I wanted to begin by telling you about my ultimate concern for the remainder of my life. And it is to not take myself too seriously. to devote my life to helping others not take themselves too seriously. The reason why I'm concerned with this is because taking ourselves too seriously is our basic problem.

[01:03]

Almost everyone takes herself too seriously. And not taking ourselves too seriously is what I would call self-respect. Taking ourselves too seriously is a kind of slander of our self. Our self does really not want to be taken too seriously and also does not want to be completely ignored or denied. Denying yourself or rejecting yourself or betraying yourself is also taking yourself too seriously. So the whole purpose of Zen practice is to help us develop self-respect.

[02:14]

In other words, self-respect means to look at yourself again, to reconsider the matter. In other words, to look at yourself just right, see yourself as you really are, not giving yourself more or less weight than you deserve. Some people underestimate themselves because they take themselves so seriously. They think, I am too bad for this neighborhood. I've got to restrain this person. This person is too much trouble for the world. It's kind of a mistake that I got to be this way, and so I'll take responsibility for correcting the error that I'm the way I am.

[03:16]

This is called taking yourself too seriously. The world actually can deal with you. It is always doing that, and it has never had any problem. However, we think the world's having a hard time or too easy a time, so we blow ourselves up or shrink ourselves down. This is called taking yourself too seriously. This is called evil. This is called messing with yourself. But again, the thing is we mess with ourselves because we take ourselves too seriously. We think, you know, this thing's got to be like puffed up or shrunk. This has got to be spiffed up or dirtied up. This thing's got to be trained or untrained. So we have a practice called Zazen, and Zazen is a practice in not taking yourself too seriously.

[04:27]

So in one sense some people think, well, I'll go sit there, I'll go sit in meditation or I'll stand in meditation or walk in meditation, I'll do this practice. I'll do this practice just to do this practice. This is called not taking yourself too seriously. But if you do the practice to improve yourself, or to get rid of your problems, again, that's not the practice. The practice is to let yourself be just like you are. As though you weren't so important. that you have to get fixed up. Buddha does not take herself seriously.

[05:34]

Buddha does not try to fix herself up. Buddha is relaxed about being whatever she is, and she may be an uptight person, but she's relaxed about that. She may be petty and nasty. She may not even have a sense of humor, or she may have a bad sense of humor. But she has a sense of humor about all of that. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.

[06:46]

Thou, you know who thou is? Thou is the one who doesn't take herself too seriously. Get down there, walk through that valley with a big shadow of death hanging over you, and evil all around. Come down the mountains, here comes evil. Okay? How are you going to be afraid of the evil and the death lurking all around you in that big, dark valley? Only one way. Don't take yourself too seriously. Don't worry about yourself. And that evil won't hurt you. It'll come right down, get real close to you, come right up, snuggle up real close. But if you worry about yourself, if you worry about yourself, you take yourself too seriously, evil's got you. But if you've got a sense of humor, get real close to evil. You know, not too close.

[07:54]

But not too far. If you don't take yourself seriously, you know just the right relationship to have with death. If you take yourself too seriously, you've got the wrong relationship with death. You lean back a little bit, too much. Or you lean forward, too much. You go running after it or you run away from it. But taking yourself not too seriously, you have a balanced, upright posture in the face of death and evil and all kinds of monstrosities. And also, The same in the presence of pleasant, lovely, beautiful, wonderful things. In other words, you adjust appropriately to the circumstances. But if we take ourselves too seriously, we can't adjust because this is a real important thing, which, I mean, really, you can't just adjust. We've got to take care of this. This is a serious thing. Me. Whatever I think of myself, it doesn't matter.

[09:04]

It's just what I think of myself. And whatever you think of me, I always take it in and interpret it in terms of what I think you think of me. And that doesn't matter either. What matters is, do I take seriously what I'm thinking? If I do... Well... then I'll fear evil and death. And actually I'll fear love and compassion too. Who me? I'm not worthy of love, please. Who me? I don't deserve compassion. Or I should get more compassion than I'm getting. I don't deserve to be promoted. I should be more promoted. Anyway, I think you get the picture. It's just a big hopeless mess if you take yourself too seriously. So the thing is, Forget that thing about taking yourself seriously and take yourself just right. What's that? Nobody knows.

