Last Saturday, I went to the Monterey Zen Center, Zen Group, and did a workshop. And the workshop was a benefit to raise some money to develop an archive of Suzuki Roshi's talks, tapes, and lectures. The suggestion was that I spend the day recollecting and reminiscing about Susie Drush's life and that we have alternating periods of meditation and recollection. I wondered if I would have enough to say.

[01:12]

But there was no problem. As soon as I started, I just got flooded from somewhere. even though I was only with him for four years, a tremendous amount of experience happens in four years. And... Sometimes I actually forget what a wonderful teacher he was and how he could teach in so many ways.

[02:26]

So I'd like to do the same thing here maybe next year sometime. Do a little weekend or something of sitting and recollecting and sitting and recollecting and discussing his teaching, the way he taught, what he taught. And I, I, after, when the day was finished, I thought to myself, as I was driving back up here, I thought, how many times will I be able to tell those stories over and over?

[03:51]

How can they be fresh again and again? Right after telling them, I thought, well, I couldn't tell them again, but now, a couple days later, you can take that. They seem interesting. And some of those stories I've told already so many times. The way I spent the day was I started with, you know, I didn't talk about his past lives, but I talked about when he was a little boy, stories I heard about him or that he told about when he was a little boy, when he was a young monk. when he was a young teacher, when he was a more mature teacher, when he came to San Francisco, and then the years that I knew him. And the beginning years, how he seemed at the beginning, how he seemed in the middle, and how he seemed at the end.

[04:53]

So towards the end, during the last year of his life, he was going to go to Portland, Oregon to give a talk and do a session, a weekend session. And he invited me to be his attendant. So, of course, not of course, but anyway, I was very happy for the opportunity. Unfortunately, I had already made a commitment to another Zen priest to help him out with something. And... Now I feel kind of bad to tell you this, but I told him that actually I would like to be excused from my obligation.

[06:29]

Not excused, but I would like to not fulfill my obligation and go with Suzuki Roshi to poor them. And he didn't excuse me. But I went anyway. And I didn't... I don't know if I told Suzuki Roshi about it or not. I don't remember. I kind of remember that I told him and he said, oh, it's okay. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I vaguely remember saying, Yoshi-Mora-sensei... asked me to do such and such, and, you know, I prefer to go with you to Portland, and hearing him sort of let me do it, but I'm not sure. Anyway, Yoshimura said he didn't let me do it, but I did it anyway. And so, I feel kind of bad about that, but anyway, I feel still, it was one of the most important weekends of my life.

[07:37]

So it started out kind of light-hearted, a airplane ride with my teacher, going to Portland in the spring. It was March, so it was raining around on the west coast. And he announced to me at the beginning of the flight that he was going to teach me how to count people in Japanese. He had been teaching me Japanese for a while and also encouraging me to study on my own. Actually, I studied with a couple tutors. So he took this opportunity to teach me how to count people in Japanese, which I did not yet know how to do. So, as we took off, he told me that, and he started teaching me towards a very quick, at the beginning of the flight.

[08:41]

And so he said, here's how you do it. So, one person is shitori. Two, futari. Three, san-nin. Go-nin. This went to 10. And I think if you go 11, you go 10, 11, and 12, and 13. But you just did 10, like counting to 10. So I did those. And you said, now you try it. So I did. I said, I don't know if I did it this well the first time, but Anyway, I did it until I got it. And he said, well, continue.

[09:46]

So I did. And then he fell asleep. So when he fell asleep, I stopped. And just about right around the time I stopped, sort of like at the moment I stopped, around just about a little bit after the moment I stopped, he said, story. I don't remember exactly if it was right away or if there was a few seconds there, but it wasn't very long. So I said, And he closed his eyes and went back to sleep. After a while, and I stopped again. And right about that time, he said, This is an actual, this isn't translated, this is an actual original text.

[10:47]

So I started again. I think at that point, I don't think I stopped again, I think at that point I understood that if I stopped the next he would just wake up and tell me to start again. So I think then I did continue to count people to Portland. Although I could look out the window and notice that those mountains were in deep snow. Mount Hood, for example. Very beautiful. And we landed, and we got off the airplane. I stopped counting people in Japanese. That was my main training in counting people. And by telling the story over and over and over every few years, I've managed to continue to be able to do that. And I'm going to Japan this fall, it looks like, for a translation conference so I can use it. But I did think, you know, and on certain other occasions, I did think, now what is this guy doing?

