Yesterday I talked in the afternoon about some of the short talks in Dogen's extensive record. Dogen was the 13th century Japanese founder of this branch of Zen. We've been talking about him a lot since Kastanahashi was here talking about his translation of Shrevo Genzo. His other major work that I translated was Shohaka Okamura. And I wanted to talk just about a few short talks. I wanted to use a few short talks this morning to talk about our practice. So the first one, these were all talks he gave to his students at his monastery at Heiji, way up in the mountains. This one is, 1249, so this is fairly late in his teaching career. He died in 1253. So he starts off by saying, dropping off body and mind is good practice.

[01:07]

So this is kind of a joke. Dropping off body and mind is Dogen's phrase for zazen, but also for enlightenment itself. Dropping off body and mind. Just letting go doesn't mean suicide or mutilation or lobotomy. It means letting go of our attachments to body and mind. And it's kind of the ultimate. And it's also arsazen, just sitting, not sitting for some future dramatic experience or understanding, but just dropping off body and mind is good practice. This is what we do for Dogen in this branch of Zen, every time we sit. And of course, our knees or back or something may be bothering us, or our mind may be rattling around with all kinds of thoughts about to-do lists or things that happened last week, or who knows.

[02:14]

In the middle of that somewhere, just letting go, dropping off body and mind is good practice. So this is not something that happens once. This is this ongoing practice of just sitting. Dropping off body and mind is good practice, he starts. Then he says, make a vigorous effort to pierce your nostrils. And there are a lot of references in this. These are very dense talks. I'll come back to that. Make a vigorous effort to pierce your nostrils. Karmic consciousness is endless, with nothing fundamental to rely on, including not others, not self, not sentient beings, and not causes or conditions. Although this is so, eating breakfast comes first. So that's the end of the talk. Dropping off body and mind is good practice. Make a vigorous effort to pierce your nostrils. As Shohat and I were translating this, a lot of the time across the hall at City Center from where we're at, from Adamstrom.

[03:19]

You know, this piercing your nostrils in this sandy context, I first thought of inhaling and exhaling freely, having your breathing clear, but actually it's a reference to the ox-herding pictures. I think it also relates to breathing. and they didn't, I don't think they had piercing like we do now, but there's this image of the ox in Zen and this image of training where the student sees traces of the ox. At first he looks for the ox, he sees traces of the ox, then he actually sees the ox, then he He catches the ox, and he tames the ox, and he rides the ox home, and in the last four pictures, at least in the most popular version, it's just ox forgotten, and there's just a picture of nature, and then body and mind forgotten, and there's just a big blank zero.

[04:21]

And then coming back to the marketplace with empty hands. This picture of old Hotei back in the kitchen, the jolly laughing Buddha that's in Chinese restaurants, just meeting a villager, and this idea of coming back to the world. So this practice is not a practice about escape from the world. But at any rate, piercing nostrils refers to part of the process of taming the ox, to put a tether on the ox's nose. water buffalos or oxen were tamed in Asia. And there's another one of these short talks where he talks about piercing your own nostrils. How do we allow ourselves to be welcomed by Buddha and led by Buddha and to give ourselves to Buddha and Dharma and Sangha and to this practice and training? So he says, dropping off body and mind is good practice.

[05:24]

Make a vigorous effort to pierce your nostrils. Here also he's saying to pierce your own nostrils. And then he says karmic consciousness is endless. So karmic consciousness is our usual way of thinking as human beings in terms of gain and loss and success and failure and trying to manipulate the world and the things of the world and other people and ourselves even to get what we think we need to be happy or to get rid of what obstructs that. This is our usual way of thinking. And he says, karma consciousness is endless. We have nothing fundamental to rely on, including not others, not self, not sentient beings, and not causes or conditions. We can't control karma consciousness. And yet it's right in the middle of our ordinary every day thinking that this possibility of dropping body and mind arises. We don't, and maybe especially for us practicing in the city, in the middle of Chicago, even though as we talked about last weekend, Laurel spoke about urban land ethic, there's nature.

