It's the only word I had. Well, it's a sports term. Like bicycle riders go faster when they're riding with someone else. And women who live together in the same, like a center like this, will tend to have their periods at the same time. And people who practice together begin to have some kind of bodily entrainment, connectedness.

[01:05]

Even if you start swinging, if you start several different grandfather, you know what a grandfather clock is? A clock with a swinging pendulum. What do you call them, a grandmother clock? A pendulum, right? If you have several such clocks in the same building, they'll all start swinging together. So a lot of practice is some kind of finding yourself in a similar connectedness with someone else. My first conscious experience of it... I mean, I was in the midst of it with Sukhiroshi. So I can never forget him. It was... when I consciously noticed it, was I was actually on the Berkeley campus.

[02:14]

I was a graduate student and I was also working for the university and putting together adult education programs. I called adult education, at least, like the LSD conference. Which the university was pretty hard on me. They called me a communist and other things. Anyway, I was walking across the campus one evening And this building, one of the sprawl hall I remember, was packed with people. And you couldn't get in the door at all. But I knew the building well, so I went around the side and went through a window.

[03:16]

And sat on the windowsill. And here was this fellow up there, a small Indian man, looking like he'd just visited every island in Hawaii. Because he had piles of flowers around his neck. And I knew nothing about who this guy was except he was sitting up there smiling. And he smiled a lot more than he said anything. Yeah, so I thought, you know. This is great, but, you know, who's this guy?

[04:19]

So he finished. I was only there about maybe 20 minutes before he ended. And I went out the door, and I happened to come out the door rather near him. And there was all this, there was a limousine and people and, you know, people saying, well, we've got to do this and kind of businessman type who were sort of trying to arrange everything for him. I don't know what year this was, but maybe 62 or 63. Yeah, so I... 64, 63, I don't know. Anyway, so I found myself standing beside this little guy with all the flowers. And... And suddenly I said, I felt in myself, he's pretty good.

[05:37]

So I said, where did this come from, this thought, he's pretty good? And I realized without thinking at all, I had coordinated my breathing with his. And as soon as my breathing was linked with his, which I just somehow had learned to do without even knowing I'd learned to do it, he was breathing in a way that taught me something, showed me something about his mind. And I thought, oh, this thought occurred, he's pretty good. And then he got in the limousine and went off. And I found out later it was the Maharishi. He wasn't famous yet, but he was visiting Berkeley and Berkeley.

[06:42]

But anyway, so that's bioentrainment. And he was not yet known at that time, but he visited him in Berkeley, and that is the body swinging. For instance, a Zen teacher will teach you something about breathing by breathing and hoping you notice how he or she is breathing. But that would be an obvious example because this kind of connectedness when you practice with somebody regularly is going on all the time. It's a kind of apprenticeship. And it's so fundamental in Zen practice. Some Zen teachers basically don't give lectures. They just live with everybody and that should be enough. And it's expressed in the first line of the first koan in the book of Serenity. Where it says, closing the door and sleeping are the way to meet, practice with, those of highest potential.

[07:47]

But that doesn't mean that's all you do. That just means that's the most fundamental way to practice together. It's one of the reasons why the sutras start with, thus I have heard. And not thus I have read. Thus I have read. Because it wants to emphasize that you have a bodily experience of the sutras. Okay. Okay. No reports?

[09:09]

No? No questions? We can end early. You can go back outside. Yes. One thing we talked about in our group was practice in everyday life with work and living in the city or living outside of a center, and then practice in a center. And there was a kind of... thought that people who escape reality go into a center. That's me. That's me. And I could feel within myself that it kind of hit me somewhere, and I saw that there's still a subtle belief that this is not the real life. The real life is somewhere out in the world. and yet this morning we talked about falling in love is practice or falling in love is sitting and that's what happens to me and I said the more I sit the less I want to go back in the world in a kind of

