Good morning. Can you hear me okay out there? Yes? Okay. Your camera's off. Oh, my camera's off. Okay. I'm sorry. Thank you. Okay. Well, it's a very crisp, bright winter morning here today, and we're doing, we have a one-day session in Nizendo, and there's There's about 20 of us or a little more in the Zendo, and there's about almost 40 of you out there. And so welcome everyone. Today, at the end of the day, we're going to observe Buddha's Paranirvana. We have a Paranirvana ceremony. And I'm going to speak about that. this morning and maybe leave time so we can explore one of the resonances with us.

[01:10]

How does this ceremony and our whole investigation and reflection on para nirvana support our practice. So Nirvana, as you know, can be seen through different lenses and from different angles. In the early Buddhist tradition, and that is carried through in the Theravada tradition that exists now in South, in Southeast Asia. Nirvana means basically, Nirvana, the root of it suggests the act of blowing out, of damping down fires. And this is extended to our inner fires, the fires of attachment, the fires of our desires, the fires of our passions.

[02:20]

And Nirvana is a kind of, it's seen in that tradition as a categorical transformation that take place internally in each person potentially, where the fires of these afflictive emotions, which also even include the pleasant emotions, are extinguished. Now, of course, we have different manifestations of that, particularly different manifestations in our present day, and in our Zen tradition. I'm very taken with exchange that I found in the book of Sojin Roshis that we're in the process of having published, where he asks Suzuki Roshi, what is Nirvana?

[03:29]

And Suzuki Roshi's response is, seeing one thing through to the end. That that's something that I think we can more reasonably apply in our lives to define how are we consistent? How are we following a thread in our lives, finding that direction and following it rather than setting the goal setting the goal of actually blowing out or extinguishing all of our passions and desires that seems a higher bar. And yet that was what was set in the early tradition. So, para nirvana is what happens at death for a being, a Buddha, or an enlightened disciple, an Arhat, when that person dies, they're said to enter para-nirvana.

[04:51]

And para-nirvana is what that suggests for a person who has dualized nirvana is that they leave the wheel of birth and death. They leave, they're no longer ensnared in karma and rebirth and rebirth in samsara. So it's a sort of a conclusive extinction. And that's what Paranirvana suggests, certainly in early tradition. I'm going to give you a couple of other perspectives on it. So the ceremony that we're doing today is generally observed in East Asia.

[06:01]

in China, Japan, and some of the other countries that observe Tibet, that observe basically the Mahayana school of Buddhism. And it takes place generally at the middle of February. In the South and Southeast Asian tradition, Buddhist traditions, all of the major milestones in Buddhist life are observed on a single occasion, which is called Vesaka. And that usually takes place in April or May. And it's kind of the aggregation of Buddha's birthday, Buddha's enlightenment and Buddha's death. So it's three for one. If you're the Zendo manager, it's a very economical system.

[07:07]

It makes it easy. You only have to prepare one ceremony. So we have various lenses for looking at the Dharma. And it varies across traditions and across time. One thing that I want to do in today is just relate to you some of the narrative from the early Buddhist tradition about Buddhist Karnivana. But I wanted to skip forward a bit and since we are somehow rightfully accused of being the cult of A. A. Dogen, I wanted to, to give you some of the commentary that Dogen made on the Paranirvana.

[08:09]

And if you look at Dogen's Ehe Koroku, Dogen's extensive record, what you find as he goes through that book is that he gave a short talk on Paranirvana, almost every year, as it came up. I mean, in that, that book is actually a wonderful record of kind of all the occasional observances in Buddhist life and in the monastic schedule. So a couple of interesting things. Let me read you something quite beautiful and challenging. This is from The Dharma discourse number 225 in the Ehekoroku. The twin Sala trees, which are the trees in which Buddha died, did not receive the power of the spirit of spring.

[09:20]

After a snowfall, how can we know the midnight frost? Buddha held up and turned the empty sky and laid himself down in the world. The Tathagata emitted light twice from the curled hair on his forehead. Although it is the case that he was lying down, who would say that when he lost his physical life, he would not also have liked dying while sitting or standing. The eating bowls of seven Buddhas are bottomless, but for sentient beings, this disaster was awful. If you say Shakyamuni is extinguished, you are not his disciple. If you say he is not extinguished, your words do not hit the mark. Having reached this day, how do you respond?

