Good morning. Good morning. It's with great pleasure that I'm introducing our speaker today, Jake Van Akran, who is our shuso, our head student during this practice period. His dharma name is Ho Shin Boku Ren, and that means dharma, faith, unadorned practice. And he started working formerly here at the Berkeley Zen Center in 1998, although he had practiced for quite a while at Green Gulch before that, and on his own. He was lay ordained in 2001. He has served in many positions here at the Berkeley Zen Center, including, at the moment, being vice president of our board. He is now retired, but he taught public school for 34 years, and he has done a lot of outdoor hiking, backpacking, and he volunteers at Mount Diablo State Park as a docent and a hike leader.

[01:07]

And having personally gone with him on some of his walks, I can attest to his patience, knowledge, and compassion. Thank you, Karen. Well, good morning, everyone. It's good to see you again after two weeks.

[02:09]

This is Kids Dendo, and I would like to invite the children to come up a little closer. And parents, too, are welcome to join. Come on up. I have a special friend I want to introduce you to. And I think you'll get to know him a little better if you're closer. I am not a poet. Excuse me. Of course not. My name is Wally. And I've been with Leslie and Jake for many years, more than I can count. I know some of you here. Sergeant Roshi, I know you. We may not remember, but I remember Linda. I like Linda. And we'll see if I like the rest of you. Probably. Probably.

[03:12]

But I don't want to make rash judgments here. Do you want to tell them what the program is? Sure. Well, today I thought we would talk about... Well, first of all, how many of you are in preschool? How many of you are in school? What grade? First grade. What grade? No, but I'm still in preschool. Preschool. But I'm almost at kindergarten. Almost kindergarten, yeah. Kindergarten but almost first grade. Almost first grade. Kindergarten but almost first grade. First grade, almost second grade. First grade, almost second grade. Well, at school, preschool or school, do you ever have chores to do? You know what a chore is? Like sharpening pencils or passing out papers? No. How about at home?

[04:15]

Do you ever have to do chores? Oh, we're getting a nod there. What's an example of a chore you have? Feed the cat. Feed the cat. That's a chore. Any other chores that you guys have? Maybe? How about when we have snack? Don't you have a job? Oh, yeah. We clean up food for other people. Clean up food for other people. Karen. Karen. I have an idea. What's your idea? Tell Raleigh. We give it to people. You give stuff to people. Yeah, that's a chore. Now, when you get out of bed, do you have to maybe straighten your bed a little bit?

[05:17]

Not too much. I have to do that. Otherwise, I get in trouble. How about when we're done with snack? Don't we have to do something? Oh, yeah. We clean up. You clean up. That's good. Now, so are there some chores you really don't like, you know, maybe school or home. I don't like opening mail. Your mom makes you open the mail, yeah. You get to read the mail. You have one you don't like? Going to school and doing homework. Homework's a chore, yeah. Also reading. Yeah. Well, you may like it later, you know, you get older. Well, are there some chores you really like? Favorite? Feeding the cat.

[06:20]

Feeding the cat. What's so good about feeding the cat? I like doing that too. I don't know. Not sure. Does the cat purr when you feed it? A little bit? Yeah. Well, that's nice. Now, before you can do any chores, well, I should say, you know, Surgeon Roshi, my teacher, has given me a little something to think about lately. It's sort of a chore. You asked me if I've had my rice porridge. That's what I had for breakfast today. And yes, I had it. And so, you know what he said? I've had my porridge, and I've got my bowl there. And what do you think I should do with my bowl after I have that? Put it in the sink and wash it? Put it in the sink and wash it.

[07:21]

Yeah, I've got to wash my bowl. Yeah. And since we don't have dishwasher here, it means, you know, kind of by hand. Yeah. So that's right. Wash my bowl. That's what I'm trying to do lately is to figure that one out. Clean it off. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we have used the The high air spraying on some places around here. So before you can get up, though, and go to school or do any chores, you're sleeping, right? Yeah. Get dressed. You have to get dressed. But even before that, you're sleeping, right? Aren't you? And then, yeah, you have to get out of bed. You have to kind of wake up before you get out of bed, don't you? Yeah. So I look. Go pee pee like in the middle of the night. Yeah, pee pee right in the middle of the night. Pee pee right in the middle of the night. Well, you know what? I have to do that too.

