Good morning. It's always this sort of mystery as to whether this thing is going to work or not. Before I begin my remarks for the morning, I want to make two requests of you. One is I would like you all to please sign in. There are three sheets on the table in the library so I can keep track of who has been here today. And if any of you are new and are not on the mailing list and would like to be, make sure you leave your name and address. My second request has to do actually with what I want to talk about today in the spirit of this most Buddhist of American holidays called Thanksgiving. I want to talk this morning about the practice of gratitude and I would be most grateful to you, as would our neighbor, if you please follow our request for parking when you come here and park out on the edge of Franks Valley Road.

[01:10]

And if there's some reason why that doesn't work so well for you, if you would talk to me or Bill first. We have pretty sensitive and painful relationship right now with our next door neighbor. and we will not be able to continue practicing together here if we cannot find a way to include her difficulty with all the cars in and out, etc. So, unless you make some specific arrangement, which is of course possible if that's necessary, but other than that, if you would please park on the very wide and safe shoulder of the road just off Highway 1 that leads up to Muir Woods. It's not a very long walk in. And we may be able to, I hope, salvage a good feeling with our neighbor if we can not have quite so much car activity in and out of the driveway.

[02:18]

I have for, I think, as long as I can remember, always felt great delight and joy with the Thanksgiving holiday. It makes such sense to come together with friends and family and to have a meal together and to have some time that we set aside explicitly for giving thanks or expressing our gratitude. It also, of course, makes great sense at this time when there is harvest to mark the fruits of the world that produces the food that we eat. And it's a great reminder for this practice that is emphasized so much in the Buddhist tradition of giving thanks, of expressing gratitude, There's a great line from D.T.

[03:27]

Suzuki, which I'll tell you in a moment. I want to tell you the story, that's the context in which I first heard this story, heard the line. A number of years ago, I was leading a Zen retreat at the Cambridge Buddhist Society in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when Maureen Stewart was still alive and was the teacher there. And we were doing a traditional seven-day Sashin. And on the evening of the sixth day, my daughter was scheduled to fly into New York to spend a day with some friends. And then I was, after the Sashin ended, going to go down to New York and spend a few days there with her. So we made an agreement that she would call me when she landed at Kennedy Airport on the evening of the sixth day of our retreat.

[04:38]

And her plane was due to arrive and her luggage was due to get in so that her call would come 15 or 20 minutes after the last sitting in the evening. So 9.30 came and went and no call. And 10 o'clock came and went and no call. And so on until about 1.30 in the morning when I finally got a call from her. She had had many difficulties. But she had in fact finally gotten to her, I don't remember now why she wasn't able to call me until then, but the upshot of it was that she'd arrived at her friend's house in a terrible neighborhood and hadn't been mugged or raped or whatever. and she was okay. But of course, in the intervening hours between when I expected her phone call and when I actually got it, I, in good mother fashion, envisioned every possible pillage and rape imaginable.

[05:49]

And I have an extremely good imagination. So I went to sleep and I thought, tomorrow is going to be a hard day because I was to get up at 4 or 4.30 to begin again for our final day of the retreat. I slept very well. I woke up at exactly when I needed to wake up. During the middle of the morning, Maureen and I were having a cup of tea together before I resumed the final round of interviews with everyone, and I said to her how surprised I was that I had not slept very many hours, but that I had awakened feeling quite refreshed, and that the day had in fact not only not been difficult, but that I had had some quite remarkable energy in the course of the morning sittings. And she said, oh, well, don't you know about the great quote from D.T.

[06:56]

Suzuki, don't worry, be grateful. And I thought, it just dropped right in. And I have chewed on that admonition from D.T. Suzuki ever since. Not quite what we think of as the antidote to worry, but extraordinarily effective. And much more possible to do than don't worry, be happy. Because, of course, what I've discovered is that I can express gratitude. I can make a little list of 10 things I'm grateful for, even if I'm gritting my teeth and just going through the motions. And even that expression of gratitude, that focusing on gratitude or appreciation, has some remarkable effect on my state of mind. And I was, of course, after I received the phone call from my daughter,

[08:04]

remarkably grateful that she was okay. And in fact, perhaps even in my sleep, but certainly during the morning sitting, what came up for me very easily was so much of what I could feel grateful for. The practice of gratitude and thankfulness and appreciation I think is a very potent practice. We have a cutting board, some of you may have seen it. It's made from an old, the top of an old stool. Belonged to a woman I took care of and was friends with. when she was practicing at the Zen Center in San Francisco a number of years ago. She came to be a resident practitioner when she was 83. Carrot red hair.

