I don't taste the sugar. Sitting in zazen or sitting in sasheen like this is a way of cooling off. We say to have a cool head and warm feet.

[01:08]

for a Zen student to have cool head and warm feet is very good for us. And when we sit for a long time, it's like cooling off. Last week I was talking about desire, and I got a lot of response to my lecture, which is very good. I appreciate that very much, because when you have practice discussion, to bring up some point from the lecture makes our practice work very well. One of the ways of practicing is to bring up a point of a lecture in practice discussion.

[02:31]

It's a very fundamental way to practice with a teacher. So anyway, I had a lot of response. So I want to talk about desire a little bit more. So cool head or cooling off is a way of talking about letting go of desire. And desire, you can say desire belongs to the dream world, with the world of dreams. And Buddhist practice or Buddhist monks have

[03:46]

always given up the world of dreams for the world of reality. They make a distinction between the world of dreams and the world of reality. And it's very difficult for us to see that distinction because mostly what we called the world of reality, or what we think of as the world of reality, is really the world of dreams. Dreams have some reality, but strictly speaking for a Buddhist monk, they're two different realms. And that's why If you look at the history of Buddhist practice, you see how the monks practiced in such a very strict way.

[04:59]

And if you're very much attracted to the world of dreams, the world of monks' practice looks like death. you can't understand why anyone would want to live in that way, because it completely excludes the realm of dreams. But for a Buddhist monk, In order to stay within the world of reality, the realm of reality, the monk gives up all worldly activities, even to the point of not even being supported, supporting themselves.

[06:04]

You know, in the ancient records, the ancient Vinaya, The monk was not allowed to dig in the earth or even have money, carry money. No gold or silver, no possessions, except the robes and a bowl and a little strainer to catch the bugs so that you wouldn't harm them. The water strainer so that when you dip the strainer into or get water from a river or some receptacle the strainer takes the strains all of the bugs out so that you don't hurt them. And there's also one reason why there's certain times when you keep when you shouldn't strain the bugs out of the water and that's at When it's very cold, before the dawn, you shouldn't strain the bugs out of the water because being out of the water, they'll freeze to death.

[07:17]

This is a very strict kind of practice that the monks practiced. And if they had any lice, of course, it would be hard for monks to have lice in their hair because they don't have hair. But if they found lice in their clothes or someplace, they put the lice in a bamboo tube that had damp cotton in it, or no, oiled cotton, because they can live in the oiled cotton. And then they close up the tube. So they're very strict in their observance of many rules. And so these rules of behavior became the life of the monk. And it was strictly within the realm for the monks. Their life was strictly within the realm of living in reality and avoiding living in a dream world.

[08:22]

And the dream world is the world which we know as samsara. The realm of creating a dream and then living out our dream in some way. And that dream, dream world, is called the world of desire, the realm of desire. And it's the realm that we take as the real world. And so that's why it's so difficult to actually to be a monk in that sense and so difficult to see why people would want, someone would want to leave the world of the realm of desire or the realm of the dream realm, dream world. During the course of

[09:31]

the last 2,500 years, Buddhism has changed a lot and accommodated itself to people's ability to practice it. Which brings us up to the present day where the practice we have, Mahayana, practice, which opened up the practice of Buddhism to everyone, not just to monks, but opened up the realm of practice to everyone. Although everyone can practice Buddhism, it's still, and even though we see it in various forms, it's still based on What is reality and what is the dream? So, as practice is introduced to America, there's a lot of leeway in what we allow or what we feel is practice for people.

[10:55]

And lay practice in America has become much more... was introduced to us in a way that was much more developed than lay practice in the East. And as Suzuki Roshi used to feel that our practice is somewhere in between lay practice and monk's practice, and not definitely one or the other. But he was very careful that we should not lose the point of understanding what is the dream world and what is the world of reality. When we sit zazen, we say, settle the self on the self, in the realm of reality.