[10:21]

way I think it is because I haven't lived in the world for four and a half years. I've lived in centers and still there's some kind of doubt about myself. Am I still escaping? But it feels like I want to be in the center because to me it feels natural because I'm with people and I love to practice more and more. But it's just something that comes to me often that people think, you know, you live in a center, you're escaping something. And somewhere I still believe it about myself. But on the other hand, it's not really true, I think. So I don't know. Deutsch, bitte. In unserer Runde ist es auch gekommen, wenn man die Praxis in Zentren und die Praxis außerhalb von Zentren, wie man sagt, in der realen Welt oder so, and that often from people who do not live in the center this attitude is that the people who live in the center somehow flee from reality or something like that, and since I have lived in the center for four and a half years now, I ask myself whether I am fleeing, but actually my attitude is that I am exactly where I want to be, and the more I practice, the more inspired I am and I actually want to practice more and more,

[11:44]

This is a rumor started by monks. So that somebody has to do the work of the world, so we want them to think that we can stay here. They don't want to make people realize how good this life is. I don't know. It seems to me it's the same to be... I've done all kinds of things, right? I like this better. I have much more satisfying contact with people than I do in a business or university setting. And at least from my experience and the various things I have done, this is just far more engaging.

[12:48]

And far more complex, actually. Yeah. But you know, that's just my prejudice, perhaps. But for me, this is paradise. I come downstairs and have you wonderful people to talk to. I don't have to cook my meals all the time. I couldn't afford to live in a house with so much grass. You know, I have to get up a little early, but you know... When I get up, then I don't have to do anything.

[14:04]

I just can sit. It's so wonderful. I don't mean that it's not okay to do something outside, but to me, there's no outside, inside. This is just a life. And most people who come to Crestone they usually find they're busier at Crestone than they were working for a publisher in New York. In New York you have two or three people you work with and a secretary and then you go home to your apartment where you're mostly by yourself. But Crestone, there's 10 or 20 or 30 people all together make a very intense situation. People are always surprised how demanding it is. But anyway, this is my prejudice.

[15:20]

I used to have a nice house in Santa Fe. Really beautiful. And I had a small Zendo nearby. But mostly I lived by myself. And I loved the rhythm of it. I'd come downstairs and make myself a meal in the late afternoon. Ich bin heruntergekommen und habe mir ein Essen gemacht am späten Nachmittag. And it was quite good. Das war ganz gut. But I felt I was spinning my wheels. What does it mean? Spinning your wheels. You're just spinning it. You never touch the ground. It's just, I don't know, what's the expression of the word? In ein Auto und schnell, ich wehle nicht. I felt this is a waste. I should be with other people. So I moved to Crestone, basically. Okay, something else? Yes. So my whole life somehow turned around body and sexuality. and I even made it to my work.

[16:44]

Which part? So my question is that the most repressed subject in our society is somehow spirituality or religion and sexuality. And so I'm trying to bring both of them together. And could you say something about these two subjects? In my life, body and sexuality have always been my guidelines. I have also done this in my work. And in our society, sexuality and religion, spirituality, are most suppressed as a topic. Well, I don't know about whether it's repressed or not. I mean, perhaps. I think there's some aspects of life Yeah, where you transcend yourself.

[18:10]

But you're always either a minority or not understood by others. But... And there are similarities between sexual experiences and meditative experiences. But in general... I would say that meditative experiences are more evolved and more stable usually.

[19:19]

And they often, for the most part, don't fall into even the same categories. Yeah, but I think each person has to make these decisions on their own. But as I said yesterday, speaking about friendship, I think friendship or companionship or some kind of mutual understanding or... connectedness with others. I feel practice is for me the most satisfying way to be with other people. Although the people you practice with you're not necessarily friends with. You mean friends in the sense of somebody you go to dinner with or to the movies with.

