I love to taste the truth of the Targeters. Good morning. Well today, can you hear me? Is a, seems to be a day of ceremony. This morning, we had a memorial service for our second Japanese sewing teacher, Joshin-san. And then we had our bodhisattva ceremony of avowing our karma and renewing our intention practice. And this afternoon, we're having a lay ordination ceremony. The ordination called zaikei tokudo. Tokudo means ordination.

[01:02]

Zaikei means householder, or while living at home. And shukei means priest ordination. Basically, leaving home. But the meaning of staying at home and leaving home has various connotations. But we have several kinds of ordination in our lineage. One is called Jukai. Jukai, we often use jukai for lay ordination, but actually jukai is not lay ordination. Jukai means receiving the precepts. Kai is precepts.

[02:06]

And ju means to give and receive, in this case. So jukai is when one receives five precepts, which is a ceremony that's done in Japan and other places in the Buddhist world, sometimes five, sometimes eight precepts. I think when a layperson goes into a monastery in Southeast Asia, they receive eight precepts for the time that they're staying in the monastery. But our particular lineage has five precepts and called Jukai, receiving the precepts. We don't do that ceremony. That ceremony has never been, except once, about one year ago or three years ago. It was done in Los Angeles. And when they do the Jukai ceremony, they have lots of people, 100 or 200 people.

[03:13]

and they receive not a rokusu like we do, but a wagesa, which is just a strip of cloth that goes over their shoulders. What we do is called lay ordination, or zaikei tokudo, which is actually ordination. Sometimes we tend to think of it as people think, well, you know, there's priest ordination and lay ordination, and priest ordination is some higher ordination. In a sense, it is, but at the same time, there's really no difference between priest and lay person. Lay people are ordained into Buddha's way, and Priests are ordained in the Buddhist way. Priests are more free to come and go, should be more free to come and go, to practice in monastic practice and to function.

[04:20]

The functionaries are in the practice. So, the role of a priest, of course, besides practicing, is to help lay people to practice. So, it's a humble position and calls on practitioners to be selfless and to create an example. Often, lay people are good examples for priest's practice, and priests should be good examples for lay practice. So today we have lay ordination, and in lay ordination we receive 16 precepts, the same as priests.

[05:20]

This is the way that our practice has come down to us from Dogen Zenji. Before we have the ordination, there's quite a long process to prepare for ordination, which most of you already know. We saw a small robe, a small Buddhist robe, And of course, the Buddhist robe is made from various... The way we sew the robe is take a big piece of cloth, cut it in small pieces, and sew it back together again. You may think that's strange, but that's the way all your clothes are made. So, in Buddhist time, the okesa, what's called the okesa, the Buddhist robe, was a garment to keep you warm when it gets cold and so forth.

[06:31]

And originally, monks had three robes, three robes and a bowl and a sewing kit and various small articles. And of course, they begged for their food. and they couldn't carry any money and so forth. But lay people and monks were always practicing together since the beginning of Buddhism. So the robe that we sew is called a raksu, which means a small version of the robe. the robe was worn all the time by monks. But then in Japan, since monks were also working in Japan, there was a time when monks could not do any work. They are not allowed to work, so they only receive offerings.

[07:34]

In Japan, the Meiji era, the small rokusu was originated to allow the monks to wear their robe while they were working, basically. And so it's really a small version of the robe. It's not a token robe. It's a real robe. And both the okesa, the large robe, and the small robe are sewn the same way. So, when one prepares for lay ordination, one sows the raksu, and it's sown in a very strict way, and put together in a very strict way. And of course, the okesa is sown the same way. I want to talk a little bit about joshin-san, In Japan, or anywhere in the Buddhist world, actually, when there are monks and priests, in Japan, the monks buy their robes.

[08:49]

There are robe stores and so forth. But sewing one's robe is a kind of special practice. It's not a usual practice. And often lay people give monks robes at a certain time of year as an offering. But sometimes, as a special practice, a monk will sew a robe. And that's considered very nice and a lot of work and so forth. But it's not the usual thing. But when our practice came to America, For a long time Suzuki Roshi didn't ordain people, but when we started to ordain people, it was because, well let me see this, when we started in about 1971 or 70, when Suzuki Roshi started to ordain people just before he died, Katagiri, his assistant, wanted us to sew robes, because Katagiri had come from

[10:01]

had studied with Hashimoto Roshi in Japan, who was an advocate of the old-style robe. And Sawaki Kodo Roshi was also an advocate of the old-style robe, which had been out of favor for centuries. So these are kind of fundamentalist Zen priests. And two of the most well-known priests in Japan, everybody really respected them very much. But they wanted to, you know, because it's easy for corruption to creep into practice, and they felt that there was a lot of corruption in the practice. And they wanted to, you know, go back to the old roots to remind people of what practice was. So they researched the old robes, and they came out with this called myoho-e, which means original style.

