Names of Buddha - Part Two
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The talk addresses various aspects of understanding, compassion, and practice in the Buddhist tradition. It delves into the interpretation of sutras, particularly the language used in vows, discussing potential misinterpretations that may lead individuals to blame themselves rather than see the collective responsibility for challenges.
Texts and Figures Referenced:
- **Avatamsaka Sutra**: Mentioned for its depiction of the Buddha body extending everywhere and being both graspable and ungraspable.
- **Sixth Ancestor and Nanyue Huairang**: An encounter is described where Huairang states that defining the Tathagata as a specific "this" misses the point.
- **Oka Sotan and Kyogo Zenji**: Cited for their teachings on the Bodhisattva precepts, emphasizing that nature, including cherry blossoms, speaks these precepts.
- **Dogen**: Referenced indirectly through Kyogo Zenji, a student of Dogen.
Main Thesis:
The central theme is the practice of compassion and realization in all aspects and situations of life. The discussion underscores the idea that even imperfect beings can practice compassion, supported by the ever-present realization of the Buddha. The speaker encourages practicing mindfulness and shared responsibility, particularly in challenging situations like abuse.
Practical Application:
- Compassion must be practiced in any event, moment, or place, even amid fears of potential abuse.
- The practice of giving (dana) and renunciation, exemplified by living in a monastic community, can serve as forms of generosity.
- Wholehearted practice is both an individual and collective effort—expressed through mutual support and recognition of interdependence in actions.
Further Discussion:
- The interplay between personal fears and collective mindfulness.
- The transformative effect of practicing compassion towards potential and actual instances of harm.
- Philosophical exploration of "suchness" as the dynamic pivot between phenomena and principles.
- Examples of historic Zen figures and modern interpretations bring these principles to life, reinforcing the importance of holistic and collective practice.
The talk concludes on the note of integrating these teachings into daily life, emphasizing mindfulness, shared responsibility, and collective wisdom.
AI Suggested Title: **"Compassionate Mindfulness: Integrating Sutra Teachings in Daily Practice"**
So some of the people in this group have called this vow into question, feeling that some of the language here maybe is not encouraging, not good guidance. There's some element in here that sounds like the vow is telling us to blame ourselves. could be taken that way, rather than this is his vow is telling us to be responsible. with others. But some people feel that the language here, a person might take all the blame onto themselves for the problem rather than feeling that we are all part of the opportunities we're given to work with. So there is some question about the language of this sutra.
[01:01]
But the beginning is very much like the Avatamsaka Sutra. So when he looks at the real form of the universe, when he looks at thus, all is a never failing manifestation of the mysterious truth of Tathagata. In any event, in any moment, in any place, none can be other than the marvelous revelation of the glorious light. So the Buddha body, according to the sutra, extends everywhere, and it is quiet, and has no nature, and also has no not-nature, and it is ungraspable. And it can appear in response to beings.
[02:03]
So here it's saying that the real form can manifest, can be manifest as appearances, can appear. but the appearance, which may seem graspable, is just a response to the inclination of beings. So to say that it's this misses the point, the truth of the Tathagata. One of our main stories is when the Sixth Ancestor met one of his primary students, Nanyue Huairang, the Sixth Ancestor said to Huairang, what is it that thus comes? Which is kind of almost like saying, what is the Tathagata? But it's on the occasion of him coming to meet the Ancestor.
[03:11]
And the question before that was, where do you come from? And he said where he came from. And then the ancestor says, what is it that thus comes? What is the Tathagata? And the student says, to say that it's this misses the point. And the teacher says, then is there no practice and realization? And the student says, I don't say there isn't any, it's just that it can't be defiled. Parentheses, by saying it's this. You can't make it into this. It can be equally all thises and all thates. So, if you ask me to say what it is, I'm not going to say it's this. But anyway, I guess I'm a this, and the teaching of what I am is thus.
