of help to ... We want to continue the practice period. The reason we saved Tathagatagarbha was to continue to have the practice period, if possible. We almost canceled the practice period for this year, but I don't think it would have worked, and extended the guest season throughout the fall. But it wouldn't have worked, with it so burned out, people weren't coming, and their habits, and their children are back in school. And then someone offered to mortgage their property and give us the amount of money they got from the mortgage. It's all they own, I believe, but they offered to mortgage their property to give us enough of a boost to maybe have the practice period, so it became a gift of the practice period. And, you know, as I've said before, I know you don't like to have me talk about money, or whatever it is, is just a way, if we use it, to continue the practice of this life, practical life, with each other. So if you have any ideas, and we did try to make a description of the fire, which we had sent out to some people in their

[61:20]

I think somebody has some copies of the letters here, or you can talk to Yvonne or someone like that about it if you have some ideas. And as you know, this fall is going to be, because there's so much burning hillsides, the hillsides and stones are going to come down, and a lot of water. So we're now trying to prepare for that. eventuality, you probably need a bulldozer to keep the road open.

[62:07]

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