1973. Welcome. Thank you. So I finally got invited back. I lived at the Berkeley Zen Center when it was on Dwight Way in 1973 for about nine months. So I'm one of your ancestors. You know, I walked in the door here and I thought, well, why give a talk? It's so nice and quiet and peaceful in here, and then I'm going to talk and I'm just going to kind of disturb your minds a little bit. But that's what I'm here for, so that's the way it goes. It's a little, in some ways it's a little awkward or strange to come to do a talk somewhere where you don't, you know, you're not usually doing talks or you're not sort of living there or being with people, you know, it's more traditional and thin, as you know, to, that we all kind of live and hang out together and then we get to know each other and the talk, you know, is part of an ongoing conversation.

[02:01]

the person talks, and it comes out of your life together. So my talk today is a little bit out of context. It doesn't really come out of our life together, except in the larger sense of we're all here together. But it's not specifically coming out of any particular issues or context or things that are coming up in our lives. And yet, and then some of you I know, you know, I do see at Green Gulch and other places, so you see, then I'm gonna, and when I thought about doing this talk today, I thought, well, you know, I can, I just thought I would give you some, you know, in show business, you either change your actor, change your audience, so you're a new audience, I don't have to change my act, you know, particularly so I'm, So I have to ask, you know, some of you have heard my act before, you know, to be forgiving and, you know, just kind of go along with it and let it go at that.

[03:10]

Okay? That's the way it goes. Anyways, curious to me, just to finish up that part. Curious to me, coming over here today, it feels really wonderful. Perhaps you have some sense of how wonderful it feels here. Coming in from the street, and the sense of space changes. And there is a kind of, literally, you know, a sanctuary here, where we can feel... ...the buzz saw start.

[04:27]

Anyway, it's quite a sweet feeling. And all of you, you know, who come here, created together by your life, your practice, the way that you use this space, and it's been created over many years, of daily practice and people's commitment and effort Partly I'm aware of it because I do a sitting group on Thursday night in San Rafael at the Unitarian Church. I have a little sitting group at my house on Wednesday mornings. And those kind of spaces aren't like this kind of space. So there's something different when you're all together, when people together do something.

[05:28]

And it's quite remarkable also You know, when I lived at the Berkley Cents Center, when it was on Dwight Way, it was quite different than here. Although it, in some ways, you know, it was a very special place, but still there's something different, you know, that's happening here, and more developed, and so on. So that's quite nice. Anyway, it's hard to believe that 19 years have gone by. My daughter was born at the Berkeley Zen Center, and she's now 19. It wasn't during Zazen. I didn't miss Zazen in order for my daughter to get born. She timed herself very well. She was born at noon. One of the stories I've been thinking about recently is in the Iron Flute, and it's a story of a student asked the master, what about people who leave the monastery and never come

[06:54]

And then the student says, what about those who leave? And then they come back later. And he says, they remember the benefits. So the student says, well, what are the benefits? And the teacher says, heat in the summer and cold in the winter. So I like this story very much. And for me, recently, I've also been thinking about thought about that? Or do you think it actually works, and do you come here because you think it works? Anyway, I recently did, and I've been doing a series of classes in San Francisco, and I've invited people who practiced at Zen Center for 10 or 12 or 15 or 18 years, and have since, you know, kind of left the monastery. And I've invited them to come back. Otherwise, they might not have. And so they've been talking about what it was like to have done Zen practice and then what they're doing now.

[08:04]

And did it work? Was it useful? Should other people be encouraged to do this sort of inane kind of thing, sitting around wearing different robes and that sort of thing? We, you know, we can see that it works. So I'd like to talk with you about how it is that it works. And that you can find heat in the summer and cold in the winter to be a benefit. Okay? When I was living at the Berkeley Zen Center, I had been practicing I've been doing Zen practice for about eight years. And I had lived in Tassajara for about six years.