[11:07]

And that's what they were sewing and teaching. And so the teachers who came to America to Zen Center had studied with these teachers. Yoshida Roshi was the first one, and she had studied with Hashimoto Roshi. And so she introduced sewing to us of this, you know, a robe. And this is actually the first robe that they made. The reason I'm wearing this robe today is because I just wanted to honor Yoshida Roshi, our first sewing teacher. who sewed this with Tomoe Katagiri, Katagiri is Roshi's wife, and they designed it and put it together, and it was kind of an experiment, and I was the model. So I received it. It still fits. What do you mean it still fits?

[12:09]

I'm a growing boy. So, Then joshin-san came over later, and this is mostly the okesas that we make, the robes that we make, were introduced by style, introduced by joshin-san. Most people remember joshin-san, they don't remember Yoshida Roshi so much, but she was the first one. This style is not really popular in Japan. And if a priest goes to Japan to do ceremonies and practice, they make them buy the other kind of robe.

[13:11]

Things are very hard in Japan to change. But I've never been asked to do that. But I always wear the other kind of robe. You know, I've never sewn an okese myself. In other words, made for me or given to me. So, I don't have that experience, but I've sewn many raksus. My first raksu, I asked Suzuki, when we were starting to sew the small raksu, I said, can I sew one? And he said, no. He said, you're too busy. But I started to sew one anyway. And it took me four years to finish it. It said that you should saw it quickly, because otherwise you get so distracted by other things that you'll never finish it. He was right. The color, you know, is supposed to be a kind of blend, not a special color, it's not supposed to be black or blue or some color that is distinguishable as a color, but a kind of no color.

[14:25]

But in Japan, the monks wear black. and the rocks that you were are blue and so forth. But this color is, this is probably very close to the right color. It's kind of a grayish, bluish, gunmetal color. There's either grayish blue or grayish red or grayish green are the three original style colors, non-colors, that Dogen said are traditional. But who knows what's traditional? There are all kinds of things that are traditional. So yellow, saffron is traditional also, and various shades of brown are traditional. So when one becomes a full priest through dharma transmission, one wears a brownish robe. But in Japan there are also red robes. They have a hierarchy of colors depending on your status.

[15:33]

which I'm not going to go into. We don't have that in America. We only have three levels, and that's it. But they distinguish a lot of other levels because they're such a big organization and so forth. I don't think we'll get to that point, but we may. We're very fortunate in America that our practice is a little bit like the practice of Zen or Chan in the Tang Dynasty in China. where there were small centers grouped around a teacher. And the monks would go from one to another, sometimes travel around to visit other teachers, and each place had their own style, usually the style of the teacher. Every practice place gets its style from the way the teacher, the teacher's personality, the way they teach.

[16:37]

And so there are lots of variations. Every time we try to standardize something in this practice, it never really works, because everyone practices with variations according to their circumstances. So, Joshin-san's style was a little bit different than Yoshida-roshi's style, but basically Zen centers settled on a kind of combination, I think, style. So, everybody sews their own robes, and priests, of course, when they become ordained, they sew their own robes too. I was ordained so early that nobody was doing any sewing at that time. Suzuki Hiroshi bought me a very beautiful silk robe and all this, you know, a nice silk okesa and everything when I was ordained.

[17:46]

And of course it all wore out because silk doesn't last very long. It cracks. So I thought I'd read you some passages here. This little book called Buddha's Robe of Stone was put together by Jean Selkirk, our sewing teacher. And she did a lot of work and a lot of research and graphics. And it's really nice. So I encourage all of you to buy one when they're available. So, there's a lot of quotes in here. and they're by different people, so I'm not gonna tell you who the quotes are from because they change really quickly, but I'll just read you some passages here.

[18:52]

She says, in receiving, in this lineage, when you sew a raksu, which is a small robe, you don't put your raksu on and start wearing it right away, but you give it to your preceptor to give to you in the ceremony of receiving it. And when you recite and chant, the rogue chant. Oh, I see you. So, although we sow the raksu, it's not really ours until it's given to us. The process recognizes our interconnection and importance of having a teaching a group and a teacher to practice with. So that's very interesting. It's not, you know, we may think, well, something's given to me.

