Good morning. Good morning. Is it on? Yes. OK. Can you hear? That was wonderful to start with a song yesterday. I thought about it, and then I thought again. It worked just right the way it was. Although it took some figuring out to figure out how do we do that. I'm going to continue with a Suzuki Roshi lecture and commenting on it. Let me just explain what I've been doing, which it's been really enjoyable and it's something that I recommend to you if you if you don't have enough to do.

[01:00]

Not now, not during Seshin. As I said, some of the raw transcripts of Suzuki Roshi's lectures are available, a lot of them are available on the web, on kyuk.com. And so I've been going back to the raw lectures and looking for ones from Seshin and then discovering there are ones that there's a whole bunch that were taken for not always so but I've been editing I've been editing the raw ones myself and then going back and looking at not always so but it it helps me to actually I have to look at his language which is challenging and figure out what it is he's saying and then compare it with what Ed Brown and Sojin came up with in Not Always So It. You know, pretty close.

[02:00]

Their edits are terrific. Very clear and really preserve his voice. Anyway, this one was a Seifin lecture from June 1971 in Page Street. So it was about six, seven months before Suzuki Roshi died. There's a vividness to his to his teaching in that period that is striking. And a lot of the lectures that are in Not Always So are relatively late, as opposed to what was collected in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, which is relatively early, I think the early 60s. So anyway, this one, if you wanted to look at uh the version not always so is called the teaching just for you so he begins i want you to understand our practice we say our practice is just to sit but i want to explain what we mean by just to sit usually we think practice means to expect something you think your practice will be to improve

[03:21]

And if you practice aiming at something, you expect eventually to reach the goal of practice that you expect. So, whatever that goal is, when we practice, a lot of us come, we expect to stop suffering, because that's what Buddhism, that's what the Buddha taught. He said, you know, I teach about suffering and the end of suffering. So good, like, I like the end of suffering and don't like looking at suffering too much. I've got enough of that. Often we come expecting enlightenment, whatever that is. Some of us have grandiose ideas and we, as Raul was talking about Baso polishing the tile, we dream about becoming a Buddha.

[04:39]

So we have these various goals that we think we'd like to reach maybe. But it's interesting to look at this word practice, which we use a lot. It basically means developing some kind of proficiency by repetition. It means sort of digging in to an activity, a musician practices, an athlete practices. They do the same things over and over again in order, and as they do them, those activities become reflexive and very deep, deeply programmed within our minds and our bodies. And that's something that happens as we sit sasan, as we just sit.

[05:48]

And Suzuki Roshi says in the next sentence, he says, actually, your practice will improve day by day. So that's encouraging. if you want some numbers on that, a really interesting book by Malcolm Gladwell recently called Outliers. I really like his work. I mean, he has very straightforward ideas that come at things from angles that you might not have thought of before. Anyway, one of the One of the essays is basically, how did the Beatles get to be so good? And he talks about them playing in Hamburg. And they played like six to eight hours a night, day after day after day.

[06:53]

And when they started, they weren't particularly good band, pretty raggedy, but by the time they ended, they just could nail everything that they were doing. And then Gladwell starts looking, starts running statistics, and what he gets to is, he talks to musicians, he talks to athletes, he talks to different people, and he comes up with a figure, 10,000 hours. So keep that in mind. Now the next thing you're going to do as you're sitting here is you're going to sit here and you're going to try to figure out, how many hours of zazen have I done? Well, you know what? There's quite a number of people in this room who've done more than 10,000 hours. I saw this, there was a study of Tibetan meditators and they had quantified that people who had meditated, who had practiced between 10 and 20,000 hours began to have some proficiency at basically influencing their brainwaves.

[08:15]

Not that that necessarily means anything, but it just I'm just giving you, I'm just throwing out this number and it's sort of like a really big mistake. This is like a terrible gaining idea. But practice and repetition, as Suzuki Roshi says, actually your practice will improve day by day. But there's another understanding of Zazen. When you practice, the goal is right now. Not one year or two years later. When you practice our way with this understanding, you will be completely involved in the practice you have right now. So this is the sixth day of Seshin, and people who've been sitting here quite steadily, I think many of us are actually involved in the practice that we have right now.

[09:17]

It's as if there's no other time. And it's also, after this many days of just sitting, just eating, just working, going to the bathroom, this is our life. Right here in Seixin is just our life. and it feels fine. You may harbor a thought about seeing your family or doing something afterwards, but actually, that thought may come up, you may go to do kin-hin, and each time we sit down, each time I sit down here, I feel, it's like, ah, And then the pain may come after a while while I'm sitting, but each time there's just this ease of doing something that feels very much at home.

