I vow to chase the truth of the Tatarktas' words. 1985, with Jusot. Thank you, Alan.

[01:14]

It's really nice to be here. How's this? I love Berkeley Zen Center, and even though I'm not here as much as I have been at times in the past, it's definitely my home temple, and it's just always here, and the fact that it's always here is so comforting. I guess it won't always be here, knowing how impermanence goes, but as far as I'm concerned, it's always here. And so, even though You don't see me as much here as you used to. I feel like I'm here and I'm at home here. And now that I'm studying with Norman, Norman is Mel's student, so Mel is now my grandpa. So I continue to feel extremely connected and grateful to Mel as well. I have to dodge the microphone.

[02:19]

So I'm going to talk today from a very personal point of view, as is my want. I know we're all really struggling to figure out what it means to be a human being, and what is it to be born as a human here? And I happen to be this human being, so that's the human being I know how to talk about. That's what I'm qualified to talk about, I do so not because my experience is any more significant than anybody else's, but only because it's what I know, and in the face that you too, who are also human beings, struggling to understand what that means, will find some connection with what I say, since we are all one. I've been thinking particularly about being present, being here now lately, and that's kind of the topic of my talk today. how to be here now. It's one of the tenets of Zen practice to, you know, be present, keep coming back to the present moment.

[03:42]

And we hear it a lot, but what does that mean? How do we do it? And of course that's at the core of our Zazen practice, to stay present and when you get distracted, to bring your attention back to the breath and the posture. And if I've heard that once, I've heard it a thousand times and I still get distracted. But also, I've been just noticing how distracted I am in my life and how the time rushes by and I don't notice it, or I'm not alive in every moment as much as I would like to be. And, you know, how could it be July already, for example? I mean, what happened to June? Did you get June? Did you have your June? I don't know. Did I have 30 days in June? Did I live for 30 days in June? It doesn't seem possible. So my calendar gets so full of appointments and meetings and things that sometimes I'll look at it and it doesn't, there's this odd feeling that it doesn't matter which day it is that I'm in, whether

[04:52]

that Wednesday that I'm looking at that's all full of these meetings already happened or is next Wednesday? It doesn't really matter. I'm just kind of plodding along going from meeting to meeting and I lose track of what day it is entirely because I'm just following along on this schedule. So, and also I've just noticed that so much of the time in just mini ways, minuscule ways of attention, I'm planning for something that hasn't happened yet. And I'm not, when the thing happens that I plan, then I'm already planning the next thing. So, I really have been trying to pay attention to being present and just figuring out what does it take and what are the things that rob me of my life or how do I rob myself of my life and what are the things that help me to really be present.

[05:54]

And when I'm not present, when I'm not my full self, are times like when I'm, well, when I'm planning all these things that I still have to plan, when I'm checking things off a list, when I'm deleting Viagra ads from my email. You know, I think, is this how I want to be spending my one wild and precious human life? No, but there it is, that's what I'm doing. I think there's a saying, life is what happens while you're making other plans. And I've been experiencing that. I want to show you a cartoon that was in a recent New Yorker. Some of you may have noticed it. It's a Roz Chast cartoon. which felt very familiar. It's a, you can't really see it, it doesn't matter, but it's a magazine, it's the cover of a magazine, and the magazine is called Errands.

[06:58]

The magazine for the errand lifestyle. And then down along the left, there's a masthead which says, new errands you never considered. Errands around the world. Things to do before you do errands. A checklist. Plus lots, lots more. And then in the middle there's a woman with these little thought bubbles coming out of her head and she's got her pocketbook on. She's sort of dowdy looking and you can tell she's going off to do her errands. And these are her little thought bubbles. Glasses adjusted. Return plate to Ann. Paper for copier. Cat food, bird seed, gerbil bedding. new bathmat, baby gift, car, wheel of brie, bi-compass, felt-tip pens, drop-off form, return socks, eggs, pickup vacuum cleaner, pants hemmed, mail package, and then there's a little thing in the corner and it says, plus our readers' favorite errands, see page 12.

