Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me back there, Dave? Can everyone online hear me? So I want to speak this morning about one of the paramitas or liberative practices, the practice of enthusiasm, or we could say of sustaining energy. Of course we know sustainable energy is something that our society is going to need to do to implement rather than fossil fuels for our species to survive. But it's also an individual personal meditative practice. So this is the fourth of the six or sometimes ten liberative practices or paramitas So I'll name all ten, six in ten, for those who don't know these.

[01:08]

These are paramitas, sometimes translated as transcendent practices, but they're bodhisattva practices that help to liberate beings. Paramita means literally to carry beings across to the shore of liberation from samsara, from the world of suffering. So, they are generosity, dana paramita, and then shila, or paramita, or ethical conduct. Then, kshanti paramita, patience or tolerance, very important. And then, the one I'm going to focus on today, virya paramita, sometimes translated as effort, or energy, but also enthusiasm, and I'll talk more about it. Then there's samadhi, Paramita or meditation, and Prajnaparamita, the practice of wisdom or insight.

[02:11]

So there won't be a test, I'm just naming these for context, because they're all interrelated, they all support each other. So sometimes those six are presented often in Zen as one set of practices, but they're also in other Buddhist traditions, Upaya, which is skillful means, beneficial means. Pranidhana, which is vow or commitment. Bala, which is strength or powers or use of your abilities. And then jnana paramita, knowledge. So knowledge is different from wisdom or prajna or insight. Knowledge is the things we know about the world and ourselves and how we use them beneficially. So, but again I'm focusing today on the practice of energy or enthusiasm. The Sanskrit word virya relates etymologically to vitality.

[03:21]

How do we find our energy or enthusiasm How do we find a way of making effort? How do we sustain our energy or enthusiasm for the practice of awakening? Our bodhisattva practice, our meditative practice. So, this is difficult sometimes. Sometimes we So some of you, at least one of you I know, is doing this kind of meditation for the first time today here. And sometimes when we first start meditation, we feel very good, it's dramatic, and we can see how it's beneficial for ourselves and others, but also how we actually develop energy

[04:24]

joy, enthusiasm in this practice, and we find some inner calm and joy. But also, at times we can, it can become boring. We can, you know, sometimes in our practice, over periods of times it becomes like a plateau. It's difficult to sustain. So, I want to encourage us to think about enthusiasms. And not just in our meditation, but in our life. How do we find, how do we support our own personal enthusiasms? That which brings us energy, that which brings us interest and vitality. use them to support not just our formal practice of meditation, but our practice of kindness and awareness in the world.

[05:30]

And thereby also our responsiveness to the difficulties of our own life, friends and family, neighbors, and all the difficulties of our troubled world. So, all of us have various things which, activities or interests or ways in which we find some enthusiasm for our situation or for our life. People become enthusiasts of music, or film, or art, or crafts, or engaging with nature, or walking or running. for me to study. Anybody else have some enthusiasm that they, well, please call out if you have something else that is an enthusiasm for you.

[06:37]

Yoga. Yoga, good. Kung Fu. Kung Fu. Chinese. Chinese. Chinese food or Chinese language? Language. Anybody else? Yeah, so there are lots of things which we can find as enthusiasms. Cooking, gardening, relationships, parenting, caring for others. We have a number of chaplains in our circle who find enthusiasm for helping others in terrible situations and being helped by them. So, these enthusiasms can be very helpful in supporting our vitality and our practice of awareness. And again, all of these different transcendent practices, liberative practices, support each other.

[07:43]

So, again, these enthusiasms have to be, should not be harmful. Our practice of ethical conduct, the second one, means that we try to live in a way that's helpful. And we certainly try to avoid activities or interests, I would say, that are harmful, that hurt others. So I want to tell a story about my teacher, Tenshin Reb Anderson, who's one of the senior teachers at San Francisco Zen Center. And there's a bunch of background I have to give first. So I have a well-known Zen teacher friend who thinks that sports and following sports is really a frivolous waste of time and doesn't understand why anybody does that. Some of you may feel that way. But for myself, I grew up in Pittsburgh and followed the Pirates and later the Steelers, baseball and football teams, as you don't know, and actually ended up later working for the Pirates and Steelers.

