I get to have the great pleasure of introducing Peter today, Peter Overton, who, oh, for people who are watching this, who was sitting in the Zendo before anyone here, who, not in this building, but at Berkeley, Zendo on Dwight Way, And at least in our records, his name comes down first. I'm sure there was somebody else sitting here with him besides Mel. But anyway, he's one of our forefathers, one of those. She warned me. I asked him what I couldn't say, and he said, oh, say anything. But Peter has a lot of different hats that he's worn. He's been a potter, and a drum maker, and a baker, and he's a father, and a priest.

[01:21]

And he's been very active in the greater Zen center scene. And recently he's had the adventure of going to India to do something very special and to share one of his skills. So I think we're going to hear something about that. Thank you, Rebecca. Good morning. Good morning. I just want to say that there were a number of people there before me. Well, I wasn't one of them. It was very nice to share in Full Moon Ceremony with you this morning. joining with your voices, making a confession and renewing our practice in this way. I noticed, my wife kept asking me to call Maile and say, Maile, you didn't tell me that Richard Bacon was lecturing in San Francisco.

[02:30]

So I was wondering whether there was going to be anybody here in the practice for more than 10 years. And there are very few of them. Maybe it didn't tell anybody. Well, I just learned about this. How did I learn about it? I can't even remember. Anyway, it's a rather significant event. The only reason why I know Since then, I've been waiting for an excuse to invite this teacher to return and offer teaching to the Sangha. And although this event is not without controversy, I'm actually rather pleased that it's taking place. Bekaroshi ordained Blanche Hartman, who was going

[03:32]

on Sunday, and she invited her ordaining teacher, as is traditional, to attend the installation ceremony, as did Norman Fisher. Although, that time around, Vekaroshi chose not to attend. However, this time, he accepted the invitation and asked, is there anything I have to do? And Suzuki Roshi's son, Huichi, comes to these kinds of proceedings. He said, well, it's traditional to invite the ordained teacher to lecture the day before. So the invitation was given and accepted, and so it's happening. And I guess we'll all hear about it later. What's been on my mind lately has been, as Rebecca mentioned, I traveled to India.

[04:37]

I was in November. And it was a rather unusual and strange event. When I was there, I was speaking with Westerners and they were saying, well, you're going to have lots of stories to tell when you get back. And when I said, well, I had lots of stories to tell before I went, I got a call about a year and a half ago from Michael Wenger, who's president of Zen Center, saying there is these people in India, Tibetan Buddhists, who want someone to come over there and help them start a bakery. Would you be interested? I hadn't really baked, sort of, professionally, so to speak, interest in it.

[05:41]

And so I said, well, yeah, I'll call this person. It was a woman, you know, lives in right down here, someplace. And she said, yes, we need to help. They want to start this bakery. And they want to, and then I said, they want to is the Chetsen Rinpoche, who is a lineage holder of the Drikung Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism. And he happened to be in the States, in fact, he happened to be in Berkeley at that time, giving some teachings on Tibetan Buddhism. As you may know, I mean, It's largely sort of an expatriate phenomenon that we're kind of interfacing with.

[06:49]

Their support system is sort of worldwide, and so they do have a lot of connections, and they come to various places in the world and give teachings. South America, Europe, United States. Their network is quite far flung. But this teacher was in the United States, seeing students and giving teachings. And so we played telephone deck for days and days and days and I was Tucson and then, you know, he finally calls me and we talk and he seemed like a reasonable person. He seemed realistic about third world countries, you know, and what you can actually accomplish there. And still I really hadn't a clue what they were doing, but I said, okay, I'll consider it. And then we started having correspondence and I would write these long letters about what you need in the bakery. He said, well, tell us what we need to do. I'd write a long letter about this, and that, and this, and that, and then I'd write another long letter, you know, and then we'd get it. At first I wasn't sure what was it, was it going to be Kaodong, or, they have nuclear power plants, so, everything is there, you know, it's just, you know, it's just, it's all there.

[07:58]

But, they, you know, they were going to have, you know, electric equipment, it was going to be modern, And I kept writing other letters about different aspects of things. Is there a source of yeast? What kind of flour? You know, all these kinds of things. At a certain point I started to realize that I didn't know that my assumptions about kitchens and bakeries are so completely embedded in my own experience as a sort of Westerner in a wealthy country. that I realized I didn't have a clue about what to address. I had this concept of the bakery, and this was what it should be. And not only did I have certain assumptions about what it should be, there were certain things I was not thinking about because I just assumed they'd be there. At the very end, I said, well, you should have a source of water in the bakery and a sink.

