Sometimes when I give meditation instruction, it gets a little noisy. Sometimes when I give meditation instruction, or if I'm at a dinner party or something, and someone finds out I teach meditation, they say, well, what do you get out of it? So today I'm going to talk about this. You know, of course, sometimes when we do something, we don't know exactly what we're going to get out of it. I went a few years ago to Idaho this summer to go river rafting with my daughter on the Salmon River. I think it's the Middle Fork. It's the one where there's not much rapids.

[01:01]

And you know, that's supposed to be a summer fun kind of thing. You know, get something out of it like fun. Well, right about the middle of that trip, we had a bright sunny day and we went out and I was splashing water on other people and they're splashing water on me. And then we, you know, sort of dive in the water and get out. And then this big thunderstorm comes in and it's all cloudy and gray and it's completely overcast and it starts raining, a steady cold rain. Temperature drops. And I had on my wet swimming suit and my wet shirt and we had a ways to go before our campsite. We actually had maybe two hours of paddling in a cold rain against the wind to get to our campsite. And you're supposed to, when you do that, you're supposed to keep a shirt or a sweater sort of tied on someplace to the side of the raft

[02:10]

so that if it gets cold, you can put on your wool sweater or your, it turns out, wool or synthetic. You put on wool or synthetic. That retains the body heat even if it's wet. Whereas cotton, you'll get cold. I had neglected to leave my shirt on board so all of my warmer clothes were in the waterproof bag, safely kept dry. I got very cold. So much so that when we arrived at the, by the time we arrived at the campsite, I was shaking uncontrollably. I think since then now people say, well, that's hyperthermia. What would I know? I was just kind of shaking all over and my teeth were chattering. And we got to our campsite finally and we started setting up camp. And the first thing is we set up a tarpaulin rope to some trees so there's a roof. And we started unloading things.

[03:14]

And then one of the fellows started making a little fire. And we were using all wet material to make the fire except for we had some dry matches and a couple scraps of paper and some little leaves. And he took the tiniest little twigs and made a little teepee of twigs over the paper and leaves. Got the fire started. And then put on slightly larger twigs. And I would start to offer him a twig and he'd say, no, no, it's too big. I mean, my twig was like a quarter inch in diameter. But we were down to the little twigs like the leaf, like the leaf, like the little, you know, really tiny. And I finally, I realized, well, I'm impatient about these kind of things. I want to get some heat. I'm kind of impatient anyway.

[04:14]

When I drive, I want to get somewhere. So I was kind of impatient, but it took me a while to understand that if you're trying to light a fire and you have a small flame that is just barely flickering, you don't want to put it out with something big and heavy and wet, even if it's only a quarter inch in diameter. So I got something out of that trip, right? It wasn't what I set out to get out of the trip, but I kind of got something. And that stays with me. That comes back to me every so often. And I think about it. You know, there are a lot of things in our life that are kind of small and flickering. Don't you think? Kids, children, and each of us at times can be, at least for me, I know I can be pretty small and flickering.

[05:16]

And it's real tempting then to, you know, deliver a crushing kind of encouragement. To put on a piece of wood that's too big and too wet and sort of actually dampen things down instead of, you know, encouraging something to blossom and grow and flourish. So I think about, but a lot of this kind of question for me of what do you get out of it, I think about, I appreciated a number of years ago reading Wendell Berry's book, The Unsettling of America, in which he makes a distinction between the exploitive mind and nurturing mind. And as you know, our culture for many years now has been quite involved in exploiting the mind on the whole involved in exploitive mind.

[06:19]

And exploitive mentality is what can I get out of this for as little cost to me? You know, how much can I get? And then if you happen to destroy things in the process, you just move on to the next place. You know, if you've mined out one place and left, like up around Nevada City near where Gary Snyder lives, there's areas that look like moonscape because somebody got a few dollars worth of gold. So then it's just left. Oh, we're not going to live there, right? We wouldn't live there. We'll just go someplace else to live. We'll go someplace else for the next, to strike it rich on the next vein. And then, of course, we do that in relationships too. You know, after you've burned out your one relationship, then you can go on to the next. And so this is some tendency, not only in our culture, I mean, this is a human tendency, right?

[07:22]

If it wasn't just a basic human tendency, our culture couldn't encourage people to manifest it as well as our culture does, right? But interestingly enough, we bring this same mentality to meditation. What do I get out of this? What's in it for me? And then if meditation doesn't deliver, well, hey, I'll go someplace else where maybe it's better, you know, and I can get more for less, right? So the idea of meditation, of course, is this alternative approach in our sort of facile distinction here of nurturing. Nurturing means staying with something, and you tend it over time, and you stay there. So you have to clean up after yourself. Any mess you make, you have to clean it up. You have to pick up after yourself. You have to take care of things. So it's like growing a garden. It takes some time. And nowadays, of course, farming and things, it's the same exploitive thing

[08:23]

because if we use up our soil someplace, well, we'll go on, we'll have their soil other places. So there's this sort of sense that there will always be some other place to go where the pickings are better and where, you know, it's going to, well, the grass is greener, isn't it? Somewhere down the road. So this is to sort of come and sit down on the cushion in meditation. This is just to stay in one place and to stop chasing after the greener grass. You know, we say, I'm going to sit down, sit here and take care of what comes up. Pretty simple, pretty straightforward. But you might not get much out of it in the usual sense of, you know, what exploitive mind is looking for. I've always liked that story about the old monk

[09:24]

who was studying with Tosan. I forget now, you know, Tosan had some question and finally, the old monk had tried 96 times to answer it and finally on the 97th time he made an answer that Tosan liked and said, that's very good, why didn't you say so sooner? So this young monk heard this story and decided he would wait on the older monk. He took care of the older monk for three years, making him tea, cleaning his robes, mending his robes and cushions and kind of attending him. But the old monk never told him anything. So he was quite disappointed and finally the old monk one day got sick so the young monk came to him and said, you know, I've waited on you for three years, you've never told me a thing. Now I'm going to get the answer in the worst way. And he took out a sword or a little knife

[10:25]

and he said, now tell me what you told Tosan. And the old monk said, no, well, just hold on, wait a minute now. Even if I told you, where would you put it? So, you know, this kind of story, there's many sort of stories like this in Zen. Like where would you put it or even if you had, you know, if you had enlightenment, what would you do with it? You think like, oh, if I get enlightenment, that would be great, then I would have something. But in fact, what would you do with it if you had it? You know, I mean, how would you spend it? Is it going to improve your life? You know, are you going to be happier? Will you be kinder? Will you be more patient? If you want to be kinder and more patient, then, well, be kinder and more patient. You don't need enlightenment for that. So there are many kinds of, you know,

[11:30]

different versions of this sort of idea in Zen that pointing out someone's exploitive kind of, you know, we each have this kind of exploitive tendency in pointing this out to us and to kind of turn us toward nurturing, taking care of something. Even if it's just a single, you know, breath, a single inhalation or exhalation. Is it worth taking care of? So I, when I was studying Zen years ago at Tassajara and Suzuki Roshi used to talk about sometimes the difference between hard mind and soft mind. To me, this is the same kind of difference. We have some tendency to get hard-minded or hard-headed, especially if we're trying to get someplace. Or when we're exploiting something we forget about, we ignore what's happening, actually happening.

