Good morning everyone. I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Ross, Ross Blum. And 41 years ago, 42 years ago, coming up soon, as the time goes, I stepped into a Zen community and my life changed from that moment. I was there for three years and came out here in 87. to practice with Sojin Roshi and all of you here in this one-room schoolhouse.

[01:04]

My position here, of many positions, but the one that I will be leaving at the end of the year, is Eno. And that's the person who is responsible for the forms, maintaining the forms, reminding people the forms here in the Zendo. So some people think it would be the form guy. It's also the empty side guy. So we have to remember form and emptiness. So my mother told me when I was a child, I used to go around closing the open cabinets that were just my height. I wasn't told to do that. It's just the way I came out. But when she told me that, it was actually quite enlightening for me. I always had this tendency to kind of place order in things and close things and all that.

[02:18]

So it was an easy fit when I moved into a Japanese-inspired Zen temple where the forms are that particular way. It's not a better form than the other forms that temples exhibit. but it so happened that I fell into something that was an easy fit for me from birth. I understand that some of you didn't come out this way. I apologize if I ever offended you or made you feel uncomfortable in some way in my position and my disposition of reminding you of the forms and all that we follow here. Mel once said, I was like the little Dutch boy who, if anybody remembers that figure from the paint cans and all that, was putting his finger in the holes in the dikes over in the Netherlands, the leaks.

[03:31]

And again, I didn't really come out that way to fix things, but I do have a tendency to do that. And so again, in taking care of the temple, even though I have this position and this expectation of me to do this, it's a one-room schoolhouse, and we're all doing this. And some friends of mine have said, you miss Sojin Roshi, don't you? And I say, I don't miss him, the person. I miss him, the... of the practice that I grew up in. He used to talk about Suzuki Roshi quite often, telling stories about what his experiences were and quoting him and all that. And toward the end of... I would give talks and I would make references to him.

[04:33]

And he said one time, it's kind of weird to be in the room and be heard of or referred to like in the third person. So I took that hint and I didn't do that anymore publicly. Soji Moshi is still here and he can probably still hear me in some way, shape or form. But today I'm going to honor my teacher, honor... all of our teachers or mentors or friends, depending on the relationship, and talk about him and what he said, what I observed. So with regard to the forms, the way the speaker enters the abbot's entrance is the same way that everybody else enters the front door. And we learn from observation We walk into the zendo, and we turn and bow to the altar.

[05:38]

We don't bow at the threshold. In New York, we bow at the threshold, but here we don't do that. And places around the Bay Area, they do that. But we don't do that here. It's not wrong if you do it, but just go along with the forms. So we come in, and the first thing we see is the altar, and we bow to it. We don't do that any other place in the world. But in the zendo, we do that. And the reason we do that is to honor Buddha. We aren't bowing to this guy that lived many years ago. We're bowing to us. And the Buddha nature within us and everyone else, because we're all practicing together here. And after 50 some odd years of doing... you step in quietly and you bow and pay attention, you will feel that energy. And it supports all of us.

[06:44]

Zazen is not something you get something out of, Sojin said. It's something you put something into. What do we typically do when we engage in something, meet something? The key word here is I. What am I going to get out of this? You know, we're really selfish people. That's our nature. And coming to practice is we get to learn about that selfishness by turning the light inward it and feeling it. And as we practice, we feel the effects of that suffering upon us and upon others in our interactions. So what can we do about that? And what is the something that we're putting into practice?

[07:55]

Well, the something is us, fully and completely. And depending on our dispositions, we'll dip a toe in and put a little bit of ourselves in, but we'll hold more back for ourselves to do other things. In some cases, we just are all in, either from the get-go or after a while when we get some experience of, hey, I want to do more of this. This is benefiting me and benefiting my relationships to others. It's a one-room schoolhouse, so it's very confusing to see people in robes and shaved heads casual street clothes that those shaved head people may be wearing when they're not in the zendo. So it's kind of confusing. And Suzuki Roshi said in the oft-quoted rejoiner, we're not quite priests and we're not quite lay people, which is great and also can be confusing. We practice together, little by little, we move along.

[08:56]

So Sojin says, Zaza is not about making you a better person or fixing your problems, though that does happen, but not in the way you might think. So fixing the problems, the problems is that we have a problem, we feel separate, and that's the source of our suffering. It's all one, and we feel separate, either physically or emotionally. And that's the first noble truth. satisfactory. I feel separate. We either grasp or we push away. Grasp, I want closer because you're separate and I want you or I don't want you pushing away. And we're always doing that either with people. If we're finished with something, I'm done with you, do we just go like this or do we place it on the or the shelf or whatever where we got it from.