[19:53]

But it's given to me in connection with my teacher and my practice and the Sangha. So all three are involved with this role. If it's just mine, it becomes a kind of selfish, self-centered possession. My robe is your robe, but it really is your robe only when it's in connection with the practice and the Dharma, and a teacher. So this process recognizes our interconnection, the importance of having a teacher, a group, and a teaching to practice with. We don't go off by ourselves to get enlightened. We practice with all beings for the benefit of all beings. That's really the meaning of the rope.

[20:55]

The Juhkai ceremony is also called the Bodhisattva initiation. Yes, very interesting. When I went to, we've been doing, and I've been working on a lay recognition ceremony, and I've given several people, several laypeople, a green robe, green raksu, and a ceremony of lay initiation, lay recognition as a lay teacher. And when I went to this lay recognition ceremony at Green Gulch, a week ago for Wendy Johnson, who was an old... She's been doing the gardens at Green Gulch ever since we've had Green Gulch, pretty much.

[22:06]

And she's like Mother Earth. She is a really wonderful teacher in Bodhisattva, but she's never been ordained as a priest. So, she had this lay recognition ceremony, and I said to her during the ceremony, I said, I don't see you as a lay person. To me, you're not a lay person. To me, it's not lay recognition. It's something else, and I don't know what it is. You're not really a lay person because this is your life. You've been living here all this time. And you're not a priest because you haven't had the priest ordination, but you're something else." I said, but in my own mind, I think of it as Bodhisattva. You know, this is like Bodhisattva initiation or Bodhisattva recognition ceremony. And so I still keep searching for the right way to do this and the right way to think about what to call it.

[23:23]

So it's always, for me, it's something in progress, a work in progress. So, and here it says, some people, oh, this is like a Rebs quote. Some people sincerely want to receive the precepts, but have difficulty making the request. Often people come to me and say, I would like to start sewing. And I say, usually you receive the precepts with the robe. If you want to receive the precepts, then I suggest you ask permission to receive the precepts. And then the robe comes with the precepts. So sometimes people say, I'm not ready to take the precepts. I still, it's really hard for me. You know, I have trouble with this precept or trouble with that precept. But precept, you know, we all have trouble with all the precepts. Everybody has trouble with all the precepts.

[24:27]

The precepts are there to give you trouble. If you think that I'm not going to have ordination until I can keep all the precepts, then you will never be ordained. Not possible. No one can keep all the precepts. The precepts are there to help you keep the precepts. They're there to show you as a mirror for your propensities and for your actions. The precepts are like a mirror. But they're not rules. They're not commandments. They're a way of recognizing or reflecting back to ourself our behavior so that we have the opportunity to reflect on our behavior.

[25:37]

So precepts, really come from within, as our inmost request, as Sukhiroji would say. But often we think that there are rules to bind us, and to keep us from doing, they're actually rules to help us from doing something that we will regret. And they help us to do what really helps us, So often we don't like the rules because they keep us from doing what we want to do, we think. But you can do anything you want as long as you don't mind taking the consequences. No problem. So in the Bodhisattva initiation ceremony, which is called taking the precepts, we begin by invoking the presence of all the great and enlightened beings, and we invite them to sustain and support us as we enter Buddha's way.

[26:57]

And we open our hearts and minds to their wisdom and compassion. We do not say the Bodhisattva vow explicitly, yet it forms the background for receiving the 16 Great Bodhisattva Precepts. When we open the ordination ceremony, we chant the names of all the Buddhas and ancestors. We actually invite them to support this activity. So we feel that all the Buddhas and ancestors are present in this event. And the preceptor, you may think, well, that I'm the preceptor, but I'm the preceptor acting through Buddha.

[28:05]

Buddha is actually your preceptor. and when we bow to the preceptor out of respect, the respect is given to Buddha. It's not like some Buddha in the past or some Buddha out there, but Buddha resides within each one of us. Matter of fact, we are all Buddhas. So, It's with Buddha's mind and Buddha's intention that we do this ceremony, even though I'm doing it and you're doing it. There's an interesting story about the robe.