[04:17]
But I'm not saying thus is this. So, if we treat any event, if we treat any moment, if we treat any place with great compassion, then we have an opportunity to awaken to what the teaching of this any moment, any place, any event is, namely to awaken to thus. But we want people to awaken to that if we're not completely compassionate with this event, that event, this place, that place. And it's very difficult to be compassionate to any event, any moment, any place. That's our challenge. And we need help to do that, and the Buddhas are
[05:23]
trying to help us, are with us, trying to help us practice that way with any event, any place, any moment. And realizing what Torrey realizes, he says, this realization made our founding teachers and virtuous leaders extend tender care with a heart of worshipping even to such things as birds and bees. So the realization makes it possible for them to extend care But the Buddha's realization is not necessarily of the person. So that which makes it possible for us to be kind is the realization that's always with us. You don't have to have perfect realization in order to extend care with the heart of worshiping to all beings.
[06:27]
an imperfect being can practice compassion. And realization supports us to practice compassion in all situations. Is there anything you'd like to bring up at this time of day? Yes? that what rises in the presence of experiencing being abused is the fear of being hurt. So... Excuse me. Did you say what arises in situations of abuse? Yeah, but that fear could arise even when you're not being abused, right?
[07:32]
So, when being abused or not being abused, we could be afraid of being hurt. That is true. However, when that fear arises in the condition of being abused, I take it more seriously. It's more difficult. It's more difficult when you're actually feeling abused. In other words, it's easier to be afraid when you're being abused. I don't know if it's easier, I take it back. Because I think some people are not being abused and nothing's abusing them, they don't think anything's abusing them, but they're afraid they're going to be abused. I would say it's built into our nervous system to be afraid. I would say it's in our nervous system to be afraid of being abused, because in the past our family has abused and been abused, so we're very sensitive to be aware of that.
[08:39]
and vigilant about any situations where we might be abused or harmed. We're very concerned about that. And even though we don't know we are, in our body and unconscious processes we're watching out for that all the time. We're watching out for will we do something which might draw abuse or might draw punishment or rejection from the other, particularly the humans. We're very sensitive to that. And then my own way, when I realized that condition of abuse and being abused, or abuse comes from fear, then immediately, for some reason, and not to blame, but I think How could I face that possibility of abuse?
[09:51]
In what way? What was the last part of your question? Is there any other way of seeing that, like when you said, no thing is happening, no abuse is happening. Is there any other way that my mind doesn't go there? That the mind doesn't go towards the possibility of abuse? Well, I think in a lot of people's conscious mind, their mind is not going there.
[10:54]
They don't feel like they're worried about abuse. They don't see any abuse. But, unconsciously, we're watching out for it. We may not see it, but we're vigilant about any possibility of abuse. That's sort of in our body. Until we convert our body through practice, But when we are consciously aware of the possibility or the actuality of abuse, then the question is how to meet that with compassion. And one of the ways that's not compassionate is to put all the responsibility over onto somebody else or all over onto yourself. Those are two simple kind of versions, and then in between is a conversation, where we share the responsibility for the, you could say, the avatar or the appearance of either abuse and or the possibility of more.
[12:03]
abuse. So when those specters arise, which they often do, and even when they don't in our body, and we're worried that we're going to be rejected, punished, and so on, those are harder for us to practice compassion with directly because we can't see them. However, if we practice compassion towards the possibility of them and the appearance of them, that will transform what we can't actually see. It will transform our unconscious and our body. But it may get to the point where there's almost no more appearances that we believe of abuse. But when there is, then part of compassion is to feel responsible, and also feel that others are sharing it, and then have a conversation about this. Yes, John?
[13:09]
Well, the first thing that comes up is the beginning of the first Paramita is giving. So giving is very closely related to renunciation. Whatever you have, you're happy to give it. But you don't have to necessarily move it to another county. you're just renouncing it, you're giving it away. So I think renunciation is at the beginning of the Bodhisattva path in the form of generosity. So if you're talking about renunciation of not living with your family, you can renounce that, you can give that away too. I give my family life away. When you move to the monastery and you're not taking care of a family anymore, then you just continue giving away everything you have to give.