[10:06]

That's also taking yourself too seriously to try to figure out what that would mean. If you don't take yourself too seriously, you don't have to figure out how to do it either. Say, well, I don't even know how to do it. But that doesn't matter so much. But it does really matter if other people would learn this. That really does matter. But also that's not taking myself seriously either. That I'm really, you know, burningly concerned that other people would learn how to do this and that it hurts me when other people don't do it. That's also not taking myself seriously. Did you follow that? When you worry about whether you're going to learn how to do it, that's taking yourself too seriously. When you worry about how others are going to learn how to do it, that's not taking yourself too seriously. That's also not taking them too seriously. That's taking them just right because when you don't take yourself seriously, you naturally take other people seriously.

[11:17]

But not too seriously. You never take them too seriously when you don't take yourself too seriously. But if you take yourself too seriously, you also take them too seriously. And again, too seriously can take two forms. Basically, what they say to you matters too much or not enough. Both those ways, overestimating and underestimating what people are saying to you, is also based on taking yourself too seriously. Unvalue yourself more than you should. You shouldn't value yourself not at all. That's too little. Not valuing yourself not at all is, again, taking yourself too seriously. Okay, well, that's it. And that not taking yourself too seriously is called zazen. It's called sitting zen. Do you have any questions?

[12:24]

How do you learn to not take yourself seriously? How do you learn? Well, one way is to notice, to look around and see if you take yourself too seriously. And notice how that works for you and others. Primarily look at how you take yourself too seriously. That's the main thing. You will probably also, if you do that, you might not be able to avoid noticing that others look like they're doing the same. But that's not your focus. Your focus is on how you, you're concerned about how you take yourself too seriously and you are concerned about how others might not take themselves too seriously. Not how they are taking themselves too seriously. Because you don't know that. But sometimes they tell you various things, and it sounds like they're taking themselves too seriously, so then you might, from your own experience about how great it is not to take yourself too seriously, you might tell them the secret.

[13:51]

And again, if you don't take yourself too seriously, you don't mind noticing that you're taking yourself too seriously. Some people take themselves too seriously and they don't want to notice that they take themselves too seriously because noticing that you take yourself too seriously is noticing something painful. Because every time you take yourself too seriously, it hurts. It hurts you, primarily, and simultaneously it hurts Buddha. Fortunately. So then Buddha comes and says, Well, how's it going? And you'd say and tell about how it's going, how it's hurting. But a lot of people are doing things that are a little bit too important to notice their pain. They've got other things to notice, other important work.

[14:56]

I don't have time to notice I'm in pain. People talk like that. Sounds reasonable, right? They're doing this important stuff. But again, to think that what you're doing is so important that you can't be aware of what's happening to you, again, that's kind of overdoing your opinion of your work. I mean, you might be doing important work, but it's not so important that you're doing it. What you're doing is not that important. What I'm doing is not that important. Again, as the founder of this place said, what we're doing is so important that we must not take it too seriously. But again, if you don't take yourself too seriously, you might be able to notice that you're in pain. You might be able to notice that you're angry, And you're anxious. You're frightened.

[15:58]

You might not be able to notice all this stuff. And if you are doing anything that's important for other people, then if you notice these things, you'll be more effective. Can you notice that you take yourself too seriously? I can. You can? Well, go ahead. So that would be the way, that's how you can start learning about how to take yourself, learn how to take yourself less seriously, is to notice how you take yourself too seriously. But again, it's not so much to take yourself less seriously, it's just to take yourself just right. How to honor yourself, just to write them out. And no more or less than that. When you find that way, you won't know it, probably. You don't necessarily notice when you find that way, all your problems drop away.

