I don't know how many I will tell. My first story is that I'm a storyteller. And I could say the next story, or part of that story is, I think you're storytellers too. But you can just take away I think. Since I'm telling you stories, I don't have to tell you I think these stories. I'll just tell them they're stories. All living beings are storytellers. I would also tell the story that we living beings are addicted.

[01:19]

And I looked up the word addiction And I found an etymology is one of the Latin words which leads to the word addict or addict is addictus. And I think the past participle is odd. I forgot. Anyway... give over to give oneself over to and the definition of it is something like to devote time to devote time attention or oneself to devote oneself time and attention habitually compulsively.

[02:36]

So, in other words, if we would devote time, attention, and ourself non-habitually, that would not be quite the meaning of addiction or to addict. That would just be to devote. And I tell the story that we are habitually giving our time and attention and self over to storytelling. I'm not resisting that today. I'm just and it's my habit and so on. However, there's another story. which is that by telling stories about this addiction to storytelling, living beings can become free of the addiction of storytelling.

[03:51]

They can tell stories, or not tell stories, free of the addiction and compulsion to tell them The normal situation for living beings is that they are aware of the consequences of storytelling. The consequences of storytelling is that we are confined by our stories. And the confinement goes with the compulsion to reiterate the confinement by telling more. All of our problems, all of our suffering in life are the consequences of this storytelling process. All of our problems exist within the constructed enclosure of the stories that our minds are involved with.

[05:08]

So now I have a whole bunch of stories. I think the next part is like layers of sort of the same story. Here's a story. The story is that we have living beings who are addicted to storytelling and who are entrapped in the compulsion to continue and entrapped in the world created by stories. That's a sentient being. Sentient beings are like that. Sentient beings, however, can become what are called beings. And enlightening beings still are living within this enclosure and still operating with the habitual pattern of telling stories. and they become more and more willing to admit that they're telling stories and become aware and by becoming more and more intimate with the storytelling they become more and more free of the addiction to storytelling and the consequences of the addiction to telling stories and they become what are called enlightened beings

[06:42]

And they don't have to be Buddhist to be entirely enlightened beings. We call them Buddhas, but Buddhas are not necessarily Buddhist. So any person of any background who becomes aware of their stories and becomes free of them completely is a Buddha. And then the Buddhas... the way they are, they are basically this freedom. They emanate teachings to living beings to help the living beings become aware of their storytelling, become intimate with their storytelling, and become free. Storytelling and the consequences of storytelling. One more layer of the story is sentient beings can become enlightening beings, bodhisattvas, and they become enlightening beings, bodhisattvas, when in their storytelling consciousness, in the consciousness that's telling stories, when a story arises like this,

[08:18]

to live a life which is devoted to the welfare of all beings. I wish to develop virtues which could be used to benefit beings, which can create a freedom from my storytelling and so that I can become more and more and finally completely helpful and not just benefit living beings but liberate them. When that story arises in a living being, this is called the arising of the thought of enlightenment or the spirit of awakening. It's the wish to realize full virtue, complete virtue, complete wisdom and compassion of beings.

[09:21]

And if this living being takes care of that story in karmic consciousness, they become an enlightening being. They become a bodhisattva. And if they continue and continue and continue, they become Buddhas. So the story of beings who are trapped in the addiction to storytelling, can become bodhisattvas and become Buddhas. And as bodhisattvas, they can help other sentient beings become bodhisattvas and become Buddhas. And as Buddhas, they fully realize the fruit of the practice of caring for the stories compassionately until the stories are perfectly understood and completed. That's one story. Now here's another layer of that story which goes a little bit more into the

[10:32]

into how this simple process of living being to enlightening being to Buddha goes. Here's more to the story. It's basically the same story going over in more detail but also as I go over it I'm actually I'm relating to the story of it. I'm relating to the story and in some sense not exactly deepening the story. The story may become more complex but I hope to become more intimate with the story and I hope you can too. Now I think on Tuesday nights here the Abbess of Green Gulch Linda Ruth Cutts is teaching, leading a class about vow, precepts, and are connected to a vow.

[11:43]

And so, and this vow is connected to a wish to benefit beings. The precepts are practices which help take care of the vow to benefit all beings. And the vow to benefit all beings arises from the wish to benefit all beings. And the wish to benefit all beings is a living being. You can wish to benefit all beings and then you can intend to benefit all beings. You can intend to live for the benefit of all beings and the liberation of all beings. And then there's a next step where you actually go through a process of committing to that wish. And then you go through the process of practicing the precepts to take care of that wish so that wish develops into Buddhahood.