[14:33]
You make everything you are a gift. You give everything you think. You make everything you think a gift. You give everything you say as a gift. You're no longer trying, you're renouncing trying to get something out of life by practicing the first Paramita. But again, renouncing doesn't have to be taken as getting rid of. There was a Zen teacher named Wang Bo, and he had three kinds of renunciation, but the Chinese character he used for renunciation also means alms. So these three types of renunciation are actually three types of gift that he recommends at the start of the practice. And continue always making what you're doing as alms to awakening.
[15:35]
But sometimes it's good to like maybe move into a monastic community, but that doesn't equal, you know, being generous and giving yourself away. And it doesn't even necessarily equal being generous to the home you left, and giving that away too, not pushing it away, not getting away from it. Yes? I think you said this morning that suchness is... Did you say this morning that suchness is the pivoting between this and that? Yeah. I wouldn't say it is. I would say that in suchness, in the suchness of things, everything is pivoting with not that thing, and vice versa, every not-thing is pivoting with a thing.
[16:44]
So this constantly dynamic particular and universal suffering and that pivoting is the way things are. So I'm having trouble distinguishing between the way things are that pivot and my idea of the way things are, that things are pivoting. Yeah, so your idea of the way things are pivoting is like, it's like sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. All your ideas of thus or suchness or thusness are particular phenomena, and those phenomena are impermanent, and they're pivoting with the principle, for example, that they're empty. They're pivoting with something that's universal. But the ideas of how that pivot works are phenomenal events which should be renounced, in the sense that you should be generous with them, let go of them.
[17:56]
Letting go of phenomenal events helps you wake up to the way the phenomenal events are pivoting with the principle of phenomenal events. My sense is that... I have an idea that the sense there are two things to pivot, one against the other, is itself an illusion. There's only one thing, but my tendency is to discriminate, to want to discriminate between principle and phenomena. Well, it's not so much just one thing, but that the teaching is that all the things are thus. And another pivot is, there's a pivot between one thing and all things. They're also pivoting. So this pivoting isn't really one thing.
[18:59]
To say that the pivoting is one thing, or to say that suchness is one thing, is making suchness into a phenomenon, into a thing. But suchness isn't separate from things, it is the way things are pivoting with not-themselves, and the way particulars are pivoting with universals. It's a verb, not a noun. Yeah, it's conversation. Conversation is not a verb, it's a noun, right? So it's conversing. It's this pivoting. So the activity of Buddhas is a pivotal activity. Suchness is what the Buddhas teach, and suchness is what the Buddhas enact in their teaching. And they're not doing it by themselves, they are doing it with all beings. And they are also doing it with all things, pivoting with all things.
[20:01]
Yes? I was listening to the talk you gave in April. I wasn't actually here, so I just recently got to listen to it in a recorded format. And you were talking about the precepts. And I think it was the same talk you were discussing the cherry blossoms. And I think I heard you say something like, about the cherry blossoms speaking, the precepts. And I guess I would like to hear more about that, and I'm wondering if you would share how you came to understand that. Well, I don't know, but I can tell stories.
[21:27]
I don't know how any understandings I have came to be. How my current state came to be is inconceivable, but you probably want to hear some story. But it's just a story, just a story. So, for example, I was, not recently, I was reading this statement by a Soto Zen priest, teacher, who Suzuki Roshi said was one of the main influences on his understanding of the precepts. This person's name is Oka Sotan, and he's featured in some of the books with my name on them. So Oka Sotan was like a teacher of Suzuki Roshi's teacher, and he was a teacher of kind of a generation of Soto Zen priests before Suzuki Roshi. So he died when Suzuki Roshi was still a boy. But anyway, Suzuki Roshi heard stories about this person named Oka Sotan, and he came to understand that this teacher is presenting an understanding of the Bodhisattva precepts, which is, you know, very influential to him and his teachers.
[22:45]
And one of them spoke of Sotan. No, it was actually, I think, not Oka Sotan, but a much earlier Zen priest who was actually a student of Dogen. His name is Kyogo. which means excellence in sutras. Kyogo Zenji was a young contemporary of Dogen. He was too young to become a successor, but he was a successor of one of Dogen's successors. And he wrote a commentary on the Bodhisattva precepts, and one of the things he says in the commentary is, all of nature speaks the precepts. And part of all of nature is the cherry blossoms. So, the cherry blossoms, I said they speak the precepts, but it's actually the cherry blossoms together with me and the other people that were there with them in April.
