Good morning. I'd like to introduce today's speaker, Ekai Ujii Lori Sanaki. Lori's one of the practice leaders here, leading us in our aspects of practice, practice period, that we're in right now. She was Shuso in 2003 and has held other positions here, such as Tenzo coordinator. And her constant presence here supports us in numerous ways. She's been a resident here at BCC for 22 years with her husband, Hosan, and has raised two children. Sylvie's a senior in college. Alex is a senior in high school. So this morning she was telling me this is her last year of raising a child at home and wonders what her life will be after that. So we're very happy to have her here and look forward to what she has to say. Good morning.

[01:00]

I think I'm going to need that. Maybe we can just pass it. It's okay, it's okay. So, this morning, so as many of you know, our suggested topic for our practice period is the heart of the forms. So that's what I'm going to be talking about today. And as the senior students were talking about the forms, we often talked about them that our central form is Zazen. And I like that way of talking about it. However, for the purposes of my talk today, My forms are everything except Zazen, so bowing to our cushion, and then the way we get up, and bowing to the altar, and service, and meals, and work, and all the many ways that we, I guess you could say, move and talk, move and or talk, because the hallmark of our Zazen practices

[02:27]

that we're not moving and talking. That would be one way to talk about it. So how can we continue the practice of Zazen as we begin to move and talk? Because usually as we begin to move and talk, that sort of like activates our personality in a way. And the whole Megillah of, you know, everything comes as soon as we are trying to figure out what to do and say. So, and I would say the forms, I think of them not so much as the right way to do things as the agreed upon way because when we can agree on how to do things then we don't have to discuss them, you know, so it gives us a chance to, so maybe the idea is well we can move and not talk and that way we have a chance to continue our practice because at least we're not talking, we were trying to move, so it's like, you know, we learn how to move and continue our practice of awareness.

[03:36]

And so the forms are the things we've agreed to do a certain way so we don't have to discuss them. And Paul was reminding me this morning that he wanted me to bring up a certain form, and we all have our pet peeves about forms. that do not, or you know, the way they're not enacted properly. And he was bringing up the thing about how we try not to put our sutra books on the floor in the morning. And I noticed that some people were folding their mats in half and that made it like there wasn't quite room for the sutra book. I think that might have been an issue. But it's not so much to me, it's not so much that the floor is so dirty and the sutra books are so holy. But just how can we agree? Let's have an agreed-upon place where we put the sutra books. And it's going to be much easier for us to agree to put the sutra books on the Zapaton. We're never going to agree to put the sutra books on the floor. I can tell you that right now. So let's agree that we'll put the sutra books on the Zapaton.

[04:41]

And then we can do it in a certain way. And so I want to talk a little bit about what I mean about continuing our practice. For example, we can continue to be aware of our breathing. You know, Sojourner often says, you should always know where your breath is, and I always sort of roll my eyes a little bit, because like, how realistic is that really? But it's a great practice. When we're sitting in zazen, almost the most interesting thing that, you know, one of the main things that's happening is our breath. So we can pay attention, it's much easier to pay attention to it. And then we can continue that practice as we begin to move and we can still know where our breath is perhaps some of the time. And maybe if we can do that, then we can start to know where our breath is even when we're in even more improvisational parts of our life. Another practice that we can do is to

[05:48]

just to be aware of how we're feeling. Sounds simple, but I found this wonderful sutra recently from the early days of the, you know, the Pali can, the very early sutras of the Buddha, and in this sutra, somehow Ananda is starting to talk about all the miraculous aspects of the Buddha's birth, and I think, and the Buddha's sort of sitting there, I guess he's kind of sponsoring this somehow, but Ananda's just recounting And this, and there's about 20 things, you know, this aspect, and I'm not even going to go into them because I didn't take the time to learn, to memorize them, but, and the feeling of the Buddha kind of nodding, but not saying anything, and at the very end, he says, I'm going to read this, At the very end the Buddha says, and this phrase keeps being repeated by Ananda at the very end of his little saying, this too I remember as a wonderful and marvelous quality of the Blessed One.

[06:51]

And then at the very end the Buddha says, that being so Ananda, remember this too as a wonderful and marvelous quality of the Tathagata. Here Ananda, for the Tathagata, feelings are known as they arise, as they are present, and as they disappear. Perceptions are known as they arise, as they are present, and as they disappear. Thoughts are known as they arise, as they are present, and as they disappear. Remember this too as a wonderful and marvelous quality of the Tathagata. And I know that this, I was thinking this is a little bit different from the way we usually talk about doing the forms, because I think there's this, there's this, a way of talking about them that we become one with our activity. And that sounds sort of different from being aware of maybe, you know, because it's almost like we're not supposed to be having feelings and thoughts. We're supposed to just be one with our activity.

