Something I wanted to say to you at the beginning of this retreat, I said kind of at the beginning of the retreat that I did in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Lisa was there, because I didn't want to bother Lisa too much. And then I said at the beginning of the retreat in Kentucky, so I didn't want to bother Matt and Judy, because they heard it before. But I didn't want to say it to you. And then there's a bunch of other stuff that I say in San Francisco I didn't want to bother Catherine by saying it again. But there's some kind of things that I kind of, there's certain things which I have to say, which I don't think are often said, that I would like to get out there on airwaves. And one of them was that that shortly before I went to St.

[01:03]

Paul, I was talking to one of the priests at Green Gulch, and he confessed to me that there's certain things going on at Green Gulch that he doesn't support. He doesn't like what's certainly going on, and he doesn't want to support me. And he said that his confession is, generally speaking, to try to support what's going on in the community. He particularly doesn't like to support fundraising. He doesn't like to ask people for money at the Center. It's part of his job sometimes. And my first response to him was, well, actually, but you do support everything that's going on at the Center. But what I mean is not so much support in the sense that you like everything that's going on, But at some level, we support what's going on in this world.

[02:04]

Or anyway, if you can't stand the word support, then I would say we contribute to everything. We influence everything. We're part of everything. So we may really feel that a lot of stuff is happening with our government. We really don't like it. But in some sense, we are contributing to it, all of us. And therefore, we are responsible for what's going on in this world. We're responsible for what our government does. We're responsible for what other governments do. We're responsible for terrorism. We are contributing to the terrorism because we're together, all of us. We're also contributing to the good things that happen. We're responsible for those, too. But oftentimes, people feel that they're responsible only when they're in control. So if something happens and they have no sense of control, then they're not responsible.

[03:10]

But I think I often use the example of when it rains, you didn't make it rain. The rain's not under your control, but you're responsible for the rain. And particularly, you're responsible in the sense You can respond to the reading. You can get umbrellas out. You can roll the windows up in the cars. You can tell the children to come inside or go out, whatever direction you want to suggest. But we are responsible. I feel we are responsible, all of us, for everything. It's not a matter that some things are happening we don't like, and we're not responsible for those. We're only responsible for things we do like. We contribute to everything, I feel. And not just me, but you too, all of us. So we are responsible. So the question is not something that... Of course the question is not the question. Sometimes we feel like we really don't like things that are happening, but we are responsible. So to me the question is always, what positive contribution can we make to all the different situations?

[04:18]

So now we have this horrendous what seems to be a war to me, but anyway, this horrendous activity of our military force causing all this suffering in this country and also causing all this suffering to our country. And we're responsible, and so what positive contribution can we make? That's the ongoing question for me. What positive contribution can we make? I am contributing, but is it positive? So I just wanted to say that, even though I said it in St. Paul and said it in Kentucky. And earlier today, Ms. Randigan said she wanted to talk about addiction. I would like to ask, yes.

[05:21]

What do you want to grasp there? I'm curious about it in terms of Buddhism because I'm wondering How do you look at it in terms of ? Because it seems that a lot of addictions that I've worked with in myself, some of them I seem to be born. But then I think at times it's hard. And I look at other people with addictions and multitude. I guess my question is, why are some people seem to have a lot of addictions and others don't, and all the way from birth on. I mean, is that karmic obstruction? That's my question. That's my question. Why are some people seeming more addicted than others? But I will... So I'll just say a few things about it, okay?

[06:25]

This is not Buddhism talking, this is me talking backwards, okay? the first, what we call the first teaching of the Buddha, it's called the scripture of setting the wheel of dharma and rolling. He said something like, generally speaking, there are two extremes which someone who goes forth on the path avoids. And they are the extreme of addiction to indulgence and sense pleasures. an addiction to self-mortification. He didn't say that it's an extreme to indulge in sense pleasure, which means to yield to sense pleasure. He didn't say that that was an extreme. If sense pleasure arises, it's OK to yield to it. Sometimes self-mortification arises. Sometimes, you know, it's cold outside, but you can go outside.