[12:50]

Does that make sense? And many people wonder where does that vow come from and where does the wish, yeah, where does the vow come from and where does the wish that the vow is emerging, is developing from? Where does the wish to liberate all beings come from? And so here's another story. Living beings are living and telling stories in a compulsive way. And every story that they tell is what we call an action. of thought, and if you say it out loud, of speech, but, you know, your whole body's involved.

[13:54]

You know, your body posture as you tell the story, and the voice that tells it, and the thought that's expressing, that's being expressed, those actions of body, speech, and mind are involved in the storytelling, and all those actions have consequence, and the consequences create a cognitive enclosure which living beings think is their world. Waste paper, recyclable paper. So I'm recycling it. I'm writing on the back of this and I turn it over to take out the staple and it says on the other side, commondreams.org. I thought, how appropriate.

[14:58]

And then I thought, well, maybe I'll read a little bit more. And it said, and this is written by Reb Eka. It says, every minute of every hour of every day you are making. You might as well do it with generosity and kindness and style. I thought, again, how appropriate. Right? Rab Eka wrote that. Part of the world we live in is We live in, part of the cognitive enclosure we live in is shared and part of it's not.

[16:09]

The part that's not shared are our individual sense organs. The parts that are shared are the colors, sounds, mountains and rivers and oceans. all living beings and the grasses and the trees, all that stuff is our shared dream. This is the consequence of our shared dream. It's the shared consequences of our dreaming. We make the world together. We do make the world together. The physical world. We sense it. It's not shared. That's our individual embracing of it. That's another story. So, living beings are living in this constricted version of life. Our life is not actually enclosed in a world.

[17:11]

Our life is, I would say, whatever I say is a story, but I would say our life is not confined to what we confine it to be. Our life is not our story about it. And our life is not just the consequences of the stories about our life. And it's no other than that either. So living in this enclosure and their uncomfortable being enclosed, there's something contradictory to their nature. But also there's something not contradictory to their nature that they have created this enclosure. So we are enclosure makers and it's our nature to feel uncomfortable with the consequences of our work. And we are crying in that enclosure. Sometimes we go... like a little baby.

[18:14]

Sometimes we make other sounds, but we are crying out for help. We're making the world and then crying out in the world we make. And that cry is heard, that cry touches the enlightened beings. they that cry touches the wisdom which is the fruition of working with these stories completely thoroughly which we call enlightenment or buddha we cry out in this world like right now i'm crying out i'm speaking I'm in the world, the enclosure of stories, and every story I tell is a cry. It's a request to be met by enlightenment.

[19:18]

If I tell a story about enlightenment, the Buddhas hear that as an invitation to the Buddhas. If I cry out in pain, the Buddhas hear that as an invitation to them. And they always respond. We have the nature that it's part of our nature to create this enclosure and it's part of our nature to be able to receive the response of the cry from our nature, from our world that we're creating. And when the response from those who have become free of this enclosure comes to our request In that interaction, in our story world, in that interaction, this thought of, yeah, that would be totally cool to live for the welfare of all beings and to develop the skills in order to be able to live for the welfare of all beings.

[20:32]

I actually totally want to liberate all beings, even though I have no idea how to do it. practices which accomplish it. That thought arises in a storytelling mind and that thought is the conversion of the touch of the response. The response is not the words. Don't say, live for the welfare of all beings. The enlightened ones are those who have taken care of that thought for a really long time And they've totally gone beyond that thought, that story. They've realized liberation from all stories, including the story, to live for the welfare of all beings. When they really become fully endowed with the ability to live for the welfare of all beings, they're free of that story about it. And then they speak to us from that place beyond words.

[21:37]

They speak to us, but not with words. to us with reality and then when the reality touches us in response to our request this thought arises and then again if we take care of this thought for a long time we become bodhisattvas and if we take care of that practice for a long time we become buddhas the buddhas send Dharma to us and we make the Dharma the Buddha sends into, quotes, Dharma, unquote. And the Buddhas don't say, don't do that. They say, fine. And then they send us instruction about how to deal with what we made out of the teaching. So somehow they sent the message and so now That this teaching, that the teaching that they sent about, what do you call it?