[09:06]

She wasn't able to negotiate the steps down to the meditation room, so she would meditate in the morning in her room, which was right behind my office, and then she would come on the same floor to where the Buddha Hall was for morning service. So I would usually, at the end of the morning sitting, go in and greet her. Good morning, Mrs. Fisk. And she would say, good morning, Yvonne. And how are all the little monks and monkesses? And then we would walk, you know, back to the Buddha Hall for the morning practice. I learned a great deal from her about the practice of appreciation and thankfulness. Anyway, when she died, She didn't have any family, and she left her trunk full of treasures, which included this cutting board, which, as I said, has all the earmarks of having, in a former life, been the seat part of a stool.

[10:24]

And on one side is carved, Be Thankful. And we keep our cutting board standing upright, so during the last weekend retreat, every time we would walk around the island and come that section in front of the sink and the dishwasher, there's the cutting board and it said, be thankful. Oh. I once again felt grateful to Mrs. Fisk for giving me her cutting board. And for the the incidence of that message arising just unexpectedly amongst the cutting boards. I think some of us have been discovering lately how effective the practice of gratitude is, especially as the antidote to judgment, to habitual judgment.

[11:25]

that the practice of 10 specific things I'm grateful for as the place I can place my mind when it's going on and on and on and on about how creepy and awful this and that is. I can literally pick up my mind, my attention, my focus, and place it on some very quick listing of what I'm grateful for. And the world seems to bloom in the face of the expression of gratitude and of appreciation. I have a friend who has a young son now, a budding adolescent. And earlier in the year, I had suggested to her because of some difficulties in her relationship with her son, who was being eminently prepubescent, that she, every time he did anything at all that she appreciated, that she'd tell him about it.

[12:44]

So after the summer holiday began, she took that on as a very clear focus to tell him every time, quite specifically, whatever it was she appreciated about what he did or said or the way he was being. And she said, it was like adding water to a parched plant. He just bloomed. She told me how surprised she was at the ease with which she could tell him what she appreciated. It wasn't hard to do. And she said, you know, I hadn't noticed how much in the day I appreciate about him, much less tell him about what those things are. And so what she discovered was that the more she expressed her appreciation, the more she discovered that there was to appreciate.

[13:48]

and that her child was more relaxed, beginning to do the kinds of things that a young boy about to be an adolescent may not be so sure he wants to do, sitting down and kind of hunkering into his mother's side, being a little cozy, being a little affectionate. Very importantly, being able to begin to tell her about the events of the day that had been difficult or challenging for him. She then had the shocking insight that maybe she might extend her appreciation practice to her husband. And of course, lo and behold, very similar consequences began to occur. A kind of appreciation epidemic in that household.

[14:56]

How many of us have had that experience of a kind of blooming? when someone tells us about something we've done or said or a way we have been that they appreciate. Can you ever remember receiving that expression of appreciation and feeling harmed by it? I don't think so. It is like water on a thirsty plant. I think particularly for us who have a kind of habitual crankiness, a kind of habitual capacity to not only see or notice what is wrong, but to make endless lists of all of those things that aren't quite the way they should be, the imperfections of our lives and the world we live in.

[16:11]

And so we begin to have this very out-of-balance experience who we are and where we are and what the nature is of our lives. I remember very vividly, now, some years ago, as I was walking from here up to Green Gulch for a meeting that I was very much not looking forward to, that I went to every week for a number of years. And I had the habit as I walked from here to the meeting of being progressively more and more cranky as I would pick up the coffee cups strewn along the path between the lower fields and downtown Green Gulch. And I would see piles of sodden produce boxes and tools left out in the field, etc.

[17:13]

And this particular day, I was just sick of it. And I made a very clear choice that I was going to place my energy on what I appreciate. Not that I didn't see and pick up the abandoned coffee cups. It was not at all that I didn't see the tools left out in the fog or the pile of boxes but a choice about where I put my attention. And I had this quite dramatic experience as though the world suddenly went from black and white to color. A quite physical experience of seeing the fullness of the world that I was walking through and part of. Because, of course, those very same fields are filled with very many beautiful plants.