[29:07]

This talks about King Bimbisara. One of the Buddha's followers was named King Bimbisara. One time while riding, he saw what he thought was a Buddhist monk in the distance. I was told that he got off his horse. Horse? I was told that King Bimbisara got down from his howdah upon an elephant. This is two people talking to each other. we could read the stories. Either way, the king went through a lot of effort and bowed all the way to the dusty ground. Then he approached the monk to ask for teaching, and to his horror, it wasn't a Buddhist monk. And he got mad. He stormed over to the Buddha. Lord, Buddha said, yes. The king said, your followers don't have any recognizable way for me to recognize them. So I'm just bowing to anybody. Would you please do something about this and give your disciples clothing by which I could recognize them?"

[30:17]

And the Buddha said, yes. I beg your pardon? Well, I'm sorry that you wish that. A few weeks later, A few weeks later, the Buddha was walking with Ananda, and they happened to walk in a rice field. And the Buddha said, do you notice the pattern of the rice field? Ananda said, yes. Buddha said, notice how there's the place where the water is. You can see the young rice and the paths that are raised through the rice field make a pattern. And one path goes this way, and the other path goes that way. And then there are corners there, and there are fields. Would you be able to design a piece of clothing that had this pattern, that had fields and paths? Ananda said, yeah. If you've ever seen rice fields in Japan, when they're being irrigated, there's this beautiful sheet of water that reflects the clouds in the sky and the green shoots.

[31:34]

It's just breathtaking, absolutely breathtaking. So he did, and he brought his design to the Buddha, and the Buddha said, okay, this is the robe. Ananda sewed it. It says in the sutra, and he can make the cross seams, and the intermediate cross seams, and the great circles, and the lesser circles, and the turning in, and the lining of the turning in, and the collar piece. Ananda was skilled in all this. In other words, Ananda could sew. He was skilled at sewing. You can read about this in the Mahabhaga, which is in the Vinaya. It's a long process of learning about fabric and colors and so forth. So the monks had many questions about making robes of used cloth. Originally, The cloths, the road was made of used cloth, thrown away rags.

[32:39]

And the most highly regarded ones were the ones from the cemetery. And the most highly regarded ones of those were the shrouds that people used to bury people in. So it was stuff that was useless and discarded and then sewn together to make something wonderful. Recycling. The first, the original recycling. So, So the monks had many questions about making robes of used cloth. But Lord, it's all different colors, the Buddha said. And the Buddha said, this is pure cloth. We're going to stain it a muddy color, a mixed color, not a pure color. And that's the meaning of the word kashaya, or okesa, muddy color. All of that cloth, no matter where it comes from, is dyed the same color. In the process of washing it, and looking at it, and paying attention to it, and taking care of it, and sewing it, and looking at it,

[33:44]

With the intention to make a robe out of it, it turned from something nobody wanted to a formless field of benefaction. And more important than that, the monks who worked with that cloth turned from anybody into a formless field of benefaction, because the robe is not a thing. The robe we make is not a thing. It's a teaching, and it's a teaching that looks like this. So we say we wear Buddha's teaching. In the case of Kudoku, Dogen Zenji is saying that the robe covers the entire formless field of benefaction, which is here, which includes everything, and which has the pattern of the earth. So that it's not a thing, it's not an object. If someone were to take away my robes, I wouldn't have lost the robe. It's a wonderful picture. Oh yeah, there are 10 types of rags that were used.

[35:15]

Those that were chewed on by an ox, scorched by fire, soiled by childbirth, left at a graveyard, discarded by a king's officers, gnawed by rats, soiled by menstruation, offered at a shrine, offered in petitional prayer, and brought back from a funeral. It's interesting, the one that's soiled by menastration, because in those days, and in many other cultures, that's forbidden to touch or use in any way. So, it's interesting that Buddha was not, went beyond the usual, the norms of the day. And he also allowed the untouchables to become ordained as well, which is not usual in India.

[36:22]

And then Blanche Hartman, who was Joshin San's sewing teacher, whose memorial we did today, talks about her. So she said, she said, I myself, let's see, I myself didn't know how to sew," says Blanche. I became a mother, but I was trained as a scientist, also working as a mechanic in World War II. Blanche Hartman, when I was at Tassajara as the director back in the 70s, and she was the head of the shop. And we had this Dodge power wagon, which was a dump truck with a winch on it, which we used to haul rocks.