[22:47]

Well this teaching, perhaps I should have said, this teaching is particularly for those who are firmly and sincerely committed to the care of all beings. And who are committed to practicing the precepts to care for that wish and that commitment. because the teaching that what we're dealing with all day long is our storytelling or that everything we're dealing with is actually just a mental construction, then some people might say, well, then it doesn't matter whether I live for the welfare of all beings because they're just mental constructions. It's not that living beings are mental constructions. It's that all I know about living beings is mental constructions. For me, there's nothing but mental constructions.

[23:57]

It's not that you are a mental construction. I am a mental construction. So, I'm devoted to living beings. And if I feel that that's not important when I hear this teaching, then I should probably stop listening to this teaching and go back and find that devotion to living beings again. So I have said a little bit about this and I'll say it again that part of the teaching for those who wish to live for the welfare of all beings and who wish to give their life over in a non-habitual way eventually to the creation of a fully transformed living being

[25:30]

a Buddha, part of the teaching for them is the teaching which I have somewhat suggested to you of dependent co-arising of experience, of our life, and also dependent co-arising of our stories. And the teaching is the elucidation of the process of dependent co-arising of our world, of our mind, of our storytelling, in hopes that this elucidation, this process of dependent co-arising, will liberate us from this process of dependent co-arising. that the study of the elucidation of how our mind arises with the world and the world arises with our mind, how our body arises with our mind and our mind arises with our body, how the world arises with the body and our body and mind arises with the world, these stories and the elucidation of them is given in hopes of liberating us from these stories

[26:55]

from this body and mind world which arises with the body and mind. And in this story it seems like there's not really a beginning to this story but there is the story that based on the results of the results of storytelling support more storytelling. And someone might say, which started first, the results of storytelling or the storytelling? It seems like, well, storytelling must have started first, but you just said that the storytelling is supported by the results of past storytelling. So there's no beginning to this process and there's no end to this process, but there is liberation from this beginningless and endless process where when we tell a story, There's consequences. And right now, the consequences of all our past storytelling is present now.

[28:00]

So our past is present now. My past, so to speak, our past, actually, our past is present now and is sponsoring the current storytelling. I'm telling stories. You're telling stories right now. about the world now and i'm telling a story about the world now and these stories we're telling right now are supported by all the stories we have told and and also my stories right now are supported by there is the results stories your past stories are supporting my present storytelling. The results of your past stories are supporting my present storytelling. And the results of my past storytelling are supporting your present storytelling. And the results of my past storytelling are supporting my present storytelling.

[29:05]

And the results of your past storytelling are supporting your present storytelling. Quite a few people have this talk today. And I don't know, I have a story about why they left. But it's more like a story of a possibility of why they left. I don't really believe the story. But when one starts to contemplate dependent co-arising of our children, one becomes in touch so often with how giddy, how giddy the storytelling consciousness is. Whether you're meditating on it or not, whether you pay attention to your storytelling mind or not, it's still good. But you may not notice it. Or you may notice it.

[30:07]

But if you pay attention, you become more aware of how giddy it is. And giddy means to be excited to the point of disorientation. We have our storytelling mind excites us and distracts us. It distracts us from reality. whatever, we have this expression, a gourd in the water, if you push it down, it spins around. A diamond in the sunlight has no definite shape. Even a greatly cultivated person, like a sentient being who has become an enlightening being, even an enlightening being, turned about in the stream of words, in the streams of storytelling. And so one might feel disoriented and kind of nauseated or sick, seasick, as one becomes aware of the as you meditate on it.

[31:22]

Becoming seaworthy is an essential skill so that you can learn to ride the waves of your storytelling and stay upright and alert. And somehow, if you're intimate with the distracting power of storytelling, you can be more and more not distracted. But still, I imagine to many people, have walked out because they felt spun around by this talking about how the consequences of my past storytelling are supporting your present storytelling and vice versa. We are reciprocally together, you and I, and you and I with the mountain and the ocean. We are making the mountains and oceans and the mountains and oceans are making us.

[32:28]

the mountains and oceans which are the results of our past thinking, our past storytelling. So someone said to me, meditating on this dependent co-arising, she said something like, as I meditate on this dependent co-arising of this consciousness, of this storytelling arising supported by past storytelling, Further storytelling, that process, I start to feel all alone, which again is not so pleasant to become aware of. This storytelling isolates us. We are born storytellers and therefore we are born exiled from each other and exiled from the world.

