I vow to face the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. Good morning. Our speaker this morning, as most of you know, is Ross Blum. Ross started Zen practice in 1984 with Bernie Klassman in New York, and he came here in 1987 to Berkeley Zen Center. He was Shuso here ten years ago. Ross, he focuses on the practicing in the world. That's not so much the monastic side of our practice as the practicing in the world. Thanks, Marty. And thanks for the music, wherever it's coming from. I got a gold star today, so you may see that's my holiday t-shirt from Pete's Where I Work, which is where most of my practice in the world takes place.

[01:04]

And hello to everybody in the community room, big and little. More, is there more volume to be had? Okay. You know, our practice is a practice of empowerment and awareness and lots of different things, but it's interesting, you know, amplification of the external and how, what effect that has on the internal. So thank you, PA system. I would first like to put in a disclaimer, which is I always felt it was implicit, but just to avoid any confusion. We're at Berkley Zen Center, and I've been asked to give a talk from the front seat.

[02:08]

So that has a particular position and power and authority, if you will, to impart thoughts and feelings that are absorbed by all of you to one degree or another, or rejected one degree or another. But I own my opinions and feelings and thoughts. And as they say on public radio and such when opinions are offered on public television, the thoughts of the speaker are not necessarily shared by the media that is producing it or presenting it. So I encourage people to ask questions in the few minutes that we have during the course of this morning's lecture, as well as a few minutes that we have outside, and also to approach me or anybody who gives a talk here on a Saturday or another day, if it's a retreat day, by email or in person or phone calls, just to kind of, it helps to develop and cultivate Sangha, the community of practitioners, and also helps to clarify what's being said.

[03:14]

And I think we all can benefit from that and hone our practice and understanding. We are in the midst of Aspects of Practice, which is a practice period here at Berkeley Center that happens once a year in the fall for one month. And it's led by various practice leaders or former Shusos or head students. And this aspects of practice, we are focusing on the precepts, the 16 Bodhisattva precepts, which are used as guidelines and encouragement to our practice and kind of keep us on the straight and narrow, so to speak. And the precepts have been talked about by numerous people over the years, not killing, not stealing, not lying. not praising self at the expense of others, do good, avoid evil, practice to save all beings and such. The precepts that I want to talk about today are I vow not to misuse sexuality and I vow not to sell the wine of delusion.

[04:28]

And I think these two precepts go together. Can we have sexuality without intoxication? And if we become intoxicated, is there a sexuality or a sensuality component that arises in our being? And what's all that about? So strictly speaking, when the precepts were created, there was not really a question about no sex, or having sex, or not taking in intoxicants. It was a monastic order, and people took precepts and were ordained, and that's just what they did. and whether there was sexuality, self-sexuality, or sexuality with the other monks is not quite a moot point, but the precepts were there as a way to help the practitioners in their path to realization and clarity.

[05:44]

And as we all probably have experienced, with some degree of intoxication or some degree of sexuality that's being expressed, it's very easy to kind of lose our center. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it definitely alters our consciousness. And we're not a monastery. This is not a practice of so-called purity. So we're practicing in the world and we have these questions come up for all of us. In fact, we all are a product of sexuality. We all are here as a result of some expression of sexuality and maybe some degree of intoxication, and not necessarily with alcohol or some other drug, but just the intoxication that one feels around another, a loved one. So if my talk today was just about not having sex or doing sex and not taking intoxicants, the talk would have been over a few minutes ago.

[06:45]

But we're practicing in the world, and so how can we explore these very sensitive questions around expressions that some people take up casually, some people take up with a little bit more indulgence, some people take up over the top and get in trouble. Some people are in jail as a result of it. There are many different ways, so we're not advocating the extremes, but really to look at what are intoxicants and what is sexuality and sensuality as an expression of being alive. I was born in 1956 after my grandmother passed away, who I never met, on my father's side. I was told that my father and mother were very close. My father and grandmother, his mother, were very close. And when she passed away, my father was very sad and very upset and intoxicated, if you will, around a lot of grief.

[07:53]

And they thought maybe having another child would help lift him up out of that intoxication and grief. Well, I didn't have much to say in the matter. I grew up in Virginia, and my grandmother died in February of 56, and they went to Williamsburg, and I was born in December. And I never met my grandparents on my father's side, but I visited their gravesite in Philadelphia a few years ago, and it was really a powerful, palpable experience of seeing that headstone with my last name on it. It was really something. I think I absorbed some intoxication in that space as it was raining. 13 years after I was born, I was bar mitzvahed, and this is the only present that I have remaining from my bar mitzvah, which is this dictionary.

