This afternoon I've been touched by a thought of various simple practices that have been given in the past by Buddhas and bodhisattvas and other disciples of Buddha. Simple practices, quite simple practices that have been given to living beings who have requested instruction in practice. I've been touched by how lovely many of these practices are. There are quite a few. And I really think that they all have a great virtue when offered at the right time to the right being.

[01:11]

And I thought actually I might bring up some of these simple practices. perhaps during the rest of this retreat. And then look at how are these simple practices in relationship to the practice of the Buddhas, to the Buddhist practice. said something about this, but to say it again now and give you one of the examples. One of the examples is of a simple practice which is often given at Zen centers in America particularly. People come and are interested in some...they often want instruction in meditation.

[02:24]

You often think of Zen centers or other Buddhist centers as a place where you get teachings in meditation and also where a venue is provided where you can practice meditation together with other people. Does that seem reasonable? And at, yeah, at Zen centers oftentimes people get instructions about how to sit. postural suggestions. And these postural suggestions are given in other traditions in Buddhism, not just Zen. And in some traditions, they call it the seven-point posture. And we actually kind of follow those seven points in our usual instruction and posture. Start by sitting down. And if people can, to sit cross-legged because it's quite stable when your legs are crossed.

[03:36]

And then to sit with the spine upright. And what that means is something which we learn over the years, what an upright posture is. But still we just say that people sit upright. and give some hints about what that might be like. And then we often, in this school anyway, we say also sit with the eyes open, but looking down, not looking straight ahead, but looking down at about 45 degrees, kind of restfully open. And we recommend keeping the mouth closed with the tongue placed against the roof of the mouth. with the tip of the tongue touching the back of the upper teeth. And kind of relax the front of the body.

[04:44]

Relax particularly the abdomen. Let's be relaxed and natural if possible. And we recommend making the hands into this, what we call, it's a cosmic concentration mudra. We usually say place the left hand on top of the right hand and join the thumb tips slightly. And if possible, place the hands touching the abdomen below the navel. and hold the arms a little bit away from the body. Sometimes we say so that there could be a chicken egg under your armpits. So these are some points of posture we sometimes give to people. Actually, this is not such a simple practice, but relative to some other ones, it's kind of simple.

[05:48]

It could be simplified even more, just to instruct people, sit upright. And sit still as much as possible. But also, in the words we get into, we say, sit still, but in a relaxed way. Don't sit still and don't be tense about it. So probably you've all heard this quite a few times. In fact, some of you may have given instruction about this many times yourself. I myself, starting around 1970, I used to give this instruction almost every day for a long time. And I actually didn't mind giving it over and over. Every time I gave it, I thought, almost every time I gave it, I thought, sounds like a good idea. This sounds like a good thing to do."

[06:52]

I was happy to tell people about it, and just telling them about it, I sort of got, you know, entered the practice just by speaking of it, because I would often be sitting while I was giving this instruction and actually exemplifying the posture while I was talking about it. And then we also often say, Because your mouth is closed, we recommend breathing through the nose. For most of us, that's the only option left at that point. And breathe quietly through the nose. And gently, quietly and gently, breathe through the nose. in and out. And then sometimes we also, I sometimes have also suggested that on the exhale to visualize the breath going out and down and picture the exhale ending at your abdomen.

[08:12]

sort of where your hand mudra is. So the breath coming down and entering through your mudra into your abdomen. And then on the inhale, rising up through your body and ending at your nose again, the inhale ending at the nose, and then exhale out the nose again. So the breath is visualized kind of as making an ellipse. And there's many other ways that you can do it too, of course. You can just feel the breath going out of the nose and coming back into the nose. It's fine too. In a way, simple instruction, right? Simple practice. And if the attention is directed in this way consistently to the posture and the breathing, That kind of attention involves actually giving up various other kinds of attention.