[17:01]

And you become free and able to do whatever is helpful to people then, because you're unhindered by self-concern. and you can just be whatever people want. But you don't notice that because you're just being whatever people want rather than spending your time. Unless people say, would you please check out and see how you're doing? And you might check out how you're doing and look back and say, well, I don't know. So when you're balanced and not taking yourself too seriously, you don't know it. And yet you're free. But there's so many opportunities to notice when you're taking yourself too seriously. that there's all these chances to notice that and that brings you back into alignment with self-respect, with the right attitude towards yourself. Yes? Yes.

[18:02]

And I think we were the only two in the kitchen, because there was a small group out here. And I, um, it was my day off, and I thought, oh, I should really stay in the kitchen and help him, and I should work on the soup. And he said, would you please go and take your day off? We can get the meal out without you. And it was like, it just was, I saw how important I was to help him. And he said, put me today off, I just served, I could feel myself a little bit back up. And this thing about self-respect, I went to put it off, I shouldn't. But I feel taking myself too seriously. Yeah. So you were so necessary to save the world in the kitchen that day. Or some other people are so bad that they should work overtime because they're doing such a lousy job. So I assume this would be different for every individual, how they take one person taking himself too seriously, but doing others taking himself not seriously.

[19:14]

Yeah, right. That's right. Just like I said, you know, for one person, What looks like one person taking himself too seriously saying, well, I'm really important, that looks like too seriously. For another person, that might be just right to say, hey, I'm pretty hot stuff. That might be not taking himself too seriously. Some people can say that and really be, you know, kidding. Other people can say it and really be joking, really be taking it seriously. Some people can say, I am a moron, and be, you know, not taking themselves that seriously. Other people can do it and, like, you know, really think, this is really terrible. They really think it's just terrible that they're stupid. I mean, like, you know, this is a big problem in the world, how dumb I am, you know. I mean, I'm not the only one that's worried about this. Other people, too, would wish I was smarter. And maybe a few do, I don't know.

[20:17]

But some people, you know, say that, hey, I'm really stupid and it's just, you know, it's just right. Not overdoing or underdoing. And they do that with, you know, loving themselves. It's, you know, it's kind of cute how stupid I am. Not that cute, but, you know, a little bit. It's got its points. So, yeah, you can't tell, but you can tell for yourself because when you take yourself too seriously, you get tense. you can't adjust and you can feel anxious you know you get rigid you can't do what's required so you can tell for yourself because it causes all this turbulence not taking ourselves too seriously is really a ball it's really a ball

[21:22]

We've got a little bit of time left, okay? And if we don't take ourselves seriously for a good share of the time we've got coming, then we're going to have fun all that time. It's fun. And not only is it fun, but it helps other people. And also, it helps them by showing them how fun it is, plus also if they need some other kind of help, like, you know, your blood, your teeth, Your money, your time, your love, your attention, your ear, whatever. Okay. If it's appropriate, you give it. If it's not, you say, no way. I'm not going to give you my ear. Get out of my face. And it's not because you're taking your ear seriously. It's just that's what's appropriate. And how do you know? You don't. But it is, because you're not taking yourself seriously. When you're not taking yourself seriously, you do the right thing. Spontaneously, unhesitatingly, with no deliberation. To think about what you do before you do it, too much is taking yourself too seriously. To think about what you're going to do just the right amount before you do it is just right.

[22:27]

And that's taking yourself not too seriously. Sometimes you think, sometimes you don't. But actually, you always act without... deliberation, and without hesitation, with your whole heart. You always do that. You always do that. You always do that. You never have been doing anything else, and you never will do anything else. But by taking ourselves too seriously, we don't notice that. We think, oh, I could have done differently, or I could have... Yes? Is it fear that makes us take ourselves too seriously? Is it fear that makes us take... No. When you take yourself too seriously, you become frightened. Then once you're afraid, you're paralyzed. Fear is a result of taking yourself too seriously. That's why when you're afraid, it's the signal. It's saying, come back to the present. Guess who's there? Back there with her? No. Get me out of here. Go back there and you got somebody who's taking herself too seriously.

