Well, good morning. It's interesting to come in here in this capacity. I don't come here too often this way. And bowing and seeing the altar is wonderful, seeing it that way. Can everybody hear me? Yeah, okay, good. So this is the first sasheen of the aspects of practice, and I'm going to talk a little bit about that. Last Saturday, I think, the Saturday a week ago, Alan said there were six sign-up sheets. I'm not sure if he was apologizing or just saying it or what. But it impressed me a lot. I was saying, gee, six, that's amazing. How come? And what's it all about? So I thought I would talk about that, sort of talk about our practice in the context of our six signed-up sheets. And probably most of you have become acquainted with them, but I'll go through them.

[01:08]

And I thought I'd talk about it in terms of the three treasures. or the Three Jewels, or the Three Precious Ones. And those are Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Buddha being, of course, the historical Buddha, and also sort of the sense that we have of what we have when we practice. Dharma, the the cosmic law, also the teachings that the Buddha gave us. And then Sangha, which is what we are, us who collectively have come here to practice today and come to the Berkeley Zen Center and who are members of the Berkeley Zen Center, and also all Buddhists throughout the world, and also all the people in the world, and then the entire enchilada, the whole thing. So it's kind of like it's an ever-increasing sangha.

[02:16]

So in that context then, we have the first sign-up sheet, which is the sign-up sheet that says, yeah, we're going to do this. We're going to do the aspects of practice. And we also have the form that we fill out sort of saying what we're committing ourselves to. And I was thinking about that. I've signed up for several of these over the years. When I first started practicing, we didn't have these practice periods, or if we did, I wasn't aware of them. I was thinking about that today. When did I start? It was somewhere about 1972 or 73. And if that's the case, then I've been practicing 30 years, which really blew me away. I said, oh, wait a minute. Can't be. Can't be 30 years. But I guess it's been close to that, mostly. Some of the time I've practiced at the Berkeley Zen Center and some of the time I've practiced by myself.

[03:20]

Sangha of one, if you will, at home. But for the last 15 years, it's been pretty much here. Some sitting at home, but mostly at the Berkley Zen Center. So if you ask me about some other place like Santa Cruz or Tassajar or whatnot, I really can't tell you much about it because I haven't spent much time there. Most of it's been here. So this sign-up sheet is, you're making a commitment And the practice leaders who you're signing up with have put a lot of effort into developing the sign-up sheet. I know Alan specifically has. Raul, and Baika, and who else do we have? Ross, and... He will, though. Myself, Lori, who I guess is the other half of the Sanake team, and Doug Greiner, who will be showing up here in another week or so, and others, of course.

[04:30]

Now, we got together. I know I've been to a couple of meetings where we got together and sort of organized and thought about what we're going to do. Alan spent a lot of time thinking about it, I think, and creating a lot of the paperwork. Raul's done a lot of thinking and organizing and that sort of thing as well. So that's kind of our contribution to those sign-up sheets, and especially that initial one. And I think the forms that we handed in sort of saying what our commitments are, I think that Baika and Raul are reviewing. Is that right? Yeah, right. So they're not just going into the waste water basket, they're actually being looked at with interest actually. So that's the first one. And I was thinking in terms of, let's just go on from there. And I guess I will backtrack here. These senior students that we talked about, like myself and Ross and whatnot, why are we doing this? It'd be nice if we just came and sat, which is my first inclination, just to come and sit.

[05:31]

But after a while, I think, of practicing, there's also this desire to help the other people who are coming to practice. And there's also the need to perpetuate the Buddha Dharma into the next generations. And so I think what the senior students are doing is trying to help and also trying to learn how to help so this thinking can be carried forward into the subsequent generations. So if you're asking me why I'm up here, that's kind of what I'm doing. I'm helping and learning how to help. So the first sign-up sheet I want to talk about, I guess, are the Ts. And I see the T's as being mostly a function of Sangha. One of the wraps that the Berkeley Zen Center has had, I think, in the past that we've discussed is that we're not friendly. People come in and want to find out about the Zen Center and want to be around and whatnot.

