Good morning. I have a big voice today, bigger than usual. Good morning. Today I wanted to speak with you about giving, about generosity. And there are various ways to understand it, so I will talk about different ways to think about giving. Do you enjoy giving? Giving somebody a present or a gift? And then it's nice to receive a present or a gift too, isn't it? I had a good time on Halloween. Children came to my door and then they'd say, trick or treat. And then I had a good time giving away candy. It was a lot of fun anyway. And you

[01:12]

know, the kids had on different costumes. Did you do Halloween? Did you go out trick-or-treating? That was fun, wasn't it? And did you wear a costume? Did you have a little costume? Yeah. Some of the costumes are really great. Even just one little girl was wearing a sheet over her head, but it was very cute. And she had little eye holes cut in the sheet and she was a ghost. And then the bottom of it was very decorative. It was cut. So it was very nice. It was scary too. It was a surprise. And then one family, one little girl came dressed in a hula skirt, you know, sort of like a grass skirt. They do hula. And her mother was dressed the very same way with the hula skirt. And they had on flower lathes, you know, a necklace of flowers. And then the husband, the father was there. The father little girl was there and he had a palm tree. So that was

[02:21]

really fun. And so, you know, it seems like the main gift there, the giving, you know, is to give candy, but also when you dress up in a costume and you go to somebody's door, then you're giving them, you know, some entertainment and fun. And I enjoyed it very much to see all the costumes. And we had quite a good time. My neighbors came over too. And they have a little boy who's, oh, about a year and a half old now. And he was dressed up in a little chicken suit. It was very cute. You know, he had on his head, he had, you know, the comb, you know, and then little chicken outfit too. And when I opened the door, he just walked right into the house like that was his house. And then he turned around and

[03:22]

closed the door, closed his father outside. And then he turned around to come into the house and he started crying like, Oh, where's my daddy? So anyway, we all had a good time on Halloween. I hope you did. And, you know, I wanted, I was thinking I would bring you my extra candy today, but then I forgot. I'm sorry, because I could have given you my extra candy. I had some left over. So another time. So instead of giving you candy, I'm giving you a talk. But, you know, in Buddhism, giving is not always a big thing, you know, and especially nowadays, we think to give something is to, you have to buy it in the

[04:23]

store, you know, to give a gift, usually people think, and we forget that we can just give somebody a smile, or give somebody a greeting, you know, we can say, Hello, how are you today? And what's been happening? How are you doing? You know, we can give our attention to somebody. And we can give people a greeting, we can give people a smile. So, you know, and even just your being here is a nice gift for me, you know, because I don't get to see you very much. And here you are. So this is quite nice for me to have the gift of your presence. And also in Buddhism, you know, it's understood, especially, there are many stories about how children when they see a Buddha, or, you know, a wonderful person that they respect or love, or it could be like your parents or your brother or sister, even, you know,

[05:25]

it's said for children, when you give sand, or a mud pie, or a stick or a stone, or you give somebody you love a flower, or even a blade of grass, you know, this would be when you give it with, you know, your heart, with some warm feeling, and because of your love, then people, it makes people very happy. It's a wonderful thing to do. So to give a gift, you don't have to think it needs to be something special that you buy, or that you have to spend money to give a gift. You can give something that's right there. You just pick up a stone, and you see something in the stone, it's pretty, and you like it, and then you give it to someone. Or you find a shell on the beach, and you give it to someone that you love. And people will feel your love when you give something like that, because, you know, your loving the object makes it different. When you love a shell, and you give it to

[06:26]

somebody, then they feel, they get, they get on not only the shell, but they also feel your love when you give it to them. So I want to encourage you to think about, you know, to remember this, that how wonderful it is to give, even if it's something that's not, you know, a small thing. It can be a small thing. They say even a, and so, you know, one, one child gave some, you know, a Buddha some sand, and then later on, he became a great person, because he was used to giving. It said he became King Ashoka. Anyway, so there are many nice gifts we can give to people. Also, you know, we give somebody our attention. So when somebody's talking, we can listen to them. And we can give them our, you know, attention. We can listen. Oh, that's interesting. Or, oh, is that right? Oh, I didn't know that before. And we can, we can

