Good morning. First off, let's see. Happy Easter. Good Pesach. Happy Passover. Happy Persian... New Year, which is Nauru's, Happy Spring Equinox, Happy Buddha's Birthday, Happy Spring. And I'm sorry, I may be wrong, I think it's Ramadan, but Ramadan doesn't, it doesn't, the timing of it moves a lot, so it's not, these others I think, including Buddha's Birthday, are rituals to honor the changing of the seasons and the fact that things are green and flowering and so on.

[01:09]

And even though the day started getting longer in December, you can really feel it now. It is a time of joy and it's really important to let that in. Don't forget. There's a poem which I will not read. You're welcome to read it. It's easy to find by Billy Collins. And it's called The Building With Its Face Blown Off. And it was written quite a while ago and it's probably an image that he saw from the Middle East. And it's rough. And I talked about it last week, and so I'm not going to do it. Again, as somebody said, that poem is brutal. But I want to point out something that I didn't talk about last week, which is at the end, I'm giving something away, actually.

[02:19]

Spoiler alert. It ends with an image of a couple having a picnic of a man pouring two glasses far away. A man pouring wine and a woman opening a picnic hamper that has bread and cheese and olives. And your first take might be, yeah, that's the privileged white people in Marin or whatever. Which it may, I mean, one of the wonderful things about poems is that they can be It doesn't have to have like one meaning, so that, okay. And it's also, though, I think, a reminder to us to include joy and include time to recreate, to recreate. And, not but, but and,

[03:25]

This is a really, really hard time, particularly Ukraine. But also COVID and inflation and supply chain problems and attacks on the ability of people to vote and abortion. Or I'd say women's right to control their own bodies. Anyway, it's a hard time. It's a hard time. And the question for us is how do we practice with this? How do we practice with this? And equanimity is important. And it doesn't start with blankness.

[04:29]

One of my favorite definitions of zazen is from Uchiyama Roshi. I guess it's in one of his books. And he says, he says, he says, is this zazen? No, this is zazen. This is the reality of our lives. This I'm saying this. He didn't say, I don't think he said this, I don't remember, but I think that that's what he meant. This is being dead. Or maybe stuck in emptiness. That's not our practice. I've been thinking about a koan from the Blue Cliff Record. A koan is, well, it's any teaching story, I suppose, but particularly in a formal sense, they're collections of koans, of teaching stories from ancient China.

[05:33]

And this collection was, it was there, but it was sort of compiled and comments, not comments, but poems written by Shwaito. The Japanese call him Secho. And the koan is, and when I say teaching stories, I mean, they're things that are meant to get past your thinking mind. They go to your gut and your heart, and often the first time you hear one read or you read one, you think, what the hell is that? And this one is, I think, a little more accessible. I'm sure most of you have heard it before. Master Ma is unwell. Awesome. Great Master Ma was unwell. The temporal superintendent asked him, Teacher, how has your venerable health been in recent days?

[06:43]

The Great Master said, Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. How are you? How have you been? He was ill. So the superintendent asked him how he was and his response was, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. A sun-faced Buddha lasts for 1800 years and a moon-faced Buddha lasts for one day and one night. I think to some extent. It's about equanimity. He was probably on his deathbed. And there's a lot more to it. And it's a useful one to sit with. Because as I say, it's not about kind of sinking into some...

[07:50]

I say sometimes getting lost in emptiness, you know, and saying to yourself, well, living, dying, they're both, they're the same thing. And there's just oneness and there's only is. And I don't really have a self. So you don't really have a self. So it's okay. Well, it's not okay. He's dying. I mean, it may be okay with him. I don't know. I never met him. But I don't think it's going to be okay with me. I think that Sojin Roshi handled it extremely well, and I think it wasn't okay with him. But what I want to really talk about is the verse that Swaydo also wrote. In this particular volume of the Blue Cliff Record, Yuan Wu later wrote a lot of commentary, and he would pick apart the verse that Xuedu wrote, and it's interspersed, so it's very hard to read the poem out of this book, or I find it difficult.

