Good morning everyone. For those of you who don't know, my name is Ryushin Andrea Batch. I like to use my Dharma name here because it's a source of encouragement to me to practice and live up to the name I was given. Good morning to everyone who's on Zoom as well. Welcome. First, I just, here we are at day seven. And some of us have been here the whole time. Some of us have come and gone and come again over this time period. And yet the container of the sashim has been tight and steady and silent the whole time. I want to tell you how deeply moved I am by the practice that we've all made here together.

[01:01]

I'm particularly touched by the people who have been sitting with us for the first time or are relatively new to Sashim practice. Your sincere and wholehearted practice is really an inspiration and encouraging to us old timers. So thank you, thank you very much for our time together this week. Well, it's kind of inevitable on the last day of a multi-day sashim for our minds to begin to unwind a little bit, to be oriented, maybe a little bit for what's going to happen after we walk away from here and what tomorrow's going to like. That's just kind of normal. Things can get a little bit kind of rougher. The wheel can feel a little untrwed. That's just part of our transitioning process. But please do your best. to stay here and fully attended, to really take advantage of what we have done during these seven days.

[02:05]

It won't ever happen again like this. This was a unique experience that we made. As you know, we've heard six or now seven different takes on Zazen and some touching into the nature of enlightenment this week. And I'm going to offer you my own version for a day seven. And the question that I've been carrying is, how does Sushin practice translate into non-Sushin life? This container is so intimate. It feels so powerful. And yet when we walk out the door, we'll have that glow for a few days that calm, settledness. And then before too long, we're just sucked back into the way our lives usually are. And we've been doing a very particular kind of thing.

[03:08]

This is something that's not so easy to explain to colleagues at work or that even many of your friends will be able to relate to. So it's not like you can talk about it and get that kind of reinforcement from from your usual cohort. So the title of this talk is something like, or my intention is, it's something like Returning Home After Sashim. And what came to me was to try and do it in a little different way. It's not so much heady concepts. We've had some really wonderful talks in that way. It's more to bring us back to what our experience has been like. in Sashim, said as a body practice. We sit, we bow, we take care of each other and the temple's duties by the labor, by our physical labor. That is to say, we do it all with our body.

[04:11]

Many, many, many years ago now, the abiding teacher at Tassajara, Leslie James, said to me, No, I've come to realize this is a body practice. In some ways, we're really intimate with that this week, right? We have learned that our bodies hurt when we hold a certain position for a period of time. We all have places that have spoken to us this week, and that actually can be really good. It's good to know your experience and what you need to do about it. It might be that you need to move or start sitting in a chair for this period with the rest of Sashim. Or it might be continuing to sit and let go of the idea of pain and opening to it. That right there, that exploration, is a huge teaching and a wonderful undertaking. Why? Not because you're going to sit sata zen 24-7, because it's a training ground

[05:20]

for the way in which Dogen Zazen invites us to enter into the Dharma gate of repose and bliss. What I mean is that we also have the experience. We also need to know what we experience in the moment and what we need to do to respond. So that's just not what happens in our bodies when we're sitting Zazen, but it happens all the time in our life. What's happening in our body? What's the information here? And what do I do in response to that? How do I take care of what's arising in me? What information is coming into me? That information is always available through the body in more and more subtle ways. It's available through all the skandhas, not just what we feel physically in sensations,

[06:21]

But it's true in the emotions that we may have, or the thoughts may have, that are intimately tied in together. Or even the concepts will have a physical component for us, and that can be information to us about what's happening in our life and what to do. The knowing we come to through Zazen can be deep and intuitive. Dogen Senji said, to study the way is to study the self. He was talking about Zazen practice. He wasn't talking about reading sutras or studying particular texts or psychology. He was talking about the physical practice of Zazen as a way into studying the self, not with the mind, but with an opening to the total physical experience we have. I think this is rather radical, at least as I've come to understand this.

[07:25]

It feels pretty radical. It's not to say that's the only thing we need in our lives to have that understanding, but this is his medicine for us. This is our Buddhist medicine, and I'm not going to say it works. That would be a mistake, wouldn't it? But I'm going to say that it really is revealing and opens us up in ways and in dimensions that we couldn't really imagine otherwise, I believe. An important mentor of mine and of other people who've spoken here recently was Darlene Cohen. She was a student of Rev. Anderson's. and a teacher who had severe rheumatoid arthritis, which crippled her from the time she was in her 30s. Yet she developed a simple, very sophisticated way of practicing fully within the limits of her body.

