I want to especially welcome those people who are new to BCC, and I hope that you and all your loved ones are staying well. I'm glad to be here with all of you and share this time together after what has been a couple of eventful weeks. I wanna start by sharing an experience that I went through to get me into the topic for today. I was walking down the street, the short street in Berkeley one day. It was the daytime. I was in the middle of the block and there was no one around. All at once I felt someone approaching quickly from behind. I turned my head. And I saw a man. I crossed the street, I thought, rather casually, there in the middle of the block.

[01:02]

And just as I got to the other side of the block, the other side of the street, the man spoke to me. He had a calm voice, and he said, I wasn't going to attack you because I'm black. As I looked across the street at the man, we were now right across from each other on opposite sides of the street. I looked at him, and I continued to walk, and I said to him, thank you very much for speaking to me and for saying that to me. I was thinking that I crossed the street because you're a man. And I think I would have crossed the street no matter what race you are because you're a man. As a woman, I've always had to be aware of my surroundings, seeing how there's so much violence in the world against women.

[02:04]

And then I paused and I said, but I don't know. I just don't know. How do I know? How can I be sure? And so I really appreciate that you spoke to me because, well, it gives me something to consider. That experience happened some time ago, but it's come back to me actually several times during the past year as we face so much division in our country. And I decided to start. exploring, start thinking about, start studying, not knowing, don't know mind more closely. Because I remembered that in that experience, what I was moved by was some lack of opposition that came forward in both of us, that there wasn't a dismissal of other in that experience by each of us.

[03:09]

And so today what I want to talk about is not knowing, or we can call it don't know mind. What is not knowing? Well, I wanted to start with the question, what time is it? At times it's obvious what time it is, if we have a watch or a clock nearby, or we might not know and we ask somebody and that person gives us information. So there's knowing and there's not knowing. But the kind of not knowing that we talk about and that we tap into and that we practice and train ourselves in Zen is not that kind of knowing. It's a kind of knowing that goes far beyond in some way. It has nothing to do with information. in the way that we like to search for information or explain things to know.

[04:13]

So let's go back to that question, what time is it? When I'm out in the mountains with my family backpacking, we usually don't have a watch. Still, we can have a pretty good idea of the time if we're present, And we're awake to all kinds of things like the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, the planet, the position of those things, the air quality, the color in the air, the light or dark, the kind of sound the birds are making, the crickets, the howling of an owl. When the insects appear on lakes or rivers, the fish turning over or jumping and feeding on those insects, there's a kind of feel to it.

[05:20]

That's more of what not knowing may include, a quality that takes in the surroundings, and it doesn't reference this me, myself, mine. And it can lead to curiosity or surprise or observation. It's a kind of seeing in this way. And it's always there, I think, when we stop referencing the small self so much. This practice of not knowing or don't know mind It's a way we can step back from what we think we know. I think we can say that this not knowing happens before knowing. Before knowing. Katagiri Roshi quotes Dogen, quote, you should cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words,

[06:28]

and following after speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate yourself. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will manifest. So perhaps there's a clue here. When this preoccupation with body and mind is not so all-important, we may be more able to tap into This kind of not knowing when we locate that original mind. Katagiri goes on himself and says, quote, So keep turning the stream of mind away from your dualistic thoughts and inward to the energy of your life. Learn the technique of zazen and then practice it again and again until technique is not technique. Follow it until there is no subject that knows. or object known.

[07:29]

So it sounds here like he's talking about this energy of our life. In that energy is where we find the jewel of this not knowing. This kind of not knowing isn't a state where we're confused or doubtful or agitated. or indecisive, or hesitating. Not knowing when we're in it, even for a moment, is a calm place, even in the middle of, what, the muddle of chaos. Remember that we're all practicing with that right now as we are in the middle of a pandemic. Suzuki Roshi says, quote, Not knowing does not mean you don't know. It's more about not being limited by what we know or what we think we know.