[12:09]

And we don't encourage our thinking mind, and we don't encourage our dream mind, and we have no goal. A goal is something within the realm of the dream world. we have some direction, and we have some purpose, but not in the realm of the dream world. And so that's why it looks a little strange. We say, well, no goal, no goal, a goalless goal. The goal is to immerse ourself in reality, but not to get someplace in the dream world. So it's hard for us to understand sometimes what our goal is, what the goal of practice is. So when we spend all day sitting zazen, we just have the reality without the dream.

[13:17]

So life seems a little barren. Zen, though, doesn't have much in it except us. And there's nothing to do but just settle on the reality of ourself, without being accompanied by the dream. But dreams and fantasies still appear, even though we sit. Without trying to encourage dreams or fantasies, dreams and fantasies still appear. in a residual way. Our mind is always overflowing with various thought currents and desires, but we don't feed them, you know. In the dream world, we feed our desire and we feed our thought currents.

[14:19]

But in the the reality world of Zazen, we stop feeding. So sometimes we get very hungry because we're used to being fed in the dream world. But we get sometimes confused, sometimes hungry, sometimes at our wits end. But There's something that makes us feel good about it, even though we're a little bit deprived. So just to be able to just sit The world of reality, just with this, is not so easy.

[15:35]

But once we accustom ourselves to it, we feel some very deep feeling. Naturally, we feel some very deep feeling. But for most of us, the dream world still always plays a big part in our life. Even though we practice Zazen and study Buddhism, the dream world is very big in our life. But in our practice, we include the dream world. If you say, You know, we say to settle yourself means to really engage or be one with your activity, no matter what it is.

[16:40]

So in zazen, there's nothing else to do but be completely zazen. And then when you step outside the zendo to take up your life in the dream world, we say, just be completely engaged with your activity. But Suzuki Roshi always said, that doesn't mean, though, to be captivated by the dream. It's different. There's a distinction. And this distinction is very important. And it's what makes the difference between just being in the dream world and being able to live in the dream world in the realm of reality. To be able to exist in the dream world and also remain within the realm of reality is very difficult, but it's our practice.

[17:51]

without being captivated by the various dreams. The problem with living in the dream world is that the dream captivates our attention, captivates our mind. And when we get carried off by a dream, the world of reality becomes less distinct. And we don't care for it so much. And before long, we're steering away from, we're getting, going along some river, some path, or some dream, into some dream realm where reality becomes less and less distinct.

[18:55]

And if you look at the condition of our world, when people lead us, the leader's view of reality is less and less distinct, because their dream is so big, so captivating. So, how we continue our practice in our daily life, in the daily life of our dream world, is to be able to stay within the reality at the same time that we're working out within our dream. And that's why we practice Zazen, and the way we do, and are able to continue our practice in our daily life.

[19:59]

But if we don't come back to zazen and base our life on the fundamental point of reality, we just get tossed around by the dream, by the dream world. floating around on the waves of the dream world, sometimes exchanging one dream for another, taking sides in the dream world. This is my country, so I'll kill you because you belong to that other country. Makes absolutely no sense. Just a dream. So even though we have difficulty in our samsara, you can see how the dreams keep wanting to captivate our mind, and how we're always yearning for something other than what we have, and how we want it to be different than the way it is.

[22:00]

Even so, if we continue with strong purpose, we can find our way in the reality. You have to have strong purpose, strong sense of direction, and the goal, the goalless goal, should be to find our way in the realm of reality, whether we're in the midst of just pure reality or in the midst of the dream. To find our way in the midst of the dream is very necessary. So, one way to practice Buddhism is to be a monk and to find your way in the reality without the dream. Just cut off dreams. Another way is to be able to find your way, the way of reality within the dream world.

[23:13]

Much more difficult, but that's more like bodhisattva path. Both ways are good, you know. we must be able to find the reality within the dream world. It's more advanced practice, actually, but we can't wait. We can't wait until we have some wonderful development. we have to do it all at the same time. So just knowing the reality is easy, but difficult.

[24:23]

Because we can know it, but the most difficult thing is for us to accept it. That's the hard part. We can know what is reality, but to accept it is difficult. So when we sit today, we should just take care of ourselves. Take care of ourselves and take care of each other, and be kind to ourselves. That's important. Even though we have some austerity, you know, Sazen is kind of austere. And we have a cool head and warm feet. We should also have a warm heart. Warm heart is also part of reality.