[07:33]

give also somebody our, you know, our compassion, and our love. So we do this in many different ways. And actually, you know, just to be yourself is a gift. So it's nice that you can be, you know, three or four or eight or 10. You know, this is a wonderful gift for everybody. And you don't have to be a grown up, you know, to give a gift, and to be important. Each thing is important. In this way, you know, when you're happy to be yourself, this is a gift you give yourself. So I hope you're happy being, you know, your age and being who you are, and enjoying, you know, playing and learning and being with people and doing many different things. What do you think? Anything? Do you like the idea of giving? Very simple to do, because you're already doing it. But sometime anyway, and then, you know,

[09:06]

sometimes I when, when my daughter was small, you know, she often made a card for me. You know, so then it was really nice to get a card and she would write, you know, like I and then a big heart, you know, and then a drawing of a big heart and then you and it says I with a big heart, you know, and Happy Father's Day or Happy Valentine's Day. So that's a nice present, you know, and then people feel happy because you've given them something. If you want, you know, anytime you want, you can find something to give. Okay. So sometimes the gift is very small. Like today, I feel like maybe my talk today is kind of a small gift. Because it's not such a special talk, you know. But anyway, it's what I have to give today. Okay. Thanks. It's nice to see you all here. I hope you have a good morning. Good

[10:13]

afternoon. See you later. Bye. See ya. There's more seats here now. They've given us their seats.

[11:21]

See if I turn this up. Okay. Yeah, it's back on. No, thank you. That's fine. Giving or generosity, as you know, is considered to be one of the key factors in Buddhism or practices. It's in some instances listed first, you know, it's the first of the six paramitas or virtuous activities. Giving, morality, patience, energy, meditation, and wisdom, concentration, wisdom. Dogen speaks of it as one of the four practices of a bodhisattva. Giving, kind speech, beneficial

[13:03]

action, and identity action, being one with others or feeling one with others. Today, I also want to talk about generosity or giving in terms of meditation practice. You know, there are many ways to think about things. So it's just a kind of shift of perspective to think about practice in terms of generosity. You know, so when we are practicing meditation, we give our attention to our breath. Sometimes, you know, we usually call that pay attention to your breath. This is funny, isn't it? Because it's more, it's a more kind and generous feeling, you know, to give your attention to your breath. You know, it's the generosity of your heart that you give your attention to something. Sometimes, you know, if something demands our attention, we feel resentful. We'd much rather choose what we give our attention to. And of course, sometimes we feel stingy. No, I don't want to give you my attention. Or we will have, you know, feelings or thoughts. And we tell them, go away. I don't want to give you my attention.

[14:33]

I don't want to give my attention to you. So meditation is actually a wonderful time when we give, you know, Dogen says, you can give yourself to yourself. And you give others to others. So to give yourself to yourself, you give your attention to yourself. You give your attention to your breath. You give your breath to your breath. This kind of giving is you don't tell the breath, do this, do that, do now, now do this. Now you've done that. Okay, this is next. So you're not, you know, orchestrating or deciding everything, or, you know, controlling everything. In meditation practice, we're letting go of control, and we're being generous. So we give our attention to our breath and our body. And we receive, you know, a kind of gift in return. Actually, you know, we have the gift of our life then. We give our attention, awareness, without directing. So, you know, the key, always in Buddhism is mindfulness.

[15:44]

Is to be aware without judging or without directing or criticizing. So when we give our awareness to our breath, we're not trying to regulate the breath. You know, we let the breath be however long or short, deep or shallow it is. And we let it appear wherever it wants to. In this way, you know, we, you know, to give yourself to yourself or your breath to your breath, it's understanding that the breath is, knows better how to be breath than, you know, your conscious self. A friend of mine studies often about the latest in, you know, brain science. So he says, you know, they figured out now that they've done studies now that show which part of the brain lights up, you know, when various things are going on. So one of the things apparently they've studied is how we make decisions.

