Good evening. The star of the show has arrived. I guess I'm going to talk about some of the same things I always talk about. So, some of you haven't heard this four or five times before, then it might be interesting. But I also figure that talking is a little bit like food. You have to keep eating. And you can't keep making up completely new food every meal, right? So, you've got to be able to appreciate it anyway and enjoy it anyway and serve it anyway.

[01:06]

So, here I go again. I have been trying to do these talks in more or less everyday kind of language, rather than especially Buddhist language. But tonight I thought I'd tell you at least one or two Zen stories. See for what they're worth. The first is one of my favorite Zen stories. And it goes something like this. There's two monks walking along and one says to the other, Right here is the summit of the Mystic Peak. So, what do you think? Is this the summit of the Mystic Peak, right here? Anyway, the other one said, This is an example of dry Zen humor, I think.

[02:06]

Anyway, if we ask ourselves, does this feel to you like the summit of the Mystic Peak? And then usually we go, well, I think it was maybe a little cooler, it might qualify. And if I was a little less tired. And if I hadn't had that argument earlier tonight. Anyway, usually we kind of have a lot of kind of qualifications of what it would have to be like for this to be the summit of the Mystic Peak, this moment. But the other monk was very quick. He said, Yes. Yes, indeed. This is the summit of the Mystic Peak. Kind of crummy, isn't it? What a pity. This is as good as it gets. So, the story comes with a little poem and various things.

[03:16]

The little poem starts out, At the summit of the Mystic Peak, the weeds grow. Six foot tall, twelve foot tall. We have to kind of give ourselves a little reorientation for what this summit of the Mystic Peak might be like. But certainly this brings up for us the idea that whatever it is, this summit of the Mystic Peak is not somewhere else other than right where we are already. Also, in the commentary about this story, is another story which I think will put this in even greater perspective than a monk went to the very well-known Zen teacher in China named Zhao Zhou. Zhao Zhou started practicing Zen when he was about 60 and then became a teacher when he was 80, lived to be 120.

[04:17]

You know, when he spoke, the light came out of his mouth Anyway, the monk says to him, How do I get to the summit of the Mystic Peak? Zhao Zhou said, I'm not going to answer that question. Of course, the monk said, well, why not? He said, well, hey, you're a great Zen teacher, aren't you? Don't you know the answer to these sort of things? Tell me how I do it. And Zhao Zhou said, if I was to answer this question, then you would be left thinking that you were on level ground, down at the bottom of the Mystic Peak. Do you get it there? So where do you think you are? Where do we think we are at any particular time? So we have some idea, we tend to have some idea where we are. And we tend to think, haven't gotten there yet. Got a ways to go. Have a few things to clear up.

[05:19]

You know, maybe if I got rid of this anger in my life, it would be pretty good. Or I'm kind of sick now, and if I got well, then I'd be in great shape. But then, of course, we come up with something else. So like I went to the convalescent hospital once, and I was visiting with people, just people I don't know. I don't know them, but we get to visit. And one of the most common things that they said was, oh, young man, you're so young, and you're in such good health, you should be so grateful. Boy, if I just had my health, I would be so grateful. When I was young, I didn't appreciate it. But now, if I had my health, I would be so grateful. But then if you have your health, maybe you'd like to be a little more accomplished,

[06:22]

or one thing or another. Huh? Huh? And sometimes I wonder, you know, what is this about anyway? Sometimes I think it's just like, well, if I was perfect, then I could love myself. Or if I was accomplished, then I could love myself. Sort of like, is that all we can love? You know, someone who's perfect, something that's perfect, somebody who's accomplished, that's the only kind of person we could love? All the time we love people who aren't perfect. I mean, what do we think? And especially, you know, like, it's one of the places I certainly found this out, was like with my child, you know, with my daughter. A kid doesn't have to be perfect to be loved. And then we say, well, we're all children of the Buddha. Start to sound like Christianity, huh?