[09:23]

So if you're actually attending to this, you might not be thinking of much else because although this is simple, if you actually attend to these postural and breathing issues, you give up quite a bit of discursive thought in the process. Does that make sense? And most of you have probably some experience of that, that when you're actually paying close attention to your posture and your breathing, at that moment you're not thinking about much else. So you're giving up lots of possible discourse. And giving up discourse, not fighting it but just letting it go, giving up discursive thought, comes to fruit as tranquility. So this is a description of a kind of tranquility practice, a simple tranquility practice, which is recommended, again, at many Zen centers and at Vipassana centers too and Vajrayana centers too.

[10:37]

and the Buddha gave instructions like these somewhat often here and there. So what's this got to do with Buddhist practice? A person sitting and being mindful of these simple instructions and Perhaps thinking that they are sitting there doing this is a wholesome and tranquility-promoting exercise. But the practice of the Buddhas, what's that? What's the practice of the Buddhas? What did I say it was? Shall I answer for you?

[11:44]

Yeah, it's 10,000,000,000 miles, right. The practice of the Buddhas is is the practice of all the Buddhas. It's actually the practice of many Buddhas. It's the practice of all beings. The practice of the Buddha is the same practice as all beings practice and the same enlightenment. The practice of the Buddhas is not just the practice of the Buddha, it's also the enlightenment of the Buddhas. So what's the relationship between this huge practice enlightenment of the universe and this person sitting? But the relationship? They're not two. They're not two. However, the person sitting may not realize yet that the practice they're doing is the practice of all beings and the enlightenment of all beings.

[12:49]

The practice of Buddha is like the ten vows of Samantabhadra, but the person who's following may not yet be ready to open to that practice. But they're not separate from it, but they're not open to it yet. So this simple practice in this case leading to serenity and helping the person open up could be quite helpful for the person to open up to the practice of the Buddhas. And so, in fact, when I'm coming to meet you now, I'm aware that many of you have been doing simple, wholesome practices. And then I'm now wanting to encourage you to join your simple practices, or complicated practices, but if you have a simple one, to join it.

[14:03]

with the practice of the great Bodhisattvas and Buddhas. And that could happen naturally, but part of the way it naturally happens could be that I mention to you some things that you could open to. So once again, some people when they hear about Samantabhadra's vows, they just say, that's too much for me. You know, it's too much to think about paying homage to infinite Buddhas with all my actions, moment after moment. It's just too much. I'm not ready for that practice. Just let me do a simple practice where I can calm down. And I would say, fine. And then my experience is that when the people do do the simple practice like the one I just mentioned, and as they become calm,

[15:05]

in the calm they open up they start opening and opening and opening and then in that openness they say well maybe I could consider making offerings to one Buddha once in a while and then if they keep practicing tranquility they might say well maybe I could make offerings to one Buddha quite frequently And then as they open to that, then I think, well, actually, it might be good to make offerings to one Buddha all the time. You know? And we go on to there. But before I go on to there, I just wanted to mention that when I was first practicing sitting, I practiced sitting

[16:07]

Originally because, well, my story anyway is I wanted to be like some of these Zen monks who I heard about in Zen storybooks. I had some Zen storybooks. Once upon a time there was a Zen monk who was totally cool and I wanted to be like him or her. But then I thought, how do you get to be like him or her? And then they said, well, there's a training course And the training course was just to sit. So I tried to sit. And I did sit. But I didn't sit very often. I did it once in a while. But sitting once in a while, I gradually opened to the idea of, well, what about sitting quite frequently? What about actually seeing that it would be good to do it every day? Once in a while is good, but sometimes the space between the once and the while will get big, as you may know.

[17:12]

Some of you don't know about that, but some of you know the space can get quite large, like weeks, months, some people even years. And then when they sit after a long break, they say, why didn't I do this more often? You heard that story before? I thought it would be nice to do it regularly. It's easy to do it irregularly. It would be nice to do it like every day. It seemed like the kind of thing to do every day. As a matter of fact, I even thought, what about doing it all the time pretty much? But I couldn't. So I thought maybe if I went someplace where people didn't do it every day, that that would be helpful. So I put myself in a situation where People do do it every day, and it was helpful. So now, after 40-some years, I have been doing it pretty much every day for a long time with the help of other people.