[16:46]

So all these parts of the brain light up. And the last part of the brain that lights up is the part that likes to think of itself as I. And then at the very end, when it's all been decided, the part that thinks of itself as I says, I decided that. And it part that thinks of itself as I makes up a story to take credit for what just happened. I wanted to do that. So this is also the part that thinks it knows better how to breathe than the breath does. Or I want you to be long and deep and calm. Don't be agitated. Don't be shallow. I'll straighten you out. Just do what I tell you. And we'll both feel better. And this is Buddhism, you know, so I'm right. So it's quite wonderful. You know, we say follow the breath. But we could also say, you know, then welcome the breath.

[17:55]

Give your heart to the breath. Give your body to the breath. You know, rather than holding your body apart from the breath, give your body over and let the breath do what it will with your body. So this is a kind of generosity, a kind of giving. You give yourself to the breath. And this is true also for your back and your hands. You know, your hands know much better how to be hands than your head does. I'm convinced, of course, that, you know, there's that old expression, the mind is strong and the body is weak. It's actually the other way around, you know. Hands love to do things. It's the mind that says, oh, let's do it tomorrow. And your hands will get depressed, you know, if they don't have something good to do, if you don't let them be hands. You know, if you say to your hands, no, you can't be hands today. There's nothing that I want to do. So you have to just, you know, be dead there. And I'm not going to give you anything to enjoy doing today with your, you know, to be a hand.

[19:11]

This is very discouraging. After a while, you know, your hand will complain. Our body complains in various ways, and one of the problems is our body doesn't have good language to talk to us. So, you know, when we give attention to our body, you know, we're also trying to listen and suggest language. You know, what would be a help? We ask our body. How can I help you? You know, to be, to realize yourself. How can I help you be a back? You know, and then mostly we need to get out of the way or just to be with our back, finding out how to be a back, or for a knee, how to be a knee. And too much of the time we decide for our back, for our body, you know, and we don't really give ourself to ourself. So meditation is a wonderful time to give our attention to ourself.

[20:14]

And giving our attention to ourself, we realize ourself. We realize our thoughts. We realize our feelings. We realize sensations. You know, we realize something about being alive today. So the act of generosity is not just to give to others, but also to give to ourself. And also Dogen says, you know, this is to give others to others. So much of the time we try to say, you shouldn't do that. You should this. You know, and we try to tell others how to be, what to do. I was at the Fairfax Library the other day and I got an audio tape which is several years old now. It's Robert Bly talking with Deborah Tannen at the New York Open Center. It's while Bush was still president, so it's a little dated. And they both agree, you know, that as a kind of generalization, certainly men and women have each their own way of talking.

[21:18]

And then, you know, rather than trying to understand, they also both agree that, you know, the general tendency is, why don't you figure out to talk my way? Why don't you go see a therapist, get yourself straightened out? So it's much harder to change your own way of talking, you know, or your own way of listening than to tell somebody else, you know, you need to talk better. And men and women, you know, so men and women talk differently and one of the things that they, again, they agree on, you know, is that men tend to report. So, you know, Robert Bly was saying, he's driving home with his wife and she says, would you like to stop for a nightcap? And he says, well, I check my body, I go inside and it doesn't feel like it. So I say, no, actually I don't feel like a nightcap. And then she's hurt. You don't want to visit with me. And men forget that women are, you know, asking, actually not, they're not asking, like, do you want a nightcap?