[20:24]

Some other kind of friendship. And at least for me and in my observation of people, sexuality is most long-lasting and satisfying when it's an aspect of friendship and companionship. As I said to someone earlier this week, I think that what keeps people together most, again, observing lots and lots of people who try to make marriages work, Some kind of feeling comfortable together and naturalness together is the most... most likely sign that people stay together. And some other aspects are that people seem to have the same kind of friends.

[21:33]

That's usually a good sign that people can make a relationship work. And third is to have similar or overlapping visions of the world. And fourth is a good, strong, natural, physical connection. And then I'd say fifth is actually to build some kind of shared practice of shared way of developing or overlapping way of developing one's life. Because, you know, we have at least three adult lives. Sort of 20 or 25 to 35 or 40. And from there to maybe 55 or 60 or so. And 60 to 80 or so. And maybe we have a fourth or fifth or sixth life, we don't know.

[22:46]

But I don't think couples survive these transitions very well unless they have some practice. Because they become different people in these other stages. They have a way to practice and develop into these stages together. But I really don't know what I'm talking about. But I've observed a lot of people's lives Thousands actually. And so I have a small information base.

[23:48]

Okay, what else? In our group we talked about our experiences during this week. And we found three main topics. For all of us I think it was an interesting difficulty the way the day was divided in the morning practice like in a Sesshin and in the afternoon like in a seminar. So that a feeling arose, am I only practicing, am I pretending something in my practice?

[24:54]

I don't quite understand the connection between the morning and the afternoon and pretending. Am I pretending in my practice? It's like an artificial split, break, break. At 12, silence stops and then you speak and in the evening you pick it up again.

[26:32]

In the morning I have robes on, in the afternoon I'm in my bathing suit. It's not so important, it's just a statement I want to make. But we noticed that it leads to closing yourself and opening yourself and not knowing when to close yourself and opening yourself. Do you open yourself in the morning or close yourself in the morning? Which is which? Would you suggest a change in the schedule? I didn't think about it at all.

[27:38]

Well, I'm interested, you know, of course, because does this work? How is this to do this kind of schedule? Should it go more toward a seminar or more towards a sheen or is this a good balance? It's okay? Is this okay? I experience a specific dynamic in this way of the day. The first three days were a lot of rejection, too many sittings, too few breaks. What struck me was that I was always tired. The first three days there was a lot of rejection of having to sit too much, and it resulted in that I felt very tired.

[28:40]

Oh, in yourself there was a rejection. In myself, that was the experience. And from... And from the fourth day it changed and now I feel that there are too many breaks and that we don't sit enough. You can't please all the people all the time. I have the same experience. But I only know seminars I didn't do as a Shin before. And in the beginning I really had difficulty with getting up and resistance to get up and sit so much. And now it changed and I feel a certain freedom in it and also have the feeling that the breaks are longer than in the beginning, although they are not long, I think.

[29:47]

And I like the mixture really and I think I have a taste of a Sechine to find out whether I want to do it or not. I hope so. You know, I mean, again, what we do here is in this lay semi-monastic experiment is really, you know, I mean, I'm going to put some suggestions into what we do, of course. And I want to do things in ways that I can satisfactorily practice with you. But a lot of what happens can be determined by you, and you just have to tell me. So, I mean, if anybody else has any comments on that. Yes, please.

[31:20]

Oh, she was. Oh, yes, please. Just two main topics. Please, okay. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. I hope you didn't get the impression that we have a negative feeling about this week or the structure of this week. No, I didn't. Most of us also felt very well about their first encounter with the five skandhas and the others who already heard them also liked being introduced in it in more detail. And we also talked about sitting and our personal experience in relationship to pain during sitting.

[32:23]

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Yes? I'd like to say something that Charlotte said first, the difficulty between being closed and open. My experience in Zen has been for the last two years that I only knew sashins. I mean, I lived in Zen, but I never had seminars in this form. And that my difficulty in the past was that Sashin has been, was always a very intense experience for myself. And I had problems to be with people afterwards or more and more, I became more and more introverted somehow.

