Good morning, everyone, and welcome. I'm mostly going to read poetry this morning, mostly from Jane Hirshfield. But I also want to mention that two days ago was Juneteenth, when Black people in Texas and therefore everywhere in the South and everywhere realized that they had been emancipated. So I want to mention support for Black Lives Matter and undoing systemic police brutality. and systemic oppression of black people. And we all know about the police murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Owen Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, and so many others. We're also in the middle of a COVID pandemic, an economic crisis, and of course, climate chaos. Also on Juneteenth, Bob Dylan released his new CD, Rough and Rowdy Ways. which included a song called I Contain Multitudes.

[01:01]

And a week ago, Dylan did an interview with the New York Times. The interviewer said, I Contain Multitudes has a powerful line. I sleep with life and death in the same bed. The interviewer asked, I suppose we all feel that way when we hit a certain age. Do you think about mortality often? Dylan is 79. Dylan responded, I think about the death of the human race. The long strange trip of the naked ape. Not to be light on it, but everybody's life is so transient. Every human being, no matter how strong or mighty, is frail when it comes to death. I think about it in general terms, not in a personal way. And I might add that Dylan's been talking, singing about death since his very first album. But I'm gonna read poems by Jane Hirshfield next, First, I want to read a poem called My Species from her book, The Beauty.

[02:02]

So this is also thinking about the human race. So the poem, My Species, is, even a small purple artichoke boiled in its own bittered and darkening waters grows tender, grows tender and sweet. Patience, I think, my species. Keep testing the spiny leaves, the spiny heart. I'll read it again. Even a small purple artichoke, boiled in its own bittered and darkening waters, grows tender and sweet. Patience, I think, my species. Keep testing the spiny leaves, the spiny heart. Dylan refers to this as the long strange trip of the naked ape that we're on. So I'm going to read a bunch of poems from Jane Hershfield's new book called Ledger.

[03:07]

I'll start and I'll try and repeat these. Here it is. This one's called Let Them Not Say. Let them not say, we did not see it, we saw. Let them not say, we did not hear it, we heard. Let them not say, they did not taste it, we ate, we trembled. Let them not say, it was not spoken, not written. We spoke, we witnessed with voices and hands. Let them not say they did nothing. We did not enough. Let them say as they must say something. A kerosene beauty, it burned.

[04:12]

Let them say we warmed ourselves by it, read by its light, praised, and it burned. I'll read it again. Let them not say. Let them not say, we did not see it, we saw. Let them not say, we did not hear it, we heard. Let them not say, they did not taste it, we ate, we trembled. Let them not say, it was not spoken, not written. We spoke, we witnessed, with voices and hands. Let them not say, they did nothing. We did not enough. Let them say, as they must say something. A kerosene beauty, it burned. Let them say we warmed ourselves by it, read by its light, praised, and it burned." So our Zazen practice helps us to see and to hear and to taste and to speak and to witness.

[05:14]

And Jane says, we did not enough. The next one is titled, Day Beginning with Seeing the International Space Station and a Full Moon over the Gulf of Mexico and All Its Invisible Fishes. None of this had to happen, not Florida, not the Ibis's beak, not water, not the horseshoe crab's empty body, and not the living starfish. Evolution might have turned left at the corner and gone down another street entirely. The asteroid might have missed. The seams of limestone may not have been susceptible to sand and mangroves. The radio might have found a different music. The hips of one man and the hips of another might have stood beside each other on a bus in Aleppo and recognized themselves

[06:18]

as long lost brothers. The key could have broken off in the lock and the nail can refused its lid. I might have been the fish the brown pelican swallowed. You might have been the way the moon kept not setting long after we thought it would. Long after the sun was catching inside the low wave curls Coming in at a certain angle, the light might not have been eaten again by its moving. If the unbearable were not weightless, we might yet buckle under the grief of what hasn't changed yet. Across the world, a man pulls a woman from the water, from which the overfilled boat is entirely vanished. From the water pulls one child, another. Both are living, and both will continue to live. This did not have to happen. No part of this had to happen. So there's a lot in that.

[07:23]

But evolution might have turned left at the corner and gone down another street entirely. The asteroid might have missed. We might be living among dinosaurs, or the dinosaurs might be what is. Shall I read that one again? Everybody's shaking their head yes, so I just keep going. Another one. This is shorter. As if hearing heavy furniture moved on the floor above us. As things grow rarer, they enter the ranges of counting remain this many Siberian tigers, that many African elephants, 300 red legged egrets, We scrape from the world its tilt and meander of wonder, as if eating the last burned onions and carrots from a cast iron pan, closing eyes to taste better the char of ordinary sweetness.