[06:32]

We're not as friendly as we might be. I personally think a part of that is because we spend so much of our time here Thinking or being quiet, you know, right like today. We're under instructions to be quiet. We don't we don't dialogue We don't have gossips and and that sort of thing and I kind of get in the habit of doing that and so here I am come to the Berkeley Zen Center and talking just You know, sometimes it just doesn't come because I'm so used to being quiet So these teas are a wonderful place where we can get to know each other and And they'll be organized by one of the practice leaders, the ones I read, and I think maybe a couple of others. Each team will have a little different set of organization. I was thinking about maybe what I would do would be to ask the people who come to the one that I'll be running to maybe give a 30-second description of who it is they are and what their practice is and that sort of thing. This is what I started thinking about. I've been here for 30 years. I've sat a lot of sashins and I've had a few positions.

[07:36]

had a degree in mathematics, and I work as a computer programmer, and, you know, sort of things like that. Sort of to break the ice. Oh, and my name is Richard, too, by the way. Because sometimes we don't know each other's names. And they'll probably be cookies. I don't know. And we'll get to know each other a little bit better. There'll be a smaller group, of course, but we'll get to know each other. So that's kind of a Sangha practice, if you will, that we'll be doing. And each practice leader, of course, will have their own little style, and it'll come out a little differently. But if you do come, you might come with a question or some sort of issue that you had about what's going on with the aspects of practice specifically or about your own practice that you feel you can talk about in a public forum. Actually, I wasn't sure if this was a sign-up sheet or not, but there is another Sangha practice, which are the dinners, right? We're having sort of an informal gathering in the community room.

[08:41]

Sometimes, I mean, it's kind of informal. Right. There's maybe not a sign-up sheet for this. but we will be, sort of, people will be in the community room in the kitchen after Zazen on Thursday nights, collectively or maybe independently preparing dinner and eating it and washing up. And then, of course, coming to the class. So I was thinking, when I was trying to figure out what six of these sign-up sheets were, I was thinking, well, maybe that's one of the sign-up sheets, but I don't think it is. But everyone's invited to come, and do they bring their own food, or that's? There isn't much time after Zazen before the class to get dinner, so people either go up to the bowl and bring it back, or they eat up at the bowl. If you go up to the Berkeley Bowl and buy a takeout and bring it back and eat it or maybe you bring something from home Or maybe you just sit there. I was going to suggest Maybe you've already eaten before Just come and visit and and hear people because you know that environment there is a very different kind of environment It's not like the teas.

[09:51]

We're having it's going to be a little bit more formally organized but these little Sessions or whatever they are chance meetings just before a lecture are kind of interesting. You see how people act outside of the more formal practices that we have. So that's kind of slang of practice. It's kind of neat. Actually, you get to see some people in a totally different way than you see them here. We don't get too wild. Don't be scared. But even if you're not coming to eat, you can just come and visit. OK, then the next sign-up sheet I was thinking about were, of course, the Thursday night classes that we're going to have. There are going to be four of them, and several of us are going to be giving lectures. The classes are going to be on the Fukunaza Zenji. I don't know how much of Alan covered this yesterday or not. I wasn't here, unfortunately, yesterday to hear.

[10:52]

That's Dogen's first essay that he wrote after he came back from China and some of the literature implies that everything else that he wrote after that was basically just an expansion of what he wrote with Fukunsan Zenji. So it's a pretty principal text for us who are Dogen groupies. So I'm going to talk about the historical background. I'll be giving the first talk on Thursday. I'll be talking about the historical background and probably the first two paragraphs. And then each of the subsequent three classes are going to take the paragraphs in order and talk about them. And of course, there's a lot of interesting, juicy stuff. The first paragraph, as you probably remember, talks about dust. And so I'm going to talk a little about the sixth ancestor who talked about wiping dust off mirrors, or not wiping dust off mirrors, depending upon your viewpoint on it.

[11:54]

There is no mirror. There is no dust. So we'll be talking about that and some other stuff, who Dogen was and that kind of thing. And so I see this as more like Dharma practice but in a sense it's also Sangha practice because we're going to be here together and hopefully toward the end we'll be asking questions and that's a very interesting way to just get to see people, hear their voices and get to know them and that sort of thing. And of course some of you can just sit through the whole thing so you can do a little Buddha practice there as well. So that'll be interesting. You know, I come to these classes, I've been coming to them off and on for several years, many years, and of course the ones that Mel is teaching are very heavily attended because everyone likes to hear Mel talk about this stuff, and the ones that other people teach sometimes are not attended, depending. But I find that no matter what, when I come, my learning style is to learn from listening. I don't do as much reading as I ought, reading Buddhist sutras and Buddhist dharma and that sort of thing.