[23:53]
We all together were speaking the precepts, for example, in the form of the cherry blossoms. Now, all of nature teaches the Bodhisattva precepts, which is also saying that the triple treasure is a description of all of nature, and the triple treasure of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. speaks the Bodhisattva precepts. And the triple treasure, going for refuge in the triple treasure, is the first three of our school's precepts. So these are some stories which lead me to say that about the cherry blossoms, but also looking at the cherry blossoms and receiving the teaching from them, of the union of truth and beauty, excuse me, truth and impermanence.
[25:02]
They're very impermanent, and they also teach that this very impermanent thing is beautiful, that this beautiful thing is transient. And we beg for that teaching every spring. We in the Japanese, people who take care of the trees, we want that teaching every spring. That beauty and that impermanence. They teach us the unity of the two. But they don't do it by themselves, because they come for us. And they come for us because we take care of them. So all of nature produces this teaching. And how is this union, the bodhisattva precepts, how is the union of beauty and impermanence, the precepts? And part of the way of teaching the precepts is to ask questions about them. And I could go on, but that's one story.
[26:03]
Yes? So one of the most beautiful things about this tradition, of course, is the way it's related to the natural world, and the inspiration that that can bring, and the way that it feels as though it embodies compassionate love, that the air is actually composed of such things. And I ask this as one of the younger people in the room, I think, that that has really shifted for me in the last few years, where You know, cherry blossoms don't come on time. I grew up in Washington, D.C. and we have a beautiful tree of blossoms about here. And they don't really come on time the way they used to. Sometimes they weather out pretty quickly, like the freeze-off of the late spring frost. And it started to feel like the natural world, which was such a source, And so when I read these haikus or whatever, it actually uses a real sense of longing for having lived in an earlier time where I was living on a planet that I did evolve for, and I wasn't looking down.
[27:27]
It feels a barrel of gun sometimes. And I'm wondering, yes, what wisdom do you have to offer on that? And first off, if that makes sense or not, Well, starting with the end, does it make sense when you tell me you feel like you're looking down the barrel of a gun? Does that make sense to me? It makes as much sense as saying that you're looking at a generous, beneficent universe. Both of those make sense, that you can see those things. So for me, the question is not so much about regaining your youthful perspective, but respecting it, and respecting your new perspective also.
[28:28]
so you can realize the truth that will liberate beings. So I want you to learn how to practice compassion when you feel like you're staring down something really dangerous. I want you to be able to be upright and open to this danger. And as you may have heard, there's this wonderful compound in Chinese made of the character for danger and opportunity, which means crisis. So everything that appears dangerous, if you can be upright with it, you'll also realize it's an opportunity, and you can turn with this danger, which doesn't mean get rid of it. It means to enact freedom with it. which means all dangers are opportunities to pivot and realize liberation.
[29:33]
Opportunities to pivot with it appearing dangerous and it appearing not dangerous. And then not stick there, but be turned again. And what also came to my mind is the sutra says, towards the beginning of Chapter 9, which is called, in one translation, radiant awakening, another translation is awakening by light. I think the third verse in the chapter is when you can be in the presence of Buddha and all that radiance and not get knocked over or knocked off your seat. So the radiance in Buddha could be just as shocking and difficult to be upright with as something really dangerous in your face, because this radiance, this awesome, this immensity, this trembling, tremendous, which means makes us tremble, of the Buddha.
[30:37]
We need to learn how to be upright with that, and warming up to that would be to be upright with the world becoming apparently very dangerous. So the possibility is if we can be upright with lesser spectacles than the Buddha, then we have a chance to be able to be present with this greater speculative faculty of the Buddha. but not to try to get rid of the dangerous specters, but learn how to be with them more and more upright and flexible so we can turn with them. And if we can turn with them, then we open to something even more dynamic, more ungraspable, more liberating. So yeah, so maybe when you were younger or when pastime, it was not clear, and you were called upon to be upright with because you felt pretty relaxed with the situation, which is fine.