[18:20]

And recently, I've opened up not only to sit every day, which is still going on in my life, but every day make offerings to Buddha. Well, actually, I also do that pretty much every day. I make offerings to Buddha and Buddhas and bodhisattvas. I do it as part of my job. You've seen me do it several times here during this retreat. Have you noticed? I come here and make offerings to Buddha. Do you see me do it? And then I do prostrations to Buddha. Do you see me do it? I do it. I do that. And then again, recently I thought, well, how about making offerings not just twice a day or once a day or ten times a day, how about doing offerings every moment? And how about paying homage? I can't prostrate every moment, but how about paying homage every moment, every moment, moment after moment? So now that's what I'm opening up to you.

[19:31]

And that's the practice of the Buddha. The practice of the Buddha is total, non-stop offerings, making everything, learning to gradually open up to a reality which is that we're always offering, making offerings to each other and to Buddhas, paying homage to Buddhas and so on, every moment to all Buddhas, which means every moment to all beings. Again, you bring these great vows of Samantabhadra together with, for example, sitting upright, attending to your posture, following your breathing, becoming calm, and opening to this vast practice of the bodhisattvas, which means opening to the vast truth. There's little truths that are great, that are nice, but open to the big ones. the one that's true all over the place and includes everybody, open to that one, while we're doing some simple practice like sitting upright, following our breathing, or offering a stick of incense, or saying ehei kosou hotsugamon, just saying that phrase, that phrase is

[20:57]

offering to all Buddhas, homage to all Buddhas, and so on. So again, just want to see if it's clear to you that we still recommend wholesome practices, simple wholesome practices that are so lovely, and then as people get into those simple practices, they start to open to the huge practice which is always surrounding them and from the huge practices where the teaching and doing the simple practice came from. The huge mind of Buddha gives simple practices to people to help them open to that simple practice and by opening to the simple practice they gradually open to the unlimited practice. That's one example, and I'll give you some more if I have time before I die.

[22:13]

Somebody said that in Austin, during the retreat in Austin, I talked about my death 10 times, so I'm trying to get above 10 for Houston. Trying to get up to about 30 during this retreat. I hope to get to a very large number of mentioning my death before I actually go. But don't say I didn't warn you. So you want to hear one more story before I go? Yeah. Well, the principal asked to turn the diamond wheel, then asked to stay. Those are two different groups. One is, please turn the diamond wheel. And also, don't go. Thank you. I hear you. So are you ready to hear a story? It's a dumb story. So you know this story. It's from the Lotus Sutra. If you don't know this story, it's from the Lotus Sutra.

[23:17]

But this is a story which even elderly people might be able to remember. So once upon a time, I don't know which way to tell. Once upon a time there was a rich man, or once upon a time there was a boy whose dad was rich, and his mom and dad were rich. Very, very wealthy. So you can either tell that the wealthy parents had a kid or a kid who had wealthy parents. But anyway, these parents were very wealthy. They were like, they weren't kings and queens, but they were They had various kings and queens in their employ. So they were very wealthy, you know. And they had a little boy. And you can say it's a little girl, too, if you want. But anyway, one day the little boy went for a walk.

[24:23]

And he got kind of far from home and couldn't find his way back. But he kept walking, trying to get back home. he couldn't find his home. And his parents noticed he was gone and sent out their innumerable servants to find him, but they couldn't find him. And this boy wandered around looking for his home for 50 years. He wandered so long he forgot he was looking for his house. he got more concerned with, you know, somehow getting someplace, something to eat. You can imagine, after just a few days, you might be more concerned with getting something to eat than finding your home, maybe. But after years, you can't even remember your home or what it looked like, because you're just a little guy, or how wonderful your parents were. But anyway, after 50 years, this poor guy had become really destitute for a long time and become rather disheveled.