[07:26]

So the point in Buddhist practice is not that we get accomplished and get well and get over our anger. It's just, can we love somebody who's less than perfect? Can we be somebody who's less than perfect? You know, and have that be, you know, where we are. Have where we are be the summit of the mystic peak. A place of some acceptance or calm. Being willing to be where we are with the problems we have. And that's already attainment. Okay? So we tend to spend this kind of fair amount of time thinking we could get to some other place where we didn't have the problems that are here, the kinds of difficulties that are here, in my body, in my life here. Could be somewhere else. Basically, this somewhere else is a kind of, you know, make-believe.

[08:39]

It's a kind of illusion, and we create it in our mind. The place that doesn't have these problems that we have here. And then we think, maybe I could go there. And it's a place where, you know, there's this kind of difference of, well, I would be happy if I just didn't have to cook. And then, you know, rather than to find happiness cooking. And we do have a kind of, you know, when we've been doing something a long time, and we do have a kind of relief and pleasure to not have to cook. Say, if that's something we do in our life. Or to not have to work, or to take a day off from sitting. But we'll have even greater happiness to be willing to be in our life, right where we are. We'll feel what a relief.

[09:40]

Here I am in my life. And it has its pains and difficulties and uncertainties. But here I am. So we say in, so Dogen Zenji says, you should, the first thing in Buddhism is to believe, to have trust that you're already on the path. In fact, your life is the path already. It's not like, when I get over this, then I'll be on the Buddhist path. Then I'll be like a Buddhist. When I'm not getting upset like this, when I'm not so tired, and when I'm sort of healthy, then I'll be able to be a Buddhist. Because then I'll be able to follow the schedule here at Tassara completely. I'll go to meditation. I'll do my work. That would be a Buddhist. Then I'll be a Buddhist. But that's not much, that is not much about being, you're already, you know, on the path.

[10:45]

Your life already, each of our lives are already in the midst of our life. And our life is the path. There's no way to get off of the path. There's some little cul-de-sacs that you can wander off into. But it's still a path. It's still a path. This is a little different definition of path, you know, that you think that, we think that the path in Buddhism would be the path where the path between the problem that's over there and the problem that's over there, and we'll make our path between them. And then we'll avoid this one that's there and that one that's there. And our path would save us from having to deal with these painful situations that are coming up for us. Our frustration and our impatience and so forth. And that would be the path, to avoid all those things.

[11:48]

But the path is to encounter those things. This is the path, to encounter things, to be in our life. Not to make-believe some other life. Because the life that doesn't have any of those things is a make-believe life. It's a fantasy life, it's a dream, it's an illusion. Wishful thinking. Not to have those things in our life. So the path is to meet those things and learn how to live with those things that are so painful and difficult for us. It doesn't mean... When you say this sort of thing, you have to be a little bit careful because then people think... We had one woman at Zen Center for many years and Zen Center was right near this dangerous black neighborhood. So she used to take it upon herself to walk over there to overcome her fear. Around midnight. By herself. Because Buddhism is meeting these things.

[12:54]

So we're not talking about being stupid. Or hitting yourself with sticks because you should overcome the pain and stuff. But just the fact that as you go along in your life you're going to have some problems. You're going to get tired and frustrated and annoyed and impatient. This is the step of our life. This is our ingredients that we have to work with. And to be willing to have these... We say sometimes when hindrances become an opportunity. And actually our hindrances and our difficulties will teach us a great deal. And one of the main things of course they'll teach us is about compassion. When you're on top of it, on top of everything I'm so confident. What's wrong with those people? They're so lazy. Look at them.

[13:58]

Boy, aren't I good. And then when you can't get out of bed for a week you suddenly go like, Oh my God. Now I know what it's like. And then your back gives out. And all the time you can sort of make fun of other people and put them down. I don't have that kind of problem. And then there's... We all have sort of different patterns. Nowadays it's really good if you have... See if you can have a backache instead of having some... Then you can get insurance. You can go to the doctor. But if you have some emotional distress, that doesn't count. You just made that up. And it doesn't matter that back doctors at least some back doctors who have studied it say almost all back problems are emotional distress, somatized. Somatized emotional distress.