[22:25]

The question actually is, do you want to visit? Well, you talk to me. So he says, now he's a little smarter about these things, once in a while anyway. And so if she says, do you want to stop for a nightcap, he'll check and, well, no, actually I don't want to stop for a, I don't really want anything to drink, but I'd be happy to sip a Perrier while we, you know, talk about what asses we've been today, sure. But anyway, we're, we're all the time actually giving ourself, and most of the giving we're doing is, you know, rather unconscious. So also part of Buddhism, you know, we're encouraged to be more conscious of what we're doing, and to be more conscious about what it is we're giving, and how in various situations to actually, you know, be present in our gift.

[23:33]

One of the things that, in terms of men and women's conversation, you know, one of the things that women are better at is just, is agreeing. And a kind of, you know, social conversation, good morning, how are you? And what's happening? And I feel this, and oh yeah, I know about that. And so they're all the time giving each other, you know, confirmation and support. And men's conversation tends to be more like, you know, who's got the better understanding? Or who's doing better or worse? Who's, you know, who's where? You know, where are you on the hierarchy? How do you stand? So men's conversation tends to be more up and down, you know, by their conversation. So you wouldn't want to, most of the time you wouldn't want to do that sort of casual conversation like, hello, good morning. I mean, like, that's so prosaic. You should say something more important than that. So I've studied a little bit, you know, I tried now to, I'm a little more aware of like giving my attention to people and saying, good morning, and how are you?

[24:48]

It's very interesting. Suzuki Roshi, when he talked about giving, he said, well, I mean, he was talking about, he said to express yourself fully. The Buddhist practice is to express yourself fully. This is a kind of giving, to express yourself. But his idea of expression, he said, is, my idea, he said, is different than yours. My idea of expressing yourself fully is, you think, you think that to express yourself fully you need to do something creative and different and special in order to express yourself. But he said, my idea, or the idea in Buddhism is, you can express yourself fully when you're doing a ritual activity like meditation. Because you know what to do, and you know what the practice is, and you know you have your hands here. Then how you do it is how you express yourself fully. You don't have to think about what to do. And you don't have to like, oh, will this be the right thing to do? Will that be? Should I be this? Should I be that?

[25:54]

And you don't have to be figuring it out. Because otherwise, when you're figuring it out like that, what you're expressing is, I don't know, I don't really know what to do that would be right. And I want to do, what you're expressing is, I want to do something that would really impress you and astound you. And I can't figure it out, and that's really depressing, and you're going through all this stuff. This is a guy thing. Well, maybe you get to do it too, you women. But anyway, he said, when you know what to do and you do it, then the way you do this, everybody can see exactly who you are. You exactly give yourself. And all the time we're giving something about who we are. We're expressing who we are, even if it's our confusion about what to do, how to be. But when we do something, you know, good morning, how are you? Then you can tell, does somebody really, is somebody present in it? Is somebody actually interested?

[26:54]

Does somebody actually care? You tell right away. You know, so a lot of the time it does seem formulaic. Because we're not actually there in our gift and giving, you know, our attention or our greeting. So this is an interesting idea, you know, of giving, to fully express yourself, is to be in the moment of activity. In a sense, you know, and often it's nice to do something like meditation or bowing or walking or, you know, it's a ritual activity. And actually much of our social discourse is ritual activity. And then how you do ritual activity is something about, are you sincere? Are you kind? Are you friendly? Are you reserved? You can find out something about yourself by noticing how you participate. Do you participate just in everyday, you know, ritual activity?

[27:56]

Do you give yourself or do you hold back? You know, are you, do you actually hide, you know, rather than express yourself? So we're studying in this way, you know, how, you know, who we are and how we might do something, you know, give more of our life, give more of our awareness and the gift of our life to others and share our life with others. And in that way, you know, we also share our life with ourself. This is very interesting. But there are many examples, of course, you know, therapy is one of the common examples of, if you can tell the therapist what's going on, you tell yourself. You haven't bothered to. And meditation is also this kind of time you can give your attention to yourself and you tell yourself things. Often you have a lot of complaints to tell yourself when you meditate.