[25:30]

and disoriented and emaciated, impoverished, stressed out, et cetera. And then in his wandering, looking for someplace to get some food, he just happened to wander back into his hometown and wander by his own parents' house. And as he wandered towards his house, he looked up and he thought, whoa, that is like one big house. The address was 16-04-05. He looked up there and he thought, wow, that's a huge house. And it had a nice porch like this. But I get the impression that the porch was sort of more elevated, like had more than How many steps is this?

[26:32]

Three? I picture a big, you know, like 50 steps up to the porch. And he looked up there, and he's just sort of in awe of the splendor of this huge house. And his parents just happened to be sitting on the porch after 50 years of sorrow of losing their little guy. And they looked down, and they saw this emaciated, destitute wreck. but they still could tell it was their boy, and they were so happy to see their little guy. Being rather elderly, they sent their servants down to bring their boy to them. So the servants went running down the stairs, and when the little boy saw the servants coming, he thought that they were coming to kill him, because, you know, these British people probably don't want such, you know, homeless, emaciated, destitute people around.

[27:34]

They probably just wanted to get him out of the, get him away from the steps, you know, yuck. And so he fainted in fear. And his father saw. He said, oh, he thinks my servants are coming to hurt him. So he called the servants back. And then, so when he woke up from his swoon, he thought, oh, they didn't kill me good. He ran away. But his father was watching, and his father told one of his servants to put on dirty clothes and go after him and offer him a job shoveling elephant shit. This guy had lots of elephants, you know. Horses, too, of course. Anyway, so this servant dressed in kind of dirty clothes said, hey, man, you want a job shoveling shit?

[28:41]

We'll give you food. He said, yeah. He was very happy to get a job to get some food. So he accepted the job. A simple job. Get the picture? A simple job. A simple cleanup job. And he did that job for about 20 years. After 20 years of this simple job, his father thought, his father then actually now getting, his father's getting pretty old. He went to see him. He also wore these dirty clothes. And he said, boy, you've been shoveling this stuff for a long time. I think you know this kind of worked pretty well. I'd like you to be the manager of the shit shovelers. And this guy said, thought, yeah, I'm I'm pretty, yeah, I can handle that. I could open to that, to that more expansive work. And so then he was manager of the shit shovelers and he did that for like 20 more years.

[29:46]

So now he's developing some confidence that maybe he can take on, you know, pretty big jobs and clean up pretty big jobs. So then his father comes to him and says, you know, you've done a good job. I'd like you to actually come up and work in the house. And he says, OK. So then he actually can go into the house. He's not afraid to go into the house where these vast enterprises are going on. And he came and he worked there. And he starts to participate in these huge activities of the house. And after another 20 years of that, and his father says to his wife, his father says, well, we're getting pretty old now. Maybe it's time for him to take over our vast work.

[30:58]

And so she says, yeah. So then he gathers together all his retainers and all the kings and queens come and he say, I want you to know that this person is going to take over our vast enterprises and you should consider him like our son, as though he were our son. And the son thinks, yeah, I can be like a son to these people now. And the father says, as a matter of fact, You are my son and you always have been and now I can accept it." So that's kind of like what we're doing. We have simple practices sometimes and we do them and do them and do them and gradually we open to the fact that we're really Buddhist children and we can actually take on the huge practice. to do a simple practice for a long time before we would dare to open to our actual potential.

[32:12]

And so the Buddhas are careful not to push it, you know, to give a simple practice and then more complicated practice and then bigger practice and bigger practice until we can say, okay, all right. I can open up to the big projects. And doing these simple practices wholeheartedly, you know, part of what happens there too is that the willingness to do something simple involves often giving up self-concern. And so through doing some simple practice we can open to the ultimate truth of emptiness. But opening to emptiness is not the end of the story, it's actually the beginning of the story. Because of realizing selflessness we dare to open to the great activity.