[09:00]

Turned out they hadn't thought of that at all. And in the end, an addition to the building was constructed in order to accommodate this need. But anyway, so there was this experience of sort of communicating with the ether and realizing my own conceptions. On the one hand, I had to put out as much as I could to give them some sense. At the end, I sent them some pictures of bakeries. On the other hand, I just had no idea what their resources were And I had various conversations with people in the United States about who had been there, even people I knew well, actually. But the people that I hadn't known before, who were more familiar with the place, this monastery in Dehradun, India, which is north of Delhi.

[10:02]

You know, I never met any of these people, and I in fact still haven't met any of them except in India. So eventually it became clear that yes, you know, my family supported me to do this. Yes, they were going to find the money to buy me an airplane ticket. Yes, I should talk to my boss about it and schedule some time off. And so suddenly sort of in the late summer kind of came together. I started making my plans and thinking shopping and so forth. And, you know, gathering recipes from friends and sort of my friend Doug Volkmer, who I used to work with at Tassajar Bakery, gave me a big baker's peel, you know, those big cords you stick French bread in and out. And so then finally, you know, I was just, you know, my family dropped me off at the Shattuck Hotel and I was on my way.

[11:10]

out into I-know-not-what. I ended up sitting next to a guy on a plane who was from the Bay Area, who was going on a spiritual pilgrimage to India to see some Hindu masters. It was very nice to have that kind of contact on this journey. I recently had lunch with him up here at the corner. He told me all about his illness, which cut his journey short. I'd somehow equip myself with all, you know, an expensive filter and all this stuff. Bags and bags of drugs. But what's curious about flying to a place... I've never been even to Mexico, so I don't have really any sense of any physical experience of being in so-called third world countries. And flying is completely in the first world. You don't get there until you're there.

[12:14]

So when you walk out of passport control, out the door, that's like it. There's the transition, all of 10 feet. You don't make that transition in the airplane, unless of course you've had experience in these places and you know where you're going and that kind of thing. So in fact, there were people there to meet me, which was very nice. in the middle of the night and got some sleep. Then I made a long journey by car the next day and arrived at the monastery. And I did in fact have a bakery. And the equipment was a little strange. I was lucky I kind of snuck down and had a look because I didn't recognize the oven when I saw it. But it was modern. It was installed properly and the electricity was done right and the rooms were clean and and we got to work and it's curious going to, I mean most of us

[13:24]

context and you're just kind of taking it in and it's sort of an enriching experience but in a certain sense you're in a sort of passive mode that you know obviously you have to do things you have to get places and so on you read your books about what you're seeing and so on but on the other hand it's you're not really accomplishing something you're not there to do a job or something like that so this this experience is a little different from that because the Not only was I there, it was a very important experience for me to go and be with in a traditional Buddhist setting, to go to a place like India, which is really different, and to do this baking work at the same time, working with people who, for the most part, had extremely limited English. But it was sort of a complicated journey in that way.

[14:35]

There were several aspects of this that really were the most significant to me of this trip. And one was, of course, doing a baking project, as I said, in these circumstances where I was kind of really starting from scratch and really trying to think about What could I teach people who are... You know, it's not a staple food in India. Bread is something to eat a lot of, you know. It's something that, you know, butter bread is one of the standard things on the menu, you know, tea, you eat that for breakfast. But it's not something, it's not a culture where people eat bread enough to have developed a sense of what it should be. They sort of taken it from the British, who never really knew how to bake in the first place. They sort of preserved this thing, what is called bread, this concept of bread.

[15:41]

So even the first bread we made, which was pretty awful, was better than the local fair. So it started off with success. But I was trying to teach people something about bread that would give them a grounding, you know, sort of like they're going to have to start this whole new culture of bread and an appreciation of the taste and texture of bread. And I wanted them to start at the very basic level and just stay there for a couple of years until they could really understand, you know, yeast and salt and flour and water, period, because they were up for some serious challenges when the temperatures started to rise. When I was there, it was sort of like the Bay Area in November. It was wonderful. But it gets to be 100 degrees every day for three weeks. It's pretty challenging to do that sort of work and to have it come out okay.

