surpass penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely met with even than a hundred thousand million kalpas having it to see and listen to to remember and accept I vow to taste the truth of the Tatakta's words Good morning, Sandra. Good morning, Ellen. Today's speaker is Ellen Webb. Ellen was born and raised in Berkeley and has been a dancer, choreographer, and teacher for most of her life. She founded the Ellen Webb Dance Company in New York City in 1979 and continued to choreograph and perform with her company after she moved to the Bay Area. in 1984. She lived with her husband Sandy in Oakland, a painter, where they raised two children.

[01:12]

Ellen began her Zen practice with Joko Beck and Diane Rossetto at the Bay Zen Center in 1992, and in 2002 she began practicing here at BCC. She received lay ordination from Soji Roshi in 2010 and was a Shiso in 2018. Her dharma name is Maiko Kaishin, Dancing Light, Open Heart. Let's see it, Ellen. That's a challenge. Can you hear me? Maybe not through the microphone. Hello, hello. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. Not real well. So they can't hear me very well. Yeah. We can turn up the volume. We'll be fine.

[02:14]

It sounds all right. You can get it just a little closer. Better? What can I say? I say, it's been raining. It's August 24th. That seems a little unusual. How's that? But I like hearing the rain on the roof. I've always liked that here. And in general, I'm appreciating the zendo. As many of you know, I go away in the summer often for a couple of months to a very Beautiful remote part of the North Gascades National Park in Washington State and It's conducive to city of Zazen. It's very quiet. There aren't very many people and You know there aren't as many things to do But I also when I'm there I miss being here and

[03:30]

When I think about what I miss, one of the things is literally this building. Having a building that's just mainly for Zazen seems special to me. I miss when I'm there. I sit alone when I'm there. sitting with other people and people I've known for 30 years, 40 years, and people that I don't know at all. And I like just sitting in silence. You know, it's for me quite social actually, but it's very unusual to be social in this way of just being quiet together.

[04:31]

and supporting each other in this effort to unify our body and our breath and our mind. Yeah, so I miss that. And I miss kind of the moment that the bell rings and we all get up and bow to each other and bow together. chant together, and then go out into our day, our world, much more complicated, and kind of negotiate it with the experience or the effort that we've made here together. And when you're practicing alone, it's really something quite special to be with other people doing this practice. And the building itself I think now that I'm on the board of the Berkeley Zen Center, I think back to what it must have taken to kind of visualize this project and plan it and raise the money for it.

[05:46]

And really the sweat and blood and tears that went into building it. And I think there's some people here who actually were part of that. Is that true, Penny? Well, I promised I wouldn't say anything. Mira as well. Mira as well. You know, and I feel like that effort kind of, you know, is part of the place, part of the physical place, the kind of vision and the effort that went into it. And I also, I think, kind of feel that the years and years and years of people sitting in here has kind of soaked into the pillars and the wood and you know it kind of resonates with that fruit. So one of the people that was very much part of that effort was our friend Ron Nestor who

[07:01]

recently after sitting here, well sitting at the Berkeley Zen Center for 50 years, left to go and live in Oregon. Many people have come and gone and many of the people who worked on this project are dead or have moved away. but some part of them still remains, in our memories at least. I'm remembering that when Ron left during his leaving ceremony, which happened just maybe a few weeks ago, somebody asked him for a piece of advice, and he said, just be yourself. And that comment has sort of resonated around the Zen Center for the last several weeks.

[08:03]

It's been mentioned in a few different lectures. It came up in a Dharma group that I was in. And just in conversations with people, it's kind of been part of the language of the conversation. And so I'm thinking about what that meant. And how do we do that? How do we just be ourselves? How do we express our true nature without getting too complicated about it? Suzuki Roshi had a piece of advice on this, which I actually think is a pretty good one. He said, just remain on your cushion without expecting anything. then eventually you'll resume your own true nature. That is to say, your own true nature resumes itself.

[09:14]

But one problem, especially when we're new here, but this can go on a long time, is that We don't really want to be ourself. We come here because we actually kind of want to be different, or we want to feel differently, like maybe less confused or happier, less jittery or sort of scattered, less anxious, less depressed. less angry. That's one of the reasons we come is because we want something to change. It's a little hard to think about just being yourself in that context. Another thing I thought about was how, and maybe this is particular to me and it's certainly a longer conversation.