[15:00]

You're taking the emotional distress and just your habit is to turn emotional distress into a physical problem. And so there's this one doctor who wrote this little book, Mind Over Back Pain. He says, by a certain age everybody has bones, furs, everybody has degeneration, everybody's got it. Why do some people have back pain and some people don't? As far as he can tell, after years of looking into it, it's emotional distress. An emotional problem that somebody doesn't want to face in their life. And, oh, my back hurts. I can't deal... That's the way of saying, I'm not going to deal with that. I can't deal with that. I refuse to deal with that. I'm not going to confront the pain, this emotional difficulty in my life. I'm not going to tell that person what I really think. I'm not going to admit that I'm helpless. I'm going to have back pain. This may or may not be true exactly, but it's a kind of... It's just to say that... So we're all different.

[16:01]

If I have back pain, I can look at somebody else and say, look at them, they've got some emotional distress. So we can all... But when you have the problem suddenly, unavoidably, then there's, you know, you kind of... You have a little flood of compassion. Oh, so this is what it's like not to just be on top of things. Oh. And then pretty soon you can study something, and you can actually, instead of, like, having some idea and living from your head and your will, like, here's what I'm going to do in order to be... You know, to perform and be accomplished. And, well, to perform and be accomplished. Here's what I'm going to do. Everybody will agree that's a great thing you've done, and won't it be wonderful. And then we kind of, you know, card our bodies to get us... You know, we kind of tell our bodies, well, go ahead, do it now. Come on. You know, get along, doggie. And we push or put ourselves through all the paces. You know, like we were some kind of farm animal

[17:02]

or, you know, circus dog or whatever. We put ourselves through these things. It's the great performance. And then that's supposed to be wonderful. See? And then what is our body feeling after going through all those paces? And then when your body gets tired, pretty soon there's some point where your body says, hey, you know, this is pretty stupid. And I'm not going to do this anymore. And if you want to do anything now, if you want to do something like, you better sort of check it out with me, and we're going to do this together. And we're only going to do it if I think it's a good idea. That's what our back sort of tells us at some point. And then to have your awareness in your back or in your knee, you know, or to be aware of your body in some way like this, then pretty soon you're not just in your head anymore. You're not just sort of making up these kind of, you know, illusory ideas about what you're going to do,

[18:04]

what you're going to accomplish in order to be accepted, to be loved, to be, you know, to make something of yourself in your life which looks good. I'm going to be a famous Buddhist. I'm going to be a famous Buddhist ascetic. I'm going to be a famous Buddhist meditator. Instead of doing something like that, you actually learn something about how to have a body, how to be somebody who's incarnated, you know, on the planet Earth, right here, right now. How is it to be alive? This is the summit of the mystic field. So, at some point we have this kind of, we notice and realize that our task is not so much to, you know, perform in order to be loved or to be perfect,

[19:06]

to make ourselves perfect in order to be loved, but to find out how to love someone who's less than perfect, somebody who's not such a great performer, somebody who's not so accomplished, somebody, in fact, who's kind of like me. And can we generate that kind of warmth for ourself, for our friends, for the people in our life who are not, you know, what they could be, if we had a little wishful thinking going on. Can we generate that? And we find out how to do that. You know, and be willing then to be with ourself through our difficulty and pain, instead of, like, when the difficulties come up, we sort of wander off into some imaginary place where maybe we wouldn't have this problem, wouldn't have these kind of difficulties. And to, instead of wandering, instead of our awareness wandering off, our awareness can stay with us and accompany us and have some little warmth for us having this difficulty

[20:09]

and being less than perfect and having some pain in the back and so on. And this is something our awareness can do. And this is certainly a quality that, you know, if you're sick, this kind of awareness will come up. If you're sitting in meditation, this kind of awareness will come up. We're present with ourself. We're present with the fact that we're not getting much done and we're just alive. We're here. We're on the planet Earth. So this is also then the difference between, you know, like, we often want some kind of evidence that it's all right to feel good about ourselves or for us to be happy, for us to feel good. Maybe we should have something, some reason for it. And this is to say that you don't need a reason. Buddhism is saying you don't need a reason to feel good or to be happy without any evidence, just to have a little warmth, some warmth for ourself.