[07:32]

Sometimes it's good to go outside in this cold. Or maybe missing me or whatever. But it's not self-mortification that's the extreme or indulgence in sense pleasure. It's the addiction to them. It's the habitual, sentimental inclination towards them that's the extreme. And in terms of what I've been talking to you about, I would say that addiction is basically avoidance of your life. It's avoidance of intimacy with your life, with the difficulties and pleasures of your life. So you can use sense pleasure as an addiction, in other words, to take you away from your life. Pleasure doesn't have to take you away from your life, but to use it as a means to get away from ordinary suffering, or to use self-mortification to take yourself away from ordinary suffering.

[08:36]

That's the extreme of the Buddha. So now we have children who who cut themselves, right? That's one of the latest things. They cut themselves. But they feel good when they cut themselves because it distracts them from their anxiety, they say. They like it. Because when they cut, they get a little bit far away from the ordinary, almost unbearable suffering. So that's basically what I feel about addiction. You know this woman, I think is it Marian Wigman? Do you know her? Did she write Addiction to Perfection? Yes, right. So, her books about addiction to perfection, some people use perfection as a way to get themselves away from their life. Some people use overwork. Some people even use Buddhism. Anything you use to get yourself away from your life, I would say that's an addiction. So you said this thing, some people seem to be born with addictions, and I would say we are born with an addiction.

[09:45]

We're born with the addiction of seeing ourself as separate from our life. We innately look at our experience as though it were out there, separate from our world and ourself. So we are born, in a sense, addicted We were born to see things in this false way that removes us from intimacy with our life and to believe that. And these other addictions are ramifications of it. So we're highly inclined to addictions by the basic one. And the basic one hurts, and then we try to fix the basic one by basically the same thing over in some other realm. So the medicine is to try to find somewhere to get back to your life, to get back in there and gradually work yourself back down to the most basic addiction, which is this sense of separation from your experience, that there's you in your experience, or there's you in your feelings, or there's you in your body, or there's you in your mother, or there's you in the earth.

[11:06]

That's the basic mistake. It's the basic withdrawal from intimacy. And if you do these other ones, they can keep you away from the basic one. So practitioners need to give up a lot of the other addictions to get down to the basic one. And so therapies with other addictions are good. And when they finish those addictions, then they're ready for the big one. And that's the toughest one, because it's innate. We're not innately drug addicts. We're not innately alcoholics. We're not innately smokers. We're not innately overeaters or undereaters. Anorexia is another addiction in a way, isn't it? Stuck yourself in an attempt to get away from this feeling that you have before you stuck yourself, and then

[12:08]

and do the other thing to keep yourself away from the feeling you have after you stop yourself. All these, we have to get over all those and then we're back home to our basic one, which my grandson has. But he doesn't have many other addictions yet. He hardly even has an addiction to sugar. He'd like to, but he can't get his hands on it. He's got a little bit of addiction to toys. But, you know, and he's going to probably have to get more addicted when he can get over those addictions until he can get back to his basic one when he's older. Sex can be addiction. Food can be addiction. Sleep can be addiction. Anything we use basically to get away from our life, I would say is addiction. And why do some people do it more than others? I think it's probably, again, a common situation. Some people grow up in families where there's lots of people are drinking, so they think it's normal, so they do it.

[13:14]

Where people are smoking. Or they grow up in a society where there's advertising making smoking cool. Like you suffering? Look at these people here. They're cool. are they doing they're smoking why do you think they're so cool why is it so happy because they're smoking you try it you try it but after a while you start like it does take you away from being you know takes you away then you come back it's a little worse so various circumstances contribute to And that's how we can harm each other, by taking a basic person who's got a basic addiction, and they get amplified. Some people wind up in more addictive environments than others. And some people are just, you know, some people I could say are more sensitive than others. More sensitive. So it's hard for them to tolerate the suffering of the basic addiction. And so they're more vulnerable.

[14:17]

They're at risk. But some people are at risk of surrounding it by a nice environment, and then somehow it doesn't happen. And also, another environmental fact is sometimes your parents are so hell-bent on you not being addicted to things that you fight back and get addicted. So there's millions of patterns that can... But the point is, we're all... Basically, at birth, there is basic addiction, which is basic avoidance of the internet with our life problems. Life is basically not that difficult. But when you make it external to yourself, then it gets really hard. It's somewhat difficult, even if you're not deluded, it's still somewhat difficult. Because there's still heat and diaper rash and stuff like that. It's, you know, the flu. There's still some problems and discomforts.