[09:08]

So I wrote it out, and also that's a good exercise when you're working at coming to terms with something. So here's the poem. Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. What kind of people were the ancient emperors? For 20 years I have suffered bitterly. How many times have I gone down into the blue dragon's cave for you? This distress is worth recounting. Clear-eyed, patrobed monks, should not take it lightly. And we don't get to say, oh, I'm not a monk, so I don't have to worry about this. Worry about it. No, don't really worry. Do it. Go down into that blue dragon's cave. There's a part of it, what kind of people were the ancient emperors?

[10:10]

And apparently that's a quote from an older poem. called The Behavior of Barons. Clothes in brocade and fine embroidery with falcons on their wrists, they go about at leisure, their manners scornful. They know nothing of the difficulties of sewing and harvesting. What kind of people were the ancient emperors? They knew nothing. of the difficulties of daily life. In a way, we have an image called the six realms. And the first realm is the heavenly or bliss realm.

[11:12]

And so maybe this is kind of a description of that. And their lives are so easy. that they don't practice. They just bliss out with their falcons, I guess. They were not the kind of people that knew about hardship. They were probably, if they managed to get away soon enough, maybe they're on their yachts. For 20 years I have suffered bitterly. How many times I have gone down into the blue dragon's cave for you. This distress is worth recounting. It's hard. Practicing with difficulties is hard.

[12:14]

I think ignoring them is even harder. particularly once you start practicing and you start paying attention to your body and your mind and your heart. It's hard to turn away. And you notice when you've turned away. And if you still don't turn back, you notice when your denial comes and bites you or somebody else in the butt. You need to lash out at somebody or do something destructive to yourself like smoking too much dope or eating too much or drinking too much or sleeping a lot, whatever. I think we have to go down to the Blue Dragon's Cave for you

[13:18]

You is one of those wonderful, ambiguous words, you enlightenment, you liberation, you finding a way to be useful for you, for all beings. Don't forget to include yourself, all beings, all of those things. How many times? And it is hard sometimes. I've told this before, but when my sister died, gee, I think it's three years ago now, a little more than three years ago. And for the first year, I found it hard to grieve for her.

[14:22]

I wanted to do a wonderful practice. When somebody's died and you haven't really been able to have closure or say goodbye. She had Alzheimer's, so there was an in-denial kind of Alzheimer's. There was no talking about it. So I was going to do this practice, which is for 49 days, you put the person's picture on your altar and you talk to them every day. And then at the end, You do whatever ceremony you like and take it off your altar. Well, I couldn't do it. And I knew I couldn't do it. And so I practiced with that, not pushing myself, insisting that I do it, but of being aware that I wasn't doing it and being aware that there was a raw spot that I couldn't touch. And so I just simply practiced with that, with being kind to myself in the process and being aware that this was something I wanted to do, but I couldn't do it.

[15:33]

And then at the end of the year, she died in January. And then in December, I sat part of what's called the Rohatsu Buddha's Enlightenment Sashin at the Berkeley Zen Center. And finally... The dam broke, and I was, after that sashim, I was able to do that practice, which was very useful. And it wasn't all la-la. I mean, our relationship is, sibling relationships often are. Our relationship was complicated. I needed to do that. I knew I needed it that whole year. I needed to do it, and I knew it. And I had to practice. Patience, because I wasn't ready to go down into the Blue Dragon's cave. And that's how it is, I think, for a lot of us about what's going on in this country now, and in Ukraine particularly.

[16:36]

Some people can't watch the news. Some people can't stop watching the news. One feels helpless. I think it is really important to see, as Suzuki Roshi so famously said, as Mel really liked to quote him, to see things as it is. Well, things as it is includes all the horror of Ukraine and the amazingness of Ukraine. And the other list of hard things that I mentioned. And you have your own list. We all do.