[07:54]

And, you know, if that's what's happening, that's great. But I think it's kind of a paradox of You know, it sounds kind of like the self-centered thing would be to be aware, to be thinking constantly about how you're feeling, but actually, it's not that way. I mean, I think our self-centered thinking, to me, is more when we're kind of zeroed in on the target, and we're, or we're, you know, which is either something outside of ourselves, or it's our own story that we, we're kind of, and we're sort of in it, and we're caught in it, and we're not really aware of, often at least, the initial feeling that kind of started it or something. So I think for us to be aware of how we're feeling and thinking and perceiving is in a way a very non-self-centered practice. And it's something that you can continue as you're moving into, for example, service, you know. as you're bowing, we can continue to be aware of our breathing and aware of how we're feeling.

[09:03]

And this is fine if you're having, you know, it doesn't matter whether you're on the bus or off the bus in a way, you know, if you're feeling very separate from surface, and why are these people doing this, you can still be aware. The main thing is, oh, I'm thinking this way about this, I'm feeling this way about this. And it's sort of, I don't know, it just takes you out of it somehow, or into it, into it more deeply. And you know, our perceptions and our feelings and our breath are always changing, so they, if we can settle into them, they are actually the freshness and the, you know, the freshness of what's happening. rather than having a lot of new things happening all the time. But our feelings are always new and changing, and our thoughts. There was this great thing that Trump the Refugee said, I'm not sure I can find out which book it is, but I can't quite remember, but he said, we use this ancient recipe, which is to pay attention, you know.

[10:18]

but the bread that we make is always fresh and hot. So we use this ancient recipe, but what's happening is always fresh. And I want to read a little section of Suzuki Roshi, which is, again, it's a little bit different than the way I'm talking about it, but for me it's congruent, so I hope it is for you too. If you want to express yourself, your true nature, There should be some natural and appropriate way of expression. Even swaying right and left as you sit down or get up from Zazen is an expression of yourself. It is not preparation for practice or relaxation after practice. It is part of the practice. So we should not do it as if we were preparing for something else. This should be true in your everyday life. To cook or to fix some food is not preparation, according to Dogen. It is practice.

[11:20]

To cook is not just to prepare food for someone or for yourself. It is to express your sincerity. So when you cook, you should express yourself in your activity in the kitchen. You should allow yourself plenty of time and work on it with nothing in your mind and without expecting anything. You should just cook. That is also an expression of our sincerity, a part of our practice. It is necessary to sit Zazen in this way, but sitting is not our only way. Whatever you do, it should be an expression of the same deep activity. We should appreciate what we were doing, what we are doing. There is no preparation for something else. The Bodhisattva's way is called single-minded way or one railway track thousands of miles long. The railway track is always the same. If it were to become wider or narrower, it would be disastrous. Wherever you go, the railway track is always the same. That is the Bodhisattva's way. So if the sun were to rise from the West and the Bodhisattva has only one way, his way is in each moment to express her true nature and her sincerity.

[12:31]

We say railway track, but actually there is no such thing. Sincerity itself is the railway track. The sights we see from the train will change. But we are always running on the same track, and there is no beginning or end to the track. Beginningless and endless track. There is no starting point, nor goal, nothing to attain. Just to run on the track is our way. This is the nature of our Zen practice. So again, I see that as the kind of lofty, lofty side. And then to get back to the more mundane side, that's more the way I wanted to talk about it this morning. Another wonderful thing about our forms, and in particular making our forms happen, is that we have to deal with each other. In Zazen, we mainly have to deal with ourselves, right?

[13:34]

But when we're doing the forms, we have to deal with each other, and we have to deal with ourselves when we're dealing with each other, which is maybe the hardest thing. And we have to deal with sort of the natural hierarchies and the unnatural hierarchies. And these are things that we have to do in our life. And so for me, it's a wonderful gift of our ancestors that we have these ways that are sort of I mean, you know, this is the wrong way to talk about it. It's sort of like halfway between Zazen and everyday life or something, but still there's that quality. It's beginning to move and talk, but yet you still have the possibility of paying attention to what you're doing, being settled and relaxed in what you're doing. Or not, or reacting and having a hard time and then being able to notice that.

