tonight, or today, is Megan Collins, a long-time student and great spirit. Thank you. Good morning. So what's the problem? The Buddha says that Suffering or discontent is the problem, and I'm certainly not going to disagree with the Buddha, but I'd like to look at another aspect of discontent this morning, which is control and lack of control. Once you start looking at control, it just never stops. I was thinking about gardens.

[01:02]

Nature wants weeds and bugs and wildness. And we want order and nothing eating our flowers. And it's a constant battle for control that we mostly lose. By the way, is the sound all right in the back? Good. Okay, and I'm not going to go into politics very much today because we're all up to here with that all day, every day. But just suffice to say, there's a pervasive anxiety in the nation because we have our country under the control of a person who has no self-control, and he's a control freak, and we are also wondering who controls him. So, but that, that's enough for that.

[02:07]

I thought I'd begin with thinking and thought. Because thoughts just happen, and we really have minute control there. I didn't realize that for a long time. I thought I thought, but then I realized, no! And we can control our breath for a while or kind of pursue some study train of thought. But in the middle of all that, some thoughts going to pop up that surprises us. And there's no need to. to worry about that. It's just a little weed that comes up from our storehouse consciousness and it's not our willful doing, but I got quite confused trying to figure out which in the Noble Eightfold Path Right Thought comes, because Right View is the first one, which you could say is Right Thought, but I thought that Right Thought was the second one, but in a lot of the lists that I looked at, it said Right Intent.

[03:33]

But that's a paradox for me, Sogen, that right thought is something that we should do, and yet we have no control of our thought. Would you say something? Intentional thought. Intentional thought. Not weed thoughts. Flower thoughts. Uh-huh. Okay. Not weed thoughts. Flower thoughts. I like that. Thank you. But that is a paradox that you can look at. Insomnia. For those who have it, we know there's no control about that, because sleep just does what it does. Speaking of control, I meant to keep track of the time here, and that now says 12 hours, Might be a little long for some people.

[04:37]

Okay. I sort of feel like I have the duty to sleep through the night. When I don't sleep well, I sort of feel it's my fault somehow. But I used to sleep, blam, nine hours, no problem. But now in my old age, and I know that this happens with many older people, I wake up at the two o'clock in the morning and I can't go back to sleep. And I have learned just to deal with it. I have a glass of milk and crackers and read for a while. If I can, I sit Zazen, but sometimes I wake up just wired up and I can't sit. Or I do my yoga.

[05:39]

Or, you know, you have to just not lie there and toss and turn. You have to get up and do something. And in this topic, I was put onto a very nifty book by Kathy Steingruth. It's called Zen and the Art of Sleep by Eric Childs, C-H-I-L-E-S. And he doesn't offer a cure for insomnia, but it's more helping you observe into your attitudes and to realize that sleep does what it does and to learn the acceptance of that. And there are many chapters, in the book that are very useful to my mind, not only about just insomnia, but about daytime Zen practice.

[06:50]

And at the end of the book, there's some little kind of exercises, you know, to study things to do, which if you like that kind of thing, and I do, they might be interesting for you to look at. I went to a sleep seminar one time, and they said that before electricity, It was a normal pattern. You didn't have lights, so you'd go to bed at nightfall and sleep until the small hours, and then everybody would get up and do something or other for a while and go back to sleep. They said that Benjamin Franklin would sit naked in a chair and read. which I think in Philadelphia in February might not be the great thing to do, but Ben was quite a hero.

[07:58]

So, another interesting reading that I did lately is an article in the New Yorker. It's in the January 30th New Yorker, if you want to look it up later. And on the cover, there's this woman and a child going very steeply downhill in a sled. And the name of the article is Survival of the Richest by Evan Osnos. And some of our very rich people are what they call preppers in that they're planning to control their safety in case of, say, a climate disaster or a pandemic or a social violence. Many of them are buying property in New Zealand.

[09:04]

at which the New Zealanders are beginning to resent somewhat. And New Zealand doesn't just let anybody come. You have to have money to come there. And also, they're buying Caribbean islands. But the most fascinating thing to me that they're doing is there is a man named Larry Hall, and he's the founder of something called the condo survival project. And it's, he's buying up silos that used to store Atlas missiles, which have protective cover, you know, that would resist almost anything. And in the cover, the picture that illustrates this article is this armed guard. He looks like somebody from that Blackwater. He's carrying a great big gun, standing outside here to guard the people.