[21:10]

And part of this warmth is this confidence, then, or trust that this is the path. We're on the path already. This is the summit of the mystic peak already. It's not like we have to struggle to the top and then we could feel good about ourself, have some warmth for ourself. Yes, you accomplished it at last. Now on to that even higher peak. So this is a little bit like the other night I mentioned a friend who had for many years trouble, a problem over eating, and at some point she decided, I'm going to find out what to do with this, what's going on here, what to do about it in my own experience. She's deciding, at that decision, that's a decision that my life is the path. I'm not going to get the answer somewhere outside my life, my experience, what I understand. I'm not going to get it from somebody else.

[22:12]

My life is the path. Even though, and she said, she didn't have any reason to believe that her life is the path or that she could do this. So there's no evidence for it. And there's no evidence, there's not needing any evidence to feel good or happy or to be with yourself with some warmth and kindness and to touch yourself with that kind of awareness. So I'm going to talk next about some simple little pieces of advice that Dogen and other people, Suzuki Roshi, I mentioned the other day, I was in the kitchen and I gave a short little talk to people in the kitchen and when I first went to work in the kitchen, I asked Suzuki Roshi, do you have some advice for me? And he said, when you cut the carrots, cut the carrots. And when you stir the soup, stir the soup. When you wash the rice, wash the rice. Doesn't that sound like being in your life?

[23:16]

So when you wash the rice, you wash the rice. You're not thinking about how you could not have to wash rice ever again. It's just so tedious. You put your life energy into washing rice. We understand then that washing rice includes the whole universe. The whole universe is there, our whole life is right there. And then we can be there with that fullness, with this fullness of our being, washing rice. Very simple, very direct, very immediate. And I mentioned the other night, Dogen Zenji then in his instructions to the cook, he says, so don't complain about the ingredients that you get. You're in a monastery, they give you certain ingredients to work with.

[24:21]

That's the food that you have. And each of us in our life, we have certain ingredients. Some of our ingredients seem to be pretty high class, and some of the ingredients, like a bad back or being tired or sick or angry, they don't seem like such great ingredients. But it's all the ingredients that we have to work with. And so Dogen says, don't complain about the quality or the quantity of the ingredients you get. Just whatever the ingredients are, handle them with sincerity. Take the ingredient and see, well, what can I do with this? What does it have to teach me? I met a person down at the swimming pool today, a woman from Germany. And we were just sort of talking, and I said, it started out about ladybugs, because she swam over to the side of the pool where I was to put a ladybug on the side of the pool. So I said, ladybug, ladybug, fly away home.

[25:22]

Turns out it's a little different in German. It's a Maria bug. That's what she said anyway. But I asked her, how did you know about tassar? And she said, well, I saw it on the map. I said, but how did you find out about tassar? Well, she'd read my cookbook. And I said, oh, you read my cookbook? She said, oh, you're not him. This is what it's like to be famous. And then she said, the best thing in that book for her was, where it said, if you don't know what seasoning to put on the cabbage or carrots, then ask the cabbage, ask the carrot. So it's a little bit like that with the ingredients.

[26:25]

You know, things come to us in mysterious ways. And, you know, anger is a problem. And various things are problems. But they're also teachings. We learn something. We learn about compassion. We learn about, and anger is also maybe telling us something about, you know, how do I live my life such that anger arises? How do I think about things? What do I think? I mean, one of the classic things in Buddhism is, to be angry, you kind of have to think that things are plotting and conspiring to do this to you. Otherwise, there's nothing, there's no one, you have to get angry at something that it's worth, you know, that it doesn't make sense to get angry at something that didn't have a plan, you know, that didn't decide to get angry at you, that wasn't, you know, conscious.