[31:42]
But then we want to renounce that relaxed situation. We want to renounce this beautiful childhood and be ready for the next step, the next challenge. So I don't see the Bodhisattva path as making the world less dangerous. I don't see it making the ocean have less waves. I see it as encouraging us to become more ready and able to deal with more and more challenging situations. So we can help people in less challenging, medium challenging, and most challenging. And also, if people want to have less challenging, let them. We don't say, no, you can't work with this less challenging situation. You have to do more, support the people who are not yet ready for facing, like you were when you were young.
[32:46]
Maybe you weren't ready to face what you're able to face now. Maybe if you're shown what you see now, it wouldn't have been helpful because you just maybe like have given up or withdrawn, which is not the end of the story. because you maybe could be rather upright and present with those stories, now you can be upright and present with these new ones, which are more challenging it seems, more possible that you feel like getting out of here, going someplace else, or going backwards, or going to some other neighborhood where there's not so much violence threatening. Do you have something to say in response to that? Oh, I was trying not to listen. And I would encourage you to listen to your response, too.
[33:49]
So I'm talking, and you're listening, and you're talking, and you're listening. Don't push your thoughts away. They're just as good as what you're hearing me say. And actually, what you're hearing me say are your thoughts, too. So don't push either of them away. Try to be open to both. Please. Yes? Yeah, I heard, I just heard about, somebody said something, oh, I was listening to Virginia Woolf talk about Thomas Carlyle, and that reminded me. I heard Virginia Woolf talking about Thomas Carlyle. That's much louder? Is it too loud? So anyway, that reminded me, I was impressed by hearing that Thomas Carlyle said that genius is the ability to take trouble.
[34:52]
to take trouble, to take it, but also to do all the little things that are troublesome, to take the trouble of doing things. That capacity is very important. And we also, most of us, notice that we don't want to take trouble. We don't want to have it come to us and we don't want to take the trouble of doing the job completely. But genius is like the ability to follow completely through into the little details, and in the wholeness of that, there's no sense of, I'm doing it, we're in a game. But it's hard to get there. Again, I often think of what just came to my head was, when I was in my first practice period at Tazahar, One of my first jobs was to repair a water line that had been washed, that had been broken by the floods in the stream, because the water line ran alongside the stream.
[35:58]
So me and another guy, and his name is I forgot, but there was two of them with the same last name, one of those kind of Scottish names like McCarthy or something. Anyway, me and this young man, about my age, we were sent to repair the water line. So we came to the first place where it was broken. It's plastic water lines, they're broken, and so we had these Well, it still had some of these metal rings that you can tighten on the joint to pull them back together. So we fixed the first one, and then we went to the second one, and I said to him, let's go back and fix the first one. And he didn't say, what do you mean, go back and fix the first one? We already fixed it. He didn't say that. He knew that we did not do it, you know, and take the trouble, because we had several things to fix, right?
[37:07]
So we were kind of like, okay, let's go on to the next. We had like three or four of them to do during work period. But when I said, let's go back and do it, he knew what I meant. were both kind of not thorough. We didn't take the trouble to do that. And he could have said it and I think I would have gone with it, but I said it and he went with it. And that was good. I heard that that was a really important moment in his training when we took the trouble to go back and do it wholeheartedly. And the monastery is a place not necessarily to fix all the pipes, but to learn how to do something completely, even though you might not get to the second break. At least you fixed one with your whole hearted effort, and then you can die, because you're a successful Zen student, because you did something with genius.
[38:18]
even though He didn't fix all the things to be broken, and there's no end to them. But there is such a thing as wholeheartedness, and also that is something that I don't determine by myself. So once again, getting into it, when I said, let's go back and fix it, I didn't feel like, you know, I was the smart one and he wasn't. It was, we did this together. And so part of the confirmation that I wasn't thinking that I'm doing this, was that he said he didn't argue, we were together. In conversation we fixed it. We did it half-heartedly together, then we went back and did it wholeheartedly together. So, the arrival at what it means to do something wholeheartedly, where the mirror beholds the object without subjectivity, that is something which we need to do together. I cannot decide all by myself. This is the way it's done. But I can say, let's go back and fix it.