[37:39]

And the transmission was out on the power wagon. She picked the whole thing apart and replaced the transmission, working again. So, I was quite an ardent feminist and I was terribly excited about there being a woman Roshi, which was Urshita Roshi. I arranged to take my vacation and be a guest student at Zen Center while this woman Roshi was there. It turned out she was teaching sewing. So, what I did was study sewing with her. While she was here and she lectured to us about Buddha's robe, Virginia Baker, wife of the next Nabbit, to study with Jyūkai, to study with Joshin-san, who was a Sesshi. So, Yoshida Roshi was not able to return, so Suzuki Roshi asked his wife to study with Joshin-san, who was a disciple of Kodo Sawaki Roshi.

[38:48]

So Joshin-san started to come over here every winter and helping us to sew. I sewed my raksu with her. When I finished my raksu at Tassahara, she told me to go get it, and she went with me to the abbot's cabin, which was Richard Baker's cabin, and they had this long harangue in Japanese, and when we came out of there, I was Joshin-san's assistant. She chose me not because I sewed well, because I don't. It was because I understood the construction. I understood perpendicular, parallel, the importance of measurement. And she figured she could teach someone who understood how the pieces went together how to sew. So I went up to Joshin-san. I got caught up in her enthusiasm. This was her faith. Every kesa is the whole body of Buddha. She was a person of tremendous faith in Buddha's robe, and that rubbed off on me. She is a wonderful, devoted person. So she was staying over in one of the pine rooms at Tassahara, and she would say, up till 11 o'clock at night, she would stay up until 11 o'clock at night with kerosene lamps, and everybody's getting up at four o'clock.

[39:55]

I would say to her, Joshin-san, go to bed. And she said, I can't. And I said, why? She opened the little suitcase that we use for carrying sewing things, and she took out some incomplete raksus that had been left from the time that people had sewed with Yoshida Roshi. And though, again, she didn't speak English, what I got was, that's why I can't, that's why, that's why, dame desu, dame desu, which means, that's bad, that's bad, no complete Buddha realms. She was very exercised. That's when I said, I promise you, these will be completed. along with seven cases about which Blanche says, it was just out of that promise that my practice of sowing teaching came. It was out of my promise to Joshin-san that I would complete what she had started. It was Katagiri Roshi, I think, that really suggested sewing the robes, and Suzuki Roshi didn't really want to.

[41:05]

He felt that people were busy, and he said, people who have a lot of time in their hands can do something like that, but most people are too busy to do something like that. Suzuki Roshi speaks of why he was not always supporting sewing practice. He compares the present day when students have the luxury of time for sewing to the Heian period, 749 to 1185, in which the aristocracy mostly sewed and devoted even more time to sewing by bowing many times between stitches. In the next period, the Kamakura practice was open to city people who did not have the luxury of time. Suzuki Roshi appears to be speaking about the trade-offs and benefits of being able to afford new materials. Collecting old materials can take a long time, but students in USA must spend time working in order to have a home.

[42:08]

The essence of the sewing practice can be easier to teach with new fabric and until learn harder with old material. It's true. Be aware that having luxury can be a disadvantage. He inquires, how might we be Buddhists in the same way as many others in the world who are without the luxury of time even to practice? Because in poor country, even though you want to find out some old material, you cannot find because they use it. You see? Don't be too idealistic or too luxurious, okay? So, but, you know, there's also this, should we use silk? Should we use linen? Should we use cotton? Should we, blah, blah, blah. But Gauguin talks about this. He says, it doesn't matter what material you use. Whatever material you use, it becomes the okesa, and it loses its material value, its special material value.

[43:10]

So, And also, he says, you know, that the thread of silk is also live. We say, well, silkworms are living beings. He says, but the silk itself is a living being. So we shouldn't be too, we should try to understand this. that we don't differentiate between living beings and non-living beings. So, do you have any questions? Yeah. Can you comment why we have blue robes as opposed to black robes?

[44:13]

Well, black has become identified with priest ordination, and Blue was chosen as lay ordination. That's only in this country, only in this Suzuki-Roshi lineage? Well, probably, yeah. Lay ordination is not so common in Japan as it is here. Some people, the teacher will give them the ordination, but people don't have hundreds of students in Japan like we do, you know. So, often the teacher will just give them what's at hand as a rock syrup. They give them the ordination.