[08:21]

Sometimes, more than once. I take kind of a pill for that. Yeah, that's why I don't do Kenyan much here. Take my breaks. But you know what? Let's pretend we're all sleeping now, OK? And then we're going to do maybe a chore. So we're all sleeping. You too, Rawr. [...] Rawr OK. OK. I think I'm kind of waking up. Raul, are you kind of waking up? Leslie has a story she's going to read you, kind of about waking up here.

[09:26]

So we can listen. You can sing along if you want. Yeah. Maybe your parents will recognize the tune. Your grandparents, maybe. Whoops, whoops, whoops. Don't pee. Don't pee. Oh, I'm so excited. What's it going to be? I don't know. You slept all night Now it's morning time That's the time to rise and shine Don't you cry and don't be blue Waking up is hard to do Just brush your teeth And then get dressed When you comb your hair you look the best Now you know it's really true Waking up is hard to do They say that waking up is hard to do Wear a smile, don't you be blue Just wipe the sleep from your eyes

[10:28]

Going back to bed, you gotta stretch and face the day Just listen to the birdies sing And the flowers that await the strings Rise and shine, your dream is true Waking up is hard to do They say that waking up is hard to do Wear a smile, don't you be the loose Just wipe the sleep from your eyes Instead of going back to bed, you gotta scratch your face a day Just listen to This is for the birdies to sing. And the flowers that await the spring. Rise and shine, your dream is through. Waking up is hard to do. You do down, do me do down, down. Come on, come on, down, do me do down, down. Come on, come on, down, do me do down, down.

[11:42]

Come on and get up, get up. Down, do me do down, down. That was my friend. You know who that was singing that, don't you? Neil Sadaka. Neil Sadaka, 1962. Breaking up is hard to do. He made this for his grandkid who's in kindergarten. So thank you, Neil Sadaka. I always thought that song, Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, was such a lively, upbeat thing. I thought, you know, it can't be that bad. It sounds like it's pretty upbeat here. Of course, I was just trying to find a girlfriend at the time. But anyway, kids, thank you for being here. And let's all try to wake up real well each morning and then do our chores. All right. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thank you for coming. Bye. Bye.

[12:42]

Bye. Bye. Yeah. Wipe the bowl. That's right. OK. Now, wrong. This is the part where I talk. You're not going to be able to jump in. All right? Like we practiced and talked about it at home. You remember that. OK. All right. Do you want him to sit with you? Yeah, that'd be good. He likes Linda. He wanted to be with you. Something about this is not skit night, by the way. That'll be right after dinner, six o'clock and then around seven, three or so. You're invited to skits if you haven't signed up for dinner. What?

[13:52]

Good morning again. Before I begin my talk this morning, I wanted to say a few words about Jed Appelman. Two weeks ago, today, sitting in a chair right here, was Jed Appelman, my Benji. And for those of you who aren't familiar with the term, the Benji and the Shiseo, that would be me, have a very warm and tight relationship. And so as head student, Jed, as Vendee, takes care of me. And even though he's not here, he's taking care of me right now. But I wanted to say a little bit about him. So he had a stroke two weeks ago come tomorrow. We were going to have a shiso tea here, and he was in the process of setting up and bringing out the teacups and the tea. and he didn't look quite his normal self and he kind of put things down rather suddenly on the table right outside here but he was still speaking but he just didn't look he looked very tired and Andrea said well I'll get the rest of the tea things and he was trying to tell me something but I couldn't quite tell what and he's a neuropsychologist

[15:59]

and then the other, and then I was feeling, and then his speech suddenly became rather slurred, and so I walked up the steps, and I said, Andrew, call 911, and she did, and the ambulance was here very quickly, and Andrew rode with him. Andrew is a doctor, a medical doctor, and she rode with him in the ambulance, and I followed in my car to the hospital, And he was first given tests to see if it was a brain bleed, a hemorrhage in the brain, because if that's so, you don't want to get the anti, break up the clots. You don't want to have, it's thinner, you don't want to give it blood thinner. But tests revealed that he did not have a brain aneurysm, it was a clot. about right here, and it had paralyzed his entire right side. No feeling, no movement, and he had speech aphasia.

[17:11]

And after the test, Andrea and I were allowed to stay in the intensive care room, which surprised me. We stayed out of the way, but he could say a few things, or nod to a few things. But we spent several hours there, and Eventually, his son, Simon, came and his other son, Soren, who lives in Japan, teaches high school English. But ever since, we've been in touch, and he was moved from intensive care, or the emergency room, I should say, to the intensive care, and eventually to therapeutic care in Kaiser Oakland, and then to Vallejo Kaiser, maybe five days later where he's in rehabilitation. And it turns out that's where Judd works. He's a PhD and he works there on the third floor, the very floor in which his room is.