[33:31]

And this week somehow was very important for me because I had these two aspects of being able to go inside in meditation and at the same time open to like 55 people or so. And so it's not so much closing or opening, but it's like bring And so I could bring my meditation into the contact with the groups and in the discussions and open myself to to sharing my experience and to share my practice, which before was just mine.

[34:40]

So in that way for me it has been kind of, yeah, it was very important and very open. Thank you. Well, I hope that we can have a strong, friendly sangha with a real discussion and development among ourselves of the teachings. Which makes me happy to hear our discussions because we do have a real... I mean, I think you understand actually more than you realize you understand.

[35:42]

As is common, your understanding is ahead of your ability to talk about it, articulate it. But still, does anyone... Oh, because also it's you who are going to continue this teaching, not me. I'm soon entering my dotage. What's that? when you start drooling down the front, you know. And then Gerald really can't forget me because... You have to have something to eat, Roshi. So anyway, you guys are going to continue this practice.

[36:57]

So what else? Any other comments about this? Yes? I just wanted to say something to what you said before. I'm very, very thankful for for the help that I got by all these people like Jeanette who shared their experience with us. Yeah, good. Of course, you know, it's somewhat difficult to speak about... Let me start again.

[38:30]

Of course, I want to know how such a topic as the Heart Sutra, which we looked at it in some depth, And in particular the five skandhas. How useful this is to you as, you know, not people who spend your whole life trying to understand Buddhism. So I am interested in whether this was a a good way to approach the time we have together this week. At the same time, I know it's a little difficult to comment on the teaching per se. Because, well, someone asked me What is the way to listen to a lecture?

[39:44]

A Zen teaching, a Teisho. And the custom is to just listen. To just listen and hear. And just let it come into you. And the reason for that is that I'm trying to speak to your practice, not to your mind. And I'm trying to speak to your practice in the future as well as now, especially in the future. Because I know something about the obstacles that come up when you practice. Because it unfolds and falls into the bodily time and bodily experience.

[41:00]

So in a way you have to let the teaching come into you in the way that you'll use it in the future. You have to let the teaching come into you in the way the teaching will come up for you or be used in the future. So if you think about it too much, trying to understand what I'm saying, you actually interfere with your using it in the future. It's important to have some kind of conceptual framework that makes sense. But what's more important is that it is there when you need it, when your practice, sitting practice and mindfulness practice, comes up against some kind of doubt or obstacle.

[42:10]

Does that make sense? So in that sense, I'm not just speaking to you here in this present, And I don't expect what I say to be entirely understandable. And I hope it's not. because it not being entirely understandable allows it to get into you in a different way. Yeah, but still, it's a fine line. Maybe I could just say one obscure thing after another, and you think, ah. As one of Suzuki Roshi's teachers said to him once, to the group of monks at Eheji, on the huge stone gate,

[43:12]

A sparrow landed. I think a sparrow landed, and it broke the gate. And they all puzzled what was this here. Zen koan. And Sukershi came back years later when I knew him, and he had just met with his teacher, and the teacher just told it as a joke. So anything else? Yes. I find it very valuable for someone who cannot live without a post to take this physical experience with him for everyday life.

[44:36]

Also, I mean, for example... Do you translate it yourself? What? Do you translate it yourself? No. It is very valuable to me as a person not living in a monastery... Say that again. It's very... Valuable. Valuable to you, to him, yeah. To him, as a person not living in a monastery, to be able to pick up all these bodily experiences. Yeah. I think above all, what he said, with these two layers on the sides, so the paradox... Above all, this paradox with the two kinds of time, one being endless. Timeless. Yes. Aha, that's what you meant. And in my everyday life to find myself and remember this and realize how you meant this.