[12:32]

And literally, this soft-mindedness is a kind of, you know, in your head. One time when he was talking about soft-minded, I realized my head was really hard. It's literally, you know, our body and our head, our mind or our heads, I mean, it does, you know, physically, physiologically, we get hard. And sometimes it's possible just to soften. Soften your head, soften your heart, soften your shoulders. Once you notice a place that's hard, sometimes you can soften. And also to be with the breath softens. If you stay with your breath, your breath will, and allow your breath to come in and to go out, your breath will very naturally begin to soften your body. And a third kind of practice

[13:34]

that's sometimes taught is the practice of smiling. You know, Thich Nhat Hanh, it's probably the main thing he teaches is to practice smiling. And probably the, you know, as a people, probably the most, the people who I've met who smile the most, have the most beautiful smiles are Vietnamese people who study with him. And he's fond of saying that a smile softens your whole body and your being. And that you don't have to, you know, we like, we think I will withhold my smile until it's something really worth smiling at. Like I wouldn't want to spend my smile and give it away too cheaply. I want to make sure that what I smile at is worth my smiling at. So we have the same idea, see, even about our smiles,

[14:37]

we think we might run out. And then, you know, years ago, in fact, at Tassajara, one of our teachers gave a talk. And at Tassajara and to some extent here, when we meet each other, we bow to each other in passing. We stop and bow. And one of our teachers one time gave a talk at Tassajara and said, when you stop and bow to someone, you should also smile. We, as a community, were not used to this teaching. So when it came time for the question and answers, you know, people said, suppose I don't feel like it. Wouldn't that be insincere? And suppose that person that I'm meeting is, you know, not a nice person and they're kind of greedy or hateful and they've been mean to me and I'm supposed to smile at them anyway? And the thing is, of course, that, I mean, we're all of those people too.

[15:39]

So what are you going to do? You withhold. We tend to withhold our smile also. When we withhold it from other people, we withhold it from ourself. And then pretty soon you can't smile because nobody is perfect enough. And pretty soon we're pretty hard-minded. And then the more hard-minded we get, of course, the more we look for an exploitive situation. Thinking that that would be the solution and not realizing that our hard-mindedness is inherent in the way we've gone about our life. You know, waiting for something good enough to smile at. Waiting for the right situation to soften and receive or the right situation to take care of something as simple as a breath. I want to read you a passage. This is one of my favorite 20th century sutra writers.

[16:43]

This is from Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters on Cezanne. This morning I was kind of going through... I kind of make a little outline when I'm going to give a talk. Because I can't figure out everything I'm going to say, but I kind of try to get a little kind of outline. A beginning and a middle and an end and the stories I want to tell to some extent. And then stuff changes as you go along, you know. But I was right to somewhere around this part of my talk and I went to the bathroom and here was the bathroom reading. And I opened right to this page. So now be careful now. Don't try to get anything out of this, all right? And it's...

[17:52]

But this gives you a little sense of this hard mind and soft mind and sort of what happens there. Never have I been so touched and almost gripped by the sight of Heather as the other day when I found these three branches in your dear letter. Since then they are lying in my book of images, penetrating it with their strong and serious smell, which is really just the fragrance of autumn earth. But how glorious it is, this fragrance. At no other time, it seems to me, does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth. In a smell that is in no other way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste

[18:55]

and more than honey sweet where you feel it closing, where you feel it close to touching the first sounds, containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost, and yet again wind, tar and turpentine and Ceylon tea, serious and poor like the smell of a begging monk and yet again hardy and resinous like precious incense. And the way they look, like embroidery, splendid. Right now one of them happens to be lying on dark blue velvet in an old pen and pencil box. It's like a fireworks. Well, no, it's really like a Persian rug. Are all these millions of little branches really so wonderfully wrought?

[19:56]

Just look at the radiance of this green, which contains a little gold and the sandalwood warmth of the brown in the little stems and that fissure with its new fresh inner barely green. I've been admiring the splendor of these little fragments for days and am truly ashamed I was not happy when I was permitted to walk about in a super abundance of them. One lives so badly because one always comes into the present unfinished, unable, distracted. Distracted. A little feeling of

[21:04]

the difference between unable, distracted, unfinished and actually being with something. And then it takes a kind of softness. His heart softened when the heather came in a letter from his wife. And then he knew the heather is not just heather, but it's, you know, someone's love. And it's each of our love. It's my love. And we can receive things and be with things and they touch us. And this doesn't happen when we're looking for how to exploit the thing that is in our awareness. Whether it's an object, a person, ourself, our thought, feeling, physical sensation, what's in it for me? When we bring that question to things, then we will miss

[22:06]

this kind of radiance and splendor and the smell of things. The taste of things that Rilke talks about. So there's a sense in here of, you know, where our pleasure is actually. It's another point that Wendell Berry makes. That actually so much of our life we forget about pleasure. And there's a joy and there's also, interestingly, you know, this is a tremendous generosity. It's a wonderful gift that we give anytime we give our awareness to something. To actually give our awareness to something. It's a tremendous, wonderful, precious gift. And we think, I'm going to withhold my awareness until it's worth paying attention to. Like when you get it together, I'll give you some attention. Or when you're, if you're important or famous,

[23:08]

I might pay attention to you or, you know. But what it means is, you know, because of our habit that way, we think, you know, I'll pay attention when it's good, worth paying attention to. But what happens is then pretty soon we're paying very little attention to much of anything. And we're waiting, you know, to win the lotto or something. But then, of course, by that, we know when something comes along that's worth paying attention to, we're so used to not paying attention to it or giving our, actually giving our awareness to it that we, we can't anymore. So this is very basic, you know, fundamental Buddhism that that way of going about things is suffering. And our release from suffering is in giving our awareness to one thing after another. Because it's such a wonderful, precious gift. And because, you know, each of us, I mean, setting aside, you know, Buddhist teaching of no self, right? But let's set that aside.