[08:36]

Suzuki Roshi reminds us, not always so. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Not knowing. He says in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, with Beginner's Mind there are many possibilities. In the expert mind, there are few. Sojin Roshi often reminded us to cultivate the beginner's mind, the mind of don't know, the mind of many possibilities, because we don't know in any kind of definitive or singular way. Sojin Roshi continues to encourage us to cultivate a practice that goes beyond reasoning. Sojin Roshi says this, quote, When we start to sit, we instinctively know why. It's beyond our reasoning, but somewhere we know.

[09:42]

So here he's saying that this knowing that we talk about in Zen, it's natural. And it's somewhere in us. But where? He goes on, quote, when we start to reason about it, we don't know anymore. We try to match our reasoning with our knowing. And it brings up this question, especially when we get into a difficult spot. So we can notice. how often the mind wants to get involved and kind of like override a situation with reasoning or position that comes from the small self. I read an article about not knowing by Gil Fransal, who leads the Dharma Center in Redwood City, and he asks, quote,

[10:47]

What is it like to be aware that we don't know the answers to some of life's big questions? I've been inspired by those who answer that they don't know and seem very comfortable with not knowing. Perhaps these questions are irrelevant to their spiritual life. Buddhism is not about answering these questions, but about resolving the fear that motivates the questions. Rather than providing security through religious knowing, Buddhist practice calls on us to become free from attachment to security, free from the need to know. So at any point in our life, in the life of any person, we can come into contact with that yearning to express compassion. our innermost selves to touch that place of not knowing or what we think of as the self of Buddha.

[11:55]

We don't know why, but we just decide to sit down. About a year and a half ago, many of you know that our daughter's childhood friend, Gia, died. About 10 months before that, right after her 23rd birthday, she was diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer. She dropped out of her last year of college and came home. And early on, she called me up and asked me if I would teach her how to meditate. She was experiencing great anxiety and fear. And I wonder now, actually, perhaps she had some sense of this universal inner awakening. I had never, ever talked with her about Zazen or Zen.

[12:58]

And it was very moving to me that this came up, that she had this kind of deep knowing that came forward to her at this very, very difficult time. I told her I'd be happy to do that, and I could come to her house. And she said, no, I want to come to BCC, and I want to start to go there with you. So I invited she and her mom to come one afternoon, and I gave them a tour, and we ended up in the Zendo. I gave them Zaza and instruction, and we sat together. She didn't want to use a chair. She sat down and she received that instruction with complete openness, despite a fair amount of discomfort she was having in her body as a result of the cancer. She took right to it.

[13:59]

She took to the form with great beauty and grace and flexibility. I was amazed and moved, and I thought, What happened? Where did that come from? What happens to any of us when we take up this form, when we learn to follow breath and posture, when we stop seeking after something? We may think we know why we come to practice, but actually it's probably more a function of not knowing that brings us to practice. I remember Sojin Roshi saying that really we come to practice to express ourselves, to express the Buddha self. The mind of not knowing, that beginner's mind. We don't know why, really.

[15:04]

We want to move towards a deepening. to move closer to the energy of life that's right at the center of who we all are. We want to be stable. We want to be calm right inside any terror. How do we do that? Don't know mind is always right there to help us. And the point of our practice, The point of Zen training is to cultivate that not-knowing mind. Gil Fransdahl suggests that we carry that little phrase, don't know around with us, and repeat it often, like a kind of mantra, as a way to respond to what we think or what we believe. I think that's a good idea.

[16:06]

Don't know. Don't know. So whatever comes up. I can't do it. Don't know. I can do it. Don't know. I'm not that way. Don't know. I'm not that kind of person. Don't know. We can all fill in the blanks with whatever our personal phrases are that come up. Don't know. He says we can practice by using that little phrase often, and he says that that phrase is very, very powerful. When I first began Zen practice, I met one day for practice discussion with Maylee Scott, who was a priest here, and I said to her something like, you know, I'm not really a group person, so I'm not really sure this practice is... right for me. I might not be very good at that part, the group part. And she paused and she said, your resting place may always be solitary, but you can learn to find comfort in any situation in which you find yourself.

