...brought up the issue of ultimate concern. Ultimate means final, so the final concern. Our final concern might also be the initial concern of bodhisattvas. Their initial concern is to realize complete, authentic awakening for the welfare of all beings. That's their initial concern. But it also is their ultimate concern. So the arising of this wish to, aspiration to perfect awakening for the welfare of all beings is something which bodhisattvas, they aspire to this awakening and they aspire to remember

[01:29]

that this is their aspiration. I hear that they never forget. Other times I hear that they do sometimes forget, but when they forget this aspiration to awakening, then they go back always thinking of the greatest welfare for others, all others. And included within this mindful awareness of this aspiration are these practices

[02:37]

these of the bodhisattvas, the practices of giving, of mindful attention to ethics, mindful attention to all actions, patience, enthusiastic effort, concentration, and wisdom. All these bodhisattva practices are included when we're fully engaged in meditation. Oftentimes in Zen sessions, concentrated on concentration.

[03:45]

They are making an effort to be silent and still and concentrated. Such effort is included in the to Great Awakening. And in addition to Training and concentration we also have. Training and giving. Mindfulness of all actions of body, speech, and mind. Patience with any physical or mental difficulty. Patience with any coming towards us. Joyful exertion of these practices and wisdom.

[04:52]

To juggle often is recommended to start with one ball. For example, the aspiration to realize awakening of all beings. Just throw that ball up and down, moment by moment, see if you can remember that ball. The welfare of others, yeah, welfare of others, others' welfare. I want to help others, I want to be helpful to others. Help others, help them help others. Moment by moment remember to realize enlightenment for the welfare of others. And see if you can remember that, keep that ball

[06:03]

and your heart bouncing around. And then the giving ball. Giving, giving, giving. Let every action be giving. Let every action be a gift. let every action being an offering an offering to the Satvas and all sages and make that offering for the welfare of all living beings. During Sashin offered this period of sitting this Dharma meeting, we can offer this, make this a gift to the Buddhas.

[07:11]

And the merit of this offering to the Buddhas we then dedicate to the welfare of all living beings. At the beginning of each period, in every moment of each period, every moment of sitting can be a gift. can be an offering. Not sitting to get something from something to get anything, sitting as a gift. Sitting as giving, sitting as a gift. This is what I brought up yesterday. And after bringing it up, I was somewhat mindful of the practice of giving for the rest of the day. I enjoyed remembering the practice of giving throughout the day.

[08:17]

During tea yesterday afternoon, I was surprised as I lifted my green teacup up my mouth to drink some tea, I was surprised that that doesn't seem like a gift. I thought, this doesn't exactly seem like a gift offered to the welfare of all beings. And halfway up, I said, well, it's okay, it is a gift. I can drink this tea as a gift to all beings. Yeah. It was a little surprising at first, but I adapted, and it became a gift. And then when I put it down, and then I thought, well, how about chip cookies as a gift? How about breaking it into bite-sized pieces?

[09:28]

Breaking the cookie as a gift. Eating that sugar as a gift? I'm eating the sugar. I want it to be a gift. I ate the whole cookie as a gift. I put the teacup down as a gift. I sat several periods yesterday, and in each period I gave myself. I gave myself to the sitting. I said, I give myself to sitting. Sometimes I was comfortable and I gave myself to sitting when I was comfortable. I gave the comfortable me to sitting. Sometimes I was a little uncomfortable.