[15:19]

But they're not nearly as bad as the discomfort of believing in separation. That's what really scares the kids. That's the most horrible thing, to be separated from mom, right? But they feel scared of separating from mom when she's right over there. Because they see her as separate. So it isn't just when mom leaves the room that they're scared. They're scared she's going to leave the room. And they're scared that she's more than six feet away, or whatever. They see her as separate. So they're scared, and they're anxious, and they want mom to come back and tell them it's all OK. So mom does. But they don't get over it. So anyway, I don't know. So essentially, you're saying we're all eyes? Well, until we're quite enlightened, we're addicted, in the sense that our mind works in a way that removes us.

[16:26]

from directly facing what's happening in an intimate way. We naturally distance ourselves from our experience, or we distance the subject from the object naturally. And we're into that habitually, and it's the basic pattern of addiction. Making a buffer or a space between yourself and your life, putting your life out there, putting the people you're eating with out there. We all naturally, innately do that. By practice, you can stop believing that separation and get over it. Even when the appearance of separation is there, you can say, I know they look like they're out there, but I don't believe it. And so, yeah, so you end over your addiction. But it requires a lot of training to get over it. So we start. We're born that way. By training, by mind and body training, we can get over it. That's the proposal of the tradition. And other traditions, too.

[17:29]

Like I said the other night, yesterday, the proposal of the myth of a born psyche is that you can get over the separation of the soul and blood. You can get over that. But there's a lot of work. And you can get back to the gardening of Eden by a lot of work. And so. She gets a lot of help from that. And also, she gets a lot of help. In Christian anthropology, there's a lot of help to that. Right. So you don't get back on your own. But again, that makes sense because your problem is you feel alone. So you're alone, but working together with all beings, you can get over the sense of separation. And again, remember, alone is all one. That's the origin of the word. Are there positive addictions, like addiction to sitting or addiction to listening to teachings? Listening to teaching is positive, but if you use listening to teaching to take away from your life, that's not good.

[18:37]

Listening to teaching and sitting upright is good. Jogging is good. Yoga is good. Eating good food is good. But being addicted to it, to use exercise to get away from your life, that aspect of the exercise, the addictive quality of the exercise is not good. The exercise is good. Telling the truth is good, but to tell the truth as a way to get away from your life isn't so good. So I don't think addictions are positive. I think they're, you know, again, The root of the word sin is sunder, split. So the basic sin is to split yourself, is to split something that's really wrong. So when you're exercising, if you use the exercise to get yourself away from your life, then that's the addiction. It's a sundering of your exercise program into exerciser and...

[19:44]

the life of the exerciser. And which also makes you, of course, get into greed and aversion around whatever the activity is. All these afflictive emotions arise around something that's basically meant to be help, you know, help your . So people start running or jogging or exercise or yoga. They start to do it as a wholesome activity. And you just flip into making an addiction and then it starts to backfire because they get wound up if they can't do it, because they're using it to get away from their life rather than do something that's good. So that's why we try to do something for ourself rather than do it to get away. Does somebody have their hand up? It all goes back to what you've started, all this about intimacy avoidance, intimacy avoidance of being honest with myself.

[20:49]

Avoiding pain causes pain, I guess, if you will. Avoiding the truth, avoiding life causes discomfort, causes addiction, causes problems. It's OK to move away from pain at the field. But to skip over the human, that's separating yourself from life at the moment of your pain. But if you feel pain, it's okay to take your hand out of the fire. But to... Well, a friend of mine actually burned himself almost to death because he was so intoxicated one time that he was experiencing pain, but he had so much alcohol in him that he didn't feel it. He used it. But he was in a bathtub, basically, taking a bath.