[14:38]

Which is also good, right? So how is it that we would like to deal with each other? What is our way, what is our practice or our approach for dealing with each other? And I'm reminded of this phrase in the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra in 8,000 Lines, where it says, call forth as much as you can of love, of respect, and of faith. This is how we, this is our effort of how to deal with each other, to love each other, to respect each other, and to have faith that the other person is doing their best to do that, to do these things. to express themselves in this way, to pay attention to what they're doing and how they're feeling and to express their sincerity.

[15:39]

And of course it doesn't always feel that way and it doesn't always look that way and it can get kind of messy and different seeming and that's okay. But still, we want to remember what we're trying to, what are we doing here? Why are we here? You know? There's plenty of interesting things to do in this world. What are we doing here? just another word about this idea of natural and unnatural hierarchy. So for me, and this is something we can maybe talk about later because this is just my idea about it, but for me a natural hierarchy is when I defer to someone based on their position or based on their wisdom. That's my choice to acknowledge.

[16:45]

If I see someone as having more wisdom I might switch off my idea and switch to theirs, you know? And just this happens so often, like just this morning. So when the Saturday director gets up to direct us where to sit for breakfast, we don't like have a big conversation where we disagree or like, how are we going to decide? We just let her seat us. And then through the course of the meal, we allow the Co-Kyo and the head server, it goes kind of back and forth between them. And we let them, we allow them to do that. We defer to them. We allow them to lead based on their position. And sometimes it's our position to correct somebody and then we do that. It's based on our position. And so that to me is sort of a sense of a natural hierarchy, which continues out into the world. So, you know, we stop at the red light generally.

[17:47]

We defer. It's an agreed upon form and we defer to that. And, you know, when we go to the Y, we stay on the machine for only 20 minutes because that's what they said to do. So we're deferring in this natural way. We defer. We don't feel like my freedom, and some people might, and probably do, you know, my freedom is impinged upon. But there's a sort of natural hierarchy that we can feel still our freedom within that. And then to me, the unnatural hierarchies are when someone tries to influence things by, you know, the force of their personality, or their level of upset, or, God forbid, the use of force, which we don't encounter here, but is a feature of our everyday lives, and for some people more than others. Those are, to me, unnatural hierarchies. So I think we try at BCC to, as much as possible, develop natural hierarchies and lose the unnatural hierarchies.

[18:54]

And so, you know, it is very easy to correct somebody when it's not your position to correct somebody, and that's something we work on. We try to correct people from doing that. That's actually an incorrect metaphor. So, just to allow, allow the person whose position it is to express, like, good talk, bad talk this morning, you allow me to give my talk, however it goes. And I'll hear about it later, maybe, or maybe not. And so then another thing that we have to deal with a lot in working with the forms is when mistakes are made. And mistakes can either be because someone didn't know. That's not even really a mistake. But mistakes often happen because we're spaced out. I mean, for me especially. I don't know other mistakes. our mind is wandering and we're not really paying attention.

[19:58]

And so I want to talk a little bit about how to practice with mistakes when they happen. Last week Alan brought up this teaching, you know, there's this very ancient teaching of Buddhism, the three marks, I mean the three pure precepts, right? Three pure precepts. Three precepts are, don't do bad, do good, and save sentient beings. That's a sort of standard formulation somewhat. But then in the Soto Zen tradition, which is very much where our forms and our practices are rooted, the first one, don't do bad or avoid all evil, is this phrase. It seems kind of funny when you first hear it. Embrace and sustain forms and ceremonies. Like somehow that just seems kind of far from, but you can sort of, you can learn to get a sense of that.

[21:02]

And I have to say that one way that I noticed that playing out is when we make mistakes, sometimes it can have the tone of like evil. It can, it can take on, we can get caught up in them in such a way that it's like, it's like a crime, which is something I think, you know, we need to really watch. watch, because most of the time the consequences of things going wrong are pretty much nil, pretty much nil. And occasionally something does go wrong in a way that hurts somebody's feelings or something, and that's too bad, and that's more than usual, which is just nil, no consequences to speak of. But I think it's just really good to remember that. That it's not a crime.