[10:27]

Do you want to see the Tathagata's life fame? Offer incense, make prostrations, and return to the meditation hall. We don't have to worry about that. We're actually already doing that. We are, even though the historical Buddha died 2,500 years in this day, we are looking we are not looking at, we are inhabiting the life vein of the Tathābhita Buddha. So each one of us is a corpuscle that's running through this vein. Let me read you a little from one of the other discourses. That one was, by the way, that one was in 1247, and this one is from 1251, Dharma Discourse 418.

[11:36]

And it's some of the same points. Today, the prime teacher of this Saha world, the Saha world is the world that we inhabit. Saha means to be endured. This is how we'd wake up in this world, is by enduring things. You may have noticed that's kind of inescapable. And in other worlds, in other Buddha fields, they have, they have easier ways of waking up. You know, it's like they, you know, they drink the nectar the nectar that's raining down from the heavens and they wake up, or they eat a delicious fruit, or they wake up, or they hear, you know, a transformative sound and they wake up.

[12:40]

No, for us, we have to endure what's really hard. And we're all doing that. We're all doing that in our, in our own particular way. but also in ways that are shared. So that's the Saha world. That's been given to us as the means for waking up. So today the prime teacher of the Saha world, the great master, Tathagata Shakyamuni, entered Nirvana in the town of Kusanagara. Since then, 2,200 years have passed. Although this is so, our Buddha once said, If you say I perish, you are not disciples belonging to my clan. If you say I do not perish, you are also not disciples in my clan. If you say I both perish and do not perish, you are all not disciples in my clan.

[13:46]

Okay, we're really stuck here, right? Already we are not disciples of his clan. So finally, what are we called? Aren't we all practicing together alongside Shakyamuni Buddha? If we are practicing alongside him, then whom are we practicing under? Tell me great assembly, I inquire and we'll see what you say. If you cannot speak for you say, If you cannot speak for your sake, I will talk. This is something Dogen frequently says and evidently there was vast silence after he would ask this question and nobody would dare to speak. It wasn't thundering silence, it was just kind of dumb silence.

[14:52]

So he says, after a pause, Dogen said, we meet and practice under Shakyamuni Buddha. If we meet and practice under Shakyamuni, we are Shakyamuni Buddha's disciples and among his kinfolk. Those who have already become his disciples and kin include commoners and sages, even those who have committed the five deadly crimes and heavenly beings and humans. in immeasurable, boundless, uncountable, unthinkable numbers. Already having reached all of them, how is the teaching established? All sentient beings having Buddha nature, the world honored one opens and shows us to transform both commoner and sage. This is all in the realm of the commoner and sage. So, what comes to mind, I really like this sentence, if we are practicing, aren't we all practicing alongside Shakyamuni Buddha?

[16:11]

If we're practicing alongside him, then whom are we practicing under? It seems to me that the thrust of this practice is that we are not practicing under anyone. We are practicing alongside. And the whole, even though the Buddha was loved and deeply respected and treated as enlightened one by his disciples, and those who came to hear him. Really, the essence of it is that they were all practicing together. They were all practicing alongside. And when it comes to, in the story, in the Mahapara Nirvana Sutra,

[17:20]

At one point, as he's near death, Ananda, his attendant, asks him, who will leave the Sangha when you are gone? And there was a distinction between seniority So monk Ashapa was understood as the senior monk, and he's the person that convened the first council a year after Buddha died. But that was seniority. The Buddha said, after my departure, the Dharma will be your leader. So he wasn't. creating a hierarchy.

[18:23]

He wasn't passing the leadership correctly to somebody else. He was saying, we've, you know, I've been preaching the Dharma. This is what you should take as your leadership. And the other thing that I think that resonates with me is an expression of Thich Nhat Hanh. where, where he said, in the future, the Sangha will be the Buddha. So that's, the Sangha is actually the living, active manifestation of the Dharma. You know, we can think the Dharma lives in a book, but it doesn't live in a book. It lives in our hearts. And in our hearts, that's what motivates us.

[19:29]

That's how we come forth in the world. We bring forth what is in our heart, what's been integrated there. So, we're all practicing, I'd really like to say, we're not practicing under Shakyamuni Buddha, we're not practicing under this teacher or that teacher or under the abbot, you know, we're practicing alongside. And that's, you know, one of the, I think one of the effects of the para nirvana was to, was actually to remove this pivotal figure or remove this figure who is, who is, so easily objectified and placed outside oneself to remove that so that you can reckon and understand and come to terms with, how am I going to manifest as Buddha?