[13:01]

But by coming here and listening, I get quite a lot of what it is I need to get. Of course, preparing for this class, I've been doing a lot of reading. a lot more reading than I usually do, which is good for me. This forces me to get into this more, which I like. So I urge you to come and listen and ask questions. That's good. Okay, then the next sign-up sheet, I suppose, if it's not up there, there will be, is the practice discussions. This is where you can sign up or not, but we urge you to do it, with one of the practice leaders talking and talk about your practice. This is an area that I think it's important not to neglect. for two reasons. One is that you get to know who the practice leader is and vice versa. The practice leader gets to know you. But also, if you don't talk about your practice, especially the things that you're worried about, sometimes it might drive you away from actually coming to the Zen Center.

[14:12]

So it's important to raise these issues up. I know there was a period of time when I was sitting where at the end of the sitting, when I would leave, I would be very angry. And something was happening, right? Stuff was coming up with me and this anger would come up and I would bang my car doors shut and drive home more angrily than I would otherwise. But that was pretty early in my practice and I didn't go and talk to Mel at that point. And I kind of regret it because I think that I could have learned quite a lot. It took me a lot longer to get through that anger and through those issues than it would have if I'd had someone to talk it over with. So I think it's a good idea to do it. Also, each practice leader has got a little different viewpoint on the world, you know. You go and ask the same question to each one of us and you'll get a whole, you'll get a different slant on it. So that's kind of interesting too.

[15:13]

At this company where I worked, there was this fellow who was considered to be a genius. He was a very intelligent man. And he once came up and asked me a question, you know, what do you think I should do about this and so on, this and so on? And I always felt very flattered that he would ask me this question. You know, he's this guy, he should know all the answers. And then I saw him go and ask the same question to somebody else, and to somebody else, and to somebody else. And I said, oh, this guy's a genius. He really is learning it all, getting everybody's opinion. That was great. He was also very smart. Let's see, how are we doing here? The next sign-up sheet, I think, is the Sashins. I guess we're going to have two of these. We're having this one today, which you already signed up for, obviously. And then we're going to have one at the end. So I'm not quite sure. It's going to be sort of a, not quite a Sashin, because it's going to be an extension of the Saturday program.

[16:19]

I don't know what date it is, the 22nd or something like that. So in this sign-up sheet, I see the principal activity is Buddha, which I interpret as being Zazen or meditation or a big mind or something like that. Probably most of you are familiar with the historical Buddha and what he did. He questioned what was going on in the world and the suffering and whatnot that was going on, and he went out and tried to find answers to that, and eventually wound up sitting for seven days. He was basically sitting a seven-day Sashin. And at the end of that, he said, oh, everything's okay. It's the way it is. That's my fast version of the story.

[17:20]

So I sort of see Sashins as basically, or Buddha, as the meditation practice that we have here. That's part of it, certainly. And so Sashins have been my main practice, that's what I call it. I came to the Zen Center, as I said, in about 73, 72, 73, around in there, and learned how to sit. Actually, we had our Zazen instruction then in the evening, just before Zazen on Wednesdays, which I thought was really great, because then you could go straight from the instruction right into a period of Zazen. And I discovered, of course, that I couldn't sit for very long without it being extremely painful. So I actually stopped going. and sat at home, first sitting on a stool, a kitchen stool, with a pillow on top of it. It was great because I could sit up straight.

[18:23]

I'm not sure I liked the chairs because the chairs have a back, right? And then you tend to lean against the back and that's, I always figured that was cheating. But a stool you couldn't, there was no back to sit up against, so you had to keep your body straight. And one time I'd had a big fight with my sister, who's a wonderful person, but we had a big fight. And so I started sitting with all this agitation about her in my mind. And as I was sitting, suddenly it just sort of went away. And I said, wow, that's amazing. That's kind of my my initial sort of understanding, experience, whatever, realization, understanding that Zazen really had some incredible power to it. I had read the Three Pillars of Zen and I had experienced that Dukkha, you know, that we learned about the First Noble Truth, you know, suffering.