[24:10]

When are any of us worth paying attention to? You know, are we valuable or precious? And yet if we give our, you know, so we need to give our awareness to an inhalation or an exhalation, some leftovers, you know, the sweeping that we do, the cooking that we do. When we give our awareness to something, then we become precious. We become valuable. Life becomes valuable. Things are important. We can care. And things touch us. We touch things. And then we can nourish our own life and nourish one another. And it comes from this generosity of our awareness. Being able to, you know, smile at something, even if it isn't the most wonderful, magnificent thing. Being able to smile even at someone who can't smile. This is, you know, basic Buddhist teaching.

[25:13]

And often that someone is you yourself. I myself. Years ago, when I first started cooking, I was about 20 and I was living in San Francisco, a little building that's not there anymore. It's now Safeway parking lot off of Webster, between Webster and Fillmore. And I was going to the Zen Center, which then was over on Bush Street, off of Webster. Off of Laguna. And I started cooking. I'd never cooked much. And I started having dinner parties. So I would start about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I'd have gotten a big bottle of sake. And that was like $3 in those days.

[26:20]

Those are the days of 300 yen to the dollar. Times were different. But I used to have a whole afternoon to cook, and so I'd cut things up into pretty little pieces, like the celery into little boomerangs, and the carrots into little shapes and things. And I had a little set of metallic, kind of enameled metallic bowls that I'd gotten at a thrift shop. They were like bright fuchsia purple and magenta red and chartreuse. And I'd match the vegetables with the little bowl. I had such a nice time. And to see the little vegetables in their little bowls, you know, the orange carrots in the purple bowl and the celery in one of the bowls. It was so exquisite. And then finally we'd have dinner,

[27:25]

and I would spend most of the evening serving food and heating up the sake and pouring it into the pitchers and putting it on the table, and then everybody else talked and visited. And, you know, it's only recently I thought about this and I realized how sort of socially inept I was. That was kind of the best I could do to socialize. Because I wasn't much good at actually talking to people, but I found that I could talk to food, to carrots and celery and little metal bowls. It's sort of remedial, you know, remedial attention to something, some object out there in the world. Partly I thought of this because a while ago I was talking to a friend of mine who's also a Buddhist teacher, and she had an extremely difficult childhood. Her father had left when she was quite small

[28:28]

and her mother was alcoholic and would get up, would drink all night and play her saxophone down in the basement and get up around two in the afternoon and start drinking again. And my friend would have to serve her mother black tea when she got home from school to try to sober her up enough to get the report card signed. And her father would come by to kind of molest people and that sort of thing. So basically she had no, you know, there was no family dinners. This is not, you know, unusual, of course. The Wall Street Journal reported that it's something now about 30 or 35 percent of American families never eat together anymore. Basic idea is you have all the things you might want for dinner that are in the freezer in the cabinet and then you can, you have to be able to prepare it in two minutes or less basically during the station break. And members of the family each have their own television in their own room so nobody even, you don't even have to talk to one another about what to watch on the TV.

[29:30]

And then you don't have to talk to each other about what's for dinner or when dinner is. And then everybody gets to live in their own little world with their own little entertainment system. And then the food of their choice, which just goes into the microwave or the oven or something, you know, set the timer. And this is happiness, you know, the American dream life or something. And what's in it for you is, you know, convenience. And not actually having to pay attention to anything. You know, there's a lot in it for people. And not having to give any time or attention to something. But my friend didn't realize how retarded she was until she got to college. She got to college and she realized that all those other people there were talking to one another and visiting and then she realized like she didn't know how to do that. And the only people that she found

[30:34]

sort of that were, that are comfortable having her around being who she was were the people who smoked dope. Because they're kind of, oh yeah, you know like, they're just kind of loose. Okay, you know. And so what she used to do is go and sit under the table while they visited. And they nicknamed her Pit Stop. Because she'd come and sit under the table while they were visiting. Eventually she sort of worked herself up, you know, to being actually being able to sort of talk. But meditation, you know, helped her a lot because she could actually begin to relate to something. And then, you know, like me, I was never quite that bad. But I found, I'm still not very social. You know, in a social situation I like being able to, I can actually relate to food. You know, I'm, you know, it's scary to have anything in your awareness. To actually give your awareness to anything, boy,

[31:35]

you know, what's it going to do? What might happen? And the fact is, as soon as you give your awareness to any one thing, you're in a moment of inhalation, a moment of exhalation, a feeling, a thought, you know, a person, a carrot, things start to happen that we had no idea of. You know, it's completely uncalled for. So it's a real challenge to give awareness to something. And it's not very safe. And meditation is about, you know, this is one aspect in a meditation, I don't want to say nurturing, but it's also just to give your, to give our awareness to something, to let something in. And part of the idea that people often come to meditation with is what they're going to get is a nice safe place where they won't have to pay attention to anything. I'm going to make my mind quiet. I'm going to shut everything up. I'm not going to listen to anything,

[32:37]

have to look at anything, have to see anything, have to deal with anything. I'll have a nice, safe, quiet place. And then they get upset when it's not safe enough and quiet enough, you know, because things keep happening. And then pretty soon there's all these thoughts and all these feelings. And it's hard, and you know, it's impossible. So again, you know, that's a kind of mistaken approach to think that it would be possible to set up a place where you wouldn't have to have anything to relate to. So the, you know, the more fundamental basic approach is to actually give your awareness to want something. Inhalation, exhalation, your thought, your feeling. Smile at it a little. Receive it, take care of it. And don't, you know, put on a big, don't try to put a big wet, you know, chunk of something on top of it to make it better or to shut it up.