[09:02]

Somewhat out of date, they don't have words in there that we use these days so much. But they still have intoxicate, which I want to read to you. To affect temporarily with diminished control over the physical and mental powers by means of alcoholic liquor, a drug, or other substance, especially to stupefy or excite, to make enthusiastic, exhilarate, the prospect of success intoxicates me, as one example. So having the precept of sexuality and intoxicants and looking at those closely and not misusing them, we have an opportunity to see our expression if in fact we do take those things up.

[10:12]

We also get to experience other people in relation to us if they are taking them up also. So, there's a term called like drinking buddies. So these would be people hanging out and maybe drinking and that would be a bond for the friendship or a sort of a connection. But is there really a friendship between these two people when they're not drinking? No, there might not be. So in my opinion, the intoxicant wouldn't be such a wonderful thing to use and utilize for the people to have that connection because there's really nothing in the heart and the being of the two people to connect. And sexuality, for me, and I think for most of us here, is an expression, ideally is an expression of love. A physical expression of love that really transcends definition. And yet we get mixed up with sexuality with our partners or want to be partners or soon to be partners or ex-partners in such a way where it really does get confusing and mixed up.

[11:26]

Like what's really going on here with this, with this expression. And I don't have any answers. I don't have any clear answers about that. But it's something to look at, that as long as we're alive and there's a life force in us, then it gets expressed in different ways. And for me, our practice is not about squashing feelings and things that arise, but actually allowing things to arise and looking at them closely. and seeing how things change, how our relationships change to the things that we use, people that we relate to. Because our practice ultimately is a practice of relationship to people, place, and things. Alan put this reader together, Living the Bodhisattva Precepts, Four Aspects of Practice, and I wanted to read a couple excerpts from two teachers.

[12:34]

First is from Suzuki Roshi. Later, Zen masters said Uman's words are like a cup and its lid, which fit perfectly. Or we can say, follow the wave and drive the wave. Do you understand? The boat follows the wave and drives the wave like the Mukugyo follows the chanting and drives the chanting. The Mukugyo is the drum there that is beat like a metronome to keep the chanting pace. If you just follow the chanting with Mukugyo, if you just follow the chanting, the Mukugyo will get slower and slower still. Unless you listen, you will lose control. So you have to listen and at the same time you should lead. You should drive the chanting. It's not just to follow the chanting, you should drive the chanting also. Following the chanting and driving the chanting, how do you do it? If you ask Uman how you do it, he may say, what are you thinking about?

[13:40]

He may say, just sit. So I think in both of these precepts, we can look at, is my expression of sexuality driving me, driving me crazy? Or is it, am I participating with my partner driving the relationship in a particular direction or participating in that? And if I'm not, and I'm guilty of this, if I'm not listening so carefully to a partner, it's very easy for things either to slow down or to speed up and not be conscious. So it's really incumbent upon all of us to really be awake and present and ask the questions and respond when questions are being asked about us. That way, the driving of the wave and the following of the wave kind of go together. but quite often we're just on one side. We're either driving it and impressing upon the relationship, it has to be this way, or we don't really participate so fully and the other person is driving us.

[14:42]

And that's not so healthy. So it takes two. Later on, Akin Roshi is presented with a question. I doubt if anger ever deflates entirely, but can we learn to redirect it? Roshi says. Sure. I always think of Yasutani Roshi in this connection. He was taken to a Buddhist temple for adoption by the priest when he was five years old because his family couldn't afford to keep him. This must have instilled deep anger in his heart. He was always in trouble fighting with his fellow little monk boys. Although he did very well in his Buddhist practice and actually became a lecturer on Buddhism in the Soto school, he felt very resentful because none of the promise that had been held out to him had ever been fulfilled in his life. Then after he was 40 years old, he finally found Hirata Roshi, who helped him through his first realization.

[15:43]

He gradually settled down into the practice, and by the time he was 65, he was an independent master. But when you see the pictures of him while teaching, you can see passion in his manner. His anger was transformed into passion and teaching. He never lost any of that early feeling, but it was transmitted. Be grateful that you have anger. Be grateful that you have sexual drive, and so on. These are your passions, your energy, and ultimately, how will you use them? So in Bodhisattva ceremony, which we just completed, we recited the grave precepts and then the response from the doshi is the clear mind precepts or the positive side of the precepts. And I found it very interesting that the word pure is used twice in the Bodhisattva ceremony and it's about these two precepts that I'm talking about today.