[18:17]

Kill deer running around through the fields with their very characteristic cry. Droplets of water hanging on the branches, catching the light. A wonderful walk. only I hadn't been taking that particular walk. What was so striking to me was how immediate the change was, that literally I was in a different world. My state of mind changed dramatically with that decision to choose to place my energy on what I appreciate, what I'm grateful for. So I would commend this practice to every one of us regularly and often.

[19:21]

And particularly for those of us who have habitual crankiness or habitual worry, worry and flurry. Habitual judgment. which is so often about fear, isn't it? That we might think of this practice of gratitude that is the specifics of ten things, quick, ten specific things I'm grateful for. Some of us who sit together once a month in Berkeley have been doing this practice for the last month And I think from our discussion a few nights ago my sense is that it has been quite beneficial, quite beneficial. This time of year as we get into the holiday season beginning with Thanksgiving or I suppose maybe more and more beginning with Halloween.

[20:34]

But this time of year that has to do with the holidays and all kinds of expectations that we have about how it's supposed to be. For some of us, a lot of memories about things that have happened in the past that have been particularly difficult and harmful for us, perhaps. Anyway, a period of the year when there is the press release about how it's supposed to be and then there is our actual experience. Very importantly, the time of year when the days are becoming shorter in terms of the amount of daylight there is. More darkness and less light. And for some of us that transition is challenging. So I would say particularly between now and through the winter solstice or through Christmas and Hanukkah until the new year is a time when it is not only in the season, in the press release, but also a great benefit to be practicing gratitude in all of its many, many, many formations and expressions.

[22:04]

gratitude, the expression of thanks, thanksgiving, appreciation, endless variations on the theme. Each one of us can find a way to shape our particular focus on the cultivation of gratitude in a way that fits for us in our lives. It may be making that listing whenever we notice some negative thought of quick ten things I'm grateful for. Or as an antidote specifically to judgment. Or to tape somewhere on the mirror in the bathroom or the refrigerator door or on the end of our nose D.T. Suzuki's line about don't worry be grateful. I also think there is such a wonderful relationship between gratitude and generosity.

[23:15]

This is the territory in the tradition of mind training, these qualities that we can cultivate that are said to lead directly and immediately to the cultivation of happiness. And I think that's quite accurate. The danger I think that we may fall into is when we try to cultivate these qualities in general. And what I want to encourage for each of us is that we consider how to cultivate these various qualities in particular. That we be willing to stay with what's possible in the moment, in very small appreciations, very small expressions of gratitude, very small expressions of the quality of generosity, that we don't try to do something big and grand, that this cultivation of the particular aspects of the mindstream that have to do with gratitude and generosity will

[24:36]

begin to arise from the tiny things that we may do. I also think that there's an interesting opportunity, particularly with our encounters with impermanence, that can give us a chance to cultivate gratitude. This has been coming up for me in the last little while. I periodically, not all the time, but periodically and particularly with all of the dampness we've been having. I have a certain kind of discomfort in my hand, particularly in this joint, sometimes in both hands.

[25:46]

Kind of prelude, preview, not prelude, preview of coming attractions. And I have so many possible responses. I think as a result, some fruits of some years of practice, what interests me is that my response to these little discomforts, these little aches, little stabs in my fingers and joints, is to be very grateful that I can use my hands today. Was it yesterday? No. Two days ago I took our practice cat. Bill, in particular, has a practice cat named Melanie. She is his great opportunity for the cultivation of kindness.

[26:52]

She lives in his study and does nasty things. Because she... That's just the way Melanie is. Anyway, Melanie had a claw that had grown into the pad of her foot and had grown when we finally got it out. It was really long, you know, like that, curved in. So I took her to the vet. It was a task I didn't feel up to dealing with by myself. There I am with the carrier going up the steps to the veterinarian's office. which are fairly steep. And I had this flash of remembering a trip that Bill and I took almost two years ago when we went to Vienna. And we went, there was a particular museum that had an exhibit of Buddhist sacred art from the Silk Route, which we both very much wanted to see.

