An unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely met with, even in a hundred thousand million kalpas. Having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Hello, everyone, here and there. Hello, Laurie. Laurie started formal Zen practice in 1980 at San Francisco Zen Center. She worked at Green's Restaurant back in the day and lived at Tassajara for three years. In 1989, she married Hozon, moved to Berkeley Zen Center and raised their two children. After several years of intense focus on child-rearing, she gradually returned to more involvement in formal practice.

[01:34]

She served as head student, or shuso, at BCC in 2003 and received land recognition in 2006. In 2018, she received priest ordination from Daito Steve Weintraub as Kosei Nyokai, Radiant Vowel Ocean of Suchness, and received Dharma transmission from him in September 2021. She had diligently held many practice positions over the years, too numerous to mention. That would be an entire talk in itself. Her term as treasurer ends this year and along with Susan Marvin is co-tenso preparing Zendo meals which have nourished us for decades. Thank you very much and please welcome our dear speaker today, Laurie Sinati. Thank you, Ross. How's the volume? out there too. So I want to just start with just taking a few minutes to just be together and just feel what it feels like to be together.

[02:47]

Breathing. We often try to welcome people who are here for the first time, but in one sense, or in many senses perhaps, we're all here for the first time. The first time with this particular group of people in this particular place. Just breathing together. It's one thing we know about everybody is that we're breathing. Everybody's breathing. And feeling what it feels like to be here together breathing. If you want to close your eyes, you can. Sometimes we can feel what's going on inside of us more easily if our eyes are closed.

[03:50]

feel our connectedness, we first need to connect with ourselves. Thich Nhat Hanh said this, we should not think that to close the doors of sense perceptions is to close ourselves off from life and the world, to sever our contact with life. When we are not truly ourselves, when we are divided and dispersed, we are not really in contact with life. The contact is profound only when we are really ourselves. We are not ourselves in the present moment. When we look at the blue sky, we do not really see the blue sky. Therefore, the wholeness of ourselves is the basis of any meaningful contact. So let's take a few moments just to connect with ourselves inside. Our own breathing. We have a custom here at BCC at the beginning of the meeting.

[05:02]

We'll have a few moments of silence. And when we come back to ourselves, that supports us to meet at the meeting. And I'm not even sure it's quite as much true things as this quote makes it sound. You know, when I open my eyes, I see you, and you're quite beautiful, but you also seem to be out there. If I close my eyes, you feel closer. Almost like right here. Now let's take a few minutes to remember everything that has gone into this moment since the huge past, from the Big Bang up until this moment.

[06:23]

And especially our ancestors, our various ancestors. We can start with our biological ancestors. My sister Debbie, who's here today, quoted to me from somewhere you are a survivor from a long line of survivors so we can think about those biological ancestors and you know their struggles and efforts their pains and joys and sorrows but all Hanging in there at least long enough to get the next generation started. We're connected to them somehow. And the land has ancestors too.

[07:30]

All the people who've taken care of this spot of earth for thousands of years. be here too. And then of course our Dharma ancestors carefully passing on this practice warm hand to warm hand over centuries. It's 25 centuries or so and before that people with similar values sharing them and passing them on. Because it's not only in the written words that are passed on, we have to bring it to life in every generation. In all our relationships within the Sangha and outside, we need to bring it to life.

[08:34]

And we can also connect in the present moment to in space. I'm half remembering that talk. I don't know whether it was Ed Brown's talk or someone quoting Ed Brown, but it was like the simple thing, like we connect through the ground. We're touching the ground and the ground goes out in every direction and we can touch everything through the ground as we connect with it. You can imagine that crowd starting in this room and extending, but going out to, you know, all the plants and animals and bugs and buildings and sidewalks. We can maybe imagine our little town nestled between the mountains and the water and then extending beyond that, north and south and east and west. Seeing how far we can reach and touch.