[10:30]

I gave the uncomfortable me to sitting. I gave the feelings of discomfort, I gave myself to sitting. And I gave the sitting And I received support to make these gifts, the support of past karma of talking about the practice of giving, the support of the tradition to practice giving, and the support of all of you. And I even had the thought, I wonder how many other people are practicing giving. I wonder if they thought that was a good idea. or if they think it was silly, or if they thought it was a good idea but they forgot. And I make these thoughts about how other people's practice is going, I make them gifts too. Whatever amount of merit in your sitting,

[11:42]

if you make it a gift, there is a teaching that if you make your sitting a gift, whatever merit there is to it, it grows tremendously. If you make the effort to hold your body in a healthy, upright posture, in a wholesome posture, a posture that's beneficial, and then you make it a gift, It's much more helpful. My experience is it also helps find the upright posture. If I'm not trying to get the upright posture, but rather offering whatever posture I have, that helps me find an upright posture. That helps me relax with the posture I've got. And when we did the Bodhisattva ceremony last night, I don't know how you felt, but I thought, oh, I'll give myself to the ceremony.

[12:58]

And during the ceremony, I kept giving myself. I kept giving my effort. I kept giving my body. I kept giving my bows. I kept giving my chanting to the ceremony. And I also practiced giving myself your practice. Please excuse me, but I gave your practice as a gift. And I gave a gift to your practice. And I gave your practice to your practice while I was giving my practice to the ceremony. So that was some ways that I practiced giving. practicing what I was preaching. So I had two balls yesterday, the Bodhi Mind ball and the Giving ball.

[13:58]

I also was getting ready to pick up another ball, which I'm going to bring up today. the ball of vigilant mindfulness and awareness, all actions. I was practicing that one a little bit yesterday, too, along with the other two. Today, I don't know if you're ready, but today, now, ready to move your three balls, which, if you've juggled, you know it's a big step to go from two to three. To go one is, you know, one goes up and down. You can catch it with either hand. Two, you kind of throw one ball up. Generally, when it gets to the top of its arc, you throw the other one up. So that's how you do two balls. But three is a little bit more complicated. So if you try... If you've been trying to do two and you try to do three, you'll probably... The balls will probably bounce into each other and you'll drop them a few times.

[15:09]

But anyway, here's the third ball. The third ball is mindfulness and the present moment of actions, of speech, posture, and thinking. Whatever you're doing that, whatever's going on there, to be mindful of it. Now I offer you the thought, the idea, that we all will probably be acting the best of our lives in every moment.

[16:23]

Or, you know, I say probably, sometimes I could say just we will, other times I say maybe we will, be constantly active in mind, posture, and voice. Even when not speaking, I would say it almost counts as a verbal action. when some people discuss the practice of mindful awareness of the mind, of the activity of the mind and of vocal and physical action, vocal and bodily action,

[17:52]

Sometimes they say the key to enlightenment is control of the mind. And I... I want to relax with the word control. I don't want to oppose the word control. I don't want to fight and eliminate the word control. I want to relax with it and play with it and be creative and realize it, what it is, and become free of it. My experience is that when people try to control their mind or body in an unplayful, unrelaxed, rigid way, it doesn't seem to help the bodhi mind.

[19:18]

If we say, be aware of the mind, care for the mind, guard the mind, be vigilant about the mind, these words, too, I think I would like to relax with and be playful with. So to say that controlling the mind is the key to enlightenment is something to be careful of, to be aware of, to be generous towards, and not to attach to. But also don't reject that instruction, just receive it. gratefully and wonder what is the wholesome response to it.

[20:35]

Morality is sometimes defined as the study of or the way of working with issues of good and evil, or right and wrong. And a retreat like this, it may not seem that there's lots of evil going on in this room, or even that people are thinking in terms of right and wrong. So I don't necessarily want to say it is wrong not to pay attention to what you're doing. It is wrong to be mindless and it is right to be mindful.

[21:59]

I don't want to say that in Zen style. I tell you what I didn't want to say. That's called apophatic rhetoric. But it does seem appropriate to me in terms of living for the welfare of others and realizing enlightenment for the welfare of others to be mindful and aware of all actions. Appropriate. It seems to the point. Once again, when opening the bowls for meals, opening as a gift and opening it also. Mindfulness of the physical actions involved in opening the bowls and arranging them.

