The other thing I was going to say is that those interventions, I think, are usually, I don't know what the situation is, but I've seen many of the legal professional lawyers are alcoholics. And they start getting way out of line in terms of the way they're making it work. You know, you're taking care of their responsibilities and all of that. And every year we go to these seminars where they tell us about interventions because those are the kinds of things that are one of the tools that are used to help get these things under control. But basically, it's the same thing. It's a clear setting of limits you're not controlling. The idea of this way or the highway is actually doing that. What it's doing is making clear in a meaningful way. I mean what I said, you can't keep taking money out of the client's escrow account. If you keep doing that, you're going to have to be disbarred. I can't prevent you from doing it, but I know you're doing it.

[01:02]

And we can't allow it. So it has the same effect. So it is kind of heavy, and it's a difficult thing to do. But in many ways, it can have that same effect of sort of the The thing you're describing about looking her in the eye and making sure she understands what you mean. They don't know exactly what you do about it, but it's clear that wasn't what you mean. So when you look in somebody's eyes, and they look back in yours, they can see. We're smart. Not everybody's smart, but a lot of people are. Most humans are quite smart. When you look in their eyes, it's love. unflinching face the suffering they see. They can see that. That's really the main message. That's what encourages them. And then they got this other information about what you want and consequences. And you know, when you look at them, you look at them and you say, I don't know what you're going to do.

[02:07]

I don't know if you're going to do what I want. I told you what I want. that kid knew that. And I also told you some stuff that's going to happen probably if you do this. But I'm really not trying to control you. I'm just trying to tell you where I'm at and some stuff that's going to happen. Give me information. And I'm willing to face your suffering when I tell If somebody asks you for money on the street, you don't necessarily have to give it to them, but it's really good to look at them when you don't, or do. So if you give them the money and don't look at them, I don't think it's very intimate. It's kind of unilateral. But if you don't give it to them, and you look them in the eye, I think that's really good. And it's really safe. No, or I don't have any money, or I'd be willing to give you some food. Whatever. If you look them in the eye, And that's really, I think, your job, is to meet these people, meet whoever it is. But it's hard to look at people on the street who are suffering around you.

[03:15]

In San Francisco, I heard, this is a story I heard, supposedly, you know, there was a policeman who asked this guy to move, either to move or to or something, or they were going to arrest me for vagrancy or murdering or something. And he said, I can't just go with you. I have to take care of my motorcycle. And he looked over at me, and I knew Harley Davidson. I knew Harley Davidson's cost over $10,000. $30,000. And I said, where did you get the money for that scene? But the motorcyclist said, . Now, maybe he didn't, but he was a street person. All these street persons had brand new Harley. They just couldn't go away and leave. So you have to put it someplace . I don't know if this is a true story, but it doesn't matter so much.

[04:18]

You just look at the people, and you just look at them, and you say, how do you feel? And that's not easy. Do it with anybody. Even somebody who's got a job and works in your same office. Especially. I need some forms for that one. Can I say there's one difference, though? Yes. which is, in this form of intimacy, there's not an agreement. You have an agreed form in the way that I'm talking. So there is a different quality there. So when you say, in this one, there isn't a form, which one are you referring to at this time? I'm saying that what we've been talking about, the conversation with the daughter and the intervention, Those can be intimate, but there's not an agreement with the other person in the same way that there is in the other form you've been talking about. Okay, so let's look at the daughter's situation again.

[05:25]

Where would there be an agreement? She's agreeing to come and talk to me. I say to her, again, teenagers... oftentimes are not available for meetings. So you have to say to her, you have to say to her, we want to have a meeting with you tonight. And then she agrees to come to the meeting, and she comes and sits down. So there is an agreement on the meeting. She did agree to come to the meeting. So there was that. And then in the meeting, Everybody got to say what they felt and what they wanted. The mother got to say what she wanted. She got to say what she wanted. I think she said she wanted to get a job all along. So now we're having a meeting about this job situation, which she willingly came to. Does that make it more about her? Yeah, maybe I'm quibbling here, but I'm just trying to get a sense for whether there's a significance in the fact that the other forms we've been talking about were reaching an agreement in how the form's going to work itself out.