[16:49]

I vow not to misuse sexuality. Let the three wheels of self, objects, and action be pure. With nothing to desire, one goes along together with the Buddhas. I vow not to sell the wine of delusion. Originally pure, don't defile. This is a great awareness. So that begs the question, what is pure and what is purity? Well purity means non-dual, non-duality. You can't have purity without impurity, something relative to that. And that's the world of dualism and we're constantly coursing through the world of duality and non-duality.

[17:53]

The ethics statement that we recently rewrote over a three-year period of time of really deep reflection are there to help guide us and for people to, when they come to Birthday Zen Center, to help them establish their sitting practice. and the senior practitioners here have been asked and they've all agreed to abstain from sexual relationships with new practitioners so these new people can in fact find a way to practice here without these distractions at the Mephalis. The use of sexuality is an expression and recognition of a healthy life force. His misuse would be a self-conscious manipulation in a relationship to make one self feel superior or inferior to gratify oneself at the expense of another, which is yet another precept. When we're in the world, it's the world of right and wrong, judgments, black and white.

[19:18]

And when we come to the zendo, we get to experience or taste the other side. So we sit zazen, our eyes are open and cast down, but not focused on anything in particular. When we're looking around and discerning things, it's a very different mindset that that comes into our being. But if we're not focusing on anything in particular, things get a little hazy, literally and metaphorically. And I think this helps us not get too attached to one point of view. I think that the 19th century French Impressionist paintings are just about universally liked or loved or appreciated for similar reasons, that there's an impression of something on the canvas And it's left to the observer to finish that impression and bring that image to one's consciousness, to what actually is being depicted here. In Dogen Zenji's Genjo Koan, there is a few phrases that talk about being in the element of your life.

[20:47]

And the references are something to the effect, when a fish leaves the water, it will surely die. And when the bird leaves the sky, it will surely die. And if you've ever seen a bird dying out of the sky, fluttering on the ground. It's extremely sad to see. And the fishing industry is full of flipping fish on decks and boats, suffocating slowly. So Dokin uses these two metaphors for us. What is the element of our life? And when our life element is taken away from us, what is it like? Well, for me, one thing that I felt like my life force was being taken away was when I was in New York and I was on track to be ordained as a priest.

[21:57]

And there, Bernie's teacher asked him and all of his ordained students that if they were going to ordain anyone as a priest, they would have to be celibate. And when he mentioned that to the people in the group, some of us laughed because it felt, well, for various reasons, for different people. For me, it felt like it was taking away a life force that I wanted to express and explore in my life. But this isn't to say that a celibate practice is not valuable. In fact, it's quite valuable to actually focus just on sitting practice. But as Marty said, my predilections are more toward being in the world than the monastery. And there's just more juice there for me. So I find that my practice is a lot more alive and invigorated being around that. and karmically, there's some challenges, and I've got into trouble also as a result of it.

[23:02]

There are three bodies of Buddha, Dharmakaya, Nirmanakaya, and Sambhogakaya, and we possess all three bodies. The Dharmakaya is the essence body where it's a dead state, so to speak. It's a state where we're sitting purely just in Zazen, not creating any karma, and just being where everything is just one. The Nirmanakaya is our particular expression as an individual, as a human being. As this teacup, the teacup's nirmanakaya is the brown texture here and the gray up here. And the sambhogakaya is the interpenetration of the two. So we all have these three bodies. We have this dead state world of oneness, just sitting on the cushion as the Buddha is here on the altar, not creating any karma at all, no problem whatsoever. And then we get off the cushion,

[24:12]

as Ross, or Eric, or Laurie, we start creating karma. And that's the Sambhogakaya. But to truly look and see the world of oneness and manyness is, for me, that world of Impressionist art, where it's open to interpretation. And that's why we encourage people to ask questions here, in class, in lecture, informally, to find out what's really going on with this practice, because it's a little mysterious. In the metta sutta, which we recite on Monday mornings, there's a line that says, may my senses be controlled. What does control mean? What parameters do I need to put on my expression when my senses are aroused that are congruent with the practice here at Berkeley's M Center, with being in Berkeley, California, with being at Pete's.