[12:00]

What is this Zen master doing teaching this guy to count in Japanese? I was happy to do it, but I also wondered, why isn't he teaching me something more profound? However, sometimes he did tell me, well, now I'm going to teach you something profound. And usually when he did that, I would immediately go to sleep. Or, you know, try to get out of the room. But anyway, maybe that's why he taught me this kind of stuff, because I could stand it. So we did this session, and he was sitting there as a teacher, and he gave a talk. And I was carrying the stick, and suddenly he keeled over. at his seat. And I went over to him and I said, what's the matter? And he said, I have terrible pain. And he could barely sit up. And so we took him right away over to the place we were staying and he rested in. So I finished the sashin that day and the next morning

[13:03]

And he was in a lot of pain, and he tried to eat real simple rice soup and stuff, but he was still coughing up real bitter something. So we went back to San Francisco, and we were staying at the home of a woman who had a little boy, and the little boy's name was Tiger. His name was Tiger. And this is a girl who was not in by a member. The little boy was kind of upset about I don't know what, but he was kind of upset. He rode the airport with us. And I remember since the girl she was, you know, really taking good care of the little boy. And when we got out of the car, he said, goodbye, tiger. So we went on the airplane.

[14:06]

So I was sitting next to him flying back to San Francisco. He didn't ask me to count people in Japanese. He just tried to stay in his seat with his pain. And I tried to stay in mine. which was next to his. And so now, I didn't think at that time, why doesn't he teach me something profound? I just tried to stay in my seat, and you know, I really couldn't stay in my seat. Couldn't do it. And I forgive myself, I was pretty young. But I couldn't sit in my seat, I couldn't sit next to my teacher. I mean, I sat there, but I couldn't be there. I couldn't be there with the pain. I was everywhere but there. And I was ashamed that I couldn't be there. But I couldn't. So, I wasn't.

[15:07]

And so I struggled 600 miles, 630 miles to be with him. and help him, but I didn't do a good job. And so when we got back to San Francisco, got off the airplane, and his wife, Oxon, and Yvonne Rand were there to meet us, and they had a wheelchair. And I said, Roshi, do you want to sit in a wheelchair? And he said, I'm a Zen master. And walked. And actually, when he said that, I felt kind of embarrassed that he said that. But anyway, he did sort of do that. And he did that. And he walked in all his pain back home. But then when we got back to his house, he did something very unusual. When he walked into his room, he just took a robe off and dropped it. So I knew he was really having a hard time.

[16:13]

He never did that. So we called the doctor, and the doctor said, go to the hospital. And then he no longer tried to walk, and we didn't let him, so we carried him. He went to the hospital and had his gallbladder removed. And so... That's what it was. It was this gallbladder, you know, that's why it was so bitter, you know, spitting up, vomiting of bitter stuff because the gallbladder, you know, it has a bitter, it's a bitter, very bitter secretion, bile, right? It's an oil filter kind of thing. before the material goes, before the blood goes into the liver, I think, or it secrete something to help the liver. I don't know what it does, but anyway, the bile is bitter, and he was spitting up the bile, coughing, vomiting up the bile.

[17:18]

So he had it removed, and so we heard about that, and the operation was successful, and we heard that after sometimes people have a gallbladder operation, that they're feeling better. Because it's like taking out a clogged filter, and as long as they don't need a lot of oil, they get kind of rejuvenation. And his wife also had a gallbladder operation when she was 70. And she was kind of heading down, her energy was heading down to that point. And when she had the operation, after she recovered, her energy went way up, just like we thought Hugo Suzuki Rashi. So we watched him recover, and his energy did come up. And so we're all looking forward to him being even more healthy than he was before. And he had been a little sick for a couple of years. Actually, I want to say something about his sickness before that.

[18:25]

When we got Tassahara, he went to Tassahara right away and helped start Tassahara. He was the teacher, and so he was there. He really was there pretty much, except when he mostly, just about the only thing he left for were like really important things like people's funerals that he was close to. He would leave for those, but that's about the only reason he would leave Tassahara at the beginning. And those days was the height of the macrobiotic thing. And a lot of people went to Tazahara because they heard Tazahara was macrobiotic. And I think macrobiotic cooking is good, actually, myself. I thrive on it. But it wasn't what Suzuki Roshi was used to. He was used to white rice. And he didn't have regular teeth, you know, in the end of his life. He had, what do you call it, dentures. So it was hard for him to chew brown rice. But he still ate with the monks, which is pretty unusual for an older teacher to just practice right with the monks.