[10:21]

maybe another lecture even, but that we think of expressing ourselves a lot through the arts, and we think of people expressing themselves or sharing themselves through the arts. But when I think about that, I think part of that is true, but at least in the case of dancing, we want to express part of ourself, Sometimes we don't want to express all of ourselves. So it's a little bit different. And again, I think that's a whole other conversation. But what we show, maybe the art that we really value, that really resonates for eons, is when somebody can share their true self. That seems possible to me. I think most of us know that Sojin Roshi was an artist before he was a Zen student.

[11:29]

And when he first met and began to study with his teacher, Suzuki Roshi, he was kind of amazed. I mean, he'd been sort of a, you know, in part of a kind of bohemian, you know sort of pre-hippie movement of like activity and you know creativity and energy and so seeing Suzuki Roshi just kind of come into the zendo and light the incense and do his bows and sitzazen and get up and bow again And knowing that he had done that for most of his life, every day, and would continue to do that for the rest of his life. And one of the things that, I mean, it's just kind of amazed that somebody could express themselves in that way.

[12:36]

But he felt that Suzuki Roshi fully expressed himself through just those simple things. And he also, said, and this has resonated with me a lot, that he never hurried. Never. Suzuki Roshi, in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, encourages us to express ourselves. in all our activity. When you cook, you should express yourself in your activity in the kitchen. You just cook. This is also an expression of our sincerity, a part of our practice. Whatever you do, it should be an expression of the same deep activity.

[13:40]

So going back to Ron Nestor, I've known him For a very long time, I went to high school with him and I knew him well in high school. He started practicing many years before I did practicing Zen. When I started practicing, some years until maybe when I had learned how to do Zazen, he asked me what my practice was. I had taken Zazen instruction and I was rather diligently counting my breath from one to ten. And then when I got thinking about something, I would bring myself back and start at one again and count. And then by that time, occasionally, or some of the time, I was just

[14:46]

of my breath. I would eventually kind of stop counting and just be sort of focused on my breath. And that was my practice. And he said to me, he said, don't just be aware of your breath. Be aware of everything. And so then I sort of opened up my awareness to include sound. This is a pretty good place to do that, actually. There's a lot of noise around here. There's a lot of noise on Russell Street. Children, dogs, there's sirens, there's traffic. That was a kind of opening for me from this rather narrow focus. I began to kind of stretch a little bit. include sound, the awareness of sound.

[15:48]

And again, sort of gradually, again, it felt a little bit like pulling a barn door open. I started being more aware of other sensations in my body besides my breath. And it's things that I've sort of been pushing away, like the pain in my knees or the sadness in my solar plexus. I sort of really wanted to include that in my awareness. And just gradually I sort of stuck with opening up to that a little bit and a little bit more. It felt more spacious, really. I felt more open. And it reminded me of a story of, and I think I've told this before in a lecture, but it really stays with me.

[17:02]

And it was when I was the chouseau, and I was giving one of my talks, which was very daunting at the time for me. And I went to see Sojan at Dokusan and I said, you know, I'm not really meditating. I'm just thinking about my tongue. And he said, of course. And he didn't say it sarcastically. And he didn't say it critically. And he didn't say it even in any other way. It was just like, of course. And that comment has really stayed with me. You know, when somebody criticizes me and I feel reactive, you know, of course. And probably that's been me. And yesterday I was sitting in my house and I have a lovely next-door neighbor, but she has a dog that is quite delightful, but it

[18:13]

When she leaves, that dog barks from the minute she walks out the door to the minute she comes home. And she doesn't leave him very often, luckily. And I love her. You know, I love this woman. So, you know, I've never said anything to her about the dog, but, you know, I was sitting and I was irritated. Of course. That was just, of course. And again, it's just kind of allowed me to hold more, to just sort of accept more, really. And now I'm going to kind of diverge to sort of where I, this is more my default lecture topic, which is that I'm going to tell a story about being in

[19:14]

in the mountains where my husband and I go pretty much every summer he is a painter and he works there and as I've said before it's a very small community there's about a hundred people who live in this community in the winter it expands with people like us who are summer residents in the summer and also there's a national park so there's visitors and sometimes there's quite a lot of visitors but it's unique because it's at the end of a very long lake like it's 55 miles long and there's no it's never been there's never been a road built to it so there's no way you can get there except on a boat ferry boat or which takes maybe two and a half hours or by hiking There's hikers and campers, and it's right on the Pacific Crest Trail, so there's what we call end-to-enders who are making their way to Canada.