[08:32]

She led a group called Suffering and Delight, and she had somatic training. Darlene would say after students would do an activity to ground themselves physically, she would say, stop and feel what you have done. Stop and feel what you have done. So my intention in the next minutes is to ask you to kind of be in a Zazen posture and mind in some way, but commit yourself to that attention. And I'm just going to review some of the aspects of sashim together and pause. And you will be experiencing what I'm saying out of your own experience, out of your own journey coming here and through this week. And I just hope that you'll be able to connect a little bit, perhaps a little bit more deeply, with what this week of sitting has been about for you as I do that.

[09:38]

So I'll also say, this talk has so many different incarnations, and some of what I wrote was with you, and some of it was with we, and I'm not sure I'll be consistent, but I wanted to say that when I use we, I'm really meaning each of us in your own unique experience, your own unique way. So I'm not saying we all share the same thing, I'm saying We as a group, collective group, we have shared an experience and we have met each in our own way. So come back to the beginning. Remember it was like to decide to come to the Hatsu Sushima. How many days were you going to sit? How did you decide? What did you, how did you decide? Was it an easy choice?

[10:41]

Was it a struggle to give up some days and not others? We made arrangements. We made negotiations at home for how things will get done in our absence during the days. Some of us had to take vacation time, precious vacation time from work to come. And we cleared the deck of many to-dos. It's no small feat that each and every one of us are able to be here to undertake this unique opportunity. We gave up a bunch of things too, I think. We gave up a longer morning in bed, a number of nights in good sleep. We forewent parties, gatherings with friends, holiday and Hanukkah events, We went offline, at least for some of the time, maybe a lot of the time, and that was really difficult.

[11:46]

Maybe we did no shopping, no visits to Amazon during this week, no pinging friends, no scrolling social media, listening to favorite podcasts or news briefs, kind of closing off the world to a certain extent. More or less for some of us. Maybe some of us who stayed here this whole week. Thank you for doing that. It was more than less. Some of what we gave up were necessary parts of our life. So it was really tough. Some were pleasurable aspects. And some were habits. And some of them were compulsions, maybe. It's interesting to notice those things. Depending on your relationship and what you missed out on, it might be a relief to notice. It might feel like a kind of renunciation to actually stop some things that were in the way that were hard to shake off otherwise.

[12:55]

It's unusual to allow the mind to quiet in this way. and more tolerating a different kind of not knowing. We're so busy knowing, but here we tolerate not knowing and not being in the center of our usual world. We usually feel like our activities, what we're doing is the center of my world, my thing I'm doing. And now we just surrender that and do whatever is asked of us. Bravo. Bravo, that's not an easy thing to do. It's radically different from the way most human beings live their life. So stop for a minute and feel how it's been to have made the effort to come and to have been without some of the usual patterns and activities.

[14:00]

Feel what you have done. And then we had to suspend at least somewhat what we wanted or hoped for or preferred to do this week. You know, you go out at the end of the day and look to see where your seat is and what position you're going to have, and it may be or may not be what you had hoped for. And we have to set that aside too and watch the workings of our mind if it's not exactly who we thought we were going to be or what we thought we were going to do. We just said yes to the schedule and the Sashini director's request. Stop and feel how that was. Sashini itself is very familiar to us all by now. For seven days we've sat

[15:03]

usually about seven periods of steadfast sitting, bowing and chanting and eating together and bowing to each other again. We had two important annual ceremonies, one to express our gratitude to the founders of this temple, and another celebrating the enlightenment that is possible for each and every one of us, and that only avail of our own mispronies conceptions keeps us away from that enlightenment. It's really true. It's just behind the curtain, as Dave said so eloquently yesterday. That's true, whether it feels that way or not. We practice together. We practice together. One body of practice together. making meals, cleaning up after meals, serving meals, tending to whatever our practice positions were, and working together.

[16:10]

The Shinryu Suzuki lineage work practice is considered the most important part of our practice next to Zazen. This was true for Suzuki Roshi, and it was true for Sojin. And I realized more and more that that's how Sojin lived his life and practiced here. He was always around and available to us, it seemed. The door was always open if you knocked on it. When Suzuki Roshi was at Tatsahara, as it was first being built by the students here, you think, oh, we're going to make this great monastery and we're going to have really gung-ho Zen practice and learn things and be taught things. And what he said was, I just want to live life with you. I just want to live life with you. Not something that sounds very highfalutin, but it was deep and profound.