[06:37]

right in the middle of the city. And yet, we are enmeshed in the world in many ways. So there's nothing fundamental to rely on. We can't arrange things by relying on others, or ourself, or sentient beings, or causes or conditions. But then Doga says, although this is so, eating breakfast comes first. So, very practical, down to earth. How many of you had breakfast today? Almost everyone, I think. I often skip breakfast because I knew I was going to be talking about this. I had a little bit this morning. So... How do we take care of ourselves? How do we eat breakfast? And he was talking, there were some lay people, but he was also talking in the context of the monastery. And he's also talking about, there's a particular old Zen story, one of my favorites, which he talks about here, too, a little.

[07:40]

Maybe it was the same year. No, this was later in 1251. There's a story about Jōjō, or Jōshū in Japanese, one of the all-time great Zen masters. And so he talks about this, Dōgen talks about this in another one of these short talks later on. First he tells the story and then he comments. He says, I can remember a monk asked Jōjō, The student has just entered the monastery. Please, master, give me some instruction." Zhaozhou asked, have you eaten breakfast? The monk said, I have eaten. Zhaozhou said, wash your bowls. So when we do our day-long sittings now, we're, for those of us who have these oyoki bowls, we're washing them in the zendo, but take care of, wash your bowls, take care of, the things that you use. Don't leave messes for others.

[08:44]

Clean up after yourself. All of that is part of what Zhaozhou was saying. This is a very famous co-honors and story. Great story. He's not only talking about bowls and breakfasts though. Please give me some instructions, teacher. And Zhaozhou asked, have you eaten breakfast? Have you So all of these stories, again, the concrete part of it is there, but there's also, he's also talking about practice and awakening. Have you eaten breakfast? Have you enjoyed this body and mind? Have you dropped body and mind? The monk said, yes. Jaya just said, oh, mushrooms. So how do we take care of our body and mind? once we see this dropping body in mud. Like that, again and again and again. So this is this basic story, very famous story about pregnancy.

[09:49]

And Dogen comments, the ancient Buddha Jaojo has spoken like this, now I, A, have a mountain verse, and then he paused. And then he gave this verse commentary, which has lots of references to other Zen sayings, as Zen sayings tend to do. And I'll say a little bit about that. But the whole verse goes, green bamboo and plum blossoms are a painting. Bottle gourd vines are entwined with gourds. The barbarian's beard is red, and there is also a red-bearded barbarian. Having eaten breakfast, wash your bowls. These are references to various stories about seeing reality. A Green Bamboo and Plum Blossoms are a Painting, and in one of his essays in Shobo Gensho Dogen talks about painted rice cakes, and commenting on a story that actually I mentioned not so long ago about

[10:52]

a monk who was caught up in scholarship and thought he knew everything that there was to know about the Diamond Sutra and then was kind of shown up by one of the old grannies near a monastery and burned all of his books and said, a painted rice cake does not satisfy hunger. And Dogen goes on to say that only painted rice cakes can satisfy painted hunger and that Lake Michigan is painted with water, and Irving Park Road is painted with concrete, and grass, and trees, and flowers, and shops, and so forth. Everything is, we think of what is the reality behind what is apparent, and yet, again, karma consciousness is boundless, with nothing to rely on. Here we are in the midst of this world So we should paint a picture of Buddha as we sit on our sofas.

[11:58]

We have a carved Buddha. We have a painted mountain. We have Snow Within is the name of that painting. How do we see this inner reality, not separate at all from the things of the world? And then he says, bottle gourd vines are entwined with gourds. This is an image of tangled vines, that vines are tangled with each other. And Dogen has another essay about this, where he talks about how our whole practice and the teaching is vines tangled with vines, that we are all tangled together, that we are tangled together with Zhao Zhou, we're tangled together with Dogen and Suzuki Roshi, and with all of the people who have encouraged you in your own life to be who you are here this morning. And there's this image of gourds or pumpkins.