[20:20]

When we went this year, we knew when we went. We went early. right after practice period, so like, yeah, kind of last week or two. But we knew when we went there was already a fire on the lake, about halfway up the lake, a little more than halfway up the lake. But it was actually the first fire in Washington State. So, and there's a community at the sort of far end of the lake. And also, Stahikin is a very beloved kind of duel of Washington State. So, partly because there were no other fighters, they put a lot of what they call resources on it. And that meant there were 800 firefighters.

[21:24]

That's like an army, you know? And there were helicopters that scooped water out of a lake and dumped it on the fire. airplanes that scooped into the lake and filled their bellies with water and flew over the fire and dumped it on the water and they were digging, you know, sort of fire breaks and back burning. So, you know, we just weren't that worried about it. And it was beautiful. And there wasn't smoke. And so we know did what we do my husband was painting and i was we were hiking and i was sitting exhausted and it was quiet and um beautiful as it is um so we did that for about three weeks and then we you know we heard a report about the fire every day and you know this is an area where there's these streams that run into the

[22:25]

rivers that run into the lake. On either side there's these deep sort of valleys and peaks on either side, but there's just one after another coming up the lake. The fire reports would be, well, we've done all this, we backburned, we dropped water, but it's really hot and the fuel is very dry, so we're a little worried. Then they'd say, well, actually the fire jumped over to the next ridge. And now we're going to back burn and drop water and we'll get it here. And then we'd hear a few days ago, well, you know, jump to the next one. So slowly it was working its way up the lake. And at a certain point, they announced that they were making the area a level one evacuation. They said, don't worry. Level one is just to let everybody know there's a fire. Relax. It's fine. There also were all these firefighters around who were madly cutting brush and putting hoses around the whole community.

[23:36]

They were also coming to people's houses and saying, tell us what we should do to prepare for this fire if it happened to come, which was still very unlikely. They told us And it was just my husband and I. And they said, well, you know, you should sweep away or rake away all the pine needles and all the pine cones around your house up to seven feet or 10 feet or 30 feet all around the house. Well, you know, there's like a million. I mean, like a trillion. It's like a British story. A million, trillion, billion pine needles and pine cones. And then they said, well, you should pick up all the dead wood that's on the ground. piles of dead wood and then they said you should cut all the brush within 30 feet of your house and anyway probably at that point we just sort of looked at each other and you know it's like you can't do this you know and there was no one else who could help us because everybody in the whole valley was doing exactly the same thing so to their house so we decided

[24:49]

We would just do what we could. The firefighters also sort of intimated, now the fire was about three miles from the town and about six miles from our house, that there would soon be a level two evacuation, which meant be ready to leave. We just started working. By now it was like 105 degrees in that day and smoky and just generally unpleasant. We were raking as best we could all around the house and all around my husband's studio. Picking up all this thin wood, putting it in the back of a pickup truck, taking it down to what they call a burn pile, coming back, doing it again. In the midst of this, I was thinking about a Zen story. wondering how often it would be told. Many times in this very building.

[25:50]

So I'm going to diverge because this was on my mind. It's a story that Dogen tells about his trip to China. He went to China, this was in like 1224 I think or something like that, and stayed in a monastery and studied there for a few years. He has several instructive stories about what he observed there. Just cut out. I know you're on pins and needles. I said that. of him being at this monastery and walking out into the very hot sun and seeing an old man bent over drying mushrooms on the tiles which were also very hot and he was kind of turning them and taking care to dry them and Dogen

[27:55]

kind of concerned that such an elderly person would be doing this work and such hot suns, this hard work. He kind of said, well, somebody your age really shouldn't be doing this. Isn't there somebody else who could do this? Ten fellows said to him, other people are not me. You know, so Dogen was like, still concerning. He said, well, yeah, that's true, but, you know, couldn't you just rest for a while and do it later? And, you know, the Tendo said, you know, at just what time would I do it? At what other time? And just turned around and kept working. And, you know, so that was kind of like a story about being here now. Just the here and now. This is it.

[28:58]

And so that was really on my mind and it was very hot and I was breaking away, feeling the sweat running down my back. And at a certain point, we had to go up on the roof and sweep all the pine needles off the roof and all the pine cones. And it's a peaked roof like that. And my husband and I discussed this, usually our very athletic, strong children do it, that they weren't there. So it was decided that I would do it because I'm younger and I had a little better balance. We put up the ladder. I climbed up the ladder. I crawled up to the peak of the roof. I had the room with me and I was very careful sweeping the roof, both trying to keep my balance and also trying to get all the pine cones and pine needles down, down, down, so they fell off the building. There I was, you know, paying attention. But at a certain moment, this thought just flew into my head, which is, why me?