[33:20]

Because realizing selflessness does not transform the world, it's doing activities based on selflessness that transforms the world. I should say, actually, we're always transforming the world, but to transform the world positively we have to take on all these practices after, well, before and after realizing selflessness. So there's a place for a simple practice and then there's a place to open to unlimited forms of practice from the simple practice. So the Buddhas who are embracing unlimited forms of practice, in other words, the Buddhas who are practicing together with everyone.

[34:23]

They offer simple practices to people as they need. And that's vow number nine of Samantabhadra, is to accommodate to sentient beings, to give them practice gifts that are appropriate to them. And then they receive those practice gifts and devote themselves to it. And then they open to the practice of giving gifts to others, to help others practice and open to giving gifts to others. Does that make sense to you? To give you some perspective or context for various lovely simple practices in relationship to the great bodhisattva vows.

[35:35]

Bodhisattva vows are vast and extensive, but we may have to do some simple practices on a regular basis. to be able to open to the bodhisattva vows. And in that way, work to realize the Buddha way. Let's see, is there anything you would like to discuss at this time?

[36:46]

Anyone? I would like, I guess I would like to say that everybody else wants following Betty's model, just for one second, that I would like to apologize for. I'm just going to stand here. That was Betty. For complaining about not getting enough legs. So I did complain about that a little bit because, as I was comparing in my mind, this would treat out of what I was doing, and there would be A little break after lunch. Anyway, so I looked. There's no way that somebody can come find me. I'm sorry about that.

[37:48]

That's really given me a lot of hope. That story. Thank you. I don't think I thought of myself as, or imagined that I could practice enough to, and I may not be able to expose it, to take on more. So that's, I like that idea very much. It's a great story, isn't it? Yeah, it's a great story. And the lotus picture, which you will be copying out soon. Oh, yes. I don't know what else I want to... I did want to talk about some other stuff. One was... This was related, of course. It was about vowing, which I talked to you about this morning, and how...

[38:52]

I felt like when I vowed, it was more, you know, coercive. The way I thought about it, I thought, you know, things like, I'm going to go on a diet, those kind of vows. And I wanted to make vows with regard to my Buddhist practice. And mainly there are things like to sit more and to, and you said, I think that you said, that to vow things that I want in my heart to do Whereas I think I was, before I was trying, I was valuing things that I thought I ought to do or other people wanted me to do, something like that. And that was kind of . Yeah. Well, that was amazing. Yeah. So I think a lot of people who are not in residential practice centers often ask how to have a regular practice without living in a place where everybody around them is going to an education. And I say, well, first of all, what practice do you want to do?

[40:11]

How much do you want to fit? Look inside your heart and see how much do you want to fit. And the next thing I tell you, don't look at how much is practical. Some people want to fit just a little and actually practical for them to fit all day. They have a lot of free time. Some people want to sit a lot, but actually they can only actually sit a little bit for various reasons. So I suggest the intersection between how much you want and how much is practical. Some people it's about the same. They actually practically can sit a half an hour a day or an hour a day, and they want to sit a half an hour a day. So that's how much is both. you want to do, and it's practical, given the circumstances. Then the next step is, when you're ready, consider committing to what you want to do and what is practical.

[41:15]

And I also suggest committing for a limited period of time. You look at a practice, and most practice techniques, most of them have a ribbon, but they have a lot. a yearly rhythm, a monthly rhythm. They don't have the same schedule every day all year round. They have periods of intensity and periods of relaxation. So if you're not living in a center, then it's probably good for you also to practice in a rhythmic way. So for a while, you might commit to a certain program and then stop. take a break, and then consider what you want to do again. You might want to do pretty much the same thing again, but you might want to do more or less. If you do it indefinitely, you're actually not behaving like, actually, the actual spiritual life isn't like some indefinite practice that has rhythm to it.