[13:02]

They grow in this field, and each of the pumpkins or each of the gourds has a kind of vine coming out of the top of their head, and they all are tangled together. So we're all kind of like this. We're all kind of seeds or mirrors of Buddha. When we sit together, our bodies and minds are tangled together. Sometimes a thought may arise in your heart-mind as you sit, and we don't know how these thoughts that arise, sensations arise, may be tangled up and shared with people sitting on the other side of the room or next to you. We're all connected in many ways we can't possibly see. So this is an image of that connection and that the point of, you know, one of the words for liberation is to become untangled.

[14:06]

But Dogen says actually we're tangled together. Here we are. We are connected in so many ways. This is our practice, dropping body and mind again and again as we are willing to be enmeshed with Buddha, enmeshed with others in Sangha, enmeshed with all the people in our lives, and taking that on. So the reference to the red-bearded barbarian is a reference to Bodhidharma. There's a story about that. But then he just says, having eaten breakfast, wash your bowls. So Dogen just repeats what Zhaozhou said. How do we take care of this tangle? So there's an old verse going back to the great Theravada text from, I don't know, it's about 500 or 600. The path of purification begins with this great verse.

[15:10]

Inner tangle, outer tangle, the whole world is in a tangle. Who will take care of this tangle? So we can see that today in the difficulties of our society and our world and our own lives, and we're connected in that. How do we take care of the tangle? We can't, you know, there are times when we can actually untangle something. This happens. We let go of something. Some problem gets resolved. That happens. That's okay. If it helps, that's great, but how do we live in the midst of tangle and see our lives and eat breakfast and then wash our bowls? How do we take care of the vessel of our life that allows us to meet ourselves, to study ourselves, to eat our breakfast? I'm just going to go to the last one I wanted to talk about, which relates to this in other ways.

[16:21]

This was actually just a little bit. I spoke about this yesterday. A couple of you were here. But this was just in the week before the last talk about Xiaozhou and washing your bowls. Another short one, but very important. Teaching by Dogen, he says, the family style of all Buddhas and ancestors is to first arouse the vow to save all living beings by removing suffering and providing joy. Only this family style is inexhaustibly bright and clear. In the lofty mountains, we see the moon for a long time. As clouds clear, we first recognize the sky. Cast loose down the precipice, the moonlight shares itself within the 10,000 forms. Even when climbing up the bird's path, taking good care of yourself is spiritual power." So that's the whole talk, and yet it's very rich in terms of what this practice is about.

[17:26]

He starts with, well, again, he ends with, taking good care of yourself is spiritual power. Please eat your breakfast. It's important to take good care of yourself, each of us, but not just for yourself. So he starts again, the family style of all Buddhists and ancestors, the teaching and the practice of all the Buddhists and all the teachers who kept this alive is first, arouse the vow to save all living beings by removing suffering and providing joy. So we will chant at the end of this as we do, always the inconceivable vows to free all beings, cut through all delusions, to enter all dharma gates, to realize the Buddha way. And this first arousing a vow is, in all of Buddhism, considered very important.

[18:28]

The Sanskrit word for it is bodhicitta, awakening mind. In Zen, it's also called the mind of the way. So first, arouse the vow. And just by virtue of the fact that you are here this morning, this is something all of you have done in some way or other at some point in your life. It occurred to you to pay attention to your life, to pay attention to your body and mind, to try and take care, take good care of the quality of your life and your awareness. This first arousing the vow is considered very mysterious. Where does that come from? How is it that some people think it's okay to damage the planet for their own personal profit and so forth? How is it that some people don't care about the quality of their mind, that they're willing to act just on greed or hatred?