[20:41]

How am I going to manifest the Dharma? So I wanted to go back and see if tell you a little about his actual passing. This might be some of you might know this and some of you might find this new. So he was about the age of 85, I believe. Is that right? Remember? I'm sorry? 80. 80, thank you. Okay. Yeah. I knew it had an eight number in it someplace. And he says, when the Blessed One had entered the rainy season, there arose in him a severe illness, and sharp and deadly pains came upon him.

[21:43]

And the Blessed One endured them mindfully, clearly comprehending and unperturbed. He said it would not be fitting if I came to my final passing away without addressing those who attended on me, without taking leave of the community of monks and nuns. Let me suppress this illness by strength of will, resolve to maintain a life process and live on. So I think it's instructive to understand that even though the Buddha had experienced nirvana, he was still subject to pain. That's a condition of life. That's a condition of life in the Saha world, right? So he speaks to his attendant Ananda. Ananda, now I am frail, old, aged, far gone.

[22:47]

This is my 80th year, thank you. And my life is spent. Even as an old cart, Ananda is held together with much difficulty. So the body of the Tathagata has kept going only with supports. And the blessed one said, Whosoever Ananda has developed, practiced, employed, strengthened, maintained, scrutinized, and brought to perfection, the four constituents of psychic power could, if he so desired, remain throughout a world period or until the end of it. The Tathagata Ananda has done so. In other words, he's brought to perfection these constituent psychic powers. Therefore, the Tathagata could if he so desired, remain through a world period or till the end of it. But the venerable Ananda was unable to grasp the plain suggestion given by the Blessed One.

[23:52]

So he did not beseech the Blessed One, may the Blessed One remain throughout the world period for the welfare and happiness of the multitude. And when for a second or third time, Blessed one repeated his words, venerable Ananda remained silent. Ananda is frequently the straight man in the Buddhist stories. He's the guy that doesn't get it. And because he doesn't get it, we have the stories, right? And when the venerable Nanda had gone away, Mara, the evil one, approached the blessed one. He said, now, O Gord, let the blessed one come to his final passing away. This was said, the blessed one spoke to Mara, saying, do not trouble yourself, evil one.

[24:58]

Before long, the para nirvana of the Tathagata will come about. Three months hence, the Tathagata will utterly pass away. So there, upon renouncing, upon the Buddha's renouncing his will to live, live on, there came a tremendous earthquake, dreadful and astonishing and thunder rolled across the heavens. Again, the venerable Nanda spoke to the blessed one saying, may the blessed one remain. made the happy one remain throughout the world period for the welfare of happiness of the multitude out of compassion for the world. And the blessed one answered, enough Ananda, do not entreat the Tathagata for the time is past Ananda for such an entreaty. Venerable Ananda said, this I have heard and learned from the Blessed One himself, when you said, whosoever has developed, practiced, employed, strengthened, and so forth, the four constituents of psychic power could, if so desired, remain through a world period.

[26:26]

Tathagata, the Tathagata Ananda has done so, therefore the Tathagata could, if he had so desired, remain through a world period or until the end of it. The Buddha turns to him and says, then Ananda, the fault is yours. Can you imagine that? Hearing you have failed, in as much as you were unable to grasp the plain suggestion given by the Tathagata, you did not entreat the Tathagata to remain. If you had done so Ananda the third time, he would have consented. Therefore, Ananda, the fault is yours and you have failed. So then Ananda, let's go to the hall of the gabled house in the great forest. And Ananda said, so be it. You can imagine that his tone, right? It's an interesting story.

[27:30]

It's an interesting thing to visualize. So the Buddha goes and talks to the, And he teaches them the foundations of mindfulness, the right efforts, five faculties, the powers, the seven factors of enlightenment, and the Eightfold Path. He does really intensive teaching for this last period. And then he tells them, so because I exhort you, All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness. The time of the Tathagata's Paranirvana is near. Three months hence the Tathagata will utterly pass away. So they travel to Kusanagara and Kunda, the middle worker,

[28:37]

prepares a last meal for the Buddha. And the Blessed One instructed Kunda in the Dharma and then invites him to make a meal. And Kunda, the metal worker, after the night had passed, had choice food, hard and soft, prepared, in his abode, together with the quality of Sukkara Madhava, and announced to the Blessed One, it is time, oh Lord, the meal is ready. So Sundara, this is, this was the Buddha's last food, Sukkara Madhava, which is Madhava, which is, there's some ambiguity about what it was, whether it was, Sakara means pig or pork and madava means soft or tender or delicate.