[25:26]

And to be kind to ourselves means to accept ourself completely. Accept exactly what's happening, exactly where we are. One of the hindrances for practice is to just practice in a mechanical way. Even though we have kind of strict rules and kind of a very formal practice, it doesn't mean rigid practice. Formality doesn't mean rigidity. Even though you're sitting up straight in the most confined position of your body, you should still be very flexible and soft and warm-hearted.

[26:34]

The goal of sitting zazen is to be able to be very loose and flexible, warm-hearted, and find your freedom, true freedom, within the most confined circumstances. If you can find your true freedom, absolutely free, within the most confined circumstances, then you find the reality right there. But if you feel confined by your zazen, you're still in the fighting realm, still in the desire realm, still in the dream realm. So we should be able to enjoy our freedom, not be confined by it.

[27:53]

And we should be able to Enjoy the reality. If we can really enjoy reality, we don't need to crave for something else. But it's hard. Hard. And we have to deal with it. over and over. So without cutting off desire, without surgery, how we use desire so that desire is not using us tends to be in the real world. The dream world is where desire

[28:59]

is leading you. The world of reality is where desire is a factor of our life. And we can't use it in the right way. And if we can't use it in the right way, if it's not easy, then it's a struggle. But when our life is balanced correctly, it's not a struggle. But if it's a struggle, take on the struggle. So in our zazen, even though we should be able to sit comfortably, you know, Dogen Zenji says, zazen is the comfortable way. It is the comfortable way. when your whole life is balanced within reality.

[30:07]

What makes it uncomfortable is because we're half in and half out. When you're totally immersed, it's the comfortable way. But when your tail is hanging out the window, Too bad. It lets you know. So please, let's bring our tails in and continue our practice. Do you have a question? more dangerous strain.

[31:10]

Why did you come to Zazen? I don't mind if I don't have a toy. Does accepting reality mean accepting the dream as it is without working to change it? Yes, it does mean accepting the dream as it is. Oh, this is the dream. If you sit in zazen, you know, some dream comes into your mind and you say, oh, this is a dream.

[32:41]

If you get captivated by the dream, you know, maybe you sit the whole period of zazen dreaming, you know, completely in the dream. That's a kind of reality, but it's being captivated by the dream, which is, in a sense of dream and reality, we make that, in the realm of making a distinction, we say, well, this is the dream. And when you just let the dream go by, without, you recognize the dream and you let the dream go by, then you're still in the realm of reality. And this goes for not just sitting, you know, but zazen is all of our activities. And sitting down with our legs crossed is one form of zazen. So the dream is always going through our mind.

[33:45]

There's always a dream going on, but we don't get captivated by it. That's what the difference between the dream and the reality. There's, of course, reality to the dream, but we're making some kind of distinction here. We're dividing it in half for the purpose of discussing it. You have to remember that. Well, I guess what I meant by trying to change it is, when you talked about big dreams and leaders, I couldn't help but think of Martin Luther King saying, I have a dream. And it seems to me that he was very strongly grounded in reality. Yeah. And yet, his whole life was trying to change. changed the dream to his dream?

[34:47]

Well, I wouldn't say it was his dream. I say he participated in that dream. But his dream seems to us to be more grounded in reality. Don't you think so? But I... Well, you see when he's... Well, it's easy to see that in the case of someone like him, but sometimes for me it's difficult to know when I'm trying to change things in the way that he was trying to change things and when I'm struggling against reality. Yeah, it's difficult. I agree with you. We don't always know. And one of the most difficult things is, how do you change things?

[35:58]

And what will happen when you do? And is it the right thing? No matter how good your thoughts are, it's really difficult. Is part of the green world projecting into the future and in the same way sort of regretting the past and not then being right in the present? Is that part of the green world to think, what do I want to make of the future? Yeah, that's part of the dream world. Those things that you mentioned are part of what you can call the dream world. And by living just right in the present, you sort of sense exactly where you are and take one step and then another.