[08:26]

I'll read that one again. As if hearing heavy furniture moved on the floor above us, As things grow rarer, they enter the ranges of counting. Remain this many Siberian tigers, that many African elephants, 300 red-legged egrets, we scrape from the world its tilt and meander of wonder, as if eating the last burned onions and carrots from a cast iron pan, closing eyes to taste better the char of ordinary sweetness. So joining later, I'm reading from poems from Jane Hirschfield's recent book, The Ledger, or just Ledger. This one is called, You Go to Sleep in One Room and Wake in Another.

[09:33]

You go to sleep in one room and wake in another. You go to sleep in one time and wake in another. Men land on the moon, viewed in blurred black and white and static on a big screen in Central Park, standing in darkness with others. Your grandfather did not see this. Your grandchildren will not see this. Soon now, 50 years back. Unemphatic, the wheelbarrowed stars hung above. Many days, like a nephew, resemble the one beforehand, but they are not the one beforehand. Each one was singular, spendable, eaten with pepper and salt. You go to sleep in one person's bed and wake in another's. Your face, after tallying, changed from the face that was washed. You go to sleep in one world and wake in another. You who are not your life, nor were stranger to it. You who are not your name, your ribs, your skin, will go as a suitcase that takes it inside it, the room.

[10:45]

Only after you know this, can you know this. As a knocked glass that loses what has been spilled, you will know this. So I'll read that one again. You go to sleep in one room and wake in another. This is a poem about rebirth and the rebirth that happens every day. You go to sleep in one room and wake in another. You go to sleep in one time and wake in another. Men land on the moon, viewed and blurred, black and white and static on a big screen in Central Park, standing in darkness with others. Your grandfather did not see this. Your grandchildren will not see this. Soon now, 50 years back. Unemphatic, the wheel-barrowed stars hung above. Many days, like a nephew, resemble the one beforehand, but they are not the one beforehand. Each was singular, spendable, eaten with pepper and salt. You go to sleep in one person's bed and wake in another's.

[11:49]

Your face, after toweling, changed from a face that was washed. You go to sleep in one world and wake in another. You who are not your life nor were stranger to it, you who are not your name, your ribs, your skin, will go as a suitcase that takes inside it the room. Only after you know this can you know this. As a knocked glass that loses what has been spilled, you will know this. So this is about, again, change, rebirth, maybe it's also about permanence, but your face after toweling changed from the face that was washed. So we are being reborn constantly. How is this change? How do we use it?

[12:50]

This is a difficult one. It's called Now a Darkness is Coming. So again, all of these poems are from Jane Hirschfeld's new book, Ledger. Now a darkness is coming. I hold my life with two hands. I walk with two legs. Two ears are enough to hear Bach with. Blinded in one eye, a person sees with the other. Now a great darkness is coming. of both eyes darkness. I have one mouth. It holds two words. Yes. No. Inside all others. Yes. No. No. Yes. I say yes to these words as I must. And I also refuse them. My two legs shaped to go forward, obedient to can't know and must be. Walk into the time that is coming.

[14:00]

So this is a, maybe a poem of foreboding, but it's also juicy in this difficult year we're in. As is Don's wonderful new album, Ruffin Outing Ways. I'm gonna read this again. Now a darkness is coming. I hold my life with two hands. I walk with two legs. My ears, two ears are enough to hear the Bahá'u'lláh. Blinded in one eye, a person sees with the other. So I relate to this poem in that line. Now a great darkness is coming, a both eyes darkness. I have one mouth. It holds two words. Yes. No. Inside all others. Interesting, inside all other words are yes and no. She says, yes, no, no, yes. I say yes to these words as I must, and I also refuse them. My two legs shaped to go forward, obedient to can't know and must be, walk into the time that is coming.

[15:13]

So this is a way of describing our situation. This is a short one, an interesting one. It's called My Contentment. I reject contentment. Into it, certain inexperienced saints have been seen to vanish in a burst of somewhat cloudy light. I'll read it again. My contentment. I reject contentment. Into it, certain inexperienced saints have been seen to vanish in a burst of somewhat cloudy light. So this is a very Mahayana poem. Of course, Buddhism is about contentment, about Buddhist practices, about not focusing on our many desires, graspings, just to find contentment.