[17:36]

When we ignore it, we... I think we pay for it. One of my... stories about it for myself as I was cooking for guests at Tassajara in the summer of 91. And I made a Mexican dinner. And the main thing, it's like layered enchiladas, just figured a lot easier than rolling them all. And it actually is a real Mexican dish and it's called budin azteca. So that's like Aztec pudding. And I learned it during the practice period right before the summer from a man who was from Mexico and he really wanted to make something for the Sangha, for the day off dinner. And the Tenzo said he could if I could help him.

[18:49]

Because, you know, cooking for four people or six people or something is really different from cooking for 50 people. So you have to... I was on the kitchen crew, so I knew, had some idea how to do that. So we did it, and we spent a day, and we, one of the things, it's a way to use up stale tortillas. So we didn't have stale tortillas. So we had, we opened all these packages of tortillas, and then we had them just spread out all over the kitchen at Tassajara, which is a big commercial kitchen, kind of a kitchen. And you make a sauce with green, tomatillos and so on. And we, I don't know, I think we stir fried a bunch of tofu and seasoned it like Mexican sausage or something. Anyway, we had a good time. And after that practice period, I found out that he had AIDS. And the leaders had known that, but I didn't. And I mean, it was okay.

[19:50]

It wasn't that that upset me. It made me sad. And he had gone back to city center. He didn't stay for the summer. And then I heard that he had died. And then I decided to make that casserole. And I had a terrible time. You start at one o'clock in the afternoon and dinner for the guests is at seven. And it felt like slogging through mud. And everything was really hard. just hard, and I felt it, I was aware of it, but it wasn't until, I don't know, a week later or something, I realized that, of course, I felt really sad, you know, to remind, it reminded me of him, and what a wonderful time we had, and how much I liked him, and he died of AIDS and all that,

[20:52]

meant about, you know, that they didn't have, this was in 91. You know, there wasn't a vaccine or much of treatment at that point. Anyway, later I realized, oh, you know, if I had just gone to some kind of private place and just cried for five or 10 minutes, it would have shifted the whole thing. And it would have made it much easier, but I was in denial about it. And I wasn't dealing with it. And that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. I think, I mean, last night, getting ready for this, and I was reading, I looked up the right title for Billy Collins' poem, and... Anyway, I've been reading other kinds. There's a poem about Baba Yar, which is a place in Ukraine where the Germans massacred a lot of Jews and just buried them in a big mass grave.

[22:07]

There's a famous poem about it. So I was really focusing on this. So last night, I just realized that my heart hurt. And you know, you can feel it when you need to cry and you may or may not do it. And when you don't do it, often it'll come and you won't be able to sleep or you'll do something stupid. Anyway, I just completely broke down and that made it easier. So you... One does that or not, but our practice is to keep looking and to keep paying attention. Sit down, get quiet, pay attention. Then you find out. Then you find out. Pay attention to your body. Your body will tell you.

[23:09]

And if you don't deal with it and you're paying attention, your body will tell you. that you need to go down into the blue dragon's cave. In Chinese imagery, a dragon represents wisdom and is often the keeper of the wisdom, the pearl of wisdom. And this distress is worth recounting. We need to encourage each other. We need to remind each other of what happens when we don't deal with things. And I mean, I'm not saying you should do a particular thing about Ukraine and what the hell are you going to do? I'm going to give some money to Doctors Without Borders. I heard a woman last night on a podcast that I listened to from Los Angeles.

[24:15]

It's called Good Food. And she is Ukrainian. She lives in New York and she decorates eggs. And they're Ukrainians. I mean, I guess I thought it was Russian. Well, maybe there's not. In ancient times, there wouldn't be so much difference. But at any rate, they're the kind that are just beautifully painted with complex designs. It's actually a batik process, which I don't exactly understand. But anyway, it's wax, and then you mark it, and then you dye it. And they're beautiful. I looked at her website, but she said there's an ancient story that there's this monster that's chained up, I guess, in the nether world or something, and as long as people are making those eggs, the chains will get tighter and stay tight. But if people stop making them, the chains start to loosen and loosen and eventually...