[10:02]

Do we leave things better than when we found it, which is a common practice? Or do you just do it whatever? We try to remind people to do it with care and kindness. There's an altar here which is very well attended and cared for. Are there any other altars in our life? Yes. They are everywhere we pay attention. care of. If we take the opportunity to do that, if we don't take the opportunity to do that, then it's just a dumping ground just to leave something. I'm done with you. With people. I'm done with you. People and things. So zazen is something that we do not want to have a gaining idea, Suzuki Roshi said. We want to gain something. We want something. We feel inadequate. So how do we practice without a gaining idea? Not so easy.

[11:04]

Offering of ourselves and letting go of conditioning. Well, how do we let go of our conditioning that made us like this? Well, every moment, while we're alive, there's an opportunity to do that. And it's not going to a monastery. taking some special drug is not meeting it with your sweetheart and having a fun time in the afternoon or evening or what have you. It's with our breath and our posture. When we breathe, which we're doing all the time while we're here, take advantage of it, we take in the universe. We take everything in from the universe into our body. It's a body practice. And then we breathe out, press the universe as it relates to us and our cause and conditions of our life.

[12:18]

And in between the inhalation and the exhalation, there's a little gift. It's a gap. And in that gap is the moment that we all have the choice. How do we want to respond in this moment? And you can feel it in your body. If you feel the mode of practice and acceptance and just being, you feel light and easeful, And the expression comes out kind of matter-of-fact. If we are tense, upset, angry, we can feel our . We can feel the tension in our body, and we tend to blurt out our expression, which is really good information for us and the person receiving our expression.

[13:25]

So suffering is this discontent. But nirvana is the other side of suffering. Sojiro Roshi did a talk pretty close to the end of his life on the three seals or three marks of existence. And I encourage you on the BCC website because he talks about how the first noble truth, which is typically translated as suffering, can be translated as nirvana. It depends on our attitude. And that attitude is accepting everything. So, I'm sitting zazen and I feel happy. Okay. I'm sitting zazen and I feel like shit. Okay. The second one doesn't usually come up as okay. It's I don't like it. But if we're able to accept fully, I feel lousy, I feel angry, I feel in pain.

[14:37]

All the usual things that we feel, if we accept them, then we are within the realm of nirvana. And that means that everything is okay as it is. And it runs counter to My idea, certainly, and others, I think most people here are nirvana being the sort of blissful state. And what does bliss mean? That everything is going our way. So how do we turn what's not going our way to going our way? Well, here's the answer. Sojiro said, if you want to know what emptiness is, just take care of the form. So emptiness is the non-dual still place that pervades the universe.

[15:37]

We can try to talk about it, we can try to find it, but we can't really do that. What Sojiro is encouraging us to do is to practice with the forms taking care of them and emptiness will be revealed. So if we are practicing in whatever activity is and the still place of oneness, the ground at which everything is based on, is there, we will experience activity within stillness, and stillness within activity, because they're not two things. We talk about, but it's one thing. I was with a friend on College Avenue having a coffee the other day, and a Dharma friend came over, and we had a nice long chat, and a matter-of-factly made this comment,

[16:53]

which is bowing to your seat, and if you're seated, returning another's bow, whether you have feelings of lust or aversion toward them. So the form is bowing. And some people don't like to bow. It's not part of our culture. It feels demeaning or whatever comes up. But just bowing is putting the two sides of like and dislike together. It's not about liking and disliking, just bow. Bow. Oh, I like that person. I'm going to really bow sincerely with them and hang out a little bit longer. Or, I'm out of here. And moving to the next one. We do this all the time. I hear it. It's a familiar thing for people. Yes, it's familiar with me. It's way familiar with me because I know myself pretty well.

[17:57]

I don't know you all as well, but I know my habit energy and my desires and all that. So I do that so I can catch myself in this form. How do I go? How do I experience emptiness that Soja is talking about? Well, don't think. Just do. Just bow. And it doesn't matter. Because it will matter after a while when you get back into the form world. I like that person, I don't like that person. I feel shitty, I feel great. The dualistic thinking that we've been doing much of our life. A friend of mine used to come into Pete's Coffee where I worked for many years. And she said, you know, you make the best tea of all the people here. And she's my friend, so... Thank you very much. But you know something? I've got a secret. I don't do it any different than anybody else. You preheat the teapot.