[10:30]

So Suzuki Roshi says, you may say my practice, even in Seshin, is not good enough to reach the goal or to feel the full meaning of my practice. And then he says, try another way of looking at it. Even though your practice might not feel good enough, there is no other practice for you right now. If it feels good, great. If it feels bad, okay. There's nothing else to be doing. I think, was it Raul who talked about sojurns versus sasheen? Yeah, he left. There was no place else to go. He left, he wandered around down by the water near the Texas Bay Bridge, near the Golden Gate, and ultimately he went back because there was no place else to go.

[11:37]

There's no other practice for you right now, good or bad. That is your own practice. So we kept going back to these words of Dogen where he says, establish your practice right in delusion. That's like saying in the Buddhist phrase, the lotus blooms in muddy water. this beautiful flower blooms in the muck. When I was traveling recently, I saw a whole stretch of lotuses blooming. They were growing them in Burma, and the water was disgusting. I wouldn't want to swim in it, but the flowers were so explosively bright.

[12:44]

Actually, here is how to understand Buddha's teaching. Whatever you see, whatever you hear, that is actually Buddha's teaching. Buddha explained it in his own way according to the people with him, meaning his culture. Bodhidharma gave instructions to Chinese people in his own way. So our teachers each have their own voice, an explanation according to American culture, if there is such a thing. Without Buddha, without Bodhidharma, without people who may see things, who live in this world, there is no beautiful flower or bright star. That means without each of us practicing right here.

[13:49]

Our practice is creating this reality. Because we are here, says the Guru, she says, and because Buddha was in India, there are teachings. When the understanding of yourself and embodiment of truth become one, there is real truth. The truth we mean is truth which is experienced actually. The actual truth that will help us is our own. So he's kind of narrowing in. This common practice that we have of sitting is kind of a refined teaching that's come together over hundreds and thousands of years. But the point of it is to feel yourself completely and to recognize that the truth, which means waking up, is nowhere other than in each of us.

[15:14]

So we say, just sit, because we have Buddha nature. So, you just sit. When we look at Dogen's teachings, the principle that find him building on again and again, is what Dogen called practice realization. Practice realization is turning this kind of goal of Zen practice, the goal of enlightenment, it's turning it inside out. So instead of practicing to become enlightened, practice realization means we sit to express the enlightenment that's already manifest in ourselves.

[16:21]

Not to reach it, not to get to some place, but that it's already imminent in us. And when we sit, we're bringing it forth. Really, I feel like there's moments when each of us can catch a glimpse of this in the room. Each of us can really feel it and when we feel it, you know, sort of by reflection, by looking at our friends and the people who are around and seeing how they are bringing forth this miraculous interdependence of everything, which is the truth, the truth of awakening.

[17:26]

And then maybe we give ourselves just a little credit and think, oh, I'm doing that too. I am part of that myself. But then we have this other mind, Suzuki Roshi says. We try to understand this with our scientific mind. You try to objectively observe and understand your practice or someone's practice. Oh, they are sitting in the Buddha hall, so that must be good practice. that maybe you could say is a superficial understanding. More clearly, you don't understand your subjective side. Subjective side meaning there is nothing apart from you, nothing apart from me, everything that we see and do is

[18:35]

part of ourselves is subjective in that sense. Objective means I'm here and I'm looking at the mokugyo and that's an object. It's outside of me. Is it outside or is it inside? The subjective way of looking, which is what is cultivated as we sit sazen, is there's one reality in which everything is linked, connected, part of that. Truth is always there, but if someone who does not directly observe the truth calls it truth, that is a so-called painted cake, which you cannot eat. even though you are actually sitting, you are eating paper cake.

[19:44]

So there's no taste and you will give it up because it doesn't mean anything actually. So this is... I'll make a kind of digression here because this is also something that Dogen spoke of painted rice cake. So painted rice cake historically in Buddhism means, you know, well, a painting of a rice cake is not, doesn't satisfy your hunger. And Dogon's fascicle, which is a complex one, But as he often does, he turns it on its head. By the end of the fascicle, he gets to the point where he says, there's nothing that can satisfy your hunger but a painted rice cake. And by that, he means that the thoughts, the feelings, everything that exists within our mind

[20:59]

nourishes us. Yesterday John referred to a teaching by Maha Gosananda, everything is eating. We're eating our feelings, we're eating time, we're eating our thoughts. This nourishes us. Sometimes we want this nourishment, sometimes we spit it out. So there's a way of even taking the painted cake that Suzuki Roshi is critiquing here and seeing that as deeply satisfying. And in fact, Sometimes we're painting the cake. We're thinking thoughts, which is wonderful, means we're completely alive.