[21:55]

And... But if you're so drunk, you just almost kill yourself. So if you're in a scalding bath, it's fine to get out of the hot water. But first of all, feel the hot water. Don't be in a condition where you don't even feel anything. So we can avoid pain. It's distancing yourself from pain and fear that's the addiction. Well, I may be living my life so afraid of experiencing that, the idea of that even, the idea of that bathwater and the idea of certain things in life. Once you start distancing yourself from your life, then you get more and more afraid of your life. It's just like sometimes once you get close to somebody, it's fine, and then you're away from them for a while, and you get scared to get back. Even though you used to be with them, And now, since you've been distanced, you're afraid to close the gap again.

[22:58]

I can remember one time I went, my daughter came to the airport when I was coming back from Japan. I'd been away for about a month. And she met me at the airport, and we were coming out of customs. And she saw me, and she just ran to me. And then suddenly, she stopped and got shy and moved away. That's the irony. As she got closer, you know, it's kind of like, it's a rough part of the eye work, but it's this basic separation thing that we fought for. And then the fear comes up, and then addiction kicks in. Anything else about this you want to bring up? What's the first mental clue that you're falling into addiction? The first? I mean, what's some indication? Well, one would be, again, if you're in a state And then you want to do something to get out of it.

[24:19]

And then you notice that you didn't even really feel the thing before you did the thing to get out of it. So, for example, if you're hungry, It's not really a problem to eat. If you've got low blood sugar, it's a good idea to get something in a more normal range. In fact, some Zen groups, they say, your responsibility is to keep your blood sugar at a good level. We want you all to do that. So maintaining a blood sugar level relatively good level is actually a wholesome, skillful thing to do. So if you notice this level and you feel kind of uncomfortable, it's good to sort of try to score some food. But if That feeling that you have of the low blood sugar level is one that you don't move that face and embrace.

[25:25]

And you skip over it to go get the food, get yourself out of it. Getting out of it is fine. But if you skip over it, or if you keep your blood sugar level high all the time so that you never have to feel it, That's like you're not feeling it. So I think the thing, when you notice that you're skipping over the experience, or that you're not being present, and then you're doing something, you keep yourself away from the thing that you're not being present for, that's kind of a sign of addiction. But if you have low blood sugar and you go, oh, I feel it. And this is like, It's time to make some efforts here to receive some food. And you feel it now. Almost even groove on it. Embrace it fully.

[26:27]

And then say, it's time to eat. Like somebody said to me about eating, how do you tell how much to eat? I said, well, there's various, like somebody said, can you think of some forms to help you figure out a skillful way to eat? And they said, well, one is just approach the food and see if you salivate. If you salivate, your body probably wants to eat it, whatever it is. It's hard to actually do that test if you don't have something to eat in the mouth. We're to the south. And so that one . Yes? I smell Burger King. Sometimes, right? I smell Burger King. And we had other meat eaters one time in our house. But there's just something about the smell. So I'm salivating, but I know that's the wrong thing to do under any circumstances. Well, it may be wrong to eat Burger King, but it doesn't mean it's wrong to eat.

[27:28]

Or a barbecue at my neighbor's house. Right. It doesn't have a burning music. Right. It doesn't mean you should eat the meat, but it probably means you're hungry. So if you go up to a barbecue table, and even they have certain dishes there which are not good for your health, you may salivate at those dishes. But if you didn't have those dishes, if some other dishes were there, you probably would salivate at those too. But I think you get to a certain point where you won't salivate at the barbecue. If you eat a nice meal, then you might not salivate at the Burger King. However, you still might like that small burnt flesh, but you might not salivate. So it's possible to grow up to food that smells good, but not salivate, because your body says, yeah, this smells good, but I don't want to eat it. But anyway, I'm saying this is a possible form. And not everything that you're attracted to should you eat. So among the things you should eat, among the things that are good to eat, even those, you shouldn't necessarily eat them indefinitely.

[28:35]

And how do you tell when you've had enough? Stop eating for a little while, and check out your salivation level, and stay salivated a few times. Get up over to the food and see if you're salivating. And if you do, you can do, maybe you can eat some more. Maybe your body wants some more. It's just a suggestion and just an example of feeling your body. That's all. Feel it. And do the appropriate thing when you feel it, rather than eat before you check whether you're hungry. A lot of people go to eat, but they don't stop and think, am I hungry? Am I low sugar level? Am I salivating? That's one thing. Then as you approach it, then, is this decent food? That's another question. Is this good food? Am I allergic to it, or does it have things in it that aren't good for my health? So I actually still like a lot of food that's not so good for my quality.