[18:13]

So just down the hall, literally, is his office. He showed us. Rather interesting. But he's doing much better. The tentative plan is that he'll return to his Berkeley home on June 11th, Tuesday, June 11th, and he's making just vast progress. He's recovered a feeling on his right side. He can move everything on his right side. He doesn't have the strength that he has on the left side, but it's amazing. And I've been there during some of the therapy sessions where they're having him walk upstairs unassisted, downstairs, he can walk without a cane, without a walker. And his speech is getting much better. And I wanted to mention that he loves contact with people, and he's now available through CaringBridge. And if you're in the BCC Yahoo group, you can find what that is. Just go to CaringBridge.org, I believe it is, and you'll find it.

[19:16]

Or you can talk to me if you want to get in touch with him. type or print things that are in his head, so it comes out kind of like Greek, although he speaks Greek and writes Greek, so we thought maybe that's what it is. His son Simon actually thought that some of it was Greek. It was all Greek to me. So don't expect replies right away, but he's reading your cards and letters and such. So today, I wanted to say this all about Jet because, as I say, he's helping me right now, he's comforting me, and we've become ever more close because of this experience. I love him dearly. So my case is number seven in Mumonkan, Master Joshu's Wash Your Bowl. Two weeks ago I spoke about the main case, and today I'm going to make my comments on Moomin's comments and verse. But first I'll read the case with the comment and verse.

[20:22]

A monk said to Joshu, I have just entered this monastery. Please teach me. Have you eaten your rice porridge? asked Joshu. Yes, I have, replied the monk. Then you had better wash your bowl, said Joshu. With this, the monk gained insight. MUMON'S COMMENT When he opens his mouth, Joshu shows his gallbladder. He displays his hardened liver. I wonder if this monk really did hear the truth. I hope he did not mistake the bell for a jar. MUMON'S VERSE Endeavoring to interpret clearly, you retard your attainment. Don't you know that flame is fire? Your rice has long been cooked. So today, I will talk about Mulan's comment and verse. But I thought before I do that, it might behoove me to say just a bit what I said about my koan, because there may be some of you who weren't here two weeks ago.

[21:34]

So for me, washing my bowl is to meet myself thoroughly. Well, whatever I do, to do one thing thoroughly, completely in whatever I do. Nothing is excluded. Everything is included in that, if I'm paying attention. This is to directly experience activity with no separation between self and activity. Activity indeed is not perceived as a subject-object relationship. not as an opposition, not as duality. So, when riding my bike, I'm just riding my bike, and my bike is riding me. It's just riding, riding. Each moment is just this, this. Now I say this because I'm sure all of us have had that experience of non-separation. very so often, and bike riding for me is often it.

[22:36]

I remember as a child, maybe being 10 or so, and loving to ride downhill. One hand? No hands. Crazy. But boy, was that a thrill. You were just like that. Mother didn't approve. And I had some crashes. So what gets in the way of our not separating from what's in front of us, from whom is in front of us. Well, I suggest it's often stories. I know it is for me. Often my stories take me away from whatever I'm doing, almost kidnap me. I had a friend who recently hanged herself because she was so captivated, so chained to her own stories of depression and anxiety. She couldn't bear it anymore.

[23:37]

She believed in those stories. She believed the movie in her head. Sometimes we become trapped in the world of form, and we begin thinking that form is unending, that it has own being. we forget that things are empty of own being. And so for her, as much as others were trying to talk her out of it, because she can't really do that with someone so depressed, the stories in her head were just entirely real to her, that she was hopeless and worthless, and was going to suffer even more, and she didn't want to be a burden. And nothing that was said to her of therapy or pills could work, so she took her life. Every day here we chant the Heart Sutra, Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form.

[24:44]

Dogen Zenji says in his Genjo Koan, to carry the self forward and illuminate the myriad dharmas is delusion. that myriad dharmas come forth and illuminate the self is enlightenment. And Nishyari Bhokasan, in his commentary on Dogen's Genjo-Kon, says, When we fully experience the myriad dharmas, the self drops off spontaneously. However, ordinarily the self and myriad dharmas are seen as subject and object, and dualistic views are employed. When having a meal, you thoroughly become a meal, forgetting yourself in the meal. This is to forget the self. There is no self outside of the Buddha-Dharma. There is no Buddha-Dharma outside of the self. The Buddha-Dharma is no other than the self. And now looking at Moomin's comment, which I'll read again.