[45:42]

And I am also very happy to hear from someone else who has had this experience. That has a completely different meaning to me than when I read it. It's also very valuable to hear from somebody who had the experience. It's all different than reading about that. Yeah, of course. Okay. Well, it's... Somebody else, I see a hand somewhere. Yes. Does end our seminar today? No. I'm very surprised. I mean, we are talking like today is finished. We have two more days to go. I wonder what's going on. I realize that you actually commented on the first two, eight or ten lines of the Hatsutra, and the rest you did not comment on.

[46:50]

Sometimes I think that the second part of the Hatsutra is a comment on, I mean, a concretization of the first two paragraphs, but I'm not sure. I don't know why we're talking about this maybe it's good to do this sometimes in the middle rather than at the end yes After these days a question arose in me as the Heart Sutra is negating everything The question is, if everything is negated, is prajnaparamita, is there the Heart Sutra, or is it negated too?

[48:05]

Yes, it's negated. No. Which hand has the sutra? Lift. I'm better at magic than I thought. But I do want to speak more about the practice of negations in the Heart Sutra.

[49:08]

But although I don't know quite where this conversation came up in the way it has, Still, it's useful to me to sort of feel into how much more thoroughly should I go into the Heart Sutra. And since we are doing the lay ordination ceremony Sunday morning, And since always Sunday afternoon, fairly early, quite a number of people have to leave, which breaks up the energy of the seminar. while we'll continue practicing together up until Sunday afternoon, probably this discussion we're having will mostly end Saturday.

[50:25]

Which I think Saturday is tomorrow. Okay, and this evening I've asked Paul if he will talk with us during the first period of zazen. So instead of having zazen, the first period, we'll have a kind of teisho or talk from Paul here in this room. And then when he finishes, we'll have a period of sasen. And I'll continue doksans. And it's also very satisfying for me to have enough time here in a practice week to have doksan with you.

[51:33]

For me it's very good to see you more personally and face to face individually as well as in the seminar. I like getting to know you. And I don't know how, I mean, so we'll probably have, we'll see how long Paul goes. Maybe we won't have any Zazen this evening. I know, and I gave my first talk when I came back from Japan. At the end of 20 minutes, I'd run out of what I might say. Sekir, she asked how my first talk was. He was upstairs, sick. And his only comment was, too short.

[52:37]

So I've learned to talk a little longer. So let's sit for a few minutes. I'm not lonely anymore, I don't know what I'm going to do when I'm out of my sleep.

[54:18]

I believe in my life, and I believe in what I'm going to do when I'm out of my sleep. I believe in what I'm going to do when I'm out of my sleep. Many of you are probably wondering what I'm talking about. I don't know [...] what I'm talking about. Good evening. Guten Abend. Just when that chant ended, I'm so used to Roshi saying something, I just realized, oh, I'm supposed to say something.

[55:45]

I wanted to take a little time to talk with you about my introduction to practice and in particular some of the time that I spent with Suzuki Roshi. When I was studying at the university, around 19, 20 years old, I came upon a literary quarterly called Horizon Magazine. And in it there was a picture of, I didn't know it was a Zen monk at the time, but there was a picture of a Zen monk from behind.

[57:11]

And it was a full-page picture. And it was very unusual for me, because usually when you see a photograph of someone, it's always from the face or a profile, but not a person that you don't know from behind. I don't know what this person's face was like, but it couldn't have been more powerful than the feeling of that straight back. So my interest escalated pretty quickly from reading about Buddhism to taking courses at the university in Buddhism, to studying Sanskrit, to majoring in Buddhist studies.

[58:44]

and then continue to take courses at the university about Buddhism, then study Sanskrit and then study Zen. And there was an immediate attraction to the ideas that I read, particularly in distinction to the kinds of ideas that the American culture in the 1960s was promulgating. So I had heard about a Zen group in the city that my university was in. And I thought I should learn to sit zazen so that I can be enlightened and be a really good scholar.