[25:18]

So all these various venues have either explicit or implicit guidelines or rules of behavior. And they're constantly being modified according to the needs of the community of people. So returning to Zazen mind is the best way to do that, because Zazen includes everything. That said, how do we practice Zazen mind when we're off the cushion? To say that it includes everything, I can do whatever the hell I want, is not right practice. to be really timid and afraid to step forward for fear of breaking a precept is not right practice. So it's somewhere in the middle. I was in Italy for a week, eating and drinking with a friend of mine, having a good time.

[26:29]

And I went to a I like nice things, and I was in a little sort of a shopping area with nice stuff, and I got entranced by a pair of shoes. And I've never seen so many shoe stores in my life, but Italy has a lot of shoe stores. So I'm looking at these shoes, and I would never wear these shoes. It's not my style of shoe. But I was there for quite a few minutes just admiring the craftsmanship and workmanship in these shoes. and I could feel arising in me a sense of intoxication, of allure, of desire, all that stuff for something that I had no desire to buy. And so this is really interesting and this is an opportunity to practice with the feelings that arise. The shoes happened to be the same brand of shoes that O.J. Simpson was allegedly wearing. So that certainly caught some attention, but ultimately it was just the craftsmanship of the shoe.

[27:34]

But the feeling of seduction was really, it was very palpable. Very, very palpable. So this intoxication, which I think we often associate with things that we want, we want more of, we want it bigger, better, whatever, hotter, is also intoxication of what we don't like, like this tea cup, or water cup. I'm not really fond of this cup. It's made its presence at Berthe Zen Center for a long time. You've probably seen it. It's got a little chip here. Maybe someone didn't like it and they wanted to chip it, so hopefully it'll get thrown out. But no, it's still here with the chip. But it holds a lot of water, and it's actually OK, even though it's not my style. I don't like the color or all that. But it's got a nice texture. As I'm holding it here, it actually feels kind of nice. So maybe it's not so bad. Anyway, I received this cup as a present.

[28:38]

A former co-worker's father-in-law was visiting from out of town, and she asked me if I would do a tea tasting with him, because he likes tea. I said, sure. So I hung out with this gentleman from Vermont, and we talked about tea and drank tea. And he seemed very happy to be given all this attention. And I just like doing this sort of thing anyways. Not really my job after hours, but for a friend, I would do that. And her husband is a motorcycle mechanic, and he worked on my bike. to make sure that any bad things got back to him. So then I got this cup as a present from him, and I was really touched by that. I said, oh gosh, you didn't have to do that, you know, this present. And then I opened it up. Fortunately, he wasn't there, and I saw it, and I was like, oh, my heart just kind of sank. But it's like, It's a gift, it's like what we talked about at the open discussion yesterday afternoon about being given a gift and do we receive it or do we want to get rid of it? And what do we do when these things arise?

[29:43]

So everything is an opportunity for us to look at ourselves and our responses to them. There are a couple of stories about sexuality in our literature and about attachment because we try to practice non-attachment because egos tend to attach to things. And one famous story is the story of two monks, two male monks in China, I believe, who are walking along and there's a woman that needs to get across the shore. And one monk says, okay, picks her up and carries her over to the side. So she doesn't get her dress wet or whatever it is. And the two monks continue on their way. And the other monk says, brother, what were you doing? What was in your mind picking up this woman?

[30:47]

You know, our bowels are not, you know, we're not to touch the opposite sex. And the monk's response was, well, I let go of the woman at the other side of the waterway, but you're still carrying her. So it's a pretty simple story, but I think about my own, the things that I carry around that happened to me minutes, months, years ago, and we're still carrying around these things. So even though we have guidelines that kind of keep us in check, we're still struggling. A biography of Suzuki Roshi came out a few years ago. Suzuki Roshi was the teacher of Sojiro Weissman Roshi, who is the abbot here of our temple. And I found a couple of things rather interesting. One was that Suzuki Roshi's teacher had a mistress. Now, I am not condoning people, men or women, having mistresses. I believe in the sanctity and honoring monogamous relationships, whether they're so-called formally married people or people living together.

[31:56]

However, Suzuki Roshi had great admiration for his teacher, and this was one of his quirks, if you will, or a sense of entitlement that men had back in that day, which, again, I want to reiterate, I don't condone, but that, in fact, was a real eye-opener for me. Bernie's teacher in New York, in LA, once gave a talk saying, it's important for the student to spit out the chaff and take the wheat from their teacher's words. Because if we tend to idolize our teachers or people in leadership, we're ultimately going to get disappointed. When I was in Japan back in 98, we did a alms round in the city with Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi, Suzuki Roshi's son. And after we came back, we stopped a little bit outside of the temple to kind of collect our bearings and talk about our experience.