[22:02]

And for me, a practice that I do is, you know, to me the first thing that I notice when something goes wrong doesn't go the way it's supposed to. To me, it's like the goddess winking. You know what I mean? It's like that expression when you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. It's like, oh right, this isn't about control. This practice is not about getting control over the situation. And it can be a wonderful reminder, like we wouldn't want, you know, like imagine, this would never happen fortunately, but imagine if every Saturday morning breakfast just went completely perfectly. no chopsticks ever dropped, nothing, you know, that wouldn't be good, that wouldn't help us get enlightened, that would not be, that is not the goal here. You know, the goal to me, or you know, there's no goal, but it's to make it sort of quiet enough so that you can observe the truth, and the truth of existence, and this is what I want to bring up, so one way to practice with mistakes is to study the three marks of existence at that moment.

[23:19]

And the three marks of existence are, as I'm sure you know, suffering, impermanence, and no self. But really the way I want to say that is impermanence, which means everything's always changing, and no self, which I'm phrasing today as we have no control, and three, suffering is based on those other two, because we are built We are built as human beings to gravitate towards dependability and permanence, to want to have control, because we have to meet our needs and things, we want control. And so, when we are in the realm of reality, which is impermanent and out of control, there's always going to be the possibility of uneasiness, a level of uneasiness, because we're built not to want that. And here's a little tangent.

[24:20]

I was thinking about this and I was thinking, I was realizing, oh, as a mother, as a parent, what you provide your children with is basically a denial of the three marks of existence. And they need that. They will not thrive. They need permanence. They need stability. They need predictability. They need self-esteem. Self-esteem. They need to be able to learn to control. They need to learn how to meet their own needs by moving and talking, right? That's really important to be able to control their environment. That's an important thing that you're teaching them to do. And they need love and pleasure. They need to feel that life is good. Life is pleasurable. You can get your needs met. You can depend on things. You can depend on your parents. So it's kind of like you're holding, as a parent, you know, and I think this is part of what's difficult about parenting, is you're kind of holding this thing off in a way, you know, with your body.

[25:21]

And hopefully they only slowly learn it as they learn how to incorporate that new information, you know, slowly. because of course they have these experiences all the time of no control and impermanence and everything, but hopefully there's enough of the other, you know, that they learn how to study it, you know, in a way that's enlightening. And then the fourth mark, sometimes it's talked about as three marks, and sometimes it's talked about as four marks, And the fourth mark is often said as Nirvana. And the way I want to talk about that right now is everything, so everything is impermanent, everything is out of control, everything is, you know, causing a little bit of uneasiness and everything has the possibility of awakening.

[26:26]

Including when mistakes made and even often even more when a mistake is made because then we kind of wake up sometimes. Hopefully we're awake and paying attention normally, but it is somewhat repetitive, you know, if you're here all the time, somewhat repetitive, so it's easy to kind of space out. So mistakes are this great time moment when we can, when the truth is revealed. And, you know, I feel like I want two true confessions or something. I feel like, you know, I've been criticized by our Dear Abbott, I think, I'm not sure how you would put it, but my apologies are too blithe. When I make a mistake, I do not, you know, the apology does not feel maybe as sincere as you want it to. And maybe that kind of comes from this thing I'm bringing up.

[27:28]

I guess I would just say that maybe you can go too far in the emptiness. I call this the emptiness, you know. But when the mistake happens, emptiness is revealed. And so maybe you can go too far in the emptiness direction. Because we do also, it's important to take responsibility for our actions and our choices and our words and everything. Now, I wanted to do a little experiment, but I don't know what time it is. What time is it, Paul? It's 11 minutes before 11. OK. And I'm supposed to try to wind things up around 11, right? 11.05. 11.05, including questions? OK. 11.05. OK. Just when I put up the striker, you keep on going. Let's try this. I wanted to do a little kind of guided meditation.

[28:30]

And I was wondering, if you'd be willing, and if you don't want to, that's fine. You can kind of be the control. The control group will be the people who don't want to do it. But if you do want to do it, do this little experiment, See if you can settle in as comfortably as you can. Imagine you're sitting a period of Sazen. Imagine you're sitting Sazen. And for this, it might be helpful to close your eyes if you want to. You don't have to. Close your eyes. And you can imagine, it so happens that in this period of Sazen you've settled into a very big mind state and you can imagine your mind is like the sky, like a big sky and the clouds are moving in the sky changing shape and everything that's happening, the sounds you're hearing

[29:49]

My voice are just like clouds in a big, big sky. And maybe there's birds flying in the sky, perhaps little songbirds and maybe also large birds like maybe some Canada geese, maybe an eagle or two. And perhaps there are also some kites flying in the sky. and maybe some bees or insects also buzzing in the sky but your mind is the sky and the sky holds everything and there's a place in the sky for everything plenty of room in this big, big sky and in this with this big sky mind you can see

[30:50]

how everything has absolute value everything that happens happens for a reason causes and conditions come into being and everything has absolute value and so you can settle even deeper and relax your mind like a big, big sky. And with this sky-like mind you can turn your attention to your breathing and you can be aware of how your breathing is receiving and giving. As we inhale we receive the gift of oxygen from plants and trees.