[37:07]

But taking that step as you take, taking that step, being with the step as you take it, will just take you to a future which will then be the present. The future becomes the present. But see, then we're talking about time in a different way, a little bit different way, whereas the present is always present. But I want to make a little comment on what you're saying, because in this situation of sitting zazen here. We're pretty much totally engrossed in just the present moment. There's really no past or future that we're concerned with. And that's a very rarefied existence of reality.

[38:09]

But we also have to pay attention to the future and the past in our life. We have to participate in the dream world. You have to participate? Yeah, in the dream world. With people. But the practice is to, at the same time, to remain in the world of reality, which is just this. then paying attention to the past and the future in our lives. Is that also reality? Yeah. It has to be. Yeah, it is. Because it's based... The way you're dealing with past and future is based on reality.

[39:12]

But past and future are just ideas in our mind. A dog enters into past and future without thinking about past and future. You don't have to think about it. But in order to preserve our dream, in a certain way, when I say dream, I'm talking about something very big, you know. In order to preserve our dream of what our life is about, we have to think about those things, past and future. But, you can live without doing that. It's possible to live without doing that. But, in order to preserve our dream, we have to. Part of our dream is our agreement, how to deal with each other. So, dream here is all realms of thought. So I'm making some distinction between dream and reality.

[40:21]

Of course the dream, there's realities in the dream world, but I'm making a distinction for purposes of talking about it. So it seems that the present reality can guide us in our thinking. Yeah, of course. That our judgments will be more correct for us if we know our reality. Yes, our judgments. Of course, that's why basing our way of life on reality is a simple way of saying that. So in Buddhism, reality has two aspects.

[41:27]

One is everything is one being without any gap. And the other side is that everything is completely independent as it is. All things are completely independent as they are. And in order to, for independent beings to base their existence on reality, they have to understand that everything is, all things are one total being without any gap. So, dream is a kind of partiality which keeps us separated from that reality, the dream world. So when we divide it in half, that's what we're talking about. So according to Buddhism, this whole thing that we call our world, life, is called the realm of delusion.

[42:33]

But it's also based on reality. The world of delusion is the world of reality when we have realization. It's getting a little philosophical. But that's the way of explaining, again, from another point of view, what I've been talking about. I have this question again about the monastic as opposed to the, I won't say worldly, but And it does seem very difficult to hold on to one's, at least one's notion

[43:40]

But you continue to live your life in some ordinary way, like most people do, and the mind has a tendency, at least in my experience, your mental apparatus, the ego has a tendency to that maybe the elimination where you're monasticistic is... Have less influences. You eliminate some of those things that keep... It seems hard to choose that way. It is. That's why... Part of monastic discipline is to

[45:09]

Limit your influences so that you keep your attention on where it's supposed to be. That's why it's so hard to practice in this world. Very hard to practice because you have so many influences. And if you read a book, some book is very powerful and you just get taken over by that way of thinking. If you see something on TV that's very powerful, you just get carried away with that way of thinking. And sometimes you go to a movie, I remember coming out of a movie house when I was a kid, and I'd come out into the real world, into my own dream world, and I'd say, wow, where have I been? What's going on here? So we have to have a very strong practice so that we can accept various ideas. and not reject anything, you know, except the dream world, without being turned around by...

[46:12]

When I think about time in that context, sort of what you're talking about, I sort of start thinking about what time means like in an ordinary sense. If you think about a clock, you know, all a clock is is like the measurement of movement. you know, that you have a, you have that arm that moves around, like this, and then you have these markers, you know, that sort of, you know, 5, 10, 15, and as it goes past the markers, the movement goes past the markers, that's what, kind of what your sense gives, you know, that kind of, and you look out at that kind of movement and say, well, when this moving hand reaches Yes, if you are the clock, then where is time?

[49:03]

I need to sell another clock. You know, down at the winery. where they belong in the United States. And it's not going anywhere.