[17:14]

Just working together, just being together in this very simple way. This week we made a sangha. trying to remember Martin Luther King's phrase, the good community, and something close to that, Luzon can tell me and tell us all at the end of lecture. But we did that for this week together. We have made a good community. We haven't had to worry about anything, not even parking tickets, thanks to our Sashima director's constant reminders. Our meals were cooked for us. Someone shopped. Someone cleaned up and took out the trash and mopped the floors. Everything was provided just so that we could do this practice together. Isn't that amazing? And even if we did those jobs ourselves, it was always as part of the team.

[18:20]

Someone cleaned up. It was always part of the team tending to the job. So it was really more like one person doing it. That way when you're in the kitchen or you're washing dishes, just something needs to be done and someone takes care of it or you're getting in trouble because the pot's too heavy and you're going to dump the beans on the floor. Someone just swoops in, picks it up and moves it in the right place for you. It's kind of miraculous how that happens. rather like Quan Yin's, a thousand arms all with a whisk and a mop and a hammer and pruning shears all functioning together. It feels so different from the way it feels, I don't know about you, but the way it feels for me when I'm cleaning my house or I'm cooking or I'm the one who's doing I either feel the burden of it or I might feel a little resentment, like can't the dog cook dinner for me tonight for once, kind of thing.

[19:30]

But here, there's only, I don't know, for me it's always been, there's just joy and ease. It's not to say there aren't tensions sometimes in the kitchen when so-and-so does such and such, but really the flow of work is something different. There's no one doing for anyone else. We're just doing. And that's a pretty unique way to function in our contemporary society. So take a moment and think about the shared practice that you've done. Feel how it's been. In a world where disharmony and division seek the perpetual front page, the refuge of following the schedule and doing the next thing by saying yes to whatever is a relief.

[20:40]

And that has created this container of stability and simplicity. Radical. Just say yes. I want to say a few words about the practice of Zazen in a way that fits into some other comments I'm going to make a bit later. I wonder what it's been like for you. There will be time at the end. I hope I've paced this well enough to have time to talk. I wonder what it's been like for you. Also, so many years ago, maybe a little over 10 years ago, I heard this quote from Suzuki Roshi and I wondered why it wasn't front page news for all Zen students. Maybe some of you know it. He gave the instruction during a sushin to just let each part of your body sit zazen.

[21:48]

Do some of you know that quote? I think it's a pretty radical thing. Somehow, when each part of the body can just rest and take care of itself, the whole sitting, the whole body, the whole organism functions with more ease. Instead of trying to control or shift or fix one thing and have it somehow have to fit with something else, Each thing just takes care of itself. It's radical. Just let each part of your body sit zazen. And I find when I give the troubled parts, the back that's hurting, the back that has a creep in it, whatever, the space just to let go. Just to be fully present in its experience, somehow it becomes more tolerable or changes.

[22:57]

No promises. But that's been my experience of working with this practice. This is the doorway to what Kosho Uchiyama was saying when he says, Zazen is just the self doing the self. Big self, if you will. He actually didn't capitalize them or not. It's just the self doing the self. And I think you can access it a little more easily, that kind of cryptic sounding term, by this experience of sitting zazen in a way where each part is fully itself. The self just does the self. I wrote here that the phenomenal or the ordinary of us becomes part of something bigger, something freer, something beyond us when we sit in that way.

[24:04]

So allow each part of you to do zazen, and it could be true for any of the five skandhas, whether it's sensation, feeling, emotion, thoughts, concepts, consciousness, allow them to comport freely in the wide field of Zazen. Dogen is beginning to make a little more sense, isn't he? How many times during the Sashin did we give ourselves Zazen instructions, over and over exploring what it's like to be in our body just right now? Not trying to correct a faulty posture. I think that's really important. That just adds to a sense of tension when we sit. But just coming back into an upright and open posture. Back into harmony with the body and the breath. So please, on a side, don't worry if none of this has been your experience.

[25:12]

Zazen is a lifelong personal exploration that's unique to you. Your path in this practice will be your path. And those we can share, you know, people who sit in this seat and people you talk to can share their experience. You're going to have your own and find your own way. There's no straight line in practice. There's no... You know, this is not Stepladder Zen as we say, but there's no formula. It's all about just exactly what each of you has been doing. Sincerely putting forth an effort to sit day after day, period after period, time after time, you know, everyday life. And something will shift when you practice in that way. when, how, what exactly it looks like, no promises.