[29:44]

So it could be the tender meat from a pig or what is enjoyed, what the pigs eat. In the latter meaning, the term has been thought to refer to a mushroom or a truffle. At any rate, Blessed One comes to Punda's house and receives the food and says, serve me the Sukkara Madhava. Don't serve it to the other ones who are present. Serve them with the other hard and soft food. And then he says, This is an interesting story. He says to Kunda, whatever Kunda is left over of the Sakara Madhava, bury it in a pit.

[30:49]

For I do not see in all this world, anyone who could eat it and entirely digest it except the Tathagata. And evidently he didn't have such a good job. He didn't have such a... a good way to digest it either. As soon as the Blessed One had eaten a meal provided by Kunda, the metal worker, a dire sickness fell on him and he suffered sharp and deadly pains. And the Blessed One endured them mindfully, clearly comprehending and unperturbed. And he sets off with Ananda to go to grove outside Kusunagaha. There's another lovely story here. Blessed one was sitting by the side of the highway on a seat that was prepared for me.

[31:57]

He said to Ananda, please bring me some water, Ananda, I am thirsty. And Ananda answered the blessed one, But just now, Lord, a great number of carts have passed over and the shallow water has been cut through by the wheels so that it flows turbid and muddy. But the Takuta River, Lord, is quite close by and its waters are clear, pleasant and cool and translucent. It is easily approachable and delightfully placed. There you can quench your thirst. Aha. And the second or third time of lesson, one says, please bring me some water now from here. So Mananda does. He took the ball and went to the stream and the shallow water, which had been cut through by the wheels so that it flowed turbid and muddy, became clear and settled down, pure and pleasant as the Mananda drew near.

[33:02]

And he took up the bowl and carried it to the Buddha said marvelous indeed is the power and glory of the Tathagata for this shallow water became clear and settled pure and pleasant as I drew. Now let the blessed one drink the water. He asks Ananda to prepare him a couch between these two trees. I'm really Ananda and want to lie down. He lie down. Ananda went into the Vihara, the temple, and leaned against the draw post and wept. I am still a learner and have to strive for perfection. But my master, who was so compassionate towards me, is about to pass away.

[34:06]

And the Buddha asked him, where bhikkhus is Ananda? Then he says, tell Ananda that I want to see him. And he spoke to Ananda when he came, he said, enough Ananda. Do not grieve. Do not lament, for have I not taught from the very beginning that with all that is dear and beloved, there must be change, separation, and severance. Now for a long time, Ananda, you have served the Tathagata with loving kindness, in deed, word, and thought, with a whole heart and beyond measure. Great good have you gathered, Ananda. Now you should put forth energy, and soon You too will be free from the taints. So the time is coming.

[35:12]

To get to the point that I had said earlier, it may be, Ananda, that to some thought, to some, The thought will come. Ended is the word of the master. We have a master no longer. But it should not, Ananda, be so considered. For that which I have proclaimed and made known as the Dhamma and the discipline. So the teachings and the discipline, meaning the precepts, the many precepts. That shall be your master when I am gone. And he tells Ananda, if desired Ananda, the Sangha may abolish the lesser and minor rules, the lesser and minor precepts. And just as a flash forward to the First Council, the monks questioned Ananda, who had a, you know, photographic memory.

[36:31]

What did he say about the precepts? There were a lot of precepts, right? 257, I think. And he said, well, you know, we can abolish the minor ones. And they said, well, which were those? And I forgot to ask him. And so they decided they would keep them all. Yeah. Finally came to his last words and repeats this same thing. Behold now because I exhort you all compounded things are subject to vanish, strive with earnestness. So that's what I want to share the story of the power of Nirvana. And we have some time to talk.

[37:39]

And the question is, how is this alive for you? Considering that within memory of many of us, we have lost our teacher. Within our teacher's memory, he had lost his teacher. And that these teachers are alive to us, just as the Buddha was alive in the mind of his speakers. And that, there's one other thing I wanted to share. So later, this is where it gets to the fact that there are multiple lenses of the Dharma. In the later Mahayana, in the Mahayana Mahara Paranirvana Sutra, which is very different than the earlier Pali Sutra, there's the notion of a true self, of a permanent self.