[09:02]

And early on met great bodhisattva Roberto Clemente, who was a Pirates outfitter. Later, for a few decades, I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, where there's the Giants, who I followed, and the Man Open days, and a wonderful San Francisco 49er team that was often in the Super Bowl, with quarterbacks Joe Montana and Steve Young later. and in the Bay Area people could follow teams from either side. But before I relocated to Chicago in 2007. For several years I would come here and visit and give teachings to what became Ancient Dragon Zen Gate. And when I was visiting I would stay in the homes of some of our Sangha members, Hauketsu and Cathy who's here.

[10:08]

So I came to understand that in Chicago you're either a Cubs fan or a White Sox fan. That's what I understand. You can't be both. Although we have both Cubs and White Sox fans in our song. But anyway, one time when I was saying at Cathy's, the White Sox were in the World Series. And we watched it, and they won the World Series. What year was that? 2005. 2005, right. So that was exciting, but then I found out that, you know, for Cubs fans, well, okay, that's great. But anyway, okay, I want to come back to the story I wanted to tell about my teacher, Reb Anderson. When I was around, living in and around San Francisco's then Central City Center, This would be, I guess, early 80s. I don't know if any of you have been to the San Francisco Zen Center or City Center on Page Street.

[11:12]

There's a room on the first floor that's now kind of an arts room, I think. I haven't been there in a while, but back then, there was a TV, and people would watch television at times that didn't conflict with the schedule. And one time, we were watching the Super Bowl. And I don't remember if that was when the 49ers, there might have been a time when the Oakland Raiders were playing. But anyway, there were a bunch of guys, maybe there was someone in there, I don't know, who were in this room watching the Super Bowl. And my teacher, Rev Anderson, was there. And people become very enthusiastic about rooting for their team. But then halftime came, and the second half, Reb totally enthusiastically rooted for the other team. I was very impressed.

[12:13]

I mean, he was the only one, but that contributed to my wanting to become a Zen priest. So we can have enthusiasms and care about things, but that doesn't mean we have to oppose somebody else who has a different perspective. So how do we have enthusiasms that don't divide us from people who have other enthusiasms. How do we, so again, this is about how do we support energy, vitality, caring? So as I said, this intersects with the second transcendent practice or reverted practice of ethical conduct, Sheila, so we don't, you know, we try not to engage in enthusiasms that will be hurtful to some people, or hurtful to the world, but also the practice of sustaining energy, the practice of

[13:38]

The practice of enthusiasm relates very closely to the fifth paramita meditation. It also relates very much to the Third, which is patience, very important. Tolerance. So to sustain our energy we need to have active patience. We need to be willing to, as we do in our formal meditation practice, just sit patiently to tolerate discomforts, whether it's physical in our legs or back, or whether it's distractions from emotional impatiences. So patience is very important, but in terms of the practice of energy or enthusiasm, this is very relevant to our practice of zazen.

[14:45]

So this zazen we're doing, our tradition of meditation, Dogen, the founder of this tradition in Japan in the 13th century, says in one of his important writings, basic writings, that this Sazen is not about learning meditation. So the fifth liberative practice is meditation. But there are all kinds of traditional Buddhist meditative systems, meditative orientations, meditation objects, particularly there are libraries full of different kinds of meditation instructions. But the Zazen, Dogen says, is not learning meditation. It's just sitting without trying to reach some particular goal, but just being aware, being awake.

[15:57]

paying attention as we sit, as thoughts and feelings arise and go away and then come up again, as our physical sensations in our body or the sensation of hearing the stream of traffic here at Edbenezer, which sometimes to me is like the stream at Tassajara where I lived for a few years. There was a creek right next to the meditation hall. So we can be open to hearing a stream of traffic. Sometimes there are sirens or very particular sounds. But at any rate, this practice of just sitting is not a meditation technique. And it doesn't have a particular object, but also it's wide open. And part of this zazen is to learn how to, or in zazen, to sustain our energy.