[19:47]

In Japan, you don't find to go to a a monastery that has that many monks, as Tassajara did at that time, just like it does now. It's a pretty big monastery in terms of numbers. It's a lot of people sitting there. So in a monastery like that, the teacher, the head teacher would, especially if he was older, unless he was a younger training teacher, he would usually have a little lighter schedule and have his own place where he had sometimes special meals. Mr. Sikorshi didn't do that. He ate with the regular monks. And he was used to white rice, which you don't have to chew so much. And he also was used to some kind of, like, you know, some little bit of animal coaching, I think. And... But he... There was nobody else to teach us. There was, you know, we were all brand new monks. There were no, like, experienced monks.

[20:51]

So one of the reasons why the older teachers in a big monastery usually don't have to follow a schedule is they have younger priests or younger disciples who can model the practice very well. They don't need the teacher to show the way to do the practice. The teacher is just available for the final touches on the practice, the subtle completion. But there was nobody who just set an example. Nobody knew what a monastery was like. So he set the example. And the example he set was he followed the schedule. And he ate the food the monks ate. But if you see pictures of him just before Tassajara and not too long after, you see his face was round before and it got much thinner right away. He lost a lot of weight and he was just a tiny little guy. So he lost, you know, he couldn't afford to lose much weight. And he was tiny and he was, you know, he was 60. over 60.

[21:53]

So his health got weaker because he gave himself to make that monastery strong to establish that dimension of our practice. And then I don't know if it was Asian, I think it was called the Hong Kong, so the Hong Kong, Hong Kong, so it hit in late 68 and he got it. And it was something like the Asian flu, but not quite as bad, not so many people got it. He got him, and he got sick, and he recovered. But he never really recovered. From that time on, if you listen to his talks, and most of his talks he recorded are from after that time, I think, or a lot of them, you notice he's always clearing his throat and coughing.

[22:58]

He never got over that. So coming into this time of this gallbladder thing, his health had been going down because he had been giving so much to us. to plant the seeds and so anyway we thought well maybe he'll get stronger now after this and he did get stronger and I remember one time after he was feeling quite a bit better he was giving a talk in a Buddha hall in San Francisco and you know suddenly he looked right at me and I don't know if everybody thought he looked right at them too at the same time you know how when I was a kid I used to watch this TV show called it's a Gabby Hayes show or something like that or some cowboy show, and they had this sponsored by Quaker Puff wheat or rice or something, Quaker Puff oats, shot from a gun.

[24:02]

So they had this cannon, and they put these oats in the cannon, and then they'd ignite the cannon and explode, and they would cook these things, and they would shoot out, you know, these roasted oats and rice would shoot out all over the place. And I noticed that if you sat right in front of them, they would come at you. But if you went over to the side of the TV, they would shoot sideways. And if you would shoot the other way, they would shoot the other way. So I don't know if that's what it was with Suzuki Rashi, but he looked right at me, right straight in my face, and all of a sudden he said, things teach best when they're dying. I thought, what's that about? I didn't understand. And he didn't tell us that the gallbladder was malignant. So we didn't know. So I couldn't understand why he looked at me and said that.

[25:06]

Some part of me got it. It struck me, but I couldn't think, well, he's telling me that he's dying. He's telling us this. I couldn't sort of like, no. That's not what he's saying, even though it really struck me. So then a little while later he said he was going to go to Tassajara for what turned out to be the last time he went to Tassajara. And so I said to him, I said, I want to go with you, you know, but I was director of the building. And I said, I want to go with you, but, I mean, if I go, you know, people will be jealous or upset, so I don't know. So he said, oh, yeah. So I said, well, let's think about it, he said, or something like that. Maybe something will work out. But what worked out was that he went to Tassajara, for the last time, and I didn't go.

[26:11]

And probably everybody would have wanted to go. And he, again, gave everything and, like, just, you know, he taught, you know, really energetically. that summer and everyone was really inspired by how much he gave And, you know, now when I think about it, you know, should I have gone or what? I don't feel like I should have gone or shouldn't have gone. I didn't go. And I feel like, you know, I didn't go.