[19:26]

I talked with Mel about suffering and he, I was uncomfortable with the word And he said, well, dukkha doesn't quite mean suffering as that. It means, it also means, I mean, it means suffering, but also means just sort of a general dissatisfaction, discomfort, you know, like sitting on a tack or something, you know, doesn't quite hurt, but it's just kind of annoying. And, um, that's, that's, that's a more, um, uh, complete description to my mind of what it is that goes on. years ago I remember getting off the bus from from work and I was tired but also being just sort of feeling like is this all there is you know just really feeling terrible about I mean I've made it I graduated from college I got myself a nice job I was married that was you know everything was comfortable and whatnot but I said is this all there is didn't like it very much and I got a chance, I met Reb Anderson actually when he was working as a computer programmer where I was.

[20:33]

He came in as a new employee and it's interesting that he was eating lunch out there in this garden and I just walked out there and sat down next to him and started talking to him. And he'd already been at the San Francisco Zen Center I guess for a couple years and he was trying to earn a living. And so he talked about Zen. He was reading Carlos Castaneda at the time. Interesting for a Zen guy to read that. So I went and read it too. But he talked about Zen and about a year later picked up the Three Pillars of Zen and read it and sort of said, yeah, I can see what he's talking about. So I went to the Berkeley Zen Center and started my thing. Then I would practice at home and learn to stretch my legs out. Actually, I would sit in the Sesa position for 10 minutes, and then I'd have to get up, and I'd sit for 15 minutes, and I worked my way up to 40 minutes, and then I basically went back to the Zen Center and started sitting, because I felt like I could sit there, and I liked that.

[21:44]

And I went both mornings and evenings, for some months. The details are kind of vague, because it's been such a long time. I didn't write them down or anything like that. And then I signed up for my first Sushin, which I thought was wonderful. We read about Sushins, you know. In the three pillars of Zen, a Sushin is where you get your enlightenment. So I said, oh, this is great. I'm going to get enlightened. And it turned out, actually, it was a 24-hour Sushin. I got there. I didn't know that. But it was 24 hours. I called my wife up and said, I'm not going to be home until tomorrow morning. She said, oh, OK. I have a wonderful wife. She's very understanding. She lets me come to these things. And I have no idea what she's doing, but she lets me come. Duo. So I did 24. My first Sashin was a 24-hour Sashin. I actually lasted the entire Sashin. And I did have a chair, which I spent the last four hours in sleeping, I think. I don't know if I could do a 24-hour session today, because I'm a lot older, but I also have learned a lot more about how to, you know, where my energy is and whatnot.

[22:55]

I wasn't fighting so much the leg pain and that sort of thing. So probably could have lasted the whole thing. So I did several sessions and really liked them. And then a big, big problem is that I got promoted at my work. And so I thought, well, I've got it made now. And so I stopped going to the Zen Center, and this is when they were in Dwight Way. And I don't quite understand all the reasons why, but I did, except I continued sitting at home. So there was that going on, and I continued my membership here. Every month, write a check and send it off. Bought a house and had kids and continued to sit at home each time I had a kid I had to move from one out of one room into the other because the kids kept shoving me out of my Zendos and Then I got a couple more promotions and it was great and it's making a lot of money and then I got demoted And I said, oh what's going on here?

[23:57]

And I realized that you know life wasn't quite as good as I thought it was and I came back Here to the Berkley Zen Center and I was in the late middle 80s, somewhere around in there. And basically, then I made the commitment that I was going to sit every Sashin for five years. That's how much I like Sashins. That's how much I knew I liked Sashins. And I didn't come as much in the day, in the daily practice, but I came to every Sashin. I did that. I actually did every Sashin for five years. And I After the five years were over, I stopped coming to quite so many, but I still like to come to them. They said, well, you know, you've got to do other things as well. And my wife, you know, wants me to do things and whatnot. But as I said, for me, if you want to ask me about Sashins, I think Sashins are wonderful, and I'm always pushing them on people. I'm always saying, you should do this, or you should consider this.

[24:58]

Maybe it's a better way to say it. And I guess why? Why do I like Sashin's? I like the fact that my mind quiets down. I brought this book along. Let me see if there's something in here. This is Suzuki Roshi's book, Ed Brown edited, Not Always So, which we are reading. You know, I run the Wednesday Night Group, and we're currently reading this book. So if any of you want to sort of start reading this book on a sort of a tea basis, like I was describing, We get together and we sit for 40 minutes here, starting at 7.20, and then we go to the community room and have tea and read a few pages and discuss it. But, let me see if I can... He talks in here about the purpose of Sushin, and he said here, the purpose of Sushin is to be completely one with our practice.