[09:06]

And now I look back on it and it seems like the way I was practicing Zen at that time had its limitations and I was in a kind of, what I would call, And that we're all going to live, once we start practicing Zen, we're all going to live happily ever after. Okay? And, you know, like if you do your regular spiritual practice, then you get this kind of, it's like buying protection, you know? You put in your time on the Zafu, and you do these, you know, religious things. And life will be, you know, those things will happen to other people.

[10:16]

You know, you won't get life-threatening illnesses. Other people get those. You're doing, I'm, you know, I, you, we're doing spiritual practice now, so we don't have to worry about that, you know. And we'll, you know, and then we'll just go on from here. Now that we're into this, you know, everything will be taken care of, you know. And life will be wonderful from here on. Don't you think? Now I think I'm in a different kind of, you know, and I was also much younger then, you know, so life had this tremendous kind of, you know, infinite kind of promise, you know, a vast future. That's not them, that's just you. But at the time I was, I mean I noticed it, now my daughter is 19, she's the same way. Except it's not going to happen to her, that happens to other people, you know, and so on.

[11:18]

So, you know, it's hormonal or something. So now, life doesn't seem to have, you know, as much promise. And all kinds of things have happened, you know, I got a divorce and, you know, and I finally got up the nerve to leave Simcenter. person for, you know, 18 or 20 years. And, you know, basically all my adult life, part of my childhood I was institutionalized. So, you know, most of my life I've been this institutionalized person. I finally decided, like, got up the nerve to go out and see what it was like to, like, try to be an actual regular kind of person in the world, you know, so I let my hair grow a little bit. See? Wasn't that daring? pretty nice about it, you know.

[12:26]

But it has been 19 years, you see, since they invited me back. So there's a couple more things about this. You know, even before that, when I first started practicing Zen, it was kind of like, well, practice Zen for a little while, get enlightened, and then get on to the more important things in life. And then, you know, also the nice convenient thing about being enlightened is that then you could tell other people where I was at and they couldn't tell you. Because after all, I'm enlightened. What about you? You know, so if there's any kind of argument or conflict, you know, you don't have to listen to what other people say.

[13:29]

You just sort of explain to them where it's at, and then that will be that. And then also, it's like people will come up and bow to you instead of asking you to take out the trash. It would be that simple. People will be coming up to you and they'll be venerating you, instead of asking you to do these sloppy things. And they won't It didn't work out like that. So in a sense, this is known as failure. This is a certain special kind of failure. And in looking at what's been important to me in Zen practice, and what I think people, in a sense, really benefit from in Zen practice, is all the failures that you get to have as a Zen student.

[14:46]

you know, like trying to sit still for 40 minutes and you can't do it. And then pretty soon after a while you realize, like, you've been trying to look, you know, really trying hard to look like a Buddha. And, you know, keeping your, you know, face muscles from, you know, impassive. You know, not a sign of, no thoughts crossed, you know, and no feelings come up. this kind of freedom, right? And you have this kind of impassive kind of quality. And people can understand what you want without your having to tell them anything. And they will do it for you because you're this venerable person. And after a while, it's sort of like somehow it's not working. And you can't sit still enough. And you can't be impassive enough. And these feelings come up. And then in your life, in your personal life, you really start to blow it.

[15:52]

And you get angry, and you get frustrated, and you get sick, and stuff happens to your back and your knees, and all these things. And it turns out you can't be this perfect, good-looking Buddha that you set out to be. And it's really important to be this good-looking Buddha, because then you know you would have lots of benefits from this. But one of the other benefits from this, of course, is that And this, you know, it turned out that when we, when the people have come to talk at Zen Center about Zen practice, you know, it turns out we were all trying in our own ways to create a really nice, good-looking Buddha, to make ourselves, you know, look like a Buddha to other people, and waiting for them to recognize us, you know, other people. And somehow they seem to be reluctant to do that. One person described this as creating, she said, looking back now, I thought it was like creating a beautiful brick wall, where behind that I could put everything.