[27:25]

If it's not something that's existing and alive and sort of has a personness about it, you get angry because to teach it a lesson not to do that to you again. That's the reason to get angry. But if it's not something that you can teach lessons to, you have to think that about, you know, cups and bowls and, you know, stuff that doesn't behave, you know, that falls off the counter and breaks. You know, I sometimes have gotten, you know, I nudge a cup and it goes onto the floor and it breaks. But I just nudged you, come on! Give me a break! You know, I'm a nice person, I just barely touched you, come on! So you have to have some idea that, you know, the cup wasn't trying hard enough. You know. And that it kind of, you know, was meaning to upset you and, you know, it could have done better, it didn't have to do that to you.

[28:27]

So teach the lesson. But, you know, anger, anyway, anger is a wonderful study. Over time, you know, it's not the point just to get rid of it, it's the point to see into it and to use it, you know, to approach it kind of like a teacher. What are you trying to tell me about the way I've been living? Because sometimes anger is also associated with creativity. So if you live your life in a narrow, careful way and you're not very creative and you do just what you're supposed to do, at some point this energy in your life kind of comes up and says, what am I just going along with all this stuff and just doing what I'm supposed to do? And it just goes like, bam! You know, because that's your creative vitality. You know, you've got to find some place to put it into your life, into practice. So you can't just do everything very carefully and in a kind of contained way,

[29:30]

just exactly the things you're supposed to do, or, you know, this tremendous energy comes up, boom! I've got to do something, you've got to do something more interesting than that. So we can't keep on doing more and more interesting things, right? So the other day when I was in the kitchen and I told people in my workshop, when I go to do something, I figure like, well, I better be finding out how to do this, even though I've done it a lot of times, finding out again how to do it. And that's some energy and intensity that goes into that, finding out how to do it. And it's not just repeating something that I already know how to do, that I have to do to get it done, and maybe when I finish I'll feel better. See, that's putting a damper on your energy and your vitality. So there's many things like this that, you know, if we study something carefully over time, these things all, you know, may give us some teaching.

[30:34]

There's another way in which we sometimes think that happiness or well-being would be not having to relate or deal with anything. When you get all the work done, kids are in bed, now at last, happy, relief, ease. And that's true, you know, in a certain sense. But on the other hand, our real happiness is in activity. And Dogen, in this case, he says something which I've always liked, which is translated in a couple of different ways. One way is, let things come and abide in your mind. Let your mind return and abide in things. Or, I think it's the other way around, let your mind go out and abide in things. Let things return and abide in your mind. Because when our mind just is, you know, when our awareness is just in, you know, how am I doing, what would make me feel better,

[31:38]

and it's all going around this kind of thinking and strategy. What am I going to do? How am I going to get to the place where I don't have any of these problems? How can I take care of all this stuff? You know, where will I find any rest? And our mind goes around and around. And then, what helps us is actually to have our mind go out into these things that are in the world. Stirring, mixing up, today we made bread, you know, stirring it up. And our mind and our body is in activity, and things are flowing and moving. And we have a kind of joy and happiness there. And those things are in our, you know, there's this wonderful feeling of love. And then we start to stop and we go, oh, well, that was great. Now what? And, you know, and then we sort of go back into our thinking and kind of trying to figure it out again. So, just to be willing and, you know, to give ourselves some activity and to things in that way,

[32:40]

to bread, and to the carrots, and to the rice, and to the soup, and to cleaning the dishes. And, you know, we rake the grounds. And to give our mind, our being, and to put it into things. And taking care of things. And having the things in our being. There's this happiness and flow there. And we have, actually, a kind of peace there. Which is not possible, actually. When you get everything done, and you finally rest, and you kind of fall asleep. Or you just drift off. But it's a much different kind of peace and fulfillment to be in this activity, making the bread. Moving and, you know, kneading. And your awareness is in the bread. The bread is in your awareness. And you're working. Sometimes I do the same thing with this. Like I was saying about, you know, cups. One time, I was doing a cooking class.