[06:32]

Yeah, I think if, in the case of my daughter's example, we hadn't agreed how the form's going to work out, I think it would have been better to actually come to an understanding of how it's going to work out. So you would say that would have been more intimate? Yeah. Like she said to me, what am I going to do if I move out? What am I going to do? So I said, I think that would be the point. Then you'd have to figure it out. At home, you can stay here without figuring anything out. You just stay here and you don't have to contribute to the house at all. You don't have to clean the house. You don't have to bring any money in. You're just here. And if you get a job, then I think you're doing a reasonable thing for your kid your age. But if you moved out, then you'd have to do that. So that's basically what I said. But if that wasn't clear, I think it would have been more to clear that up. But she seemed to get that, that that would be the consequence if she didn't go out and get a job. So I think she went into her room, and sometime between that point in the morning, she thought, well, I guess I'll go get a job tomorrow.

[07:38]

I guess she did, or at least to look for one, early. And get dressed up for it, which you didn't do before. So you could have taken it in a different direction, too. You could have said, you've either got to get a job, leave the house, or you can find another way to generate some income here so you can start contributing to the family expenses. Yeah, right. Definitely. And in other words, the conversation could have expanded more. It could have involved other options, possibilities. She could have said that, but she actually just After that short kind of thing, she got into her room, but not angrily. That was enough for her. But it could have gone on. It could have got very creative and been more fun, possibly. That would have been fine, too. And I don't know if that would have been better, because the thing that happened the next morning was so beautiful. The space between was very creative, too, I suppose. Her parents were working on it all night, the consequences of that.

[08:43]

But I think, yeah, the more agreement, the more sense. And for an intervention, I think it would be good if you could get the person to agree to come to it. But sometimes they won't come. And in some ways, I don't know what. Can you trick them into coming in a respectful way? Think about it. Look in your heart and say, is it respectful and loving to trick somebody into a meeting? I one time tricked my wife into a surprise birthday party. It was a little disrespectful. And it was a little disrespectful to think that I could fool her into it. But she fell for it. It was amazing. We were driving around San Francisco. And I started to drive to her friend's house. And she said, where are you going? I'm going to Congress House. And she said, what for? I mean, I never go to Congress House.

[09:43]

I said, what for? And I said something or something. But somehow she just said, OK. She went along with it, I don't know how, and we drove up, and I thought she'd catch it because outside of this place is also the cars that we were friends. She didn't recognize any of the cars, and I said, you want to come in with me? And we went outside. And she went in, and there was, you know, I took her. And it wasn't really disrespectful, except I guess somewhat disrespectful in the sense of thinking that she would fall for it. I don't know if she did. Are you sure? I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure. It was really wonderful. Well, that was pleasant. It was very pleasant. It was wonderful. And it was also so much fun to actually take her to this thing.

[10:48]

And she kind of was wondering what was going on. Also, by the way, when you do these surprise birthday parties, it's good to do them way early. Or way late. But way late had the problem of there's already been a birthday party. But way early, you know. They're not necessarily thinking. And sometimes people don't think there's a birthday a week ahead. So they're not thinking, what's going on? It's something strange. I wonder what it is. He was not surprised for his 60th surprise birthday. You were not surprised for your 60th surprise birthday. I was not surprised because somebody took me off. A hundred people were kept a secret from this one guy who said to me, we'll see you at the festivities tonight. And I said, and I said, festivities. And he said, oops. And then he said, you'll like surprise more, Joe.

[11:53]

And I said, no, I won't. And I walked in and people didn't think I looked very surprised. I told people, I said, I'm sorry, I wasn't surprised by this. But what I was surprised by was how I felt when I saw you. I was really surprised. I didn't expect to feel this way. It's really wonderful. But I wasn't surprised. He's the one who told me! Yes, John. What you're touching on now is something that was actually a question for me this morning during the talk. And I guess I would call it the quality of spontaneity.

[12:53]

Yes. As a... I don't know. I'm quite out to say it. But what you expressed in the surprise birthday party to me feels... It rings of intimacy. It rings of loving kindness. It rings of good qualities, things that seem like they should be nurtured, even though it goes against the idea of a form. I think there's other things in life like that that are, at least it strikes me, that would not be things agreed upon that could be, maybe they're implicit. or something that are very intimate, let's call them spontaneity. Well, is that the end? In the example you're using of my birthday party? No, your wife's birthday party. Well, that was a form. The party was a form. The party was a form for me to surprise her and for her friend to be there and love her. That was a form. When is your birthday?