[17:02]

All my past life and my past traumas and difficulties and pains and weaknesses, they would all be behind the wall. And I was a Zen student now, and I wore a robe, and I had a nude life. And then all this other stuff is nicely concealed behind a beautiful wall. Isn't that nice? So we kind of set out to do this. And it's very interesting, because that kind of practice actually seems to have a real value. It's both in one way. When you look at it, you say, that's really stupid. It's really stupid to ignore your feelings and not paying attention to what's actually going on in your life and try to just wall it over, like put it all in a closet. In psychology, of course, it's a kind of repression

[18:09]

kind of hiding. So, and yet at the same time it turned out this is very useful practice, okay? And when people left Zen Center and stopped doing that kind of formal practice, you know, basically the reason was in order to have feelings again. And then they come to their life, and then they're really interested in, we became really interested in relationship. Actually meeting people, talking with people, doing things with people, relating to people, having a wife, having a husband, having children, having a family, being with people in the world, working in the world, teaching kids, working with other people, doing construction, And all of these things were, you know, we had some feeling for.

[19:12]

And the feelings that we had, that we've been walling up, actually turned out to be, you know, our real treasure. First of all, we were shutting off from our feelings, trying to be a good-looking Buddha, and now the feelings are actually this incredible treasure that we use and spend and to connect with others in our life. and to fulfill ourselves in our life, and to move forward in our life, and connect, and be, in a sense, productive. So it seems as though somebody the other day, when I mentioned this to Green Gulch, somebody mentioned, here's an example of this on-going conversation, that it sounds sort of like a butterfly, which in the pupa stage, is inside this webbing, chrysalis. And she said inside what was the caterpillar, it actually turns into goo.

[20:22]

Have you ever felt like goo inside? What's going on in there? And in the meantime, you kind of sit there, and you have this nice shell on the outside, you know? Looks like Buddha, or whatever it looks like. On the outside, it looks sort of impassive, and it's all sort of, you've got it all held together on the outside, and inside, it's all turned to goo. And then, you know, this is transformation. And sometimes, somehow, it seems very useful we can turn to Gu so that we can have a transformation, a kind of transformation in our life. Where now the feelings and the wishes and the hopes and the cries and the fears and everything, it all of hindrance and a kind of problem. And, oh, that's so much conflict. And I don't want to have to relate to that. And I can't stand that.

[21:24]

And I hate that. And I don't want to have to be in this situation anymore because it's too painful, et cetera, et cetera. So let's go wall ourselves off someplace and not have to deal with all that stuff. So something shifts. This seems very perfect, very apt. So heat in the summer and cold in the winter turns out it's a benefit. When I first, one of my first sessions, I went to, one of the first times I saw Suzuki Roshi in Dogsan, I went in and I didn't know what to do.

[22:43]

So I just sat down. You never know what's going on, right? I mean, I just sat down. He didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. We were just sitting there. A few years ago, I read a book, The Women of Wisdom, and the author, Sultana Malayoni, says this is what happened to her when she went to see Trungpa Rinpoche. They just sat there for about 40 minutes, and then they bowed, and she left, and she said later, I realized it was direct mind-to-mind transmission. We didn't know that, did we? But then, you know, we find out, oh, guess that must have been what was happening. Somehow in our school, the Zen school, you know, we don't necessarily think that right away. You know, it never occurred to me that when I was just sitting there with Suzuki Roshi, it was direct mind-to-mind transmission. But maybe it was.

[23:46]

Anyway, You know, because something happens to us, even in the sense like when we all get together and we sit together, and without us saying anything to anybody, something happens, being with each other. And it's direct, like mind to mind, body to body. We don't say anything, we're just with each other, and something comes out of that that's different than being by yourself. Anyway, after a while, finally, Suzuki Roshi said, how's your meditation? And I said, oh, not so good. Oh, some, how is that? Well, I can't stop my thinking. And he said, well, what's the problem with that?