[09:48]

And we can even imagine perhaps like in that ground or on that ground some kind of filaments that we could send some friendliness out to the world through these filaments. Some open heartedness, some warmth and well wishes. Just imagining that, going out. Thank you. You can open your eyes now if you want or keep them closed. So when I was preparing that part of the talk, I thought, what if maybe some feeling of friendliness is not available to you today?

[11:02]

And I want to say to you, welcome. You're in the right place. Every feeling is welcome here. because it's really about what's happening. The first principle of our practice is what is. And the second principle is our vows. So if you're feeling some difficult, painful feelings or just not connected feelings, let them come, bring them in, bring them on, and let us help you hold them. to extend the card game metaphor probably to the breaking point. So there's the cards that are dealt and then there's the cards we play.

[12:04]

The first principle is the cards that are dealt, moment by moment. And the second principle is the cards we play. So if I say friendliness, and you're not feeling it, not feeling friendly, it might seem like I'm saying you weren't dealt the right cards. There's something wrong with you. It's so easy to feel like there might be something wrong with us, you know? There must be a huge biological, a huge evolutionary advantage to that feeling. It just has to be, because it's so easy to access something to do with ourselves. Now we're social animals that belong, the safety is in belonging or something. So it might seem like that. That I'm saying you have the wrong card somehow. You didn't get the card, you didn't get the right card.

[13:09]

Anyway, it turns out that there are some cards that are dealt out in every hand. And we tend to ignore them or not be able to find them or even reject them. We might have even tried to play them and had a bad experience. So you might call these the Buddha nature cards. Buddha nature cards are actually dealt out in every hand. And we each have to do that individual work of figuring out what's in the way, what's hindering, what's obstructing, what's keeping us separate from our Buddha nature cards. And it always starts with turning towards what's happening. A long time BCC senior student who has moved away, Alexandre Frappier, once said,

[14:12]

When my heart opens towards myself, that's enlightenment. I mean, she didn't use the word enlightenment, but that's the thing. When our heart opens towards ourselves, and you can't make it open, but you can set the stage. Just keep turning towards this moment, what's happening. And eventually, your heart will open to what's happening. Our hearts will open to what's happening. I was also, this made me remember another famous saying of Alexandra's, which is maybe a little bit off to the side, but I wanted to share it anyway. You know, she developed Parkinson's disease. And as I'm sure most people know, everybody probably knows, that involves some kind of involuntary movement and tremor and such. And she said,

[15:14]

Well, that's when I had to find true stillness. She was still at the Parkinson's card, but somehow it helped her find the stillness card that was there all the time. I have no idea what time it is, but I guess it doesn't matter. I recently attended, oh thanks Joe, you're the best. I recently attended a seminar, a three week seminar with Lama Rod Owens. I don't know how many people are familiar with him. He's an American Tibetan Buddhist teacher, practitioner. And this course was about the Heart Sutra. And it just totally blew my mind, I have to say. And I thought that, Maybe the Heart Sutra is supposed to blow our minds every time we hear it.

[16:18]

So like, instead of zoning out through the Heart Sutra like I've been doing for the last 40 years, maybe, you know, what would it be like? Dharmas do not appear or disappear. Feelings do not appear or disappear. What? especially lately, no old age in death. What? You know, it's like our Zen ancestor Dungshan, he was like, when he first heard the heart suture, he was a picture of 13, like old enough in some cultures to be an adult, but still young, you know. He hears the heart suture and he goes, you know, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue. Goes like this. But teacher, I have eyes, ears, nose, and tongue. Why is it saying that?

[17:19]

Oops, I messed up. So, heart sutra. Anyway, what actually happened is someone asked a question during this seminar. that has really stayed with me. And I kind of jettisoned the rest of my original talk plan and tried to figure out how to talk about this question. And then I got cold feet and went back. And then I jettisoned it again and came back, so. So here's the question. It's about Harriet Tubman because Lama Rod was talking about Harriet Tubman a bodhisattva, which, you know, in our, in the Buddhist parlance, is a person who knowingly and intentionally reincarnates in order to save beings.