[26:16]

You can't evaluate whether your Zazen is good or bad. Zen, Zazen is just Zazen, and your first period of Zazen is as good as Shaka Muni's. It's really true. Your effort in this moment is complete. It's really true. As Dogen says, it's the Dharma gate towards freedom. So there's one more aspect about Sashin I want to reflect on before talking about going home, and it's the rhythms in Sashin. There's, I think, a short talk by Sojin in his soon to be widely available book on this topic. But I'm surprised that we don't talk about this or this aspect of our practice more. So I just am beginning to really home-mind this, so I'm exploring it, and you may have some thoughts to add what I'm going to say.

[27:27]

Sashin establishes a rhythm. That's kind of obvious, isn't it? We have a schedule, when we follow that schedule. In some ways, the days seem like they're all the same and I can never remember who cooked what on what day or even when I did what position or who I sat next to. It's just all one blur of sameness. But Sashin's rhythms bring us back to the natural world. It brings it back to our very nature. In the repeating days, we return to a more organic and natural way of being in harmony with the natural world and other human activity and with ourselves. Our days here have been variable repeats of each other that has been familiar, perhaps as familiar in some ways as breathing, just as natural as breathing, somehow fundamental.

[28:32]

more fundamental than how we often find ourselves living. But I just again want to ask you to come and think about a typical day. Somehow this is very useful and evocative for me to evoke what it's like to get up in the morning and drive in and come in onto the grounds that are quiet. People are moving about what they need to do. You walk into the zendo, the lights are low, and there's a soft glow from the altar. Take your seat and wait. You'll hear the doshi come in, the bells for the vows, and you'll hear the doshi come in, and then you'll listen for him or her. to go by and put your hands in gasho, you're tuning in. The practice is about tuning in to your body and to the environment.

[29:40]

You'll tune in as the doshi passes, and then the densho will go and will sit. All we'll hear is the air purifier humming for a good long time in that quiet. Maybe like me, you sometimes wait and wonder, am I going to hear the Dohan stand up? Dohan gets up. Turn on the camera. Turn on the Zuru Zendo. The timekeeper gets up and the bells ring. We sit again. Amtrak goes by at the 650 train. Dogs bark. Crows and jays start to squawk. The day's beginning to get underway. More bells, we bow and chant, have service. The servers come and they go. The wash water comes and it goes.

[30:41]

We take a break. We come back in. We sit. The sun is even higher in the sky. The traffic is going. Street noises started. There's a protest of some kind going on at the Ashby Bar station. You hear, if it's Sunday, you might smell the smells from the Thai temple. The day is underway. We're sitting. There's some activity, like someone sitting in this seat. And then there's more bells and bowing and chanting and eating and working. The afternoon comes. Maybe you're tired. Afternoon time period is always a time when I would feel achy and like it was harder to stay awake and pay attention. There's saws and buzz saws and cop cars going by and other days busy, but the sun is passing over. The light is dropping down.

[31:44]

It starts to get warm on the west side of the Zendo. Put the blinds down because it's too bright. Slowly, slowly, the sun drops. It begins to be twilight. A kind of hush falls over the zendo again, our sitting, waiting one more time for the timekeeper to get up and go, go home, have our dinner and go to bed. And that kind of natural rhythm repeats itself over and over again. We sit through the turning of the sun and life around us, the coming of life, and the going back to sleep. Each day blends into the other. I experience this as finding a rhythm in my life that usually gets buried over in the busyness of the many to-dos that don't stop from beginning to end of the day.

[32:44]

It's so possible to artificially cram more in than what you can find. what you can do in a day, in a day. Many years ago now, maybe 35, I was driving, I was riding back from SFO from a trip. I was in some kind of car transporter with some strangers, a bus, I think, and I was talking to a man who is probably my age now. And just as we passed Hospital Curve, we were looking out over San Francisco, and he lamented, he said, this used to be a town where you could look out and have a sense of the geography of the land where this was built. You could see the contours of the hills. In North Beach, you could see the contours of the hills out a ways towards the sunset.

[33:45]

said now all these buildings are so tall you don't know where you are anymore i kind of feel like our daily life is like that my daily life anyway is often like that i'm so in the stuff of doing my my life that i don't know where i am in a fundamental way unless i really look work at it That's part of why this practice has been so powerful for me. So Sheen helps us find that rhythm of life and connect with the natural world again in a way that we don't so readily. Maybe when we go backpacking, you know, vacation a little bit, you know, a nice vacation does that somewhat. Being out in nature really does that because you're in the elements in the same way that we get to be in the cycles of listening to the birds and even the hum of human activity. Sojin would say that our lives are like a mandala.

