influenced a lot by a book called The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. And I'll just give you the bit in the front that's made me stop and think a lot. He quotes Ramana Maharshi, who asks the question, Who are we? Who are you? And so I'll condense a lot of what he, actually what he goes on to say is that we have this bad roommate in our head, who's always saying, you know, you didn't do that right, or why don't you, you know, be better, and on and on, often critical. But he develops the idea that who we actually are is a consciousness which observes outside conditions.

[01:14]

There's always stuff going on, not only events but emotions that are happening. And we are in there as an awareness observing these conditions. But it gets to be like being at the movies when you get so absorbed in the picture that you forget you're in a theater and you just identify with the movie. And so you're identifying with outside conditions which are very persuasive or they grab you. So the practice task is to stay centered in your consciousness.

[02:21]

And when you get started, when you notice that events are beginning to carry you away, that when you just notice it and return to your watcher's seat. When I was little, somebody gave me a book on manners called The Watchbird by Monroe Leeson. It had every page. This is The Watchbird. watching you slam the door. This is the watch bird watching you. So I sort of think sometimes about the watch bird watching the conditions. Sadness is very pervasive and easy to take over and identify with, I think. And I want to read something that Ed Brown wrote in his book.

[03:24]

Let's see. He just says that emotions, when emotions rage, the teaching goes out the window. You are flooded with feelings and no other you can be found. So experiencing this you, who is the sky, I think he means the water, is an important basis for confidence and moving forward. I have needed to continue studying this for many years to establish a more developed sense of core or essence. that does not vanish quite so readily under duress. So that is a practice for him and for all of us.

[04:31]

Another big influence on my practice this year has been I went to Hawaii around Christmas time and came home Of course, it's a wonderful place to be, but there's beyond sand and palm trees. This concept of aloha is, I'm sure all of you know who've been to Hawaii, is much bigger than just hello, goodbye. One thing that Singer talks about a lot is keeping an open heart. And you can feel yourself do that physically. You can feel yourself open your heart. And we don't want to be like this. We want to be like open-hearted. And in our hearts, if we can want to call it that, we can carry the feeling of aloha, which of course is our Buddhist compassion.

[05:45]

It means having a feeling of goodwill and kindness toward everyone else. And so when you think of the word Aloha, enjoy the bigger meaning. Okay, this is really a big change of subject. I live, I live, I should Probably some of you don't know, I'm 92. And so, I've been old for a long time. I live in a very lovely senior independent residence by Lake Merritt. It's called the Lake Merritt Hotel. And I think that very many people have a feeling of

[06:46]

feeling sorry for people who go live in a senior place. It's like, oh dear, poor Eleanor, she had to leave her house and go live in a senior home. Oh, dear, dear. But you know, that's just not necessary to feel that way. I'm not talking about nursing homes now. Nursing homes are the pits. My husband was in one. at the end of his life and I used to play the harp just to go play for people to hear. It was two years after he died I could not go into a nursing home. The associations were so unpleasant. By the way, I was talking with a nurse at Martinez, I was trying to get Jack into a the best place I could, and she said, you know, what matters the most, this is for people among you who might have to be a caregiver sometime, what matters most is have your loved person in a place nearby enough that you can just drop in and visit unexpectedly, morning, noon, or night, and she said, believe me,

[08:15]

The finest nursing, for one thing, she said there is no nursing home in California that is up to federal standards. But anyway, she said, if you can drop in unexpectedly, that no nursing home, the best one there is, will not take good care of a patient. if the family does not take a strong interest and show up a lot. So, oh, and I'll tell you a story about that. There was this, the night that Jack died, I somehow just had a feeling I ought to stay up there. And this attendant that I had a lot to do with named Duane, came in in the morning and I was asleep and he said, Mrs. Collins, he's gone.

[09:17]

And as we were standing over, he said, Mrs. Collins, you really took such good care of your husband. And I said, well, Wayne, in that case, why did I have to fight you every step of the way? And I come in and Jack had a cannula, you know, the little tubes that you breathe and they go over your ear. And it was supposed to have a little cotton buffer over it to keep it from abrading his ear. Well, it would slip off and I'd come in and his ear would be bleeding from this thing. And then he'd say, my ear hurts, why's that? And I'd go, in and tell those people, you know, if I ever come in here and find this again, I'm getting the ombudsman down here from Sacramento and give you people all the trouble I can.