[17:24]

And I didn't really know what she meant. I couldn't get at it through my mind. I tried. I tried a lot. I could never really get at it conceptually. I knew what she said was important somehow, but I didn't have the experience to understand it. So over a long period of time, I came to understand through direct experience what she was pointing to. Not knowing then is somehow connected to direct experience instead of what we know about ourselves and others and the way that limits us and the situations that we find ourselves in. In Zen, we often hear that well-known phrase, not knowing is more intimate.

[18:30]

And what does that really mean to us as Zen students? So let's take a look. I'm going to read the koan from which that comes. It's very short. It's case 20 in the Book of Serenity. It's just a short dialogue between Master Dijong and the highly educated Fayan, who I think at some point became a disciple of Dijong. Fayan is out on a pilgrimage with some other monks. As the story goes, they were sidetracked due to a big snowstorm, and so they were forced to stay at the Dijang Monastery. So Dijang asked Fayan, where are you going? And Fayan said, around on a pilgrimage. Dijang said, what's the purpose of pilgrimage? Fayan said, I don't know.

[19:33]

Dijang said, not knowing is most intimate. At these words, Fayan was said to have instantly experienced enlightenment. So Dijang is asking about some... big life questions asking Fionn about the meaning of life and our pilgrimage on this path when he asks, what's the purpose of pilgrimage? And when Fionn answers that he doesn't know, well, Dijon quickly turns that I don't know right around. I don't know is just the right thing, he says. It's not the I don't know that Fionn was thinking what he thought he meant. In fact, Dijang says, this not knowing, this going beyond, it's most intimate.

[20:36]

It's closest hand. Stop looking around. Not knowing is enlightenment, enlightened activity. It's awakening. The way is right here. And Fionn is... ready to experience this teaching, he realizes, like we all do, that what he needs is right here. It always has been. Dijon points us to the kind of knowing that Norman Fisher calls the real not knowing. And here's what Norman says, quote, When we know something and rest in that knowing, we limit our vision. We will only see what our knowing will allow us to see. In this way, our experience can be our enemy. True, our experience has shown us something about ourselves and about life, but this moment, this situation that faces us right now,

[21:44]

This patient, this person, this family, this illness, this task, this pain or beauty, we've never seen it before. What is it? How do we respond? I don't know. I bow before the beauty and uniqueness of what I'm facing, not knowing I'm ready to be surprised, ready to listen and understand, ready to respond as needed. ready to let others respond, ready to do nothing at all if that's what's called for. Norman says that experience, knowledge, and wisdom are good. But when we examine things closely, we can see that they remove us from what's right there in front of us. He says, when I know, I bring myself forward, imposing myself and my experience on this moment.

[22:57]

When I don't know, I let experience come forward and reveal itself. I can enter into a new moment, which is always a new relationship, always fresh. I can be moved by what happens, fully engaged and open to what the situation will show me. I had a bad fall in the mountains one summer at the end of a long trip. We were coming down a long, rocky side of a mountainside, and it was steep. We were facing outward and kind of stepping down on these little shelves. It wasn't really dangerous, but somehow I caught a foot and I couldn't stop the fall. I fell about like 50 or 75 feet down this long wall.

[24:01]

I leaned back so that I wouldn't tumble forward. And... There was just this sudden phrase that flew through the mind, just let go, I heard. I didn't know where it came from, and I didn't really know what it meant. I still don't know what it means. After all, letting go, it changes depending on the situation. There's no one letting go situation, solution. Lately, I've been thinking about this and wondering if, in fact, it's the instruction that's the most important. That is our training, the instruction. And following the instruction takes us away from this me and all of her worries. By the time I got to the bottom where I landed on my butt, I was laughing. It was a kind of like bump, bump, bump. down the side.