[17:07]

To sustain our enthusiasm. To respond, and then to respond to the situation. in our world from learning about sustaining our sitting practice. So during Zazen, one of the things that happens is we can be monitoring our energy. We don't have to focus on it necessarily, but sometimes our mind is very busy and we can get distracted by that. Sometimes we may feel very low energy or even sleeping. So to pay attention to everything that's happening as we're sitting means also paying attention to our energy. And finding balance of energy between effort or energy and ease.

[18:20]

Dogen also says that this is the dharma gate of opposing bliss. How do we find the balance? How do we monitor our energy and find a balance in our energy? So there are particular things we can do or be aware of. So as we're sitting in sasen, we sit generally with eyes open. But sometimes if we, if our mind is very busy and distracted, I mean that's okay, but we might want to settle more. So we can bring our energy down into our hara, into our mudra. Or we can, and one way to, or we can bring our energy up when we're feeling sleepy. We can feel that in our energy body. And one way to do that is through our eyes. So, we say to sit with eyes open during zazen, to be aware of the field of vision, like the field of the sounds or the thoughts.

[19:30]

When you're feeling sluggish or sleepy, you can raise your energy and you can, instead of looking down at a 45 degree angle, you can look straight ahead at the wall for a little while. Bring your energy up. Or if you're caught up in thoughts and feelings and sort of agitated, we usually say to sit with our eyes open, looking down at a 45 degree angle, but you can look even lower. And if you need to, if it feels appropriate, you can even rest your eyelids for a couple seconds or a few minutes. to bring the energy down. So part of being aware during Zazen is about this sustaining our energy, which is related to sustaining our enthusiasm, sustaining our attention and vitality as we sit. just to pay attention to this.

[20:45]

And it's not that there's one right, perfect balance of our energy, because we're alive. The energy is alive. How do we sustain that? How do we, and also with our breathing, sometimes taking a deep breath can settle. Or just paying attention to the quality of our breathing can help us find a balance So in Daoism we talk about wu-wei, effortless effort. So this isn't some technique. This is just about finding our meditative energy body in Zazen. This is a model again for how we respond to the situations of the world in our own life and in the difficulties as we engage the difficulties of our world. How do we find the balance between some effort, some intensity of sustaining energy and also being completely relaxed?

[22:02]

One of our chants says, let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. So, sitting upright like this, we're actually learning how to relax completely. It may not feel like that, especially when we're doing longer sittings for a day or several days. There can be physical and emotional pain, but how do we find the balance where we can make effortless effort, where we don't have to think about or work at how do we find our energy? It's there. And it's also relaxed. But it's alive. It's vital. Again, virya is related to vitality, liveliness. So this is not some special method or technique or something. This is just being aware of this body-mind as we're sitting.

[23:07]

And taking care of it. Settling when we feel distracted. And it's okay if we feel distracted, because thoughts and feelings will go away. More may come, but just breathing into it. And lifting our energy, raising our energy. when we feel sleepy, tired. So, one reality that we are facing now is that I think our energy and our enthusiasm has been hampered by this pandemic for the last couple of years, which in some ways we're getting over, although now they say COVID is not going to go away.

[24:09]

And here we're still wearing masks. The speaker doesn't wear a mask, but, you know, we take care of each other. But it's been difficult being quarantined at various times or staying home. I think many in our sangha are getting out much more now, and that's great, but also we have to be careful. But, you know, it's now almost two and a half years, and it's been a strange time. And of course our sangha is very much affected by this because some of you remember when we had a temple that we rented at Irving Park, a storefront temple. It was wonderful, lovely. Lots of kitchen and practice interview rooms and a library.