[29:38]

I really like butter, but I don't eat very much butter anymore because If you put butter out there, or some certain things have butter in them, I'll sell it. It can do great. But at a certain point, I won't sell it, even if the most delicious dish is out there. That's the way it works for me. But I have to stop and check. If you skip over your experience, I don't think you slip into addiction. It's related, but it's just an automatic more. Automatic more. I like that word more, and I'm not really fully appreciating the efforts here before I mentioned for you. And of course, that can happen. With anything like, if you're having a pleasurable experience, you don't, you flee from the pleasant experience and think about how can you have another release.

[30:41]

Before you even experience the pleasure for it, you're thinking, geez, I'd like to do several more of these. So you miss the pleasure. You're not trying to avoid pain. you're trying to avoid pleasure. And you're successful by thinking about the next thing. And you feel bad. You think, this is ridiculous. Here I am, missing the taste of this thing, or the sight of this thing, or the smell of this thing, or the sound of this thing. Fleeing to what? How can I do a whole bunch more of these? Or how can I have permanent installment of these? So it's that kind of fleeing more than what you did. Again, like also when you meet somebody, sometimes you're having a really nice conversation, a really nice conversation, you're really glad to talk to that person, and then you say, what next? Now what should we do? Rather than just stay here with this nice meeting, think, well, what should we do now?

[31:43]

Because you just can't stand to be there with this nice meeting. Well, let's talk about the future of our relationship, right? President is so great, but makes us want to talk about our future. What? I've been so there. It's right out of the movies, right? These people, they're on the patio, you know? You know, there's a beautiful dance, and they go out on the patio, and there's the moons out, and they look at each other, and they go... And one of them says, well, should we go someplace? Should we go to my house or your house? Just stand there and be there. Can't just, like, do this, like... And the movie has this, this is it, the script and everything also, you know. Well, how about a movie where they stand up, they're helpless in the presence of this love? Yikes. They just melt that and patty it. Not so interesting, right?

[32:49]

So what they do is they do something, and then they do it, and then afterwards, and, you know, there's this comedy. And the rest of the story. Like, okay, we blew this thing, rather than facing it, and now we feel really ashamed. And maybe we even have some precepts along the way, which makes the story all the more interesting. And all the more wonderful tragic comedy. But just to stay there in meditation together on the deck, so intimacy with no escape, It's like, well, this is another story about the Buddha. We had one of those this month. We don't need another one. Anything else? Yes, a question that I asked to ask, if this would be an appropriate time to ask it.

[34:06]

If you'd like to ask, go ahead. I'm interested to know, this morning when, during the Dharma talk, there was talk about addiction. By a show of hands, if you're interested in raising your hand, how many people became afraid or anxious? During the talk about addiction, when... I don't really know who's... About depression? About depression, yeah, depression. It sort of rolled together in my mind. I'm just interested in the group, how we responded organically to that, how many people in the group were anxious. I certainly were. I'm just wondering how many other people were. Anxious one. Thank you. Why don't you tell us more about your experience, and then you can ask. Was that okay? Yes. So you felt anxious. What else did you feel? Like escaping. You wanted to escape? Wanted to escape.

[35:06]

What, to go walk in a garden or something? So you wanted to escape. You felt anxiety. What else did you feel? Did you feel tense? And that would deal with anxiety. Okay. Does he feel tense and anxious and want to escape? And curious about, does anybody else deal with? Okay. And you didn't ask them, so you're asking now. Does he want to know if anybody else felt tense, anxious, or wanting to escape? I don't feel anything's on the invisible. But at the same time, I felt attracted I'm enticed by it because all the calmness and proper joy and it's a little bit makes me anxious. It's amazing.

[36:08]

I don't know how it does that for me. I'm making confusing chaos in my house. In the back of the neighborhood. I felt anxious and wanted to fix it, and that's not with the chore. And when I'm fixing it, of course, it usually configures the more anxiety. But that's not, I feel anxious. Catherine, share your feet. And Michelle, so did you try to fix it? No. I mean, I wasn't sitting there, I've got to fix this. I mean, I expressed myself, but I think part of it... Do you think you're up to a little bit fixing it there? Yeah, I think some of my intention in expressing myself was an intention, a kind of intention, that I'm supposed to just simply express. Can you say something about that?