[33:39]

Because that's not effective or useful as far as appreciating and realizing, you know, the preciousness of our life and nurturing and taking care of things. Okay. Well, I'm about finished with my talk, but I would like to offer you

[34:41]

a little guided meditation to finish up. This is based on a meditation that Thich Nhat Hanh uses sometimes and incorporates some of the things that I've been talking about with you today. The quality of softening, the quality of receiving, of nurturing and caring for a particular object of awareness. Before I begin, I would like to mention, you know, that if if you relate to this meditation, then fine, you can follow along and use it. And if not, when you find it somehow difficult

[35:44]

or, you know, you are somehow, you know, find it distasteful or something, whatever, anyway, just set it aside. It's not so important one way or another whether you happen to like a particular thing. But I'll go ahead and offer it. So the basis of this, the procedure in the meditation is that, you know, it follows a particular form generally. Inhaling, I am aware of the hair on my head. Exhaling, I smile at my hair. Inhaling, I'm aware of my forehead. Exhaling, I smile at my forehead. If it's hard to smile,

[36:50]

you know, you can just feel some warmth or tenderness or a little even just some softness towards the object of awareness. Inhaling, I'm aware of my eyes. Exhaling, I smile at my eyes. Inhaling, I'm aware of my nose. Exhaling, I smile at my nose. Inhaling, I'm aware of my mouth. Exhaling, I smile at my mouth. Inhaling, I'm aware of my teeth. And exhaling, I soften my jaw and teeth. Inhaling,

[37:54]

I'm aware of my ears. And exhaling, I smile at my ears. Inhaling, I'm aware of my neck. And exhaling, I smile at my neck. Inhaling, I'm aware of my lungs. And exhaling, I smile at my lungs. Inhaling, I'm aware of my shoulders. Exhaling, I soften and let my shoulders release. Inhaling, I'm aware of my heart. And exhaling, I smile at my heart. I know each part of my being

[38:59]

is making a sincere effort to live together in peace and harmony. Inhaling, I'm aware of my ribs. Exhaling, I smile at my ribs. Inhaling, I'm aware of my stomach. Exhaling, I smile at my stomach. Inhaling, I'm aware of my liver. Exhaling, I smile at my liver. Inhaling, I'm aware of my belly. Exhaling, I smile at my belly. Inhaling, I'm aware of my kidneys. Exhaling,

[40:00]

I smile at my kidneys. Inhaling, I'm aware of my pelvis. Exhaling, I smile at my pelvis. Inhaling, I'm aware of my buttocks. Exhaling, I smile at my buttocks. Inhaling, I'm aware of my thighs. Exhaling, I smile at my thighs, my thighs that support me and carry me. Sustain me. Inhaling,

[41:02]

I smile at my knees. Exhaling, I smile. Some more. Inhaling, I'm aware of my calves and shins. Exhaling, I smile at my calves and shins. Inhaling, I'm aware of my ankles. Exhaling, I smile at my ankles. I appreciate them very much. Inhaling, I'm aware of my feet. Exhaling, I smile at my feet. Inhaling, I'm aware of my toes. Exhaling, I smile at my toes. Inhaling,

[42:18]

I'm aware of my body, my being. I wish to be with things with some warmheartedness and generosity. Inhaling, Inhaling, I hear the sound of the birds.

[43:19]

And exhaling, I smile at the sound of the birds. I'm aware of my thoughts and feelings. I appreciate their effort, their sincerity, their wish to grow in wisdom and compassion. May all beings together realize the Buddha way. Thank you very much for your sincerity and wholeheartedness and making this kind of nurturing effort to take care of your own life and your own well-being. And our shared life together.

[44:24]

Question and answer on side two. I tried out for video, for you know, television and they said, you're not coming across. I think there's a difference and you can tell it's only just a smile and it's only the radiance coming out of your smile. You can tell the difference. But it is true, there's a difference. The woman is a big sexual figure. You're right there. When you said that, I immediately thought about you. I was thinking about that too to talk how different it is. A smile often means you're taught, you were trained as teenagers to smile and be pretty. You see it. You didn't have to be told.

[45:32]

It was like, this is how you do it and this is how they make nice and this is how you get a man and this is how you have a partner and this is how you act. And even if no one told you, you looked around and saw how the people and the girls were that you thought you wanted to be in a way. And that's what you did. It's a very big difference. It's also a difference in women's whole thing about letting in awareness. Maybe we should say that just the men should smile more. No, no, no. Yes. Well, I... Yeah, you're right. When I was growing up, we were supposed to smile. The men aren't supposed to but the women are so it's like, I would just smile. Men are supposed to be confident. Confident? Right. Yeah. Confident. Confident. Do you know how reluctant men are to ask for directions? Yes. You're lost. They wouldn't want to ask anybody for directions. Like, they might know you're lost then. That's right. Just because you don't know where you are or where you're...

[46:32]

you know, how to get to where you want to go doesn't mean you ask for directions. Right. They might know you're lost and then what would happen? Yeah. And they're supposed to... You'd be found out. Yeah. But you'd be gone. I've had more arguments with men in cars but I just... You know, this is stupid. Why would you stop and ask? Oh, yeah. That's... No. No, no. No. They're going to talk it out. And you never turn around and go back to where you know they went maybe wrong turn but they never go around and go back and retrace their steps because you're not supposed to do that either. You know, there's a tape I've been listening to which is about how men speak and how women speak and all the problems that happen because men speak differently than women do. You know, they... And they were talking about what he was saying about directions and how men don't like

[47:32]

to have directions. I don't... You know, I don't... I don't like to ask for directions because I think getting the directions is more complicated than running around trying to find it. Then I've got to remember all the things they said and have to be smarter and have to ask for directions. At least that's what I've told myself forever. Yeah. They turn it around in that TV advertisement for The Chief or whatever it is where the guy drives into the gas station and says how to get to Bakersfield and the guy says well you go down here and you turn over there and you go here and you go there and then when the woman shows up in her Jeep she just says over those mountains. She says thanks. That's supposed to be but life is so much simpler in a Jeep. You're free. Spend $30,000 and you're safe. But they obviously couldn't have it the other way around or they'd direct the woman way around and then drag the man straight across so it'd just be too much to fit to, you think. Advertisers are not

[48:34]

all together stupid. Yes. Yeah, I know. Yes. Yes. No. Yes.

[49:45]

Yes. The builder. Yes. Okay. Uh-oh. Good afternoon, good morning.

[50:59]

If I may, I'd like to share one of my dreams with you. Excuse me. I started Zen practice in 1965, so it's been nearly 30 years now, and for a long time now I've thought it would be nice to have a little center some place. So this is something I've been working on. I have a little sitting group in San Rafael on Thursday nights, by the way, if any of you would like to come. It's at the Unitarian Church, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, up on top of the hill, 7 to 9. On Thursday nights, except for Thanksgiving. You know, around Christmas sometimes we take a dare to up. And I've also been involved now with a little sitting group on Friday mornings in Point Ray Station, 7 o'clock at the Dance Palace.