[23:08]

Mindful of the physical actions in receiving the food, in eating the food, in thanking the servers, in cleaning the bowls, wrapping the bowls, mindful attention to this physical action is an essential ingredient in the mind of enlightenment. To take care of, to meticulously take care of all actions of body is an essential part. And We practice that here and we don't exactly make the meal ritual more complicated. Just help you have a hard time. But the complexity of it does seem to encourage awareness.

[24:12]

And many of us are maybe more aware when we're eating in the zendo We're eating in informal situations where we don't have these forms to encourage us to give the gift of mindful attention to the details of physical movement. And then also there's some mental movement going on during the meals too. Like you might think, oh, that person's asking for a lot of salad. That person's asking for an amazing amount of salad. I can't believe how much salad they're asking for. It's just astounding. How high can they get the server to make that pile in their little... thoughts might occur in your mind.

[25:22]

Or even, oh, this looks like a good salad. I'd like quite a bit, but maybe I shouldn't take too much because somebody might be watching me and think I'm greedy. I shouldn't take much because if I do, there might not be enough to go around. or some of the thoughts too might occur around certain offerings. The second perfection of mindful attention to every action of karma is to pay attention to whatever you're thinking during the meal. towards it, but also be attentive to it. So in giving, in the practice of giving, there's not so much emphasis on how you give or paying attention while you're giving.

[26:34]

So it's possible to give and have some kind of inattention towards giving, some lack of mindfulness. So now we bring together with making what we're doing here a gift making all of our actions gifts, making our life and our life effort gifts, and also being aware of how we're giving, what we're giving, and what we're giving. And what we give is our body, speech, and mind. We give our actions. We give our conduct. And we pay attention to what we're giving, hopefully. And this also for the sake of developing an enlightenment which will help all beings. Not an enlightenment which I get, but an enlightenment which comes from these practices for the welfare of others.

[27:44]

I give myself to the practices which will develop the enlightenment for the welfare of others. I get to live in that place of those practices. I have nothing more than those practices, and I donate my life to the practices which will develop the bodhisattva mind. So there's lots of opportunities here. And one I recently brought up, which I don't know if you all heard about, but it's a practice which can be performed. It's a ritual, a ritual, a Zen ritual, which was specifically created at this temple, Green Dragon Temple. Temple ritual is the ritual of approaching the bathroom, the toilet.

[28:53]

And as you get close to the toilet, if you're coming from Cloud Hall, the toilet, you walk. Part of the ritual is to walk on the wood floor of Cloud Hall. actually put your feet on the wood. Do not float above the ground. Please land on the ground and walk on the floor. And when you get to the end of the wood, where the wood meets the tile, at that point you might see some slippers or sandals. Those sandals, if they're there, are offered to you to use to wear. Or I believe the women's bathroom tile. Does tile go into the women's bathroom? So the men's bathroom has tile too. So there's a tile area. We put our slippers on to go in the tile area.

[29:55]

And then when you come out, practice taking the slippers off. and stepping back onto the wood and putting the slippers, the sandals, with their heel, touching, meaning the line where the wood and the tile meet, and putting them like parallel to each other, more or less, both shoes facing in the same direction. Now, if you come from outside and you come into the tiled area, it's okay to walk into the toilet without putting the slippers on. Is that right? If you have shoes on. You don't have to take your shoes off and put the slippers on, is that right? So that's the ritual. There's also the ritual of cleaning the tiles, which we won't mention right now, but not everybody does that, but everybody use the bathroom, please use the slippers,

[30:58]

take them off and put them back in that position. Now, if you find the slippers not in that position I told you about, that's because somebody put them someplace else. So sometimes the slippers have moved away from the place that I mentioned, and sometimes they're not parallel, facing in the same direction. Sometimes the different pairs are mixed up, So there's all kinds of possibilities might be out there for you to engage with. It's okay to rearrange them back into pairs. It's okay to do it. You can look at your mind and see when you're doing it if you think you're better than the people who mixed them up. If you do notice that in your mind, that you think you're better than them, You should be very careful at that time not to say anything. And just be mindful that you think you're better than the people who didn't follow the ritual in the usual way.