[25:23]

this monster will get loose and take over the world. So maybe we all need to die some eggs. I don't know if dying eggs counts at any rate. You could do that. You could make some eggs. It isn't that anybody should do any particular thing. It's that you should be, pardon me, I just said you should, and I mean it. You should be aware of what you're doing or not doing. You should be aware of how it impacts you. You should include this pain and difficulty. Clear-eyed. Zen students should not take it lightly.

[26:26]

Should not take it lightly. I'm thinking about this notion of what is equanimity. I think equanimity has to include that willingness to go down into that cave and listen to what your body has to tell you and sit still for it to the extent you can. Take a kindly, friendly interest, not a beating yourself up, torturing your self-interest. I mean, that just adds to it, adds to the suffering, and probably turns you into somebody who beats people up.

[27:30]

It isn't a useful response. What I do, I want to know, and I want to find some equanimity, but not a, I call it an idiot equanimity. And I am reminded years ago at Baika's Shuso Ceremony at the Berkley's End Center, I don't remember exactly, somebody asked her what's equanimity, something like that, or how do you find equanimity, I'm not sure. And her response was great, it was classic. So, what's equanimity, or how do you find equanimity? And she went... It has to include that.

[28:34]

Our lives have to include that. I don't know how you go into the green dragons or the blue dragons cave, you know, without... Well, it depends. That's not always the case. But often, you need to do that part. You need to freak out. You may need to have a temper tantrum, which I was taught by Yvonne Rand, who was a well-known Zen teacher many years ago. So this is a certified Zen master practice, which is that you... I'm too hemmed in here. But if there's something that you feel like you're blocked about and that you're not able to deal with. I mean, one time she talked about it, she was working on a book. And to get herself to actually do it was hard. And then she and I did it together for a conference of Zen teachers.

[29:37]

So it was like a skit night where people do things. So I suggested, well, let's do that. And for her, it was the book. And for me, it was starting this Zen Center at that time. And so we told everybody to stand up. They had no idea it was coming. I guess we told them what we're going to do, but they didn't. You know, you can't imagine it until you see it. And we told them, you know, think about something that feels like a hindrance to you right now. And then we said, now just stomp around and do whatever. And we showed them, and then we did it. And so we were standing up, and we're just going, no, no, no, no, no, no, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And I hate that book, or I hate whatever, I can't do it, and you can't make me. And all these people are doing it, and it turned out they loved it.

[30:37]

one thing I want to say, and I think this is what we need to work with, and this is our practice, remembering that we're just another petro monk trying to be clear-eyed. We were actually at Mount Baldy Zen Center, and we were in cabins, you know, four people to a cabin or something. And one of the women in my cabin was a Tibetan Lama. And we were packing to go the next day. And she and I were alone in there. And she said, that was great. Wow. I didn't know anybody else felt like that. And my heart just ate to think of it. She apparently has some idea that she's supposed to be all the time. Well, no.

[31:38]

Wouldn't it be pretty to think so? Doesn't work like that. At least for most of us. And when it looks like it's working like that, you know, I tend to wonder if somebody's a little too far into emptiness and all oneness. and forgetting that we're not quite Buddha yet. And we're not barons with the falcons on our wrists. We need to go down into the blue dragon's cave and deal with what's difficult.

[32:45]

And we support each other to do it. If we're all sitting together and I'm feeling really fidgety, if you're not and you're sitting beside me, it really helps me to settle down and sometimes I'm not feeling fidgety, and you are, and I help you to settle down. And some of it's plain old social pressure. But it also matters. When you come into a place where people have been sitting zazen, you can feel it. You can feel it. So sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, what kind of people were the ancient emperors? For 20 years I have suffered bitterly. How many times I have gone down into the blue dragon's cave for you. This distress is worth recounting. Clear-eyed patch-robed monks should not take it lightly.

[33:53]

And I want to open us for questions or comments, but I want to just come back and remind you. Spring has sprung. The grass is riz. The line that my dad used to say is, I wonder where the flowers is. But our flowers are here. But it's definitely spring. I mean, we don't have seasons the way they do in a lot of places, but this is the time of year when everything turns green. Don't forget. Have a picnic sometimes. Enjoy your Zazam. This is the time I wrote something last night. And with reminder, things as it is includes spring, renewal, and asparagus.