[31:54]

And as we exhale we give the gift of carbon dioxide to plants and trees. We receive and we give moment by moment. Moment by moment we are in relationship to the living things on this planet. giving and receiving receiving and giving and now just imagine just in your imagination imagine the bell is ringing at the end of fathom and imagine yourself doing the gassho bow and even as you bow again you notice just giving and receiving You receive the sound of the bow, and you give your bow.

[32:58]

And then let's just imagine it's the rogue chant. And you can, even if you don't have a raksu, if you want, you can imagine a raksu. And you're giving, you're hearing the sound of the people, and you're giving the sound of your own voice during the chant. as you lift your Raksha to your head just receiving your experience and giving your voice and at the end of the chant you can imagine putting on your Raksha and you can even imagine reaching around and feeling this neck piece making sure it's flat on your collar And you can imagine getting up and still remembering how it's just giving and receiving. Receiving your experience.

[34:02]

Giving yourself to fluffing up your cushion. And then receiving the sound of the bells. Receiving the energy of everybody in the room. and you're giving your nine vows, giving vows taking in what's given and giving whatever you have taking in whatever is given and giving whatever you have and as service continues you receive the sound of the Kokyo and you give your voice to the chant You give your attention, receiving your experience however you're feeling, and giving your voice to the chant. And then at the end of service, receiving the bells, receiving the sound of the bells, and giving ourself to our vow.

[35:19]

And now just imagine that it's the end of service, the end of a Zendo event, and you're going to leave the Zendo. And you continue to notice how you receive your experience, and then you give yourself to your activity. Without even thinking about it, it's so natural. Just receiving your experience. and you're starting to make eye contact with your Dharma brothers and sisters and beginning to talk and just remembering how receiving their energy, receiving their faces receiving their eye contact and giving your words and your smiles and just knowing how you can continue to practice, no matter where you are or what you're doing, single-minded way, beginningless and endless track.

[36:37]

And now, if you are ready, you can just even more come back to this room, where you really are sitting, how it feels to be sitting, here on this sofa, this support cushion, this chair, feeling your feet on the ground if you're sitting in a chair. Coming back and hearing my voice and being ready to open your eyes. So thank you very much. I don't see the striker yet, so I'm guessing we have time for a couple questions. Anybody have any? Alan? You know, there's a really interesting conundrum in that parenting idea. I like it. I hadn't thought about it. The reason that you can teach your children

[37:49]

so-called control, or having some effect on things, is because things are impermanent. If they were permanent, then they couldn't affect us. That's also a social philosophy and religion that you find in other parts of the world where your birth determines, and you can't control it, it's already been determined. and what we're trying to teach by way of self-esteem is you have the agency to interact with other people and reality, precisely because of your impermanence. And ideally, if it's, you know, helpfully, we learn that dance, kind of, that we're sort of, we're there, yet we're not quite. We're not quite there, but we're sort of there. And you've got to honor both those sides. In fact, a lot of Abhidharma, like a lot of huge numbers of things that are written in Buddhism are all to try to explain, you know, just that thing that we sort of do stuff and we don't.

[38:57]

The kids are going to change also, which is important. Walter, then Linda? Thank you. I won't talk to you about it. Very, very good topic. I want to ask a little bit about the connection or nexus between self or no-self and these forms. The forms can be kind of accepted or adopted or practiced from a very selfish or self-centered way. Aren't I special? And they can also on the other spectrum of it, violating the forms can be an expression of the self by saying, I'm special, I'm not going to do that. So talk about that a little bit. Yeah. Well, I think it's pretty hard to do that for very long.

[39:59]

It's pretty hard to get much out of them over a long period of time. And so, in fact, that's one of the hard things, right? Because it's like, well, now I don't want to. So that was a goal. But now, well, so what? You know, you're sort of And that's why we're always kind of moving on this growth track, and then just also on this just being together, to me, you know. So we're learning and developing, and there's a certain allure, and our selves get attracted to that, that we're going to get enlightened, right? So the self is always appealing, you know, getting interested in this track where we're improving. But then we're also just I don't know about you, but I'm just betting my life on this, and I'm just going to do this no matter what. And we're going to grow old and die together if you want. I'm open for that with you, if you're open for that with me. And there's nothing nowhere to get. So since both those things are operating, I think the ego eventually is going to find something more promising.