[18:58]

You look at the canister top. You measure accordingly the temperature of the water. All that stuff is prescribed. You can't screw it up. But there's one way that does things. It's all the same, so it's empty. There's not a distinction. But there's a form that I used to do. That is, you have the handle, the teapot here, the hot tea is there. And as you look at them, and you turn it around so the handle is facing them. So you're not just giving them with a tea, like shooting out a spout. If it's done abruptly, you're actually meeting them. You're closing the gap of separation between peatnik and custom. Paying patron and guy working for minimum wage. All that goes away when we connect like this over tea. Over the simplest thing in the world.

[20:02]

Just meeting someone. And that's what our practice is about here. Meeting someone. Meeting this person. And meeting the other person. It's about relationships. One of the forms that we have here is bringing gamasio to the person. Gamasio is sesame seeds and salt. The server has a tray. They bow. They offer the tray to the person to put on their cereal, their food, what have you. And one time, Soja Roshi says, when the tray comes to you, don't just take it and bow, but put a hand up to support the tray and take the gamasio and put it down. So the Gamasio gets either way. But the relationship is different. Because I'm taking time, the person is taking time to connect with the person that's making this offering. They don't need you to hold the tray up.

[21:04]

They can hold it by themselves quite easily. But it's the practical side of it. It's about the connection. It's a subtle thing. But it's a connection. that we make with each other. Speaking of tea, there's another opportunity for us to perform and see emptiness. At the end of this talk, we'll be going out onto the patio and having tea with each other. So typically we go out there and we just have this tea party and that's just what's happening. But there's something deeper that... When we come out of the quiet zendo, the oneness of the zendo, we're gradually moving into the world of form. There's forms here, but for this point in the talk, it's just the oneness of things.

[22:06]

It's all here contained within these walls. Of course, looking out, there's a bunch of people there. Don't look at the people. It's just space. It's just... a landscape. So what can I do to close some feeling of gap of shyness about who am I going to talk to? Don't think about it. Get a cup of tea and just go to someone and just say hello. It's incumbent upon us to do that. To feel welcoming like churches and temples and mosques They welcome new people. They welcome old people. But we have the opportunity to close that gap. No one has to tell us how to do it. Just do it. And in the conversation that ensues, we get an opportunity to hear the forms of voice and feel the connection between in this practice.

[23:11]

Form and emptiness. What the hell is that? It's nothing other than just that, that we encounter every day. We don't think it's that. We think it's something special that you have to go someplace to find. It's right here in front of us. We should take a moment and honor my Dharma sister, who I imagine is online somewhere or another, Sachi. Saatchi was the chidan, or the person who took care of the altars, and also at Tenzo, ZCNY, where I began practicing. So all those years ago, when I came there, I was really shy and quiet and burying my head in the newspaper while people around me were enjoying the conviviality of company, of sangha, of community, having dinner before Bernie Glassman's lecture. And Saatchi said, hey, Ross, come over here.

[24:14]

So I got up from my little hiding place and went over to the table where she was at with other people. And I don't remember what I said or anything, but it was that overture in reaching out to the shy kid who's here, not just to read the newspaper, hopefully. And that's what started my unfolding, if you will. Three years later, I was sewing a rakasu, a Buddhist robe, and I'm wearing the one that I made for me now, this black robe, black rakasu. And there, we get a little bit of instruction, but mostly you're on your own. So I was on my own trying to figure out how to do this following the instructions. And I used to go into the kitchen where Sachi left her rakasu there while she was doing something else. And I got confused about what pieces go together now, looking at pieces and all that.

[25:17]

So, Sachi, thank you for helping me with the rakasu, even though you didn't know that you were doing that. And I came out here and had the good fortune to be ordained shortly after arriving here. But there's a sign on the bulletin board, hey, there's a lay ordination happening, and please come. Well, I want to come, and I've got a rakasu. So I asked Sojin, hey, can I join the group? And he didn't know me from anybody. I wrote a letter that was coming out here, and I wanted to live at work at Berkeley Zen Center not knowing him. Anyway, that's what I'm thinking. I don't know what he thought. So he says, let me think about it. So the next day comes around, and so what do you think, Sojin? He says, well, you have to sew an envelope, because we didn't sew envelopes back in New York. So this is the envelope that I didn't sew because I couldn't It was too complicated. So the sewing teacher at the time sewed it for me, and she lived upstairs in 1929 where Greg and Linda live. And she sewed this envelope for me, and it was a pillowcase that I slept on when I came out here.