[37:11]

You may. When you see anxiety, if you try to fix it too fast, then the fixing thing isn't kind of an addiction. If you settle with the anxiety and say, okay, okay. Does anybody want me to fix this? Yeah. And people might say, no, it's okay, we're anxious with you, but you have to fix the cancer. And you can say, well, could I please settle? I'd still like that. Well, Catherine, could you wiggle one? Let's say, okay. Let's just settle with it first, and then see if we want to fix it. And then maybe, okay, Catherine, now you can fix it. You might say, well, I don't want to anymore. I'm, you know, I can't, you know, I'm unsettled now. I don't need to. So you've got to sort of watch and see, are you trying to get out of it?

[38:16]

before we feel it fully, and then you're absolutely addicted to that. And you kind of wanted to get out of it, but was your impulse to escape a little bit ahead of fully embracing it? And so that's probably what people look at. So thank you for giving me that. Did you want to say something, Virginia? I just wanted to clarify whether the discomfort was because of the subject matter or because of the energy of the interaction. Ooh. For me, it's change itself, the energy of the exchange, or the actual question. Yeah. Well, you could ask Bob to say, I guess. Is it the energy or the topic? Is it the topic or the energy? Probably both, but I think it shaves towards content. Energy. I think it's like a roller coaster ride, but you kind of get anxious, but it's accelerating and has a nice energy to it at the same time.

[39:37]

I guess I kind of feel a little bit right now, like, and my cold, it kind of sort of removed, because I didn't feel, I mean, I watched it happening, and I just felt it was part of what was going on. And, like, does that make me remove, too much remove, that's kind of cold. I think it's good to be open to the possibility that you might be, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're, it's possible that you're, that you're called fish, but it's also possible that you're a bit of a Buddha. Like, again, some people experience pain, and they just look at people, and they experience pleasure and say, that's pleasure. You don't get, like, whomped up when they experience pleasure, or whomped down when they experience pain, you know. They just said, oh, that was mighty painful there.

[40:48]

That was mighty pleasurable. And then some people say, well, it's kind of cold that they don't get warmed up. But they may not be hot about the pleasure, hot about the pain, but they might be hot about something else, like helping someone. So the difficulties in the situation, we might not have worked up about. Maybe something else we might have worked up about that would be helpful. But still, it's possible that you're like, you also get just a little sleepy, you know. If somebody was like half asleep, they probably might have noticed too much. Oh, that is lunch. But like the Tenzel was like so, the Tenzel was so joyful about cooking lunch, just nothing touched it. So there's a lot of possibilities. But one of them is that you're totally checked out of your life. Always that's possible. Don't cross that off the list. I guess I was a little maybe like John.

[41:59]

I wasn't caught up in the energy at all. I was watching how the exchange, and I was learning from how you were responding to the situation where you didn't take this for climate personally, and you didn't react defensively, which I think would have escalated things, and you seem to me to be fully attentive. I mean, I just saw a lot of things happening on your part that I thought was a really good teaching situation for me in watching how skillfully I thought I could handle that situation, whereas I'd been more exposed to other skillful handling of situations like that. And I see how they escalate and turn into something really tense.

[43:02]

And I thought that your upbringing of the comments that were offered by the different people in the room, I thought it was a really good opportunity in action of what you're teaching. So you didn't feel particularly tense or anxious? I didn't. No. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. You know, a lot of times it's just, you know, sometimes the position of your body in the ring makes a difference. Because it's the energy thing. Sometimes the energy moves in the ring a certain way, and if your body's turned another way, you don't pick it up as much as somebody else is in a different position. So there's a lot of reasons. But you were just in that. That was your experience. I don't think you have to feel the same as everybody in the room.