[08:01]

I think we can all relate to that. This is what takes up our life, you know? So how can we be present while we're doing those errands? There's a case in the Book of Serenity, case 21 in the Book of Serenity, which has some bearing on this problem, which is a favorite koan of mine. It's one that Lori Sanaki chose to study when she was Juso. And it goes, Yunyan was sweeping the ground. Daowu said, too busy. Yunyan said, you should know there is one who is not busy. Da Wu said, if so, then there's a second moon. Yun Yan held up the broom and said, which moon is this? So that's been a really helpful koan to me. In fact, my license plate says Yun Yan in reference to that very koan to help me remember the one who is not busy. But the first half of the koan is saying, well, there is one who is not busy in the midst of all this busyness.

[09:10]

We can remember that. But even more importantly, the second half about, well, which moon is this, is saying, You know, it's not a dualistic thing. It's not that there's the busy one and then inside, deep inside the busy one there's this other soulful self. But actually, in the busyness, somehow, that is the unbusy one as well. There's not two moons. There's not, you know, there's just one moon. So, how do we get there? And sweeping is one thing, actually, but deleting mortgage ads from your email is, it's a little harder to feel present with the one who is not busy when you're doing that than when you're sweeping. I've been thinking about that. I mean, there's some things like sweeping, which is, you know, honorable work that we value, and we think, yeah, this is great, and this is the work of the world, and we have to do this. And it's easier to feel not carried away by busyness and to feel focused when you're doing some things than when you're doing others.

[10:14]

So, you know, sometimes it's like a typical morning for me might be that I'm, before I go to work, I'm taking a few minutes to organize some papers on my desk, and I have to find a particular paper from the phone company to call up the phone company and tell them to transfer the phone bill into my name out of my son's name, and I'm looking for the paper, And then while I'm looking for it, the phone rings and it's somebody from BPF saying, can we change the time of the staff meeting next week? And I say, well, I don't know yet. I have to get back to you because I don't know what time my sister's coming in to the airport. And I have to meet my sister at the airport, so I'll find out what time her plane gets in. And then I'll get back to you. And then at that point, I hear the kettle whistling downstairs, and I remember I put the kettle on to make a cup of tea while I was paying these bills and stuff, sorting these papers, so I go downstairs to make the tea, but when I get down to the kitchen, my housemate's new puppy pees on the floor.

[11:18]

She's so excited to see me, so I clean up the pee, and then I hear the washing machine turn off, and I remember that the washer load is just finished, and I look outside, and the sun is shining, and I figure, well, I might have just enough time to hang the laundry up on the laundry line, before I go to work. So I take the laundry basket outside and I start hanging up the laundry and then all of a sudden I look at my watch and I think, well, no, I'm not going to have enough time because I wanted to ride my bike to work today. And so I leave the laundry half hung up and I go back inside and I think, OK, I've got to get ready to ride my bike to work. But I can't get the bike helmet on because I have this thing on my head. So I have to go upstairs and think of a new hairdo before I can get the bike helmet on. So I go upstairs and I'm thinking of a new hairdo and putting my hair in a rubber band instead. And then at that point, so well, okay, so then I go downstairs. I'm getting ready to, I go out the door and I go around the back side yard to get the bike. And then I suddenly remember, oh my God, it's street sweeping day.

[12:19]

And my nephew's car is parked on the street and he asked me to move it across the street today. And so I have to put the bike back in the side yard and go back inside the house and find the key to my nephew's car and move it. across the street and then I look at my watch again and I think, oh my God, I don't really have time to ride my bike to work. And then I think, but I really want to ride my bike to work. And so if I'm triumphant, I go inside and I call up BPF and I say, I'm going to be a little late to work today. And then I go back out and I get on my bike and I ride my bike to work. When I'm actually riding my bike to work, I'm ecstatic after all that. It's a moment of sheer bliss. I'm riding along the bike street on California Street and just doing what I'm doing. And that's what it is to be present, is to really, you know, have your body and your mind be in the same place, to be focused on one thing. And we know about you know, trying to do one thing at a time, and Zen practice encourages that, and in fact disables us for doing more than one thing at a time. But there's a lot of struggles like that in everybody's day, I think.

[13:28]

And I increasingly feel like I have a growing case of attention deficit disorder. There's an ancient sutra by A. A. Milne that I will read to you in this regard. This is from Now We Are Six. And this is called The Old Sailor. There was once an old sailor my grandfather knew who had so many things which he wanted to do that whenever he thought it was time to begin, he couldn't because of the state he was in. He was shipwrecked and lived on an island for weeks and he wanted a hat and he wanted some breeks and he wanted some nets or a line and some hooks for the turtles and things which you read of in books. And thinking of this, he remembered a thing which he wanted for water and that was a spring. And he thought that to talk to, he'd look for and keep a goat, if he found it, or some chickens and sheep. Then, because of the weather, he wanted a hut with a door to come in by, which opened and shut, with a jerk, which was useful if snakes were about, and a very strong lock to keep savages out.