[10:19]

Because I'm not so good about myself defending, but somebody belongs to me. But anyway, I just want to tell you that about keeping an eye on people when they're in a nursing home. But a senior residence, of course, is just a place to live. If I wanted to, I could just be in my apartment and never do anything that had anything to do with the hotel. There are so many advantages of it. For one thing, in my cottage that I lived in before, I could have fallen down and nobody would have noticed anything wrong with me for four days, because I lived alone.

[11:24]

My children keep in touch very well with me, but they don't call me every morning, thank heavens. So being in a place where they check up on us. If I don't show up downstairs about noontime, somebody will call up to see if I'm all right. And then the other thing is the companionship. For all of us, the three things we need are good nutrition and exercise But companionship is very, very important for old people. There are all kinds of studies about that. It keeps you from going gaga and all good things. So there are a lot of lively-minded people where I live. We have a good dinner table.

[12:24]

We have fun talks. Right now we're having this scenario. One of the women went to be a volunteer out of school to help tutor children how to read. And they had to take her fingerprints. And she didn't have any. And they all looked at our, you know, everybody at the table was, the youngest person in the late 70s, most of us 80s or 90s something, I haven't got any fingerprints anymore. So we began to develop this plan where we'll be a little old lady gang of bank robbers. And we could get away with no fingerprints and then walk down the street with a brown paper bag full of money because nobody sees old lady. It's just totally invisible. I will say, there's too much complaining about the food.

[13:37]

Some people are not very mobile and don't get out of there a whole lot. And when you're that confined, three meals becomes a very big thing in your life, too big. But the food's actually pretty good there. There are also a lot of activities at this place. I belong to a writing group. I take yoga. things, a group, you know, like a bull session kind of discussions. We go places. The recreation director is just a wonderful young man, and he sees to it like we go to the city in the van and go to all the big art shows. And I feel like it's an advantage to me that that place is not too big. There are only about 50 people there, and I know everybody in the building.

[14:38]

And you can't do that at a place like St. Paul's Towers, because it's several hundred people. Of course, the sad part, it's a saga of impermanence, because people get sick and have to have more care and move away. and they fall down. The ambulance comes when we hear the siren stopping at the door, but 90% of the time that's because somebody's fallen down. But I've never had a single regret about living in this place. Now, of old age, the downside is... Qi is a great, mysterious, important thing.

[15:48]

And what I'm noticing is you don't grow old like that. You go... And 85 was a big change. And a surgeon said to me that Blanche Hartman had told him, 86 is not 85. And that's true. I also found 90 was a change. I just feel like I just do not have the energy that I used to. And there are things here that I can't do anymore that I used to. And a lot of my practice nowadays is figuring out for myself, is this realistic that I'm facing? Or am I being self-indulgent and sloughing off when I could make more of an effort? That's a balance to try to keep.

[16:53]

Oh, it's just that I have to deal with that there are things. The walking, last year walking was just walking. This year walking is a chore. I make myself do it every day because energy makes energy. If you just let yourself fly around, you're going to get very, very weak. And the diet, of course. They're always talking about the Mediterranean diet. But, you know, they never talk about spaghetti. It's always beans and grains. is becomes problematical.

[18:06]

I used to go to bed, blam, nine hours. If you let me alone, I wouldn't move. But now I wake up in the night, and I can't go back to sleep. So I don't let myself take sleeping pills. They lessen in their efficiency if you take them. But, a little glass of brandy and a cup of milk in the middle of the night, I can go back to sleep. I read for a while and do that. So, let's see. Read. I do read a lot of spiritual books. for support for my practice. I think practice for me, I saw a diagram, I think it's in one of Uchiyama's books, I'm not sure.

[19:19]

Anyway, it was a line, and the line was Zazen, and your attention span was going like this. And that's what I find is the way that I am about being aware and present. I have a quotation on my wall. I hope I can remember, I didn't write it down. It's... I'm not going to remember either. And attention, the chief work of your life is coming back to attention. And I do that as a practice. I try to always keep my attention in the present.

[20:22]

When I first wake up in the morning, early, I don't get up. I have a cup of tea in bed and read some kind of Zen book for a while. Not usually Asian. I can't have a class that understands Dogen. I read like, you know, and I can't slow down by myself enough to read Dogen, but in a class when people are apart, it's do all you can. But I have, you know, and usually I like books that are Asian thoughts seen by American writers, like Pema Chodron, somehow the mindset to And so I used to have the motto, what's it all about, Alfie?