[25:14]

Anyway, and sitting here at Ebenezer Church is wonderful. It's wonderful to be able to sit together, but it's limited. We're still looking for a place to find a new long-term temple. But all of us, each of us individually, and as a solo, we've been We've had our energy sometimes depleted by this situation of the pandemic. So this is a very important question. How do we now regain our vitality, sustain our enthusiasm for practice, for the practice of being upright, paying attention, being aware of our energy, allowing thoughts, feelings, sensations to arise and go away and still continuing to sit upright like Buddha in the middle of it all.

[26:27]

So we, you know, we're trying here at Ebenezer to use the forms that we were using at our temple in Irving Park, but it's a different situation and we're still working that out. And thanks to the Doans and to our Inojeri for working on this and the practice leaders. But I think, you know, it's worthwhile to recognize that our energy has in some ways been injured. So sustaining energy is a question. Again, like I was saying, in terms of informal meditation, to question where our energy is. How do we vitalize our energy and enthusiasm? How do we notice when we're feeling we're losing energy?

[27:37]

How do we notice when we're getting overexcited? It's not that those things are bad. It's just that we notice them and we find balance. So our Zazen practice is about physical balance. We sit upright. Sometimes you can swing left and right and find center, and same thing forwards and backwards at the beginning of Zazen. What is center? What is balance? And maybe we never find perfect balance. Suzuki Roshi, our founder in California, said that we are always losing our balance against the background of perfect balance. So, in our zazen, as we find calm and settledness, we glimpse this possibility of balance, of wu-wei, of

[28:40]

steady, relaxed energy and enthusiasm. And it's not about, you know, judging, oh, I'm off balance or whatever. It's just returning, returning to balance, returning to center, returning to breath and awareness. So in addition to paying attention to where our energy is in our body during Satsang, to pay attention to our breathing. It's not that there's one right way to be breathing. I mean, there are breathing techniques to help meditation objects, breathing as meditation objects, which are helpful at times, but just to notice, oh, my breathing is shallow, or my breathing is slow, or whatever. And this is all about finding Vitality, finding energy.

[29:44]

So we each do this and we're doing this as a Sangha. It's a challenge, it's a question. So part of the practice of sustaining energy is questioning. Wondering. Not just settling into, oh everything's fine, but is it? How are we? How do we find vitality, enthusiasm, energy? So, as I was saying before, to notice and pay attention and to enjoy the enthusiasms you have in your life already, in your everyday life. Zazen is also about creativity. So, your creative activities in your everyday life, running or walking or gardening or cooking or music. Those are supported by Zazen and vice versa.

[30:50]

Your enthusiasms can support your Zazen. Again, enthusiasms that are not harmful to anyone. So we need to check our energy. We need to wonder and question how to be reborn, as it were. In each moment, in each day or week or month, how, and as a Sangha, again and again, how can we be reborn? So this is challenge, this is question. My favorite Dharma poet once said, one not busy being born is busy dying. So how do we not fade away? How do we sustain our energy? Again, this is something our whole society needs to do, and we do have sustainable energy systems, solar and wind and so forth, instead of the fossil fuel energy systems that are killing us anyway.

[32:06]

But how do we check our energy? So, another part of this, amid all the changes, the shifts in our balance, the shifts in our energy and enthusiasm, sustaining enthusiasm means also checking intention. How do we return to what's the practice of intention? What do we care about? What's most important to us? How do we express kindness and caring and sharing in our life and in our world? How do we not let our enthusiasms hurt others? Again, sometimes we need to take sides, but as I mentioned, what my teacher read, It was very impressive to me.

[33:12]

Maybe that's when I decided to be a Zen priest. Anyway, so what do you care about? That's another part of the question of enthusiasm and sustaining energy. What is important to you? How do you want to take care of the world and of yourself and of your friends and family and our Sangha? So, maybe that's enough for what I wanted to talk about. Again, this practice of sustaining energy, of enthusiasm, of caring, of bringing our life to life, of vitality, is one of the liberative practices. So, I'm interested in hearing your comments, questions, responses. So, if you're here, I can see you and you can raise your hand.