[32:13]

It's actually also recommended it's good to look around and see if anybody's there and if somebody's watching maybe don't do it. Wait until nobody's watching and then go in there and do that good thing. And when you do it, then also you'll be better able to see if you have that thought that not only are you rearranging them, but you're watching, so you're even more likely to think you're better than the other people. People who do good are in danger of thinking they're better than people who are not doing good. That's one of the problems of wholesome action. One of the advantages of being very unwholesome is you're a little bit less likely to think you're better than other people. It doesn't guarantee it. Like you might think, well, actually, I'm not better than other people, but I am the worst one in this temple.

[33:19]

So at least I get that award. The thing is to be aware of what you're thinking, because what you're thinking is the key thing. Are you doing this, thinking this, are you putting on these shoes and going to the toilet for the welfare of all beings? Is your going to the toilet a gift? Are you going to the toilet as part of your bodhisattva practice to realize enlightenment? When you come out, do you leave the toilet? Do you depart from the toilet as a gift? When you put the shoes there, is that a gift? And are you also doing the bodhisattva practice of mindful awareness of what you're doing? And that is another gift. When you're mindful, that is, a very appropriate gift to give to all living beings.

[34:27]

To practice and transmit the practice of mindful awareness of your actions. Now during Seshina also we're not talking much. Or we're talking less than we usually do anyway. So again, during this time, this is a great opportunity just to think. When you feel the impulse to say something, to consider whether this impulse has any greed or aversion to consider, will speaking now benefit beings?

[35:46]

And if you think, I don't have time to consider this, that's another thing to be mindful of. I don't have time to consider whether these words, which I am thinking of saying, would be beneficial. I do not have time to think about whether I want them to be beneficial. I don't know whether they would be beneficial. I'm really in a rush here during this session. Things are moving very fast here. It's a high-speed session. I don't have time to, you know, this is just too much. So watch all that. If such a scenario should occur in your mind, please be aware of it. That's one of the practices bodhisattvas do. The perfection of moral understanding conduct is to pay attention to our impulses and to consider what they are.

[36:59]

Be helpful. And I don't know if this would be helpful. I'm pretty clear I wish to be helpful, but I don't know if speaking now would be helpful. Since I don't know if it's helpful, maybe I'll pass. Or I don't know if it's to be helpful. ...be helpful. I think it might be, so maybe I'll take a chance and speak, even during session. Also, you might notice that you see other people speaking and you might wonder if what they're speaking, if their speaking is helpful. You might say, hmm, I wonder if what they're saying to each other is helpful. And I wonder if my thinking about them is helpful. Sometimes I do notice people speaking during times.

[38:05]

Living in a Zen monastery, I do notice there's times of not speaking, and I notice people speaking during the times of not speaking. And I do sometimes wonder if it's helpful that they're speaking. And then I wonder, would it be helpful if I spoke about their speaking? And I usually do not think, usually, that me speaking about their speaking would be helpful. I usually don't. But then sometimes later in the day, when we have more different policy, say, I was wondering about your speaking earlier today. Was that necessary during that time? I'm laughing because at Tassajara, but during an ordinary day's activity, we have a general policy, which we're not rigid about, really not rigid about it.

[39:09]

From the time, I think, of when evening Zazen starts, which is usually around 7.30, from that time onward, Through the Zazen, through the night, and through the morning Zazen and service, and all the way up to study, through breakfast and study, and then we have morning Zazen after that, after breakfast, all the way up to lunch during that period. which means that the talking, there's no kind of like, I don't know what the word for it is. We can, anyway, basically no social talking. But people do talk during that time. However, there's some question about that talking occurs. Like, again, the people who often feel like they need to talk are the senior staff, but they're usually encouraged to go into the senior staff office and talk rather than talk where other people have to hear them talk.