[33:46]

And I had some lasagna in the oven. And I went to put in a tray of cookies that we'd made. Some biscotti. And so, there was only a shelf on the very bottom of the oven. I thought, if I put the cookies on the bottom of the oven, I'll probably burn. No, they wouldn't do that to me. Because I thought, you know, I don't want to have to put the cookies down. Open up the oven door. Take out the lasagna. Put it over there. Take out that shelf. Move that shelf up. Take out the other shelf. Move that shelf up. Take the lasagna. Put it back in. Go and get the cookies. Put them back in. No, it's not worth it. It'll be okay. This is famous cook's last words. This is not how you have your mind go out and abide in things.

[34:53]

And things return and abide in your mind. Oh, let them take care of themselves. The last minute before the talk tonight, I was reading a lecture of Kali Giriraj's. I finally did find something in all the books I brought down in Passar that was kind of Buddhist. All these strange books. Anyway, it turned out to be what I was talking about tonight. I was, you know, it was kind of nice. So it says here, The point of Buddhist teaching is to let you know the foundation, the basic place where you stand up constantly as a descendant of the Buddha. You're already on the path. Your life is the path. Then you can be peaceful and harmonious, which means your body and mind are simultaneously the total manifestation of the whole world in the ten directions.

[35:55]

That's a bit crayon to me. It says that is called repose and bliss. In Japanese, we call it Anjin, peaceful mind. Anjin means repose and bliss. Total calmness enacted in your life, simultaneously brightening your life and filling it with aliveness. Your life is calm and simultaneously very alive in a dynamic way. This is where we're functioning in our life. That's repose and bliss. Your life will become very active, but the activity is in stillness and tranquility. Tranquility and dynamic activity. Anjin, peaceful mind. Peaceful and harmonious. Repose and bliss. Another thing that Dogen says,

[37:01]

which I like a lot, I've thought about it actually a lot. He says in the instructions of the cook, when you cook, don't see with ordinary eyes, don't think with ordinary mind. When I think about what it means to be practicing or how it is that cooking or meditation or whatever it is we're doing, how can that be the spiritual practice? How is that a spiritual path? This is, for me, an important point. And I would say seeing with ordinary eyes, thinking with ordinary mind is to separate yourself from the object as though you could separate yourself. And then we make these kind of discriminations. Like if we're cooking, we say, well, these carrots here aren't really that important.

[38:04]

My time is what's important. I don't want to take time to work with the carrots because I'm more important than that. I'm better than that. I shouldn't have to do this sort of thing, deal with carrots. I should be like I told you when I lectured down here a month ago, I should be like Barbra Streisand and have a cook and never talk to her. Then I would be happy and important. But this is ordinary kind of thinking. And it's ordinary that, you know, here's some dirty dishes and this is not worth doing. This is not worth taking care of. And we're thinking about how can I arrange things so I don't have to work so hard and how can I fix this?

[39:06]

And then we're kind of looking at the food and we're thinking, well, it's not so important. It's not so important if I waste this or I throw this away or how I handle this. And we sort of see then, you know, the food in our life is some lesser form of life, if you call that, you know, a lesser being. And interestingly enough, you see, that's the same thing as not valuing yourself. Because in order to value yourself in this situation, to be able to love yourself, that's what we were just talking about. Here's this poor little creature called a cucumber or an avocado or something. And you say, well, you're not worth much. You're just a little cucumber. You know, I'm the important one. But if you say that about a cucumber, that's you you're talking about too. Because at some point in our life, we're all just some poor cucumber. You know, we're not a, you know,

[40:11]

grand beefsteak or grand marnier souffle. You know, we're just some poor little cucumber. And, you know, we don't feel very good and we're tired. We're sort of a limp cucumber. You know, so can you appreciate the... If you can't appreciate the cucumber, then that's you can't appreciate yourself. If you can't appreciate this poor, miserable existence that's there in front of you, then that's the same thing as not being able to appreciate your own being, your own mind, your own body that's less than perfect. Your own body that, you know, doesn't have a great performance forthcoming. Your own life that's not generating, you know, enough excitement and, you know, wonderful states and blissful this and dynamic that and great meditation. And it's not happening. You haven't gotten to the summit of the mystic peak. And it's about the same as this poor little cucumber that hasn't done any of that stuff either. So, to see, not to see with ordinary eyes,