[21:46]

I used to think that was my job, to figure out everything I could about what I was needing in my life. But sometimes, particularly if you go to Tassajara, and there's no moon, you look up at that night sky and you're not gonna, what can we know? It's just so enormous. And I have made my practice more now to be content with not knowing, but more noticing, just being allow myself to notice but not think that I'm going to know. Did I ever say that quote? Yes, you did.

[22:48]

The attention. I did? That shows you what memory I've got here. You can say it again. If you don't mind saying it again because I think I forgot what you said. It's a poet and it's about attention. The chief work of our life is paying attention. Yeah, that's it. Okay, I don't sit in the morning anymore because when I wake up I am a total wreck. hot shower and everything to get myself together, but I do sit, I like to sit in the late afternoon. And I've never been able to define if sitting actually does anything.

[23:54]

You know, has it had any noticeable effect on my behavior? I'm not so sure. But not sitting. That has a noticeable effect. When I don't sit, I lose my equanimity and I just am not centered and calm the way that I am when I make a practice of sitting. So I do, in the late afternoon, I like to sit. So, you know, all this is a balance at our, at this age between realistic activity versus self-indulgence. And I try very hard to not be self-indulgent, but to also not, I mean, for instance, I can't sit a three or four day session anymore.

[24:59]

I just don't have the physical stamina to do it. But I did it plenty when I was younger, so. All right. One thing I loved that I regret that I can't do anymore. I used to be cheating a lot. And in the early days, we had kerosene lanterns on the altar. And were they a pain? to take care of. I tell you, the chimneys of the lamps would get smoked up because somebody would turn the wick up too high and they'd break and, you know, half the cheat an hour would be spent cleaning up those ladders. But I love to do the flowers. And I still enjoy, every time I come in here,

[26:01]

to look and see the beautiful things that people do with flowers here. It's just always such a treat. So I really highly recommend you even practice. It's wonderful to be in the Zendo by yourself when it's quiet. This is such a beautiful I recommend it to you as a practice. But even if you don't do that, I really hope, particularly now I'm talking to new people, find a way to have a practice position here of some kind. You know, even just wash teacups or

[27:02]

whatever it is, but something that you like to do, because it makes you a part of this sangha in a way that you won't feel if you just come and go. So, I'm going to stop now, I guess. I don't have to. Wait, just one minute, Rondi. I just want to say that I hope that in your practice here, you can find some practice position to follow, as much as I love to being cheated, and I really regret my balance just isn't good enough anymore to carry all that water around. So, Rondi. Yes, Megan, thank you very much for your talk.

[28:07]

Would you say something about your meditation, can you hear me? I can now. About your meditation group at the hotel. Oh yeah. Also about the Dharma group here. Oh sure, yeah, how could I do that? Anyway, we have here since 2005, this group has been going, a Dharma group It just turned out it's mostly seniors, because those are the people who can sit in the daytime. We meet on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month at 9, from 9.30 to 11. Yeah, 9.30 to 11, in the community room. And we read a book and discuss it, and we get discuss a lot more than we read. It's kind of a springboard.

[29:11]

And if you want to have the leisure to come to that, we're pretty full, but we welcome someone. And as I say, I don't know if you feel out of place if you want a senior, but if you wouldn't, we're okay. And also, when I moved into the hotel, for a while, people kept asking me, I think Ross kept saying, what are you doing? You're having a sitting group over there. You're having a sitting group. Well, I didn't at first see the people that I thought would of wanting to do a meditation group that a lot of the people there when I moved in see me very fixated on their former life and how miserable everything was now and not interested in things of the spirit but I thought well

[30:35]

There's a yoga that happens a lot. And I thought, well, if there's anybody here who joins a dharma group, it's going to be the yoga people. So I asked, and now I have a very regular group that meets now twice a week, Monday and Friday. We don't read. I just have a little meditation kind of something to offer at the beginning. And I use a lot the calendar that Rondi and Charlie gave me. It's a daily calendar that has quotes, spiritual kinds of quotes, and I bring those and read one or two of them every time for this group. and we sit in chairs.