[35:02]

Maybe you don't know. A lot of people around here don't know. Asparagus is a springtime vegetable. When you get asparagus in August, it came probably from South America or something. So just so you know. So please take care of yourselves. Please take care of yourselves. And go down into that cave, that cave of sitting still with the hard things. Gently. But go. And go. No but, but and go. But go gently. And if you're not ready, be kind to yourself. The dragon will be there waiting for you anyway, I'm sorry to say.

[36:14]

Don't forget the kindness. So, thank you. So are there any questions or comments? There are some people here also that folks can't see. Thank you, Mary, for your wonderful talk, and we'll take care of everyone during question and answer. If someone in your group would like to ask a question, please, if possible, bring them into the camera. Everyone else, please remember to keep your questions short and to not make your own Dharma talk at this time. Thank you very much. Bring your questions. I think it's too hard for us to bring people under the camera. We're very low tech. That's fine if we can hear them. We do have a high tech mic. I don't know.

[37:15]

Thank you. I see a question from Naomi and Luminous Heart. Naomi, can you do your video? Or just go ahead and ask your question. I have a very close friend who lost her sister a week ago. And she had herself been too ill to visit her sister during... the last year of her life, which was very, very difficult. And I was, my friend is a lay Carmelite, a very religious Catholic. And I was encouraging her to cry.

[38:16]

And she said, oh, Naomi, she said, tears are sacred. And I've thought about that all week long. It's helped me through this terrible week. So I just wanted to share that because I kept thinking about it as Mary was speaking. Tears are indeed sacred. Yeah, I think that's true. That's all. Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Naomi. Luminous Heart, please go ahead. Hi, Mary. Thank you so much for your talk and the wisdoms there. And I just, two things rose up, especially out of many that you shared. The end of that poem, and I haven't heard anybody else ever say it, but you. Spring is from the grass's riz, I wonder where the flowers is. Oh, look, there goes a void upon the wing.

[39:18]

Now ain't that of soyd? I always thought the wing was on the void. That's wonderful. Thank you. You're very welcome. And the other piece that rose up for me is the dragon image of going down into the blue dragon's cave and being willing to face in on the one hand, and also... this other component of dragonness that they protect the gold, that they fly, they swim, and they play. So it's a wonderful, for me, a holding image. I wonder how that may land for you. I think that's wonderful. And what you remind me of, though, is this isn't dragons. I think of a dolphin. It's in the Gakudoyo Jinshu, I think it is, there's a phrase, disporting freely in the Dharma. So that could be that you're dragons too. I just have always thought of it like, you know how dolphins are like this.

[40:22]

They're disporting freely, but your dragon's disporting freely, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Steve? Hi, can you all hear me? I was just reading something last night that resonates with what it resonated with me last night and what you said resonates even more that we can see that in general, life seems so tragic and meaningless, especially with what's happening in Ukraine right now, but really at any time, life can seem that way. And actually, if we take it to our own ordinary actions, the way to bring meaning to our lives is to bring kindness to people.

[41:35]

It's there. It's not in the big picture, the news that... brings us down, it's in doing what we can, and maybe that is making eggs, or maybe that's giving someone a hug who needs it. But I found that super inspiring, and not a Dharma talk, I just wanted to add that. And just don't forget to include yourself. You know, when you say, I mean, I know you do, but when you say everyone, it's so easy for us to say, everyone is all those people. I want to be really kind to those people. This one too. Thank you, Steve. We have a question from Susan. Please go ahead, Susan. Hello. There we go. Hi, Mary. Hi, Susan. Thank you. A long time ago, Fran Tribe taught some of us or talked to some of us a lot about

[42:42]

using the breath or working with the breath or becoming aware of the breath, especially when I guess what you're saying, going down deep into that cave. And Sojin talked a lot about the breath. And I just wonder if you have something to say about the breath or if that's something that you think about or work about, work with in what you're talking about. Yes. Yes and yes and yes. Sojin told me years ago that a good Zen student always knows where her breath is. And I've been practicing with that ever since. I don't always know. My breath tells me a lot. You know, if I I'm aware of it, you know, that if my breath is up in my chest, it kind of tells me that I'm anxious or there's something, you know, not relaxed.

