days, to be exact, I've had a second Zen practice. In addition to sitting Zazen, I also chant and I count the Prajnaparamita mantra. Om Gathe Gathe, Paragathe, Parasangathe, Bodhisattva. This morning I'm going to tell you the story of how I came to take up that practice. I'm going to try and be as specific as I can about how that works out in my daily life, how I practice that. I'll talk about some of the things I've learned doing that practice more than a couple years, and I'll share some of the ways it's changed my thinking, the way I think about Zazen and the Heart Sutra. and then I'm going to ask all of us to chant one round of that mantra together.

[02:08]

I've told the story before, nearly a couple years ago in a way seeking mind talk, but this won't be the last time I repeat myself in this room. And I begin the story saying, when I was dating my wife Diana, she used to call up around us. He was listed in the Marin County phone book under Richard Alpert, and he'd call up and talk to anybody who called him. There was no secretary, no answering machine. He was as open as the sky. Dinah told him about her life, and over the months, she told him about my life, too. And in time, he came to have something of a relationship with Ram Dass. We went to see him and the love we felt for him, which filled our hearts, was mirrored back and magnified tenfold.

[03:15]

And for both of us, it was this experience of being in the presence of a holy man. When our son David was born, we wrote to him and asked him to bless our child. And he wrote back, I can't really bless children. But I tell you what, you chant the name of Ram and I guarantee you'll receive all the blessing for your son that you ask of me. Well, this was auspicious to have an instruction from a holy man. I wanted to reach to do it. But also at this time I was going to graduate school full time. I was working nearly full-time, doing childcare full-time, and I didn't have an hour to myself to sit zazen. So this led me to poke my head in the Krishna temple up the street, and I found they had a service every day.

[04:19]

My infant son, my toddler son could join, he could cry, he could crawl around. There was nothing for him to disrupt. So joining that service, I picked up that practice and fulfilled Ram Dass' instruction. And I chanted this mantra, pushing the carriage around Berkeley and going to parks and changing diapers and riding on BART. And I just remember that being a very cheerful and happy way to practice in this difficult time. But I did have a sense that to really be inside that community, I'd have to believe a number of things that would be difficult for me to believe or carry beliefs about that. And so, when this schedule ended, I was glad to come back to Berkeley Zen Center and continue my practice of Zazen.

[05:24]

But when my daughter Hazel was born, well, I had this association that mantra practice was something that worked for me. and the demands of being a parent of a young child. So, well, we have a mantra. It's the great transcendent mantra. It's the great bright mantra. It's the utmost mantra, the supreme mantra. And honey, I tell you, it's able to relieve all suffering. Why am I a tourist in another tradition when we have this mantra, Michelle? Well, I go to Sojin and ask him if that's okay to take up that practice, and he authorizes it. And when my daughter was born, I did take it up.

[06:28]

Change her diaper, chanting the mantra. Push her carriage around town, chanting the mantra. go to parks chanting the mantra and ride on BART chanting the mantra. And there was something nourishing for me in that and refreshing, no doubt. But over the months, I also began to feel there was something incomplete, doing it just by myself. There wasn't something balanced about it, like a two-legged stool. For several years, I reached for a solution of that. I rented the internet domain name omgategate.com. I thought maybe I'd build a website. And the function of the website would be, well, every day you could go on, and you'd enter.

[07:30]

Well, today I chanted... The Prajnaparamita mantra om gate gate, paragate, parsingate, bodhisvaha. Today I chanted it 108 times. Today I chanted it 1,008 times. The website would display a daily count of the community and a lifetime count of the community. And that would be some way that I could reach for it to be complete. But while I don't have those technical skills, I didn't find the time to bring this idea into reality. And after a couple of years, 18 months, I just sort of left the mantra behind. There wasn't something that was fully ripened for me. I didn't think about it again for 12 years until Marie Hopper asked me to help her lead this coming-of-age group.

[08:33]

The 13- and 14-year-olds were bringing them into the Zendo and teaching them Zazen and the Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths and so on. They did a great job with Zazen. My daughter was part of this, so how special is that? Towards the end, I also had a feeling I wish I could teach them a mantra practice like that. For one, I thought it might be more accessible for young adolescents if they were moved to try and take up a practice. I know they weren't going to come back here and sit zazen, but maybe this would be something if they were moved to express a Buddhist identity that would be within their reach. Adolescents aren't best at stillness and silence anyway.