[19:30]

What is it that allows some of us to first, to arouse this vow? Some part of me feels like everybody has access to that, all beings, not just people. There's this quality of Buddha nature of awareness that's available. But to actually bring forth this vow, this commitment, this concern, this caring about your own life and the world is what this refers to. So the family style of all Buddhas and ancestors is first, arouse the vow to save all living beings, by removing suffering and providing joy. So this is what this practice is all about, period. Saving all beings. What does that mean? It seems, you know, it's a very far-out idea, and yet this is what we chant every time we get together, almost every time. What would it be like if all if all beings, not just people, that's one of the important differences between Buddhism and Western religions, we're concerned with all beings, if all beings were just proud and free, living their lives upright, can you imagine?

[20:50]

This is what Buddhism is about, and it's about removing suffering and providing joy. So this practice is about letting go of suffering, or getting rid of suffering, or seeing through suffering, or healing our own sadness, and frustration, and anger, and sense of loss, and all of that, all of the suffering, and the whole world. So there are, it's hard to remember, because it's painful to think about, but there is a mass famine going on in Africa now. Hundreds of thousands of people Many, many children are in the process of dying from famine. We're connected with them somehow. What does it mean to remove suffering? Well, many of you in your individual lives are working with the people, teachers or counselors or parents or, you know, working with the people around you to help the suffering and to help your own suffering.

[21:54]

taking good care of yourself is the spiritual power that allows this. But this practice is basically about, first, removing suffering, but also providing joy. When Cosmos here, he is talking about smiling when you sit, and that our practice is about finding ease and finding happiness in our life and in our world. at the same time that we live in this painful, difficult world where there is suffering, we also live in this world where we can each find, as we have this morning, find the satisfaction of just sitting upright in the middle of our life. And we can each find, I encourage everyone to enjoy the things you enjoy. See the things that actually bring you satisfaction and bring you joy, whatever they are. They don't have to be dramatic.

[22:56]

Cooking, or going for a walk, or watching a movie that you like, or many other things. How can you enjoy your life? This is part of taking care of yourself. It is part of saving all living beings. So this is the family style of all Buddhas and ancestors. Very, very important, very fundamental. He says, only this family style is inexhaustibly bright and clear. In the Lofty Mountains, we see the moon for a long time. So I said about this yesterday that this, in some sense, is a reference to monks practicing up in the mountains, taking the time to focus on sitting and seeing the moon for a long time. But I would say also that when we come here and sit together, there's this chance to see the moon. Maybe if you sit outside, it's nice to do that sometimes. and Japanese people traditionally still, when there's a full moon out, they will go and sit outside for a little while, enjoy the full moon.

[24:00]

But this moon, when they say moon in these Zen talks, they're talking about the full round moon. They're talking about a sense of wholeness, of unity that's available. In the midst of a world of tremendous suffering and confusion and greed and so forth, Still, as we sit, we can feel. We have this possibility of feeling this sense of wholeness, of completeness, just here, today, now, this period. We may have cares, we may have problems, we may have concerns in our lives, but we can also just be present and aware. doing this practice regularly, and sometimes doing it more intensively, sitting for a day or three, or sometimes going for a retreat for a few weeks or whatever, we see the moon for a long time. So it's necessary to take, this is in some sense an instant practice, just coming and sitting down, Duncan says, all of space awakens.

[25:10]

But also, it takes time to soak in this, to actually trust this this vow to save all living beings, to trust this sense of wholeness, where we actually may not know how to fix the problems of the world, but each of us has our own way to respond somehow. And together that makes a difference. We are all entangled together. Everything we do makes a difference. So he says, in the lofty mountains we see the moon for a long time, As clouds clear, we first recognize the sky. And the character for sky is also the character for space, spaciousness, or for emptiness, as in form and emptiness. So as we settle, and maybe the clouds clear a little bit, we kind of see this possibility of spaciousness and wholeness in our city. Cast loose down the precipice, the moonlight shares itself within the 10,000 forms. So this is a reference to the streams flowing down from the mountaintop, but also when we get up from sitting, we go outside and into our world, and we share our awareness with everything, the 10,000 beings.