[39:26]
And he could have disagreed with me. And then we could have talked about that and still maybe gone back and fixed it. But in this case, the conversation was really short. Let's go back and fix it. And that was enough at the time. And we did it together. And actually, everything we do that's wholehearted, we do together. Nothing wholehearted is done by me alone. All wholehearted effort is done with the whole assembly. Could you say more about that? I don't quite understand why it's not possible to do something wholeheartedly as a solitary task or effort. Well, I would say it's not possible to do anything by yourself. And to live thinking that you can do things by yourself, you're going to be living half-heartedly.
[40:31]
So people do think that they can do something by themselves, and I'm just saying, no, you can't do anything, so what I've done is just turn the page and say, well, what about doing things with everybody? That's really the way we do it, and that's wholeheartedness. Wholeheartedness is like being the way things are. We are wholehearted. In other words, the Buddha's wisdom does completely reach us, but we have to practice it to realize it. And again, I may think, well, that was wholehearted. I picked that thing up wholeheartedly. And the reason why I think I picked it up wholeheartedly is because I did it with everybody. I didn't lift this up all by myself. I lifted it up with you. You all supported this, I say. And that makes it more wholehearted. And I didn't think I lowered it by myself. And I didn't think you lowered it.
[41:36]
I think we're doing this together. Yeah, I think he was slightly before you. Should we get him first? Huh? Okay, here you go. which was not made by one person alone. And by the way, was that chocolate cake vegan? No? Well, he's still grateful. Thank you.
[42:38]
Yeah, I hear from people about this group, about how loving people feel you are. Yes? about what you were saying at that moment, talking about wholeheartedness and how when you do this, everybody's doing it with you. And I was feeling the experience of wholeheartedness is connection with everything. When there is wholeheartedness here, everything is moving together. Wholeheartedness, you could say, is the experience of everything working together, and then there when you say experience, it is the actuality of that. Wholeheartedness is not like I experience the working together over there. The experience is the working together.
[43:42]
I guess I just say I perceive it that way as well. Well, you could perceive it, and the perception is not it. Even if you don't perceive it, still, the wholeheartedness is everything working together. And you can have a perception of that, or not. It's not within reach of your feelings. You could feel like that's going on, you could perceive that's what's going on, but it's not within reach of your perception or feelings. And you could also not perceive it and not feel it, but be enacting it. Just like I did not think that I was doing a big favor to this guy. that I was fixing the pipe with. I did not think I was giving him a big gift. I just thought, we didn't do what we can do, and let's do it. And he said, okay. And that turned out to be, he perceived, he felt, that that was a gift from me to him. Well, it was, but even if he didn't feel that, it still was.
[44:46]
And it was a gift from him to not do it wholeheartedly the first time, and to not argue with me to going back. we were giving to each other, even if neither one of us had thought that. And I didn't really think of it too much until later I heard that he said that that was really the most important thing that happened to him during that practice period. Then I thought, oh, maybe I gave him a gift, you know, maybe that was a gift that we gave each other. So I didn't have a perception of that, and I didn't have a feeling of that, but now I believe that that really is what happened. But you can also have a feeling, and it's actually happening. Like you can have a feeling that we're doing everything together, but even if you don't, we still are, and even if you do, your feeling doesn't reach it. The feeling is optional. and also very nice. Because some people actually feel like they don't like that other people did it, they want all the credit for themselves.
[45:52]
But even though they do, even though there's that feeling, still they did everything together. That's the reality. Buddhas awaken together with all beings, not by themselves. And maybe early on, Buddha said, I was enlightened all by myself. But then later he said, I was enlightened together with all beings. Even that you said to him was really not a gift from you, right? That's right, it wasn't a gift from me. Somebody gave me the gift of saying, that was really like, that's not what you came to this monastery to do, just to fix a lot of pipes. You didn't come here just to be a plumber and also finish the job during work period. That's not why you came here. You came here. to do things completely, and that didn't happen. So let's do what we came here for. I didn't say that, but I just said, let's go back and fix it.