[43:52]

And then if it's in my belly, I can feel it. But also I can feel it. Like right now, I'm very touched by your question and I'm raw about Ukraine and so on. So right now to take a deep breath that feels like it fills my belly, it feels like that it's raw there. So I can't extend my belly too much because I would hit like a knife edge or I'd hit something that would really hurt. And it's a good, I mean, I'm happy that I'm touched this way. And it's painful. And I think the breath is a major way of learning how to be in touch with your body.

[44:54]

Because there's so much information in your body. If when I was making that Mexican dinner, if I had just stopped and paid some attention to my body, what is this that I feel like I'm moving through molasses and my heart is so heavy, you know, I might have realized just how sad I was, you know, because I was thinking about him, but I wasn't feeling about him. But of course I was feeling about him, but I wasn't willing to turn towards it and go down into it. So I think It's super important, but I don't want to go to a whole other Dharma talk. We studied Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind in our last practice period, and we just stayed with the practice section, the first section, and there were a number of people that gave classes, and I think that's right, that the one that we kind of didn't get to until the end, and we were, I think, kind of avoiding it.

[46:05]

I'm not sure, but anyway, it was breathing. And then I just took the old notes out of this book and the old notes were about breathing. Anyway, it's a big deal. Or as our then vice president said to our then president, it's a big fucking deal. I don't know. That's what Biden said to Obama when he signed Obamacare. He didn't know the mic was on. Yes, so yes. And thank you for asking. Thank you for your answer. Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Susan. You can feel free to ask a question. There isn't a stupid question. You don't have to, but... Thank you. I'm surprised. This isn't like Berkeley's Ed Center.

[47:07]

I don't know if I... Including me, I have a question. Oh, okay. Talking about the feeling behind the feeling. When you were breathing in, I felt you talking about breathing in and trying to breathe through or along to the Ukraine situation and other things. What's the feeling behind the feeling? When the Buddha talks about get to the feeling behind the feeling, what would you say? Yeah, that's the four foundations of mindfulness. It's one of the most basic teachings. And also the body in the body. I think it's go down in... I mean, I don't know exactly what he meant, but for me, it means go down into the blue dragon's cave. In other words, I notice, I do... pay a lot of attention to my body. It's like there's part of my attention is virtually always on my body and my breath.

[48:10]

But I just, you know, I feel a lot of things in my gut. So, you know, right now it feels sort of like turmoil-y a little. But anyway, so you have the physical sensation and then you put your attention on it and maybe you breathe into it and ask yourself, What is this? But you cannot demand an answer. And you may or may not get an answer. But a lot of times you do. You know, a lot of times it's really obvious. I mean, there I was making this dinner, remembering my friend who died. Duh. But I just didn't stop and honor it. You know, I had the feeling, but I didn't honor it and I didn't turn towards it. And so... I suffered, as we say, suffering is optional and extra. So we do that.

[49:12]

That's why they call it the dragon, I guess. We should be a little bit cautious approaching. I don't know. I don't know. We should be, anyway. I mean, you know, if you're paying attention, you know. And your psyche knows if it's too much and tends not to let it up. years ago, I used to go have breakfast with Malie on Monday mornings. And one time on the way back from what's now Sconehenge, she said to me that she thought it was time for me to take on the practice of being with my demons. And I thought, oh my God. And so what I did though was I, When I sat down for Zazen, I said to myself or to them, you know, I said, to the extent I can stand it, please come up.

[50:14]

Sort of protect myself a little. And then now I just say, please come up when there's something I feel like I need to kind of actively stir the pot about. But yeah, you have, and you know, and I think your psyche knows, but sometimes you have to protect yourself a little. Or I knew that I couldn't practice about my sister. I thought about her. I grieved. I cried. I talked about her. But I couldn't really face it for about a year. So all right. Thank you so much. We have two more questions. I think that might be it. Go ahead, Russ, please. Sure. Hey again, Mary. Hi. Your comment that Sojin wasn't okay with dying caught my attention. And I don't know what he was thinking, but my experience of him during that process was he expressed himself with a fair amount of calm and equanimity.