[13:56]

It's your birthday whether you have the party or not. But having the party is a form. It's a ceremony. I'm talking about the surprising quality, though. But the surprising party, the surprise part was she was surprised that the form was there. She was surprised by this event. So the form was there. So in this situation here, I'm suggesting that the relaxation, that this process here, you need forms. You need forms to relax with. If you relax with the forms, it doesn't really cut it, which I'm suggesting. And then if you can relax with forms, then you can be creative and spontaneous with them. But maybe you can give an example of where you think, the example you gave, I thought that was quite a formal situation. The party, I could see how it was. But the people were dragging your wife into taking part in it.

[15:01]

That was even not bilateral, maybe. It's, yeah. Well, like I said, it seems very intimate. Yes. Perfectly intimate. They were. They were. Struggling with seeing how. But you said you sort of tricked her into it. I guess that's what I'm struggling with. She trusted me. Maybe some case where you just out of the blue, let's say, I don't know, something simple like having his collar is up, and I can reach behind her and turn it down. It's not, but it is. I mean, something like that. It's a spontaneous action. It's a gesture trying to help somebody. There's no form that I can see there. I mean, I probably don't know. No, but there was a form. The collar's supposed to be down. There was a form. That's the form. The form is, it belongs this way, and you're fixing it for me. Improvisation in the moment, because there's a form of how it normally would be. You could also flip, take a rock and do something unusual with it.

[16:04]

But you're talking about readjusting in the usual way. You put it in the form. So that's the thing about these forms, is that like, OK. I didn't see the collar was supposed to be down. I guess the piece I'm missing here is the agreement portion of the bi-rater argument. Maybe that's the piece that somehow I'm making an assumption that Catherine also believes that her collar is supposed to be down. Or you're making the assumption that your wife will be pleasantly surprised and won't freak out that she's at a surprise party. I guess that's the piece I'm struggling with is, In the general talk, it sounded more like there should be that agreement and sort of more rigid, I guess, than what we're talking about now. Yeah, so my wife probably wouldn't be in the car with just anybody. And if she was, not just anybody, but she'd let them drive into some strange place.

[17:07]

And so there were various ingredients. Maybe the intimacy was already there. But I think that I'm suggesting that there is perhaps an agreement on what a form is in some situations, and you may assume the person knows the form. And if you're wrong in your assumption that they know the form, then I would suggest that the intimacy of the event will not be as strong. You mistakenly think that they know a form. But if they know a form, then you can be creative and spontaneous with the form if you're sharing it with you and wonderful things could happen. So when you were talking about that, I was thinking about peace in a way. where there's a certain implement that's carried like this.

[18:08]

Like this. You bring it forward, and that's the form. And one time someone carried it like this. They turned it. And the person who turned it was not aware that they turned it. They didn't do this in the spontaneous creative act. But everybody that saw that just thought that was about the funniest thing they ever saw in their life. But if you don't know the form and you see the person do it this way or this way, it means nothing. But when you know the form, everybody agrees on it, and then somebody does this, it's very funny. The more you train it, the funnier it is. It's spontaneous. The person spontaneously, accidentally did it back in the way, right in this way. And also, not only, anyway, there's millions of things that happen in the form of an eternity that wouldn't happen otherwise.

[19:19]

Anyway, the more I think about it, the more it seems like intimacy needs form and bilaterality. And in some cases, you maybe don't see it. And I would say if it's not there, I probably would agree that it would be more intimate if it was. In the case of my wife, the form of her being surprised required that I didn't tell her. My lateral agreement, I think, was between you and her friend to have the celebration of your wife. Yeah, because between you and your friends. To create the party. I guess we all agreed that we thought she'd like to be surprised. Rather than just drive over to her friend's house and go to the party. What's the point of a surprise party? Maybe it's like, I'll call it an implicit form of something, because of your relationship with your wife that without having to explicitly state surprise birthday parties are OK.

[20:27]

That's implied by the other types intimacy that's there. Is that exactly what you're saying? Say it again. That the relationship that you have with your wife, you don't have to state explicitly everything. Surprise birthday parties on June 5th are OK. Surprise birthday parties on June 6th. It's just implied that surprise birthday parties would be something that would be acceptable and OK. Well. To tell you the truth, I think I never discussed with her whether it's a surprise birthday party or not. But what I just want to say is that there is a solution. My understanding of her was that she probably would like this. This particular group of people, that she probably would like to do this. It was a risk. It was a risk. I'm not saying there's no risks. That's part of the spontaneity, is you take a risk. But I'm suggesting. And when risks are taken, or we dive into the realm of risk, when intimacy has been developed, I think it often works out well.