[22:07]

We're speaking words. We're taking the brush, and however skillful or unskillful we may be, we're making that stroke, drawing that circle and putting the icing on it and putting the candle in it and writing, happy birthday. And then we send that. We send that out and people are very touched. Back to the lecture. Suzuki Rishi says, or you may say, Zen is no good. It doesn't mean anything. Even though we sit seven days, it doesn't result in anything, which is true. So it may be better to go downtown and to eat something instead of the food Zen Center provides. Actually, maybe the food has evolved.

[23:12]

I think most people really like the food here. And it's true, as Raul pointed out yesterday, it seems like we're always getting fed. Just whenever you turn around, it's time for another meal or tea or you can get coffee. It's like we're always eating. Very, very lucky. This is not like a monk's life in Southeast Asia where you have to go on rounds to the villagers and they'll put food and curry in your bowl and you get one meal a day. And that's it. We're fed over and over again. So maybe you don't want to go downtown. Maybe you actually want to stay here and live in Zendo and be fed all the time. That would be good. Actually, if you go to Tassajara, it's like that.

[24:14]

The meals just keep coming. It's like a cult of food. Anyhow. He says, but maybe you fool yourself. You are pleased when people call you a Zen student. So your practice is encouraging your ego. This is maybe true. Certainly towards the beginning there's sometimes we have some pride and, oh, I'm doing this somewhat obscure and rarefied practice. Or even, I'm sitting sashin. Wow. I'm sitting these seven days. That's kind of a good thing. I must be a vigorous person with principles.

[25:16]

He says, you're not really practicing Zen. If just to sit is like that, Zen does not mean anything. So we have to be careful. If Zen was like that, like just we could be proud to be Zen students, it wouldn't have survived so long. Zen is still alive because you accept the truth as your own. Various ancestors and great sages of Buddhism or various religions said, Buddha left the teaching just for me. Just for me, this is kind of the pivotal point of this lecture, just for me is not arrogance. Just for me means full appreciation of the teaching as your own. That is the spirit we need in our zazen practice.

[26:21]

He says, everybody can be Nichiren, one of the contemporary of Dogen who was a revolutionary teacher in Japan. Everyone can be Dogen or Bodhidharma. I'd say everyone can be Suzuki Roshi. Everyone can be Sojon. He says, because I practice zazen, there is Dogon, there is Bodhidharma. Actually, because we practice zazen in this room, in this time and place, there is our teacher, Sojan. Unless we showed up, he could not be himself. And there is Buddha's teaching. So we are making the practice happen. He said, you should realize that you are the only, the one being in this world.

[27:29]

And you are the only one who exists in this world. No one can take over your position. So all the teaching is just for you. 20th century master Kodosawaki had a vivid expression of this, in which he said, no one can exchange so much as a fart with you, in fact. We can smell it, but we can't exchange it. Each one of us is contained in our own reality. Each one of us is the whole world. And there are multitudes of worlds. When you are young, you have no such feeling.

[28:32]

Meaning, you don't have the thought that that reality is so compressed that it's all located in you. Today is not so valuable for you. If you become my age, Suzuki Roshi's age, you will really feel I am just this one being. No one can take over my position, so I must not fool myself. In other words, as we mature, We realize we have to take responsibility for our life. We have to take responsibility for the situations that we're in. And we begin by... Here, that's our daily activity, just sitting, and each of us is making this practice go.

[29:45]

It wouldn't happen without you. Without this confidence or this understanding, your practice will be weak. Oh no, I am not good enough to practice Zazen. I can't practice. Zen is so beautiful and perfect. You will feel, actually feel, various weaknesses of your character and conduct. This is true. Each of us feels it, and sometimes we feel it really acutely in sushi. We feel ourselves missing the mark again and again and again, and we give ourselves encouragement and we have the space to return again and again and again, but then fail again and again and again. One continuous mistake. you will feel, actually feel various weaknesses of your character and conduct.