[33:38]

But our mind makes it so. And as you become more aware of how your mind exiles you and how you're born that way, it's not easy to look at that. In order to study this storytelling process we must practice the Bodhisattva Precepts with the storytelling and with the feelings of alienation and aloneness that occur, that arise in this mind created enclosure. Being kind to that feeling of being alone It's essential in order to become free of the feeling of being alone. The way, let's say it this way, the way we are not alone, the way we are not alone, and I can say it another way, the Buddha way alone is unknowable.

[34:44]

But we are addicted to knowing. So we make the way we're not alone, which is unknowable, knowable. And when we make it knowable, we feel alone. We are not alone. And the way we are not alone is not knowable. We are not alone. Actually, our life is the way we're not alone. That is our life. You could also say our life is not alone, but actually our life is the way we're not alone. But the way we're not alone is inconceivable. Nonetheless, it is the way we are, not alone. But we are addicted to knowing.

[35:50]

We have trouble living with a life of not being alone that's unknown. So we have equipment, consciousness, we have an imagination, we have a storytelling power, and then we make a story of how we're not alone. But when we make a story of how we're not alone, we feel alone. And then we make a story of that and tell somebody. There is no way we are alone. We are only alone by imagination. But the way we're not alone is not by imagination. It's by freedom from imagination. We are actually in a way that we don't know. And to enter the freedom from imagination, the freedom from storytelling, we must, I say, I have the story, that we must be very good storytellers.

[36:57]

We must be very aware of our story and the teachings about, and all the stories about storytelling and the consequences of storytelling. We must learn to be intimate with the process of how our stories appear to work. in order to become free of the appearance of how they work and enter into the actuality and enter into the actuality of how we are not alone of how we are born together all of us and each of us with the whole world. And by being kind to this process by being kind to this enclosure, we can become free of it. And so we have, in the Zen tradition, we have many stories.

[37:59]

Students and teachers come together and look at the story together with the possibility of, by studying the story, they will become free of the story and that they will eventually be able to do the same stories in their daily life so both looking at traditional stories that have been transmitted to focus on and to study together to take that study also to the story of getting up in the morning of talking with each other Of telling people that you're in pain, of listening to other people tell you they're in pain, and so on. To learn to be kind of these stories in order to become free of them. I'm going to say something now which I hope isn't too disturbing.

[39:09]

But it might be a little disturbing. But I think it might be helpful too. I don't mean to disturb, but I'm aware it's a little... So what I'm going to say is that this is a story though. It's a story I'm telling, right? The story is a welcoming is the beginning of our business here. here in the Zen temple. Wherever that Zen temple is, welcoming is the beginning of our business. In other words, our business here in this temple is to welcome each other. That's the beginning. That's not the whole story. I'm just talking about the beginning. So I wish to join that business, which I just said a story about.

[40:12]

I wish to welcome you all. And there are other people here, and all of you may be lucky to welcome everybody. I don't know. But I'm just suggesting that the beginning of our business, it's not our only business, it's the beginning of our business, is the practice of welcoming. other businesses we have, but at the end, and the end of our business is liberating and completely enlightening all beings. That's the end of our business. And there's all kinds of virtues between welcoming and perfect wisdom that also is our business. But I just thought I'd start with welcoming today. And someone came to tell me one time recently that they want to practice in this temple as much as he can.

[41:14]

So he comes to the temple and he sometimes doesn't feel welcome. So you go to a temple that some people say it's beginning business, it's first business is to welcome people. You go there and maybe... Welcome me, or maybe you don't, but you want to be welcomed whether you think they're going to or not, which is a perfectly healthy wish. It's not good to expect it, though. But you might expect it, and I would just say, you just did something which I said is not so good. So to go to a place, I don't know what it's called, it's called the Zen Welcoming Center. And to walk in expecting that they're going to welcome you, I would suggest be aware that that's a story and be kind to that story, but don't believe that they're really going to welcome you according to your ideas. So this person says, I don't feel welcome.

[42:21]

And I said, I said, we're totally here to welcome you. However, I understand you may not feel that way. And I said, you may be surprised to hear that I sometimes don't. And sometimes, you know, the way I might not feel welcomed is that, you know, I might go into a room and not everybody in the room turns towards me and says, welcome. You know, like if I go into the dining room for dinner, people just keep eating. Mindfully, of course. They're eating for the welfare of all beings, of course. But they don't necessarily turn and say, just in case you're not sure, we're welcoming you. We welcome you. They don't necessarily say that. So I might think, I don't feel welcomed. But sometimes it's kind of more gross than that.