[23:29]

You don't want to be around her. She's tense. She can't adjust. She's got all these trips. She's in pain. She's anxious. Get me out of here. Fear is better than this. But the thing about fear is fear is actually saying go back there and hang out with her. She's not that big a deal. You get back there and you still think that she is a big deal. So you're anxious. You're anxious. What's going to happen to her? Is she going to be all right? Or what's she going to do to other people? Is she going to like devastate everybody and the staff here? What's she going to do? This lady is like dangerous stuff. I don't want to be around here. I'm responsible for her. This is a difficult situation. Get me out of here. So go into the future and be afraid. Fear says, if you like this, go back. You get back there and you experience the consequences of taking yourself seriously, if by any chance you are taking yourself too seriously. And then you face that and you sit with that and you watch how it works.

[24:32]

And the more you watch how it works, the more you're going to be willing to drop it. But you don't know how to drop it because, again, that's too much. That's taking yourself too seriously. You can't even really be real excited about how great it would be for you to drop it. You have to just face the music. And the music is rough music. It's what he called toxic rock. But if you can face it, and again, not take yourself so seriously, like, hey, I can't be here, or, well, I can be here. No, not like, well, this is easy, I can do it, or I can't stand it, but just be there. And like, soft. Oh, my God. All right. Relax. Don't run away. Don't make it worse. Don't make it better. Just like face it. But it's hard.

[25:39]

It's hard. Hard work. Nothing's harder. And nothing works better. Actually, nothing even works. This is the only thing that works. It's the only thing that works. Which is just simply everybody being themselves, which is what we've been doing all the while, so let's just do it. Do us. Without doing anything more or less than that. Walter? Is fear then a catalyst to not taking yourself too seriously? Is it a catalyst to not taking yourself too seriously? No. It is the results of taking yourself too seriously. But you can use it as a reminder to go back to work. Back to work. What's the work? Go back and be aware of how you take care of yourself.

[26:44]

Go back and face the fact that you take yourself too seriously. Go back and face that you're concerned with yourself. That you're concerned with yourself because you're so important. You're so good or you're so bad or whatever. You're so, so, so. Go back and face that. Go back and face that. You think you're a big deal. Go back and be with number one and all the problems of the fact that number one is around. That's what fear can remind you to do. I hope it reminds you to do that. And... But fear is not the work. Fear is a signal. Do the work. And is the result of not doing the work. Fortunately, we don't give by with not doing our work. We get feedback. When you don't steer yourself right onto yourself, you get feedback. You get anxiety. And if you don't listen to that feedback, then you get fear.

[27:48]

And if you don't listen to that feedback, you get more fear and sickness and disease and war and until finally you get the message. Go back and face the music. Go back and face yourself. Study yourself. Respect yourself. Look at yourself again. Are you really that important? Is it really that big a deal? Are you really that good or that bad that you've got to get upset about it? Wouldn't it be better to be relaxed about yourself? And then you could also be relaxed about others. These other people who are taking themselves too seriously, when you look at them, it really makes you wince to see people taking themselves seriously. It hurts to see it. Because they make all these terrible faces when they're taking themselves seriously. So you see these twisted, angry people. tormented faces of people who are concerned with themselves, it hurts.

[28:52]

It's not easy to look at that. And you want them to change the look on their face if you take yourself too seriously. If you don't take yourself too seriously, it helps you tolerate the pain of seeing other people's pain. And all kinds of skillful things come into your mind. And hands, like you can tickle them just when they are up for it, but not like when they're not in the mood. You know? The art of like, does she want any tickles now? No. I asked, she said no, so maybe not. But you check. You check, you look at the sad people, you look at the music people, do you want to laugh instead? No, I do not, I want to pout. Okay. Let's pop. So sometimes, anyway, like it, what do you say, it comes into your hand.

[29:55]

The skill comes, it comes into your hand. You don't know what to do. What can I do to help this person? It's such a big deal. Can I wear leaner shorts today or not? Anything else you'd like to bring up about this topic which isn't too important? Seriously? Can you say something about pride and self-respect?