[60:07]

And I was pretty good at school, so I didn't think this would take very long. And I'd heard, this was in my junior year of college, I'd heard about a place called Tassajara in the mountains in California. Sure. And I had just sat a weekend sitting. It's the longest I'd ever sat. But I decided I would go to Tassajara. And I felt like I threw myself into the soup pot.

[61:12]

I didn't know, like many of you coming this week, what I was getting into. When I first got to Tassajara, I couldn't sit with my knees on a mat. They were up like this. And Chino Roshi, who was the priest there all the time, tried to give me Zazen instruction. And I secretly think he felt very sorry for me because of what I was getting myself into. So I did what's called Tangario, which is sitting, Roshi mentioned, for five days.

[62:17]

without a break, without Kim Hyun, just sitting. And at the end of the five days, he was outside the Zendo that night and he hugged me. So I entered this world, an unusual world for a college student. with the kinds of rituals that many of you were struggling to make sense of. But in the middle of it, there was... an extraordinary person that gave me confidence.

[63:37]

When I first met Suzuki Roshi, I was very surprised at how short he was. Just about five feet. And I also was at the same time surprised at how he didn't seem to be so small. He was a tiny big person. I didn't have a category for that. And he was always watching. There was a sense that he was always awake in what he did and aware of what was around him in a way I was unused to.

[64:43]

One day at a tea break in the afternoon, like what we have here, I was telling a fellow student about a text that Nagarjuna wrote that I was translating from the Sanskrit to English. And I didn't know Suzuki Roshi was behind me. And he said to me, oh, you should give me a lecture on that. So for me, beginner's mind started with, I'm this 20-year-old college student who... A Zen master is asking to give a lecture to. There was...

[65:57]

so much of a sense of who is in front of him is the most important thing, not him. Another very memorable experience I had that summer with him. In morning sasen I had an experience, some kind of experience. Which I was very excited about. And after breakfast, Suzuki Roshi was in his garden. And I went to the garden and I told him what had happened. And he thought that was pretty good.

[67:13]

He was happy. And we used to have a period of zazen in the middle of the day before lunch. And as we were sitting in zazen, Suzuki-yoshi got up off the altar, and And came over next to me. There was no one sitting in the place next to me. And he started to give me Zazen instruction. And he showed me how to put my... left hand on top of my right hand and to put my thumbs together and to bring them, and I started to laugh. And he started to laugh. And it was a very important lesson for me about that was something that happened that morning.

[68:14]

And now I was sitting Zazen. There was always this fresh sort of feeling for me being around him. And unexpected. And unexpected. I remember several times I'd be in the hall at Zen Center at Page Street. And a fairly wide hall, like the one in the entryway to Johanneshof. And I'd see Suzuki Roshi. acknowledge him, and he bumped into me.

[69:38]

That kind of unexpected feeling. Here's a little person, very present, and yet What's he doing? What's going on? Maybe one more story to tell about Unexpected. The person... the person who was head of the Zazen group at my university, was a very famous psychiatrist who traveled giving talks. And he knew Suzuki Roshi and came to his talks when he was in California. And After a lecture one evening, Suzuki Roshi tapped him on the forehead three times.

[71:03]

And my friend didn't know what it meant. And for years he tried to figure out what it meant. And finally, shortly before Suzuki Roshi died, he got to come and ask Suzuki Roshi, what did it mean? And Suzuki Roshi told him, I forgot. I don't remember what it meant. Another experience for me that first summer at Tassajara was around the Heart Sutra. So I really like that we're talking about it this week.

[72:14]

we would only chant the Heart Sutra three times. We didn't have any other things that we chanted in the morning then. And I used to love to chant the Heart Sutra. And I realized into the summer that it was because It was because it was the one thing each day I could count on that I would do or say that was true. So when I asked Suzuki Roshi what he thought about that, he agreed it might be the only thing each day that I did that was true.

[73:40]

Something this week in Going Over the Heart Sutra Is the phrase at the beginning of the sutra Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva when coursing deeply And this coursing deeply strikes something in me. So much of our culture and our society wants us to move forward, to make progress, to accomplish something.