[21:35]

It doesn't mean there's never a mistake or never any problems. It just means that sometimes mistakes and problems are in the learning environment. In this case, I'm telling you a happy story. But when I tell you, if I told you all the unhappy stories of my marriage, then I think, that some of them might have been involved with intimacy. But the problem, the real problem or harm, I can't think of. I'll think about it. I'll meditate on it. But it seemed like most of the problems were from lack of intimacy and lack of bilaterality. Those are most of the problems. But even those sometimes were occasions for when the intimacy was re-established to learn from that mistake. I'm just wondering about the potential spontaneity.

[22:40]

It seems like, to me, that spontaneity and improvisation and those kind of things let creative play sort of depend on having a formal situation to play a dancer and come out of it. And I think that's what the example of the teacup gives. I was just visiting with my former colleagues in Pittsburgh before I went to English to study with Rabbi. I was a teacher at the university, and my literary and theory colleagues were among my friends. And one just told me that the new The new big thing in all this theory, critical theory stuff, is improvisation. And I don't know the ramifications of it, but it's like this new literary critical hot number, improvisation. But it's all about playing against order and established formal structure out of which innovation and improvisation arises.

[23:43]

It doesn't exist without the form. No, what you're hitting, Catherine, you're hitting the nail of what my question was with that. Thank you. Because I see playful and creative, which to me, and Greg, you said we're taking a risk, which to me, I guess, is playing against the norms or the forms to be able to do those sorts of things. And that's, I guess, the piece that I was talking about. Yeah. And we need the forms to do that. But if you have the forms and you don't relax, Because then it's hard to be spontaneous. You take the forms too seriously. If you don't take the forms seriously enough, then I think you don't have creativity. Like if you're a sculptor or whatever, or a dancer, and you don't learn the forms, you're not really very creative. But if you take them too seriously, then you get stuck back before the relaxed part, and you can't be playful. But we need something to push against some form. And like a sculptor, there's The sculptor agrees with the marble, and the marble agrees with the sculptor.

[24:46]

The marble says, I'll be hard. And the sculptor says, I'll hit you. And if they have a good relationship, it's very beautiful what happens. But both parties do their part when they push back and forth. And there's a definite form. The marble works a certain way. And you have to work with that form. But if you don't relax with it, then the marble won't relax either. And then it won't be playful, and the creativity will be not limited entirely, but not fully realized. So again, if you go up to a piece of marble and it's just an acquaintance, you can be informal with it. I don't know what to scratch it, spit on it, pour water on it, trip on it. Fine. Or just walk around it and not touch it. All that's fine. That's not intimate, though. The most intimate thing to do with the marble is what? I don't know what. You tell me. Like sculpting something with it and making a work of art with it is a pretty intimate thing to do with the marble.

[25:55]

And it's a pretty intimate way for the marble to be with you, for the marble to manifest your mind in the world. Michelangelo used to say, I've studied art history, that the marble would tell him what lie beneath the surface. It would tell him who was there. And he would just, it was a conversation. But you can see that the marble, the way the grain works, would tell you the way the piece was made. And I don't know if when he met David, if he had David in mind when he started. He might have. But which David? Where is David's butt going to be? A great butt. I just recently heard that last week they washed David. And the last time they washed David was more than a hundred years ago. So now would be a very nice time to go see David because he's clean. They let it be dirty. They let it accumulate whatever for more than a hundred years.

[26:56]

He's inside in Florence. And there's a copy in the plaza that's really dirty because the pigeons sit on it. So anyway, there's this bilaterality between people, between artists and dance and stuff. But again, my wife, when she said she wanted to learn to dance, she didn't just want to go boogie. She wanted to do a dance, a formal dance. And I'm not saying you can't be intimate with people when you're just doing your thing on the floor. I'm not saying you can't. But you don't have to be. You can just do your thing and your partner does that thing. But in tango, if you're not intimate, it really sticks out. You have to know what the partner... The follower has to listen to the leader. And the leader has to know what the follower... what foot they're on. Otherwise, if you don't know what they're on, you don't know what she can do, what he can do.