[26:23]

So, yeah, that's the kind of guy I am. Okay. So, Sojin said, I'm not going to be your friend. Whoa. Well, that stopped me in my tracks. My friends are nice, and they want to be my friends, so I'm not going to be your friend. What does that mean? Well, I thought about it, and I realized that by not being my friend in the usual sense, he could be my true friend. Someone said once that if it's not a paradox, it's not Zen. So how can not being my friend be my friend? And thankfully, a good teacher will not tell the student the answer. They get to figure it out for themselves. So over time, I realized what that was. And what that is is that a friend will cheer you up and encourage you and embrace you.

[27:29]

You're familiar with around friendships. And that's a very important thing to have in our life. is that kind of affirmation and connection and body-to-body warmth. A Dharma teacher is different. There is warmth there, but they're not invested in that kind of relationship, that kind of friend. It's a Dharma friend. And what's their responsibility? To always bring you back to the Dharma. If they're not doing that, slap them and tell them to give it to me, because I want the Dharma. Some people might not want that. They might want to just be here and sit quietly and enjoy the conviviality of this beautiful sangha. But if you want the dharma, a good teacher is to give it to you straight. And they had the good fortune to actualize something that I really wanted all my life when I reached puberty, which was a couple.

[28:31]

I want to be married. And I got that experience when I came out here. I met my former wife here. We were together for seven years, and it was all great, and not great, and great, and not great, and up and down, just like all relationships. And then it ended in divorce. And I thought my life was going to end. A horrific experience, as those things tend to be. So I went into the Doka-san hut to speak with Sojan Roshi about what had happened. And what did he say? Did he lean over and say, I'm so sorry? Or, gosh, that must be hard. Gosh, you know, that happened to me once. Okay, response is, but for a Dharma teacher, what does he say? Well, now you get to practice being alone. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, what can I depend on if everything is changing? I had a schedule to come to every day.

[29:33]

I had my little job at Pete's. go up there, serve customers, turn that handle to the teapot, come home, cry. All the rest, all the stuff that happens in while one is going through stuff like that. But ultimately, what happened in the process of practicing being alone is that I got to find myself. And a couple years later, I was a shoe store head student. And I was sitting at this seat, And a former customer was in the audience during the time. Sarah Jarvis, thank you very much for the question. She said, how do you practice with a broken heart? Well, I couldn't have responded when I was going through all that. Back during the divorce time and all. And I didn't have to think about it. Everybody here in this room is practicing with a broken heart.

[30:34]

That was 1996. And we are going to be in 2026 soon. And between now and then, we're all practicing with broken hearts. Everyone's a little different, but we're all practicing with broken hearts. So it was not alone. We're all together. Soji Roshi's book, memoir and it's called Seeing One Thing Through and the full title that you discover when you read the book that was this question to Suzuki Roshi what is nirvana? Well it's seeing one thing through to the end. So apropos of the story I just shared with you about going through a divorce and coming out the other side. I didn't think of it at the time as that this is nirvana but having gone through to the end, seeing one thing through to the end is nirvana.

[31:43]

It's not fireworks. It's not blissful lightness. It's just being fully present and having seen one difficult thing through to the end and experiencing deeply the three marks of existence, which is a fundamental teaching in Buddhism. There's no abiding self. A sense of a self, but it's always changing. So who am I in any given moment? It's always changing. I'm married, I'm divorced. I'm suffering, I'm happy. There's no abiding self. Don't get fixed on, I have to be happy. I have to be angry. Don't worry, the universe will take care of it. You'll be changing. You don't have to do anything. You'll be present for it. Things change or impermanence. married today, not married tomorrow, fired today, all the other things that come up. All these things were changing in the course of those two years. They continue to change. But the main thing is the first one, suffering.

[32:48]

Yeah, suffering. We see it differently, and it turns into nirvana. It's causes and conditions that prompt all this. And the causes and conditions formed by our volitional action with karma. And as long as there's fuel to feed that cause and the condition, things will persist. So how do we cut that off? When things drop away. And then they come back when they when they return. It's kind of like losing weight. There's a cartoon, these little fat cells hanging out, and one's looking at the watch and says, well, I guess it's time to go back. So we suffer because we don't accept things.