[16:44]

So that was one aspect of it. I learned a tremendous amount about baking. I really appreciated that experience. And the other part of being in a traditional Buddhist culture was very surprising. You can't say that it's really as traditional as you'd think it should be, because here they've been sort of exported from Tibet, and here they all are in India. They've been there for some time. There are these Tibetan settlements. There's the monastery, the Chetsang Rinpoche stayed in Tibet as a young man. and was in labor camps and studied a lot. And his parents came to the United States, and then he eventually got out and came to the United States. So he'd been around and was somewhat sophisticated, and at some point decided, yes, I am going to continue this lineage, and came back and established the monastery, which is big.

[17:45]

There were about 200 people there. We were about four or five miles outside of town. But what, and my sister has lived in Japan for six or eight years, and you know, she talks about when you go to a traditional Buddhist setting, and those of you who travel to Japan probably know what I'm talking about, there's, you somehow kind of get suddenly, oh yeah, this is what this all means, this is the whole picture. Whereas in the United States, you have a little piece of this, and a little piece of this, and a little piece of this. but you don't really, it doesn't, the impact of it doesn't hit you because you're not living inside of it somehow. And here I had this experience of being in a monastery and having contact with the lay community and seeing how there was, it was sort of like that. And you rarely have that kind of experience in the United States because here everything is different. The way we practice is different, the way we form community is different.

[18:48]

I think at Zen Center it's, it's much more highly developed than in other Buddhist contexts in the U.S. One, because we've inherited this real emphasis on group practice. So we've kind of struggled to turn that into a sort of community in some way. This Japanese emphasis and doing everything together makes a big difference when it comes to processing the various issues the people I'd met who were practitioners of Tibetan traditions, people I met in India, you know, it sounded like they were just much more out on their own. And this place was a real resource for them to come in and immerse themselves in practice. But, so I felt that that was, it was a funny feeling to have this experience of wholeness of Buddhist culture, because I realized that it was a whole, and I wasn't going to take the whole back with me, and I wasn't going to take, you know, I could take pieces, but they were only pieces.

[19:59]

You know, so there was this, but it was sort of deeply encouraging to feel that, I don't know why it was deeply encouraging, it was just great to feel like, ah, it's all here, you know, and they really are doing it, you know, they're not, there's no, they're just doing the whole thing, I don't know what's going on really. I mean, my experience was very superficial, but this feeling just sort of came through. In the monastery, the monks were from age 8 to 80, practically, and there was a large group of young boys who wore their monk's robes. During the day, they were in school. young Westerners there who were helping with the teaching and school teaching and so on. But it was wonderful. I met a woman from Berkeley who loved this. She was down from the... In the monastery itself, the practice is studying chanting, specific Buddhist practices.

[21:07]

And so there was chanting all the time, day and night. The little monks would chant in this room next to where I was It'd happen again, you know. And then there'd be chanting here and there, you know, like there was this running room down below me that, where there was always this chanting going on. I'd say, well, what are these people doing? It goes on all the time. Oh, I don't know. It's much more individualized, people's practices. The senior monk who would do most of the driving on these longer trips back and forth from Delhi, you know, he'd get in the car at four in the morning. It's kind of wonderful. I kind of started actually chanting the Heart Sutra a lot to myself in a sort of quick sort of mumbly way since then. And I found it to be a wonderful practice actually. But they have a meditation center.

[22:09]

possibilities, but... So I met this woman and came down to tea. I was having tea with these Westerners. And she was coming down to talk to Chet Singh Rinpoche. She had just started a five-year retreat. She was ordained a monk. Very sweet. Very tall. Christine, I think was her name. Anyway, she's just starting her five-year retreat. And she had just finished a three-year retreat in her apartment in Berkeley. And I said, well, you know, five years, that's a long time. I mean, you must really have to kind of arrange things, you know, and kind of get yourself together a little bit. I mean, you're not going to be out of circulation. She says, you just have to give up everything. So I don't really know what these people are allowed to do and not do. a huge sheaf of letters from her to various people in the United States that she'd written when I came back on the plane.

[23:33]

Anyway, as an experience of Buddhism, it was really significant for me and very encouraging. I'm like, yes, I come back to the United States. Well, the other part of it, the funny part is, It's kind of like when you're there in this wholeness, you actually feel like you can see Buddhism, okay? You can see it. And I felt like, no, I never had that experience in the United States. Yes, we're here. You know, the people I'm with are sincere practitioners. You really feel that. But you can't see Buddhism somehow, until the whole thing's there somehow, embedded in a community and culture. And then return, and you kind of have to just get out there and do it.