[50:09]

It's just going. But because it's shaped like it goes like this, it looks like it's moving this way. That looks kind of interesting. But yet there's no movement. The blade, it appears to be going this way. And the matter is actually moving this way. Two hands are fixed. They're stationary. Very interesting. I used to think about two things.

[51:13]

You think about getting from one place to the next. Let's say I have to make ten steps between this point and this point. And it's kind of an old problem. And you divide that up to half. And you divide that space up to half. And you divide that space up to half. And you go on dividing. You can go on dividing to infinity. And if you can divide this thing into infinity, then how is it that you make a step from this point to this point? I mean, how is it that you cover that infinite space? And yet you do move. And then I was thinking about the Heart Sutra.

[52:29]

And the Heart Sutra is something that I wasn't asked to memorize in high school. Nobody told me I was supposed to memorize this thing. But I've been saying it and saying it and saying it. And even now, it's amazing how I don't know it. Yeah, four years or four and a half years of saying the Heart Sutra. You can't build. Doesn't know it yet, you know. And knows it pretty much, but not... Completely, if I had to do it by myself, I wouldn't do it at all. So, it just takes a long time to learn something by rote, you know. With no pressure on you whatsoever to memorize it. Nobody telling you to memorize it. There's no deadline, you've got to say it in front of people. That long, at least, you know, five years, you still haven't memorized it. That's amazing to me. Really? I mean, that's just a little thing, you know. What's your word? And maybe it goes, if you're forced to do something like rote learning, Now that's why it's not pleasant because it really takes a long time if you're not forced. You have to relax.

[53:30]

Even something like that. I've had a big chat in the Gettysburg US all these years. This is that particular one. the inside of the room. Well, I think it's almost illusion to think he's going slow.

[56:08]

You know, it just seems that way. I think about the anxiety to me like in those corporate situations, you know, where the pressure's on. If you think about the anxiety, even at $10 an hour, it's very difficult to work. But it takes you someplace else. That's the thing about this, you know. What's working there is them.

[57:37]

What's working there is that. It's not, it's not repeating that. It's not just, dang, a heart skips a row or takes a row. Oh, I see. As well. Yeah. I don't know what you're talking about. I want you to do this with me. Yeah.

[58:50]

It's tricky. It's like a change in skill point. Change in skill point. And especially when you're doing something repetitive. I think that we experience the subtlety of some dynamic skill point. And I think that's what I mean when I say that sometimes we do something and we repeat, repeat, repeat.

[59:53]

Some other process is happening. Exactly because you confine yourself into a repetition. We have to experience the subtleties of mind or phenomena, the subtleties, only if we are practicing something that's confined. That seems to be confining. I wonder if that's what these people that you gave as examples felt, if they thought that they were practicing something confined. I doubt it, I doubt it. No, it's not conscious, I don't think. Well, just to use an example of music, for instance. I'm gonna put the ching-ching. The blues only uses three chords, generally, right? Three basses. And they change. There is kind of a traditional changing point to it. It's like, through repeating, and you can see,

[60:59]

It's like they get bored right away because somehow they hit it and recall. Because of the fact that it seems so repetitive, so rote, you know, the learning seems so rote. God damn, same change at this point. You know, I mean, it's like the difficulty of working inside of it. Working inside of it, you know. What happens to the repetition of that form over and over again is it kind of reveals The inner workings of it. Reveals the inner workings of the changes itself. More than that though. It's like the mind. At that point the mind moves off. It stays inside of the changes but it moves off. Like there are an infinite number of ways to get from this chord to this chord. But you hit this one and this one at this point. And there are an infinite number of nuances in terms of how you play these two chords.

[62:02]

But there are certain things that you don't leave out. But that you can. You know? It's just like the way the blues is played. The way you hear it sometimes in California is very traditional. You know, it's like the blues was played in 1920 or something, 1930. And then you hear it another way. And you kind of realize the depth of the limitation. It's repetition, but each time it moves like that, moves down, down. Repeat the same thing. It's like you take it apart, put it back together again. Take [...] it apart, put it back together again. Sometimes that's what the sitting seems to be.