[41:19]

not to think with the ordinary mind, means whatever it is, to see if you can't, you know, value it. Cucumber, value a cucumber. So, Dogen says, when you have good ingredients, don't arouse joyful mind. When you have poor ingredients, don't be disdainful. See, just whatever it is, you treat it with sincerity. You meet it with some warmth. Something less than perfect. Something that's not necessarily going to be providing a great performance. But you meet it, you touch it. You investigate it. You think about maybe what you could do with it. You think about what it has to tell you. So, ordinary mind, ingredients good. Oh, how great, how lovable. Ingredients poor.

[42:21]

Oh, how yucky. Hmm. So, that's just, you know, how we think of ourself too. So, as a practice, you know, in terms of being happy and having this, how to actually manifest or have this sense of being on the path, we try to practice something like this, to meet things in this way and touch things in this way. Everything being of some value. And just because, you know, we put some dirt or some peach pits or some peelings in the compost, is not, we're not saying, you know, oh, those aren't valuable. Because we put them in the compost. You know, that's also,

[43:24]

that's our offering. That's also something of value. We offer it. We're going to put it back to the earth. We're going to compost it. Things are going to be able to grow out of that. And we're finding out then what to do with this thing and this thing and this thing with the peach, the peach pit, the cucumber. How to use things in our life and how to be with things and, you know, how to find something precious, something to respect, something to have some gratitude. You know, right here, right now, where we are in our life, with a body that's tired, with a limp vegetable, you know, with some dirty dishes. So something, so you can see,

[44:31]

something doesn't have to be necessarily, you know, obviously wonderful, great for us to have some warmth and warm regard for it and to meet it and to honor it. And that's how we meet and honor ourselves. And cherish our own existence. And you can also see that partly this is how we come to something. So then we say, when you cut the carrots, cut the carrots. Be with the carrots. Be in the activity. And this is how you can practice not seeing with ordinary eyes, not thinking with ordinary mind. That says, oh, that's not worth it. Let's do something more interesting today. Let's have more fun. I'm going to, to sort of finish up here,

[45:34]

I'm going to give you one of the Rilke sonnets that I like a lot, which I use every year in this workshop, and which I use at other times. Other sort of circumstances. But it's a wonderful poem about food. And it's clearly somebody who's, you know, met things and carefully received the food. And in eating, it has been, you know, eating, tasting, knowing, experiencing. I was talking with a couple of you earlier today and I don't remember how it came up, but, you know, I often, I often give people the exercise at my retreats, one day retreats at Green Gulch, before lunch, I suggest, please practice enjoying your food. This is a wonderful. Thank you.

[47:14]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[48:44]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[50:14]

Thank you. [...] And then you stop tasting it, too. So actually, to taste and experience something, we have to have some evenness of mind, like this. And then we have the possibility to enjoy, anyway, here's the poem. Round apple, smooth banana, melon, gooseberry, peach. How all this affluence speaks, life and death, in the mouth. I sense, observe it in a child's transparent features while he tastes. This comes from far away. What miracle is happening in your mouth? Instead of words, discoveries flow out, astonished to be free.

[51:17]

Dare to say what apple truly is, the sweetness that feels thick, dark, dense, at first, then exquisitely lifted in your taste grows clarified, awake, luminous, double-meaning, sunny, earthy, real. Oh, knowledge, pleasure, joy, inexhaustible. I hope you can get a little sense there of the summit of the mystic peak, cutting the carrots when you cut the carrots, tasting the food when you taste the food. Not the same with ordinary eyes, ordinary mind, but something very simple, isn't it? And this kind of experience is not somewhere else, it's in our own body, in our own life,

[52:24]

we can have it. We can taste it and we can have some peace and harmony and repose and bliss, along with the particular kind of hindrance or problem. Thank you very much.

[52:43]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