[28:01]

So it's very formal and very intimate and very scary and difficult too. And sometimes when you tune into the form, you start to relax. These very creative things happen. Just amazing things happen. Same in martial arts. So once again, you can dance with somebody who you don't know. You don't know anything about how they dance or who they are. And I think that's fine. But I think when you start getting intimate with them, you have to start knowing what forms are intimate. What are they up for? What are they not up for? Where do they agree on? What have you agreed on? Where's the risk? Where's not the risk? All that. Shall we go meditate a little bit before dinner? Is that enough for now? Does anybody want to say anything else before we return?

[29:07]

Let me just have a real quick question. What you read us this morning, was that Tetsugika? Tetsugika. It's his record of his last, of Dogen's last instructions to him. And basically, Dogon was hesitant to make him abbot because he didn't really have grandmother mind? It wasn't to make him abbot because his other disciple was going to be the abbot. But he was hesitating to give him the dharma transmission to make him the successor. So Koen Ejo was already the successor and was going to be the next abbot. But Tetsuki Kan was going to be like, run the monastery. And he was more skillful at being an administrator than Ejo was. But Ejo was the senior person. Ejo was even older than Dorby. So he was going to be the abbot. But he wasn't yet ready to give a tetsugi kind of Dharma transmission because of his dualistic attitude about practice, actually.

[30:11]

And he thought that there was something other than enacting the Dharma in our activity, that there's some other Dharma. But he died before he could do that. He thought that if he came back from Kyoto that they could do that, but he never came back. So every time I read that, I cry when he says, this is the last time I saw Dogen. So then he was left with that kind of legacy to work it out for himself. What did you mean by grandmother to mine? Yes, right. And then during the 18 months after Dogen died, During that time, he thought about it, and during that time, he kind of like, he changed. His mind changed and he felt whole. He actually could see that he disagreed with his teacher. He knew what Dogen was saying, but there was a certain aspect he disagreed with. And the part he disagreed about was Dogen. The place he didn't disagree with Dogen was the place where Dogen was pointing at his lack of grandmother mind. He wasn't even saying he wasn't a nice person.

[31:12]

He just said he wasn't loving enough of making everything, all actions put in order. That was his logic. But then he got it in an 18-month period. And then he became an age-old successor. And he became the third abbot of the age. So I've been thinking about that because I have a grandchild. And my feelings and the way I feel I am with that child so different than when I was a mother and the way I was with my son. It's vastly different. And I thought it was a really wonderful analogy because it's so subtle. I mean, it is and it isn't. But I'm much more relaxed with my granddaughter. And I have a lot more joy with her. And I'm able to just be playful with her. You know, whereas it wasn't that way so much when I was a mother.

[32:15]

Yeah. A lot of mothers, well, are too serious with their kids. And it's hard not to be serious because you've got this life and death situation. The grandparents have the mother doing that. So they can be a little bit more relaxed. That's true. But actually, what I'm trying to do now is to get more formal with my grandson. And it's something not exactly taken too seriously, make things a little bit more serious between us in a way. A little bit more formality, which makes it more like a father than a nice old grandfather when anything's okay. So you may want to also move in that direction later. Especially it's good to be ready to do that when the child wants to get away from their parents, which comes later. But it is, that's the wonderful thing about current parents, It's great to be with them, but it's also... That's part of the reason why you don't have to, why it's not so serious.

[33:20]

It's because, you know, you can get a break. Somebody else's problem. But the mother and the father, they don't get a break, and especially mothers often doesn't get a break. So everything's really kind of like high stakes. Because you have to deal with all the consequences. That's why a lot of mothers, when they take their kids over to the grandparents, they tell the grandparents, don't do this, this, and this, because I would have to deal with the consequences. A lot of grandparents want to give their kids lots of sweets or something. But then the mother has to deal with the kid when they get home. And they're just stoked up about the sweets. They don't feed them that stuff. So grandparents get disciplined and not get too lenient. And I must admit. I sometimes think of, you know, I could be a lot more popular with him if I gave him a certain stroke. In the short run. In the short run, yeah. Yeah, in the short run.

[34:21]

You know, sometimes you're tempted for short-run thrills. With my grandson. Well, I like the analogy. So let's see, maybe we could go back and sit for a little while, and then walk for a little while, and sit for a little while. Can you maybe, who's the time that we could talk about how long a next period?

[34:57]

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