[52:07]

But anyway, I mention this because recently I've come across a piece of property in Inverness that is for sale, and it's an unused piece of property, it's 7 acres of woods with 2 houses. And compared to what you can buy for, you know, if you spend $300,000 or $350,000 where you get kind of a house on a quarter acre, half an acre, this is unusual. It was on the market originally for $599,000, it's now down to $537,000. And the real estate person thinks it could sell for $500,000 or less. So this is quite a nice situation for, I don't know, maybe somebody else, maybe some of you want to buy it for yourselves. But if anyone's interested in sharing in a cooperative, I mean, for Patty and I to buy it, Patty and I can't buy it by ourselves, so we need to have somebody else buy it with us. And then it would be fairly reasonable as far as monthly payments and so forth.

[53:11]

And it has the potential to have, you know, at least one more house on it, and it has a good space for a meditation hall, and there's obviously... The people who lived there were kind of conservationists, so they didn't cut down any trees. But if some trees were windowed out, you know, you could have a fabulous view of Tomales Bay. And people who have lived out in that area for a long time say that that particular spot somehow is a nice little microclimate where it's more sun and less wind than most areas in Inverness, because Inverness is known sometimes for chill and wind. Anyway, if any of you are interested in such a thing, I hope you'll come and talk to me after the main part of the discussion here. And next Sunday, if there's any interest, we'll sort of get together sometime Sunday afternoon and look at it together, think about it. And if nobody's interested, you know, then skip it, you know, do something else with my life. I have a nice little cottage. You know, we'll go on to something else. I mean, I have a nice little cottage out in Inverness, and, you know, a nice little garden,

[54:13]

the flowers are blooming, the sun is shining, and, you know, hey, and then the rent's cheap. But anyway, so I'd have no idea of whether, you know, I don't think in these sort of cosmic terms of it's meant to be or, you know, anything like that. But if it happened to work and there was actually the right people, I mean, by right, you know, a lot of people are interested but don't have the money, then there's people who have the money but don't want to live in Inverness, and then, you know, et cetera. But if the right people under the right circumstances were interested, you know, it would be nice to do something with a little group and have a place to sit, and eventually we could have, you know, weekend retreats or whatever, all kinds of things, because it's a wonderful, unusual piece of property to get seven acres like that along with two houses for actually compared to the little money. Okay, so anyway, talk to me later if you're interested. So what would you all like to talk about today, now that I've shared my wish, my fantasy with you? Anything? Yes?

[55:17]

Tell us about the meditation class in St. Raphael. Oh, the meditation class in St. Raphael, it's at the Unitarian Church, and we've been meeting on Thursday nights from 7 to 9, we've been meeting now, I think we're in our fourth year. Some of us who have been continuing to come. I have to show up, you know, I mean, sort of. But anyway, we start at 7, we have a period of meditation from 7 to 7.40, and you can also come in late, you know, I mean, people sometimes walk in late. You can come anytime you want, I mean, but basically we sit from 7 to 7.40. We have tea from 7.40 to 8, and informal visiting. We have announcements if you're looking for a ride or housing or anything, you can announce that. And then I give a talk or we do something else the rest of the time, sometimes discussions until 9 o'clock, we try to stop at 9 o'clock so it's not too late in the evening or anything. And we have a little chanting at the end. It's a very simple chant, if you want we can try it here later at the end.

[56:20]

But I do a very simple chant now with the group. We do it because chanting is nice, but I didn't want to have to teach anybody anything. So this is a chant you can do, sort of explain in a minute or two and not have to, you know, read a lot of Japanese or something. Yeah. I don't know if I can sit for 40 minutes, because I need to get to fidget. Well, yeah, you get to fidget. There's cushions, if you bring your own cushions, and there's couches and chairs. So you can sit on the couch and, you know, we have people lying down meditating. I mean, this is not a Zen group exactly. Or else it's, you know, it's sort of the lazy person Zen or it's, sometimes I'm described as the Vipassana wing of the Zen tradition or the Zen wing of the Vipassana tradition. So yeah, you get to move or fidget or, you know, get up and walk out. I mean, but you have to be quiet about it. No screaming. Which, I mean, has to do with the Zen type community?

[57:24]

Well, yeah, I want to have a little meditation community. I want to be someplace where people can come and visit me. As it is now, the place where I live, I mean, it's more like a hermitage. It's not real suitable for people coming to visit and then people say, well, how can I study with you? And I say, I don't know. Because it seems like in order to study with someone, you sort of need to be someplace where you actually study together. Because otherwise it's like, well, there's Thursday nights in San Rafael and then what? And it's sort of hard to make any arrangements for any other time and it gets, so practically speaking what happens is you never, is that I spend very little time with the people that I'd like to spend time with and, you know, study with and meditate with and talk with and visit with and, you know, like do something together. I think that would be really nice. And obviously, I mean, part of what, I mean, recently one of the inspirations for me was visiting this cooperative in Davis because it's, you know, somehow our society is so

[58:25]

strange, isn't it? You sort of, people go out and you get your own house someplace. And then you'd certainly, a lot of the time you hardly know your neighbors. Up in Davis there's now this cooperative that's got nine houses on the same street, six on one side, I think, and three on the other side through the backyards. So they've taken on all the backyard fences and they have this big open space behind their houses. And they have a flagstone, they got this white, grayish white flagstone from Idaho that connects it all with this wonderful pathway. And they have gardens in one end and a sauna way down at the end with a little wood burning stove that was just recycled from somebody's backyard. And they have the chickens and they put in their berry bushes and their fruit trees. And then down at the other end they have grass and children's play things. And that's taken them, you know, seven or eight years. And then they have one Xerox machine for everybody and they have two shops and you can borrow tools. And they have four communal dinners a week. So that means two people cook each communal dinner and there's 35 residents. So once a month you cook dinner and you get 15 dinners cooked for you.