[33:01]

And there are these two stone pillars down on the road there near the temple gate. And someone asked Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi, what do those pillars say? And he's a really sweet man, and he laughs a lot. He has a lot of depth of understanding and practice. It's really great to be around him. I really feel honored to have had a few moments with him. And he has kind of an impish quality. So he looks at the words, and he starts laughing, kind of like a little boy caught with his hand caught in a cookie jar. And in his pretty good English, but slightly broken, which adds even more of a comical, for me, air to it, he says, those are things we are to do at the temple. It says, beyond this post, no women. Beyond this post, no alcohol. And of course, his father's teacher had mistresses and there are a lot of sake bottles there in the recycle bin that I saw.

[34:14]

And it's like, again, I'm not condoning that if you're at a temple, you drink, but that was part of the culture there. So you have this admonition or this encouragement not to take these intoxicants, if you will, or misuse your sexuality in appropriate ways. And yet people do that. And I think the importance of having those pillars there, just like your ethics statement, it's like a beacon. It's like a lighthouse. It's something to look at and see, how am I compared to this reference point? What is the standard here? And How am I living up to this? Am I living, am I living the precepts, which is such a Roshi's term, you know, the dead state of just sitting on the cushion and not creating karma is pretty easy. I mean, aside from the physical discomfort or your mind spinning around, it's not so we've all been doing this for the past 30 minutes, right?

[35:16]

But to get off the cushion and then you're living the precepts, that's much more challenging for all of us. There is a monk who lived in Japan in the 15th century by the name of Ikkyu Sojin, and he was quite prolific in his poetry, and I wanna read a few of his poems. He was invited to be abbot of Daitoku-ji, which is a major temple, Rinzai temple in Kyoto. He lasted for about 10 days. He said, 10 fussy days running this temple, all red tape. Look me up if you want to in the bar, whorehouse, or fish market.

[36:17]

My dying teacher could not wipe himself unlike you disciples who use bamboo, I cleaned his lovely ass with my bare hands. Ikkyu Sojin had a lady friend named Mori, M-O-R-I. She was blind. I am not going to read some of his poetry, which is fairly body and risque and evocative, but it's really quite beautiful. Why not? I don't want to get into trouble. But the book is available for sale. Your name, Mori, means forest, like the infinite fresh green distances of your blindness. Only one koan, koans are riddles or stories that Zen students work on to try to break through their delusional thinking.

[37:44]

Only one koan matters, you. Ikkyu Sojin was enlightened by hearing the call of a crow. And this is a poem that was written sometime later. The crow's call was okay, but one night with a lovely woman opened a wisdom deeper than what that bird said. And lastly, I received this as a present from a former coworker. And she writes, Ross, I have been looking for an excuse to buy this book. You are it. My favorite is on page 58, but you may enjoy page seven as well. Jane.

[38:47]

Well, I got this a few years ago. The book is like from 1924. So it's a nice old book and I would just kept admiring it for its oldness and how many hands must have come across it. So I said, well, you might enjoy page seven. I mean, page 58. So I'm gonna read this. What does she think? Why am I gonna like page 58? Okay, let me check this out now. These poems are like anywhere from a few hundred years old to over a thousand years old. So, let's see. Okay, now. So, Jane, this is what you think I am? When a woman talks to you, oh, this is written in the 7th century BC. When a woman talks to you, smile at her, but do not listen to her. I can't believe it. Now, the poem that I really like, that's her favorite, is anonymous, and it was written 1,001 years ago, today.

[39:55]

It's called The Renewal. And I'm gonna end on this note. If I were a tree or a plant, I would feel the soft influence of spring I am a man, do not be astonished at my joy. We have a few minutes for comments, questions, or thoughts. Peter. I just want to focus on one thing that is sort of present for me, and I don't really want to raise it as an objection, but I responded when you said that sitting is often sort of a dead state.

[40:58]

I have a little bit of a problem with that, because it sort of raises, well, it just seems That's a really good question and it's incumbent upon me to respond. The dead state isn't my term. It's a term that I've read in our literature, and it's in contrast to living state. And the reason I brought it up is Sochin Roshi's comment of the living precepts and creating karma. And when something is dead, as we say at a memorial service, your life is over. This expression of your life is over now.