[41:02]

Or it's going to just wear out. One of the most wonderful descriptions of how the ego works is like it's like a shoe and you're just wearing it and the way our practice is, our practice just wears out the shoe and eventually you're walking on, you know, there's holes in the bottom and you're walking on the ground and the shoe just goes away. So hopefully, since it's not a real thing anyway, it's just a construct, hopefully you'll just sort of lose interest or get, you know. And the part about not doing, not going along, yeah. And that can be both ways too because sometimes if you, we also need to learn to not go along because we don't want this to become like we'll just go along with anybody who's in charge. That's really not good. One of the worst things that can happen. We don't want to go along, necessarily. But if you stay around for a while, I think you will feel safe, that these forms are really safe.

[42:11]

They're in the interest of paying attention, in the interest of waking up. So it's okay. I hope, pretty keenly. At least I'm betting my life on this. Oh, let's see, Linda, and then Sue, and then if we have time. Well, that started us in the direction that I was going to go. You presented to us a very enlightened view of forms. And I agree with that, and that's the way I've been doing it all these years. However, I think we should also look at the dark side of forms. such as the way in which we hide in them or take refuge in them in an unhelpful way because they give a sense of control, because they satisfy our need to feel that we're right instead of wrong.

[43:15]

Other dark sides of the forms, because they allow us to hide in a great group where we lose our identity in something that may be very unhealthy, and so on. So I agree, and I think, I mean, I might be wrong about this, but that's why I think this thing about being in touch with how you're feeling is really important. Because I actually think we feel uneasy when we're in a bad situation. We don't always know it because we're not paying attention. But that's one of the reasons I think that's really important. I hope that's true, that if we were part of something, I can't even quite It just doesn't feel good. There are many examples of this, so one could examine that. That could be part of the study of forms. I think my other people, if you're coming to Thursday night class, I know that at least one of the senior students is going to bring up the dark side of the forms. And we were instructed not to do that on Saturday because there's new people.

[44:21]

We don't want to discourage anybody right off the bat. We can discourage them later. Just like your children. And I will talk to you later about something. And then Sue? They said we're going to wait until Thursday to discourage them. Well, hopefully they won't all sign up there. I'm worried about that. I was really impressed with your comment on mistakes and what a valuable point that is. I'm just impressed that at the moment of mistakes, it is a moment when we sort of lose who we were. Can you talk a little bit more about that? I don't know if this answers your question, but it did make me think of one thing I've been thinking about, which is I mean, one of the things you learn about when we're so-called dealing with each other, which we have to do in the forms, if we're just coming to meditate and leave, we might not know this, but we are very different.

[45:27]

People are very different. And we have introverts and extroverts. And we have thinking types and feeling types. And when we interact, I mean, it gets complicated really fast. And one type of person, there are people that really have a lot of shame around the issue of doing it right. And it's very excruciatingly painful to be in this realm. For some of us, it's not that painful. For others, as it is. And after a while, you learn to hopefully to be a little more aware that you don't exactly know where someone's going with it, necessarily. And, you know, I want to say that I don't think, part of me wants to say, well, the forms are not that, don't seem that beneficial for someone who's got a lot, a very strong sense of, you know, like if they make a mistake, it brings up a strong sense of shame or something. However, strangely, the forms were invented in Japan and people have, I've heard that said it's a shame-based culture. So I don't know what that means. But again, it's all about the awareness.

[46:32]

I think it's really, and you know, it's important to just be aware of how you're feeling and that it is just how you're feeling. It's not true, so-called. You know, feelings, they're just wafting through. And then, Oxani? Is that enough, Sue? I mean, okay. I don't know if this is a question, but I wanted to say that this practice of equanimity which is to let the reactive mind take a back seat so that we can act from our deepest values. It's very hard to do. It's very hard to maintain. I think that's my thesis actually here today. I know that it becomes easier if you have that intention. It becomes easier if you train. I mean, the intention is important, but that's kind of my point here today is that these forms are a wonderful way to train.

[47:42]

Because otherwise you're just out of here and the whole thing is starting again. I think I might be out of time soon. Maybe we can talk about something. Thank you all very much.

[47:57]

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