[25:48]

When he opens his mouth, Joshu shows his gallbladder. He displays his heart and liver. I wonder if this monk really did hear the truth. I hope he did not mistake the bell for a jar. Well, when he opens his mouth, Joshu shows his gallbladder. He displays his heart and liver. For me, that means nothing is hidden. Joshu didn't try to keep anything back from the monk, from me, from you. And I've had this experience with Sojin Roshi in that I don't think he holds anything back in his teaching for me. I remember once in his office, a long time ago, 14 years ago or something, I was Jisha and I was trying to light the incense stick, that's when we had incense, and he detected, he said, why are you in a hurry? And I said, well, I feel I'm delaying things here, and he said, there's never any reason to be in a hurry.

[26:59]

And the point was not just for that incense stick, it was for my life. And I remember once as a server, new in my serving career here, I plodded up to serve him and he said, don't walk on your heels. And being hard of hearing, I did not have hearing aids then. I said, don't walk on your heels. Sorry, Sush. Don't walk on your heels in the Zendo. That was a good lesson for me. He later said he would never have said that so publicly, had he thought I was not ready for it. And he was right. But it was about paying attention to my footwork, my noise. I'm flat-footed, so I walk on my heels. But it doesn't have to be. So I feel very seen by such emotion The next line I wonder if this monk really did hear the truth So this is not about the monk it's about me it's about each of us and the truth is not outside of us It's we are it wherever we go

[28:20]

It's just this. There really is no separation between subject and object except that we like to make it so in our mind. We create this separation with our stories. Nothing is missing though. As we chant in the metta sutta each Monday morning, walking, standing, sitting, lying down, whatever we do is our truth. including, as I said, some not so very pleasant things, as I said a couple of weeks ago. When I'm angry, that's my truth. When I'm joyful, that's my truth. When I've hurt someone, that's my truth. I hope he did not mistake the bell for a jar. I think, Mumon is saying, if our understanding is solely analytical, If it's totally a discursive thought, then we're missing something.

[29:34]

We're missing perhaps the experience. Don't mistake the sound of a bell for an explanation of the sound of a bell. I looked up sound in my Webster's and it said sound. mechanical radiant energy that is transmitted by longitudinal pressure waves in air or another medium, and is the objective cause of hearing. Mathematical formulas available." I'm sure for a mathematician, that's an experience, but not for me. So I'd like to ask our Dawn, Colleen, to pick up the striker, and would you please bring out the voice, the big bell. three times with maybe a little spacing in between. Whenever you're ready.

[30:35]

Thank you, Colleen. I had asked Colleen to do that because my first time being at the Zenda for the early program, for the the offering at the altar at Berkowitz Zen Center. I had no idea what I was really getting myself into. Ross encouraged me to come earlier, because I'd been coming to the Zen 930 program. He said, oh, come earlier. So I did. I showed up a little before 6, came in, took my seat. I knew how to do that. And I'm doing my Zazen, or I think I'm doing it. And then those three bells. It was just, oh my god, I had no idea what that was about. And then a little later, Maybe a little bell. And just... And two more.

[31:40]

I said, this is the place for me. I don't know what these bells are about. Oh, wow. And it took me quite some time, really, to realize what the time was and what it all was for. It was just experience. That's different from mechanical radiant energy transmitted by longitudinal pressure. Another example of intellectual comprehension, nothing wrong with that by the way, versus the experience of activity, you know, meteorologists analyze the mechanics of cumulonimbus buildup, precipitation and such. evaporation, condensation, precipitation, discharge of plus, minus, you know. Versus being up in the Sierra Nevada in Goddard Canyon, late in the afternoon, and you're hearing... And then, you know, the flash of lightning, and you're counting, oh, that's experience.

[32:49]

Reading about tornadoes and being in them. By the way, I have to tell you this. Driving across Kansas with my wife, Leslie, it's tornado time. The clouds are out there. Oh, my God. What if there's a tornado? And I saw this plume way in the distance, and there's a cloud. It's a funnel cloud. It's a funnel cloud. Let's turn on the radio. Funnel cloud. Sirens. And we got closer, and I said, that funnel cloud sure isn't moving much. We got closer, it was a smoke plume. I thought I was in for my first tournament. I would like to now read Mumon's verse in its entirety. Endeavoring to interpret clearly, you retard your attainment. Don't you know that flame is fire? Your rice has long been cooked. So I'll take a look at each line.