[30:59]

You mentioned ability, which is, for me, the opposite of pride. Well... If I notice that I'm proud, then that's good that I noticed it. That's about it. Now, if I take myself too seriously, I might sort of say, oh, this is so terrible that I'm proud. That's a little, you know, it's not that big a deal. I mean, you know, it may be somewhat obnoxious, but it's not that big of you. You know, for me to distract myself from just straight on, flat out, simply saying, okay, I'm arrogant. And watch and see how that works. Rather than make it into a bigger deal than it is, just see how it actually is and see how it works and see how it annoys people and causes various problems and makes you feel uncomfortable yourself because since you're so important, blah, blah, blah.

[32:08]

So self-respect, again, self-respect literally means to look at yourself again. Look again. Respect. Respectus. Respectari. Re-inspect. Respectator. Okay? Look again. So if you notice some arrogance, look again. What is arrogance? Maybe arrogance. You look again. You see, I'm a big, I'm a big, I'm a big, I think I'm a big. Look again, look again. What do you see? Oh my God, I'm just a scared little guy. I'm just really insecure. I'm anxious. Wow. I forgive myself. Maybe you're not quite so arrogant after that. Maybe more arrogant. I don't know. If you are, look again. Check it out. Come back. Face the music. Learn about how you work, how you function, how you're made. As you understand more and more how you're made,

[33:11]

you start taking yourself less and less seriously until you get to just the right amount of taking yourself seriously. And actually, every person, including yourself, deserves great honor and devotion. Everybody's wonderful. But we take wonderful person and we take it too seriously. You know, you can hold a bowl, a precious bowl, too tightly. Too tensely. Oh, this bowl is so important. And then you break it. Or you trip. So to take care of something precious, it's good to be somewhat flexible and be ready to trip and maybe catch it in midair. But if you take it too seriously, that means take it so seriously that you undermine taking care of it. Like some people love their children, but they get so tense that they can't take care of their children. You have to get somebody else to come in and take care of their children. Like the child is in trouble, the parents are incapacitated and are disqualified from caring for the child.

[34:20]

You have to bring somebody else in. Or like somebody, like some of my friends go, their parents, they can't talk to their parents. The worst person to send to their parents is them. Any of their friends would do better. Because they have some flexibility. It's the parent of a friend, so there's some concern here, but it's not so big that you're basically... You know how it is. Yes? It seems like that's all very connected to having a fixed idea of the way things have to be. Yes. To the extent that you have those kinds of ideas that you really have to take yourself seriously and really deliberate very carefully in order to come up with the correct answer. That's right. Taking yourself too seriously, basically taking yourself too seriously is to think that what you are is what you think you are.

[35:24]

That actually that's a reality. That what you see here and what you've got here is like reality. And if this is reality, well, there's not much room to play. Because this is reality. My thinking is reality. So, I mean... I said... I was in a retreat recently and I said something... which aggravated some women. And then later I jokingly said to one of the women, I said, you know, why are women so self-righteous? And she said, because we're right. Yes. I'd like to hear you.

[36:27]

Colleen, when I think about what you said for me, I consider some situations I don't take myself seriously. But in others, I do. And it seems to me that when I think about different activities or different relationships with someone I'm comfortable with and others such as asking a question, along 40 or 50 people. I get very serious about that. I'd like to say about that. Say about what? Say about the aspect of placing yourself seriously in some relationships or some activities and not in others. Uh-huh. Well, one of the things is that in some situations you're not very aware of the other.

[37:31]

You feel kind of like you're with yourself. Like with some people you feel like they're basically you. Like the people you know and certain friends, you feel like they're you. So like when I speak in a group this size, at Green College, I feel pretty comfortable because I often speak to groups this big or bigger. But if you'd have me go to like a group of 5,000 and I don't know the people, then there's more other kind of feeling there. So then I notice myself. So I think basically our taking ourselves seriously, basically I would suggest, just a suggestion, that basically we take ourselves seriously, we have a kind of, at a given moment we have a certain level of which we take ourselves seriously. And then certain situations will make us feel more or less anxious because they will make us feel more aware of the other as present. But it isn't so much that we take ourselves less seriously in two different situations.