[31:37]

None of them are able to sit. But this group has grown. I have about four or five regular people now. And everybody, all we do is read a little reading and then sit for about 30 minutes. And they're very loyal and very regular, it's turned out to be. a great thing. So, I think that's about it. So, yes. Thanks, Megan. I really appreciate hearing about your perspective of it, of getting older. I can't get that from my mom. She's not able to express that. So it's very helpful for me to hear that from you. Also, even though you've got 30 years on me, there's a couple of things that I thought, oh yeah, that happened to me when I turned 50.

[32:41]

But at the beginning, you talked about, you read the Ed Brown thing, which I can't really remember, although it struck something in me. And I noticed that, you know, that thing you talk about where you go along and it's just bloop, and then you go up and it's that. And that's happened with my mom in the last two or three weeks. There's been a... And the whole thing about being, just paying attention to the moment, the present, is there some either phrase, because I like Western phrases. They bring me back. So I've gotten caught on, oh no, she's going to fall. Oh no, she's going to fall. Oh no, she's going to fall. Well, I'm sure she's going to fall. She's a fall risk. But I'm caught on, I'm in the movie. Oh no, she's going to fall. Is there any words that you can think of, a nice Western phrase that will remind me, you know, could have been a V8 or whatever now.

[33:44]

Something like that. That's a very deep question. You know what I do? It's not words. Because words, they die on you. You get this wonderful little phrase, and it's like a rock you pick up from the beach. It's wet, and it's all gorgeous. Noticing is what helps me. Noticing that it's a beautiful, beautiful day, or noticing that these pillars, you know, the zendo, the inside of the zendo means a lot to me, the way it is.

[34:49]

Or just, there's a tree outside my window, and I look at the leaves, Just to bring myself out of the spinning into noticing what's happening now. Because that's, I think, that I understand, now I hope I'm going to be able to get this into words. Everything's going. Millions, you know, our karma. Things happen because of this and then this happens and that makes something else happen and all these jillion things are going by us and the causes are so complex and the ends are so complex. But if you can just come to looking at a leaf

[35:53]

you know, and really see just this moment. In that way, you're meeting with the present, the flow of things that are going by. And I think when you get all trapped in all the cobwebs in your head, just try to look at something and really see it. It brings you to that moment of being now instead of woolly. Thank you, and I still would like to get you down to the pod with your penny whistle. That's another little humbling. All right. That pod is a lot of fun. All right. Anybody else? Yes, hi. Especially when my mother wasn't turned or other things that has to happen for bad things to happen.

[37:30]

Yeah, you get bed sores. The nursing home must recognize the family counsel. The next day they said, where do you want to meet?

[38:34]

And we'll give you cookies. And we'll publicize your meeting place in the nursing home. So you do have power. You do have some power to deal with nursing homes, but it makes a big difference. Well, thank you. Well, unfortunately, that knowledge is Yes, Ross. At the beginning of your talk, you said something, one of the things that you're contending with now is whether you are being self-indulgent or extending yourself or, I can't remember the other, realistic. Realistic. Realistic, and I'm wondering if there's any difference in that discernment now at this age versus earlier in your life, realism and self-indulgence. is it shifted for you? well I didn't have to consider it when I was young because I spent a lot of my middle of my life as a dancer so I had boundless energy because exercise makes you energy creates energy and so it wasn't until I began to have

[39:59]

You know, old age things happen to me. I've had cancer, breast cancer, twice. That'll make you stop and think. And, you know, as I say, walking, which used to be so easy, you see, I have to have that stick now to be sure, because balance, you don't want to fall down. the mindfulness about what realistically I can do for my practice is mostly what I'm thinking about. Like I used to, I come to half-day sittings now as often as I can because extended sitting is a blessing and a necessity for us. But to do a sashim, which I used to do all the time, I can't do that anymore.

[41:06]

And so it becomes in old age, that's when you have to start considering, am I, and I'm just babying myself, I don't feel like getting up this morning and I'm not going to, or get out I was just at a little kid's birthday party. each day.

[42:16]

Having said that, I do have a question about your fingerprints. They're on the back. I mentioned they're gone. Where did your fingerprints go? Where was Moses when the light went out? Apparently, in old age, they just even out. The ends of my fingers are just wrinkled, I grant you, but that's not fingerprints. So this woman that brought this up, she wanted to volunteer to do the reading in the school, and you've got to have fingerprints. So I forget what she had to do, something else. for identifying, in case she was some criminal coming in to read marks.

[43:18]

But not a single woman at that table had any

[43:22]

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