[14:36]

He began on the fishhooks, and when he'd begun, he decided he couldn't because of the sun. So he knew what he ought to begin with, and that was to find or to make a large sun-stopping hat. He was making the hat with some leaves from a tree when he thought, I'm as hot as a body can be and I've nothing to take for my terrible thirst, so I'll look for a spring and I'll look for it first. Then he thought as he started, oh dear and oh dear, I'll be lonely tomorrow with nobody here. So he made in his notebook a couple of notes. I must first find some chickens and no, I mean goats. He had just seen a goat, which he knew by the shape, when he thought, but I must have a boat for escape. But a boat means a sail, which means needles and thread, so I'd better sit down and make needles instead. He began on a needle, but thought as he worked that if this was an island where savages lurked, sitting safe in his hut he'd have nothing to fear, whereas now they might suddenly breathe in his ear. So he thought of his hut and he thought of his boat and he thought of his hat and his breeks and his goat and the hooks for his food and the spring for his thirst.

[15:37]

But he never could think what he ought to do first. And so in the end he did nothing at all but basked on the shingle wrapped up in a shawl. And I think it was dreadful the way he behaved. He did nothing but basking until he was saved. So I think maybe zazen is actually a different form of basking. We can just wait till they save us, somebody. Maybe Buddha or God is coming to save us while we're sitting Sazen. So I've been thinking about the times in my life when I have felt present. I just told you about some of the times when I haven't. But some of the times when I feel really in the moment. And there are different kinds of times, but there are kind of extreme situations like having one's shuso ceremony, having a baby, rock climbing, which I used to do many years ago.

[16:39]

Those are times where you can't stop paying attention for one second. And then there are more everyday things that help us to feel present or that have helped me to feel present in the moment, like cooking, taking photographs, playing the viola, which I used to do, sex, if I remember correctly. Hitting the Makugyo, which is really, I love all the rituals in our Zen practice because in Zazen it's much easier to get distracted, for me, than it is when you're actually hitting the Makugyo or Bing Doan or bowing or chanting and you have something to focus on and something to pay attention to. So we have lots of opportunities in our lives. We don't have to be having a baby or climbing a mountain. And all of these things have in common the fact that we're really focused and paying attention to the thing we're doing as wholeheartedly as possible. And it feels so good to do that.

[17:41]

Another way to find, for me, to find my way towards kind of feeling alive is is to bring forward a feeling of gratitude for human birth. And I find gratitude practice really helpful. And I wanted to say something about my practice of photography, which I took up, I don't know, six or seven years ago quite seriously. And I just find that it helps me to feel grateful. I walk out there and there's just so much is given. Everything is given. And all I have to do is kind of pick up this little box and look through a hole in it. And actually the word focus has bearing in photography obviously too, so it's helping you focus. And there's something about the way the light lands on this planet and everything that it meets with no picking and choosing. It just lies down all over everything like a Tibetan monk doing full prostrations, just sort of splatting itself out on whatever is there in this really loving way, in a sense.

[18:55]

Doing photography has helped me just be aware of that amazing universe that's here, that's given to us. And you wouldn't really have to be taking pictures of it to get that feeling of gratitude, but that's maybe the ritual that helps me to feel that gratitude for the way the shadow is falling on the chair or something simple like that. Other times that I've also noticed that I feel very awake and present are some in-between times, kind of transition times, when you're in a hiatus or a limbo place. For example, I actually am a rare person in that I guess, in that I like going to airports and taking plane trips. I like getting to the airport really early and sitting in some generic franchise cafe and having a cup of tea and being sort of nowhere and just there I am with myself reading a book or maybe editing something or whatever, but I'm just

[20:07]