[24:49]

And when he asked me what the problem with that was, I couldn't find the problem. It's like all those Zen stories, you know, Bodhidharma saying, you know, bring me your mind and I'll settle it for you. And then Maitreya says, oh, now that you mention it, I can't find my mind, I can't do that, I can't bring it to you. And Bodhidharma says, there, it's settled. Well, I couldn't find the problem. And then I remembered what the problem was. The problem was, and I explained it to him, that when you sit, you're not supposed to think. And I'm thinking a lot. So this is a problem, because you're not supposed to think. You're supposed to stop all your thinking when you're doing zazen. And I was finding that I couldn't do this. It's funny how you have to explain these things as a student. You have to explain these things to the teacher. And so he said, thinking is pretty natural, don't you think?

[26:02]

And I said, yeah, pretty natural, pretty normal. And he said, you know, it's not, you don't have to worry about it really one way or another. Whether your thinking stops or not, we're trying to find out about our life. And your thinking will be sometimes a problem for you and sometimes not. And you probably, you know, It'll be helpful for you if you're not always dwelling in the realm of your thinking. But in effect, it's not like it's some great accomplishment to stop all your thought. And then what? You'll live happily ever after. Now you have enlightenment.

[27:06]

What will you do with it once you've gotten it? So, you know, in effect what happens, you know, over time with Zen practice is that we actually do become, you know, we get, we, so to speak, get real. We become real, and we re-inhabit and re-own our body, re-inhabit our mind, our being, so that we can trust and know our thoughts and feelings and how to use them, and how they can be, you know, how they are our treasure. when we can't settle and reside in our own being and know ourself in that way. And we live our life.

[28:08]

We have families and activities and we have, you know, some things go well and other things don't. And there's no insurance policy. or those of you who are good Zen students. And there's no enlightenment that will keep you from having to have your feelings. And where other people will come up and bow to and respect you and so on. Even if you're Suzuki Roshi, people will do strange things sometimes. Some people don't recognize you. Still, there'll be some people who don't recognize that you're a Zen master. They don't care. You know, so it's curious, one of the people who came to Zen Center from my class and was talking about practice in his life now, he said he's gotten married, he has a child, he has a business in San Francisco, he has a restaurant.

[29:48]

And he said a while back he bought some tapes by Jack Kornfield. Thought that maybe he'd listen to these Buddhist tapes on his way to and from work, you know, in the car, and get a little kind of, you know, Buddhism in there somewhere along the way. He's very careful about his business, so he basically tries to work from 10 to 3, so that he has lots of time for his family. You know, where his business could be much more successful if he worked 10 or 12 hours a day. But no, he wants to. So he structures his time very carefully, makes all of his appointments within those times, so that he can work five, six hours a day, have more time for his family, and so on. So he started listening to these tapes, and he said it didn't last very long at all. He got really mad, and he threw all the tapes away. And he said, I hate that Buddhist philosophy stuff. He's just some guy. He's just some guy telling you these things that that you could chase after. Instead of living your life, you could chase after these things.

[30:59]

And it's like I've been telling you, trying to make yourself into compassion. Follow the rules. Follow these rules, and you too can It's almost sometimes like, you know, like tide will get your clothes whiter than white. And if you do this Dharma practice, then you will be whiter than white. You know, you will be cleaner than clean. Do you think so? So he said, I hate this Buddhist philosophy stuff. And then somebody asked him a little while later, Well, you know, now you have this family, and you have a child, and you have all these attachments in your life. Now, is there some way that you can have these attachments with some detachment? Isn't that supposed to be good, you know, having some detachment with your attachments? And he said, basically, you know, he said, I hate that Buddhist practice stuff.

[32:05]

You know, why would I want to put that on me? Why would I want to take That, and you know, here I am, it's sort of like what they say sometimes, you know, gouging a wound in good flesh. Aren't you already a human being? Aren't you already a person? Don't you already have a mind and a body? And then you want to take this stuff called Buddhism and put it on yourself and say, no, the way I am, there's a lot of problems with it. I think I need to put this other stuff and put myself into this other kind of mold. So that it will be okay now. Before it's not okay. I need to put this structure over myself, this whole sort of stuff over myself and make it right. And after having done Zen practice for as many years as he did, he can say now, I'm okay now. I have confidence in myself. That's what Zen practice gave me.