[26:28]

Then he says, even when climbing up the bird's path, Taking good care of yourself is spiritual power. This image of the bird's path is from the Chinese Soto founder, Dongshan, who talks about the bird's path. There is a path. All of you are already on it just because you're here. You know that. Even for people who are here for the first time. And yet, this image that Dongshan uses of the birch path is we don't really know. There are all kinds of descriptions of the path and stages and so forth in Buddhist sutras, but the birch path is open. We don't know. We can't see necessarily how our zazen and our life will develop in front of us. It's a funny image because maybe birds, I don't know if birds, maybe some of you know more about birds than I do, but I wonder if birds actually can see trails left behind by other birds in the sky.

[27:37]

They certainly know how to migrate, you know, huge distances from one place to the same place the next year. So, you know, maybe there are like street signs up there in the sky for the birds. We don't see them anymore. This image of the bird's path, though, is that our practice is open, that we don't always know where our practice is going, or what's important, or how Buddha is unfolding in each of us. And yet, we can pay attention, and breathe, and eat breakfast, and wash our bowls. So he says, even when climbing up the bird's path, taking good care of yourself is spiritual power. So once we have some connection to this vow of saving all living beings, of removing suffering and providing joy, maybe what it means to take good care of ourselves is a little different than if we think that we have to do unto others before they do unto us or get as much as we can for ourselves

[28:47]

and so forth, which is the usual way of being in the world, I guess. Taking good care of yourself is spiritual power. So when we sit here, I say, it's good if you can sit still and not move and be upright, but if you have to move during the middle of the period, just do it quietly, that's fine. Being in a lot of pain is not helpful, I don't think. Taking good care of yourself, what does that mean? There's a craft to that, and that has a lot to do with the craft of Sazen. In Sazen we learn, in some way, how to take care of this body and mind. Just sitting still, being upright, watching all the thoughts and feelings, all of our attachments, all of our graspings, all of our fears and frustrations, just being present and upright in the middle of that. We can learn to really take good care of ourselves. when we see that we are just tangled up with everything in the world.

[29:51]

And yet here we are, we can each express our own piece of that. So to express yourself is also to take good care of yourself. How do you respond to this world, the situation of your life, this body and mind? Not trying to make it into some other body and mind or wish you were some other person, Each of you on your Kushner chair right now is expressing Buddha in your own way. I know that because you're here. So this vow, this vow is a funny word, maybe, but it also means just some commitment, some determination, some intention. And of course, And Tsukiroshi said often, what is the most important thing? And I would say, what are the more important things?

[31:01]

It may not be one thing. Or the most important thing may be different tomorrow than it is today for any of you. But to look at what's important to you. One time, Sukhiro said, the most important thing is to see what is the most important thing. But that's not something that you get from reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, or hearing about bodhisattva vow. What is it really important? What's important to you? How do you express that? How do you enjoy that? How do you use that to remove the suffering of yourself and others? How do you share that with others? How do you enjoy it together with others? So there's, again, this kind of craft of taking good care of yourself that's related to just sitting, being present in this body and mind, taking another breath, feeling what you're feeling, not trying to get rid of your thoughts and feelings, being willing to be the person on your cushion and chair. So please take good care of yourselves.

[32:04]

After breakfast, please wash your bowls. I know sometimes you may let them pile up in the sink for a while. That's okay. So, that's what I wanted to say this morning. Does anyone have any responses or comments or questions to share with us? Kevin. She has some very good questions and thoughts and expressions. Great. And it's very much connected to what you're talking about. And that is, she was saying, is it meditation designed or is it part of the goal to learn to deal with pain, to change your relationship to pain? And so then, why don't you just sit with it for a minute?