[27:16]

He went. And also later he went. That same year he went. He really went. I don't know, you know I think I let Suzuki Roshi go I didn't grieve that much I cried but I didn't feel like I was I felt like I let him go it seemed too early for him to die but Anyway, he went to Tazar, and when he came back, his health was really broken. And it was really... I almost got a little angry. He was so broken.

[28:17]

It was like, you know, like he squeezed it all out. And so they thought he had hepatitis. He was yellow. Actually, visiting Japanese doctors thought he had hepatitis, but he didn't. He had liver cancer. And that was 24 years ago, so... I don't know if they can do anything now, but there was no discussion of anything at that time, of any treatment. Some kind of funny people, I shouldn't say funny people, but some people suggested some very far out things, but he didn't pick up on it. And with liver cancer, I don't know if it's always painful, but it was very painful for him. But again, I don't know if he was toughing it out again, or just there is no, maybe somebody knows, I don't know, maybe there is no painkiller for it, because it's so deep.

[29:28]

I mean, other than knocking a person out. So he suffered a lot. But still, even when he found out he had liver cancer, he thought, you know, human being, the human being thought that he would live a couple more years. So we were kind of like still gearing up for a couple more years of being able to study with him in some way. But it was, it was, you know, powerful. And it just came on so fast. He really surprised, surprised, he surprised him too. I don't think he was kidding us. I think it's just that it came on really strong, stronger than he thought. And so it was a much shorter time we had with him, just about three months from the time of diagnosis, a bit more than three months. So, I guess everybody has a little bit different understanding of what Suzuki Rosh's teaching was, and maybe that's the way it should be, so that his teaching can be planted in many, many different ways.

[31:07]

Like one time he said, you know, to me, and I don't know if he said it to anybody else, but he said, maybe your teacher can't be your friend. He didn't say it to me, maybe he just said it to more than one person and I heard it. Maybe. He didn't say it, definitely. And I remember I used to watch him in my early years before Zen Center at Page Street. I used to watch him, you know, on Sunday they had Japanese service. And after service he would come out and talk to the Japanese people. And I remember I used to watch him, his face, when he talked to the old Japanese ladies, you know. And he'd be so jovial and animated. And I kind of thought, well, why doesn't he talk to me like that? He wasn't exactly cold, but kind of cold and stern in a way, a little bit compared to what he was doing with them.

[32:28]

Now my understanding is that he did that with me. So they got that teaching from him, right? They got that Suzuki Roshi, and that was planted in them. And that's the part of the teaching that they took. He's a sweetheart. He's a softie. He's a really nice, sweet priest. Friendly and warm. So that's what he was for them. One time I saw a picture of him talking to some old ladies. And the picture was from the back. And their faces were smiling, so I assumed like he was, you know, I don't know what, having a good time talking to them, because they were kind of going, and there were some horses in the background. It was in the country, in Vermont, the picture. So I assumed that his face was kind of going, hi, everybody. But I looked at his back, you know, and it looked like an iron mountain. So he showed me his back, for at first anyway.

[33:46]

And my feeling about that was that he did that because he didn't want to distract me by the warmth that he had for all of us. He wanted to let me find my love for the practice so that I wasn't practicing you know, for the warmth that he felt for us. That's my understanding. And when he could see that I wasn't practicing to get something from the teacher, that I really was practicing for the practice, then he gave me a little hint of the warmth that he feels for us. So as part of the pain of being a teacher and that he had was, you know, how to convey, how to use his warmth to encourage the practice rather than use his warmth in such a way that distracts people from the practice.

[34:52]

It's a very subtle thing, you know. When the person's in the practice, you can use the warmth at some time to help, you know, to help him take another step deeper But if they're about to go deep, and they're hesitating, and you use the warmth, they say, oh, that's what I want. And it's very subtle. And I think it was hard for him because American signals are different, you know. And so he had to struggle to find out how does he convey it. But anyway, one time... One time he said to me, I was going to Tatsuhara, and he said, I want you to learn the Tatsugami Roshi that's going to teach chanting. He said, I want you to learn chanting from Tatsugami Roshi. I said, okay. And he didn't do this for almost never. He shook hands with me. So then I knew that all that time, you know,

[35:54]

what was there the whole time. But it didn't distract me. And I went to Tassajara and said, OK, I'm going to stay here. I'm not going to leave you. I left him. See, he stayed in San Francisco. I went to Tassajara. But he wanted me to. And I wanted to. I wanted to train Tassajara with our real trainers. And then Tassagami Rashi did train me to chant. And then after I learned how to chant, Sukureji came down to Tassajara and asked me to teach him how to chant. and to teach him what Tatsugami Rashi taught us.