[29:01]

And because mostly we're too busy to hear our own complaints. And sometimes, of course, people are discouraged in meditation when all they hear is complaints. Why can't my meditation be deep and calm and quiet? And then we tell our mind, shut up. Or we say, I can't meditate. Really? Well, yeah, I can't make my mind empty. Okay. And then, so we sometimes have the idea of meditation is I need to turn my mind into a parking lot. That would be really good meditation if my mind was just paved over like a parking lot and nothing was happening. It would be nice and empty and nothing would be going on. That would be really peaceful. So, of course, more the idea of meditation is Dogen's expression, like a dragon entering the water or a tiger at home in the forest.

[30:07]

There's a kind of dominion, but actually the tiger isn't telling the forest how to behave. In the water that the dragon dives into, there are many creatures. There's all kinds of activity going on. Many different creatures and plants. So Dogen also says, to leave flowers for the wind or birds to the seasons. This is giving. This is the same kind of giving to let your feelings arise and pass away, to have your thoughts, which may be complaints or not. So you give your thoughts to your thoughts and your feelings to your feelings and let them have their life. And your well-being is like this dragon or lion or tiger. It's at home. You're at home in the midst of all this myriad of phenomena taking place, myriad of activities in your own being and myriad of activities in the world.

[31:10]

So we're finding out how to be at home. And much of this is giving. By giving our attention, our willingness to give. I want to say a little bit more about the breath. In some ways, I think that just to breathe easily and freely is our deep desire. Our deep wish is to be able to breathe, to let go of our breath and have it flow. Instead of holding our breath, waiting for things to get better. We have a habit of how to hold our breath, which is also holding our bodies. So we're studying how to let go of our breath.

[32:15]

This is also to let go of the places in our body that hold. And so we can let the breath touch the places that are in pain or hurting or holding or tight or tense. And to give in that way, we're letting our breath touch us and touch the places that are in pain or resisting. Usually if something, some part of our body's in difficulty, we tend to take our breath away from it. This is true also in relationship. We want to often fix it. Somebody has a difficulty, we want to fix it or we wonder, what can I do? How can I help? And we don't know how to just give our presence, give our breath. We feel awkward. It seems like such a small, insignificant thing.

[33:20]

We want to fix everything and make it all better. And of course in Buddhism, we understand things will not ever be all better. So the gift we can give is our presence, our breath, our breathing with, our sitting with, our sharing ourself in that way with one another. With what's hurting, with what's painful, with what's difficult. And actually, you know, to breathe in that way, then to touch things with our breath is to, you know, healing then. Since usually the part of us that is hurting or in pain or sickness is a part we've taken our breath away from. We won't give our breath to that area. We won't give our attention to that area. Because if something hurts, the idea is if I don't breathe there, I can just ignore it. I won't have to touch the pain. But actually not touching the pain, of course, is then there's a kind of, you know, it becomes harder and encased.

[34:26]

Sort of like a tumor, you know. And then we try not to breathe there. And our breath becomes limited then to some place where we don't have to touch that. This way we make ourselves small, you know, and limited. And we forget this capacity to give our breath and touch something with our breath and just feel it. And with your breath, you know, things will soften. The pain will soften and the holding will soften. So if you have some place in your body that is difficult for you, you know, just see if you can find a little bit of inhalation or exhalation. A little trace of some subtle movement there of the breath. And right away, you know, things respond to this. You know, your body responds. And when you breathe with someone else, you know, not having to fix something, not having to make it all better.

[35:30]

You know, this is a wonderful gift that we give each other. Just our presence. And again, as I said earlier, you know, a smile, a gesture. There are many gifts we can give. Anyway, I think we forget, you know, how powerful our presence, our awareness, our generosity, this kind of generosity is. To be present with something, to breathe with, you know, what is in difficulty. And also, of course, our breath can be quite refreshing. You know, when we give our, if we give our body and our mind over to the breath, you know, rather than the mind, I say the mind,

[36:38]

because to give your mind over to the breath is not to have some idea about how it should go. When your mind tells your breath how to go, you know, after a while your breath says, excuse me, but, you know, I know how to do it. Would you just let me do it myself? Can't you leave me alone? And then, does that help your breath relax? No, your breath is busy resisting your mind telling it how to do. So actually, the power of just breathing, letting your breath be however long or short, deep or shallow, after a while your breath says, oh, what a relief. He's not telling me how to breathe anymore. Thank God. And then how happy your breath is. So interestingly, this is a kind of gift, you know, to yourself, to your breath. And this is to give yourself to yourself, give your breath to your breath, give others to others.