[18:23]

So he framed her as she knowingly and intentionally reincarnated in order to free slaves, which, I mean, I thank you all. Maybe everybody knows that Harriet Tubman was a woman who escaped slavery and then kept going back many times to get other people and get them out. So this question was, how enslaved did she feel? And that's an interesting question. It's like, how did she feel? And what I hear in the question, I'm not sure what the person was thinking, but what I hear is, did she feel anything like I feel? Because I've been assuming no. You know what I mean? I've been assuming no. Many of us have taken bodhisattva vows for the benefit of all beings, to be reborn, whatever we mean by that, for the benefit of all beings.

[19:32]

So how do we feel? How do we feel? Do we feel free? Well, the tagline to Ronald Lama Rod's Heart Sutra, are you ready to get free? So, how do we feel? So, you know, Harriet Tubman first kind of freed her mind through reasoning. She said that, I had reasoned this out in my mind. There was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other. That's sort of freeing yourself by letting go of yourself, right? In Zen, we sort of idealize this non-conceptual thinking. We think enlightenment is getting free from non-conceptual thinking. And maybe it is, but in Buddha's teachings, actually, there's a lot of reasoning.

[20:36]

There's a lot of reasoning. We just had a class in the Pali Sutras, and in many of them, the listeners are enlightened by a reasoned dialogue with the Buddha. For example, what do you think Kalamas? The Kalamas were a tribal group in India. What do you think? When hostility arises in us, does it arise for welfare or for harm? And they answer, for harm, Lord. And he just goes on, he just takes them through a long process of reasoning, reasoned, you know, dialogue. So it seems like maybe through some kind of sound reasoning, Harriet Tubman found maybe felt a little more free. Again, we don't know how she felt, but it sounds like that's what she may have felt, a little more free. You know, Lama Rod's answer to her question wasn't quite following it, maybe, but it has something to do with the Heart Sutra pointing us towards spaciousness.

[21:48]

That somehow we are in this, the phenomenal world is like this tight, constricting world that we live in. And the Heart Sutra is pointing us towards somehow within that, finding the spaciousness, finding some spaciousness within the tight, constricting, phenomenal world. So maybe Harriet Tubman's insight created some spaciousness for her. You know, spacious is not just a good feeling. We have to have some spaciousness to hear our inner guidance, to hear our still small voice within that's telling us what we're actually supposed to be doing. And she always felt that. She always felt that she was guided. She had some intuitive guidance, which in a way is either inside or outside. But with that, she managed to successfully make these mini trips from, I think, pretty much Maryland to Pennsylvania.

[22:56]

So when we find that spaciousness, that's when we can hear that, hear that still small voice. So again, this question is really about us in our lives, our constricted lives in the phenomenal world, and how constricted do we feel? Do we feel somehow that we willingly entered into this constricted, phenomenal world? Our old Abbot Sojin Roshi offered us a practice of thinking of each day as a lifetime. Anybody else remember hearing that?

[23:59]

The only one who heard that. So it's like you incarnate. When you wake up in the morning, you incarnate. And you could try, thinking of it as willingly, incarnate into your tight, constricted life with all its... problems and worries and constraints and difficulties and pain and everything and then at the end of the day you just put it all down you pass you pass into i don't know the bardo or something i'm not sure what but you go to sleep and then that's that and all whatever mistakes we made our things over just gone then the next day you start fresh i like that i like that choosing again in the morning to willingly enter this tight, tight, phenomenal world. During the poly sutra class I refused to discuss rebirth and so I thought, oh now I have to eat my words.