[36:58]

Okay. So I did, I taught him. And then when I'm in the process of teaching him, then he taught me some things too. Since Tatsugami Rashi taught me this stuff, then he could use that as a point of departure to teach me something. But he, Suzuki Rashi's way was not so much to teach the forms. His way was hoping, you know, someone else would teach us the forms, and then he could, like, teach us the meaning of the forms. And actually, I was kind of like, in some ways, I'm a little Japanese, because, you know, like, I heard once that the Japanese, you know, they're very good at copying Western music. Like, if you listen to some Japanese rock groups, they very nicely copy the Beatles or, you know, Rolling Stones or whatever, down to minute details. And I copied Tatsugami Roshi that way, too. And Suzuki Roshi told me that Actually, it was kind of funny what I was doing because I was chanting like an old man from a certain section of, you know, rural Japan. But that was good that I learned that.

[38:09]

But then he sort of, he kind of like ironed my chanting, ironed out all the kind of like eccentricities that I had learned and got it back to be sort of like normal. Just normal. But then, too, you know, it was very hard for me to stay present for that because he was like, you know, I was right there and he was like going, just like right in there, just, you know, touching my voice, you know, and listening. And I knew he was listening to everything I was saying. It was very hard to get all that attention, all that attention, very hard. I wanted to get out of it. Okay, I got it. See you later. No, no, do it again. Okay, thank you. I don't want to keep you longer. Thank you. No, no, do it again. No, no, really, do it again. And it was so, again, ironic that this is what I came for, is to get this kind of training, but as soon as I got it, really, I couldn't. No, thank you, I don't want to know, I don't want to trouble you. Anyway, that's kind of the way he liked to teach, is mold something that's already there, rather than him just put the form in.

[39:20]

You know, another similarity between Sussur Karoshi and Gabby Hayes. You know, this guy interviewed Gabby Hayes one time, and he said, Well, how do you do it, Gabby? I mean, there you're on TV, and you're talking to 25 million kids or whatever, you know. How do you relate? And he says... some of the, I don't know if everyone will get this, but the older people will get this, he said, well, I just look out there at the camera and I just talk to one single little buckaroo. Does everybody know what a buckaroo is? That's what he'd say. Howdy, buckaroos! Anyway, Suzuki Rashi, too, you know, he would talk to one buckaroo, and he, Oksan told me that You know, in the early days, sometimes this wonderful Zen teacher would go down to give a talk, and one buckaroo would come.

[40:38]

Can you believe that? Now, if this occurs, he gave a talk today. He'd be 91, right? He'd be the senior Dharma teacher. You know, he'd be senior to... what, Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, you know, Mazumi Roshi, and, of course, Katagiri Roshi, and the Narazaki brothers, and, you know, he'd all be, he'd be their teacher, he would be, like, you know, very venerated, and if he ever gave a talk, you know, the cow palace couldn't hold the people. And that teacher would sometimes go to give a talk in San Francisco, and... one person would come. And she said that he prepared the same for one person as he would for a packed hall. Same preparation. And I think that's another great teaching of his. So sometimes I, you know, I remember that.

[41:48]

Sometimes I thought, Well, I'm going to go give a talk now to three people. Well, I don't have to prepare for that as much as I would at this quite a few. But that was not his way. Of course, you could do it the other way, too, is just prepare as little for three thousand as you would for three. The point is the same. So like I say, in some sense, he showed me a certain practice. I mean, I saw a certain practice in him as the primary thing he was conveying. And what I saw was it practice was just to

[42:58]

Sit upright exactly where you are. That's what I heard him teach. And that that is enlightenment. And he explained what that means is just to be yourself in each moment with no gaining idea. So if I say that, that's what I understood.

[44:14]

And so partly based on that, I mean, not just because you said that, but that in the context of everything else that I understood has now led me to, you know, talk about this teaching and share this teaching and encourage other people to do the practice of this teaching. ask me, are you sure? And I would say, I say, no, I'm not sure. It's just what I've decided to make the fundamental for my life. It's just my faith to practice according to what I understood his teaching to be and And I think his teaching was Shakyamuni Buddha's teaching. I think that's what he hoped, and that's what I think he was attempting, and I think he also felt that his teaching was Dogen Zenjis and Bodhidharmas.