[38:34]

I mean, it isn't like you take yourself not very seriously here and you walk in the next room and suddenly you start taking yourself seriously. I think that the level of reality and importance that we attribute to ourselves doesn't vary that much throughout the day. Certainly in a few minutes it doesn't change much. But you can walk from one situation where you feel comfortable because you're with people who you feel like basically are your friends, go in another situation where you feel with people you're not sure if they're your friends, but you don't even know if they're your friends or not, and then your sense of self-importance is revealed rather than suddenly it's there and it wasn't there before. I think it's pretty much endemic, the level at which we take ourselves seriously, too seriously. And certain situations provoke it and others... Certain situations reveal it and others don't. Revealing it is good. That's why it's good that you ask this question because you can feel it. Some people can't feel it, so then I can help them. In my role, you know.

[39:38]

I can help them. Like some people think, they say, have relaxed. And they say, well, go in that room where that guy is. And most people go in the room where that guy is, get nervous. They become, especially the first few hundred times they go in. They get nervous. They become aware of themselves. They say, why am I sort of relaxed outside when I come in here? You know, what do I do? But I don't have to be in the room. It's not me. It's just they're going in to see the other. And so when you're going to see the other, you feel the self. And then if you feel, the self is too big or too small for this room. Your self isn't quite the right size for this occasion. And you say, you feel nervous. Kind of like, want to make yourself a little bit bigger or a little smaller. A lot of people would like to get a lot smaller than me. You know, what is it like, Allison, wondering if you're really teeny, wouldn't be noticed. Or if I could go in there and be somebody else, that would be good too.

[40:39]

Because if I'm somebody else, you'll never be able to find me. So I think it's basically that we have a general feeling of how important we are. It's usually, we have a style, and usually that's our style, and it's pretty stable. And then certain situations reveal it. Revealing it is good, although uncomfortable, because when it's revealed, you feel anxious. A little anxious or a lot. But basically, again, I'll just say this too. Basically, we feel very anxious about it. Extremely anxious. And again, that's not so much that our anxiety goes up and down. It's, again, more a matter of revealing it. I would suggest that we have our level of taking ourselves too seriously. And even a little bit taking yourself too seriously causes major anxiety.

[41:41]

A little bit too serious. And again, that's fortunate that if we're a little bit off, it causes major anxiety. So we get major feedback on a little bit of deviation from taking ourselves as we should. So people who practice meditation a long time, actually they get closer to taking themselves seriously. you know, just the right amount of seriousness. They get closer. But even a little bit off to an experienced meditator causes major turmoil. But it's because they've gradually opened up to it over the years to face the anxiety. And the more you face the anxiety, the less seriously you take yourself. not down to zero, but the less you overdo taking yourself seriously. You come to take yourself just right as you open more and more to anxiety, and vice versa, as you open to experience yourself, you open to anxiety.

[42:52]

You open to anxiety, you rectify your relationship with yourself, so they feed on each other that way. But even a little bit off causes major anxiety, but that's good because then you get feedback to again find the proper relationship. So most of us, most people, are only just like looking at a little peephole at their anxiety. They're looking at a tiny section of their anxiety. And if you can face whatever little bit of anxiety you're able to face now if you can face that and be again in that situation not take yourself too seriously then your reward will be that you open and become aware of greater anxiety which again then if you can be not take yourself too seriously under those circumstances your reward will be more anxiety will be revealed to you and gradually it will open up wider and wider until you're open to

[43:57]

All of it. And then you find your peace with that. And then you are at peace. And you're not at peace because you're living in a little isolation chamber. You're at peace with full-scale living. And then you're not taking yourself too seriously. And then you don't have to be afraid anymore. You don't have to go away from the anxiety because you actually are facing it all. But it's hard work, of course. But there's lots of fun along the way. Every time you open up the anxiety and find your peace with it, you're released. You're released. You experience release and relaxation under those circumstances. And then the reward is, oh yeah, well now how about this? You know that story, Rumpelstiltskin?