[09:35]

And my daughter does say that she does turn to zazen in times of stress, so I'm really amazed by that. But I had something more specific in mind of why I wanted to teach them this mantra. Even if maybe they'd take up a practice, maybe they wouldn't. it seemed much more likely that some point in their young lives, they would fall into the pit of despair. They'd find their minds racing and their emotions impossible to endure and feel lost and not sure what to do. And I thought telling them, if you're in that state, you can do this mantra. And it will be a way to come back to yourself as mental health first aid. I know I've been in that place as a young person.

[10:41]

It helped me just to have the memory of some advice. We did give each of the kids a mala and a card. with calligraphy of om gate gate, paragate, parsam gate, bodhisvaha. But I never followed through on teaching them that, because I didn't have anything to share, except this was something I used to do. And these questions led me to look again. Could I find any Zen traditions of saying this mantra? No, no, I couldn't. Could I find a community that practiced this mantra? I didn't find it. But what I did find was several apps on a phone that had this function of counting a mantra. I checked them out and I picked one.

[11:48]

I had to add the mantra, Om Gathe Gathe, Paragathe, Parsim Gathe, Bodhisattva. But if I had an intuition that that function was the missing ingredient, that intuition was confirmed when I found it. As soon as I found that function, I knew how I wanted to go about that practice. I started with the understanding that I would chant the mantra up 1,728 times a day. And that is... 16 malas of 108, which is the expectation of the Krishna temple, that every devotee will do that. Well, the Prajnaparamita mantra is half the length of that Krishna mantra, so it seemed a nice symbolism. Oh, a practice that's half zazen, half this Prajnaparamita mantra.

[12:53]

I've got a balanced breakfast there. After about six months, I changed to 2,000 times a day, and I'll just tell the story of how I did that. I did it after rereading The Way of the Pilgrim. And that book is most famous in this country as the subject of fellow New Hampshireite J.D. Salinger's novella, Franny and Zoe, where Franny carries the book around in her purse. And the book tells the story of this devout 19th century Ukrainian man who reads in the Bible the instruction to pray without ceasing. This is a riddle to him and he goes around and asks everybody, how do you pray without ceasing? Finds closed doors and nobody knows the answer.

[13:57]

He meets this bishop. And the bishop says, chant the Jesus prayer, which is, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And do that 3,000 times a day. Goes and does it 3,000 times a day for a few weeks and comes back to the bishop and says, okay, I did that and it's not easy, but oh, the bishop says, good, good. Now do it 6,000 times a day. He does it 6,000 times a day. It's more challenging. Comes back in a few weeks and said, I was able to do that. The bishop says, well, now do it 12,000 times a day. His lips are chapped, his voice is breaking, his fingers are blistered, but now this mantra is running in his sleep and he has an idea. praying without ceasing.

[14:59]

And after a few weeks, he has this Christian Kensho experience of finding this inexhaustible spring of joy in his heart. And that was all encouraging to me because I saw it as the same practice. This 16-syllable mantra sounded in the heart. And the tradition of saying that Christian mantra comes from the philokalia, which is an orthodox body of literature describing the Desert Fathers and their practice. And the Jesus Prayer was a fundamental practice, and they discussed how to sound this prayer in the closet of the heart. And I was so enchanted with the story of the backgammon doubling cube of practice, I felt challenged to increase the number of times I said the Prajnaparamita. 2000 was also easier for me to count.

[16:01]

I didn't have to do math every day. For a long time, I had resistance to counting. It seemed off, you know, and then we have this aesthetic. Leave no traces. And here I am, considering counting beans and filing paperwork like a bureaucrat. But as I've done it and I've come to understand that counting the mantra has the same function as a schedule in Zazen. It's a way of sharing the practice. It also creates a dimension of discipline that confronts our habit to fall asleep. And we could have a Jack Kerouac Dharma Bum Zen. Why do you limit yourself with your freedom to have a schedule of Zazen? Why don't you just show up? And that's not wrong, but our way is to come together and have some form to it.