[10:08]

And in the silo, there's one in Kansas and one in North Dakota, I don't know where else, there are 12 private apartments. And they're equipped to last, stay in there five years. They have tilapia fish tanks and hydroponic vegetables. And then they have fake view windows in your apartment. You have a window and you could choose whatever you want to look at. The prairie or some man decided he wanted to look at a Caribbean island. But when it got there, he didn't like it. It was too garish. So I don't know what he did. But anyway, they've got a pool. They've got a rock climbing wall. They've got two dentists, two doctors and a dentist. And so, and then there's another place being developed now, it's called Trident Lakes, and it's in a little near Dallas someplace.

[11:24]

And this place has 700 acres. And every bunker has a, a water view because they're building three man-made lakes, and they've got a golf course, and then they've got all these condos, but they're 90% underground. And so, you know, These people, of course, you have to be very rich to do this, but a lot of the people who are doing it are hedge fund managers who might have cause to want to protect themselves from the public. Anyway, the combined income of 25 hedge fund managers is equal to the salaries of all the kindergarten teachers in the United States. So they've got the money to do this, but it's such a ludicrous concept to me.

[12:31]

They're putting themselves in prison to be safe and having to eat tilapia every day. And, you know, it's true that money will control some things that poor people can't. But the idea that you can make yourself safe this way, we could sit around and have hours of entertainment figuring out things that one little thing going wrong, could collapse the whole scheme. I told this the other day to Sue Dunlap that I was going to talk about this and she said, that sounds like Chapter One. So, and by the way, there are very, very few of these people, there are a few, but not many, who have expressed the thought that it would be better to take a lot of their discretionary money and try to solve the social problems that might cause all this trouble, climate change,

[13:47]

imbalance of income and all those things. But mostly these preppers are just intent on safety, safety, safety and self, self, self. So good luck with that one. Okay, the next thing, I realize this is quite a grab bag of stuff, but, you know, I was just thinking about control. It just goes everywhere I could look. And we have too much coming at us. all the time. I don't have any much business but I'm drowning in emails and I don't have any cell phone messages. Maybe I do. My circle gets a little annoyed with me because I only ever use my cell phone, like I used to call AAA, or if I'm meeting somebody and there might be a glitch.

[14:55]

But, you know, I'm old enough to remember having relatives who regarded the telephone as an unbearable intrusion into their privacy. You know, you're sitting at dinner and the telephone rings, how dreadful. My father had an aunt and her legendary story about her was she would answer the telephone, no, what is it? So you might put that on your answering machine. Okay, you know, I don't need to dwell on this a whole lot because we're all hearing this. There are books written about people who go to Maine and turn off their cell phone for a week and all that.

[15:56]

But I just... feel like it seems to me a real tyranny in life to have your boss able to call you 24-7 and tell you to get down to the office at 10 o'clock at night, or have your neurotic sister-in-law be able to call you up and vent with her latest hissy fit when you're trying to have lunch with somebody. I'm just saying. Okay, now we come to a great example of trying to control something we can't, which is aging. Being old in the United States, as this is another thing I hardly need to say because people talk about it a lot, I'm sure we're all aware of it, that being old in the United States is not a honorable state where you're the elder of the tribe and everyone comes to you for your sage wisdom.

[17:18]

People are afraid of getting old. And I will say for myself, I feel very respected here and very seen and honored. You gave me a lovely, lovely party on my 90th birthday and I appreciated it very much. And we've always had in the Zen Bell the little old lady who is older than everybody else, and I think I'm it now. I never met Dolly, but I wish I had. That was when Jack was so sick and I couldn't come when she was here. Anyway, you know, another place I get a lot of respect is in the street from African-American people.

[18:21]

It's surprising how I very rarely walk from motel to the bar without somebody saying to me, good morning, ma'am, or how you doing, mama? Or they talk about my stick. One man said to me, that stick is as tall as you are. You look like Moses. But I think it's true that other countries, I understand that in the Philippines that older people are very respected. The result of this fear of growing old is that we have the whole industry about anti-aging. I don't know about you, but I watch a lot of news now, and I'm sick and tired of those Cialis bathtubs around. And there must be oil tanker cars full of face cream, and Botox, and face lifting, and all this effort.

[19:36]

But I tell you, you can't do anything about the hands. Look at that. So no matter. Oh, I'll go back a little bit. When I was young, I really, really wanted to be a grown-up, because the prerogatives of that were... A lot of people now, they know the prerogatives are better to stay a teenager, and they do, and some of them until they're 45. I just promised myself that when I was old, I would not waste my old age by wishing to be younger, and I don't. But I've been very, very lucky. I am comparatively pain-free and comparatively mobile, and a lot of people aren't at my age. if they ever get there, that's the one lucky thing to get to 90.