[46:55]
But really, let's go back and practice Zen. And he said, OK, let's practice Zen. And then we did, and we were both very happy to practice Zen. It was genius. Yeah, we were happy to take the trouble of doing it again. Yes. Can we sing something, did you say? Yeah. Do you have any suggestions? I'm sorry, but the one that comes to mind is ... Okay. Ready? That's the one that came for her. I have another one later. When the red, red robin comes bop, bop, bopping along, along, there'll be no more sobbing when she starts throbbing her old sweet song.
[47:59]
Wake up, wake up, you sleepyhead, get up. Get up, get out of bed. Cheer up, cheer up. The sun is red. Live, love, laugh and be happy. Though I've been blue, now I'm walking through fields of flowers. Rain may glisten, but still I listen for hours and hours. I'm just a kid again, doing what I did again, singing a song. When the red, red robin comes, bop, bop, bopping along. Bop, bop, bop, bopping along. And as Louis Armstrong says, yeah. So that's one song. And I watched the younger people not know the song and look around, looking around, does everybody know this but me?
[49:07]
I heard that song when I was a kid, and being a kid I remember every song I hear, right? Once maybe is enough, but maybe twice. Anyway, I went to this conference on health and healing with lots of doctors and nurses and therapists and scientists, and they invited me to come and talk to them. and they were dealing with some very serious health issues in our culture, very sincere and so on and so forth. And I had come to the conference by coming out of Tassajara, and I tried to get out of Tassajara in the winter, and there was a big storm, a small storm, and the four-wheel drive couldn't get out. So we gave up. And I went back down, and somebody said, I have skis, and I think they would fit you. So we skied up the hill, over the top, and down for me to go to this conference. I made an effort, and it was so beautiful.
[50:22]
Anyway, and I got to the conference and I told the story about how I got there, and then I sang that song, you know, in this context of, you know, the big health challenges of the society at this time, and it kind of set them all free for It doesn't mean that their work is very important, but they were a little bogged down, and I didn't feel like they were bogged down, but after the effort I made I just felt like singing that song. And then the next year they had another conference and they passed out a T-shirt to the doctors and nurses that had the lyrics of that song on it. People who are doing hard work also need to rest and, you know, and laugh. If you can't laugh when you're doing this hard work, you're going to quit. We have to see how, you know, there's something funny about what we're doing, too, in the middle of all the pain.
[51:27]
So that's a song which somebody suggested I sing. And there are some other ones, too, but maybe that's enough for now. Yeah, there's that one, right? Yeah. Yeah. And come back and listen. Thank you, Brek. And he will probably stay in connection with us by various technological wonders. And he may come back to visit someday with his grandchildren. who may become Zen students, we'll see.
[52:28]
Are you going to do any more video? I was kind of thinking of maybe starting once a month, yeah. However, this month, it'll be the day after I get back from Tal Zahara, it might be too much. But I think, I feel like this community event, this face-to-face thing has recovered from COVID. And it was not easy to recover, you know, we had to go through lots of lots of work to figure out a way to get back together in a way that was safe. I shouldn't say safe, but that people felt was sufficiently careful. And, yeah, so now we're back together, so I feel like if we offer something more easy for people to come to it, it won't undermine this. So, I intend to. Because there's a lot of people who, to ask them to come for one day from Germany is a bit much. or England, or Italy, or Switzerland, or Denmark, or Sweden, or Finland.
[53:37]
Australia. Australia, yeah. Nice to have those Australians here today. They could come in person. Yes? Yes? Who over here had their hand raised? Did you deal with that? No? Okay. Well, usually we stop around this time, so thank you again. Yes? Don't do it out of greed. Do it to help him. It's a favor you do to him to help him not have to worry about his books anymore. Just take them as a favor to pray. He's done a lot for us. Let's do something for him. We could also take his car, I suppose. So you don't have to worry about that. Because you're not going to take your car to England, right? No.
[54:38]
Okay. Okay, all right.
[54:45]
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