[44:11]

And actually, you don't feel the same as everybody in the room, because you're one of the people in the room. And you can feel different. But I think Bob was probably one that he wanted to know. Was he the only one who felt that? That's part of what you're asking, right? And on this point, it felt to me like the whole thing had solidified into an icy block. It was like the whole room was, you know, it was unilateral projection by me at that point. Yes, so apparently the whole room was not that way. Apparently not. But to some extent, it was going on in a wider way than just your body. Are we talking about Aikido or martial arts? Because then it's like, you know, push, pull, tumbling. You know, so that whole feeling, I think, is what I felt more, is that type of play, is more play. I have to agree. I was like Nancy. I was watching how skillfully would you handle this situation, because I'm not very skillful at handling kind of interactions like that.

[45:12]

And it was like watching a martial arts thing, you know. And then... The thing I particularly appreciated at the end was affirming how difficult it might have been for people to initiate their comments. I thought that was particularly helpful and taught me a lot. Yes. I found it fascinating in the way that this was was it was jarring in the sense that here we've been talking about for the last few days communication intimacy you don't get over separateness and this was like a parallel example of the separateness manifesting itself it seemed to me so so it would be when it came out it was sort of like It hit me like a brick, because it was so different from the way that he meant it to happen.

[46:15]

But I think it was great in the sense that it had to get more true. And I think it was just a great example of how we have this problem to start with. And here, it manifested itself right in the middle of us talking about it. And he was able to show us how to get through it and get by it. And I think everybody did that. Yeah, everybody did that. in that way. It was a group thing. And I was in a certain position, but it was a group thing. So yeah, it's pretty good. Yes? I was also noticing that I was projecting Or imputing onto man my own history and thinking, like, oh, I know how that is. I felt that way before.

[47:15]

I understand that energy. I don't really know what was going on with her. But I thought, you know, I'm relating to her. I understand that. But, you know, totally imputing, like, my experience onto... whatever was happening with her, thinking I understand her, you know, understand, getting worked up about things. I don't know what was going on with her. I mean, you know, that's like my stuff, not knowing at all what's really... I guess I wasn't being intimate with her. Do you want to say anything? How are you feeling? What do you need me to do now?

[49:05]

Let him see us. I couldn't hear you. Come, young. Would you like me not to talk to you? As you wish. Well, I'd like to invite you to say how you feel. Well, I stand by my earlier assessment that psychiatric disease should not be trivialized in any context.

[50:16]

And I would say that I don't think anything should be trivialized. So I agree with you that disease, psychiatric or otherwise, I don't think any suffering should be trivialized. So I agree with you. I had this fantasy that some of the people in this group are afraid to hurt the man.

[51:52]

Does anybody have it? Anybody a little bit afraid of hurting her? What do you mean by afraid of hurting her? Well, I feel like some of the people in the room are a little bit tense. and don't feel like they can talk to Nan, and maybe they feel like they might hurt her if they do? I'm afraid I don't think you did hurt her. You're afraid you did hurt her. So one person's afraid she did hurt Nan. Yes, Gita? I have a feeling that people are afraid to disagree with the teacher. Are you afraid to disagree with the teacher? No. But do you think some of the other people are? I don't think so. Anybody afraid to disagree with your teacher? Yes? I don't think I'm speaking it. You're quite old. You start with two L's. What? Thank you.

[53:07]

Are you afraid to disagree with the teacher? Well, I'm afraid to disagree with you because I told you you had work to do. But you're just kidding, right? I was being playful, so you'll never know. Great. I do think that your discussion on bilateral was a great way of opening a door for people to disagree with you.

[54:15]

And you have demonstrated over the time we've been together the need to hear both sides. I applaud you for that. I think that's wonderful. And so I don't think I would be afraid to disagree with you. Sometimes I think, though, that you've sought things... I don't know if you're smarter than me, but... But it's possible. Sure. I do think you're more educated. I mean, I think you've thought this through more thoroughly than I have, and I don't know that I could argue well or... match it point for point. Right, but you feel invited to argue with me. Yes. I hope. Yes, and I find it challenging, and I learn from that. Thank you. Like I said, it practice tango dancing. And you dance with people that are more skillful than you, and you get better by dancing with people who are better with you.

[55:20]

You also get better by dancing with people who aren't as good and helping them grow. You also grow in another way by dancing people with more experience. But they are more experienced. Look, you are dancing more. And it's a dance.

[55:35]

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