[25:59]

The purpose of Sushin is to be completely one with our practice. That's the opening sentence in one of the chapters. And then a few pages later, the purpose of Sushin is to develop stable practice. So we have the purpose of Sushin is to be completely one with our practice, and the purpose of Sushin is to develop stable practice. Those are just two. I'm sure that elsewhere in here there's other purposes, but those are two I thought were interesting and I was able to find them pretty nicely. 53. However, when we practice Zazen, it is not that Big Mind is actually controlling Small Mind, but simply that when Small Mind becomes calm, Big Mind starts its true activity. And when small mind becomes calm, big mind starts as true activity.

[27:01]

So there, to my mind, that's why I like Sashins. It's very hard for my little mind to become calm with just one period of Zazen, although it's wonderful that over time I've gotten better at it. But with a Sashin where you've got multiple periods of Zazen that you're stacking up back to back to back, then the small mind becomes a little calmer, and big mind then can show its true colors. However, when we practice Zazen, it is not that big mind is actually controlling small mind, but simply that when small mind becomes calm, big mind starts its true activity. Most of the time in our everyday lives, we are involved in the activity of small mind, That's why we should practice Zazen and be completely involved in resuming Big Mind. I like that. So my first experiences with Sashin were that.

[28:08]

And I liked it. I became addicted to it. Oh, yeah. The word addicted sort of brought up my bouts with alcoholism too. Another reason to have practice discussion, I went in and talked to Mel about my drinking, and I said, if I continue sitting Zazen, will I stop drinking? And he said, I don't remember his exact words, but basically he said, you should go get some help. You didn't say, yes, if you continue sitting Zazen, you will stop drinking. Although people have. I know people who have not gone to any kind of recovery programs and have stopped drinking. So that's certainly possible. But if you want to speed up the process by going to a recovery program, it's probably a good thing to do. So I went off and did that, thinking that one of the reasons I got demoted was because I was abusing alcohol and marijuana at the time.

[29:13]

So anyway, that kind of got me off the track. Anyway, so I'm addicted to Zazen, too. And Sashin's are that addiction. I told Mel that I was addicted to Zazen, and he said, good. And then later on, this guy asked me, one of the Sashin directors said, well, will you do this? And I said, no, I want to go sit Zazen. And he said, well, wait a minute. You're supposed to be past that kind of addiction, as it were. So I started thinking about it, and I agreed that there's a point where you have to say, well, I'm going to help in other ways besides just sitting Zazen. And so that's what I decided to do there as well. So let's see. One of the interesting things that's going to come up during the class, it always comes up, is the idea of Zazen, it's a gaining idea of you getting something from Zazen, and the Fukan Zazenji, I think, talks about that.

[30:35]

It's an interesting issue. I know that for me, it's one that I live with all the time. Like, am I sitting Zazen because I'm getting something, or am I sitting Zazen just for the sake of sitting Zazen? And I don't really know the answer to that question. I really can't say. I think I do both. It's just unfortunate. But I can't say, no, I don't sit Zazen because I want to do something. I said Zazen in part because there's something there that I'm getting. I'm getting that big mind emerging out of it. And I guess I consider that kind of a gaining idea. But maybe I'll learn better and win the class. I guess the final thing I'd like to talk about is the opening and closing ceremony for the practice period. I guess we'll have an opening ceremony here at the end of this session. And it's Sangha practice, I think. And then we'll have a closing ceremony at the end of the Sashin, or period, four weeks from now.

[31:47]

And that's more, that's also Sangha practice, as I see it. So we have a lot of time for questions. Ross. Thank you, Richard. I was interested in your description of how we Well, I think my practice initially hadn't really matured.

[32:59]

I think today I wouldn't, my practice isn't matured enough now that I think I don't see what's going on in my life as a reason for not practicing, not doing Sangha practice too, especially coming here. But when I was younger, again this goes back to the gaining idea thing, sort of like You're going to go sit. I'm going to go sit to eliminate Dukkha and suffering. One of the confusing things for me about Zazen or about meditation is there's so much positive things about meditation. In Three Pillars of Zen, which I reviewed last week, they talk about five different kinds of Zen, if you will, health Zen, if you will, where you meditate because you're sick or something like that, where you meditate to get a certain kind of power or energy.