[17:04]

So I do count 2,000 times a day, and it's really every day. It's an iron habit. Though I have some flexibility, I might fall a few hundred behind one day and catch up another day. I do about half my counting directly on my phone, but also half on a mala, and I enter it afterwards. I do it between calls overnight at work. I do it throughout the day. It reminds me most of smoking cigarettes. You're drawn every hour to go outside and have five minutes to reflect. So when I'm doing chores and I need to sit down for a few minutes, I have this place I contact. I do a round walking to Berkeley Bowl, and I can do large chunks while taking a walk, and altogether it takes me two hours to say the mantra 2,000 times.

[18:12]

You could do the math yourself, but I can also tell you in the last 795 days I've chanted and counted the mantra 1,590,000 times. I told this number to a friend some time ago, and they responded, it sounded like I was bragging. And it does bring up a good point. There is definitely a period And I can tell you, like, between 200,000 and 400,000. And I was greedy about this number. And I'm stacking up pennies in heaven. I'm getting a high score in a video game. And here I am, you know, trying to let go of my greed. And my practice just is another... place for it. And I got to the point where I had doubts. Maybe I'm washing myself with dirty water.

[19:21]

But I really resolved, I'm just gonna persist. And I'm just gonna trust that this mantra is larger than all my manipulative shenanigans about it. And in time, I know my greed was worn away by the sheer daily-ness of this practice, and I know now I don't have greed about that number. And I know Roshi Gregg has been talking about an important teaching from Sojan, like, trust the practice. And so here was a concrete example of trusting the practice, and it applies equally to Zazen. We may have doubts about our ability to practice or our sincerity, But the practice itself transcends and includes our manipulativeness. We don't need to trust ourselves because we can trust the wisdom tradition that brought us this practice.

[20:27]

I say a lot of this mantra quietly or silently, and a lot of that is me being shy. I don't want to take up the auditory space. But I also noticed really early on it's very possible to say the mantra mechanically in my mouth while my thoughts are still churning. The mouth will do it automatically. So what became important to me was not saying it out loud, but sounding it in the heart. And I know this mantra sounded in the heart because it's called the Heart Sutra. Because the mantra, the sutra describes this mantra in devotional terms that I said earlier. And because Thich Nhat Hanh said that the practice of the Prajnaparamita sounded in the heart. But I was not really certain about that. Was that mumbo jumbo sounding something in the heart?

[21:38]

It really seemed possible to me. But no, no, there's a clear distinction. If I'm thinking the mantra, or thinking about the mantra, or daydreaming, then my visual field is like 70% limited. I really am not aware of what's going on in my visual field. If I'm sounding the mantra in my heart, I can see all the way to the horizon. I'm thinking about the mantra, I can't be also aware of what's going on in my body and the feelings and emotions. But if it's sounding in the heart, it doesn't obstruct awareness of that thing. You know, in my last talk, I said some people say that the difference between Zen and other religions

[22:46]

is that Zen describes sudden enlightenment, and other religions teach a gradual path. But I don't think that's the difference between Zen. For me, Zen describes practice as descending from the head into the belly, and other religions describe practice as descending from the head into the heart. Is that the same thing? Are they interchangeable? It's definitely the subject I want to study this year, not this life. And one answer is a metaphor that is clear to me. You wake up in the middle of the night and you're hungry and you want a snack. And you go to the refrigerator and you open the refrigerator and everything in the refrigerator is well lit, though there may be things buried in the back, you can see it all.

[23:50]

And that's the mind. You can see all these thoughts and ideas, books and essays and associations. And then the kitchen, or maybe even the living room, it's all in shadows. You can see a little bit, you can carry That's the heart. You can carry a few words, maybe a sentence into the heart. And the belly, it's the bedroom. There's no light there. You can carry at most a syllable. And after saying this mantra for more than two years, one thing I can tell you with confidence, it's a practice like Zazen is a practice. And the number one thing I mean by that Number one thing is, I'm not really good at either one of those. Most of the time, I'm just going through the motions. In Zazen, my body can be in the right posture, in the right place, at the right time.

[25:00]

But I'm just going through the motions, not being fully present with what I'm doing. So two is in my practice of the mantra. One thing that keeps coming to my mind is a nursery rhyme. Once again, Brother John is sleeping through matins. And if I imagine a monk with a practice of chanting a liturgical office, imagine much of the time they're bored, just waiting for it to be over. But we don't have to imagine another practice and another religion. If I were to tell you about my practice of zazen, I wouldn't talk to you about states of samadhi or absorption. I could tell you about years of muddling along. But still, I can tell you with first-hand knowledge and convictions that the times I'm not fully present and the times I am both have an influence on my life.