[42:25]

Because you have rhythm to yourself. But the seasons and the circumstances of your life change, so your practice changes. And I think a season is about the maximum time of commitment, actually, if you look at getting three months. So it can be a lot. But I would suggest that you make a commitment to a particular course of practice to do it for a maximum of three months, and then stop. And then we can say, oh, I'm not . And be in touch with either a teacher or a co-practitioner. If somebody else knows that you're committing a fraud, that helps, too. You could tell your husband. He could say, well, Joe, I thought you said you were going to follow such and such a schedule. And you asked me to, you told me about it so that I could check with you.

[43:29]

And so other people can remind you. And then watch to see if you're coercing yourself. And that's not the fear that we should really be who came to Buddhism not because, well, I don't know, I think most of us came to Buddhism because we wanted to, not because we felt coerced. Right? You know how you started? You thought, that's not cool, can you go check it out? We started at Panic Church because we loved the teaching. We loved the anthologies. And then when we get into it, then we think that's the good that we started because of law. And it can slip into what we have to do. We have to be careful of that. Especially, I think Americans are very susceptible to that, but not just Americans. But we get into making our exercise programs oppressive and coercive, even though we originally want to do them to help the disease.

[44:42]

Or we start practicing yoga, and we start getting tense about relaxing. You must relax. You must stretch your muscles. You have to watch out for that, right? I felt good to make a commitment to me for a certain period of time and stop and see how it goes. I want to say one more thing, which was I do not remember the Samantabhadra in the fall, but it sounded like the first seven or so were all giving. And you talked about getting a whole lot in the fall. And I don't think I understood very well what that meant. But I think that's what was going to happen. I couldn't tell you what they were like.

[45:44]

So it's more about getting than getting. It's more about getting and getting, right? It's more about giving and receiving than giving. Giving and receiving, that's quite important. Giving and receiving, giving and receiving, giving and receiving, all caring about giving. The dedication is, if you could mind the pinpoint, you could dedicate to all the merit of your practice. to all things and things. So if you do these practices, great merit comes up with that practice. Then you take all this merit and you give it away, all being. You're welcome. Did you say keep your distance?

[47:40]

But you came up a little bit closer. That's another thing about practice. We travel long distances to be close. And once we get close, we want to keep distance. The normal kind of paradox about life. Yes, welcome, . Thank you. I came here to practice remembering. You came to practice remembering. I'm curious about the vibration of the mercurial in my belly. The vibration of the mercurial in your belly. Ready? Hear that, in your belly? I went, I set up so that I could have him in my belly could be more exposed.

[48:52]

I can pick up the vibration. Thank you for the wonderful story. You're welcome. Didn't I get up? I did not make it up yet. I did make it up. But I heard some other story that was similar to it. And then, because I heard that other story, I was able to make this story up entirely. But if you read the Lotus, you probably will be able to recognize the story. that I told, as the ancestor of the one I told.

[49:58]

You have to mean you want to, right? Oh, I have to. You have to. In a positive way. You have to in a positive way. I have to. You have to. But I think I'll start from writing, handwriting the 10,000 bodies I posted them last. Yes. I posted them. So I'm posting again. I have a copy. You have a copy. Do you remember when you copied them? It's on top of my copy. And I always that someone can get to it.

[51:05]

I think . Could you speak up, please? Reading and writing. Reading and writing about? . Your action is reading. Your action is lining up with them. You're writing them, which is how you get things back in your body, by reading, reciting, and writing. You have some months and hundreds back bowed on your coffee table. And then you think, well, maybe I should be careful on my coffee table. I mean, already it's coming into your body. We're embodying. We're performing the Buddha way. Actually, it's not a coffee table. It's my personal... It's your personal... ...work table.

[52:10]

...creative work table. ...creative work table. I'm just trickling in. And you know the word celebrate means frequent. It's frequent. And you can also honor. But celebrate means you go back there. So there is the communion between us whatever you want to call it. And we celebrate it. We frequent it. All we're doing. And now we frequent it.

[53:12]

Now we celebrate it. I feel like we're thinking of it. We're thinking. Yes. We think. He's calculating. He's staying on the communion. It's delicious. If I may, I'd like to say something about our relationship with the earth.