[37:40]

You don't have to tell them what to do. I had for a while a kind of mantra, you know, isn't that just like Bill? Boy, he's good at being Bill. Rather than why doesn't he do this, he should that. You know, my idea of how everyone should behave, which is only my own rules for me, which we try to impose on everybody else. And if we could, but, you know, why would we coerce ourself any more than coerce the other person? But we notice how much we try to coerce ourself when we try to coerce others. This is interesting, isn't it? So this is quite, you know, useful to notice what we want others to do or not do. So to give our body and mind over to our breath, you know, the inhalation then can be very refreshing,

[38:44]

because that's what an inhalation likes to do. It likes to, like, why are we breathing, you know? It loves it. You know, our breath loves being the breath. And it has a good opportunity to do that when we're not telling it how to be, we're giving ourself over to it. You know, we give our body. We let our body be moved by the breath. So Dogen says, you know, our mind, our spirit is immeasurable. And when we give a gift, you know, the giving is immeasurable. And the thing we give, you know, transforms the giving, and the giving transforms the thing we give. So whether it's a stone or a particle of dust, a blade of grass, you know, the gift is really the gift of our heart.

[39:52]

And our presence, our love, it's our generosity manifest. And Dogen also says, you know, it's very difficult to change the mind of a human being, of a sentient being. It's very difficult to change our mind. And so he says, you know, this kind of practice of giving has the capacity to change your mind, your heart. You know, it has the capacity to change the hearts and minds of others. And it doesn't have to be some big or special gift. It's just moment to moment the gift of our life we pass on and share with ourself and others. Thank you.

[41:24]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So Buddhism, you know, from time to time mentions various reasons to be generous or to give. It's usually things, personally, I can't relate to very much. You know, like, it will establish the wholesome roots of this lifetime and future lifetimes. And I relate more just to, you know, is it in your heart to give? Is it in my heart to give? Yes, actually, it's what I want. I want to give.

[42:24]

And so I appreciate, you know, in that sense, Suzuki Roshi's encouragement to know your own heart, to know your own inmost request, your inmost wish, and then to see if you can find some way to express it, you know, to share it with the world. Because in that way, to keep your own gifts, you know, to not give the gifts you have to give, you know, is not, you know, we're not so happy then. So Buddhism also is to be happy. And our happiness is in knowing our heart and offering what's in our heart to others, sharing with others what's in our heart. So I want to, of course, encourage you to look into your heart and see what it is you really want,

[43:28]

what you really want to give, how you'd like to live. You know, sometimes we think, you know, well, if I was, we, you know, overlook what we have to give, because we think, well, sure, if I was rich, I would give money or I would give, you know, and we think a gift, you know, is something you have to buy in the store. So we forget the everyday ways we can give or be kind, kind speech or, you know, greetings, a smile. We forget the ways that we can share, you know, our presence with one another and honor one another. Thank you. Have I reached the end of the time yet?

[44:38]

We don't know. Do we know? I could probably stop here. I've probably said enough, right? It's so nice to just hear your voice. Thank you. Well, just briefly, anyway, I wanted to share a little story. You know, years ago when I was cooking at Tazahara, one day we had a big celebration. It was Buddha's birthday and we had this big picnic. And then later that day, and then, you know, when we had this big picnic and then nobody said thank you. It's kind of like, well, that was good, but, you know, they don't say thank you to the people who made the meal, right? So then as the cook, you know, was I cooking so that people would say thank you?