[25:03]

We often have to eat our words, haven't you noticed? Another thing that's made me think about this topic of how constricted do we feel, you know, is our sashins. Sashin practice, you could think of it as like, every period you willingly enter into this tight, constricted experience, and you know, it can be really, really, really bad. I mean, you know, ah, this is terrible, I'm leaving, after this period I'm leaving, I'm never coming back. This is ridiculous that this is what people are doing. No one else here could be feeling what I'm feeling, or they would not be sitting here right now. Whatever it is, you know? But then for me anyway, sometimes as soon as I get up I think, well that wasn't so bad. You know what I mean? That is so weird.

[26:06]

Or even you feel like you can kind of get this flavor of how concentrated you were with the pain, you know, somehow the pain, focuses the mind and you feel it's just this tiny bit of, I don't know, bliss or something that's associated with the concentration, you know, so that makes you want to do it again the next period. But we could feel that way, we could feel like, okay, we're willingly, because you know, I think there's an idea that actually this Zazen period is the heaven, it's supposed to be the bliss heaven period. And then the work period is where you feel this constriction of the funnel or something. But actually, I think for many of us, a lot of the time, it's like you willingly enter this tiny little space where you can't move and you can't say anything and just be there intentionally. You came here intentionally.

[27:07]

You decided to do this. And here you are. And when you get up, it's like, phew. Probably some people did leave after that one period. I never came back, I'm guessing. But most of us did not. And so maybe Sashin's getting ready for us to die and be reborn in another lifetime. Or maybe that's just kind of skillful means. I don't know. But I know that we need help every day to find some spaciousness in our tight, constricting, phenomenal world. So I wanted to hear what you guys thought about this, especially about this question. Does this question touch you in any way, or do you have any suggestions for how you find the spaciousness?

[28:12]

Ellen, and I would like, I have a couple practical things I want to bring up at the end. So let's end the questions and answers at like 10 after instead of 15 after. And you, can you signal me? You want a little longer? Yeah, I want you to, I want you to, not before that. That'll have enough time if you just say, okay, it's 10 after or whatever. So, questions? Yes, Margo, and then, oh, and then Joe is going to bring around. the microphone, and Rich is going to bring around the laptop so that I can see you online. Hi, everybody. Can you think it to Gal? Can you put it to Gal? Are we, please? Sure. I suppose I should probably just fumble at this stage. Hi everybody, good to see you out there.

[29:14]

Not anywhere. What was that? Somebody has their microphone on and they didn't mean to. So we have a question from the floor. He mentioned twice the phrase, finding a still small voice. And I was wondering what you meant by that, because I have many voices, and rarely do they feel still, even amidst deep stillness. So what feels like happens for you is you have a sense of deep stillness, and within that there's just a bunch of voices, no one more still than any other one. That's good. I'm glad. I mean, it's great that you find the stillness.

[30:15]

That's great right there. And do you ever feel like you know what you're supposed to do? Or do you ever feel some kind of deeper knowing that's not from logic or such? That's one way I explore this is through body sensations. And maybe there's times in my life when I'm living a life oriented around sensory awareness. That feels like a deeper sense of knowing. Yeah. But I would say that knowing what I, maybe it's just being in my early twenties, but I rarely have a sense that there's some I know what to do with my life for thinking about it. I think that... You've already made some interesting and probably difficult choices.

[31:22]

So something's operating there, I would think. But yeah, I think it probably comes to different people differently, and if you feel it as a sensory thing, yeah. Like I was bringing it as like a voice, like an auditory thing, but yeah. comes through wherever it's coming through. Anyway, you have made some interesting choices, so I would stick with that. They don't feel so habitual somehow. I mean, maybe they are, but... Never like we know for sure, I guess. It's not that kind of knowing. Any other input? Upsune, and then Evan, and then... So about spaciousness, my mom is 95.

[32:28]

She lives about 10,000 miles away. And occasionally I talk to her about Buddhist ideas and she likes it a lot. So today I'm wondering How do I talk to her about spaciousness? What does that mean? Well, I think it's somehow turning towards her present moment and helping her turn towards her present moment. I mean, that's where you have to find it, actually. I mean, it's in this turn. There's what's happening, and then there's me holding what's happening. Maybe. And it's not two things, but, yeah, there's some kind of holding. I'm going forward, but I'm also feeling like, oh, it's a step back.