[59:27]

What a deal. And then you can go or not. You don't have to go to those dinners. They put up a sign-up sheet and then you can stay home or go to the dinner and you sign up for the dinner. And when you go they keep track of the, they keep track of the receipts and the expenses and then they divide it by the number of people who come and you pay when you go for the ingredients. You pay for the ingredients when you go to dinner. But what a nice thing to do. And then, you know, even, and it's not like you necessarily have to, you know, like everybody you live with. But it's this actually shared, it's this community. And I'd like to do something like that one way or another. One disadvantage of this place out in Inverness is that it's not like having eight or nine houses together. I mean, that's really, that's really amazing. So it might be better to get, you know, some place in town and then over a few years get houses next door and then chase it and sort of connect things up and stuff. And that might be fun to do too. But every time I talk about this, you know, people are quite interested because most of us, you know, we're just kind of out there and kind of like, well, where's, where's our

[60:28]

friends? And if you have to make a phone call and make a date and, you know, I just agreed to go have dinner with somebody on, oh, Tuesday, June the 7th, I mean, this is May, folks. And then sort of like, so, and then, you know, you make plans for November and, and it's sort of like, well, can't you sort of like be someplace where, you know, like you can walk out your door and have dinner with your friend next door and, you know, I mean, doesn't that make sense? And like, and not drive here and there and have to make all these dates and appointment books and phone calls and never see anybody, hardly, because they're six miles away or ten miles away or twenty miles away, and it's so impractical, it's so stupid, you know, and it's all the automobile and money and, you know, our society is based on making money, it's not based on community or, you know, excuse me, I can get off on this, you know. And then I have to sort of at some point smile at my hard-mindedness. But recently, for instance, I was in Hawaii and my sister-in-law is a realtor, so she

[61:34]

was giving us a little real estate education. I just hadn't understood, but like if you buy a rental property and then, you know, later on you sell it and then you don't pay any capital gains. So, as long as you invested in another property of equal or greater value, so you can not pay capital gains for years, and then you, people wonder like, why can't, then the last day we're in Hawaii, there's a little article in the paper, right, it says three out of five Hawaiians who rent can't afford a one-bedroom unit. And part of the reason they can't is because the real estate values are jacked up by the fact that people aren't paying capital gains tax, you know, and rolling it over and their increased money, so that's keeping the whole value of property inflated and so it's set up to make money rather than to provide housing. That's the way the system works, you know, so that a few people can make money and then three out of five renters can't afford a one-bedroom unit. That's the way things are set up. So given that things are set up that way, then my interest is to get together with some friends and do something different. You know, I don't want to buy into all of that, you know, excuse me, but I don't, it's

[62:37]

just who I am. You know, my, you know, people say to me sometimes, well, why don't you do it too? What's wrong with you? This is the game we're all playing, so come on. But I guess I'm sort of in, you know, and I think of the Bhagavad Gita and Arjuna, you know, who complains about having to go to war and wants to sit on the sidelines and somebody, you know, some voice says to him, get with it, man, you're a warrior and fulfill your warrior's duty. And don't think it's up to you whether or not to play the game, you know, this is your deal and your karma and you better play it well and, you know, kill him as best you can. And somehow I don't seem to have been quite born into that class or something. I'm in sort of more the priest class or something, you know, so to speak, you know, loosely speaking no class, but I'm just this sort of different person. I don't want to buy into all that and it's been all my life. In high school, all the teachers told me, if you don't study hard, you're not going to go to the college you want to go to. You won't be able to have the job you want and then you won't be able to buy the house that you'd like to buy. And sure enough, it's all come true.

[63:38]

I can't buy the house I want to buy. I didn't follow the whole program. I didn't buy into the whole deal. Can we talk about something else now? So what did you get by not playing it? I've gotten a lot of friends, for one thing. I mean, I have people that I was at Zen Center with, and even if I never see them, hardly. If I call them up on the phone, we're immediately friends. And I feel like if I ever was homeless, for instance, or couldn't take care of myself, I feel like I have tens and hundreds of friends in the world who would find a place for me and would take care of me. And so, anyway, that's a simple sort of thing.

[64:47]

But I have a different kind of life than I would otherwise, and it gives opportunity to do things and space for things at times that I wouldn't have otherwise. I don't know how people do it, really. I mean, I don't know how anybody works 40 hours a week and then tries to have a family and kids and go shopping and take care of your household. It's just overwhelming. And you really do have to be kind of, the tendency to be hard-minded, to have to take care of all those things and respond to all those things. So it actually does take a kind of leisure to cultivate some self-mindedness. And it actually takes a kind of, you know, you need a certain kind of safety and in a way a strength and a kind of, to have some self-mindedness, you have to have some boundaries, actually. It's very interesting. You know, you don't just go out and around being self-minded.

[65:48]

You actually need some boundaries and some space in your life to make that sort of thing possible. Whether it's just sitting down and meditating for 40 minutes or actually having, you know, or 20 minutes or 10 minutes, you know, a day or something. But that's some space that you create by establishing a boundary and saying, I'm going to sit down here now for some period of time. And then I can practice being, you know, have some focus on being self-minded. So, if I was, when we're more having to take care of things moment after moment and feeling that kind of pressure of sustaining the family and taking care of all of one's obligations and everything, it's very difficult to feel the sort of, to have some sense of enough sort of leisure or space or anything to cultivate one's self-mindedness or one's basic sort of generosity of spirit to give attention to something. You know, because then you don't have time for your kids and, you know, people you live

[66:49]

with and so on. So, it's, I try to work on that and it's hard for me, you know, it's hard for me to, even given, you know, the kind of life I have where I don't have the same day-to-day kind of pressures that most people do, I still have a hard time cultivating the basic kind of self-mindedness and attention to things and giving, and just sort of generosity of spirit of giving attention to something, you know, moment after moment. But it's, but certainly it's my, you know, focus or my basic intention to do that and to come back to that as a kind of basic kind of vow or wish, you know. That's the way our life works, you know, we don't, we can't just do something like that all the time. We come back to it and we, you know, acknowledge our own deep wish or vow and then we return to that and we get carried away and taken away from it with obligations and various things and come back to that kind of intention.