[25:02]

It wasn't so bad. I mean, I was fortunate. I didn't get hurt, and that part was luck. I was in the experience, but there was something else. What was it? What happened? Letting go, whatever that means, may somehow be related to not knowing, to don't know. How? Well, letting go is just being Just letting go of this me, the incessant focus on me, and including something else that's there at that moment, something we're related to or relating to, part of something in that particular moment, nothing else, no result, no outcome. Perhaps we might say that knowing something Not knowing and letting go are related to what Ron described recently in his lecture as bare attention, from which some kind of response, some kind of appropriate response can emerge.

[26:15]

Don't figure it out. Allow the bare attention itself to bring forth expression. That's the way I'm thinking about it right now. Follow it. Stay with it. We're there in it as expression happens, out of the head, out of conceptualizing. I think we all have moments like that. Not knowing can be tapped and practiced in almost anything we do. It looks like it comes up in relationship to repetition, as well as this idea of bear attention.

[27:23]

Last week I was out walking with our daughter, and she asked me what I was going to talk about today. And so we started talking about this kind of not knowing. I asked her if she could relate to it. She's a dancer. So I said, is there some way that you experience this kind of not knowing that I'm thinking about in dance? And she said, oh, yes. And I said, well, could you say something about it? And she told me that muscle memory is alive in dancers, that in preparing for performance, one knows the piece down deep in the bones.

[28:27]

And she said, you know what comes next because you've done it a million times. You've been living it. You're always prepared for the next step, for what comes next. She said, you have to think on your toes when something goes wrong, but it's not conceptual thinking. You have to be ready to respond and adjust right in that moment to adapt quickly. And you can do that because you've done it so many times. You can get right back into it. The body kicks in. The instinct knows how to handle what comes next. So it sounds to me like there's a lot of trust there. and attention. Trust in what? It sounds like there's a trust in real knowing.

[29:31]

A kind of letting go into the kind of trust that the dancers connected to the moment instead of to an idea of the moment. And that made me think about Zazen. I thought, well, this sounds like Zen training to me. This sounds like Zen practice to me. This sounds like years and years and years of Zazen. It's right deep down in the bones. We have the opportunity to practice with not knowing now. as we face the loss of our beloved teacher, Sojin Roshi. Where is he? Don't know. We don't know.

[30:33]

Faiths from all over the world have ideas, belief systems that explain where we go, what happens to us. Right before my father died at 95, someone told me with great certainty, don't worry because you are definitely going to see him again. For sure you'll be together. I know it. Don't worry at all. You'll see him again. Our way of practice, our faith, is a bit different, or at least it is for me. I'd rather say, I don't know. It seems to open up more possibility, lightness. Some of you know that I like to talk about making compost, and I like to use that as a model.

[31:45]

When I build and turn and sift and use compost. It's not at all clear where the original layers of ingredients have gone. In the early stages, when you first turn the pile, you can still see some of the food scraps. You can see the eggshells, the straw, the yard clippings, a bit of soil. But very soon, the insects and the worms It's very scientific, I know, but it's still mysterious. Very mysterious what happens. You end up some months later with this wonderful, rich compost full of nutrients that feed the earth, the garden, and the plants. In the end, you can't see any of what you put in there.

[32:47]

Nothing you had before is recognizable with your eyes now. Still, you know that everything you put in there is there in a different form. It seems simple, but it's always like magic to me, such a mystery. It's all there, and it's all different. This is a comfort to me. I've been turning compost in my yard since Sojin's death. It's a kind of way for me to grieve and to celebrate his life. Where is he? The compost feeds the garden. It nourishes the soil. It builds in nutrients into the soil, which in turn feeds the plants. And look at the forest. The trees that fall down, they decay, and over time, They feed the new growth. Those magnificent trees disappear, but they live on in how they feed the forest, the plants, and the animals that live there.