[40:17]

She and we're even a little bit more literal about the not talking. And again, there are times when people feel like there's lots of talking going on. So that's the policy. It's like all day long is the policy not to be speaking except the kind of speaking which you really feel is just practical necessity. And at Tapasahara, during these practice periods, there's a great deal, I think, of thinking about the talking.

[41:24]

A lot of people are thinking that they themselves or someone else is talking too much. I haven't heard about people thinking that people are talking too little. Yeah, I never heard people say, you know, I think during the silent time that people are being too silent. Never heard that. But there is often the thought in people's minds or actually an expression by people that people are not being silent in our monastery during the silent times. For those of you who have been to Tassajara, is that correct, that there is a sense that we're sometimes not silent enough? What do you say? Have you heard about that? Sometimes people think there's too much talking during the silent time.

[42:30]

But part of what I laughed about was because I was visiting Green Gulch one time, and he was from Bulgaria, and he liked to talk to people, partly to improve his English. And so he went from Green Gulch to Tassajara, and from his perspective he said, he said, I love Tassajara, but the problem with Tassajara is people don't talk. So from his perspective, they talk at Green Gulch, but not at Tassajara. So although they do talk during the silent time, from his perspective, it was much more quiet at Tassajara. People still sometimes feel like there's too much talk. So part of the virtue of the Tassajara is that people can get quite concerned with the details of vocal action.

[43:44]

And because of that policy, it supports attention to the karma of speech. So I'm offering you now these three balls to take care of in this session, to consider this bodhisattva aspiration, this bodhisattva mind of enlightenment, which thinks of living for the realization of awareness. for the welfare of all beings that opens the mind to the practice of giving and opens the mind to the practice of mindful attention to all actions. I have a little difficulty with the word mindfulness, and I'm not quite sure why.

[45:59]

It's sort of like I am being mindful of, and within that word is that I am over here and it's over there, and that's my difficulty with it. And I was thinking it's like all the teachings are saying that whatever, ...moment is like the culmination of all the karma and stuff that we've been in the past. And so that this is kind of like an expression in a way. It's like a gift of all the things that were in the past. And so the sense for me is that there's nothing but others. Because this is a gift from everything that came before. Right. That's right. There's nothing but others.

[47:01]

That's one of the ways to express what we mean by non-self, is that you're just all the things you aren't. That's all you are. And so... That's why the word mindful gives me a little difficulty. But then as you were saying, you sort of turn it around and you become a gift for everything else. And so it's like a continuum. It's the only way it makes sense to me. So far. Keep on going. It's a nice road. Thanks for traveling with us. We know you can choose other vehicles.

[48:08]

We appreciate your business. I want to express my gratitude to All Beings, which I know it does benefit All Beings, for your teaching on giving. It is wonderful. I did practice giving and trying to give everything and The last time we talked, you had told me to welcome what comes. And so when we were doing the mail chant, I was thinking we are saying giver, receiver, and gift.

[49:11]

So I thought that welcome what comes is the other part of that. Is it true? When I welcome, it's the compliment to the giving, and then welcoming is receiving. You could say compliment, yeah, or the completion. It's part of the giving. Welcoming is part of giving. Not part of receiving? Welcoming is part of receiving, yeah. Receiving is part of giving. Welcoming, receiving is part of giving. then everything is... Receiving is kind of the same as welcoming, except that sometimes people receive things, but they don't receive it with... So they receive it sort of half-heartedly. So to receive illness, for example, as a gift is something which is challenging.

[50:12]

Like an illness comes and thank you very much, it's challenging for us often. But when illness comes to say, welcome, is the bodhisattva mind. Also, if the thought, I don't want to be sick, comes, welcoming that is the bodhisattva mind. I do, I want to be well, welcoming that, the welcoming is the bodhisattva mind. Being sick is not particularly a bodhisattva thought. Thinking I do want to be sick is not a bodhisattva thought. Those are just thoughts. Bodhisattva mind is, When those come, I welcome them. I give myself to welcoming them for the welfare of all. I give myself to welcoming this difficult guest in order for there to be an enlightenment which will help everyone.