[33:54]

Endeavoring to interpret clearly. Endeavoring to interpret what clearly. Well, that's it. What. It. Whatever I'm doing. That's it. That's what. I am it. The what's not outside of me. We can talk about direct experience, but it's not the same as experiencing. You know, when I crashed into my teammate, I can tell you about it, and I did two weeks ago, it's not the same as experience. You know, like being hit with a board, and then blackness, and then smelling grass. You had to be there. By the way, some people said, what, the Halloween colors?

[34:56]

When I went to my orthopedist, he said, what color do you want? I said, blue. I like blue. He put some white on blue. He said, oh, Dodger fan, huh? Yeah. I said, stop with the blue. Orange and black. Take that. So anyway, that's why. Jed has signed it. He wanted to sign it. So it's fine to study sutras and read books on Buddhism, but it's not a substitute for zazen, which I've come to understand. Endeavoring to interpret clearly, you recharge your attainment. As long as I'm concentrated on conceptual interpretations, I'm separating myself from what's in front of me. Don't you know that flame is fire?

[36:03]

Well, what's in front of me, flame, is myself. Buddha nature, fire. Flame and fire aren't different. I might think they're different, I might not be. Seeing that, they're not different. I may just not realize that moment to moment. I may not be present with what's in front of me. So, as our song from Neil Sadatka said, sometimes waking up is hard to do. Waking up to what's before me is my intention. To experience no duality between self and others, that's my intention. That's Buddhadharma. As Nishyari Bhoksan said in his commentary to Dogen's Zenji's Genjo Koan, there is no self outside of the Buddhadharma. There is no Buddhadharma outside of the self.

[37:08]

The Buddhadharma is no other than the self. And the self includes everything. I'm not talking about ego. Ego is part of self. Your rice has long been cooked. Rice is a metaphor, I think, for Buddha nature. We don't need to do anything with it. We don't need to cook it. We may have lost touch with who we are because we've been trapped in our mental stories. But all we need to do is to meet ourselves in whatever we're doing, thoroughly, completely. And as I said in my last talk, with some things that's very easy to do, something you like, with other things maybe not so easy. But as Sojin Roshi said, I believe on Thursday, a lot of people think painting a room is boring. But each stroke is different, each part of the wall is different.

[38:11]

It needn't be. Boring? Some people think Zazen is boring. Or they said it's boring. I don't think so. Each breath is different. To quote an old Zen poem, I don't know the author. Do not think the moon appears when the clouds are gone. All the time it has been there in the sky, so perfectly clear. I'll read that again. Do not think the moon appears when the clouds are gone. in the sky, so perfectly clear. So the moon, or Buddha nature, or central nature, is always with us. Whether the clouds or stories are present or not, we just may not realize it or experience it. In our stories,

[39:14]

I know in my stories, I often make objects out of my thoughts. Sometimes they're very elaborate thought castles with different rooms, and I have different things going on in different rooms. Sometimes I've cut off rooms from rooms by locking rooms, even in my own mind. And I had therapy to deal with this, I'm not going to go into all of what's behind that. I did, I think, some last time on my Monday talk. But therapy helped, but it was really only Zazen that I began realizing, one, that I had all these rooms. Well, I kind of knew it in therapy. But that it was okay to open doors and to let one room look into the other room. to let the breeze, to open windows and let the breeze blow through the rooms, air things out.

[40:16]

And then it was, everything was included. Because before that, I was trying to include certain things, but some things I thought, whoa, don't want to include that nasty anger that I have, you know, sometimes road rage, that's not, definitely not including that one. No, it's included. Or, getting impatient. No, that's, don't want to include that one. or my ego. Don't want to include that, that's too grabby. No, it's all included until I really began to be okay with that. I was not comfortable in a lot of situations. But now that I've opened up my own doors, I can be open, I think, with people, things, animals, everything. Nothing's excluded. So there's never anything other than this present moment.

[41:19]

It's just this. We may not be around, present, for what's in front of us, because we're not paying attention. We're stuck in our stories. Yamada Roshi says in his commentary on Mumon's verse, your life is the continuity of standing up, sitting down, laughing, sleeping, eating, and of course, being born and dying. This is the continuity of the whole universe. Or more succinctly, Master Shido Bunan has written, Do not let the word Tao the way delude you. Realize it is nothing else than what you do morning and night. Do not let the word Tao the way delude you. Realize it is nothing else than what you do morning and night. So finally, to return to Joshu's instruction, wash your bowl, for me, it is to do one activity at a time, thoroughly, wholeheartedly.