[34:03]

The Japanese word slips my mind right now, chi. I forgot what it is, but there's a, there's a, you know, we get, we get a tremendous amount of energy and a big boost from sitting Zazen. So you get these things and I was getting them back then in the early days and thinking that, oh, this is it. And so when I got promoted, there were so many other things in my life, I just sort of said, well, I don't need that anymore. There's a lot of reasons for leaving. I continued to sit at home, in part because of this gaining idea of getting something from it. And when I came back, I think really there was kind of a gaining idea, gee, I'm suffering, so I gotta come back and get it. I think now that I've been here for a while, I see much more clearly that of this idea of just practicing, just doing it because it's there. I'm in the mode now of moving out of working actively and moving into retirement.

[35:06]

And I sort of say, well, what will I do if I don't work? And I can't imagine moving to a retirement community where everybody plays golf every day and plays bridge and drinks in the afternoon. this doesn't seem like a particularly fun way to be, although I think there are a lot of people who do. I want to practice, and I want to contribute to the Sangha, you know, the small Sangha that we have here and the expanding Sangha out in the rest of the world. But I didn't see that when I first started, and that's why I guess the talking about practice discussion and Dōkasan with Mel, those are things which can help keep us understanding where we're coming from. Can I answer your question? Yeah. Well, I'm curious about this 24-hour session. Was it really from like 8 in the morning until 8 in the morning the next day? I think it was from 6 to 6 or 5 to 5 or something like that. Wow. Yeah. Well, I remember Mel talking about it back in those days.

[36:08]

You know, everybody was younger. For one thing. And I guess one thing he said was, You'll have to ask him to get the details, but something like one Zen center would do something like that, and then the other Zen center would say, well, we've got to do that too. So they did it. 24 hours would be kind of interesting. I guess it's in part in the tradition for Zen people to just sit 24 hours. So it's not unusual, I guess, in that sense. Yeah, I've heard people sitting through the night, maybe starting at eight or something, and I've always wanted to do that, and I thought maybe we could do that sometime when we're feeling frisky. And with a group, it might be easier to do it. Yeah. And the other question I had was maybe about being addicted to zazen is, I wonder, it's not harming you. So I wonder if it's, maybe you just really like to sit zazen.

[37:11]

Maybe you just really love zazen. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe you don't have to have that kind of, like, this is that kind of negative take on it or something. Well, the take was, you know, I love to come and sit. And I think the take was that I was greedy. I wanted to sit for myself. And there was this other part of the Sangha which needed my help. And so I had this choice between me and the Sangha. And I think the idea was, well, maybe you've been around long enough that you can see how to make that choice. And I wasn't making that choice quite right. I think you had your hand up, and then Lois? Yeah. I just wondered if it was a surprise. It sounded like you didn't know that there was going to be a 24-hour. That's right. I didn't know. Well, I think the other people do, but I was a newbie. This was the first machine I ever went to. I really didn't know what to expect.

[38:12]

So I didn't look at the schedule. I don't think we even published the schedule. I guess we do now. We tell when they end, but maybe I didn't even look at that when I signed up for it. Just made some assumption, but that was kind of interesting. There were some surprises. It seemed to me that part of the Don't remember that. For me, the teaching has always been the same. Don't move. That's the major teaching of Sashin, right? Don't move. Follow the schedule and don't move. And then when I teach Zazen, but if you've got to move, go ahead and move. But please don't move. But if you've got to, go ahead and move. I thought Suzuki Roshi was fond of doing things that were sort of unexpected. He may have, but this was here at the Berkeley Zen Center when Mel was running it. There may have been other things going on. Maybe they were unexpected, but I didn't know enough to expect anything.

[39:17]

I don't know. Thank you. I enjoyed everything you said so far. Something about what you said about the signing up and coming to Zazen and going away suggests a lot of duality in me. And what it inspired inside me was a feeling that I've been dealing with for a while now of, no, it's not dual. You're either in the room happening to do it here, or you're walking down the street trying to remember to do it. But it's not so either or. And so when you talk about encouraging or maybe Ross said it, encouraging us when we're demoted or promoted. I'm thinking that any time I become conscious of my breath, that I'm, I don't even, I hope I don't say it, I'm doing it.