[34:50]

Never wonder what he meant by that. I did. A mandala is an architectural picture that's supposed to be a representative of a spiritual journey. That architectural picture has many different components to it. Our life has many different components that all make up the mandala of our life, of our way of living. It includes sitting. It includes the Buddha mudra of sitting and letting each body part sit its own zazen. It includes our one body practice here. It includes the community we live in. It includes Everything. In Genji Okolan, Dogen Zenji says, if you believe Okamura Roshi's commentary, Dogen Zenji says, you know, we're like a fish in the water.

[35:56]

We're the fish, but the water is our own true nature. That's his understanding. It's very deep and very subtle. Everything is our own true nature. There's nothing left out. So, we're about to leave here, and what about that? I wanted to share a couple of admonitions, you know, a couple of kind of suggestions, big kind of ways of thinking about going back. And then I have a few suggested practices, and I hope we have a few minutes for you to share some of your practices too. In an homage to Zen student and poet Jane Hirschfield, I've kind of plucked two lines of a poem of haiku that is well known.

[36:57]

The two admonitions are pay attention, and everything is connected from her poem. Pay attention. Here our minds are moving slower. They're more open, unassuming. We can take in so much more. We're so much more open than when we're in our headspace of what happened, what we're going to do, and gosh, all the five things that I have to do right now. We can actually take in who it is that we're seeing. We can take in That's a jungle out there. You know, we can take in so much of the world that just blows by us. Everything is connected. I think it was hard to make that into a simple statement, but emphasize relationship is where I've landed.

[37:59]

Everything is connected. Look to understand, respect, and rely on the connection that you have with others. Always be fostering that. There's so much to say about that, but just in the shorthand. So just for a moment again, take a moment and notice the experience of the rhythms of our days and sitting, and the immediacy, the immediacy of the web of interconnection of which we're a part. What's that like for you? So nine suggested practices, and maybe I won't make much comment on them, so we'll have a few minutes. Stop doing. This is related to something Mary was saying. Stop doing. It's so easy to do things and fill in the time.

[39:02]

Get supercharged with more great experiences, more information, more ideas. Let me just look that up. Oh, it's over here. You stop trying to manipulate the world and satisfy whatever brain candy is being called for. It's amazing out there. Practice not trying to get something. Of course it's important to have some things we really need. And having some things for pleasure is a good thing too. You don't have to look so hard for them. Maybe you've just opened. You'll be surprised at what you find that's pleasurable and fulfilling. A bunch of us used to roll our eyes at Sojin when he would say, when you need something, it'll just show up. But it's actually true.

[40:04]

It's actually right, if you allow it to. Otherwise, you'll be chasing after something else and totally miss it. Do one thing at a time. I can't tell you how hard this is for me. Just one thing. One thing at a time. You know, I'm not going to answer that call, look up what messages just came in to me on that platform, that platform, that platform. I'm just driving to this next appointment. It's really hard to do that. You feel your body feels so much better. You're able to give better attention. You have more energy because you're not so on overdrive. Do one thing at a time. Your body is your teacher. Tune in. Tune in when it's speaking to you. And even if it's not, take a little time to ask if it has anything it would like to tell you.

[41:07]

Always know where your breath is. We've heard that a bunch of times. It's invaluable, an invaluable instruction, no matter what your circumstance, but especially when emotions are high or when you're uncertain, to find your breath down in your hara and let it be your anchor in the way that you do when you start sazan. Find your breath. Look for it during the day. Set a sitting schedule and stick to it unless there's something urgent and unexpected. This is one I really like. Make daily rituals apart from sitting. They really help focus the mind and help us reconnect with what's most important to us about our lives and our practice. Maybe Shingi Dogen's instructions for living in the monastery.

[42:13]

There are all kinds of rituals and Gathas, little sayings to support us in washing our face, going to the toilet, brushing our teeth, offering food. There's a whole list of Gathas that go on and on. It's possible to make anything a ritual, doing the dishes with full attention and care, putting them aside. folding your laundry, anything given with, anything taken care of with respect for what it is, and paying attention to it becomes, if you will, a way of bringing Sashim practice alive. So perhaps there's a ritual of setting your intention for the day, Touching the reason why you're practicing or just what your aspiration is for the day or something that you're going to do.

[43:13]

Maybe you can read three times before you go into school to set up your classroom and get ready for the day. Or touch your, take a breath before you knock on the door and go in and see the next patient. Read three times before you pick up the thumb. Think of some rituals to do or a way to make the everyday have some component of taking your attention. Some of us might call that the sacred. I was trying not to say that word because not everyone relates to that, but something that moves it out of what you want to do to the object to being fully present to what you're doing. Connect, number eight. Connect. Look at people in the eye when you see them or say hello.