[20:43]

I believe in exercise and a good diet and doing yoga and so on because you want to feel as well as you can for as long as you can, so you need to take care of your health. But the frantic efforts to to try to stay young, you know, it doesn't work. Age just kind of lurches along, by the way. You know, you feel like you're 25 for a long time and all of a sudden you feel like you're 40. And I remember a surgeon telling me that Blanche Hartman said, 86 is not 85. And it's true, I found a definite, some kind of a turnover there that year. And I'm sorry to tell you, 90 is not 89 either. I'm noticing a lack of energy, you know, diminishing energy this year that is something new.

[21:44]

You know, we can do all we want to, or try to, but impermanence is doing its work, cell by cell, and we need to face it. And that leads us to the final control issue, the big one, which is behind it all, behind all of these things, I think, is fear of death. Certainly the aging one behind that is fear. It's fear of death. People can't even use the word. It's such a taboo in this country. My father hated all the euphemisms for He never would let me say somebody passed over, passed, passed away, crossed over. They're wonderful when somebody's transitioned and all kinds of things that you can say to avoid the word saying, he died, you know?

[23:02]

I know people who can't go to funerals of other people or they can't visit people even in their family in the hospital because they're afraid. Death is catching. Well, it is. My late husband's first wife died of multiple myeloma and he spent a lot of time in the hospital with her and he told me the nurses would tell him that it was remarkable how many people died all alone because nobody would dare to come and visit them. And I know people who can't bring themselves to write a note of condolence to other people because it's so hard to figure out what to say, which is true, but we need to do it all the same. So this is the big unavoidable point about control and the lack of it.

[24:10]

In the small scale, we just want control because we want things to go the way we want them to, and it annoys us when they don't. But on the large scale, it's the fear of death that's behind the screen there. I am at a long good life and I've come to terms. I feel with dying in a general way, I really do not want to live to be a hundred. I haven't seen so much wonderful about those last declining years that make me, I think I'm content to go, but all the same, I know it. When the big kahuna comes and looks you right in the face, it gives you a lurch in the stomach. And we can't help that. When I have to write a condolence note, sometimes I send, if it's appropriate, I don't feel it works for everybody, but it's a poem by Walt Whitman.

[25:18]

All goes onward and outward. Nothing collapses. And to die is different from what everyone supposes and luckier. Isn't that lovely? So I asked in the beginning, what's the problem? And now I guess I can ask, what's the solution? But we know there isn't any solution, because so many things are beyond our control. But we do have a precious thing, and that's our practice, which teaches us that a big part of practice that we need to learn to appreciate is coming up against the hard edges of things that we don't want. And it teaches us to really look at things and face them.

[26:22]

And it teaches us, we have the Noble Eightfold Path, we have the precepts, that help us to walk the path of trying to be kind and to live a decent human life. And that's just so lucky for us because you know how many people you know who just don't have an anchor. They don't have an anchor any place. And we have that, we do. So I'm sure all familiar with the serenity prayer of AA. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And there's a second verse to this that I was not familiar with, and I'll end with just two or three lines from it. which will be familiar to you from your Zen practice.

[27:25]

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardships as the pathway to peace. I'll read that one more time. living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardships as the pathway to peace." So, thank you so much. Do we have time for any comments? Yes, Charlie? Thank you very much, Megan. You're welcome. AT&T phone landline, you can enter a code that will stop your ringing.

[28:27]

It's called Do Not Disturb. And it's star 78 pound sign. Star 78 pound sign. Okay. Well, my father's aunt would have wanted to know that, but it wasn't available then. Thank you, Charlie. And Peter? Oh, great. Just Peter and then... So, one area where I hear the word death mentioned almost without fail is in the list of Right? Yes. And oh, I have to tell you a great story about that. You know, Ambien. can make you get up in the night and eat things, and you wake up and see all the stuff in the kitchen, and you don't... Well, a friend of mine's children called her up in the night, and she's divorced from her husband, and for some reason they couldn't attend to this.

[29:48]

They said, Mother, you've got to go to San Jose. Dad took Ambien and he drove to San... without knowing what he was doing. And they say that, too, in the Ambien. You know how they talk so fast, you can't... So, Peter Felser, please. Well, Megan, thank you very much for your talk. I remember the first time... The talk caused me to think back to the first time I met you at Friday Tea. But, wow, here's an older woman that I can really learn something from. And that has continued to be true all these years. And I just want you to keep on talking. Thank you, Peter. Thank you. Ko? My favorite current movie is Michael Moore's Where to and Be Next.