[26:11]

Under the influence of this practice, both at times I am present and when I am not, my grasping, aversion, indifference finds rest more quickly, and my spiritual path is more immediately self-evident. And there's one concrete change that this mantra practice has done, and it's unmistakable and idiosyncratic to me. All my life, when somebody asks me a personal question, It would take me three, four, five seconds to respond. I know that this latency in my conversation bothered people. Even my closest friends would say, Mark, it seems like you're having a dramatic pause to command attention and dominate the conversation. Wow, sorry mate. But to me it was involuntary.

[27:15]

and I just wasn't ready to say anything. I could see the thought occurred to me immediately, but I wasn't ready to share it. And now that this latency in my conversation is deeply diminished, if not gone, I can see what was going on. I had an intention to answer authentically and sincerely, But that meant I had to check. Was what I thought congruent with what I felt? But my emotions weren't stored in the same place as my thoughts. I had to go down into the basement and check it out, check the records there. I had been trained that a dignified man rises above his emotions and makes decisions based on reason. And so I had to be able to filter what emotions were important and what emotions I showed the world.

[28:20]

And to do that, my emotions were kept beneath the surface. And the practice of being aware of the Prajnaparamita mantra in my heart has undone that training so that now my emotions are on the surface of my personality. I can't hide out from them or hide them from you. The word mantra is one of the few Sanskrit words left in the Art Sutra, but I can't say we even notice that it's Sanskrit. It's surely entered the English language. In English, it means a phrase that bears repeating. But if we remember the culture and tradition in Sanskrit, it means something, something you say 108 times. And if you're not saying it 108 times, it isn't a mantra, it's a slogan. And I can't patiently take you along the journey that I've been on the past two years where I've arrived at the outlook that the Heart Sutra is instructing us in the practice of this mantra.

[29:31]

In the Tibetan version of the Heart Sutra, Shariputra asks Avalokiteshvara, how does the son or daughter of a noble family train in Prajnaparamita? And the Heart Sutra is Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva, infinite compassion, her answer. Shariputra. Shariputra. Proclaim the mantra. Proclaim the mantra that says, gate gate, haragate, parsangate, bodhisvaha. Now if I tell you The consequence of chanting the Prajnaparamita mantra were to undo my habits of emotional self-control. I'm sharing my understanding of how it is possible that Japanese men can repeat this instruction with great solemnity every day for a thousand years.

[30:37]

But the instruction they repeat is not for them. no doubt, Shariputra, having asked Avalokiteshvara for instructions, having received them, proceeds immediately to put them into practice. But we read these instructions and we're different from Shariputra. And I think it's because I'm a WASP that I can recognize the cultural patterns of patriarchal island empires Game recognizes game. There's a rigid hierarchy. It's essential to control your emotions so you don't leak how you really feel about the men above you. From the beginning, there's a vast training and rituals and manners to manage public interactions without showing your emotions.

[31:43]

And if you need respite from the burden of emotional self-control, that's what pubs and sake bars are for. So there's deep conditioning in the society of Japanese men that will not see the instructions that would undermine the fundamental cultural training of emotional self-control. The practice of the Heart Sutra will be a practice of making sounds together, and if the meaning of the sutra is taken up, it'll be understood as a metaphor. But read the Heart Sutra just once as prose, and the instruction is clear. And there's a story that the Heart Sutra was spoken in the time of Shakyamuni, and then guarded by dragons for a thousand years until humans were ready.

[32:47]

Well, it was guarded by dragons for a thousand years, and we chant their names three mornings a week. I'm gonna ask you now to join me in chanting one round of this mantra. I've chanted it 1,590,000 times by myself. So it'll mean a lot to me to now share it with you. I'm going to chant it four times first by myself because there's a slight tonality to it. high and a low tone. Then we'll chant it 108 times together. And I'll use a mala that was Hosan's, so I'm happy to bring Hosan Roshi into the room this morning.