[27:56]

And what I remembered on Thursday morning going up the steps to the vet's office was that on that trip, because we had to go the exhibit, which of course we'd gone all this distance to see, was on the second floor of this very grand building with many steps. And I remember having trouble with my hip and not being able to get up the steps very easily. I remember not being able to walk very well and definitely not able to maneuver the steps And that physical memory came back to me Thursday morning as I went up the steps. And I thought, oh, look at me walking up these steps carrying our beloved 12-pound practice cat with no twinges with ease. Oh. How often do we notice

[29:04]

something like our being able to walk or write and have some sense of gratitude for that capacity. We notice these abilities that we have only when they begin to fade. So we also have the opportunity of meeting discomforts of all sorts with this practice, this focus on appreciating what the discomfort shows me. I've been not noticing, just assuming, well, of course I'm alive, I can walk. Those two things don't go together at all, necessarily. The wonderful story that Bill told me about a couple of weeks ago, that someone we know was reporting from working on a movie on Lawrence Vanderpost, a story about how someone who was with him in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, as this man was unloading some ammunition from a truck or something like that,

[30:38]

Whatever he was handling blew up and he lost his hands and his sight. And when he was in the operating room, he pleaded with the doctors to kill him. He couldn't imagine life without his hands or his sight. And he then recounted, now as an old man, how Vanderpost sat with him during his healing time every day. reminding him that life is more than hands and eyes. And how grateful he was to Vanderpost for his good company and his reminder about some bigger frame. I told this to a friend of mine who has just this summer lost his sight. and is having a very difficult time, is so filled with regret for all the things that he didn't do when he had sight, and which now, if he wants to do them, are much more challenging and difficult.

[32:00]

He was particularly grieving over having not gone to the meditation center near where he lives when he had sight so that he could now know where he was and find his way. Now if he wants to go there, he is completely dependent upon someone guiding him, someone else being his eyes. So when I went to see him recently, he was filled with regret and a lot of recrimination. being very hard on himself. I was not sure if I was being skillful when I told him this story about the man who'd lost his hands and eyes. But I took my chances. I had some confidence in my friend's ability to let himself have a bigger frame.

[33:06]

And I told him the story, and he immediately said, oh, oh yes, that's right. He knew. He had just forgotten. You know the line from the coyote stories? Whenever some old woman tells coyote some wise, insightful thing, and coyote says, oh, I just forgot. So my young friend who has lost his sight had that kind of response to this story. Oh, oh, yes, I just forgot. I am alive and I have dear friends and there are people who help me. And he then told me this wonderful story, which I think those of us who do walking meditation have a little taste of this, what happens when we, especially outside, are doing walking meditation and keep our eyes down, what happens with the other senses.

[34:12]

He told me about how he has a teacher, I can't remember what he called her, a mobility teacher, someone who comes and is kind of guiding him through learning how to be mobile in the world on his own. And there's a grocery store about a block or block and a half from where he lives. So one of the things his mobility teacher has been doing is teaching him how to go to the grocery store, how to get to the grocery store. So the day that he was telling me about, he was walking to the grocery store with his mobility teacher kind of right there in case he made some big mistake, and he said, aren't we just about at the grocery store? I can smell produce. And she said, yes, you're standing directly in front of the front door going into the market, and the door is open. And he was, as he told me about this, quite delighted with the

[35:23]

experience he is having of this heightened sense of smell. Delight. Capacity. One of the Important things about the cultivation of gratitude is that we be very modest and that we stay with very small things. So there's no quality of forcing or pushing, no quality of talking to ourselves in our mind about should or ought to. It doesn't work to badger or beat ourselves into gratitude. We can do it somewhat mechanically. We can do it including some resistance, but not with any forcing.

[36:30]

So I mention this because I've had two experiences just this past week. where someone has come to talk to me about a big event in their lives which has left them feeling tremendous amount of grief. And one woman in particular whose very young daughter was diagnosed earlier this year with a brain tumor When she went to talk to a therapist, the therapist said, as she was leaving, you know, at some point in your life, you will be grateful for this experience. There will be some great benefit from this experience. And of course, the woman who was speaking to me was not thrilled with that message. It was, the timing was not superb.

[37:45]

even though what this therapist was telling her was probably quite accurate. But from the outside, to be pushing someone to be able to see what will be of benefit that is embedded in the midst of our suffering is not kind. This is where... You know, the Buddha's admonition, if something is true and harmful, don't say it. The harmful part being that kind of should. Now, now. And I've thought a number of times since I met with this person, I've thought a number of times about how much we can do that kind of thing to ourselves also. comes up around you should be grateful, and it comes up around you should be forgiving.