[30:06]

Why am I doing this? Where are my children? Why aren't they doing it? And, you know, when I had that thought, I was like, you know, I had this, like, idea that I was supposed to be, like, that Tenzo. You know, I was, like, really paying attention. And I was like, I shouldn't have that thought. I pushed her. I want to push it away. Just be here now. And then I was sleeping again. And then the thought came again. And it was like, not just like a thought. It was like, you know, I felt abandoned by my children and by anybody else who would come and help me. And I realized that not only did I have the thought that I didn't like being there, But on top of that, I had another thought that I didn't like the thought I was having. So it was like a double not liking. And, you know, again, I just had to sort of pry myself open to let all that in, that feeling and that thought and that other thought.

[31:18]

And, you know, then I just went on and did my work. You know, I wasn't this Tenzo. I was just me. And I did think of Sotin, and I did think of his horse. So there was something kind of liberating about just You know, not thinking of those thoughts as particularly mine, not feeling those feelings as particularly mine, but just opening myself up to have them and to let them be there and to not attach, not react, not, you know. There's not very much phone there, so I'm not, you know, send a message to my children who are working or

[32:25]

from these ghosts. Get yourselves up here now! So I felt sort of like a big mind to be able to hold all that and maybe just really allowing myself to be myself. Subjan has a few words that I'll read to you about this. Samadhi is a state of being free. That's called freedom because there is no attachment to anything, and yet it doesn't mean escaping from the world. The mind is totally open to everything, but it hangs on to nothing. When enjoyment arises, it's just enjoyment. When difficulty arises, it's just difficulty.

[33:28]

That's all. It's just one thing at a time, following each other. Suzuki Roshi called it living completely, one moment at a time. I just want to say one other thing here, which is, you know, there is kind of a confusion, I think, because there are definitely Zen teachers who, and teachers that I really like actually, who do kind of make it sound like the goal is to not have thoughts. And those are important teachers. So it's a little confusing. It's not our way, but it's understandable that partly just because it seems like a nice idea to not have any thoughts for a while. But also, really, people do kind of talk about that and teach it.

[34:33]

So I just want to kind of commiserate with being a little confused about that. And so I'm going to give Dogen the last word. He says this all more poetically. Spring has the tone of spring. and autumn has the scene of autumn. There is no escaping it. So when you want spring or autumn to be different from what it is, notice that it can only be as it is. Or when you want to keep spring or autumn as it is, reflect that it has no unchanging nature. When you clarify there is nothing to be disliked or longed for, then the original face is revealed by your practice of the way. So that's my investigation of Just Be Yourself.

[35:39]

And I would love to hear your thoughts on that subject. Helen, could you read that again? Yes. Spring has the tone of spring, and autumn has the scene of autumn. There is no escaping it. So when you want spring or autumn to be different from what it is, notice that it can only be as it is. But when you want to keep spring or autumn as it is, reflect that it has no unchanging nature. When you clarify there is nothing to be disliked or longed for, then the original face is revealed by your practice of the way. So I'm thinking about you getting ready to sweep the roof.

[36:54]

So you didn't have this thought about your kids? You were just like, how are we going to get this roof clean? You were going to go up here. At some point, you weren't thinking it before that. I wish I didn't have to go up there. I wish my kids were here right now. Or did you, but it just to take over or something? Well, I could have that thought right from this get go. But, I mean, way before I went up on the roof. But by the time I was up on the roof, I'd given up. And then it just came back. And then it came back. It was really like, you know, like a visitation. Yeah, it was like a visitation. It really was. It was like so powerful. It was like, you know, the devil or something, or an angel. It was really interesting. A mic's going to be passed around for you.

[37:56]

So thank you for that breathtaking talk, which is very suspenseful and also very wonderful and helpful. But I was, when you were up on the roof, I was thinking, was there also a voice that said, well, I don't like to be up here because I'm really so hot and I'm getting dizzy and weak from the sun and I actually think it's not a good idea for me to be up here and maybe I should go down? Or how do you draw the line? Right. Well, I think that's a really important point, actually. You know, these thoughts are not totally, like, you don't let go of every thought. That's really an important point. And I definitely think it wasn't a good idea. for me to be out there. Really, it wasn't. But I had decided to do it anyway, so I had made that decision. I'll just say this, that my husband had a ladder when I went up, and then I was up there, and there wasn't much he could do.