[54:40]

I think it's good for everybody, but particularly as we get older, I think it's really, really beneficial to work on our relationships with the earth, with the ground. Literally. It isn't. I don't know if it's over anyway. I heard it said that as we get older. The floor or the ground starts to look farther away. Well, then as we get older, We tend to bend forward, because we want to be closer to the Earth, because it looks so far away.

[55:47]

And as you know, older people, if they fall to the Earth, there's a likelihood of them getting hurt. So because of that, you start to feel like the Earth is really a long way away. So then you start to bend over partly. But also, the earth starts to be not so friendly towards it, because it seems dangerous. So I just think that it's good for us, that's one of the reasons why it's good to sit on the floor, to get down on the floor. But the same reason that we become afraid of the ground a lot more because we think that we might be injured if we fall. It's related to us getting stiff and hard, right?

[56:50]

So that stiffness and hardness make it harder for us to go to the ground, right? But even though it's hard, it's still good, I think, to keep some, you know, to keep some relationship with something other than our feet. But still, frustrations are very good. To come down and touch the ground as you get older. Otherwise, you become more and more afraid of all things. You know, I think, oh, it's going to be really hard to get down there. And then once I get down there, it's going to be really hard to get up. But the more you don't go down because you're afraid of how difficult it will be to get down, and then once you're afraid of how hard it will be to get up, the more you get, the more and more afraid of it.

[57:53]

I just think it's really good. You don't have to go down for a long, long time You don't have to go down and stay there for three hours without moving. Go down for a little while, and then get up again. And you can take your time going down and take your time getting up, because this is a spiritual practice. You're not getting paid for this. Nobody's rushing you to do this. This is putting you This is so you will feel comfortable with the earth and with your aging body. Now, how do I get down there? It's kind of a problem. Little kid just goes plop. But now, as you get all this kind of problem, won't you both work on my knee and in my hip?

[58:57]

Kind of like, let's forget, you know? No, no, no, don't forget. Go down to the earth. Get down there and figure out how to get down. You've hardly found a way to do this and do it over and over. And the more you do it, the more grateful you'll become. Of course, you're also easy. That's exactly what's going on. Yeah, if I get in a situation where I'm not prostrating enough, when I come back and do prostration, it's not as smooth and not as graceful. So when I broke my leg, it took me a long time to be able to prostrate smoothly again. I just really recommend, from now until I die, that you keep getting down on the ground.

[60:02]

Practice rolling your body to the ground carefully, graciously as you can, and then get up. So frustration and sitting on the ground are really helpful. And also try to stand up today and feel the fear of falling. And then go down. The more you go up and down, the more comfortable you're going to be in relationship to this earth. And the more you get careful at it, get in your bodily condition. You can't be aging, but you can age in a way that you're still in rapport with the earth and not so afraid of it. And you can age in a way that you get more and more out of rapport with it and more and more afraid, and then more and more bent over Because you're out of fear. And so, you know, finally you're walking around, you know, kind of like, oh, it's so scary, you know, and all bent over.

[61:08]

Well, if you practice this, you will be able to stand up till the end. And you go down and get up to breathe. You know, you can see it sped up after the line. And he's a great man, I think, in a lot of ways, but they picture him. And he's walking around, you know, he's so crazy to follow you. I don't know, but I don't think that they'll try to attract him. He looks like somebody who did not develop a relationship with his father. But now he looks really scared. But if you do this practice, you won't be so afraid of falling. And if you don't do it, the more you get out of control of it, the more you get afraid of falling. I encourage you to work on your relationship with the ground and bringing yourself and the ground together.

[62:17]

It's more than just your feet. With your hands, with your knees, with your forearms, We did Paul Herod, we did Bach, you know, the more we did that, I keep getting no idea what I'm doing, I leave it to myself. We make the intimate with the earth and the more intimate we are with the earth, the more diverse we will be. Okay? Now we can deal with it.

[62:48]

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