[16:27]

In some ways, maybe that's the old Nirvana. But Jane says, I reject contentment. Into it certain inexperienced saints have been seen to vanish in a burst of somewhat cloudy light. So not to be content with the darkness that is coming or is here or the difficulties that we face. Bodhisattva idea is to know contentment but also to not settle into it, not to be caught by it. So, interesting idea. What is our relationship to contentment? What is our relationship to helpful activity as opposed to Certain inexperienced saints have been seen to vanish into the abyss.

[17:30]

I'm going to read a few more. We'll have some time for comments, questions. This one is called, Things Seem Strong. Things seemed strong, houses, trees, trucks, a chair even, a table, a country. You don't expect one to break. No, it takes a hammer to break one, a war, a saw, an earthquake. Troy after Troy after Troy seemed strong to those living around and in them. Nine Troys were strong, each trembling under the other. When the ground floods and the fire ants leave their strong city, they link legs and form a raft and float and live and begin again elsewhere.

[18:32]

Strong, your life's wish to continue linking arms with life's eye blink, life's tear well, life's hammering of copper sheets and planing of Port Orford cedar, life's joke of the knock knock. Knock, knock, who's there? I am, I am who? That first and last question. Who once dressed in footed pajamas, who once was smothered in kisses, who seemed so strong, I could not imagine your mouth would ever come to stop asking. So I like this one a lot. And yes, things, objects. The world of objects, the objective world seems strong. We think that things are permanent. We scratch our head and think our head will be there.

[19:37]

Things seem strong. Things seem strong. Houses, trees, trucks, a chair even, a table, a country. You don't expect one to break. No, it takes a hammer to break one, a war, a saw, an earthquake. Troy after Troy after Troy seemed strong to those living around and in them. Nine Troys were strong. each trembling under the other. When the ground floods and the fire ants leave their strong city, they link legs and form a raft and float and live and begin again elsewhere. Strong, your life's wish to continue linking arms with life's eye blink, life's tear well, life's hammering of copper sheets and planing of cord-orfered cedar, life's joke of the knock knock. Knock knock, who's there? I am. I am who? That first and last question.

[20:40]

Who once dressed in footed pajamas, who once was smothered in kisses, who seemed so strong? I could not imagine your mouth would ever come to stop asking. So we think things, trees, trucks, chairs, countries even, are strong and will last as we see our country changing. transforming in ways we don't yet, are not yet clear, may not be clear even to historians in 200 years who will look back at this year. And then this question, this knock-knock joke, who's there? I am. I am who? Who am I? She says, that's the first and last question. So for, you know, yes, it is. Who is this? What is this? Each in our little box. And then in Zen and Buddhism, the question is not who am I, but, or I am who, but who is the Buddha or what is Buddha?

[21:47]

You know, cause that's what we practice. That's what we look at. I am who? So, things seem strong. And, okay, one more poem by Jan Hirschfeld I'm going to read. And this gets to the question of, well, okay, what do we, how do we respond to all this? What is our job? What is our work? What is our practice in the midst of this situation? So, Jane's poem is called My Debt. Like all who believe in the senses, I was an accountant, copyist, statistician. not registrar or witness, permitted to touch the leaf of a thistle, the trembling work of a spider, to ponder the Hubble's recordings.

[22:56]

It did not matter if I believed in the party of particle or of wave, as I carried no weapon. It did not matter if I believed. I weighed ashes, actions, cities that glitter like rubies. On the scales I was given, calibrated in units of fear and amazement, I wrote the word it, the word is. I entered the depth that is owed to the real. Forgive, spine-covered leaf, soft-bodied spider, octopus lifting one curious tentacle back toward the hand of the diver. that in such black ink I set down your flammable colors. My death, I'll read it again. Like all who believe in the senses, I was an accountant, copyist, statistician, not registrar, witness, permitted to touch the leaf of a thistle, the trembling work of a spider, to ponder the Hubble's recordings.

[24:07]

It did not matter. if I believed in the party of particle or of wave, as I carried no weapon. So this is, is this the ultimate politics? Are we of the party of particle or the party of wave? Which will we vote for? Did not matter if I believed. I weighed ashes, actions, cities that glittered like rubies on the scales I was given, calibrated in units of fear and amazement. I wrote the word it The word is, I entered the debt that is owed to the real. So our practice is to investigate, settle, study, theologically study, what is the real? And Jane Herschel says, I entered the debt that is owed to the real. Forgive, spine-covered leaf, soft-bodied spider, octopus lifting one curious tentacle back toward the hands of the diver that in such black ink I set down your flammable colors.