I'm nothing but alive, there's nothing else to be distracting me from the fact that I'm there, alive in my life. And then there's, it's as if these in-between times are moments when Buddha can kind of slip in and say, hi, I'm here too. And I know for some people, commuting is a time like that. It's maybe the only time that some people have in their lives where they can just be with themselves if they don't have a zazen practice. Or that, what I was saying about riding my bicycle to work, that was that kind of a time too. And a few years ago I had a time like that that was in a bigger way. I had a colonoscopy, which was just for a routine thing. and I had some kind of anesthesia, I don't know what it was. But anyway, I woke up on this gurney in the recovery room at Alter Bates Hospital, and I kind of was coming to consciousness, and I was hearing voices, and I heard nurses talking, and somebody pulled the curtain and ducked her head in and asked me if I was okay, did I need anything, and I didn't need anything, I was just, I felt as though I had just landed on this planet from someplace else, and I was lying there breathing,

[21:35]

And these lovely people were. walking around and their nice voices asking me and other people if they needed anything and did they feel okay. And I just thought, gosh, this is incredible. These people are so kind and they're taking care of me. I don't have to do a single thing. All I have to do is lie here and take another breath. How exciting. I think I'll take another breath. Oh, there, but that was a good one. So it was just, I mean, maybe it was just another drug experience. I don't know, but it was really good. I can hardly wait for my next colonoscopy. But I really, it stayed with me for a long time, that feeling of tremendous gratitude for my human birth. It was as if I suddenly noticed, yeah, I got born as a human being and I'm alive and there are these other well-intentioned human beings all around me doing nice things to me and other human beings. So I think that's real, even if my mind was a little addled by something or other. But it isn't always a pleasant thing that wakes you up either.

[22:42]

A week ago I was taking a Photoshop class down at the Kala Institute in Berkeley. It was a great place and I tripped on a step that I didn't really see and fell onto this concrete floor and there wasn't anybody around. I was upstairs looking for the kitchen really twisted my ankle quite badly, and I landed on the floor, and it was painful, and I was lying there, and I was kind of cursing myself for being so dumb, and it hurt, and in the midst of this, I had this moment of exhilaration, actually, of realizing that I was all right, nothing horrible had happened, I didn't know exactly what I'd done to my ankle, but I was quite sure I hadn't broken anything, and I knew that the pain was the kind of pain that was going to abate eventually, and that I was going to be fine in the long run.

[23:46]

So I just kind of lay there in this moment of, well, here I am. And then somebody came out of the bathroom and helped me get up and got me some ice, and everything was fine. And I didn't decide I wanted to go do that again. It was so fun. But sometimes we do get those kinds of chances, too, to realize that we're alive and we're here. And so it's nice to be able to have that good side to hurting yourself. What we know about that pain in zazen, too, people experience the focusing effect of having pain sitting zazen. I guess that's similar. Okay, well, I'm gonna just say a little bit more and then I wanna have some time for discussion. Another thing that really helps to be present and awake is to remember death and to meditate on death.

[24:53]

And I have a sign over my desk that says, don't think for a minute, you're not going to die. And every time I look at it, I feel happy, believe it or not. I think, yeah, well, I am going to die, but I'm not dead now. I'm not dead yet. And I actually made a bunch of these little signs, and I'm going to put them out on the shoe rack in case anybody wants one. You can take one home with you. A little message from Su Moon. Not that you need me to remind you that you are going to die. So, you know, there are all kinds of death meditations that Buddhists use in different traditions to help us remember our mortality and to wake us up and to get us ready for our own passage, whatever it might be. And also, the death of a person we're close to or a person we love really reminds us

[25:56]

that we're alive. And along with the loss and the grief, I always think that somebody who dies is giving us a goodbye present of saying, you know, you're alive, be alive. And it is a kind of gift that comes along with that death. And this year I'm doing something connected to this. I know a woman who's a Buddhist practitioner and teacher at Spirit Rock and she does something, she leads these groups called year to live groups, which is based on a book by Steven Levine, I guess he's done this too. And the group, you join the group and it goes for a year, and it meets once a month, a small group of people, and this woman who leads it has various readings and meditations that you do. concede is that somebody has told you you have a year to live, which of course is not really the case.

[26:57]

So it's kind of, you could say, well, this is just a fake superficial thing. But I've actually found it quite helpful. And it's been a way for me to really try to keep asking myself, you know, if I did have a year to live, would I want to be doing this today? Is this really what I would want to be doing? and what is most important to me in my life. And one of the things that I've done to make this year-to-live thing real is that I went to Stone Mountain sewing store, and I got, they have a big box of buttons for five cents each, and I got out 365 buttons, and I put them in a glass jar, and every morning when I get up, I take a button out of the jar, and I put it on my altar, and then I do my little morning meditations, which I'll tell you more about in a minute.