[38:48]

And there is something about timing. There's something about allowing gratitude, allowing our potential, our possibility for forgiveness, rather than pushing or forcing. So that's what I have to offer for this morning. What I'd like to... It was in the interest of not tripping and breaking one's neck and suing us and taking us away in some basket. Okay, now... Again, the etymology of... Of gratitude and gratefulness. The root sense is to express pleasure, or praise, or appreciation.

[40:41]

The comment I wanted to make is that this whole array of practices, generosity, gratitude, appreciation, and sympathetic joy, are wonderful in that long term. concentration. Well, I also think, and I know you've heard me say this before, but I think it bears reminding ourselves, this, what we're talking about, is the ground from which we can then proceed.

[41:58]

That the cultivation of other qualities on the bodhisattva path depend upon the thoroughness and the fullness, the saturation of the mind with the quality of generosity and gratitude. And so I think that's a piece of the no limitations here. Sandy? A comment and a question. Last weekend walking my little path out there and realizing, oops, I got that Wednesday homework to do about gratitude finally did 10 things to be grateful for and realized as I was walking that in my press release, as you say, I have a couple of big deal things to me that invite

[43:11]

in myself and actually maybe even from other people to support resentment. I feel resentful for this, I feel resentful for that, past, present. And watching in my walking with a very gentleness noticing, bringing loving-kindness to that awareness of whoa, what a press release, and especially when it's so supported by the outside world. And then where I stopped and just was grateful for looking at that and not adding another layer of what a bad person you are for having that press release. And then, all of a sudden, I was wanting to do the gratitude exercises, and it was okay.

[44:19]

It was interesting how I totally blanked out until that point, could do that, and very powerful to notice this labeling I've done, and has caused me great anguish and despair. And my question around it all is that I have great difficulty not living in the world of shows and autos and rule books. And I take to that so quickly. And I'm also a master magician at cover-up. And so I'm trying to work this practice without just doing a finely polished whitewash, and it certainly helps to be specific. I got that piece, but can you say more about, because I'm definitely, I don't know how to not bring a shig to this.

[45:26]

Well, what comes up in my mind immediately is how important I think, and I know this myself, but I observe it with other people a lot, that we have a kind of misunderstanding that we go from where we are to doing it right in a single leap like Superwoman or Superman, and that in the path of cultivation and mind training, the way we proceed is with a willingness to notice what is so. That if I'm going to eventually allow the falling away of should and ought, that has to include my willingness to notice the incidents of should and ought as they occur in my speaking and in my thoughts. And unless I'm willing to include using should and ought and being able to notice when I do that and how it functions in the detail of it and to hang out with that and understand that using, being engaged in should and ought thinking is on the step, on the path of falling away of should and ought.

[46:49]

that this is the way I begin. So I should let you stay. You have no choice. This is true. You have no choice. And the minute you say, ah, can't do that, this is what Jnanapanika Muli refers to as a kind of inner violence, where we're saying, I have to get rid of this. And the whole path is about cultivating my willingness for bringing awareness to what is so. And it's the awareness. It's not, I have to change this, I have to get rid of this. That will happen inevitably as a consequence of awareness. If I show up and begin to see the consequences of should outline, and we've been talking about how habitual lying works in this person's life. And as a consequence of noticing in detail specific lying and what it's costing him,

[47:56]

he is absolutely ready to let it go because he sees in terms of causes and conditions and he doesn't have to try to get rid of it. It's just falling by the wayside because he's beginning to realize how much of his suffering is a direct consequence of this habit. So that's why this whole emphasis in Buddhism on being able to see clearly and that's really it. And I think most of us have in mind a lot more efforting, trying, doing, and we end up repeatedly, if you'll excuse the expression, shooting ourselves in the foot with all this energy to try to be different than we are. And it ends up being a very stuck place. It doesn't work. I can't just say, oh, I'm going to excise this part of myself or this particular mental habit. So yes, you should continue with your use of should and ought.