[40:25]

And looking at the chanting or the reciting that we did this morning, that was unique. I mean, he, Dogen says that. In effect, he said, don't be thinking that you're now, you're somewhere, or that you're doing zazen. That the purpose or promise, I would rather say, is that you're not doing it, you're being it. And so it's separate from the duality, or I don't mean to say separate, all the words are disintegrating as I'm trying to talk about it. I'm encouraged by hearing you that it's not so vacuous as not signing up or not showing up or not sitting down, but that maybe it's big mind that you finally, you don't have to worry so much. Are you addicted or you're not addicted? Are you absent or you're gone? Is Dolly here? Yes, she is.

[41:26]

Is she gone? I don't know. It's something profound that would It's a word that comes into dipping. You're dipping into it and maybe you bubble up, maybe you dip down. But it's continuous. That's what I'm getting at this point. We're living 24 hours, 24 by 7. Every moment we're here. And every moment we're enlightened in that sense. There's not a moment when we're not enlightened. So to my mind, that's what I say to myself, well, I'm thinking about, oh, I got it now. Oh, I'm enlightened now. And I say, well, that's OK. And then they say, well, you shouldn't think about being enlightened. Well, that's OK, too. It's all kind of, so then I say, oh, the heck with it all. It's just like, sometimes I'm going to think about it, and sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I'm going to be foolish, and sometimes I'm not going to be foolish.

[42:29]

It's all the same. That's kind of how I look at it. And sometimes I really feel bad about what it is I've done, or what it is I'm doing. And then I say, OK, I felt bad, and I just get over it. Does that support you? It supports it. I mean, the word that I'm having right now is being a wise fool. And while that's not a unique phrase, it's even commenting on yourself, being a wise fool or foolish or not foolish. Now I'm good. Now I'm not good. Yeah. Yeah. It's all just kind of... Yes? One of the things I struggle with is consistently doing an at-home practice daily. It doesn't sound like you struggle with that as much. It sounds like you were actually able to sustain that pretty well. I'm just wondering if there were times when it wasn't so easy, what kept you doing a daily practice by yourself?

[43:37]

I couldn't tell you what kept me. Well, I really like Zazen. And I find myself sort of not doing it for a while. And then I just got to go do it. And it's a lot easier for me to do it in the evening. My wife and I are, she's a morning person, I'm an evening person. So there's usually a gap of about an hour there between when she goes to bed and I don't. And I use that period, that time to sit. That's what I'm doing these days. Before I was getting up in the morning because we did morning practice here. We used to do, we used to get up, we used to do two 40 minute periods. So I used to get up at four o'clock. and come over when it was a Dwight way and sit. So I just got into that habit of getting up at four o'clock in the morning. For me, yeah, there are times when I don't do it. It's kind of what Lois and I were just saying. There are times when it's just not working, and there are times when it is, and you'll come back.

[44:46]

That's what I think. Mel likes to talk about intention. You make that intention, to sit and you try to just follow that as much as you can. If your intention is to sit at home at a certain time, then that's great. So for myself, I work on this a lot, so if I'm feeling agitated in my life, or emotional, or angry, like some emotional thing, I immediately go, got to meditate, definitely got to meditate.

[46:04]

But if I feel like things are going really smoothly, and it's just like going, then I think, I don't have to meditate. Even those people who every morning are sitting, I've talked to some of those kind of people, and they say, I have to do it. It's like my cup of coffee in the morning. They can't function without sitting first thing in the morning. Well, for me, I couldn't function with sitting first thing in the morning because I lost so much sleep. So I just think there's not that many people who I think will say that there's no gaining idea here. I challenge you. All of you are saying you just do it to be Buddha, just to be in the Buddha consciousness. I think there's other things going on. So your promotion, demotion, I understood that completely. So I think for myself, I can get one of the longevity awards here for someone who's just kind of gone through all these different ups and downs in my life, and I still have some

[47:14]

wanting to have practice, but it does fluctuate as things go in and out. But how do I deal with this? Do I push it away? Do I see where it is in my body? there is.

[48:40]

That's the way I see it. Alright. Time? Yep. Beings are numberless.

[49:37]

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