[25:13]

So the octopus lifting one curious tentacle. I've spoken here numbers of times before, but newer people may not have heard me about octopuses or octopi. I'm not sure what the plural is. But anyway, the octopus is one of the most intelligent animals on our planet. And yet it's an invertebrate. And they have very short lifespans, unfortunately. But it's been demonstrated that they're extremely intelligent in lots and lots of ways. So this curious tentacle. And they also can change their colors. to blend in very quickly, very dramatically. So they're very interesting. In her death, she mentions the octopus lifting one curious tentacle. So all of these poems by Jane Hirshfield and Ledger paint a picture of our tenuous world and our tenuous life.

[26:24]

the life of birth and death with chairs, tables, cities, countries, possibly vanishing. So what is our practice? What do we do? Do we settle into contentment? I think it's good if we experience contentment. on some level, or Zazen allows us to just say, okay, here I am, or whoever I am, and I can be here and be present. And there's something okay about all of it. But as she says, certain inexperienced saints vanished into contentment. So it's not enough to just be content with seeing these deeper realities of impermanence and the ultimate, but also how do we express that in our everyday activity?

[27:29]

How do we be helpful without knowing the outcome? So, you know, it's certainly possible to paint a dark picture. As Dylan says, he thinks about the death of the human race. Not that that's certain at all. But what do we do? What's our practice now? So I want to go to another poet I like, Mary Oliver. Let me just write a poem of hers. And this poem is called, and I've read this before too, some of you may have heard, The Buddha's Last Instruction. And it's a curious poem because the beginning is the ending. So I'll just read it as it is. Make of yourself a light, said the Buddha before he died.

[28:31]

I think of this every morning. as the east begins to tear off its many clouds of darkness, to send up the first signal, a white fan streaked with pink and violet, even green. An old man, he laid down between two solid trees, and he might have said anything, knowing it was his final hour. The light burns upward. It thickens and settles over the fields. Around him, the villagers gathered and stretched forward to listen. Even before the sun itself hangs, disattached in the blue air, I am touched everywhere by its ocean of yellow waves. No doubt he thought of everything that had happened in his difficult life. And then I feel the sun itself as it blazes over the hills like a million flowers on fire. Clearly, I'm not needed. Yet I feel myself turning into something of inexplicable value.

[29:35]

Slowly beneath the branches, he raised his head. He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd. So that's the end of the poem. But of course, after the end of the poem is the beginning of the poem. Make of yourself a light, said the Buddha before he died. And usually that's translated as Make up, be a light unto yourself. Those last words, that version of Buddha's last words. So the Buddha was going and he was encouraging his disciples to be a light, be an inspiration for themselves. But Mary Oliver, I'm not sure if she takes this from any other previous translation, but she says, make of yourself a light. So in the darkness that Jane Hirschfield speaks of, now a darkness comes.

[30:40]

Dylan has this song. It's not dark yet, but it's getting there. How do we make ourselves into a light? That's the question. That's our practice now. How do we make ourselves into a light? So, I can read some of those again if anybody wants, or I can just open this up to discussion. And, you know, I just want to say first that some of those poems seem, well, they're challenging. They're, you know, existential, maybe. They're looking at what is our life and world right now. And yet, even though things fade, things change, things vanish, the face that we wash in the morning is not the same face that looked into the mirror before we washed.

[31:54]

How do we practice with this? How do we respond? So I'm interested in your responses or comments. And thank you all for listening to this and indulging my wish to read a lot of poetry this morning. So comments, questions, responses, please feel free. You can just raise your hand or if you go to the button at the bottom where it says participants, there's a place at the bottom of that where you could just hit raise hand. If your face isn't visible, we'll see you there. So comments or questions, please. Responses. Oh, there's a hand. Ron, hello. Thank you for joining us from New York. Oh, my pleasure. Can you please reread the one with the line, certain inexperienced saints? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[32:59]

That's a cool one. That's a short one. That's about contentment. Some of these are longer, and they're all very rich. And I recommend the whole book. There are a lot of other poems I might have read as well. But this one goes, My Contentment. And it's interesting, the title is My Contentment. I reject contentment. Into it, certain inexperienced saints have been seen to vanish in a burst of somewhat cloudy light. So this is an interesting and challenging poem, you know, what is our relationship to contentment? Certainly, you know, well, people come to practice sometimes wishing for calm and relief, and the pursuit of happiness, I don't know. But contentment is a Buddhist value, you know, it's a value in our practice to be okay with things as they are.