[74:51]

But for me this coursing deeply is a different direction. It's taking a backward step back to the picture of the back in some way. And this backward step trusting our own experience, settling our life on what our experience is, is a very dangerous subversive thing. Our society and culture wants us to trust its values.

[76:01]

Our parents want us to do what they tell us is right and what we should do. And often our identification and views from a very young age. And the way we value ourselves and those around us is based on progress, making something happen, getting a result. So taking a backward step is a relatively radical thing.

[77:04]

And this posture of zazen and our breathing is the foot that we begin to take that step with. So much of our habit and our training is to adjust the external environment To create a feeling or sense of self we want. I liken it to a television set. And we put our hands on the dials and continue to try to adjust things to get them just the way we want.

[78:14]

if I get a little bit thicker cushion, and I get my legs placed just right, maybe this period I won't have so much pain in my knee. But this backward step is a willingness to take our hands off the dials and not to try to adjust what's in front of us to our liking. But being willing to see things as they are and see things as they change. Even if we're willing for only one breath.

[79:33]

And the wonderful thing is that there's another breath. We have another chance. So if we decide we're not so willing, almost always, until we die, on each moment we have those chances. So, sitting down with all of you, we're each taking our chances, seeing what we'll find. But the backward step goes even back through the back.

[80:47]

Because that can end up being a preference and a trap as well. It can be a newer, slicker, more special set of dials. So this week there's been a lot of rubbing up against each other, too. And one of the things it was suggested I might mention is what my life is like. Right now it feels on a cushion at Johanneshof. Somebody said to me they'd like me to talk about my way. And do you know Frank Sinatra?

[82:00]

I feel like it's not my way. But I think what they meant is the involvement in my daily life, not at Johanneshof. And what is life like for me? Baker Roshi mentioned this morning about many activities I'm involved in. business and boards of non-profits and foundation work and a very happy marriage.

[83:02]

A life like many of you have. And what is practice like then? Not at Johanneshof, not when I'm able to have the support of all of you. The stability of sitting And the willingness to accept this moment is the center of my life. There are many things throughout the day that I'm able to do to encourage and support that. Several of the practices Roshi gave us this week are what I would call inexhaustible practices.

[84:34]

So for the rest of our life we can say, nowhere to go, nothing to do. And there are things in the routine of my day that I find very conducive toward continuing some of these practices. We live in a small town not far from San Francisco surrounded by wild open space. And every morning my wife and I walk for an hour or so up in the hills, on the ridges.

[85:44]

And about 18 months ago, Roshi suggested the practice of tasting the path as I walk. It's added something very precious for me in my walks. Also on these walks, and my wife has a practice as well, we have a sort of Dharma game. of following our thoughts to their source.

[86:49]

So when I can feel her over here thinking, I ask her, what are you thinking? and then we spend however long it will take to find the origin of that thought. This practice of stabilizing in the skandhas you all have been talking about this week isn't dependent upon being on a black cushion or being in Johanneshof. So I find this information is an encouragement to my friends as well.

[88:07]

One of the projects I'm working on is starting a museum in downtown San Francisco. And the chairman of our board is a very high-powered, aggressive, active, quick-thinking person. Two phones and no sitting down. And he's not in San Francisco very much, so I often talk to him when he's in a high-rise building in Manhattan or in a farm in Vermont.

[89:11]

And though he's not a Buddhist, we have a Dharma game we play too. And it starts with, how are you? And what are you looking at? And sometimes he'll spend two or three minutes about telling me about the skyline in New York. He used to be very resistant. He had the other phone waiting. But he realizes when he does this, we actually can accomplish the business of the call more efficiently and quickly.

[90:21]

So again, I don't mean to say that this is a better way to move forward or accomplish something. But it truly makes my life more enjoyable. as do you and practicing here this week. Thank you very much.

[91:07]

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