[34:15]

And David Ray, would you please let us know if there's anybody on our online comments. Hi, Kathy. Hi, David. Thank you for the talk. And thank you for hosting me before I moved to Chicago. You're very welcome. That was important in the way you made the transition. Your talk about energy is very important to me and it's what eventually drew me into the Eastern practices in that I began to do Tai Chi when I was in graduate school.

[35:18]

Can you hear her online? Can everyone hear online? It's half and half. People need to speak up, whether you're here or online, so we can all hear. If you'd like to come over to the Zoom screen, that's good too. Either way. Either way, Catherine, you can stay there or talk to these other people, but also loud enough so that Dave can hear it in the back. Great. Tell me if anybody cannot hear. What it made me think about was the fact that I got into these practices at a time when I was encountering a lot of stress and my mind was extremely active and a little chaotic. And Tai Chi was extremely helpful to me. And there was much discussion about energy, where it is in your body, how to manage that, and I found it that I would leave a busy day and go to class and the group energy, by the end of it, I would be in a totally different place that was much more grounded and able to be in the present moment.

[36:38]

Then when I, you know, I was drawn to Zen, I think for the same reason, and I think that the group presence, the practice itself, it brings me into the moment. Whereas when I'm outside practice, my mind is often a bit chaotic. I also find the same thing now with yoga, and I find that When I go to particular teachers who I think are grounded and have their own meditation practice, I think there is something very grounding about those sessions. allow me to be in my own body and for my mind to stop and to be in the present, to focus on my breathing, to focus on what is going on in the immediate part of my experience.

[37:42]

I'm bringing this up because I have had that. I know it's beneficial. I know it's helpful. I know it takes me in the right direction. I find that I'm fairly dependent on having a group to do it with. And even, you know, this summer, my yoga teacher is gone for the summer, and I struggle with, I know how to do these practices. I could do a yoga session by myself, but I have an extremely difficult time getting myself to do that. I also have a difficult time getting myself to sit in meditation at home. I can do walking meditation, especially in, you know, I choose natural settings that are not too crowded. That is one way that I can kind of quiet my mind and focus on my breathing and come back to the present.

[38:48]

But I just wondered if you would like to speak to that a little bit. And I appreciate the talk. It was very helpful to me, bringing me back to a lot of roots. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kathy. Yeah. You used the word ground, grounding. And that's an important part of this. So I was talking about balance, balancing our energies. Not to find some perfect balance, but just to be aware of how our energy shifts. As Kathy was describing, talking about going out into the after Tai Chi or Shazam, being distracted, to pay attention to our energy. not just when we're sitting in meditation. But grounding is very important. I think grounding is another word we might use for balance.

[39:53]

So part of this practice of zazen, sitting, is we sit on the ground. We sit, you know, on the floor, whatever. We, in some ways, Buddhism and Buddhist meditation is an earth practice. So we connect to the ground. We feel the pressure of our seat on us. Yeah, so you mentioned Sangha, very, very important. There are people who can do this on their own. But for most of us, it's really important to have community. So coming to Ebenezer Church here in this meditation space here has been really helpful and important in helping us towards reviving the energy of our Sangha because we can sit together in person.

[41:05]

Zoom is wonderful in its own way, it's wonderful for discussion, but we're missing the ground of being present together on the ground. So they can complement each other. But yeah, this is a question. And part of what we emphasize in our practice in Soto Zen to use the name of this branch of designation of this branch of Buddhism is to emphasize carrying this awareness from our sitting practice and from Sangha practice into our everyday activity. And this is really challenging. This is really a difficult practice. So, I've practiced at Tassajara Monastery. If you're living in a residential community, it's in some ways lots easier.