[33:31]

It's like a tight, constricting world, and then you step back a little, metaphorically speaking, and then you find the spaciousness, perhaps. But it's not easy. I mean, that's why we do this difficult practice. It's not always easy to do, find it. So it's like thinking this is my whole life and this is where I am now. Right. I can refer to every part of it. Yeah. But kind of as a whole as well. Right. And you wouldn't say to her, you, this, you know, try to get some spaciousness, mom, or try to get outside. Yeah, or even, you don't try to get her to do something different. It's like, how do you feel towards how you're feeling, if that's a thing? How do you feel towards your difficulty? How do you feel towards yourself? Something like that. Good luck.

[34:33]

In a different language. Yeah, exactly. You can do it. Well, it's really bringing everything to the present. Yes. Ultimately. Yes, yes. Just another way to say that. We try to push away every opportunity we can. The last thing your mind wants to be. It's the last place your mind wants to be. Anything but that! You can sit down for a period of time and try to focus. Okay, anything but that. Anything but my breath and posture. But yeah. And modeling it is good too. You know, modeling how you, we've got to keep doing it for ourselves. She's part of your experience. You know, her aging is you, is in you, right? That's where you have to turn towards that. That's exhausting. But I think in the spaciousness, there's a little energy. So I think it's actually, maybe you could find some renewed energy in there too, maybe.

[35:40]

Yeah, I always do. Yeah, okay, good. Okay, then we have Evan and then Mira. Thanks, Larry. Do you really think the phenomenal world is tight and constricting? I think that's a way of talking about it. But again, that's the whole point of the Heart Sutra is that it's in there that the spaciousness is. It's not like you somehow leave the constriction and find the spaciousness. And it's kind of hard. I mean, I'm probably doing a lousy job of putting that into words, but... You know, from my own experience, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it is in one way, sometimes it is in another way. Sometimes, you know, I have a lot of different experiences of the constricted quality.

[36:42]

But I know what he's talking about when he says that, the constricted phenomenal world. I can connect with that from some times in my life. So, but it's not, right? It's not. It's right there that spaciousness is. But we also don't want to minimize or deny our feeling of constriction. That's not a wrong feeling. If we say it's actually not constricted and spacious, then immediately we get to the wrongness of the feeling of constriction. So we don't want to go there. I know that for sure. So there's like a flickering or going back and forth or, yeah, how enslaved did she feel? I feel like there can always be things that we feel are constricting, but for me the experience of constriction is almost...

[37:56]

or maybe always in my ideas and how I'm relating to whatever's going on in the phenomenal world. And it's not the phenomenon, it's not the world. Right. The exact same set of phenomena can be happening around you and can be, you can perceive it as constricting or you can perceive to have that sense of spaciousness. And so to say that, to say that the world is constrict, the phenomenal world, it just sounded like almost that you were saying that the phenomenal world is almost inherently constricting. And I guess, I don't know. I don't know either. It's on the line there or something. I mean, you know, the Heart Sutra, yeah, what you're saying about it's our views or it's our ideas, because that's what the Heart Sutra is actually talking about, is like these ideas that Buddhists had about how our minds work with skandhas and datus and ayatanas and the 12-fold chain of cards, all those things, they were constricted by that.

[39:05]

They ended up getting all constricted by their idea of Buddhism. I mean, that seems to be what's being said. And so this comes along and says, no, no, no, no, those things aren't any realer than anything else. Those are just things that Buddha made up to help us. They're not, you know, like, we're not going to fight over is that your feeling skanda or is that your perception skanda? You know, we're talking about feelings here, you know, is that in Vedana or somewhere else? We're not going to fight over that because that would be crazy. But it's still, I guess what I'm worried about is blaming the person for feeling the constriction. and some people's lives, you know, are constricted by other people's behavior that's constricting them. I mean, it's not that simple, right? People who have been in prison have found some kind of freedom, but not everybody, it's not like, oh good, we should put more people in prison so they can find the freedom, you know?