[33:58]

Our lives are not so different. We all know that, and we know that Sojin Roshi will go on feeding us. Still, it's hard for us, and it's very important to mourn and to grieve sojin roshi told us that suzuki roshi told them the reason you're here is because you've always been here i remember the first time i heard that it was chilling to me thrilling actually it comforted me It reminded me of hearing a scientist on NPR once talking about the Big Bang Theory, and he said that what most people don't understand is that we were not outside of that occurrence. What does that mean? The reason we're here is because we have always been here.

[34:58]

We don't know what that means. It's a great mystery. It's a mystery because we can't wrap our minds around it. We can try and we just never quite get at it. I don't know is just right. Not knowing is most intimate. In I don't know, we have the chance to just experience that big mystery, to be a part of that mystery, to recognize that we are included in that big mystery. beautiful mystery. And in the presence of that mystery, we realize that we need very little to be content. So when we're in that awareness, we have the possibility to taste that intimacy and to be at more ease and to be happier in our day-to-day life.

[36:04]

We can experience that there really is nowhere to go and so much to be awake to, to be aware of what's right here moment by moment. How can we cultivate that not knowing, that real not knowing? I think the answer lies in Zazen and in what Suzuki Roshi calls the essence of Zen, not always so. So those are my thoughts today about not knowing, don't know mind. And I see we have plenty of time for discussion or comments. I'm interested in how you think about not knowing. So turn this over to Blake, right?

[37:07]

And I'll turn it over to the Sangha. Please raise your digital hand and we will call on you. Perhaps not in order, but we will call on you. And if you have a question, please type it into the chat preceded by maybe a question mark or the word question so I can... distinguish it. First, I'd like to call on Ron Nestor. Please unmute yourself and ask a question. Thanks, Blake. Susan, relative to your talk, is my favorite saying from an old Zen teacher, Hakuen. I think he's lived back in the early 1700s, Japanese great Zen teacher, somebody asked him, what happens after we die? He said, I don't know.

[38:10]

And the questioner said, well, you're a Zen master. Aren't you supposed to know that? And he said, well, I'm a Zen master, but I'm not a dead Zen master. I love that story. Yes, thank you. Okay. Thank you so much. You know, this topic is just rich with literature. I mean, I've been reading for months now, and I could go on for hours, which you're lucky I'm not doing, but thank you. I invite Philip Shepard. Excuse me, Sherard. Hi, Philip. Okay. Hi. Can you hear me? I want to thank you very much for your lecture. It's so hard for me to wrap myself around it being not only okay, but more than okay. It's to be able to embrace not knowing.

[39:14]

And thank you for loosening up my mind and having the discussion. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. You're welcome. I think the baseline is it's Welcome to the crowd. It's hard for all of us. Yes. Thank you. I invite Kika to unmute herself and ask a question. Thank you, Blake. Thank you, Susan. I feel really fortunate to hear your talk today. It was very inspiring. I especially like how how settled you are, and that list of mountain scenes that you brought us early in your talk. Each one kind of a little haiku poem. It's so beautiful. I had a question that came up. You said at one point, how is not knowing connected with letting go? And something that came to mind was presence of mind.

[40:18]

And I wonder what you think about that connection. What do you mean by presence of mind? Presence of which mind? Yeah, you know, it's a phrase that I heard Sojan use, you know, be present, being present. And he would generally say that that also means to empty your mind, you know, being present to things as they are. So I wonder about letting go, not knowing, and presence of mind. Yeah. That's good. Thank you. Yeah, be present. Maybe be present is let go. Because be present, then I'm not focused on me. Right? Yeah. Yeah, you take the, yeah, that's right. You know, what comes to mind, I have this little practice I've done for years now at school.

[41:19]

Yeah. I used to attribute the students' success or failure to myself, I'm sorry to say. You know, if they were successful, it was because of me. If they were a failure, it was because of me. And I decided one day, okay, I'm taking those words out of my, I'm not saying me, myself, or mine when I talk about students or the classroom or school. And I don't, largely. So... It might sound not so intimate to say the students or the classroom, but it helped enormously to get away from this incessant preoccupation with me. And somehow maybe that's connected to what you're saying. Be present. Let go of this. Yeah. Yeah, it does sound connected. Empty of desire to gain something, you know, for yourself. It's true. It's a self-centeredness. I mean, I think the trick is in letting go, we have to, that's it in itself.