[44:16]

That doesn't feel possible. You can make a bow. There's a way of doing that at Tassajara where people are always passing each other and the expectation is that you'll always greet each other with a respectful bow. no matter what. And if that feels out of place for you or not what you can do in your circumstance, you can bow internally to the Buddha nature in that person. Listen to hear and not be heard, at least as a start. Be curious and open. Meet everyone in a fresh way without preconceptions, especially strangers or those people who elicit a charge. And number nine, be grateful. Be grateful for our Buddhist ancestors, the Suzuki Roshi, the Sojin, and all the practitioners, including you now, who have worn the patina of their sincere efforts into this place for over 60 years.

[45:24]

Gratitude to the Sushin director and the work leader, the cooks, the moppers, the servers, and everyone else who supported this week. online tech people grateful for the baggers the bull the electrician who somehow got here within a few hours when we blew out all the lights in the community room and even the parking cop grateful for the folks who live under the tarps down the street especially on cold and gray rainy days for the guy who dropped you off coming drop the guy who cut you off driving home, and for the dog who vomited on your bed on the night of Sachin Day 3. Grateful for the free rides and the obstacles, for everything in the spinning wide world. It's all part of the miraculous Vandala that we share. And tomorrow, another day to be grateful for.

[46:28]

So still we have a few more periods. Find our breath and find the rhythm in this one-room schoolhouse and appreciate it. Let's not miss out on anything. So thank you for your attention. I think there may be time for a question or two. If anyone has a comment or your own practices or your own experience of finding rhythms in your life. Thank you, Andrea, for your talk. Your last statement that you said, feel grateful for those, you know, that are under test and cold, et cetera, I feel loving kindness. So I'm wondering, you said grateful. Could you tell me why, how you feel grateful for that?

[47:35]

I don't feel grateful for the circumstances that they're in, but I feel grateful that they are there doing their best to live their life. I don't feel separate from them, but for the grace of whatever. It could be any of us. I'm glad they're a part of my world. I wish that they had housing and all of that, but they're here. By expressing gratitude, I'm not turning my eyes away from them, or the difficulty of the experience. I'm taking it in. Does that make a little sense? Yep, and loving kindness too. Yes, definitely loving kindness too. And Jesus' fierce compassion too. Mira and Kabir, both.

[48:39]

Thank you for your talk. Thank you for your talk. You said one thing that I don't quite understand. You were talking about each part of our body doing I think that's what you said. And I look at it just the opposite. I look at all the parts of my body are having to balance each other and work together. One part I move a little, then I have to move the other part a little. The arms and the shoulders, it all seems to go together. So I don't understand what you said. Yeah, I really appreciate that. I really appreciate the awareness of the way in which the body works together, sitting and adjusting posture. My experience of this instruction is sometimes there's a body part that just is having a hard time or is really speaking to me, and there's no way to take care of it

[50:00]

rely on everything else, so it has to take care of itself. And so it just, I put my attention and allow it just to be as it is, creating some space around it. And somehow that changes how it is. It's like it's a way of letting go instead of trying to fix or work around it or balance it out. I'm letting go into what's happening. is how I would describe that experience for myself. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. Very, very helpful. Because as you said, before we know it, we get sucked into our schedules and everything else in between. Three out of the things you mentioned on the list, my practice lately is the breath and getting to know my body.

[51:12]

But more importantly, gratitude. But now I have six more. In case you need a little extra help. Yes, indeed. Maybe you'll come back with number 10. Thank you so much. Thank you. One more from Gary, or should we stop it? Let's do one more. It might help the people online if you have it, Gary. Thank you for that warm talk. It was wonderful. My practice that I try and do, and I'm not successful all the time, is try and do what's in front of me. Because, you know, there's just, Sojan used to say, you know, you could be doing anything, but you're here in Sashin.

[52:16]

So do Sashin if you're in Sashin. Yeah, beautifully said. I think it's a more direct way of saying, do one thing at a time. It's like, because then you're like, so which of those things should I take? You just like, so there's something in front of you, and you just do that. Yeah, and your eyes will reveal what's in it. You know, it's telling you. The universe is telling you through your eyes. It's hard when you're getting pinged from, I'm just teasing. It's so fun. All right, I think we have to call time. Thanks to everyone out there online. Appreciate seeing you there.

[53:00]

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