[42:07]

You're always supported to come together, be grounded together. So, this is in a way advanced practice. How do we come to sit together and then feel some settling, feel some calm, feel some openness and spaciousness, that then we don't have to kind of figure out how to carry it out into the world, but to remember it. So there are kind of practices one can do. in the middle of a busy day at work or whatever, just to stop, to pause, and take a couple of breaths, several breaths, and reconnect with breathing as the balancing and grounding of our sitting practice. So, how to express this tradition of

[43:09]

Zen emphasizes expression of this awareness in Zazen, but also in everyday activity. And having Sangha, having communities, very helpful. So thank you all for being here. Other comments, responses, questions? Oh, Brian's hand is up. Who? Brian Taylor. Brian. Hi, Brian. Hi there. Thank you so much. for a good talk. Sometimes there's no enthusiasm for life and we're just going through the motions. I'm not talking about clinical depression here, but sometimes it seems important to accept the low energy part of being human and maybe even discover some value, which goes against our American idols of our best self and optimism and all that stuff. My question is really, how do we discern when it is time to do something to regain vitality, as you've been talking, and when to temporarily move into the low energy or accept it somehow.

[44:18]

Yeah, no, thank you for that. So it's true that whatever our energy is, it's not that we have to change it. But pay attention. bring attention and energy to the energy level that we have, to the enthusiasm level that we have. So if you're feeling low energy for a while, and I think for many of us during the pandemic this has been an issue, how do we pay attention to that and see that energy? Not fight it, but see sometimes there's value And it sometimes may be, you know, I think we know, Brian, when we need to re-energize or resettle. So, how to discern was your question. I think if we keep paying attention, even when we're depressed, which I sometimes think of as deep rest,

[45:24]

When we're low energy, paying attention to that will sometimes show us, oh, how can I bring energy to this and bring higher energy to this? So it's not about having, it's not about right and wrong energy, or good and bad energy. It's about paying attention to what is. And when we do that, we can, and if we're aware of this as practice of finding our enthusiasm, then we naturally will respond. Follow-up or other comments, responses, questions? Deborah's hand is up. Hi, Deborah. Hello. Thank you so much for this important talk about One Pyramida, as well as relating it to the others. I really appreciated the interconnection you made today.

[46:27]

I just wanted to say for me, as a person who is remote, that sangha really has become an important aspect of feeling, as you called the word, having energy or enthusiasm. I think COVID has taken such a toll. Not having the ability to kind of talk intimately with each other is a big price. And I was going to send in a request that we consider having breakout rooms for those of us on Zoom, and perhaps even in your Zendo, that if a Dharma talk is provided, there could be just a moment of conversation. You would be able to do it with all the group there, but those on Zoom maybe could also reflect. Just to create, again, intimacy and honesty and supporting practice. And I just wanted to make one other comment. There is a man named Brian Dozer, who was a Motown star. They just did an obituary on him that I read. And they asked him about writer's block.

[47:28]

And he said, there's no such thing. And he said, you just keep working at it. Because in his era, they had to churn out hits for all these Motown stars. And he would work maybe 48, 72 hours, all of these people together trying to create a hit. And I took that to my practice, which is, even though there are these lags and this lack of support, you know, a sense of lack of support or a sense of energy, you know, just trying to get on the cushion. Just trying to accept that there's a block and get on that cushion. So I just wanted to make those two comments today. So thank you very much. Thank you very much, Debra. Are you in Pittsburgh, California now? I'm in California. Okay, good. Yeah. Sangha is very important. And, you know, again, during this COVID time, we've had an active online program. And people have been coming to our online program from all over the country and the world, actually.

[48:33]

But yeah, it's challenging. So, Deborah, one of the things that I've been trying to do is after the talk at Ebenezer, for the people who are online, we used to do this at Irving Park, there'd be tea in the kitchen and we could just chat, but for the people online, after the talk, to hang out, to stay on and hang out. and chat together. That's one thing that we can do. Another thing, I don't know about breakout rooms. Maybe we can do that. Douglas knows how to do that and others. But I think Kathy's on our strongest support committee, one of our board committees. And I don't know if you've started doing this, but we're going to re-institute this buddy system where two or three people can connect together and meet together regularly. And it's really important to have connection and to support each other, because this is difficult.