[42:21]

We cannot be attached to an outcome. Oh, if I let go of this, this will happen. Forget that. We can't do that. Right? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Jeff Taylor, I invite you to unmute yourself and ask a question, please. Hi, Jeff. Hi, Susan. Thanks so much for a great conversation. talk. You said so much that I identify with, and you reminded me of so much that I've forgotten in the moment. When you first started talking about the idea of being attached to me, myself, and I, I looked up quickly and I realized my recent history is all about that. And to be reminded of not knowing is such a gift. I can't even tell you, especially right here, right now. And the way that you speak to it is also meaningful to me. You inhabit your words and you inhabit your speech in a way that it's a transmission in and of itself.

[43:29]

And so thank you for that. And then two more things and I'll stop. When you said, when I'm knowing, when I know, which is one of my favorite pastimes, I'm imposing myself on the moment. And so much is missed because I'm busy knowing and not seeing. And that not knowing is about letting experience show and teach, and that's a place I'd much rather inhabit. That's meaningful to me. One of my favorite poems by Ryokan has the phrase in it that says, are subject and object bound? This is a question for beginners wrapped in seas of ignorance. I mean, there are a host of koans in what you said. And my secret fantasy that isn't going to be secret anymore after today is that if I were going to write a canon, write a koan and contribute it, it would be titled something like, how in the hell would I know?

[44:33]

That's sort of my experience. So thank you so much. Well, go ahead and write it. That sounds good. Thank you. I think it was just written. There's a question in the chat, Nathan. Thank you, Susan. Your talk was great and feels very relevant to me right now. It reminds me of something I read, I think, in one of the Suzuki Roshi books about the importance of having faith in your original self, which I didn't understand. But it slowly dawned on me that it's... that it was permission to believe in something beyond my own limitations, which was very encouraging. Perhaps you could speak about that. Thanks again. Well, I think you said it beautifully, Nathan. I mean, the image that comes to mind is that I try to use. I think it takes years to realize that we can put this small self, we can put this person, Susan, that does exist in something bigger.

[45:41]

Think of it as a container, you know, that Buddha's way is a big container. And so we can put this self inside something that's much bigger and it's spacious. It gives room for us to practice this way. That's my best effort at this moment. Perhaps others can say more. Thank you. Sally or Ed, please unmute yourself and ask a question. Hi, Ed. Hi, Susan. That was a wonderful talk. And there's a couple things that came up for me personally is that as a family member, with loved ones who hear voices or have other extraordinary experiences.

[46:55]

What I needed to cultivate is not knowing. And what that allows me to do is to be curious about what they're saying or what they're experiencing. And that has made all the difference in the world. It has allowed me to have a relationship based on that, based on not knowing and a closeness and an understanding and an openness to actually just listen. And that has made all the difference. I never thought it was a Buddhist practice, but now I realize it is. And the other thing I wanted to say is that this is the second Saturday program since Sojin has died.

[47:58]

And for many of us who aren't residents of BCC, Saturdays was the time that we got to hang out with him. more than any other time and so as you talked about him i um these are days when i miss him and i feel his presence on these days especially strongly so thank you for saying that you know um one thing that has really struck me I had to go back to the dictionary and look up what's the difference between grieving and mourning. And, you know, the difference is that mourning is public. And we have not had this opportunity. I mean, this doesn't make it. I mean, this is fine. But we haven't had this opportunity to publicly mourn together. And, you know, so each of us is doing our grieving on our own.

[49:04]

And at some point, we will be able to be back together again and both celebrate and mourn in the ways that we're able to do when we're together, warm body to warm body, right? Thank you. Sue Moon, please unmute yourself and ask a question. Morning, Sue. Morning, Susan. And thank you so much. Ed, thank you, too, for your remarks. Really helpful. And this was a really precious talk, and I wanted to speak about, ask you about a couple of the stories you told which seemed related. I was very moved by the story of your daughter's friend wanting to learn meditation, and I kind of wondered, I don't want to Well, did it work?