[24:40]

And you don't really know what you're doing. Nobody can see exactly what you're doing. You can't see exactly what you're doing. But you have to continue. There's no choice. It's a tough one. And I can see why many of the people I met were so involved in going to Tibet and to India to practice. because there's a certain clarity about the whole endeavor, which we don't seem to have. You know, there's the monks and then there's these other practitioners who come from the West. But the Western practitioners are not lay people and they're not monks. There are people who could be put in those categories who we all know. It's quite different. There, you know, in the traditional culture, the laity will support the monks, and the monks, you know, encourage lay people, but their practices are somewhat different.

[25:40]

Here, it's all very similar. So it's much less clear. But, anyway, so, I don't know. I just felt good to do that. Then another significant aspect, which was related to this experience of practicing in these circumstances, was just this experience of being in India, which I don't know how many people here have been to India. It's a real different place. I mean, you just cannot conceive of how different it is. It's really, I would say, upside down from the United States. And that's an important experience to have because it depends on who you are and in what particular way is significant for you. It depends on who you are. My wife had been in India a couple of years before on a pilgrimage.

[26:42]

For her, the experience challenged her long-held that surrounding yourself with beauty and nice circumstances was actually an indication of, you know, was the way to make yourself happy, an indication of your spiritual well-being. It's actually kind of embarrassing to have these experiences because you realize how clueless you are about, you know, our life. And for me, Like she would, you know, just seeing all these people in India who are kind of like, I mean, everything is sort of mixed up, you know, the contrasts, the very real contrasts in our culture and society, which we work so hard at to conceal, are totally in your face in this particular circumstance.

[27:47]

I mean, people are, you know, their mansions, you know, garbage thrown over, people outside have nothing, you know, middle-class house. The people next door kept cows in the yard and lived in a shack and had five kids or something. They all lived in this little yard basically. That was it. But what's curious about this is that people of widely differing economic and social status don't have widely differing the extent to which their sense of dignity, at least from my point of view, just observing, didn't seem to be as widely different as their economic circumstances. And the difference in economic circumstances is really extreme.

[28:50]

And there's, you know, again, You can say, maybe it's not so good that people have a real sense of their own place, and this is this place, and somebody else might be better off, but this is my place. Well, the flip side of that is, this is my place, and, you know, I'm okay here. So it's not an easy thing. It's not an easy thing to say, that people have their own dignity, and that's good, because there's a lot more attached to that. There's a whole. network of circumstances. But, to me, what was significant was how people related to time. And in what way, what I found myself seeing was that, you know, everybody says, like, in countries like Mexico or India, you know, nothing works, nobody, you know, mañana,

[30:07]

to get anything done, so on and so forth. Well, that may in some sense be true. On the other hand, that allows great freedom. Because in America, where the trains run on time, and you can divide, and time is compartmentalized, there is this tremendous emphasis on accomplishment. And things are measured by accomplishment. I've come to realize that it's a particular problem for myself, and I think men in general in this culture, that self-worth and well-being is measured in terms of accomplishment. a cup of tea and a real conversation with somebody.

[31:13]

People aren't just scheduled to the hilt. You just show up and you can do something. People make space for things to happen. So you can have small events can have their proper significance, which is sometimes pretty great. And while I realized that some of that, how I relate to time and my struggle with feeling like I've got to get things done and the whole materialist emphasis in our culture, I feel like that can be addressed by changing my attitude to a certain extent. In fact, we really, I started to see how we are just totally plugged into this in an overwhelming way. And I was really somewhat distraught while I was in India, thinking about how was I going to deal with this when I came back?

[32:20]

Because I just did not feel, I felt like I started to see how in some way my life patterns and our culture are really antithetical to practice. Because there's a real emphasis on get this together, get this and a kind of grasping mentality towards time, getting a hold of time. In that way, that's power. So eventually I had to return. And as far as I'm curious, this place where I was, they have water, they have springs, and the water comes down and fills up these In the morning there's water, and you can drink water and so on. If I got up real early, I'd have to turn on the electric heater and actually take a shower in this room.