[45:22]

And that's... It's not exactly that I believe that, it's more like I'm betting on that. And I'm betting on it with my... as much as possible my entire life. And I think that's what I think is the best bet to respond appropriately to circumstances. It's very simple, but it's a very difficult practice. Because you can't do it. It's just being yourself as you are. So in order to merge with the practice, you have to give up everything else. You have to give up all human trips, all human agency, all personal power.

[46:24]

It doesn't mean you don't have personal power. To reject personal power would also be that wouldn't be just being yourself. Each of you has, each of us has, a certain amount of personal power. And to have exactly and fully the amount of personal power that you have, that's what it is to give up personal power. If you come up a little short to your personal power, Or if you overestimate your personal power, that's what I spoke of last time I taught, as taking yourself too seriously. So when one day the ancestor, what was his name, Yaoshan, was sitting, his teacher walked up to him and said, what are you doing sitting there?

[47:47]

And he said, I'm not doing anything at all. And his teacher, Shirtou, said, well, then you're sitting idly. And Yao Shan said, if I were sitting idly, I would be doing something. And Shuto said, Sekito said, you say you're not doing anything at all. What is it that you're not doing? And Yao Shan said, even the 10,000 sages don't know. So that's why practice being yourself is difficult. It's simple, but it's difficult because even the 10,000 sages don't know what it is you're not doing.

[48:58]

When you don't veer away from being who you are, in this moment, when you don't move from this present experience, no one knows what that is. You don't know? I don't know. Ten thousand sages don't know. Suzuki Rishi doesn't know. All the Buddhas in ten directions don't know. No one can measure it. No one can touch it. No one can do it. It's just the way we are. And that's our teaching. That's what each of us has to teach. Each of us has to teach who we are, moment by moment. But in order to fulfill your ability to teach, you have to be present with your experience.

[50:15]

And that's not easy. And you have to give up going other places. It's not easy to give up all that ability. Again, giving up doesn't mean rejecting it. It means just let it go. that do its thing, that's part of who you are. So, you know, towards the end of his life, he kept going to the Zendo for a while. He could go downstairs to the Zendo and sit, but he couldn't get back up. So we gave him rides up, which was lots of fun. He was really sweet about it. We made this little chair like this. You know how you do that? One person goes like this, the other person meets it. And just sit on that, carrying up the stairs. It was very dear and very sweet. And he taught us, while riding on our arms, he taught us. He was there, being a little cutie pie in our arms.

[51:17]

He was teaching us. And later he couldn't go down to the Zendo anymore. didn't give lectures, didn't do ceremonies, didn't give doksan, just suffering Suzukiroshi. Just suffering Suzukiroshi. Moment by moment, that's what he was. It wasn't what I expected a Zen teacher to be like, it wasn't what we usually think of Zen stories like, but he was there, being that sick man, And I remember his dharma talks, and I remember him in the zendo. That was wonderful teaching. I remember moving rocks, wonderful teaching. I remember seeing him eat. That was wonderful teaching. He was teaching all the time, in every situation. But when he couldn't sit anymore, he couldn't walk anymore.

[52:20]

He still taught right from there. And every moment that I was with him when he was dying, I'll never forget those moments. Maybe because I knew they were going to be the last. I don't know. So anyway, he showed that although he did do monastic forms, traditional practices, The teaching is not limited to those forms, and it comes off of us. It emanates from us all day long, in every situation. He showed that, and he saw it in us. So, now I go down to Tassajara to

[53:24]

in some sense, reap the benefits of his giving his life to us and establishing that place of practice. And also I give my life for the same thing that he did, I hope. I hope that you find, if you wish, your way this fall here at Green Gulch to express your understanding of our dear teacher's gift. In one sense I hope you will, in another sense I know you will. And I'm sorry to not be here this fall to see you practice.

[54:39]

Let's pretend like we had a really wonderful discussion period, okay? And everyone's expressed themselves and said just what they wanted to, and everyone appreciated it and was really encouraged by what they said. And it made us all feel really close and supportive of each other. Okay? And so now, after the result of this discussion, We really appreciate everyone's practice, and I'm really happy to be practicing here at Green Gulch, because we really understand the true heart of all of our fellow members of the Sangha. All right? This is the only way we can do it and still hand it at 8.30. Thank you very much.

[56:18]

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