[34:05]

In some way, there's that side of our practice. But You know, she says certain inexperienced saints, maybe she's referring to Arhats. Jane is a long time Zen practitioner. She spent years at Gingolch, and I knew her back in the old days at Zen Center. Certain inexperienced saints have been seen to vanish into a contentment. So it's not enough to just sit in our little box, Zoom, or in our little cave or wherever. How do we express something more in our practice, in our life? Did you have some comments on that, Ron? Just that that, line certain inexperienced saints opens up realms and realms of territory for exploration.

[35:13]

Yeah. And maybe at best we're inexperienced saints. And, uh, you know, uh, there are people here from New York and Nashville and there was somebody here from California and I don't know, Indiana anyway. And, and, uh, um, And Argentina, I'm a Wampanoag. But for those of us from Chicago at least, I've heard it said it's so hard to be a saint in the city. Another poet said. Other comments? I know there's some poets in the audience, but all of you can hear these words. Yes, Fushun. The issue of enoughness and not enoughness is very interesting to me because it has to do, I think, kind of similar thematic to contentment and discontent.

[36:25]

And the light shines, but the light doesn't last. So it's very interesting because being a light to oneself, I ask myself about the heart of the sun sometimes and whether the heart of the sun is bright or dark. I don't know about that. I mean, obviously I've never been to the heart. Well, I don't know, maybe that's where we... We all come from. Thank you. Yeah, enough, not enough. And, you know, I mean, there's so many levels of that. Maybe it's enough to be alive.

[37:27]

and enjoy this body mind and this fellowship of practitioners of Sangha. It's wonderful. Maybe it's enough in some ways, but not enough. And you know, this is what, Black Lives Matter is saying, as politicians say, well, we'll do this for you and we'll do that for you. We'll make this little adjustment to the policing. Not enough. After 400 years. So there's so many levels to that question. Saying enough, I have enough, it's okay to be here, and this is it, or just this is it, which is an old-sounding saying. I think it has to include, so she talks about yes and no. Contentment has to include discontent.

[38:32]

Enough has to include, well, not enough. How do we continue? So I talk about, so Dogen, our founder of this branch of Buddhism talks about Buddha's going beyond Buddha. So Buddha realizes it's enough, all beings, Buddha nature. And yet, Buddha goes beyond Buddha. Buddha continues to practice, to awaken each new situation, each new calamity, each new wonder, each new inspiration. So it's a very interesting tension there. Thank you for pushing. Other comments or reflections? Hey, Ed, how are you? Good. Thank you. Thank you. You know, it's, you know, when words are used to expand rather than shrink ourselves and our experiences in our world, I'm always inclined to celebrate because most of the language I'm engaged in day in and day out is transactional or authority driven, or based on knowing and belief.

[39:40]

And so when words in the form of poetry expand our recognitions, I think that's a wonderful thing. Yeah, and so much of Zen teaching is in the form of poetry because it's not pinned down. It allows not knowing. It allows for more. It allows us to be alive. So yes, thank you. And I just want to add one comment to the comment you just made. If words are imitative in form and they reflect aspects of our own being or experience, then we can rely on them to enrich our experience rather than limit and restrict it. Often in our political realm and so forth, it serves the opposite function. Yeah. But like the koans, the Zen teaching stories, poetry leaves something open, leaves something for us to do.

[40:43]

It's not enough to explain something and be done with it. Buddha's not some finished, when Buddha became Buddha, he wasn't finished. It's not enough to just hang a picture of Buddha up on the wall and bow down to it. We do that too, but thank you. Yes, Juan Pablo. Yeah, thank you very much. I'm having a little bit of problem with connection, so maybe will not work. Do you hear me? Yes, I hear you fine. Yes. OK, perfect. So here in the South, we are celebrating the new year or the new cycle. So it's the time when we honor the sun. So thank you for... We're bringing that, the light that is coming now to us. And so we're celebrating the shortest day today, the solstice of winter.

[41:48]

But also for the cosmology of the indigenous people, here is the day when we honor the sun and honor the light that is coming to us. So it's a very powerful day here. So I want to greet. to all of you and say from here, from the South, new year, happy new year. And also, the other day I was reading this fascicle of the Chogens, so in sentient beings speak the Dharma. And the last part, it's a phrase from Rujin, no? And it says something like, it says, goward with his tendrils is enwined with goward. Yes. I don't know. I wanted you to, excuse me?