[42:00]

You're on to the next life, so to speak. So if, in fact, we are not creating karma like the person who has passed on, then for me it still fits. But it's true, there's lots going on, even though we might not be aware of it when we are sitting, which feels very alive. And there are times when we kind of hit a plateau, it feels kind of dead, but there's still something going on there that we're just not aware of that will arise, I think, in the next moment. How does one practice the precepts, sitting zazen, on the cushion? One could take that practice up as, am I killing? What am I killing? Have I misspoken today? That is a practice that people can do. How do you practice? Well, I'm thinking, for instance, of the two topics you brought up, intoxication and sexuality.

[43:03]

It's almost as though using sexuality is a problem, let alone misusing it. Sexuality arises and it's bringing up the question of what's the relationship between intention and things that arise naturally. Sexuality, it's a little clearer when you're talking about intoxication. to take wine in order to feel different, to change our consciousness, and accepting the experience as a result of drinking wine without the intent of going there. It's a subtle difference, but I think the root effect is enormous, actually. And so, anyway, that's the other side of my question. Right. And what you said a moment ago, using something and misusing something, because we always have opportunity to, or choice to take something up and use it or misuse it.

[44:14]

And I think that was probably the intention of the Buddha to have these precepts in place, to not take these things up, to focus on practice. Because when we take them up, it gets very confusing. Laurie? It seems like highly spiritually advanced people, particularly men, often go to these two places. I mean, just to distant in the small amount of years that we have in America, I mean, I used to, it's easy to think, it's a sort of a cop-out, or it's really easy to think, well, they couldn't be that spiritually advanced. And I think I've spent some time thinking about how advanced could you be if you're so deluded in these areas.

[45:16]

But I've kind of gotten beyond that, and I just really wonder why, why is it that that is, to me, so much the hallmark? I mean, you know, even, we know that Hoitsu has struggled with alcohol, and I never heard anything about Suzuki Roshi about either of these things. There's no point in starting to get drunk. It's just like everybody. You have to search to find people who didn't. I wonder what you think. Is it some kind of... Maybe that's what your talk was about and you already tried to say. I don't know why there seems to be more spiritually advanced men than spiritually advanced women taking up intoxicants or having involvement with the misuse of sexuality and the fallout from that. I really don't know. I know that women can be intoxicating and use their allure in ways, and some of them are in pretty powerful positions of responsibility.

[46:27]

I've been privy to, not directed to me, but other men sort of saying that that was a problem for them. It's not as widespread as some men think. It's a really good question. I don't know. What comes to mind, what's interesting to me is the question, of raising the question, like with this latest news of this Representative Haggard that people probably have heard about, about the guy who was part of the White House phone tree of honorable sex and whatnot, and he's evangelical and was caught with drugs and doing drugs and alleged and with a prostitute, that people who, so I, the question comes up for me quite often is, why is there a charge for people around particular issues? What is it for them versus a behavior that say, for instance, I might be exhibiting that people would be asking me?

[47:29]

I remember reading a great interview with Bertie Glassman in Shambhala's Son, and there's a picture of him smoking a cigar. And then my first response is, oh, that's disgusting. And I realized, that's just my preference, you know? So, I don't know. Historically, there's maybe this sense of entitlement and man and power, and they're out in the West, you know, blazing the trail. I don't know, that's a good question. If someone knows the answer, I wanna hear. The striker is up. The striker is up, and so is Charlie's hand. So please, Charlie. and your topics today tend to I feel that sometimes and I don't look forward to my death, but I do have a very deep feeling that it'll be okay and that I'll be done with this time and the questions and things that arise.

[48:54]

People have given me a lot of flag for working at Pete's because we sell intoxicants. And people think that, oh, coffee and tea is just caffeine. It's not a big deal. But for a lot of people, it's a really big deal. And I've been told that it's not right livelihood. I mean, lots of things. And I think there's, for me, when I've heard that from people, I realize that everybody's got their button. And that's the button. And so I think that living a conscious life, that I can be really awake and aware when I'm serving a homeless person a cup of coffee, or a multimillionaire a cup of coffee in the same line, that they want their coffee for whatever reasons. to have a good day, and it's their karma that they have to deal with, and I'm participating in that. Being alive, I'm not dead. I am participating in their karma, and it affects me.

[49:59]

I'd love to chat more with you. Maybe we can talk a little bit outside. Thank you very much for your attention.

[50:09]

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