[33:55]

It'll take about seven minutes to do it together. And I've never done this. I've never seen it done in this room, so I don't know what'll happen, but we'll find out together. Om Gade Gade Paragadiparasam Gade Bodhisthva Om Gari Gari Pragari Prasam Gari Bodhiswaha

[35:04]

Aum Gare Gare Prasam Gare Bodhisattva Om Gare Gare Prasam Gare Bodhisattva Om Gare Gare Prasam Gare Bodhisattva Om Gare Gare Prasam Gare Bodhisthva

[36:34]

Om Gari Gari Paragari Prasam Gari Bodhiswa Om Gare Gare Paragare Parasam Gare Bodhiswa Om Gare Gare Paragare Parasam Gare Bodhisattva [...]

[38:04]

Om Gari Gari Paragari Parasam Gari Bodhisthva Om Gade Gade Par Gade Par Sam Gade Bodhisattva Om Gade Gade Paragate Parasam Gade Bodhisattva

[39:33]

God bless you. [...] Om Gade Gade Paragade Prasam Gade Bodhisattva Om Gathe Gathe Paragathe Parasam Gathe Bodhisva

[41:03]

Om Gathe Gathe Paragathe Parasam Gathe Bodhisva [...] Om Gade Gade Paragate Prasam Gade Bodhisattva Om Gathe Gathe Paragathe Parasam Gathe Kodhisva

[42:33]

Thank you for doing that with me. That was really special for me. and I can take questions. Marlee? Okay, Mark, thank you so much for your heartfelt and

[43:38]

and thorough. It's on, it's on. I'll do my best. Okay, we're a little intimate. Here we go. So, yes, thank you so much for this. I very vividly remember your way of speaking. I didn't talk about this from a couple years back. I was making them love. And it affected me deeply because I was, as you may know a little, and some folks may know, I also have had a similar story from another pathway. And I spent a lot of time practicing with the N major Kukkanongyo, and the broader practice in East Asia, and including Japan,

[44:40]

Recollection of the Name of Kansayon, another piece of our liturgy. While I had never quite realized that I get the benefit of hearing what I recite repeated nine times some mornings in a way that perhaps you haven't, so I'm so happy to receive that. It has very much been on my mind that in Japan, in China, very often our Zen practice that we took from Suzuki Roshi so gratefully was embedded in a broader world of Buddhist forms of devotional practice. And I see this as one of them. And while obviously I don't think everybody has to do all of that to benefit from being here.

[45:42]

And I'm glad this is a broad space that includes people with various relationships with that. I'm also really glad that there is room for those of us who have that strong feeling, that strong inclination. And just because there's a question, I'll ask you a very simple question. Why'd you go with the Aum? When looking into it, the Karmapa, I read an essay by the Karmapa that said Aum's very important and I was just glad to take any eminent person with an opinion and join what they were doing. James? I vividly remember when I first came to Berkeley in 1970, joining a circle that had chanted just, oh, all the time, over and over and over.

[46:52]

And that was very popular back then. Thank you so much for such a wonderful and refreshing time to talk. Thank you. Shereen? Thank you, Mark, for sharing this practice with us. I just wanted to share a little story and then I had a question, but yeah, this mysterious effect of chanting has been something I've been interested in and some Really good friends of mine recently had a baby and I was holding their baby and kind of spontaneously just started chanting the Heart Sutra and sort of like almost like a lullaby. And it just kind of made sense and soothed me, which I think just me being soothed, soothed the baby. And there's something there for me about chanting.

[47:59]

But the question I wanted to ask is that I was really inspired by the ways you talked about how this mantra would be with you in your daily life, like very directly. Kind of made me think about when we talk about zazen off the cushion or zazen outside the zendo. I'm curious if you, but it is a little different of a practice. I'm just curious how you relate to that idea with the way that this mantra can kind of be with you throughout the day, or if it feels different just because it's a little bit different of a concentration practice that you're doing. I remember when I hit a million, I thought maybe I've completed what I came here to do. Maybe this habit is some kind of compulsion, and I just sort of let it go and see if it stuck around. And then it did stick around. Even though it is no more, you know, consequential or truthful than playing spider solitaire, even though it's a crutch for my identity, right, I still, yes, I still choose to uphold this practice.

[49:18]

That's how I want to live my life. So I kind of move to give you the negative answer that it doesn't, Maybe it'd be better if I took a walk and paid attention to what was going on, but still I do find some nourishment and refreshment in upholding this practice. Oh, we've got Clay, we've got Ken, Mab. Ken? Hi, Mark. I just thought I would share Phil Whalen's translation of that mantra. Please. Gone. Gone. Really gone. Oh, mama.