[49:04]

You know the bumper sticker about don't should on me? Find a few and put them on our bumpers. Drive around behind each other. I just, I don't think it's possible to work with some pattern with this you know, the big stick and the flashlight. And of course, what's so interesting to me is that when I can turn towards a habit or tendency like that with tenderness and with kindness, with observing, I begin to observe all kinds of shifting, change, dissolving, without me doing anything. And I think that the habit of you should or you ought to is particularly tenacious.

[50:14]

It's a version of judging. Somehow what I am doing isn't okay because I've got this category of what I should do. The other focus that you might find fruitful is to pay attention to what you do primarily motivated by obligation. Obligation that you may not even be particularly aware of. That can be quite illuminating. Well one way that's translating in this practice vis-a-vis you is homework. You should be doing your homework. Well, the Thursday class ended, so... So just bring my should and oughts to the gratitude practice and working with antidotes and watch how I do all of this. It may be that you're doing too many practices.

[51:32]

It may be that you could just do one really thoroughly and forget about them. They're on the shelf for another time. What do you mean by obligation? It sounds like code. To ask myself, what is my motivation? in doing something, something I think I should do. And to begin to see that my decision to do something arises from a sense of obligation that I feel but I haven't examined and haven't consciously picked up or put down. That the very process of making it more conscious means I have the opportunity for being more intentional about the bouquet of obligations that I intend to hold and the ones that I just keep keeping on without being entirely aware of what I'm doing.

[52:39]

Now, I may decide to do something because I feel an obligation to someone in the context of some relationship to follow through on something or other, but having some intentionality, some consciousness about that quality in a relationship I think makes a big difference. Because for one thing, some of us have a tendency to load up our obligation cart a lot and to do things almost blindly and feel buried under a lot of obligation. Sad? Unpack it enough? Oh, and a ray, Seema. I don't like discussions of gratitude usually. You're not grateful for a gratitude. I was not grateful for a gratitude discussion.

[53:44]

My practice is actually observing what's going on for me as it's going on today and I noticed as by the time that you finished the talk I was able to take in some of the I was able to take it in without so much resistance. I don't have a problem with judgment just before I do. Sure. Now you know there's a very ancient practice. You stand up in the middle of the room and you stamp your feet and you go, I don't want to, I don't have to, you can't make me, I'm too little at the top of your lungs. Anyway, actually what I was noticing and what I wanted to raise my hand was the issue of not forcing in practice. I would refuse at this point to try to make a gratitude list with 10 things, quick 10 things.

[54:48]

Quick means in a week or so I'd probably be under the covers in my house with the phone turned off. And yeah, I can't say that there's nothing that I feel grateful for, but it's that sense of I should feel grateful. And when I was thinking about the way I was raised and the fact that in the last three years I've been dealing with some fairly traumatic material regarding my childhood, I got a lot of you should be grateful for or you should be thankful for. So when I was being told to be grateful and thankful for some of the great things that were hurting me, I should be thankful for everything, no matter what. So when anybody now says the word gratitude, it's like, I'm out the door. The point you're making, I think, is extremely useful. It was at the end of your talk, and I was glad that I could have stayed put long enough to hear that, which was that you talked about not forcing, and what I've noticed in the last three years through emotional breakdown

[55:49]

post-traumatic stress symptoms and the whole gamut of difficult stuff, is that one thing that did happen as a result of all that was that I did start to be more awake and more aware and present with what is so. So I can't do a gratitude list with 10 things, but most days I can find one thing, and that one thing is I'm aware of my pain today, or I'm aware that I don't want to go to work today, or whatever it is, I'm aware today. at this moment, and it was when I realized, oh, I can make a gratitude list. It's got one thing on it, but each day, and that doesn't mean I have to be grateful about anything else. I think it's that sense of forcing. It's like I can force myself to find 10 things. Yeah, I can, but that's violence. I'm committing violence. But the gratitude list is not about what I should feel grateful for. It's a list of things that I do feel grateful for. And I guess what I'm saying, just in terms of the practice, or maybe it's a question that's not being stated in a question form, is I guess I'm trying to deal with the not forcing issue and the willingness and allowing the gratitude, the awareness of gratitude to come up as it does, so that today I'm willing and able to be aware of the fact that I'm awake, and I'm also aware of my resistance to gratitude, to the issue of gratitude.