[30:47]

This kind of feeling will take over and you think you cannot sit. But whatever you think about yourself, you are the only one. You cannot escape from this world because the whole world is yours. Even though you can criticize yourself, that's easy. But how can you deny this fact that you are the only one? When you realize this point, you can hear or you can see the truth and you can practice zazen. You can accept the truth, whatever it is. We say our practice is to open yourself to everything. Everything you see is an embodiment of the truth. To open yourself and accept Buddha. This is why we practice zazen and why everyone can join our practice, and why this practice includes every activity in your life.

[31:53]

Our practice can be the accumulation of human experience as scientific knowledge, But Buddhists put emphasis on the subjective side of the truth. That is why we say every one of us is Buddha. The subjective side is always with us. The subjective side is us. The subjective side is always with us without losing the objective side of the truth. He says sometimes people who call themselves spiritual ignore the objective side of the truth, that is also a mistake. This objective reality, the reality of things is also part of our awareness and consciousness, it's part of our pleasure and joy. It's contained within this objective, so

[33:04]

Other terms for this, you could call the subjective in a sense, you could call it the absolute, and the objective, the relative. They cannot exist apart from each other. And even though I am the whole world, to me, Bob is the whole world to Bob. Everything is Bob from that point of view. Everything is Paul from that point of view. It's remarkable. I had this challenging experience in India. I took a taxi from the airport. You go into a a booth and they give you a, you pay a fee and they give you a guaranteed price to get you to, you've done this. Right. So. I've avoided it. Well, no.

[34:08]

Sometimes it works really well and sometimes it does not. You know, so this was in Calcutta, which I'd never, and I'd never been there and it was dark, you know, and it was night. So I got, I figured, okay, I wasn't communicating very effectively with this taxi driver, but I just trusted. He drove around for about an hour, and it was clear, he didn't know where the hell he was going. And finally, he pulled up on a corner, a busy part of Calcutta, in a neighborhood, and there was a guy, a rickshaw driver, a real rickshaw, you know, sometimes they have bicycle rickshaws. This was like, you know, two handles, and a very, very skinny guy who was pulling it, and basically the taxi driver made me get out of the camp with my bag. And it was clear I had gotten my money's worth. And he was like moving me onto this rickshaw and I got up there and I just thought, where the fuck am I?

[35:23]

And it was interesting that the rickshaw was like, you're sitting up pretty high. There's a class thing as well. It's just like, oh, I'm this pretty well-to-do white guy on this really thin, black, dark-colored Indian is pulling me around. And I don't know if he knows where I'm going either, and I can't talk to him. But I was sitting there at a certain point, this is where I'm really grateful I practiced. I just sat there and thought, this is kind of an amazing reality, and watched the streets go by, and it took about a half an hour, but I also realized nothing bad is going to happen here. I have some money, I have credit cards, you know, it's no problem really, just my discomfort.

[36:33]

So I was on top of the world, on top of the rickshaw, but I was also thinking, this, the man who's pulling the rickshaw, he's also the entire world. This is his whole world. I can't exchange a fart with him. I can exchange money. And after a while he pulled up in front of this hotel that you could hardly tell was a hotel, but he got to the right place. And you look around the streets, it's like there are an infinite number of worlds. How do we encompass that? How do we understand that? You know, both unsettling and marvelous. So, Suzuki Roshi says, do you know the story of the dragon?

[37:49]

And I think you know the story of the dragon. It's been told by quite a bunch here. A Chinese person liked dragons very much. And he talked about dragons to his friends. And he painted dragons. And he bought various kinds of dragons. So a dragon thought, hey, if I, a real dragon like me, visited him, he may be very happy. So one day the real dragon snuck into this Chinese man's room and he didn't know what to do. Wah! This is Suzuki Roshi quoting. He couldn't even run away. He couldn't even stand up. Wah! He was terrified. The real dragon showed up. And Suzuki Roshi says, we are like him.

[38:50]

But we should always be a dragon be the dragon himself, not just his friend, then you will not be afraid of any dragon. But you may not know what a dragon is. It is difficult to appreciate a dragon if you don't know what it is. We should each find out. So we should sit here and be dragons. You know, we should very quietly roar. We should breathe flame. We should be comfortable in our bodies. And to be a dragon means, in a sense, to be large. And we also have to be really careful, because if we have a room full of dragons, which we do,

[39:57]

We have to make sure we're not swatting each other with our tales, or our words, or our actions. We have to harmonize very closely so the dragons can all live together. But we should be deeply, fully ourselves. We should study our way from various angles. With this kind of understanding, you will practice Zazen. Zazen becomes your own Zazen and you are Buddha, you are a dragon, and you can express your true nature in everything you do. That freedom, that is freedom from the form of practice, to be able to express yourself in everything you do. You might also think of that as, that is freedom within the form of practice. In other words, within every activity, finding yourself is actually embodying the form of being alive.