[51:15]

Yes. Thank you very much. You're welcome. This is very brief. I'd like to offer that I am stymied and confused and at a loss to understand how my sitting, my practice, as I say, is self-indulgent.

[52:22]

is helping all beings. I offer that as a gift perhaps of cynicism, of exhaustion, of confusion. I offer that in that spirit. Thank you. Could you stay a moment? Sure. I do not think that my sitting is helpful to you or to John or to Marie. I don't think that. However, I do think that I want it to be. I do think I want it to be that for me to come and sit here with you, I want that to be helpful to you. And I definitely think I'm coming here and giving my life of being in this room with you, I'm giving that to you.

[53:29]

I do think that. I mean this to be a gift to you. I don't know if it's helpful. I don't know. I've heard, however, that practicing giving is enlightenment And that's kind of how I feel. I notice that when I'm practicing giving, I feel fine. I'm ready to die. I'm ready to live. I'm less afraid. It seems good, but I don't know. I think maybe it does, but I don't know. But I definitely don't go around thinking, I'm helping Michael. Or the person starving continents away. Or a person starving continents away. Or my grandson in Los Angeles. I don't think this helps them. I do want it to. Now, when will I know? I wish to be eventually...

[54:34]

admitted to the realm of understanding someday that to live the life of generosity does help everybody. And we could make up stories like, well, Michael says he's helped and then he goes and visits some people who are suffering and then they say he was helpful to him and in that way it helped. But to actually see how this works is beyond me. But it's not beyond me that the life of not wanting to be helpful is not the way I want to go, and that that's misery, and the life of wishing to be, offering myself for that purpose, I feel very grateful to have such an opportunity, and I never have regretted it. But I don't know that what we're doing here, I don't have direct... irrefutable knowledge that what we're doing here, when we're doing it right, helps everybody.

[55:42]

But it does seem to be helping, it does to some limited extent, it seems like it is, but I don't really know. And I appreciate you bringing this out so we can clarify the difference between I am and I want to be helpful. and treat both of those thoughts with kindness. Well thank you. Thank you. I think it's helpful that you participated in this session wholeheartedly. I think it's helpful.

[56:45]

I think it helps my grandchildren. I think so, but I don't know. We'll see. Or we won't. Actually, the Lotus Sutra says that you will see, you will actually understand. We're all practicing together on the Buddha way. You will see that. Everybody's going to see that. That's the evolutionary that's the evolutionary direction of living beings, is to wake up to the reality that we're actually living together in peace and harmony and helping each other. This is what the Buddhas have seen.

[57:50]

But they understand, as you hear in noon service, they understand that people are seeing all kinds of cruelty and seeing everything destroyed. That's what people see. Buddhas are saying, there's another world which is not separate from this, where we're actually working together in peace and harmony. Buddhas do not encourage us to disregard what we see now. As a matter of fact, be very generous towards what we see now, be very aware of what we see now, and so on. And this is the way to realize peace and harmony in this world of suffering. So I have an anecdote, but it's something that's reoccurring.

[59:37]

I was experiencing incredible irritation, and at first I was able to, okay, look at it as a gift. Okay, this is a gift. I'm going to play with this. This is a gift. But after it lasted a few days, and I'd lashed out at a few people, I felt like, this is not a gift. This is terrible. I hate this. And I felt exhausted at that point. I told myself it was a gift so many times that after a while, I just felt like I was kidding myself. My question is, what would you suggest? Take a rest? What do you do after you feel like, it just is wearing off that kind of, that feeling. Yeah, take a rest, relax.