[33:06]

I believe in myself. I have confidence in myself. Why would I want to take that other stuff and put it on top of me? I'm expressing my love in my life. I'm expressing my love and devotion. I'm living the life I want to live and doing the best I can at it. If something bad happens, it doesn't mean nothing bad is going to happen, but if something bad happens, I think I'll be able to handle it. Because lots of bad things happen to me practicing Zen. So if it all comes to an end, I'll deal with it when it happens. And I think whatever happens, I can deal with that too. So this is a real example of that kind of saying of Nyogin Senzaki's, don't put another head above your own head, even if that other head looks really good. And if you put that other one on, everybody would say, oh, venerable.

[34:10]

Actually, people don't. They're going to go like, well, he sure is trying to look good. I know better. And mostly, when you put on all that cover and looking good, then the main person you hide that stuff from is yourself. Because other people see through it right away. And then when you realize that you've been hiding, it's kind of embarrassing because you think, well, gee, other people now will find out. But other people already knew all along. The embarrassment is that they knew and you didn't. So anyway, this is very interesting that by doing Zen practice, you can you know, become, you know, real. You can be yourself. And you can know your own, know and use your own, you know, treasure of your own being. Okay?

[35:12]

Thanks. I saw Alan look at his watch, so I ended the talk right there. Got in a half sentence more and then that's it. That's what you're supposed to do. But you're supposed to take questions. Yeah, I'm supposed to take questions. So we have to stop. Is there enough time? You get to talk now or comment your questions. Yes? Can you tell another story about the people who visited your class other than the restauranteur? Well, another person, she's the person who said, you know, she made this beautiful brick wall when she became a Zen student. She had been before that, you know, into alcohol and to some extent drugs and had kind of a wild childhood, especially as a teenager and beyond.

[36:19]

So Zen practice was kind of a relief. But that meant, you know, there's a lot of stuff back there that she's not, you know, wasn't dealing with. And I'm trying to point out to you, that seems both positive. There's something positive about that in a sense, but not indefinitely. And sometimes in the context of Zen practice, it's very hard to actually relate directly and around the feelings and issues and old wounds and pains. And what she found was that When she stopped living in Tassajara and came back to San Francisco, then she started drinking again. And then she started going to 12-step programs. Actually, two of these people found, after Zen practice, they found 12-step programs very valuable, very useful. And it helped her, in that sense, actually be able to relate more directly with her feelings, to her feelings,

[37:28]

and to know the issues in her life directly. Now maybe that's just a confusion about Zen practice, you know? I mean, it seems to me one ought to be able to do that in one's Zen practice. But sometimes the, you know, the shell gets so strong and so important and is so much the focus that we forget about the inner work, you know, and the goo inside and turning into goo. And it's all going into the shell. and not examining the goo, right? So, and she went through various jobs and various things, and so, you know, and then coming out of 12-step programs, and now she's practicing, and now she spends part of each year, she decided finally to become a school teacher. So now she is teaching grammar school. And she says now she practices sometimes seeing the kids in her class as luminous beings. And she also spends part of each summer with her daughter at Tassajara.

[38:34]

And she finds that she can't do Zen practice regularly in her daily life, but she can spend one or two months at Tassajara in the summer and finds it very important for her to do that. And now her sitting practice and meditation practice is quite different than before. It's no longer this kind of container or wall. And it is actually a way for her to know herself and experience herself and realize herself. Another one of the people, in a similar way, you know, now works for the city of San Francisco as a street therapist. There's a few people in San Francisco hired by the city and they work as a therapist and their clients are street people, homeless people. And most of his people are homeless people, IV drug users with AIDS.