[45:14]

Can you also comment about Yeah, the round ring is the holdover from Chinese okesa. And Southeast Asia, people still use it, a kind of snap, you know. And so the ring is, you notice if you have a raksu from Japan, it has a ring. It also has a little tie, which you don't use. It's just, you know, But it's a kind of, it's just a holdover from a case that was sometimes worn in China that has a, you tie it, use the ring to tie it. I asked Suzuki-goshi one time, why do we have the rings? Oh, it's to hang it up. But he may have meant to hang it up this way.

[46:21]

Well, you know, people who voluntarily practice have their own kind of commitment. I don't know if it's better or worse, but there's a certain kind of commitment to someone who does something because that's what they want to do. And then there's another kind of commitment to someone who is bound by family ties and so forth. But sometimes the person who is committed through practice, through family ties, turns out to be a very good priest. like Suzuki Roshi and Maezumi Roshi, and so forth. But what prevails is when the organization becomes so big, then people get tied into the organization as a job, and then there are rules, and then pretty soon the priests are all doing funeral ceremonies, and there's no zazen, and so forth. So this is what Suzuki Roshi was hoping to... He was so happy

[48:03]

find these naive Americans who didn't have any baggage, and they were practicing for the sake of practice, and he was just really overjoyed with that. But he always respected people in Japan, even though he criticized them. Together? Together. No, that doesn't happen. It's you or your one or the other. Oh, I, I've seen this where the, uh, the absent-minded. The absent-minded. Absent-minded. Sometimes you do that, you know, sometimes. I've done that absent-mindedly. Oh yeah, I'm trying on my robe on. It's not common. I just wanted to explain where I said I wish that Buddha hadn't responded that way, but I don't really believe that that's the real true story of what exactly the Buddha said.

[49:19]

It sounds like a kind of institutional story to explain why we have these things. But the reason I burst out at that moment was because, you know, when Vipassana, the king, got so uppity and arrogant and got mad and said, My fantasy of the Blue would not be, OK, King, I'll do what you ask. I wanted him to say, well, that's just right. You're supposed to battle just any old buddy down there. Good. Well, I didn't get it that he was arrogant. I just got that he thought that he wanted, that he was bowing to who he thought was somebody who wasn't. We just had a different take on the story. I like the part about the rice wheels. Yeah, but I just think we had a different take on the story. My take was that he wanted to pay his respect to a follower of the Buddha, but he said, oh, but I agree with you that he should bow down to everybody.

[50:25]

Totally, no problem. But when it's a case of mistaken identity, he wants to be able to identify Buddha's disciples. I totally agree with you. He should bow down to the elephant. Yeah. Well, because people are drawn to the Dharma, but that doesn't mean they should all be

[51:27]

give up their lives and become priests. That's a different order of things. It's a different kind of commitment. So I think it's really good that this is like the Dharma coming alive within a society. I don't think everybody should be priests or monks. Some people, it's a calling, but I think it's just wonderful that we have this, so many lay people who, while living at home, practice this way, it's like this is totally revolutionary.

[52:33]

So many people are drawn to practice and that they can actually practice without having to give up their jobs and their lives and so forth, to actually practice within all that, within the lives that they're leading. So, when you say, I don't know, why? Nobody knows why. We could all have our answers, but basically, because what's awakened in us is our own Buddha nature, and then we seek out practice. It's not a matter of, really, not a matter of whether you're a priest or a layperson. It's really equal. Melinda? And I think of everything I wear as Buddha's robe.

[54:13]

Well, that's right. But he never wore anything but Buddha's robe. But I used to come to Zazen, and I had this sweater. I told you this before. And I wore this sweater every day for years. And he took hold of my sweater, and one day he said, this is your robe. And I saw Chino Sensei do that one time, too, down in Los Altos. there, and there was this guy who was kind of, you know, huddled over, and you could see that he, you know, he was kind of a homeless guy, and he had this kind of cape, which was, you could see his only, and he said, this is your room. Yes, Elizabeth.

[55:22]

No. Oh, well, yes, there is that. Yeah, you can read a lot of different things into the room. And people do. The world is romanticized a lot. I never heard that before. I did read that, but it's not something I heard before. But yeah, the small pieces and large pieces, I don't want to go into that whole thing. And some people say the large pieces are, or at least I read it there, small pieces are delusion and a piece of enlightenment, and then in a priesthood they're equal or something. I don't know. It feels like my daily experience is the opposite.

[56:28]

A lot more delusion. Much more what? Delusion. It seems like a large piece of my day compared to the small piece of my day. Yeah, that's right, it's just the opposite. That's right. Well, there's lots more to say, but we have to go.

[56:59]

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