[67:49]

Yes. Go ahead. I really appreciate your candor and your sense of humor, it's very refreshing listening to you today. And there seemed to be one glaring omission for me in the meditation you were doing, with the smiling parts of the body, and that was the genitals. And I found, I did my own affirmation. Well, good for you. And I just, I wondered if you could just comment on, I know for me there's been a big split between spirituality and sexuality. It feels like when we do a whole body meditation like that and say nothing about the genitals, it just, it feels like it perpetuates that split and that, you know, it's not okay to have happy genitals or to smile at your genitals. Well, I think that's, well, I'm glad you, you know, it's nice of you to bring that up. So thank you. And I just sort of made a decision today not to get, you know, sexually explicit and mention

[68:58]

genitals. I'm sorry. Because I don't, I don't, I don't particularly have the feeling, I agree with you completely. You know, it's important to smile at your genitals and to smile at your desires. One of the reasons that desires, that our desires go askew is because we don't smile at them. And we, and we get cold, hard, hard, hard minded with them or cold, cold with them. And we tell them to go away until they finally, you know, what happens if you don't harmonize your body and mind and your sort of, and your being one part with another, then, you know, as long as you're in charge, it's okay. But then when you're tired or, you know, you've had a hard day, then some other part of you jumps up and says, now I'm in charge and I'll do what I want, which is what you wouldn't let me do. And what you didn't even want to listen to and acknowledge and, you know, and now I'm and then later on, you know, then you can sort of feel some regret later, gee, I lost

[69:59]

it there and something took over. That wasn't really me. But, so it is important actually to acknowledge and harmonize. And one of the things that that brings up is just also the sense of, well, I'll use an example of it. A friend of mine recently was quite enamored of a woman who was a massage therapist. You know, he really, as he describes it, he fell in love with her and so on. Well, it didn't quite work out and one day he happened to be somewhere where he saw her with another man and kind of upset him. And so then the fool went home and called her up that very night, didn't wait to sort of think about it or cool out or anything. And then, you know, made sort of a little bit of a fool of himself, you know, sort of confronting her about this. And she says, well, it's an old friend, but you see, it's still something, you know, there's some heat around it for him.

[70:59]

So by this time, nobody's smiling at anybody, right? And one thing leads to another. And so then she would call him up and say, well, I just called you up to tell you I'm thinking about calling you up. And then she called him and said, can we go out for coffee? And he said, yes. And she said, well, how about Sunday? And he said, that's great. And she said, well, I'll pinch you in for Sunday and get back to you. So, you know, like what's the message, folks? So then he wrote a poem, which is a scathing sort of poem about, you know, new age touchy feeling, you know, we're all friends and buddies, but, you know, like, can you be a little straight with me, please? And I'd really appreciate it if you would. And he sort of wrote her off in this scathing, wonderfully creative, you know, diatribe of a kind of a poem, you know, with a whole meter and, you know, two pages, you know, handwritten

[72:03]

and, you know, and he got a lot of energy behind that and very creative. And what I tried to kind of say, you know, there's a difference between like expressing yourself for the sake of expressing yourself and something that's actually going to say something to the other person. You know, I don't think she's going to get anything useful from that letter, except that this is an intense young man who she probably doesn't want to see again. So, and, you know, this to me is like, so we have a lot of things coming up into us, you know, whether it's sexual impulses or anger or whatever it is. And actually, you know, it's just like if you're a cook, you don't just serve everything the way it comes off the tree, you know, like olives, you know, you treat them, you know, and you treat them with lye or whatever and then they're soaked in olive oil or whatever or brine and, you know, they end up being edible, nourishing for somebody. And tea is the same way.

[73:04]

Lots of things, they take a lot of preparation before you actually serve it. So I don't see a problem with expressing something like that. I see like, why don't you hold on to it though for a few days anyway and see if it's really what you want to communicate, you know, if you actually think it's a useful communication to the other person besides the fact that it was a wonderful expression of, you know, your fiery energy and, you know, and that was great that you could express it and turn that into this piece. You know, but, you know, kind of sit with it a while and see if it's actually what you want to communicate. So I do think there's a difference and I do think when it's, you know, but, you know, the whole basis of that is to start with is to smile at your sexual organs, at your sexual impulses and to smile at them and acknowledge that it means that now you have a chance to, you know, have some harmonious relationship and work out how you actually express it in the world, rather than saying, no, I don't want to have anything to do with you and then you're on your own. Uh-oh!

[74:05]

No, then you'll, then anyway, then you'll have some, you know, different kind of, you'll have a difficulty when you don't do that, like you're saying. Yes? I'd like to extend the comment a little bit here where he talked about smiling and enjoyed this dialogue but I want to go on a little farther because I was I, it's different. I mean, women are different than men and I, you know, truly, when you, I was glad that you didn't go into, bring it up in front of me because I find as a woman, this is me personally and I'm not speaking for all of the women but I probably would find many that felt the same way that when you are doing a guided meditation you are entering someone's consciousness

[75:11]

and when you're doing a guided meditation about the body you are bringing images to the mind of another person quite often or you are eliciting in a way and that this is a very sensitive kind of situation and we are all people of different ages different backgrounds and different sexes and our bodies, the main difference is that one is external and one is internal and so it may be that some women are a little more sensitive about being intruded in that way and I think it's a very profound kind of thing to mess around with and I would advise against it and because for me personally I would find it intrusive, I don't want somebody else's consciousness intruding on my

[76:15]

genitals, okay, and so I get very, a little bit then I start getting defensive and say you know get out of here and so and so and then it's the man woman thing that I don't think needs to be perpetuated, I mean we've done this long enough and also there's a big difference in age a young man is going to have different smiles at his genitals than an old man and an old woman is going to have different smiles at her genitals than a young man and I just I just feel it's pretty profound and pretty intimate and we better have some respect in how we come together and meet those things, so that's my expression of what I have to say and I hope it was alright to express that Well I think some of that is what I

[77:18]

felt during the talk and I guess as far as that goes you know it kind of depends on the group you're in and this is a large group and a lot of people I don't know and it's kind of different if it's like on Thursday night and most of the people I've been sitting with them and something over some time so I do try to be a little bit more cautious in a larger group and people I don't know as well and haven't spent as much time with me so that we don't, where it's where it's not clear we understand each other and what the exercise is about and so forth and very much like what you're saying I try to be kind of aware of that and not unknowingly cross boundaries although sometimes it's a little unavoidable Yes I forget your name, what's your name? Kathleen. Kathleen I want to go back to what you were saying before about leisure I really appreciated that

[78:20]

I've had many years of leisure after raising my children and during that time I studied Aikido for a long time and used it it's necessary for me I guess you just did that about 40 hours a week and I can hardly imagine you know what that would be like, how to get everything done but I have a book at home called Touch the Earth about the Indians and there's a little thing one of the chiefs said something like this my sons will not work because if they work we cannot dream Well the it's interesting about work because it's so different like if you're at Green Gulch a place like Green Gulch or a place like Tassajara and where work isn't the same as it's not like you're going