[42:53]

I'm sorry, what is your question about it? if you can comment on that. It was just a powerful image and I just wanted for you to comment a little bit on that. Yes, thank you. And for those who don't know, Juan Pablo is joining us from Patagonia in Argentina, the very furthest, one of the very furthest South places besides Antarctica. So it must be very cold there now. Yeah. Anyway, we're having a nice, very warm spell in Chicago. Anyway, yeah, there's another essay in Cervo Genso called Twining Vines. And so this is an image of interconnectedness and the reality of that, that we are all so intricately interconnected in so many ways that we can't,

[43:53]

We can't trace them all. We can feel it, we can recognize it, that we are interconnected. But read the passage again that you mentioned, please. It says, Gourd with its tendrils is enwined with gourd. I don't know if it is correctly speak, but gourd with... Okay. Yes. So, yeah, where all of the tendrils of gourds as they grow, they get tangled in together. Again, Dougan talks about this in terms of vines and how entangled we are. But he's talking about practice, he's talking about lineages, he's talking about human societies. I liked the reference to Troy in one of Jane's poems, and nine cities of Troy on top of each other.

[45:08]

And I don't know how many cities of Chicago are under us, but there were Native people here before. the Europeans came. So, and I'm sure that's true in Argentina too. So there's another image that that reminds me of about this, about pumpkin patches. And I think Uchiyama Roshi, Shoaku's teacher, talked about this, that from the top of a pumpkin, there's a, you know, we see it cut off sometimes, but there's something coming from the top of her head. And, you know, he uses this as an image for Zendos from the top of each of our heads. There's a, line coming forth and they're all connected actually. So all the different pumpkins are connected through the top of their head as we sit here. So the poetic images of interconnectedness get to us more than just talking about it as a philosophical

[46:13]

category, because it's not philosophical, it's the reality of our lives, how we are deeply connected with so much, so many things. So thank you for your comments. Maybe this can be the last question. Okay, David Ray. Toygen, thank you. Thank you for the talk and for reading poems. I'd like to ask you about juiciness, because you said the word juicy at a certain point. And I know that word can be applied to poems in different ways. And it sounded that for you, part of the juiciness of a poem has to do with its being timely and applicable. But I would love to hear more about what for you is the juiciness of a juicy poem. Yeah, I think I might have said that about the line about, let's see if I can find it.

[47:16]

I probably won't find it, but I'm going to take another minute, too. And if anybody has to leave because of the time, please feel free to. Anyway, there was a line about a one-eyed person, and so I related to that. I may have mentioned juiciness at that point. But in poetry, something that's juicy is anything that rings a bell on us. that brings up something deep, something that has a pungency to it, that has a poignancy to it. So, you know, we can read through poems or we can listen to songs and then certain lines, stand out. So when I talk about reading Dogen, for example, who's very difficult, but also very poetic, I encourage people to read the whole thing through first, but then go back to the lines that are juicy.

[48:45]

Maybe I don't say it that way, but to go back to whatever was challenging or difficult. So, but then, you know, we can find something juicy and then look around it and see what helped to bring forth the juiciness. And then look inside and see. Where is the juiciness in us? So, yeah. David, as a, excuse me for outing you as a literature professor, but what would you say about that, you know, in terms of juiciness? Sorry. Well, a thing that I thought about was that Sanskrit word rasa, which I sort of know only from afar, but I know that it's a literary term there and it means something like flavor or like juice.

[49:46]

And that's what, and I study Roman poets a lot, and they talk about color, this idea of the color of a passage, which is sort of the flavor, the juice of the passage. And I got a lot of that. Those are really flavorful poems. I love it that for you that flavorfulness is connected to the way that something in a poem resonates, resonates for me and resonates for my life. So thank you. That gives me a new insight into that concept of the juice of a poem. And as you said also, it has to do with relevance. And relevance to what, or to who, or who am I? I started off talking about all the stuff, the powerful things that are going on this year. And so, Jane talking about the darkness that's coming, or the cities, the country failing, or ending, or impermanence.

[50:55]

Impermanence is kind of permanent, so there's another side to all of this. And the intertwined, interconnected self is a self that we are all part of. So anyway, it's a little intricate. The whole thing is very juicy. And I appreciate you all indulging me and just reading a lot of poetry this morning, as opposed to giving some particular Dharma talk, which I sometimes do. But anyway, thank you, David. So I guess that was supposed to be the last comment. We'll have time after the closing verses to just hang out if anybody wants to, and we can talk a little more. So, Fushim, please.

[51:42]

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