[41:08]

Whatever you do, you will be really you. Whatever you do, you will be Buddha in the true sense. Buddha said you should rely on yourself. That was actually, that was in his last teachings, just as he was dying. This means that you should be the boss of everything. So again, like having a room full of dragons, We should be the boss of everything. Having a room full of bosses has its own set of complications. It means we have to be very careful. But it means also respecting each person as fully themselves.

[42:12]

And that includes, first and foremost, respecting ourselves. he finishes, then you will understand Buddha's teaching and our practice as our own. So that's where I'll stop for a few minutes for comments or questions. By the way, tomorrow it's Saturday and also we're going to have Buddha's enlightenment ceremony, I think, after lectures I'll be talking about Buddhist enlightenment. I'm not quite sure where that's going to go yet, but we'll see. Anyway, any thoughts or questions that come from what we've been thinking about, listening to? And I think a lot of what you just said goes on to say that the lotus cannot bloom with purity without the muddy water.

[43:37]

And I'm wondering if we can push that even a little bit. I'm hoping we can push that a little bit farther. The week before Satshi, the Senate voted to create an American Gulag, essentially. Is it possible that even if you have the muddy water, is that enough to generate the lotus? Within very dark times it seems. But does that imply the other side arising from it? only arise so far as there are seeds, and sometimes it takes people cultivating, spreading them, and being able to place them carefully so that they don't die.

[44:40]

Sometimes the water may be toxic, but I think so. I feel like we've been seeing really awful things and also if we look around the world, if we look around this country, now we've been seeing really remarkable sprouting and generation of perhaps more hopeful things than I've seen in a very long time. So that's both possible. Which way that's going to go, we don't know. But the water is very muddy. So you have to, that's the thing. If this teaching is just for you, the question is, what are you going to do about it? How will you make this happen? How do you make the reality that you deeply believe in happen?

[45:41]

And how can we help you? Thank you. Well, maybe it's related. I could really relate to the rickshaw story. And I was in a similar position, although it was a bicycle rickshaw. But similar, you know, where am I? What's going on? There's this small skinny guy, you know, peddling me and he turned to me at one point as he was bicycling along and he obviously didn't have much English but he wanted to make some contact and he kind of turned and he looked at me and he smiled and he said so who is your god? and I mean talk about I mean these guys their lives are not so much fun talking about being in the mud I mean it's literally it's mud it's cow shit it's a hard life

[46:54]

And for him to be able to turn around and say that to me and for something to spark between us was very humbling and touching. And so those seeds that you refer to I think can be found everywhere. One of the things that's come up again and again over the last five or six days has been the very real manifestation of joy and that joy can it can arise even in situations that um would surprise us like like that yeah thank you what did you say by the way i you know i don't think I knew what to say. I just, I kind of laughed and... Hi.

[48:00]

I want to remind you of this story. Last summer I went to do a wedding for James Redfield's people. It was in rural Washington and the car broke down on the way back to the airport and we were outside this truck repair place which was run by Mennonites, a community, a very radical community. And these three guys, father, son, grandfather, they were going to take me 30 miles to the airport, which was very kind. So we get in the truck, in front of the truck, and we're riding down the road, and after about two minutes the older man turns to me and said, So, do you believe in our savior Jesus Christ? And I just, I kind of laughed and turned and said, wow, I'm really in it now.

[49:10]

I'm not sure I had a good answer, but what I said was, why don't disbelieve in him? We actually had a great conversation. It was good. Eric? Yeah, I've been thinking a lot that I know many dragons and many people that are working from their subjective place and to the point of being sort of narcissistic. And I was just kind of taking what you were talking about And for me, the way I've sort of been working with it is sort of like that rice cake. I've kind of been eating that painted rice cake, engaging with them in that way. But often I feel like I'm not really doing them service in some way. And that way that they're living is perpetuating and they're eating up other people. you know, maybe who are less skillful and be able to work with them.