[45:50]

And then how much thank you would be enough? Once they say thank you, then you can always say, but you need to say it more sincerely. Your thank you needs to make all the difference in the world to me. Try again. And later that day I went into the kitchen. Even though it's a big lunch, you know, people still expect a little something. Most of the crew showed up. So it was going to be up to me to make dinner if there was going to be any dinner. And I thought, well, if nobody else is here, why should I do this? Why don't I just disappear too? That's what they're all doing. So I had this little dilemma. Oh, you should be responsible, though. You should... So I tried out Suzuki Roshi's teaching, you know, what do I really want? And I thought, well, actually I'd like to be generous.

[46:58]

And generous means you just give. You know, this is no strings. This isn't like, I'll give if you say thank you. And if you say thank you sincerely enough, then I'll give. That's not giving, you know, that's an exchange. That's a barter. That's a negotiation. So we get stuck a lot of times, especially living in this kind of society we live in, of what would be a good investment. Where would be a good return on my effort, on my generosity, on my gift? Who do I give to where I'm going to get something back? Rather than just, you know, giving. And I realized, well, I want to be able to just give. I want, I feel that. It's, you know, so this is what I mean. You know, at some point you can see in your own heart if it's what you want to do or not, to give, to be generous. You know, you know, in your heart.

[48:03]

So I thought, I'll just make the meal. I'll just offer food. And I realized at some point, you know, this is at mealtime, when we eat in the meditation hall, of course, we make a food offering to the Buddha. And Buddha doesn't say anything. For years I thought, this is really stupid. You know, you put some food there, he doesn't even eat it. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't say thank you. He doesn't say that was a great soup. He doesn't say, you know, you did wonderful. Thank you. Nothing. So why would you give food to the Buddha? But it's really quite marvelous. You did your part. You give the gift. You just give it. And then nothing happens. It's just your gift. Because you want to. Because it's in your heart to give. So this is the kind of freedom we can have, you know. When we do this kind of practice, we have this kind of freedom. We just give.

[49:07]

And then, you know, the person receiving, then we can see what's in their heart. Do they give thanks? You know, do they give gratitude? Do they give, you know, just their absorption in the food? Their enjoyment? Do they give their greed? What do they give to the food? How do they receive it? How do you receive food when you receive it? But, you know, to give others to others, we don't tell the others. You say thank you now. That's not giving others to others. That's you, you know, telling others how to be, you know. So we give ourselves to ourselves and others to others. This is, you know, realization. You know, and finally, I do want to say something about, you know, a while back I was chairman of the board,

[50:09]

and for a few years there. I've been chairman of the board. I was chairman of the board back in the mid-70s, in the early 80s, late 90s of Zen Center. And I found out that the last time I was chairman of the board, they said, oh, at Green Gulch, you know, they put out donation baskets, and there's very little, you know, people give very little. And I was surprised to hear that. Anyway, this is only a small kind of giving, but I want to encourage you, you know, to give. If you have it in your heart to give some offering. Dogen says even if it's a penny, you know, it's sincere, it's an important offer for you to make. So I also want to encourage that kind of gift. It's certainly a wonderful gift for me to come to Green Gulch, you know, to be here. I do a few times a year one-day sittings here, and it's a sweet place to come.

[51:11]

And it actually comes out of, you know, Green Gulch is here because of people's giving. You know, the students give their effort and time and energy to take care of the place, and people over the years have given, you know, financial resources to make Green Gulch happen. So it's something that, you know, it's created through giving. So I also want to mention that kind of giving as well. But in the larger sense anyway, just to see what's in your heart to give. Whether it's a smile, a flower, or, you know, Dogen says in the same way, to let flowers, to leave flowers to the wind, to leave birds to the seasons, is a gift. So it may be your gift, you know, your gift is already here, you know, but you can see also what you would like to do.

[52:16]

So anyway, thank you. I appreciate the gift of your presence here today. It's very touching.

[52:27]

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