[42:32]

And in doing so, I meet my true Self, which includes everything, which is always present, whether I realize it or not. It's a very comforting feeling. So with that, I think I'll end. Thank you. And Sojin Roshi, would you care to make a comment? Well, when we walk in zendo, usually when we walk on the street, we walk on our heels. That's usual. But in zendo, put our foot down without making any sound. How quietly can you walk? It's not like you're creeping around, but you're... You know, the floor is like a drum.

[43:35]

When you walk with your heels on the floor, the floor goes into a boom, boom, boom, boom. So the servers are coming up, boom, boom. No sound. No sound. When you eat, maybe utensils, no sound. When you open your oyaki, no sound. So this is, I don't want to call it mindfulness, but it's mindfulness. It's how you really connect with your surroundings. So there's no. Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad you picked that up. I think we may have time for a couple of questions. Ten after it ends, I think. This clock says six after.

[44:37]

So if you have any questions, take a few. Thank you for your talk, Jake. You're talking about the bells reminded me of my experience. It wasn't until one time during Zixin that I was responsible for tracking time and ringing bells that I had any sense of what was going on. And maybe that's true for many or even most people here. The bells are related to activity, but they all, if you haven't seen that, they are just all very personal experiences. And once you know that they're timed or they're coordinated with activity, happenings, does that cause you to lose any of the experience that you've personally

[45:37]

Yeah, two. What do you make of the jar? Oh, don't mistake the jar for the bell. Yes, is the jar significant in being a jar as opposed to a stone? Oh, no. No, not particularly. You know, a jar has roughly the shape of a bell, but you know, the mind, discursive thought versus the experience. I can't see, oh, Ross. Thank you, Jake. I heard a teaching of Trungpa Rinpoche once who said that boredom is good. And I think he was pointing to that our stories, we get so bored with our stories, we actually have the opportunity to kind of let go and just be present with what is. And I wondered if you could say something about boredom in the ordinary sense, and boredom in the extraordinary sense, which actually would be an indicator for moving along the path in a different way.

[46:56]

Yeah, well, it's kind of hard for me to talk about boredom, because I've never been bored. And I agree with that. I grew up as an only child, and lots of times there weren't any playmates, so I just the whole thing of boredom. But as a school teacher, sometimes kids would say, this is boring. So in that sense, what makes it boring for you? Tell me a little bit about it. Usually it had to do with not engaging really with what they were doing, not paying attention to it, brushing it off. But I've never been bored in Zazen. My knees hurt, but that's different.

[48:00]

So, I'm not a good one to talk about boredom. Thank you very much for your talk. I too am very much a proponent of understanding the stories and finding the space around them. But recently I've been thinking more about how it's not so much the stories that are the impediment as a loss of our way or a separation from our heart's desire or our place in the world. And that the work is really about moving to that place and the stories find their proper their proper place relative to that. I wonder if you have any experience or thoughts about that. Well, I agree with you that stories are included. We're not excluding stories. Stories have their place. I've found sometimes when I've had difficulty with someone, the story's there.

[49:07]

I don't want to trap out looked at, and so maybe it's talking to the person, and then the story takes on different words to it, different aspects. So I agree with you that stories are there often for a reason, and it's not necessarily for us to say, oh no. No story, I don't want to be in a story, but to look at it, to be with the story. And for me often stories hit me here too, if they're really deep. It's like being kicked in the stomach. So I think they're teaching vehicles. And so for that, thank goodness for stories. They're teaching vehicles. Maybe just a couple more.

[50:13]

not the same as direct experience? No, I don't think, if I said that I didn't mean to say that, perhaps I meant to say that experience is different from an analysis of something in the way the bell and my definition of addiction. Oh, to tell about the experience is one thing, and to actually experience thing hits, that's it. It's good clarification. Linda. So you and Mumong said, I think, that the flame is not different from the fire. What was it? The flame is the fire? Yeah. Do not think the flame is other than the fire? Right. There's somebody who's always like throwing water on the flame and even gets out a fire extinguisher and does this kind of white powder, and I'm like, I want to know from you how to deal with that person.

[51:26]

I was doing that. I invite the person in for tea, have a chat. Tea, doesn't like tea. Doesn't like tea. It's wet. It puts out fire. Why wouldn't the person, you know, it's good to put out, doesn't like tea. Anyway, I would not try to cast out the person. I would engage the person in dialogue. That's what I would do. Include this, not exclude.

[52:02]

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