[49:37]

It is difficult to sustain our energy, especially in these difficult, difficult, difficult times. Yeah, for me, the Sangha jewel is bumping up against each other. Right. That is the intangibleness of Sangha. So I just wanted to support that awareness. Thank you. Yeah, I think Kathy, your committee's going to post something on the website. Yeah, Sarah has it prepared and it's going out very soon into the newsletter. So it'll be in the newsletter and I guess on the website and people can sign up and be connected with a couple of other people too. So everyone who signs up then will be making connections for people to be a team. Yes. yeah with the idea that it's supportive and that it's a chance the idea that it's a support supportive but it's also a chance to talk about what you're working on talk about your practice right brainstorm yeah yeah so we need so there's lots of ways to support

[50:46]

in Sangha to support each other. Just coming and sitting together is really important. Without even saying a word, just to be present together. It works in a way that's It's sort of intangible, but many of us recognize it. But yeah, having discussion groups is also good. We have a few of those. And hopefully this buddy system will help. So thank you, Deborah. And it's great to hear you. And yeah, we need to support each other. Other comments, responses, questions about energy and enthusiasm. And you people, too, feel free. Hey, Bo. Hi. I've been thinking about this. So thank you for your talk, because it's apropos. We're starting school again tomorrow. Can you hear Bo online?

[51:47]

You want to come up here? Yes, come on down. Yeah, they say they can't hear you. Yeah, so Bo is one of our teachers in our song that he teaches. Is it fourth grade now, Bo? Yeah. So yeah, I've been thinking about energy because I'm a little afraid that I won't have the energy to sort of sustain through the 180 days of the school year. And I was connecting this actually to running too, which you mentioned. I try to run. I kind of hate it. So, but one thing I read recently was this kind of it's a mindset thing of like obligation versus You know, almost a sense of gratitude that you have the opportunity to do something. So I was thinking about gratitude in relationship to energy. So the obligation to run sort of depletes my energy to go and do it, the sense that I have to do something, which I'm, you know, I'm just doing to myself.

[52:55]

No one's doing that to me. causes me to procrastinate to do it. It again, it kind of depletes my energy to even step up to do it. Whereas if I think of it as like I'm grateful that I have a body to be able to do this in the first place and why not sort of, while I have the time to, not to be like too faithful about it, but like to exercise that energy that is sort of available to me right now. And just that kind of subtle switch, I'm not saying I like, it's made some like dramatic change necessarily, but just that subtle sort of mindset shift. really, I don't know, to think of obligation versus, okay, here's just another opportunity to express the gratitude for, you know, the presence and existence that we have kind of available to us right now.

[53:56]

So, I don't know if that's helpful or not, but that's kind of one way I've been thinking about sustaining my energy throughout like a school year, for example. Yes, yes. Thank you both. Sure. Yeah, that brings up that paying attention to our energy level and enthusiasm is one thing, but it's also, you know, it can bring enjoyment, but it also is something that we have to do. So, these paramitas, these liberative practices, we have to actually take them on, to take on generosity, to take on patience, to take on settling in meditation, to take on paying attention to our energy. And so, in some ways, at some point, they can become effortless efforts. You get used to it. But also, there's an effort involved just to pay attention.

[54:58]

So, yeah, thank you for that. Can I make a quick response to Bill from here? Sure. Thank you very much. That was helpful to me. I just began reading a book about the fact that the distractions in our life often prevent us from doing things that are the most meaningful in our lives. So that's the other piece, is that it's one thing to think, OK, just go do yoga. Don't think about it, just do it. But for me, it's also fighting this list of 10 things. And if I were to rank them in a sound mind, they would not be the top priority. But they're there. And so it's like how to get, you know, trying to get rid of the distractions or at least ranking them and staying focused on a practice. Thank you.

[56:01]

Yes, we have to bring our attention and intention to working at this in some sense. Just for the, I might add, for the people in the room, Hogetsu has said in chat that for her Dharma talk on Sunday the 28th, she plans to offer a breakout session. So we'll have a pilot run of that breakout format. Thank you, Hogetsu.

[56:29]

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