[30:52]

Say the title again. Where to invade next. Okay. And so he takes an American flag from various countries to take from them things that he thinks the United States could really need. So he goes to Germany and one thing he finds in Germany is that call them, to email them, etc. So I just thought I would share that. It's not true everywhere that your boss can call you up at 2 o'clock in the morning and demand you come to work. But it's actually a law that your employer cannot contact you after hours. It's great. Other countries are way ahead of us in some departments, right?

[31:57]

Dale? Dean. Dean, I'm sorry. I know that, Dean. I know that. First of all, I want to thank you for your talk. It's very encouraging and I appreciated being reminded about control. This morning, before I even got here, I had three conversations. One of them was about going to Costco to get my mom glasses. It turned into, well, we could go today, but it's always busy on Saturday, we'll have to wait a lot, maybe we should go then. Well, can you rearrange your schedule? The second one was a brief conversation with someone about an article about Donald Trump and his conspiracy theorist personality, and whether he's crazy crazy, or crazy like a fox crazy. So this all came out, talk about control as well. And then the third one was a friend's daughter, a school schoolmate of hers tried to commit suicide. And came out of that was more discussion about control, about how she has a sister that's disabled and she can't have a conversation with her sister, and she just wants a sister she can talk to.

[33:10]

Or family members encouraging her to be a better soccer player and to go to school here for this. So this thought about being reminded control and the cost to all of us, and how much time we spend on it, and we can look at the preppers, I mean they're crazy good, they're skillful, trying to control and all the things they can, but we all do it, and we all fall into it, and then I started thinking about the telephone ringing at dinner time or whatever, you know, and how do we play into control, because My phone, someone called me the other day and said, like, I left a message for you last night, why didn't you get back to me? It was 8.30, I went to bed. I didn't have my phone with me in bed. But I realized, what were they doing with their phone in bed with the other day coming in at night? And so we all sort of play into it because sometimes we don't put the phone away.

[34:13]

So we get to get mad about someone, who do they think they are calling in? You're right. Thank you. You're welcome. I had a friend, I still have her, she said, one thing that happened, she would just say very serenely, I am not in control. She was one of the most serene people I've ever known. Yes, hi Judy. I just thought I'd throw in a movie recommendation for everybody. My favorite movie is Patterson. I actually saw it twice. It's the only movie in my lifetime that I've seen. the CD of it, which will be released on the 4th of April.

[35:19]

And I ordered it from Amoeba, not Amazon. And you can order it online at Amoeba. But anyway, I was thinking of it because the main character in it, whose name is Patterson, is a bus driver and he doesn't have an iPhone. And he's a young man. He doesn't have an iPhone. I won't go into I don't want to direct a movie for you, so... Well, I've heard that. I've heard that, that that's a wonderful movie and well worth seeing. Okay. Oh, hi. Hi. My name is Stephen. Yes. This is my first visit to the temple. Oh, welcome. I hope you come back. I was to investigate this morning for the meditation. And what caused that was the fact that it was no accident, I think, that you brought up the Serenity Prayer.

[36:26]

There was no accident that you brought up the Serenity Prayer because I myself today am celebrating seven months Well, I wanted to thank you, and what inspired me by your message is that with proper thought that it is easier to get through life than we might think. Well, thank you so much, and you're so welcome here. We all hope you come back. Thank you. Okay. I think... Oh, whoop! Hi, Solana. Hola, baby. You know, I like what you said about being older, because I've always liked being older. I was first born, and I never grew out of that on being the oldest. But my grandmother was Haitian, and she used to be so proud of her age. And so I just grew up with that, being really healthy, aging. So I wanted to say, I wanted to thank you for your comment on aging.

[37:33]

And I have a lot of African-American people call me Mama. Oh, yeah, hi. Yeah, Linda. Can you just put a stick up? I think that's a sign that I should keep quiet. We'll make Linda the grand finale question. Yeah, well, I was trying to... So, half the time I wanted to say something serious to you, and then half the time I wanted to say something funny to you. But anyway, you just get better and better. You know, we don't have control over that, but we have a little control over it. A little. And I guess I won't say the serious thing, but I'll tell you one thing that I discovered. I can't control the wrinkles. I have a friend who tried to, who brought me to CVS and we bought a lot of stuff because she said, you know, you can make your face look better. And one thing I found I can control and really gives me a lot of serenity is I can have matching shirt, socks, and earrings.

[38:49]

I do that on a really regular basis. Good move. Me too. Okay. All right, Denise. This is the positively last. that wisdom that you have shared with us today, I think it lightened a lot of hearts. And so this is possible that you have a late career in comedic Don't have the energy anymore, Denise. Thank you so much.

[39:41]

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