[38:59]

And in this text says something that is really challenging to us. You know, it's like, okay, how do we owe this? Because it seems to go in contradiction to everything that we have previously really learned deeply. The Buddha says, oh bhikkhus, do not abide in the thought of the non-eternal sorrow, non-self and the not pure and have things In the case of those people who take the stones, wooden pieces and gravel for the true gem, the Dharma. In every situation, constantly meditate upon the idea of the self, the idea of eternal bliss and the pure. Those desires of attaining reality, meditatively cultivate these ideas. Namely, the ideas of the self, Atman, the eternal,

[40:05]

bliss and the pure will skillfully bring forth the jewel, just like the wise person. And this is one of the German scholar Michael Zimmermann, in his study of the Tathagata Garbha Sutra, real said, not just in the Mahārāpāra Nīvāna, but in the Tathagata Garbha Sutra and the Lankavatara Sutra. They speak affirmatively of the self. Zimmerman observes the existence of an eternal imperishable self. That is Buddhahood is definitely the point of the Tathagata Garva Sutra. The Mahaparnavana and Lapa Bhattara characterize the Tathagata explicitly as Atman or self. So... That's a bit mind-bending.

[41:10]

How do we hold this? How do we hold this Paranavada? And how do we hold the fact that we're not talking about extinction in these later Mahayana structures? We're actually talking about something that a Buddha that is eternal and eternally taking care of us. And I don't raise this, I'm not making any argument. I, I find that problematic, but I like laying out these ideas for you because ultimately each of us has to decide how to live. Each of us has to find a way to manifest what we understand to be the Dharma. So, I just wanted to have, it's important to have a full picture and not zero in on one portion of the tradition or another.

[42:18]

At least that's my point of view. That's just my opinion. So leave time. Let's have some questions, thoughts, reflections. If you are in the Zoom space, raise your digital hand, and you can raise your hands in here. And I'm going to, out of respect for the people in Zoom, I'm going to try to repeat your questions, even though they may hear them. So, Gary? Yeah. I wonder if he wasn't kind of encouraging a kind of practice and not necessarily condoning the idea. You know what I mean? What are we talking about? I'm talking about the, that there's an eternal self, that there's an eternal, yeah, that there's an eternal self.

[43:23]

The part that you just read, the last part, that maybe he wasn't necessarily saying it exists as much as It's a practice to do to... So what Gary's suggesting is that maybe in these sutras that I cited at the end, the Buddha is suggesting this as a practice rather than as a fact. Is that right? Yeah. I think not. I think that... You know, in these sutras, they're making, it's the Buddha speaking pretty categorically. And, but we have to remember that, we have to remember, first of all, the Pali sutras were not written down until two or 300 years after the Buddha's life.

[44:30]

So already, we have somebody else's voice and interpretation in there. And the Mahayana Sutras that we're talking about were written probably about four, maybe 400, 500 years after that, in the early part of the Common Europe. And we have, you know, we have doctrinal shifts and we have the, you know, what you have in Buddhism, there's nothing pure, even though the Tathagataka says there's something pure. the Dharma is interpenetrated with a variety of religious views that were extant in time and place, and it was different in time and place. You know, the earliest sutras that have been discovered, the earliest texts that have been discovered, and a an old high school friend is kind of leading this project is Richard Solomon, who's a professor at University of Washington.

[45:38]

They're found in Afghanistan and they're, they date from about 100 BC, 200 BC. And what you find in them is an interesting conflation of what we would take as Mahayana teachings with what we would take as Theravada teaching. So there was interpenetration from very early on. Anyway, yeah. There could have been tainted. Well, you could say everything is tainted, but that's my opinion. Maybe it's your opinion too, I don't know. Yeah. go back to something a lot more recent than 2,500 years ago. And Suzuki Roshi said that Nirvana is seeing everything to its end.

[46:40]

No, he said seeing one thing. One thing. One thing through to its end. Beautiful. But still, what does that mean? Okay, so Mira is asking, Suzuki Roshi said, Nirvana in response to Soja Nirvana is seeing one thing through to the end. I think, you know, what it means to me in the light of Suzuki Roshi's life and Soja's life is the one thing that they saw through was to sustain this practice. You know, now it could be anything, you know, if you're a musician, it could be you know, it could be the music that you're doing or it could be any particular, you know, it could be being a mother or a father. So it's not, there's not a definition of what that one thing is. But it's just like really figure out what's pivotal and central in your life and follow that through.