[39:38]

And he tries to find them shelter and a place to be and so on. And sometimes, you know, they've had to rescue people from hospitals because they're homeless people sometimes in hospitals are abandoned and no longer treated. And they're just left in a bed someplace to die basically. So sometimes they've rescued people from hospitals. Take them to another hospital where they get treated. So you can see, you know, this is something real coming out of, you know, his heart. manifestation of his heart, which, but it's also clear that, you know, he's very clear about the fact he wouldn't have come to that, you know, without having done Zen practice. He wouldn't have known his heart and come to his heart, you know, without having done, without having practiced. And also he says that when he practiced before, it was more like, you know, somehow trying to conform to the norm and the standard and do all this thing and everybody else is doing and sort of keep up and be approved of within the, you know, value system of the group.

[40:56]

And now he says when, and yet even though it's like that, it was good for him, right? It's how he got to where he is and where he can believe in himself and go and try to live his life and manifest his heart in the world. But now he says when he does Zen practice, when he practices meditation, it's like a cool drink after a long hot day and you're very thirsty. And it's just extremely refreshing. And it's not about, you see, it's not about accomplishing anything or proving anything, you know, or looking good. or getting recognized, or any of that other stuff. He actually has this refreshment from this now, and can be in the glow of his own being. And it's to be quiet and to turn inward.

[41:58]

It's some refreshment from this going out in the world, putting yourself out in that way in the world. I found it much more overwhelming than I thought I would, you know, just to drive around and to go into markets. And, you know, when you're starting from zero at, you know, the age of 38 or 40, and you know, you need to have a car, and then, you know, you need to have money, and you need to have a job, and you need a few clothes. And then, you know, just to figure out simple things like what to buy. I mean, I had spent very little time in supermarkets for years, and it's vast, you know, they're vast, and there's 20 feet of, you know, laundry detergents. I just always went to the Zen Center laundry room, you know, and they had detergent there.

[43:00]

You know, I didn't have to know what kind of detergent to buy. And then people said, well, you're not watching enough TV. And then it takes a lot of money, you know, and then you have to make some money somehow. So it all ended up, and I'd sort of like, and, you know, from then, I'd sort of like, I'd often feel like, how does anybody do it? How does anybody do it? And my life is not actually that hard. You know, I don't have all these kids running around, you know, and they're so worried, like, you know, like, it's so different, like, where any one of us, like, like we're it. When you're it, and if you don't keep it together, and you don't keep bringing home the money, that's it. Whereas at Zen Center, if you fall apart, or you don't have it together some day, the whole thing keeps going. And it's not just up to you to make it happen.

[44:05]

So there's a tremendous kind of pressure on any of us when you're out of that kind of situation. Tremendous kind of stress. to stay healthy, to keep working, to make some money. Where are you going to live? How do you decide? All kinds of things. So it turned out it was much harder than I would have thought. And it gave me then, in that sense, a great respect for people. Any of us. And the fact of how hard it is to have a life, live a life, live our life. and have to take care of all these things. Generate income and create spaces to live in, etc. And then also, you want to do a little practice work. So it's really hard. I just want to say thank you and to express my appreciation for you talking about these things because I've noticed, I think one of the limitations

[45:13]

of having a sort of a professional priesthood in this institution that we call Zen Center is that if you spend your whole life in that system, then there's sometimes a lack of empathy for what it's like to be an ordinary working stiff in the real world and to try to figure out really how difficult it is to integrate practice with your job and your relationships and your family and all of that. And it's been a real struggle for me to figure out, you know, how do I do that, because I find this practice valuable, and yet, you know, there's all this other stuff going on in my life that I don't want to necessarily be among. And I think it's a real ongoing question, and so I really appreciate your discussing it and bringing it up, because it's something that we all kind of have to struggle with, to figure out how do we do this and how do we make it work, because I think one of the dangers I've seen is People come and they practice really intensely for six months, or a year, or five years, or ten years, or whatever, and then they leave, and they don't have anything to do with the place anymore.