[40:11]

It's just trick, I think it's tricky. But I think it's good to bring up all these different points, especially when we're together like this, so thank you. I think it's a good point what you're thinking. Mira? Hi, thank you for your talk. The point that I resonated with was when you were saying that people wanted to jump up from a period of zazen. because I felt that way. But I felt that way often because of physical pain in my body. I was one of these people that was never flexible, never did gymnastics, and my body's never been very flexible. But I had this idea that from Sojin, from early on, because I started early on, I was going to say, you have been at this for a long time for someone who was talking about it.

[41:16]

I think I heard things that he stopped saying, you know, and I still have those ideas from early of his teaching, you know, like no pain, no gain. So I sat with a huge amount of pain, which I'm not doing today, because at this point the pain lasts for months and years, so you can't do that anymore. Anyway, I keep thinking about Japanese people who started their lives sitting in seiza and sitting cross-legged, and when they were sitting sasen, I don't know if they had the kind of physical pain that some Westerners like myself have had. So I wonder if our experience of sasen has actually been quite different, that they had more bliss and joy and just really wonderful feelings, which I know because I have experience too, but my feelings have been less that way because of physical pain.

[42:21]

So that's just something that's been with me for a long time, wondering about how is our experience really the same as the original experience that people got from Sausen. And I recommend this kneeling chair. You know, I understand what you're saying, and they may not have felt the exact same pain that we felt, but maybe that's why they keep talking about this sap facing a wall for nine years. I mean, maybe they had to sit more periods to get to that, but I'm pretty sure. I feel confident myself, but again, I don't know, and maybe nobody knows, but I feel confident that this experience of not moving and the discomfort of not moving in one way or another was what they were facing. Again, Sojin had a lot of pain, but he's an example of someone who didn't grow up sitting Seiza, but he had a lot of pain.

[43:33]

Life is full of pain. I mean, we're going to have a lot of pain, and life is full of difficult things, right? I think we can all agree on that. Life is full of difficult things. So the time we spend on the cushion, being with, I think, almost everybody who's had a really difficult experience has said that their seshin practice helped them get through that because it's about staying with what's happening when every part of you wants to run away and separate from it. So when my knees were bad, it's like my knees weren't me. It's like me and my knees were two different things, right? So I think whether you're right or wrong, I still think that Zazan practices. But I mean, if you get up and you still have the pain, yeah, that's different. get to know your body enough to know.

[44:34]

We've got to get to know our bodies very intimately to know whether this is just some, you know, the pain. If I lift my sternum, my back's like, what are you doing, you know? And then there's pain. But over time, that, you know, is released. Our bodies keep changing decade by decade. Exactly, you've got to stay with it. Yeah, so I mean, I switched to a bench too, so I agree with that. I don't see anybody with their hand raised online. Is there anybody now that I'm looking at you? A few more minutes here. Okay, solution?

[45:36]

Oh, Ross, I'm sorry, Ross had his hand up first. In response to Miura's point, which is really quite apt for us chair sitters, that Buddha came from a place in the yoga tradition where sitting on the ground and is training for meditation as well as in China and in Japan, I believe. So the practice has been going on for centuries, so there's something about the suffering that goes deeper than the chair or sitting on the ground. Otherwise it would have died out long ago, in my view. So I'm coming up on a year now sitting in a chair, and even though the physical comfort is more comfortable physically for me, my suffering still is present. So if something persists, And I really appreciate your note, Laurie, about adjusting with the cause and conditions of our life as we grow old or grow young and with where we're going.