[27:59]

And then I sew the button onto this jacket thing. So this is my costume. I am wearing my costume today, which I want you to see. This is my year to live jacket. And it now has six months of buttons on it. This is today. This is July 2nd, 2005. So, I mean, it's a kind of odd thing to do, but somehow it's helping me to think, what a lot of days, wow, these are a lot of days. And there's only six months of days. And so it's just a little game to try and wake me up. And so, I also, in the morning, not part of the year to live, but anyway, ordinarily, when I get up in the morning, I bow, I offer incense and I bow, and I sit, not for very long, and then I read, after I sit, I read something out loud.

[29:05]

I make my way through some dharma book or other, and I just read a few pages out loud. And then I say, When I'm done, I say my morning vows that I've made up for myself. And I thought I would end with those and tell you what they are. And I have these five vows. They've kind of changed over the years, but at the moment, my five vows for myself to try and wake myself up go like this. And I start by saying the date. So I say, on this day, Saturday, July 2nd, 2005, trying to get it into my head that this is the day I'm in. I vow to be grateful for the precious opportunity of human birth. I vow to be present. This is it. Sometimes I just shout that at myself. This is it! This is it! Three, I vow to fully engage in every person I meet. Four, I vow to express myself as authentically as I can. Five, I vow to err on the side of generosity. And these days I'm holding my button in my hand while I say those vows.

[30:11]

So those were the things I wanted to share with you and I'm very eager to hear from others if people have some things they would like to share with the group about what you do to keep yourself awake and present and remember that you are alive and that here we are together in this room. What a miracle. Yes? How do you reconcile all these things that you have to do? Like, is it a waste of time? You know, how do you reconcile that? I always think about these things, and when we do this, we waste time. Yeah. I don't really know the answer to that question, because I'm constantly asking the same question. I mean, when I gave the example of email, email for me is a sort of bugaboo. But it feels like I haven't figured out a way around it because I have to use email for work. And so I guess it's not a waste of time because it's what my life is made out of.

[31:18]

But I mean, there's certainly skills and tools you can use to minimize the things that are that you don't really want to be spending your time doing and get different kinds of junk programs that will delete the email junk or whatever the things are that feel like a waste of time to try and figure out ways just externally of making them not take up as much time. But then there's also the deeper practice of Just going back to that, there is one who is not busy and even while you're doing those things to try and remind yourself that you're breathing the air and you're alive in a room that has some other people in it or whatever and just be glad to be alive even while you're doing that. Well, I don't think there's a single image, but I find that the images that appeal to me are reflections and shadows and images where you can't quite tell which thing is in front of which other thing and where there's some mystery to life.

[32:34]

Yes, Linda. I would like to say just a really short thing in response to the first question and then ask a question to you. when you ask your question, don't try to decide in advance what's a waste of time. But if you do the practice of being present that Sue's talking about, then the answer arises. Sue, that was both fun and illuminating. That's a great combination. Yeah. So you said it feels so good to be present. So I'm going to re-ask this question I've asked before, which is, why do we fight so furiously against it? And in that other famous Zen case where the person wakes up in the morning and says to him or herself, good morning, good morning.

[33:37]

Stay awake today. Yes, I will. Don't be fooled. No, I won't. I love that story, but I also think that I often, when that voice says, stay awake, I say, no. Why do you think, if it feels so good, we fight so hard against it or we avoid it? Well, I guess it's out of fear, fear of, what we might actually come up against, fear of the unknown. We have our defenses, we have our habit patterns, we have the things we know make us feel safe, and we know we like to have a certain kind of tea at a certain time in the morning, and all these things that are just, to a great extent, I think we're just afraid to break it open and see What's there? And sometimes, it doesn't feel good.

[34:39]

Well, like falling down and twisting my ankle. I mean, that didn't feel good, but sometimes it's, there's something lurking inside that you have to get past. Maybe you can't sleep and you're, lying there in the middle of the night and then something comes to you and you realize what it is that you're worrying about and then you let it in and then you can open to the moment after you've stopped defending yourself against some thought that you don't want to have. I don't know if that's helpful at all but I think it has to do with fear and safety I would also encourage people to break habits. I think breaking habits is a really good thing to do. Alan? I was very present and really didn't want to be.