[50:24]

I've tried on a lot of meanings to it, and probably my understanding is it means the Heart Sutra, which is ungraspability, unthinkability, signlessness. So I've repeated the Heart Sutra 1,590,000 times. Clay? Clay Taylor. Hi, Mark. I also remember your Waisikhin mind talk quite well, and I wanted to ask you something about this practice back then, and I think I forgot. But I have experimented with this mantra practice as well, but also at a slower speed, and the speed kind of threw me off at first, and I wondered if you had done it at different speeds and what your experience was. No, I haven't, and that's a good thing for me to explore.

[51:27]

Maybe I should do a lot less, a lot slower, and that would have a different experience. And, you know, there's still time for me to explore that, but that might be... I, you know, my experience at the slower speed is I'm less focused and I tend to wander a little bit more. I found, like, just trying to keep up with the speed you were doing it at challenged me a little bit more. Of course, I'm newer to it, you know, but... But I found that really interesting. And why did you take up that speed to start with? Is that the traditional way in some tradition? I could only point maybe, you know, I have this legacy from the Krishna temple that they're trying to get through their daily diet of 16 rounds. And so they, that's their measure and they hustle through it. It could be just my conditioning that I could check into. Thanks for that thought.

[52:28]

See you soon. This is a little quiet. Thanks, Mark. I don't want to put you on the spot, but I can't help but think, due to my own preconceptions, I thought maybe you might touch on your co-op today. And so as you've been giving your Dharma talk, I'm wondering, what might be the connection between your koan of the 16 bodhisattvas taking a bath at the appointed time and waking up to the reality of water and your mantra practice? And if you don't have a connection, we can have tea at a time. I don't. I don't. I don't. quite conceive the mantra practice as being about enlightenment, whereas I can kind of see Zazen as being about enlightenment.

[53:34]

So I think it's different. It's still me working on myself and the gradual path. So I don't quite bring it to that story of sudden enlightenment that is in the Go on. Thank you, Mark. One more Sue, Osher. Thank you, Mark. Is this thing... Yeah, it's not hearing me. Okay. It's powerful stuff. And I started to feel a little threatened by it. Like, if you're busy doing this stuff, Are you connecting? What are you connecting with?

[54:39]

I'm connecting to my heart. I'm coming down into my heart. And so that's the main thing. And I'm listening. When I come down to my heart, then I am able to be open in my senses. And then I'm also expressing something about this wisdom tradition or or connecting a relationship to the Buddha Dharma. I'm thinking about that. Thank you. Thank you. It could be it. Thank you. Beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. Delusions are exhaustable, I vow to tend them. Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them.

[55:43]

Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it. with them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to rend them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. Zen Center.

[58:00]

Welcome to those online with us, and a special welcome to anyone who is here for the first time today. I have a few announcements. On Monday, this coming Monday, Joe Buckner will give a way-seeking mind talk at 8 a.m. in the online zendo. On Friday, in place of evening zazen and in-person only, we will have a shosan ceremony, formal question and answer with our abiding teachers. Greg and Linda Roshi. Next Saturday's Dharma Talk will be given by Linda. The deadline to sign up for the upcoming five-day sashim is Monday, June 2nd, so there's still room to sign up. For more information about our programs or membership, you can check the bulletin board outside or see the Zoom chat or visit our website, berkeleyzencenter.org. To make a donation to support BCC, you can use the donations box that's in the courtyard by the bulletin board on the table there, or visit our website and click on the generosity tab.

[59:08]

I wanted to say something briefly about breakfast. On Saturdays, we have breakfast practice oryoki, traditional Japanese Zen-style eating. It's a really lovely practice, and I just want to encourage anyone who hasn't tried it to come sometime There's always instruction available. And if you have any questions, you can talk to me during tea or I'm sure any of the senior students could talk to you about it. I need help. Speaking of tea, I need two people to help clean tea cups after our informal tea in the courtyard. So can I please have two volunteers? Thank you. Thank you so much. I'll meet you in the... in the kitchen after tea is winding down. For those of us in the Zendo, please maintain silence until you're off the Zendo porch, and then feel free to socialize, and those online can exchange greetings now. Thank you.

[60:21]

Have a good week, everybody. Yes. Thank you. Have a good week. Thank you.

[60:27]

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