[46:40]

Thank you so much. You're welcome. One thing I heard about Mira's point, though, just to draw it out, if I'm hearing you right, Mira, was that maybe they kept coming back because they have bliss. So that was what they were coming back for. And we're like just fools for coming back for pain. Anyway, Susan. Whoops. Thank you, Laurie. So you asked the question, how enslaved was Harriet Tubman? How did she feel? How enslaved did she feel? How enslaved did she feel, yes. And I wonder if another question might be, what do you think about that any feeling of freedom or liberation for her as a bodhisattva was in the doing, in the acting, in the action of going back and forth, not as an end, but that liberation came in the act of going back and forth and bringing others

[47:51]

I'm sure it did. I mean, that makes sense. It would. But she waited a long time. So I wonder about that time. She got married. She waited a long time. And she waited to be guided. She waited. So I think there had to be some, I mean, who knows? I'm just making this up. But some kind of spaciousness and freedom to even wait and choose her moment like she chose her moment. being guided from within, that's what she said. But the doing is, yeah, the doing, it has to come to the doing, you know. And then the more you do, I can imagine the more she did it, the more she did it, you know, the more it felt good to do that, you know. It felt free, like I'm not just free, but I'm enacting my freedom, I'm manifesting it, you know. To me, that's kind of the lesson for us as Zen students, really.

[48:52]

To manifest, to find a way to manifest. It's not like an end-all of getting somewhere, but it's in the doing. And you know, part of what, I mean, she came back because she, I mean, you know, she was lonely. I mean, she missed her loved ones, right? She wanted her loved ones to get free, too. So we're connected to the, you know, it's all about how we're connected, too. Okay, so as of the 10 minutes, yes. Thank you, Susan. Good question, good point. So, I think it's very fortuitous that Hozan is in a Sashim today, and I realized that, I didn't realize that until this morning, but I have this idea for his birthday, which is, last year he turned 75, and I did not have any good ideas for his birthday. But I got this idea that we could all write down and submit our own turning words stories.

[49:58]

You know, like his book, Turning Words, is all about these encounters that stay with you. And I mean, I guess the ideal would be if you have one that features him, but that's not the most important thing. Just a story, write it down, I'm thinking maybe something like 500 to 1,000 words or something. and give it to me, either write it down. If you email it to me, I can print it. If you want to write it down and decorate it, that's fine, and I will assemble that into some kind of book. And I'm going to figure out how to create an email list to pass this on to, but I just thought, oh, I could tell a bunch of people right now. So if you like that idea, that seems cool to you. When does his birthday disappear? His birthday's not till December 13th, but if you could get them to me by something like Thanksgiving, then I'll have time to assemble things. And again, I'll figure out, and I want to do it as a surprise if there's any way to pull that off.

[51:01]

But I do have to. What's the idea? What's the question? Well, if you haven't read this book, Turning Words, it's a bunch of stories about moments, things people said that stayed with him that enlightened him, that woke him up, and that he remembers and practices. The idea is to make it a little less, maybe a few of us can show or something, but to talk about these experiences we have had that turned us, turned our lives and stayed with us. Just write it down as a little story, however you think to do it. There's no limit on how to do it. Could be a picture maybe too. I don't know, anyway. It could be short. And it can be short, yeah, less than 500 words for sure. Yeah, that's absolutely right.

[52:02]

And then the other thing I wanted to mention was that we have this practice when we're doing the four vows that we're about to do, which is we try to shorten the word I and emphasize the word vow. These four times in the chant we say, I vow. And there's a tendency because of the way chanting and zoning out and everything happens is to go, I vow to save them, you know, whatever. So what our effort has been for many years and kind of lost it a little bit lately is I vow to awaken with them. Does everybody understand what I'm asking? Does that make sense? Yes, Susan? Liz made a point of saying if we think in terms of rhythm, I gets one beat and bow gets two beats, and that's quite helpful. Okay. Shall we? Beans are worthless, bow and bow

[53:11]

to awaken with them. Illusions are inexhaustible. I vow to enter them. Karma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. are inexhaustible.

[53:51]

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