[33:21]

I was in one of the nicer rooms. I had this shower facility in my room bathroom. Or flush the toilet or something. But then later in the day there was no water. So they had barely running water, but they had computers. They were transcribing Tibetan texts into Tibetan. I mean, they were putting them on disk. And so I wrote this bakery manual while I was there. And so there was all this stuff I was doing. And eventually it all kind of came to a halt. And we had meetings about how the bakery was going to be managed and how they were going to let these guys bake for a while after I left and see if they could really do it. It was wonderful working with these monks. One of them was a lay person and three others were young monks who were, I guess, not so interested in study so much. A couple of these guys were really connected in terms of understanding. They were, I mean, I had various conversations with people about, you know, before I came, before I went, about what was I going to do to establish certain standards of sanitation.

[34:30]

You know, I'd heard all sorts of stories about India being kind of, you know, difficult in that respect. And, you know, I was not wrong, just sort of, right around India, because every level is present. But there was one thing I didn't have to worry about somehow. These people took care of the space beautifully and cleaned things. I don't know why, but anyway. The Tibetan scene is actually somewhat different. In my cultural context, I was in a sort of Tibetan monastic scene, and then there was India. And I was kind of back and forth between them. And they're Tibetan, seen as somewhat self-contained. And I think because of that, they've either grown to, or maybe they already have, I don't know, more of a sense of taking care of shared space, which is a sense you don't get in India in general. India seems more like everybody's there, but they're all on their own trip or something.

[35:31]

They all try to get along. The people don't bump into each other. I mean, it's incredibly chaotic, but people don't bump into each other. And it's kind of, you know, it's kind of a no-no to bump into people. But, people, you know, and it's just, it's just everything, everybody's on the street, everybody's on the road, the cows, the dogs, everything, you know, you name it. But, in America, you know, we have this shared myth, this myth, we started to live by this myth that we're all here together, this is one culture. It's really not true, but we live by this myth. They don't have that myth in India, you know. It's like, there's various people and they all, They're all just mixed up together, and they're all kind of making it all work somehow, and it kind of works. It's kind of amazing. Anyway, so I had to come back, and they took me out to lunch, and then we went to call. I was very nervous, because I hadn't reconfirmed my flight reservations, and I call up, and I finally get through. The phones weren't working, but I finally get through.

[36:33]

And, oh no, no, we don't have a flight on that date. That was cancelled. I was there a day late, which is too bad. I was really anxious to leave and get back to my family. So they took me on a side trip to Rishikesh, which is the place where the Beatles Himalayas, and it was clear. It was really beautiful. And you take this boat across the river, you know, and everybody's there. And so the temple town is on the other side of the river. You walk through it. It's kind of like a, I use the word Hindu theme park. I really wish I knew all the stories in the Pantheon because they're all represented in these pictures, the huge statuary everywhere. It was fantastic. One guy and I walked by, we went off by ourselves and walked around and talked to somebody with a huge snake for a while.

[37:39]

We were cutting through these little farmyards, trying to get back to the river, find our friends. Walked by this little garden, and there was a young Western woman, full lotus, sitting in this little garden. Very concentrated, beautiful posture. next to her guru who was there, sitting there reading the newspaper. And I forgot my camera. So I finally returned, I finally left. I was very well taken care of by these people. One thing is that it's a little hard being a sort of Berkeley-ite, you know, graduate or alumna of the Gourmet Ghetto or something like that. Tibetans traditionally have a very limited diet. And so that hasn't, and that, it's amazing the power of culture, I mean, they're not sort of, they're not into food in the way that even

[38:52]

unless they've been around and understand. I mean, we went to some places, Tibetan households who already had food. It was actually well prepared and very tasty. But in many circumstances, unless people have traveled widely or have lots of varied experience, their sense of what's interesting is a much narrower spectrum. And so, My last meal there was this. We went to, I said, let's go to the Tibetan restaurant. So they took me back to the same place we'd been in the morning. And they laid on piles of meat. This is their idea of good time. It was pretty good, but it was just sort of a lot. But finally they got me a big bowl of yogurt and we went off to the airport. I took home. And I got a stomach flu or something. Much of that I gave to my family. Arriving home, of course, was a whole other kind of experience, getting back to work and all that. First few days of work were kind of neat, because I didn't really care at all about what I was doing.