[39:07]

If I fell off, I would just sort of squash him. So he said to me, could I do a little raking while you're up there? And I said, no. You cannot. You have to stand right there. If I fall off, you have to catch me. It wasn't a good idea. You know, our thoughts are useful. Rich. Should I just say, Rich is one of the few people in this room who has been to Steve. Yeah, I'm very lucky to have been there. It's incredibly beautiful. I can't hear you. Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah, it's incredibly beautiful out there, and it's a picture of the fire coming that close to Steve Davis.

[40:08]

Well, it came very close. I told you that. But I wanted to ask you about this idea that other people are not me. Because sometimes other, sometimes it seems like that task is, the tasks are appropriate to delegate. Like your children could have been there. Maybe a young neighbor could have helped you. Maybe the Tenzo in that story, Tenzo's have assistance. I wonder if there's sort of like what that, sort of similar to the last comment. Yeah, I think it is similar. In that moment, I was doing it. And yes, it would have been much better if somebody else had been doing it. But at that moment, nobody else was doing it. I was doing it. So, you know, again, it's sort of like Sue's question. This doesn't mean that somebody else shouldn't help you.

[41:10]

Really, help is really helpful. So it's not that. It's just that when you're doing something, and maybe most particularly, but maybe not, when you're doing something you don't like, the impulse to sort of pass it off or stop is, I think, what we're addressing here. Not that you shouldn't have help. Is there any hands on them? Yeah, there is one. Can I take that one? Is that you, Kirk? Kirk? Yes, Ellen. Thank you so much for the talk. I always enjoy your talks. And I really resonated with that idea of, like, being yourself. I used to sit, and I still sit with a teacher who sometimes starts out by saying...

[42:12]

Just settle in and notice what it's like to be you. And I always would think, I don't want to be me. That's why I'm here, right? And that made me aware of how much my Zen practice was like a self-development project, right? Trying to be different. And there's a certain amount of aggression in that, right? This direct reports that I'm not okay, or this has to change, or... And this is why I'm doing it in that struggle. And I could see how that, you know, often was counterproductive. So I could settle into being me. But then, like you mentioned before, sometimes we get those messages. And I mean, they are practical, just like this is dangerous. Get off the roof. Or maybe I could be a little better. So there's that quote from Suzuki Roshi where he told people, you're all perfect, exactly as you are. and you could use a little work, right?

[43:13]

And it is about, I guess, holding that contradiction. But I'm wondering how you work with that, or what do you think about that thing? Well, I'd love to hear from you, too, how that's happened for you. You know, I'm more in the sort of, and this is me, I don't try to get better very hard. You know, I'm sort of lazy in that way. I'm more in the, you know, You know, sitting has changed me. That's just all there is to it. My practice has changed me. And I sort of rest on that in some, you know, I sometimes feel sort of lazy about it, that, you know, I don't react as quickly. I don't, you know, feel, you know, like I have to do something about my loneliness or my, you know, anger in a way that I used to. But it's kind of just happened. It hasn't really been a project for me.

[44:14]

And again, I feel a little bit like maybe I should have worked a little harder, but I kind of trust this process, I guess. Yeah. Oh, I'm very lazy too. So I did the same thing. But I think it's exactly as beautiful what you said, that it is that trusting the process and that there's something larger going on, right? It isn't always something that I'm doing, right? And so if I think I'm doing it, that's kind of pulling me away. So trusting that larger thing and things do change, you know, certainly things have changed. Yeah, that's really helpful to just realize that you can trust that. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, so you spoke a little bit about the confusion around some teachings with no thoughts, stop your thoughts.

[45:16]

And I find that completely unrealistic. As you were talking, I related that somewhat to expressing your true self. I find that somewhat ideal as well. Just as how would we ever know if we had no thoughts? Like you wouldn't. Because if you had the thought that you had no thoughts, you'd have a thought. So how would you know that there's no way to know that you're expressing your true self. There's no way to know that someone else is expressing their true self in one sense. So I'm wondering... How helpful is that to hear it? Because when I hear it, it doesn't sound very helpful. Not that I don't believe it, but to talk about it and to think about it. Yeah, I'm just wondering what you think and how I'm correlating those two things. Well, you're a stickler for detail. I think it's literally,

[46:22]

you know, everybody in this room said something about it, it would be different. But, so I'll just say for me, this is sort of funny because of the story I told, but I've spent a lot of my life, maybe dancers do this more than other people, but I doubt it, trying to be more like someone else, you know, or You know, and I'm laughing because when I was talking about the Tenzo, you know, that was, I was trying to be like him, you know. So it's a kind of a relaxation for me, really. You know, I'll just say, you know, having known Ron for so many years, he, you know, he was a very comfortable person to be with.