[36:25]

Afterwards, I ate and also I felt, this is so extreme, that I had to laugh afterwards. But there are a lot of things that really, you know, we're trained to be present. by this practice, and there is a part of us that really does not want it. And sometimes you could say with good reason. I don't think that's exactly right, but certainly one can understand. Yeah, I think that's true. Sometimes it really hurts to be present. And it's like, you know, just in the koan that Linda was saying, the end of it is like, don't be fooled by anything, right? And it's like, I am unpleasant. Well, also, I think we have to be compassionate with ourselves for the times when we maybe need to not be present.

[37:32]

I mean, sometimes you're dealing with some pain that's so horrible. If it's physical pain, you don't really have the choice. But if it's mental or emotional pain, there are actually ways you can zone out and sometimes maybe that's the best thing to do. If you actually, if you can't deal with it then, or you're in so much grief about something, it's better to give yourself a break and think about something else. Find a way to numb yourself temporarily. So it is okay to not be present all the time. Yes, Annette. I once spent five days in the hospital. I was with somebody else who had the TV on with games. Whatever. And I didn't know what to do. It was terrible. Oh my God. It was like, I wouldn't know what to do with stuff like that. Yeah. What did you do in that case? I felt terrible and uncomfortable.

[38:36]

I couldn't think or meditate or anything. So it's not always in our power. No, that's true. It's definitely not in our power. And I'm talking, you know, my life actually has not included experiences that are just so excruciatingly painful outside of my control that some people's lives do have. I mean, I have to acknowledge that I'm kind of naive in a certain sense to be talking the way I am, and there are times when, you know, I would really not want to be awake at all, probably, if I was in certain situations. But actually, I even remember after, when I got divorced years ago and my marriage broke up, I was in agony. I was totally miserable. And I noticed that I could make my mind, I could just, as soon as I started feeling sorry for myself or feeling upset or feeling like I... was never going to be with anybody again in my whole life or whatever, I would start making a grocery list or I would start doing some very obsessive thinking on purpose because it helped me feel better and I was fine to do that.

[39:50]

I think it was probably a smart thing to do, you know, and it was very deliberate. And you couldn't get interested in the game shows. Yes, Kate. Yes. Yes, you do. Yeah. It's to be absent where you want to be absent. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Sort of on that line, I have a quirky thing I've thought about a lot recently in terms of concentration and focus and awareness and where that boundary is.

[40:52]

As an architect, I often have to focus really intensely on a building, something that's not there. there, but it's not here. And so what is the difference there? I haven't been able to figure out, you know, does that count? You know, where is it? Yeah, yeah. Well, it must count. I'm not an architect, but I was thinking about it when I was saying, well, maybe a definition of being present is having your mind and your body be in the same place. But then your example, or other examples I can think of, like when you're reading and you're thinking about the thing you're reading, then your mind and your body aren't really in the same place geographically. And so that can't, that must be the wrong definition of being present or being focused, certainly. I mean, I don't know, it seems important to be able to concentrate on something that you're actualizing, you're imagining, you're envisioning, to, you know, to have a vision in a sense that's not just an escaping from reality.

[41:53]

Yes, Sue. As Linda said, fun and illuminating. When my children were little, and I would scream at them to clean up something that I actually didn't even know how to clean up, they would say, go swim. And I did. And I came back and we had harmony. That's really true. Oh my god, yes. Yeah, I had to delete it.

[43:06]

And exercise, you're right, physical movement is a wonderful way to be alive in the world. We all can find different ways to do it. Melody. Thanks for your talk, I loved it. Since you asked for people's tips, following just on what you just said about the body, Like everybody, I'm also prone to, I have these moments in my day where I could do like nine different things and I just get sort of paralyzed, you know what I mean? Like the old sailor. I could either walk the dog or I could answer my email or I could, whatever. And actually my yoga teacher said, when you have those moments, just drop down into downward facing dog. Oh, that's great. which one you choose, just kind of pick the one that's appealing or something. I think that's an excellent piece of advice.