[51:17]

But again, I don't know what he was thinking about. And your description of that wavy description of hand with zazen and practice seems to feel fitting. for feeling okay or maybe not okay. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about your demonstration of that earlier and how you view being okay with not being okay or something like that. Yeah, well, yeah. And I think, I mean, I think I also said, I thought he handled it really well. But just, you know, all things considered, he would have rather been living, you know, and that's why he tried that really hard, hardline chemo. you know, and then he gave it up. But he tried it, you know, and he didn't try it because he was ready to go. But, and I just think, and he, I don't want to talk about it, you know, to things that we talked, he and I talked about exactly, but, you know, I think that he was, he did have a lot of equanimity about it, you know, so, but it wasn't like,

[52:29]

And it wasn't like this either. It was like this. One of my favorite images is I say that in my practice, I try not to lurch, but a little wobbling. I mean, I'm human, so I wobble. And that's what we're trying not to lurch so that we don't do real harm. to ourselves or others. Thank you. Thank you, Ross. Sue, would you please go with your question? Thank you very much. Can you hear me from my cushion? Yes. Okay, good. Getting up in the midst of my awkwardness would be just too humiliating, but thank you. Welcome to the club. I can't lower my hand myself.

[53:30]

I have a question about generosity. When you spoke about making a donation, I judge myself as feeling ungenerous. And I, given your advice, I tried to look into the dragon cave, I guess, or face into it. I want... I don't know where my generosity went. I'm feeling ungenerous. I don't have a natural expression right now to meet this situation that we're in, or all the situations we're in. It seems like I don't want to make a gesture, but I don't know what to do. Say something about that.

[54:30]

Yes. I have a million things, and I'm happy to talk to you about it privately, too. I mean, for one thing, you know, I'm 78. I'm definitely an old person. And I think you're in the neighborhood. And a part of me feels like, you know, I'm done. I've walked lots of precincts. I've read many letters. I've telephoned people. I've poll watched all my life. And I've done this, that, and the other thing. And I'm just done. And I don't have the energy to do a lot. And then something happens, and then I find a little energy to do something. But you are a generous person, one. because I know you. And if right now you don't feel generous, you don't feel compelled to act in any particular way, then just be with that and ask yourself, what is this?

[55:40]

And that's the dragon right now, or that's the cave. And it's just about being willing to listen to what your heart and your gut say. And it may be that there isn't really anything for you to do. I mean, none of us is going to Ukraine and picking up a Kalashnikov or whatever. And it seems like it's being acted out on a world stage that's beyond me or us. Anyway, it's not like you should do anything. And the one thing you should not do is blame yourself and criticize yourself. That's why I take a kindly, friendly interest because it's just... I started to say it's useless, I don't know, but it's not useful to beat yourself up.

[56:43]

It's not useful to be unkind to yourself. You do plenty of things. You do a lot of political work, and you're very generous with your time. But my telling you that doesn't go that far. You've got to be aware of it. But at any rate, when you notice yourself judging yourself and criticizing yourself, see if you can stop, notice where your breath is, and And breathe into it, give it some breath. And do not say to yourself, I'm telling you, I'm doing a lot of shoulds today. Do not say to yourself, I should not feel this way. I mean, say it if it makes you happy, but that doesn't get it. What you need to do is notice what it feels like inside when you're doing that to yourself.

[57:46]

And it feels yucky. So just feel it. and give it some breath and notice how it changes because, as you know, things do. So please, please take good care of yourself. Thank you. And you as well. And I'm going to get up after this and stomp around. Oh, good. Okay. Yes, it's wonderful. Thank you, Sue. Any more comments, Mary? No. I'm done. So if you would lead us all in the closing chant, everyone please follow along. The chat contains the chant.

[58:42]

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