[45:00]

She's spilling a room of straw into gold and her reward was a room twice as dig. They only did it twice in that story. About two times, right? They just enlarged the room once, right? Three? I thought they enlarged it twice. You mean they doubled it and doubled it again? Okay, three times. Three times. So three is, what do you call it, a symbol for many. And many is a word for as many times as it takes for you to open up to what's happening. Is it helpful to say that? Well, is it helpful to say I don't always have to be right? It feels good when I say it. I don't know. It's kind of in the realm of not taking myself too seriously. And why would I have to say that to myself?

[46:03]

What would be the reason that I would say that to myself? Well, maybe. Well, you can figure it out. Anything else this evening? It seems like I'm not willing to stop in the middle of taking myself too seriously. I just create another way I could take myself serious because I had to eat him and think about how bad it was. It gives me a lot to worry about. I don't know. You don't know if you'll stop? I don't know if you will either. Again, getting into stopping is also taking ourselves too seriously.

[47:12]

You know, if you don't take yourself too seriously, Carter, if you didn't take yourself too seriously, then you could actually not ever stop taking yourself too seriously. You could just continue forever. I'll just keep taking myself too seriously. That's the way you talk when you don't take yourself too seriously. I'll probably take myself too seriously forever. That's the kind of whatever I am. You know, I'm kind of a fool. But we expect adults to be serious. That's the thing, you see, I got that working for me, right? So when a Zen teacher gives a talk, everybody thinks, this is going to be serious. Saving all beings from suffering, right? That's a serious topic. It is a serious topic, no question about it. But again, how about taking it too seriously? Most people take it too seriously. And again, the way you take it too seriously is, you make it more serious than it is, or you say, this is too serious, you make it less serious.

[48:19]

Like you say, this is too serious, so I'm going to make it less. Lighten up. Lightening up is too serious, too. This situation needs to be lightened. This is too heavy. Lighten it. Lighten up. Lighten up, boys. People come into a Zen center and they say, these people are too heavy. Lighten up. Why don't they smile? This is taking yourself too seriously. Let them be grumpy and tight. It's okay. No big deal. Or let's get it more serious, you know. This is like, I think, what is it, Bertolt Brecht said, you know, my friends think that it's not okay to laugh or smile. And all these 1930s people, you know, probably, you know, nobody dared smile. Like, you know, it was not politically correct to smile. Be uptight, that was appropriate. Smoke cigarettes. Is this appropriate?

[49:21]

So at the end of my talks, if I sing a song, everybody feels great. It was all a joke. Oh, you know, I talk about anxiety and fear and torment and facing yourself and your pain, you know. And then at the end, tell a joke or sing a song. It's a relief. Then afterwards, they say, I love the song. So I went to this talk one time, it was mostly doctors and medical professionals, and they were talking about, you know, illness, right? Illness, and they're also talking about the environment, the pollution of the environment, all the environmental effects, and, you know, what beef does for us and stuff like that, right? Very heavy, heavy intellectual people, right? So... So I came up and I sang this song, you know, and they just loved it because they just loved the relief from taking this thing too serious.

[50:30]

So this Zen tradition is, the practice is to practice like a fool, like an idiot. Anything else? What do you miss it? I got my song. Is that anything else? And part of being a fool is to do the same song over and over. Oh no, not that yet. Can't you give some new songs, you moron? At least some more up-to-date ones. So if there's no more, we can just have to sing our song and go, okay? Are you ready? Okay, this is actually a morning song, but that's all I know.

[51:52]

Oh, we can do a good night song. We'll do a morning song first. Okay, ready? One, and a two. Where's my pitch pipe? One, two, three. When the red, [...] 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.

[52:57]

When the red, red rock comes pop, pop, poppin' along. Pop, pop, pop, poppin' along. Good night.

[53:14]

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