[43:23]

Sometimes people actually say, they actually seem to be like, going out of their way to show me that I'm not welcome. Like I come into a space and they actually, like, get out. And then sometimes I ask them, and sometimes they say, yes, in this temple. And at that point, I don't necessarily say, are you like welcoming me with this, trying to avoid me? Is that the way you're welcoming? I feel like it's maybe enough that I found out that they are actually trying to avoid me. Right here in, whatever you want to call, right here in Zen City, people look like they're trying to avoid me and I ask them if they are and they say yes. And then I say, when I have to ask them. Sometimes I wait for years before asking them, by the way.

[44:24]

Sometimes they avoid me for a long time. And then finally I say, I have this fantasy that you're, I have this story that you're trying to avoid me. And the person says, yeah, I avoid you. And then they also say sometimes they say, and I'm meditating on that. I'm wondering about that, what that's about. And I say, thank you. But I don't ask every time I feel unwelcomed. I'm not saying you shouldn't. That might be really cool to ask every time. As a gift, as a welcoming. And I feel like usually I'm not going to ask that question unless I feel welcoming when I ask it. What do you call it? On the field of the practice, if you don't feel like you want to go out and practice welcoming, and watch the people who are welcoming each other. And then when you feel ready to welcome, go out in the welcoming field.

[45:29]

But it is, you know, I think it's almost in our charter of the Zen Center charter practically. We're here to practice Buddhas, compassion Buddhas. We are here to welcome all beings. into the Buddha way. We are here to welcome all beings into the way that we are not alone. However, practically speaking, sometimes we get distracted by our karmic consciousness. Like a story arises about somebody, like this person is really obnoxious. A story like that arises. That guy, that guy is like really it's really good to avoid him and then you get and then you that story kind of like spins you around and you forget that you're here to welcome everybody including him so you don't and then after a few years he comes and says are you trying to avoid me and maybe maybe then you say oh i'm here yes i but pretty good

[46:43]

So I understand that if you feel like someone's trying to avoid you, you might actually say, okay, maybe I shouldn't force myself upon them if they are, especially if they tell me they are. You can welcome them, maybe, by giving them space to ask you for it. They say, please don't come too close to me. I don't... And you don't have to ask them, but you can wonder. I wonder if that's their way of welcoming me, to say, please stay away. It could be. You could welcome somebody by saying, please don't come any closer. That could be your way of welcoming. Or you're just the right amount of closeness now. That could be your way of welcoming. And almost nobody here would, I think, I never heard anybody say, we're here not to welcome people. But I have heard many people say, I do get so distracted sometimes, I forget to welcome.

[47:47]

And sometimes people say, I feel unwelcome. And when I kind of bring that up with people, they say, you know, I'm really sorry. I'm so busy right now. I'm having trouble. I'm so busy, you know, I'm so giddy. Like focusing on helping you, you know. It's hard, you know? Like in the kitchen, if somebody's working with something really hot and you go over to them and say, please help me, they might say, you know, I'm ready. I'm so excited taking care of this hot thing. It's hard for me to like also welcome you. That's the limits of our ability to be upright in this spinning. Even though we really want to be generous and welcoming to each other still, Sometimes we can barely remember that. In this room, and me being in one included, never gets distracted. Maybe somebody here never gets distracted, but most of us get distracted from being upright and balanced in this tremendously dynamic storytelling mind.

[48:56]

which is the wish to welcome all beings and also to be compassionate to my own forgetfulness of welcoming all beings and to be compassionate to others' forgetfulness of welcoming all beings. That's part of ethics is to be patient with how people are learning to be compassionate and not to slander people who are not coming along very rapidly. And not think you're better than other people who are having trouble welcoming you. Well, I'm welcoming you, but you're not. That may be the case. But you could say that without thinking you're better than that person. Where being better than them is not the issue. It's just that you happen to be blessed with the moment of welcoming, and they're saying they don't want to welcome. So... The more we practice welcoming, here's the story, the more we practice welcoming, the better we will begin at welcoming and the more other people will join the welcoming process.