[47:53]

I think that was his advice to, that was his advice to Sojin. I was really, when I heard that, it just, that really kind of nailed me. So it could be talking about practice, or it could be talking about another thing that's very important to our lives. Yes, it could be talking about practice. I mean, I think that the context there was practice, but I think it's, you know, it's anything that is pivotal But I would say there's, you know, there's often, there's probably a moral, a moral cast to it, if you will. So the one thing, the moral element of that is the one thing should be wholesome, not unwholesome. You know, it's not like be the best murderer you can, you know, it's like, Do what you can to make connection to the world.

[48:59]

Yeah, Dave. This isn't so much a historical point, but just as a practice point, the gift of getting the entire ocean of dharma and how it changes over time. is that my mind, our minds can get stuck so easily. So I can receive a teaching like impermanence and then I can get stuck there. But then the tradition offers me a teaching of impermanence. So there's a way in which any piece of the Dharma you lift up, there will be other places in the tradition that actually take that away. And there's a real gift in that, I think. So Dave is saying that he feels there's a gift in what we find in the Dharma that any one teaching where we potentially can get stuck, we can often find its corrective in another location.

[50:14]

And then that corresponds to my understanding of the Dharma as medicine. that, in fact, every teaching was given in a particular context. You know, we look at the Pali Suttas, which is wonderful, because they tell you what the setting was, who he was speaking to, something about their background, and when you realize that what he's saying to them is quite specific to that point, just as it should be in this in this discourse that we're having now. You know, it's not an abstract question, it's a question that you might have, or Mira has a question that she had. And the Buddha offered the Dhamma as medicine, which means we take it in to bring us back into balance, right?

[51:15]

And I often say, It's medicine, it's not food. You know, you don't eat medicine as food. You know, if you take too much of it, you're gonna, you know, you're gonna get sick. But the medicine, if you take the right amount, the right titration, it brings you into balance. So the couple hands in Zoom land, I see Peter. Thank you, Hozan. I just wanted to mention how I'm holding this, what you've said this morning about all these different interpretations, views, practices. I'm kind of folding those into how we're all practicing together alongside each other in a sort of vast

[52:19]

context, which we don't really understand, but I find it encouraging to kind of hold it as all of us together alongside. Well, thank you. So, you know, I was really, it wasn't until I read it over this morning that somehow that line in the Dogen, in Dogen's Donahol discourse leaped out at me. And I think it leaked out in resonance with the understanding that that is how we practice. That's how we've been instructed to practice. That's how we have, that's how we manifest in this community. But there you have Dogen pointing to it 900 years ago. So, yeah. Yeah, it's the universe of Buddhist teaching is just a great, very resource.

[53:29]

Yeah. Was there another hand out there? It said there were two hands raised, but I'm not seeing another hand. I'm looking there, and I'm looking at the last question, and I see... Ah, okay, Kabir. I was a bit surprised, and it was fascinating to see the Mara still hanging out even until his last day. Can you say anything about that? Sure. So Mara is the tempter. He's a foil for the Buddha, and Mara, I believe, The root of that is death. The root of that word. And he's always hanging around.

[54:31]

He's around right now. So he was there and the Buddha was always like, yeah, yeah, I hear you. You're there, but I'm going to take care of this. Just give me some space. They never seem to mix it up as they did, you know, right at Buddha's when he was sitting to become enlightened when he was really seriously challenged by Mara, but Mara appears. Did you hear that? It was the question about the presence of Mara and yeah, Mara is seems to be just like there, at least in the back of our heads, you know, and sometimes in the very front. So we have to, we should pay our respects.

[55:35]

You know, it's like, it's a little like God and the devil talking in the book of Job, you know, and They're really kind of mixing it up. And the Buddha did that with Mara. So thank you very much. People out there are welcome to attend the digital version of our ceremony this afternoon. It's a relatively simple ceremony. And that'll happen at, I think, 420 this afternoon. Meanwhile, take care. Enjoy the weekend. Is this president's day? What isn't some holiday? Yeah. Yeah. Which presidents are they? Lincoln and Washington.

[56:36]

Oh, good. Not Trump and Bush. Okay. All right. Enjoy the day and we're going to continue sitting. Beings are numberless, I vow to awaken with them. Illusions are inexhaustible, I vow to manage them. Well, Thank you.

[59:11]

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