[33:58]

We reject things. We feel separate. When we accept things, then it's all one thing. be moment by moment by accepting or rejecting. So it's our responsibility to own that. Once I came into Abbott's office and spoke with Sojin, I said, I find myself as privileged in the context of what I was wanting to talk with him about. And right out of his mouth, Just like now you get to practice being alone, he said, don't say privileged. So that stopped me in my track. That's a very common descriptor, especially these last years around class and race and such.

[34:59]

But as a Dharma teacher, his responsibility was to remind me of the practice here. And what is the practice here? The examination of the causes and conditions of our life that brought us here and that caused our suffering. That's what the Buddha taught. I teach the source of suffering and how to deal with it. The conditions are not personal. Everybody gets them. Everybody lives with them. I see that we have until 1115. Thank you, Susan. Suzuki Roshi says, not just spiritual or physical, even though a person appears to be doing something wrong, who can say for sure? People may be so, or you may say so, but that person is not good or bad.

[36:04]

Society has a standard. Tentatively, we have a moral code, and we have this. And we say, this is bad. But it may change. If the moral code or standard of judging changes, then someone who is bad today may be good tomorrow. Good and bad are just up to the times. But things themselves are not good or bad. They're just things. It's a matter of cause and effect. Things that exist now will cause some effect. And that effect will cause another effect. Something that is not good and not bad is going in that way. That is reality. Not realizing this point, you tend to understand things in terms of good and bad. You think there is a bad person. But I don't understand it in that way. Things are just going on. If we realize this point, that is renunciation, which is renouncing dualistic thinking, which gets us into all kinds of trouble. How do we balance not one, not two?

[37:08]

and as many things. Well, moment by moment, those things come up and we try not to attach to one side or the other. We try to hold both of them, both sides. Suzuki Yoshi said, when you are you, Zen. Now what's that mean? Oh, when I'm completely me no matter what, Zen is brought forth. So if I completely accept that I'm not so great, I'm having a hard time or whatever, and not try to change it, Zen is Zen. That's Zen. Not blissful stuff, but Zen of discontent, which is a true, valid experience that we don't like to be around, and we will do stuff to change that landscape into something more pleasant. We all do that. It's natural. But how do we hang with the discontent and the dissatisfaction? So if we accept, then Zen is Zen.

[38:14]

If we don't accept, then Zen ain't happening. It's just like the usual karmic stuff that we've been living with up until we sat down on a chair or a cushion. ...self to forget the self, to forget the self-centered thinking. So how do we forget the self... Well, it has to be healthy. Otherwise, it's not good to forget the self or forget the self. So talk therapy is an opportunity to talk out things that are not getting resolved in meditation practice. And currently, or you could take time off of the Zen and do therapy to talk about stuff because Zen teachers are not talk therapists. They're Zen teachers. And they address the issue of our discontent from a different place. Not a better place. It's a different place. So as the saying goes, know your audience, whether you're talking to a friend or you're talking to a teacher or a therapist or a sales clerk or what have you.

[39:22]

Know your audience and find a way to close the gap and just be intimate with them and not want them to be anything other than who they are. And then you will be in love with them because you're connected to them. Soja and I were in a discussion. One might say it was an argument. And then he said, you can spit on me. But he said it, and he said it emphatically. So a figure of speech like Nansen cutting the cat in two, when the monks on different sides of the temple were arguing about whose cat is it, I'm going to cut the cat in two if you don't say something. What it's about is What are you going to do? What are you going to say to stop this argument? Well, I'm going to cut the cat in two. That will stop it. And then give people an opportunity, like Sojin did, don't spit on me, or you have the opportunity to practice being alone, to think about, do we really have to argue about this cat?

[40:28]

Do we want our teacher to cut the cat in two? Let's make up. That's like the fundamental thing that's going on in our life. We're fed up and upset. They were separate, and we just wanted things to come together. Well, how do we do that? How do we do that? Another aspect of you can spit on me is that there's nobody there. There's no abiding self there. So whatever you say, I will receive and accept. How do we do that? We typically don't do that unless we like it. So if someone offers a reminder or a criticism, sometimes it's very hard to receive that, especially if you've been criticized and ridiculed growing up. But what's the difference between a criticism or a reminder? Well, I get that as the form guy, but I'm retiring at the end of the year on that, so I won't be offering them anymore.