[40:07]

But I was able to function, okay. But then gradually, you know, It's because everybody I know and see is completely plugged into da [...] da. So only, you know, pretty soon my boss is saying, now Peter, breathe. And I recently, just at the end of the day, realized how seriously stuck I am with defining my own self as how much I accomplish. because I was really getting worried about not getting things done. And it was like doing some writing, actually corresponding with people that I'd been with in India, getting those letters written. And actually writing several people who'd want me to write something about my experience. I wanted to do that. I know this is getting late, Dolly, but bear with me. And so I was getting very depressed.

[41:12]

I mean, that's just my response, sort of going, oh, I can't get anything done. Why does this happen to me? I'm a victim of the circumstance. And then it starts to... Anyway, I really fell on my face. I think it all happened around feeling completely powerless with my son and just sort of, you know, I can't cope with which is normal parenting. So I'm kind of pulling myself back together again, trying to find out how to integrate this experience of freedom from grasping to a certain extent in my daily life. And I still feel very encouraged by my experiences as a Buddhist practitioner in these circumstances. I urge all of you, if you have the opportunity, as it comes your way, to go to a country where it's all happening in one place and experience that.

[42:28]

There's probably no time for people to ask questions or anything. Well, please, if anybody has any comments. Yes? Can you give some examples of how the Buddhist life is called? Well, it's a little bit like if we're here doing our practice and you know, you constantly have contact with, you know, so-and-so's parents are coming over to offer incense and and the children, and part of it is, part of it was, in fact, in this Tibetan situation where you have this wide range of ages. Seeing children from age eight onward participating in this, and seeing elders in the community

[43:34]

who have worked hard in the lay community to help people, who are very connected with the monastery and see that as a... actually seeing people in the wider community who feel this very strong connection with the monastery. And although they have their lives and they're doing all that kind of other stuff, they really look to this place. And seeing people of all places in their life, who aren't necessarily practitioners in the way the monks are, relate to that. It's almost because there is this almost separation between monks and laity that you can actually see that relationship more clearly than you can hear. Yes? I was only there three weeks.

[44:38]

When I got there, I decided to write a journal and so forth. It turned out to be a good thing to have because I didn't really connect with any of the Westerners there for a few days. If you're there, you start going crazy. Yeah, I thought Tibetan Buddhism was, well, at least the monk level was men only. So I was surprised to hear you say that there was a woman from Berkeley there. Yeah, there were other, there were very few women there that I did meet, as if they were monks. And then there were other, you know, there were other places I saw around there. There were various monasteries near where I was, and some of them, there were women. So is this a new thing?

[45:40]

No, no. This is, you know, this is, this is like them adjusting somewhat to the norms of Western Buddhism. In Western Buddhism we all do it together and it's, you know, it's all mixed up. So, but the Westerners are a big part of their support system, but they're also extremely interested in practice. So people can come and actually, like I met a young Western woman there who, American, and she was very connected with, and he'd gone off to Tibet to be with him. And he said, well, I'm not going to ordain you, but I want you here to practice. I mean, there are all kinds of subtle adjustments going on there. It's a very fluid situation. In some sense, a very difficult situation for a Buddhist. Yes, one more, maybe one more. The retreats you were mentioning, are they like... type retreats?

[46:45]

I'm sorry? Retreats? Oh, yes. Yeah, they have a little room and you go in there and you cook your food and do your laundry and meditate. You do it alone? Yeah. Or you don't go to the monastery? No, you don't go to the monastery except when you see your teacher. It's quite a different tradition. But were they going to do the bread feeder for themselves? Well, no, the idea was that, Chen Tse-Rinpoche's idea was that he wanted to help support the monks with this business. So, but the monks, you know, they would eat 50 loaves a day, or 100 loaves a day or something at the monastery, and then they were going to make more. To sell in the town? Yeah. While we were there, I figured I would make French bread when I was there. They just went wild over it. It wasn't such bad French bread. I mean, the flour was different. It wasn't the same, what we're used to here. But it still sort of worked. And they served it with ghee? No, I didn't see a lot of ghee. But everything is different, you know.

[47:47]

Yes? I was just going to ask, did they eat the bread plain, or did they put anything on it? Well, you see, I was being so well treated that I wasn't exactly sure what everybody else was eating. You know, so I was sort of imprisoned in my status there. But yeah, I think they have it plain with sweet tea. And I did have some Tibetan salt tea that on one occasion was really prepared well and was quite delicious. Anyway, we should probably... They have gin. Yeah, they have gin. That's one of the things I used to get. Thank you very much.

[48:31]

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