[44:12]

I love that. And my other thing I've been doing ever since I went to Afghanistan is to try to wake up around water. Because in Afghanistan, something like a fifth of the people on earth don't have clean water. So it's a gratitude practice. that's really lasting me, that every time I turn a tap on, I am grateful for water. I think of it as belonging to the Church of Water. And the other practice in the Church of Water, there are a lot of them, but besides gratitude is also waking up to death. When I take a shower, and it's a good time to practice with one's own death because you're naked, and I'm just kind of touching myself with soap and stuff and thinking, oh, thank you, body, for just all the things you can do and for being relatively healthy.

[45:14]

So it's a gratitude and a death in the church of water. Wow, thank you, that's great. Yeah, I want to join the Church of Water. Good. Yes? I was really struck earlier by when you're talking about the one year to live practice and then when the question came up about like, well, so is, you know, answering your email and deleting your spam a real activity or however you frame that. I don't know, it's something that I've thought about a lot in my life. You know, when I think, like, I wonder, like, what would I do right now? I'd quit my job, move out of the city, go live in the country, have goats, and run around. No, but then there's this whole issue that comes up for me of, like, things we have to finish, you know? And that there are things we start that we have to finish, and that somehow that is a really important part of what has to be done to, like, I never wanted to administer anything, and now I'm an administrator.

[46:24]

It's just not what I wanted to do on a daily basis, but it's really good work, and I'm not at a place where I can pass it on to other people yet. A few weeks ago, I was hitting this point where every time I saw a phone ring, I thought, God damn it, who's calling me again? Every time I got home from being away for a weekend and there were 15 messages on my phone, I was just really resentful. Why does no one want to talk to me? like, you know, they're just calling me too much. And at a certain point I just had this really intense wake up, kind of, of like, I almost envisioned my brain being like a radio, trying I felt like I was trying to do that. Maybe if I sat up this way, or that way, or this way, or got rid of the emails by doing that, or got rid of the cell phone calls by doing this, or moved away, or fixed this thing, or just, you know, it was all, and then my brain just stopped.

[47:26]

It was like the bottom just fell out, and I was just like, I'm here. I have one channel that I'm living on. I can't tune into someone else's channel. Like, I chose this channel for And so right now I'm really trying to look at my work as a really good area for me to practice. Because it's one of the most difficult things in my life to not get angry at. The fact that I have to answer all these emails right now because I established connections with millions of people who send me emails. That's what I did. I have to return phone messages. I just wasn't returning my messages. I think it's horrible. Because I was so overwhelmed in a certain point. Yeah.

[48:27]

Well, I could just hear in your voice as you were telling the story how much calmer you are about it. And that, I mean, maybe it's also, for me, that would be a good time to do that downward-facing dog for a second, too. But it sounds like that's a wonderful metaphor, too, about that you have your channel, and that's the channel you're on. And also, the question you raised about, well, if you really had a year to live, you wouldn't, you maybe would do something really different. And that has come up in this group that I'm in, which is one of the reasons it's clear that it's actually a fiction, because several people in the group have said, well, if I really had a year to live, I would. I'd sell my house, and I'd quit my job, and I'd go. But we have things we're finishing, and we're also living in the faith that we're going to finish some things. And actually, I think our whole lives have that tension. Even if we're not in a year to live group, we're always balancing something more long term. and still trying to be present in the moment. And so we're not, you know, we're not just totally living for whatever is the most pleasurable experience in this moment, obviously.

[49:56]

We have responsibilities and there's karma and there's cause and effect. And it's an interesting practice to balance those responsibilities, the responsibility to be present and the responsibility to fulfill what your work is and your obligations. Yeah, Peter. Completely full life, everyday schedule from beginning to end, Wednesday after Wednesday, not even knowing which one it was or what day it is. You know, I just spent a few months in Tassajara, and that's exactly what living in Tassajara is like. The way you described that, after a while, didn't know what day it was, didn't care, knew what the schedule was, followed the schedule, didn't matter if it was yesterday or today. Because to just follow the schedule is the whole point of living in Tassajara, that's the practice there. Yeah.

[51:19]

Well, thank you for that. I think when I was at Tassajara for a practice period, I experienced, I just followed the schedule and it was a blissful kind of fall. I mean, I really enjoyed just following the schedule and not caring what day it was. But it did have a different quality because there was a quality of presence that I don't find in my current following the schedule. But I can work on that, you know, to try and be just as present in my schedule now as I could be when I was just going, when the bell rings, you go to Zazen, that attitude. So anyway, I think we actually probably have to stop, but maybe we can talk some more over tea. being a star.

[52:15]

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