[50:10]

So, I say, you are welcome. And we want you to feel welcome. Yeah. And we want you to join the welcoming process. And even if people don't feel welcome, we want you to learn to welcome not feeling welcome. I know it's hard to welcome not feeling welcome. That's a tough one. But these enlightening beings learn to welcome not being welcomed. And of course, Buddhas welcome not being welcomed. There are stories of Buddhas who do these amazing... performances of welcoming not being welcomed. And we, some of us, aspire to such unhindered welcoming activity. No matter what is given, they come back.

[51:19]

And, yeah. But it may happen to you that what's given to you from another person here might not look like welcoming. And I hope that you learn to. And it doesn't mean that you don't say, I have a gift for you. And would you like to receive it? And they say, what? And I want, it might be a little difficult to receive this gift. And they say, oh, do you want to read it? Do you want to hear it? Yeah. I just now didn't feel welcomed by you. And they'll have a response. I don't know what it'll be. They might say, thank you very much. It is my intention to welcome you and I appreciate your feedback. And I aspire to the practice of welcoming you in the future. Matter of fact, I feel very welcoming of you right now. But they might not say that.

[52:24]

They might say, I don't want any feedback. I got a headache. So I hope you welcome that. But please, I welcome you. I welcome you to tell me if you don't feel like I welcome you because I'm saying right out, I welcome you. I'm devoted to that practice and I don't want to be addicted to it. I don't want to do it compulsively. I want to do it wantingly. I want to do it because I want to do it. And if you feel like I'm not being welcome, muted let me know and i but i well i would i request that you let me know in a welcoming way like hey rev i got a gift for you people do come to me and say i heard you want feedback well i have some for you want it i say thanks for asking uh okay just a second let me get ready and then i get ready for the feedback for receiving the welcoming and uh i appreciate that

[53:27]

that welcoming, that question about whether I'm up for it. And then, if I'm ready, please give it to me. And that's one particular type, and there's many other types which I invite. But that one in particular, very simple. If you don't feel welcomed by me, please find a welcoming way to tell me you don't feel welcomed. And I am vowing to welcome your telling me that you don't feel welcomed by me. If you feel like I'm not being welcomed, I welcome you to tell me you don't feel like I'm being generous in a welcoming way. If you can't do it in a welcoming way and you have to do it in an unwelcoming way, I will try to welcome that too. But I actually would like you to do your best to help me. And if you're not in the mood to do your best, I guess if I would... With somebody else, you say, I want to give somebody some feedback, but I don't want to do it in my best way. I would say, well, why don't you wait until you want to do it your best way? And when you feel like, yeah, I'd like to really give them some really helpful feedback, and I really would like to benefit them, even though it's difficult feedback, I really feel... I say, well, I support that.

[54:42]

If you carefully, gently... generously, patiently offer the feedback. I support that. But if you feel impatient and stingy and mean and angry, then I would say, well, wait until later to get the feedback. Go sit in the sattva for a while and watch the bodhisattvas until you feel like, oh, I want to try that too. So I've been talking about our addiction to storytelling, our addiction to storytelling about our life so we have a way of knowing, because we do know stories. We can know them. They're a graspable way of relating to our life. And I'm not saying stop it to myself or you. I'm saying let's be really kind to it and aware of it. Listen to all the teachings about how to become intimate with storytelling. This is, in a sense, our basic addiction.

[55:49]

The other addictions that we know about, the other habits and compulsions arise out of this basic one. They're important too. And the same way of practicing with them, the same way of practicing with the basic affliction, the basic addiction, applies to the other ones. And there's subtleties, which many people are experts at, of, you know, the different varieties of addiction have various kinds of them, which I didn't talk about, which is this huge topic, right, about how do you help people who are addicted to this? How do you help people who are addicted to that? Different types of compassion, different forms of compassion to different types of addiction. ...forms of addiction, it's really good to say, I'm not going to support that. That could be a really generous response to it. Other types of addiction, you might say, I support it.

[56:51]

I'm going to support you to do it. As a way to help the person become kind to it and free of it. The agenda of all this work with addiction, I think, is to become free of them. Not to kill them, which sometimes people would like, where some people are addicted to killing addictions. not to be mean to the addictions, to be kind to them in more and more profound and unattached ways to relate to these addictions, which we're born with. We're born with the addiction to knowing, to making the unknowable knowable. Because we feel a little uneasy with inconceivable, unknowable, reality of how we're not alone. So thank you for listening to this children's talk.

[57:52]

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