[33:08]

Good question. What did you say, Kathy? I said that I thought that, you know, we talked about ways of breathing into it and trying to focus your energy in a way that lowers the pain, but not to take it to the point of stoicism, that the goal is not to just tolerate pain. But it didn't really answer the part about how does this change our relationship to pain over time. Yeah, so I think it is useful when you have some, you know, a little pain in your knee or even more than a little pain in your knee, this happens more in longer sittings, to just keep sitting and be still and breathe into it as Kathy said. And, you know, one thing is, that we see that it does go away. So this happened to me actually during Zazen today. I had a pain in my knee and I thought about changing my leg position and I didn't.

[34:11]

And at some point I realized it was gone. But there are certain kinds of pain that aren't gonna happen in one period of sitting or even two, but it happened if you're sitting for a few days, possibly, that you should not sit through. But if the pain feels really intense to you, I think just sitting through it isn't as important as being present and aware, so it's okay if you want to change your leg position. But how does the pain change? What's most difficult about Zazen is not some pain in your knees or your back. And I know some people who've sat for many years who have intense pain whenever they sit Zazen, they tell me, and I believe them. So it's important to find a way to sit. So there are different positions, and it's fine to sit in a chair. It's fine to sit kneeling, as Joanna's doing. It's fine to sit cross-legged, as Will is doing. There are various different possibilities. It takes a while to find your seat, and it's good to try different positions, especially if you're sitting for a day.

[35:18]

We have a half-day sitting coming up this month, which I'll talk about. The real difficulty of this practice is not getting your legs into some funny position, or sitting still, but it's staying with the practice. One of the things I read was, talked about this, but it's, I recommend very much sitting regularly, several times a week, if you can, at least. sitting at home in your spare time. You don't need a particular kind of black cushion or something. Just find a space where you can stop and sit and face the wall and be present in your life. And if you're willing to do that, over some time, the real pain is the pains in our hearts, the sadness that is part of life that we've all had in some way, various losses,

[36:21]

fears, anger, frustration, can we sit with that? That's the real pain. And that gets transformed just by our willingness to be present with it, to not try and get rid of the sadness. It's important to be with the sadness, to be with your own patterns of greed or frustration and so forth, to be able to just sit still with them. And it takes time, but they do transform. It's not that they, sometimes we see them in more and more and more subtle ways. So it's not that they necessarily go away, but we find the power to be present in the middle of it. And the more you are intimate with yourself and know your own patterns, the more you don't have to react based on them. The more you have the capacity to not cause harm to yourself or others from your own greed or your own anger or frustration. And sometimes you may slip, and that's fine.

[37:24]

This is a practice for human beings, not for some super being. So staying with it actually changes that pain, gives you a wider possibility for taking good care of yourself in the midst of that. So thank you for your questions. Other comments, questions, responses, please feel free. or further responses to Stephanie about pain. Joanne. I like the references to nature. Yeah. It's just so easy living in the city to get separated from nature and forget how important a part of life that is. It seems like we're always so busy that we forget our connection to nature, and so I like being reminded.

[38:26]

Yeah, a lot of most East Asian poetry and a lot of Zen talk is about, uses nature imagery, particularly mountains and rivers and the unfolding of that. Here, and that worked in, as I've said, that worked in Asia and California, but here we've got plains and lakes and pastures and prairies. But last Sunday, so some of you were here, but for those who weren't, we had the children here in our sangha. There were 10 children, three to 12 years old, plus bigger children. Some of you were here. And I said that it's not that we're connected to nature, we actually are nature. And it's very easy to forget it, and maybe it's easier to forget it in the city. Laurel took the children on a little walk in the neighborhood, and they saw things that were nature.

[39:30]

Grass growing through the concrete, butterflies, many things. There are some pictures now on the website. There will be more after that. We went down to the Chicago River here and chanted for the river and for all rivers and offered flowers onto the water. So there's some pictures and there'll be more pictures on the website of that. How do we recognize, it's important what you're bringing up, how do we recognize nature as us, and in this world, even in the city. Monday evening, Laurel talked last week, Laurel talked about urban land ethics, and that will be on the website at some point too. So, very good talk. So, it's an important point, and it's very much part of Zen teaching, and even these little Zen talks, these images of nature, which are really images about ourselves.