[63:04]

Take it apart, put it back together again. Take it apart, put it back together again. Take it apart, put it back together again. And after a while, you get to know what you're taking apart. You know what I mean? [...] You know what I mean It's like that first chord, you know? Boom! I never drank before I was in the back of a truck. I drank beer and coffee. We were switched. We were all switched. And that is horrible. You know? Junkie over here. But you weren't sleeping, you turned away. They're unusual people.

[64:30]

They're talented. But it was sort of like there was something that seemed to be very common to them in the way they approached what they did. And that they didn't get into a certain mastery after a certain amount of time simply by sticking to it. And I think what Steve is asking is, have you determined, you know, in your mind, you know, just how they went about it or whether it is something that Is that what you were saying, Steve?

[65:50]

Well, there are like all kinds of ways, you know. Somebody can do cartwheels, hit the stage and play the first chord and lift it off the ground. There are all kinds of ways of doing that. Some people get up, they don't do anything. Some people go through four, five, or six years of music training. It's interesting that you would say that because a buddy of mine talked to this piano player, McCoy Tyner, who used to play with John Coltrane. And he said, he asked him, he said, how did you get to this point? He said, well, you know, a buddy said, you know, that there's this book called Jazz Improvisation. He says, you take the book, and he says, you play every exercise. He said, you play it over and over again, until you've done every exercise in the book.

[67:00]

And you know it perfectly well and can play it at all the different meters. He said, and then, My buddy was talking to them. They were on a boat on the Mississippi River, right? And then you take the book and you throw it in the river. So like there are all kinds of ways of getting there. All Ching Ching did was, uh, all these dusty 45s, you know? But it seemed like the common ground to all of it is, uh, The cat was really crazy. You know, to walk into an empty place, it's like five miles straight. Just like it was a packed house with over 50,000 people. I don't know what was happening to me. You know, I don't even know how that came about. Sometimes when you make that kind of effort, I don't know if it works so good, but you say, I'm going to really, like if someone says, do this book and everything, you say, okay, I'm going to do it.

[68:36]

You get tired of doing it. It's got to be something else, the reason why you do it. You just got to enjoy it. I don't know how it happens. I mean, you can see it with musicians, though. What happens is it takes a tremendous amount of discipline or effort, man, at the beginning. I mean, where does that come from? I don't really know. It's like it's something that each person has to manage for themselves. You know, you have to know how much you're going to practice, you know. But even though it might be that you really hate it, right? If you kill yourself, it's just... Oh, yeah, I don't know if it matters that much what it is, you know? I don't know if it matters. I mean, we're just using music as an example. It could be cooking, you know? Look at this man. Well, you can imagine at one time, you know, that aspect of being fascinated or having a wonder over a thing.

[69:42]

I think that kind of happens afterwards. Maybe it starts at the beginning, you know, a little bit. Maybe. I'm not really, I'm not sure how that moves. Maybe it gets you, it sort of starts things happening or something. It's like that's not, that's a byproduct almost. It's a thing that happens as a consequence of doing something else. You know, it's not the, These cats would just play, man. It wouldn't matter if they were drunk. They wouldn't even take breaks hardly, man. They'd just play right through. It didn't matter how bad they felt, what the crowd was doing. They would just, all you could do was play, and that's what they did. Boom. They'd play right through. Now how that happens, man, I don't know. Or why it is. Is that how you feel about carpentry?

[71:17]

Well, I don't want to use carpentry as an example, but different things. It seems that's where the turning point comes. You know, you get sort of superficially interested in things until you get sucked in by that wonderment. It's like you have to really make an effort at the beginning. It's almost magical, the drawing. It just seems that when you start that first part, it seems like it's just happening during this thing. You find yourself doing it years and years, and then all of a sudden, boom, it just blossoms out. And then it'll just happen like that. And I think the deliberate part always certain point in it.