[79:20]

out to work or off to work and so the work you're doing is part of the whole fabric of your life and it's not like somebody else is paying you to exploit you get your labor and they're paying you for that and when you work in a community and if the community is a healthy community at least you work in a community and then you see the results of your work in the community and you know your work is part of what makes the community a community and a healthy event and supportive of people's lives so it's a whole different sort of feeling than actually going out to work and you might under those circumstances work more than 40 hours a week but it's not like you're away from home or you're away from your community or you're isolated and sometimes work can also be kind of a nice community sometimes I've been at restaurants for instance

[80:21]

part of the only thing that makes a restaurant work which is so laborious what makes it possible is that it's like a community and the difficulty is because you're being there because it's your life and Joyce Goldstein who does Square One and who worked at Chez Panisse years ago she had a column in the Chronicle a few years ago and she said you know people who are waiters now she talked about the waiters that she knew had met in Italy where they remembered her 12 and 15 and 20 years later and what she had for dessert and she would walk into a restaurant and they'd say hi I'm going to save you there's only two of those left I'll save you one and she said you know nowadays people who are waiters they're aspiring actors and poets and authors they're only being waiters for a while until they can start their life and when a restaurant is like a whole

[81:23]

community and the waiters are there for 20 and 30 years and people are there it can actually be this whole event where it engages you in such a way that you don't feel sort of ripped off or exploited and you're part of this whole event and creating this whole event and it can feel very good and healthy so that's different than the kind of work situations where we go out and we actually sort of have abandoned our sort of home and community and situation and then we're sort of sacrificing our care of that to take care of this other thing which we get paid for which then supposedly we can use the money to take care of the other thing and it doesn't quite work out but I find a big difference as far as that goes what the work situation is and I feel personally much more willing to work for very little on behalf of a community and the life that I'm living

[82:24]

than if I'm going to go out and work some place and it's just for the money more in the sense of just for the money can I give somebody else a chance? excuse me yes what I hear you saying is that one's work ought to be very closely aligned with who they are because if your work that you spend so much time doing is not who you are then you're spending your whole life alienated from yourself and it is just work for profit it isn't a representation of your compassion in the world we keep trying to work that out and it's not always so easy in our society it's so obvious so it's something we work on but it is interesting to me recently I came across again that somebody was referring to Yvonne Illich's study that as far as the use of the automobile that actually when you add in the number of hours you spend in order to buy the car, the number of hours you spend to repair the car, the number of hours you spend

[83:26]

to maintain the car, you go five miles an hour and you think this car is really convenient and really getting you places but you forget about all the time you spent and if you add in all those hours you're not going much faster than walking and so that again is like so we've set up our lives in a way that now we're working to have the car which is going to get us places but if we just could have a job where we lived and didn't drive places and had more of our markets right there and stuff then we wouldn't be having to spend all that time to have the car and we could just walk here and there but it's all gotten askew because somebody wanted to make money selling cars not because of anybody's convenience or community or anything else and so the way our mind works is oh yeah I'm going to get a car and I can get places and you know we just forget the way it actually works when you factor everything in it's just like walking

[84:28]

there's a book called Your Money or Your Life I don't know the name of the author it's really excellent it shows how much you time out of your life to support a job and how much you actually make per hour it's a good example okay yes what about all those great lessons and those great teachers those jobs that are awful you mean the petty tyrants of the world yeah there's a great chapter in one of Don Juan's books the fire within or something yeah the chapter 2 or 3 is about petty tyrants and how wonderful it is to have a petty tyrant in your life and he has them all graded out from the petty petty tyrants who just harass you with their advice and their directives up to the top of the line petty tyrants who can have you

[85:33]

killed with the blink of the eye because they have that kind of control over your life and then he goes through this whole story about how helpful it was in his training Don Juan tells a story about how helpful it was for him to have this petty tyrant in his life so you may run into some petty tyrants and usually one of the petty tyrants we ourselves of course are the main petty tyrant but usually we can't work with our own petty tyrant directly we have to find the petty tyrant out there and then we go like my gosh that person is a real petty tyrant how do I relate to a petty tyrant and what do I do and eventually we may hit on a good strategy and then that helps us with our own petty tyrant you know how to work with that part of meditation of course is learning how to work with your own petty tyrant you know how you can be doing any number of things

[86:38]

and then some voice says well that wasn't very nice what you just said or you're doing well or you're not doing well you better get your life together there's this petty tyrant with those little big wet pieces of wood that they want to put on the fire to help you along you know to encourage you I finally said to my petty tyrant one day you know that's not helping I don't know if you've noticed but I've heard it's not helping yes you know this is really similar to what we've been saying not to disagree with what's been said but I think there is something to be gained sometimes from being willing to take on

[87:41]

being hard headed, really hard headed or really dealing with the marketplace even though you think it's crap there are some really important things to be learned about professionalism or about how to you know I don't know because I'm doing it so I don't have all the truth I could feel someone besides the stage you know I have a friend who's a symphony musician he worked with a teacher for a while that was really technical oriented and a lot of his students ended up just being complete technicians but they didn't have any inspiration and their careers kind of fizzled and that he himself for a while was really in that and somehow kind of found somebody who said forget all that stuff but that had he not been really hard headed about being a magician

[88:41]

he would be unbalanced now so there sometimes is I don't know when I was younger I worked in an office with this woman in my 20s this woman who had been in her early teens during the late 60s she totally bought into that tune out thing but she never tuned in she was just lost she was in her mid 30s and really lost and there were a lot of people who were on birthdays as well well we're familiar with that too we call that your typical zen student we call that zen slow you don't have to convince me it's one of the things that happens as soon as you say one thing

[89:46]

obviously there's the other side and we do need that kind of hard mindedness the problem is that that's all we have generally speaking we over emphasize that side and we're stuck in that side and so we forget about the soft mindedness and it's not the point to just go over to have no directedness but over the long run you have some harmonized one's soft mindedness is harmonized with one's hard mindedness and pretty soon you can't distinguish which is which and one's personality is adaptable and flexible enough so that one gets things done and also one has some soft mindedness and they go completely together and there's no separation so that's the kind of ideal that's right so you go overboard on one side or the other

[90:53]

as you go along the Rinzai school of zen agrees with you because part of the idea of sitting intensely and all of that is that you do exactly that you take your hard mindedness to the limit and you should do that in the right context you can take your hard mindedness to the limit and find out the limit of it and then it helps you to understand what that's about and how to work with it so anyway I don't see a problem about that and we do do that and you can take your soft mindedness and hopefully there's something in your life that helps you come back and notice where you are basically when you follow hard mindedness to the limit

[91:55]

you

[92:00]

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