[50:17]

So I just wanted to offer that in some way this talk about, yeah, we're all these little subjective realities walking around and it's amazing, but there are people that are doing damage with that point of view. Right. And so I just offer, like, if you can just, whatever comes to you as some advice or something to work with that. I don't have a lot of advice. I think there's hazards on both sides. There are people who feel small, damaged, victimized by the world. They need to be larger, truer, and trust themselves. There are people who take the trust to the extent of narcissism, and that's very hard to communicate with. It's very hard to bring such people down to earth because there's a level of intoxication.

[51:20]

All you can do, I think, is just really be yourself and be authentic with them and not get pushed around. And, you know, encourage if you're in an interactive situation, a work situation, encourage people to do the same. Those people are no larger than anyone else, but they're a little drunk. So we can feel sympathy for them because they are suffering and they are going to suffer. feeding that appetite is actually not fun, right? Paul? I have a response to what Erica said.

[52:26]

know what that means. It's not the same thing. And it sounds like Eric's talking about self-centeredness. I think that's right. Every one of these teachings, every teaching is a kind of remedy or something to bring you towards one side that needs to be in balance. So Suzuki Roshi was, for whatever reason, whatever the situation was that he was perceiving, he was giving one side. And at another time, he might give the opposite teaching. This is one side that we can remember. It's not the whole of the teaching. The whole of the teaching just keeps bringing us back into balance. So are you saying that this teaching about, you know, be a dragon, or be the boss of everything, is a teaching for timid people? to help them, you know, take charge of their lives?

[53:47]

Yeah, I think it is. But it's not just for them. Not just for them. I mean, it's for everybody and the question is how? How do I manifest as a dragon? But some people need us, you know, it's like depending on what illness you have, you need to titrate to medicine, you may need to take more medicine, less medicine. I think that he was offering it for some reason and we don't know the context, but how do we take it? It's now been given to you and how do you take it today going forward? Interesting.

[54:48]

I think on a previous day, I forget who mentioned it, but talked about taking responsibility for our lives. And it seems to me that the phrase, you are the boss of everything, which is a provocative phrase, can also be put as, you take responsibility for everything. we're all in this together, how do you take responsibility for this world? I don't know if that's a response to narcissism, but it seems to me like we're all subjective people. Everybody has abilities and powers that nobody can take away if people have exert more influence on people around them, exerting that in the form of responsibility seems like an answer to it.

[55:55]

I think so, and I think that's right, and I think it dovetails with the talk of just enough problems, and talking about that Lojong slogan, drive all blames into one. You know, if you and I are having a conflict and you insult me and it feels very unjust, for me to be the boss of everything doesn't mean, or to be a dragon, doesn't mean necessarily to lash out you with my breath of fire. it means actually to take responsibility for my feelings and investigate that first. So if I'm the boss of everything is to be the boss of oneself, you know, be able to not be pushed around by, not to put, you're not pushing me around, you're saying something.

[57:02]

If I'm pushed around, I'm pushing myself around, so how do I do that? Does that make sense? What I like about the phrase responsibility rather than loss is if you're... We take responsibility for ourselves, I think we all can relate to that. But if you have a problem with someone else, how do you take responsibility for them? To me that suggests that you treat them with a lot more care then you might if you're feeling aggrieved or separate from them. That's right. I think that's right. And it may take you a while to get to that place. But if you keep looking, you can find it. In the first reaction, you probably won't. But you have to just keep at it and keep at it. Shelley, and then we'll probably end. There's something that you said when you were talking about subjective. and objective ways of seeing, you connected subjectivity with the absolute, sort of the dark, dark and the light, so the dark side.

[58:11]

So it seems like that's an important point. Depends on what you mean by dark. I'm thinking of the standard guy. Okay, all right, fine. The absolute. Yes, okay. The undifferentiated. To study the self. Yeah. To forget the self. Right. So to take it as subjective, like my small self, I think it's easy to do that, but I think it seems like inside there is essentially the opposite, well, the whole. Say that again, please. If subjectivity is the absolute, it's not the small self, or it contains the small self. It manifests as the small self. uh which is as a manifestation of everything it manifests as the particularity it manifests as Shelly uh and then it manifests as Diane who's sitting behind you uh but there is something vast that

[59:23]

is manifesting in a way that we cannot put language to that includes all which helps maybe when you're dealing with an ego subject or when you're dealing with your own right yeah i think it does to see this is part of the whole unfolding it gives you a different You're looking from a different angle than from within the narrow aching angle of the small self. Anyway, I have the aching angle of painful knees right now. So, we will end. Thank you very much.

[60:20]

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