[72:37]

And as he opened the door, the ball fell, and he cut it right in half, and he put the ball on the ball-cutting half of his feet. And the ball hit the ground right where he was, right in the middle of his feet, and he called it a second son. And as he walked through the door, he caught the ball in his hand. And the father said, that's pretty good, that's pretty good, he said. And the third son came in. And he very carefully opened the door, and got up, and just bawled out. And it was like he had anticipated this. And as the father called all three sons back then, he said, this shows where your training is. But the eldest son was by far the most advanced in his training, because he could

[74:14]

Do you see anything like that kind of thing happening with these people that you're talking about? Yeah, there's something happening, but it seems like what happens is there's no father. No what? No father. You know, it's like It's like you don't have any sense of one son catching the ball, he's good, and the other son cuts it in half, he's good, and the other anticipates and grabs it, he's good. It's just you have a sense of how he would stick his head inside the motor if something was going wrong. And there was just something about how it happened that you felt like he opened the door and grabbed the ball before it fell down. I guess my question really is like, concerning the refining process.

[75:26]

And I wondered, you know, like, are these people just very accomplished, you know, masters of one particular thing? Or is it like... No, I don't think... It doesn't seem to overlap too much. Maybe because the rest of it, the rest of it's pretty messy. You know, it's real difficult. Real difficult. Real difficult. Like something, some part of it is kind of a lost thing that, you know... It's like the difficulty, man, of the ordinary life somehow puts energy into that other thing, somehow. It just seems like that's the way it operates, man. You know, like... It's the way the whole thing is done, you know? It's not... Maybe it's not the individuals. You see the individuals and you say, well, this is... this is Chin Chin, you know, and this is how he plays. But actually, the way he plays is the same way they hit the pepper field. I mean, it's the same kind of, same kind of competition or something, you know.

[76:57]

So he seems like he gets it in this area, you know, so that you have the sense that when he plays, he really plays, you know. And on the other hand, all the folks, when they work, man, they have their folks there, you know. There ain't, there's no confusion about what they're supposed to do or what they, man, what's happening. Like when those cats on those derricks in those oil fields and the sun comes up, man, at six o'clock, they get up and do it, man, till the sun goes down. You know, there ain't no space in it, you know. Some cats try and run off, but, you know, and they may be the fortunate ones. But some of the guys back up on the floor have to pull three miles of pipe out of the ground. And they just go, man. He gets on his carriage and goes. There's something about it, I don't know, it's kind of a... As vicious as the whole thing is, you know, with the racism and the way the corporate setup is, the way things are going down. There's something else inside of it that's kind of all right, you know, something you can feel about it, you know, kind of imagine.

[78:04]

You know, but the difficulty maybe is dealing with the whole thing, you know, dealing with the whole thing. Man, he was sad, you know what I'm saying? He sat on his porch, man, and they had cut off the gas. He didn't have any money, man. He was just loaded and drunk. And he can't do anything but play, man. I mean, his wife was going to get the hamburgers at the store, man, so they could cook it on the barbecue pit. He don't have any money at all. So what would happen is that all his relationships with the other musicians just really, really, really cut through. I'd never seen anybody who was so deft at stealing money from people. You know, making you feel like you were the one who was taking it from him. You know? So it didn't seem to overlap too much. It's like a concentration in one area. Everything else was really difficult.

[79:10]

You know, it's been really difficult. Like old man Blanchard? I mean, three weeks later, man. How did he want to? The old man Blanchett was shot. Somebody blew his head off, man, with a shotgun. Three weeks. I noticed this. It was just like, wow. You know? So somehow maybe that sense of pace comes out of that realization, you know? You know, you have to get into it, you know. There's something desperate about it, you know, to try to get people into it. It's just desperate. It makes it real. You know, like if you have cancer. Cancer. Yeah, I've seen about the interplay between the anxiety It seemed like a certain amount of non-acceptance, that kind of striving.

[81:05]

But how does that work? Reality. It kind of reminds me of the bell, you know, or anything. I mean, what is it you hear when the bell goes off? I mean, what is heard? You know, what do you hear? I listen to that bell a lot. I'm saying, what is it? You see, you got two tongues, actually. You know, you got sort of a basic tone, then you have another tone on top of it. And most of the time you don't hear that sort of thing, you know?

[82:10]

It's like... I keep thinking, well, what is still and what is active? Get it?

[83:24]

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