[47:23]

Um, because for me, because I, he just seemed to appreciate who I was, literally, which, you know, I was always in other situations, more trying to impress people or, and it's sort of just a letting go of that. And again, I kind of, and I know this is a hard word, maybe trust that, you know, just by being the Saturday director. You're being yourself. Just a kind of a letting go or relaxation or something. And again, I think I thought about it and I didn't get very far. That makes a lot of sense in relation to Kurt's question too. I look at that as the effort, as letting go. That's the only effort over and over and over and over again. And that's the true self. I think that that's very helpful. So thank you. Mira. Thank you for your talk.

[48:30]

It's getting louder. It's gotta be quite close to your face actually. Hello. Eat it. It's like an ice cream cone. The part of the talk that I was very interested in was at the very beginning. when you were talking about expressing your true self, because those words are confusing. Well, I was confused about if you meant our individual, unique, differentiated self, or if you meant our true nature. So I think my interpretation was sitting helps us express our true nature, and of course our individual, small self is always there. So that's how I think of how sitting is the same as enlightenment, is if we're expressing our true nature while we're sitting.

[49:33]

So what are you expressing when you're gardening? My true nature, if I'm bare and mindful. You know, that's the trick. You have to be really present and mindful. angry at someone and going over the stories, then I'm not expressing my big nature, my true nature. You can express your true nature anytime if you're really mindful. Well, I think you kind of identified something that I didn't really want to talk about exactly, but it's fine. I'm glad you did. guess I don't know how much distinction I really make. You know, when I'm saying I have, you know, I sort of opened my mind more to what's so, I feel like I don't make so much distinction.

[50:45]

You know, even if I'm really spinning about something, I feel like that's part of So I think that's how I feel about that, if that makes sense. But there's not such a split. That's interesting to hear your thoughts about. It's an important question for all of us. I mean, it's a very basic question. We have some more time. Thanks.

[51:45]

Hi. Thank you for your talk. I'm wondering if you could speak to inspiration a little bit. Specifically, I sometimes, I was wrestling at one point with an idea of like, oh, if I find that I'm inspired by Zen practice and then I wanna embody it, am I just trying to do more fixing or changing myself? And I think I read once Suzuki Roshi speaking to inspiration a little bit as actually being inspired is that whatever quality you see and think, to embody that quality, or I wanna dance that well, or I wanna paint that well, is actually that's already present. Like it's not actually separate. And I'm curious of how that kind of fits into this. Be yourself in a way that doesn't just keep following improvement.

[52:46]

Well, that's a good, that's sort of a good point. I mean, I'm just thinking back to when I was a, young dancer, and I really was trying to be sort of like someone else. And, you know, I think that was me expressing myself, too. You know, that was me. That was my, you know, my job, my work. And in Zen, you know, for me, when you talk about that, I feel like there's a feeling of effort or striving or trying, that you can feel in your body. And it's a little bit, you know, something to, you know, to question and to work with a little bit. I want to be, I want this. And so, you know, I just, I just think, you know, we want to make an effort and we do make an effort and how much of an effort and how hard we try.

[53:49]

That's all a little dance of itself. Yes. Back to the fire. Yeah. I couldn't help but think of the burning house parable in the Lotus Sutra or Dogen telling us to practice like your head is on fire or the Buddha's fire sermon. Do you have anything to say about what we need to rape your sweep or carry away so the fire doesn't hit us? I thought of that too, actually.

[54:56]

You know, I think it's, for me, and this is for me, you know, trying to judge, criticize, obliterate, all those words about my thoughts and my feelings are the things that I would sweep away if I could. Okay, so that would be Peter. just like that spot.

[55:57]

It's the same room. It's the same rain. It's so deeply peaceful, but it changed. You arrived in the room, you gave this beautiful thought, and the sun came out. That was wonderful, too. So I just want to thank you. Thank you, Peter. Thank you for being here for so long and holding so much of our history.

[56:22]

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