[50:06]

So I always want some happy ending. Well, anyway, I just wanted to know, was the meditation really helpful to her in that time before she died? Or how did you see, how did you understand her experience of it and her ability to open to it in that surprising way? And then the other story that is kind of connected is the story you told about falling down the mountain and the moment of feeling just let go as you're falling. And actually, I've had that experience once when I fell down. I just fell down the front steps of my house, and I landed on the sidewalk, and I had this moment of surprising moment of sort of letting go and feeling completely happy. I was looking up at the sky, and I was still alive. But it was definitely a moment of not knowing. But I wondered if you're letting go as you're falling down the mountain, what that really was, and do you think it was related to the experience of your daughter's friend meditating before she died?

[51:18]

How do we do that? Is there some kind of letting go that happens at times like that? It seems like a perfect place to say I don't know. You know, I just come back to, I don't know if this is a cop-out, but I just come back to, you know, this is our training. Like, remember how often Sojin Roshi told us, when you're doing zazen, give yourself zazen instructions. So we do that, like, over and over and over again, you know, when you're falling asleep, whatever. So who knows what happened out there on the mountain that day. Those words just came up. Or when you fell down the street, down the steps, the words just came up, right? I just think that's our practice. That's the instruction. The instruction is there, and then we follow it. I don't know.

[52:18]

I really don't know. Do you think it's also when... I mean, in that moment of falling, everything's upside down. Gravity's suddenly – the world is upside down. You're completely jostled out of your reality, and you really don't know what's going on. And maybe in those moments where everything gets – you get jostled out of – you get jostled into the moment of what's happening. But I can imagine another scenario. I mean, we just don't know where if I had tried to stop the fall, I might have gotten – hurt, because I might have gotten in the way. There's that other instruction, just get out of the way. What comes to mind, you know, my father in the last couple years of his life, he really needed to start using a cane, and he wouldn't use it, and he had all these falls, and he kept saying to me, oh, don't worry, I've got falling down pat. And I said, well, what do you mean by that? He said, oh, I just let go, you know, so there you go.

[53:22]

Maybe we do. In terms of Gia, you know, she didn't have the time to cultivate that process of learning meditation and then, you know, cultivating it over a lifetime. And yet, How do I know how it helped her? I don't know, but she did sit quite a bit with me, and then at her own house, and, you know, she, over many months, became accustomed to the situation she was in, embraced it, and died very gracefully.

[54:24]

So how do we know? I'd like to think that it was something that helped her, and I think in the times that I sat with her, she found it helpful. That's about all I can say. Well, thank you for your help with these things. We're coming to a close. So let's share this space by being brief. And the question in the chats is, there's a book title, You Have to Say Something, Category Roshi. How does speaking out compare or work with not knowing? Well, that's a good question, isn't it? Well, I think speaking out is important. But speaking out from that place of stability or that place of clarity or that place of calm mind is important.

[55:36]

We can always take a breath before we speak out, can't we? I mean, I forget, don't you? But the times when I don't forget are probably better. Smith, please unmute yourself and ask a question. Hi, Judy. Hi, Susan. One of the things that came up for me in your talk was not knowing for me is very tied to not trying to control everything. And that was something that I talked to Sojen a lot about on our Dokusan dog walks at the marina early on. Because as, you know, someone who's disabled, there's a lot that's out of my control. And so that just brings – it just brought it to mind for me that somehow not knowing, letting go, and being able to –

[56:46]

cease meaning to control everything, are all very related for me. It was a good reminder. Yeah, good point. I totally agree. Thank you very much, everyone, and have a safe day. Thank you. I will not allow you to wake up with them. This is my heart in the hospital. I will not allow you to end up with them. [...] I love you.

[57:50]

I love you.

[57:57]

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