[60:39]

Like I mentioned to you, the highest state of attainment in Tibetan Buddhism is called flop dog. So, you know, just flop down and be totally at rest. And then from your flop position, maybe you can say to this irritation, welcome. Now, if you say welcome, feel welcoming, well, you know that's not welcoming. So you don't, you know, like, you don't think that that's really welcoming. You think, this is fake. I'm kidding myself. This isn't really welcoming. But you're not kidding yourself. When you feel like you're kidding yourself, you're not kidding. You're saying welcome and you don't mean it. Now when you say welcome and you really mean it, then you might be kidding yourself.

[61:47]

So then you get tested. Like you say, something difficult comes and you say welcome and you say, that was pretty good. And then a bigger one comes. Two? No. But in fact, sometimes you can say welcome to something and not really feel like it's true, and then a moment later or the next day you can say welcome to it. You change, you know, and you're actually able to say welcome. So by practicing this over and over, we actually are getting courage that welcoming is really, it's a good deal. We want to live. But we have to, it's trial and error for quite a few times of saying, well, well, you know, I don't so often myself feel that when I say welcome and I feel like I really meant it, I don't so often

[63:00]

I just get a bigger challenge. And I might not be able to say welcome to that, but it doesn't mean the previous moment. Like, what comes to my mind is I had a hernia operation about two years ago, you know. And when I came out of the anesthetic, they told me, they said, they said, well, we're going to give you some pain medication, but first we're going to let the anesthetic wear off. And then when the pain comes, you let us know, and then we'll give you the pain medication to see if it works. I said, okay. And I felt the anesthetic kind of like going bye-bye, moving away from my body. And I felt something coming.

[64:02]

And it was like it was an unusual pain because it was coming, it was like coming on, it wasn't coming on the usual ways. It was coming off in the waning or the ebbing of the anesthetic. So I'd been sitting there. It started to get more and more revealed I felt it coming. It seemed like a big thing coming somehow. I didn't know how big it was, but somehow I felt like it was big. So I said, OK, I think it's coming. And no one heard me. And it kept coming. And I said, I think it's coming. And then they came, and then they gave me the pain medication, but pain medication wasn't like that, so it kept coming. And I noticed it was getting to be like I was having trouble welcoming it.

[65:09]

It was like, I thought, oh, this is like, I'm having trouble here welcoming this. I'm starting to tense up here. It turns out it never really, you know, the huge wave never did hit the pain medication. It started to take effect before it got really big, but it got big enough so I was kind of like, it was hard to be present and relaxed and welcoming. Before I felt like I was okay, I was actually okay, you know, welcomed. So I do feel sometimes like I actually am welcoming what's happening and I feel good about that and I'm ready to live this And then there's other times I feel like, whoa, I don't know about that. I don't know if I can welcome that. That's a bit... But the thing is, if we keep doing this, we get better at it, so that we will eventually be able to welcome things which we can't welcome now. And already we know some things we can't welcome. So we're not kidding ourselves then, I don't think.

[66:16]

I can't welcome this? Yeah, right, I can't. You can work with that and then just keep practicing that and then things will come that you won't be able to and then say, okay, now I can't. And then when you can, practice it. The more you practice it, the more it works. That's the theory. Because we have some really big irritations coming. And people who are able to welcome irritation, other people notice. And they say, oh, look at her. She's like, she handles all this irritation. She could probably help us with this really big problem. So they say, come on, over here, help us. Almost no one can be relaxed with this, but we think you can. Everyone else is like fighting this, but we feel you could be. So they'll invite you. They'll give you big challenges. And then you get to a place where, this is too much for me, I've got to rest.

[67:18]

Yeah. Sometimes you have to rest and say, this is too much for me. I think, if you want to give me that pain medication, now I can accept. I'm okay with having some. In fact, I'd like it right now. Please. So in this way we actually to develop this amazing practice which is tomorrow's ball, the ball of patience. So patience goes with welcoming. It's particularly to welcome pain. There's other things too which I paint welcoming too. So the patience is... is actually part of what makes welcoming possible, what makes being generous and giving possible under really outrageous situations.

[68:20]

Thank you. You're welcome. Nail.

[68:48]

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