[46:23]

Ungrateful asses. And they're burned out, or they're sick of it, or whatever, and so how do you form a community that has room for all of Yeah, it seems like I sort of hope that that's just a matter of, you know, standing in America being young and that the older we get the more mature everything will become and the more niches they'll be, you know, and we'll have a habitat with more species. I think so. So I hope so. It seems like we can work in that direction. And it's certainly been that way since we first started over the years, that there's more different models of what Zen practice or spiritual practice can be, and more ways in which we can express the spiritual side of our life, and actually, in some ways, actually manifest it in our lives.

[47:29]

like working with kids or street people or whatever it is. And still that doesn't mean that there's not a place for meditation in our life. And partly it just means it's also that each one of us is finding out how to do that, how to bring practice into our life. One more. One more. How about two more? One and one. Okay. Well, when I first came out, his dad said that they didn't have those. See, now they do. She said, when you go to the supermarket, buy a degradable non-phosphorous. That's the kind you get. Now I get e-cover. And then what kind of car do you buy? Okay. I wanted to know how How the impact of your writing your books and getting recognized, were you able to integrate with your practice?

[48:43]

I was just living at Zen Center, so I didn't go on any talk shows or anything, so it wasn't a problem. Nobody recognized me. Nobody knew that I was me. Even when I was working at Greens, you know, sometimes It would be weeks, I'd work with people for weeks before they knew that I was me. So it was no problem fitting it in. I didn't actually mean the recognition from the other people, I meant how you felt yourself. Oh, so it didn't have much effect. The impact has to do with the recognition on the outside, not the recognition on the inside. Well, I mean, I did feel... I don't know, you know, not much seemed to change. It was a little disappointing that way. But, you know, anyway, I watched these greens this one time. The most wonderful story about that, there was a woman there from the CIA.

[49:47]

Which if you're familiar with the cooking world, you know it's the Culinary Institute of America. In Hyde Park, New York. And they have these externships, so they go out and work. So normally I didn't work in the kitchen, I just was a waiter and a busboy and I did various things. at Green's, and so one day they didn't have enough help in the kitchen, so they asked me if I would help. So I said, sure. So then this woman from the Culinary Institute of America was telling me what to do. So she said, now we're going to cut up three gallons of onions. So I cut up three gallons of onions. Then we do these leeks. And then finally, at one point she said, gee, you're pretty good at this. She was kind of a little surprised because I wasn't working in the kitchen. I was just this person who was a waiter or whatever. And I kind of just, you know, shrugged my shoulders. And then she said, and then a little while later she said, and now I'd like you to make the vinaigrette for that we were going to marinate the leeks. And I said, no, I don't want to do that, thank you. And she said, well, why not? And I said, well, that involves taste, a matter of taste, and I don't want to have to make decisions about taste.

[50:52]

And she said, oh, Ed, it's OK. You can trust yourself. And just taste it as you go along and you'll be able to tell when it's okay and when it's good. So I finally agreed, and I made the vinaigrette. And then she said, you see, it came out fine. That wasn't so hard, was it? So then about three weeks later, she comes up to me and she says, I am so embarrassed. And I'm kind of angry at you, because I didn't know you'd written all those books. And you made me tell you exactly the things that you tell people in your books. to trust themselves and to follow their own taste and that they can do it if they just taste it and know, you know, as they go along, you know. And so, anyway, there's an example, you see. So that happens lots of times. People know me for weeks and it doesn't matter, you know, and I'm just me and I seem to have forgotten it too.

[51:57]

I mean, most of the time, it's basically pretty irrelevant. It doesn't help when you're in the store trying to figure out what to buy. And a lot of that's just in a lot of other situations. It makes no difference. Anyway, it's a difference. But on the other hand, you know it doesn't make so much difference. Just like if you get enlightened, it won't make so much difference. You'll still have heat and cold. Heat in the summer, cold in the winter, buzz saw is going. What do they care whether we're enlightened or not? We're turning on their buzz saw anyway. All right, well, thank you. Please enjoy some tea.

[52:37]

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