[40:32]

We are nature. So how do we feel the mountains and rivers and prairies and lakes in ourselves? This is all part of this process of taking good care of ourselves. So it's taking good care of ourselves and seeing how we are tangled up with nature. So I'll repeat an image I mentioned last week. One of the stories about interconnectedness from Buddhist teaching is Indra's net that The whole universe is this huge network, and at each place where the meshes meet, there's a jewel, and we all, each jewel, each particular thing reflects all the jewels around it. And there's a story about Empress Wu, the great empress of China, about 1,200 years ago, and she heard about this teaching, but didn't quite understand it, and she asked the Huai'an master, Fazang, for a demonstration, and he built a room with mirrors all around it,

[41:43]

and he put a Buddha in the center. And I actually saw a room like this at the city of 10,000 Buddhas at a Chinese chonk place in Northern California. And she looked and saw that the Buddha in the center was reflected in all the mirrors. And all those mirrors reflected all the other images of Buddha. And if he's in such a room, it's kind of Buddhist forever. And it occurred to me that that's actually what zendos are about, too. There's a Buddha in the middle, and each one of us is a mirror reflecting that, and reflecting the other Buddhas in the room. And it kind of goes on and on. So the structure of our meditation hall is really like that. So it's not that we are connected to some nature out there. We are nature, tangled up. and blue and vines and red and yellow and flowers and butterflies. Other comments or questions or responses or whatever?

[42:53]

Nancy. I wanted to make a comment on breakfast actually. Okay. And nature. Yesterday, I think I allowed myself to get a little depleted. I don't know if it was heat exhaustion with too long of a bike ride or just not eating enough or something, but you get to a point where something gets out of balance. I went and ate something and felt better. whatever it was was still out of balance for the whole rest of the day and I just found myself starting to be irritable all day and exhausted and you start doing kind of clumsy or unskillful things and there was really nothing I could really seem to do to remedy it except to just try to rest because it was really something that was just really out of balance and it made me think about how you need to do what you can to stay in balance. So that I think sometimes I think of myself as like, you know, I'm a big breakfast eater, and I want to get up in the morning.

[44:03]

It's like the first thing that's on my mind. It's like how I bribe myself to get out of bed. But so I think about breakfast as being somehow, you know, tainted by greed. But I think today, you know, after getting so depleted yesterday to where I was really starting to realize I cannot help other beings. I can barely help myself in this moment. I am not very useful, very unuseful actually, to many different causes. You know, the first thing that I thought about this morning when I woke up was like, okay, well, you know, today we're having breakfast because it was just a reminder about how much we are, you know, animals and need to do take care of yourself appropriately to stay in balance so that you can be helpful to others. Because all I could think about by that point of getting depleted was me, [...] how do I help, you know, how do I get me back to where I want to be? So I think I have a renewed appreciation for, you know, breakfast and balance and the things that you need to do to keep yourself as a natural being in that middle path.

[45:11]

Thank you. I'm glad you enjoy breakfast. I say that I often these days skip breakfast, but it's actually my favorite meal. And there's a venerable tradition of enjoying breakfast. Anyone else? Yes, Stephanie. I think, too, to add to that point, one of the things I felt, too, is sometimes when I didn't do my best intentions and my life was completely out of whack, I found, well, you know, I tried to just put a hand on the other person, but if I don't know how to help myself, then how do I know how to help them without what I need mixing up with what they need? And so it's like I'm putting it on them, and we'll just listen when we have problems, rather than what happens to myself so I can turn to them and help them. Yeah, it's important too.

[46:16]

take care of ourselves in order to help others. The other side of that, also though, sometimes by helping others we actually help ourselves. So it works together.

[46:44]

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