[41:36]

But I probably will because I have a habit today. So, how do we be fully present with these things? Well, it's a posture thing. Typically, our comportment is like this. And in tzadzen, we lift up. But I know, because we didn't stress posture in New York, I came out here, sitting where Jeremiah is, but in deep samadhi. So I figured, well, I'm good. I'm in samadhi. Everything's still and quiet. And I'm like this. I didn't know I was like this. I just was comfortable. So Sojin Roshi went around to Kiyosaku. It's a teaching stick. And a wake-up stick. And I can tell that from the peripheral awareness that he's coming around to see me. And whack!

[42:38]

Didn't hit me. He just hit the kiyosaku in his hand. And I didn't move because I was in samadhi. I wasn't scared. Next thing is happening. Thankfully, the next thing that was happening that came next was he came over and he did a two-finger teaching, which many of you are familiar with, where he put the finger on my chin and the finger in the lower back, and all of a sudden, I'm upright. And I fall off the tan because I had never been so upright in my life. And there I am, samadhi and upright. Oh, this is what they're talking about. This is what they're talking about. And so by turn them, I'm meeting the universe. Sitting like this, I'm thinking about the universe. I have good visions and memories and images, but this is meaning.

[43:43]

So if our backs are capable of being upright, lift up your sternum. Breathing helps with the upright posture and the upright attitude. So just said, even though I don't exist, which is another way of saying empty, empty of own being, please treat me as if I do. So it's a simple sentence. And it speaks volumes to the thousands and thousands of pages of sutras. Because in any moment, it's empty and form. And do we focus on the empty? You're just empty and no abiding self so I can say and do whatever I want to with you. No, that's not the right way. Or treat me as if I do the form and just... be all over the person. Oh, this form, you're so beautiful, you're such a nice person. That's too much. How do we balance in our relationships of accepting the person as they are, the people as they are, and being forthcoming and not going overboard one way or another?

[44:52]

Well, even though I don't exist, treat me as if I do. We all get to figure out how to do that. Don't depend on anybody or anything for feeling good or feeling bad. Feel your feelings and only I can make myself angry. So in that gap between inhale and exhale, taking in the universe and this person that's in front of you, or this thing that won't work right, put it down, breathe, pick it up, and take care of it. Take care of your friend. Great, thank you. We'll have time. No time like the present. Our practice is not to solve problems, but to build character.

[45:58]

We want to solve problems, of course. But it's character building. And with that character, we can deal with our problems a little bit more easily. I feel strongly that Zazen is a universal way. I think that the world needs some universal way. Not that everyone has to do some one thing. But everyone can enter into this leveling, into this most distance. So we're sitting zazen, the horizontal and the leveling is our legs. Not mine as such, but the spirit of it with cross-legged is the horizontal where it's all one. And we're upright in the world of difference. So we experience most of our life as because we're up like this. But when we go to sleep, as Sojin said, when I go to sleep, I let go of the universe. So I'm horizontal, and all that discrimination kind of goes away. For a while, then the alarm rings, you get up, and then it changes. So how do we balance that?

[47:06]

We hold it in the middle. Our mudra is in the middle of the horizontal and the vertical. So Sojin continues, when we enter the Zendo, whether we are Buddhists, Christian, Jewish, or any religion, when we sit down, everything falls away. There is no Buddhist or Christian or Jewish person. There is just sitting. Everything falls away. When we get up and take a step, we become Christian or Buddhist or Jewish or man or woman or black or white. And then we can fight and kick or argue with each other. But when we sit, it does not make any difference. So I feel that zazen is the basic religious practice before religious practice. more of Sojin's teachings that I wanted to share with you but I kind of got carried away with a couple of them so my apologies but they'll come out somehow or another I'm sure over time but I will end with the last one which is maybe my favorite one I was in Sojin's talking about a forum and he said well things should be please

[48:39]

invite people to do this form this particular way. I said, okay, I'll tell people to... Sojin asks us to do... Well, without missing a beat, what does the teacher say? Don't tell people I said it. Just say it. So I've said all this stuff about Sojin, and... I could have said it for myself. Leave all this myself. That's what we have to do. We can study. And I read this book. I heard that talk. This was encouraging. It's nice to acknowledge where our sources and information and support come from, but ultimately it has to be, as Sojin said, just say it. Just say it. Okay. I think I said enough.

[49:38]

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