[57:16]

Slowly over time I've been noticing minutes, like nanoseconds, of gratitude that I could drive my car over the hill today. I was very grateful I could get myself in the car and start the car and actually get over here, or grateful that there were three people in the room, the size of the building I know. I'm not sure exactly what the point was, I guess I just really wanted to, the thing that struck me the most was the issue of not forcing and allowing, because I think particularly, well, all practitioners in all sorts of modes, but in this community as well. We all want to do so well. We really want to, I want to do so well. And that often involves some forcing or shooting. And when we do that, when we do the forcing and the shooting, we are not practicing in an authentic way. We're not bringing ourselves as we are. You know, Katagiri Roshi used to talk a lot about be yourself.

[58:18]

Just be yourself. And we are not able to practice in an authentic way when we take on being someone we think we should be. So when I talk about making a list of 10 things I'm grateful for, I'm talking about things that if I allow myself to think about, I can list easily. The fact that I can sit with some ease that the, you know, Thich Nhat Hanh talks about the toothache you don't have. The physical discomfort from the sciatica in my right leg or the ache in my hip is not present. So I easily have some sense of gratitude for the willingness of my legs and body to be in this posture. to have a place where we can sit together.

[59:22]

To have had, for whoever did it, there was something in the refrigerator to have for breakfast this morning. So when I talk about making a list of 10 things, I don't mean to suggest something that's going to be hard for me to do, that I'm going to have to plow through a lot of a difficulty with big effort. On the other hand, there is effort involved if I'm using the gratitude practice as an antidote to judgment. There's a certain amount of attitude in hauling my awareness away from the habitual magnetic pull of judgment and placing it over here on this roadway called, well, what's up that you're grateful for right now? That's where the efforting may come with dislodging my awareness from the magnetic pull of what's familiar.

[60:27]

But in terms of focusing on gratitude, if there's any tone or whisper of trying or shoulding or talking oneself into it, that's not what I'm talking about at all. But, you know, that somebody over there was saying about noticing. And for me, for many of us, I guess maybe the awareness that I'm not grateful is something to be grateful for. Maybe it's just that we can be self-aware. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Because then what you're talking about is some quality of willingness. I can't notice what I'm not willing to notice. Gary? I heard you talk about two things that could be seen as opposites and they resonate with something inside me too.

[61:33]

You talked about gratitude, things I'm grateful for. What it resonates with inside me is that when I'm in a negative space in general, when I start listing what I'm grateful for, the other little voice comes up pretty quickly and says, you know, but there's all this other stuff that's not here and it just makes me, sometimes it makes me feel sadder and it feels like, yeah, there's that, but what about that? Well, you're talking about mental habits. You know, and this quote that I love from Tom Cleary about the nature of delusion being that we listen to certain kinds of mental talking and believe it as though it were true.

[62:46]

It's just yapping. Just thoughts. Those are thoughts. And, you know, if you keep coming back to noticing, you begin to notice that the consequence of certain kinds of negative thoughts is sinking energy and sadness and real consequences. See, my experience is that if I am willing to notice the mark of impermanence, I mean Bill is one of my major impermanence objects of impermanence, I regularly call to mind the fact, just the fact, inarguable fact, that each of us will die and we do not know when or how. And what arises for me from reminding myself about that is a sense of treasuring and enjoying and being deeply grateful for the time we have together this morning.

[63:54]

Not with trying to have that gratitude arise, But it just, it does. And if I'm busy bargaining about, but I want six more, then it means I'm in the future and I'm not enjoying this morning. And of course, that's another one of these wonderful habits that we have. Going to the future and or the past. And we wonder, where did my life go? Where is it? It's not, I don't see it anywhere. It's because it just, flitters by without me noticing because my attention is somewhere else. So, you know, one of the kinds of mental talk that can be the effect of or the expression of what I call the saboteur is the yes but statements. Yes but. Yes but. And the consequences of that kind of habit

[64:58]

can be great grief and sadness and unhappiness. I mean, if I listen, if I listen to and pay attention to all the voices that in my mind that are telling me about you better be careful and you're you're going to be unhappy about this if it doesn't last and all that sort of stuff. I have to get to the point where I know my mind stream well enough to know what thoughts are reliable and what thoughts are to be noted but not believed. Because there's quite a difference, I've noticed. Some thoughts are just, they're just thoughts, they're like these bubbles in the cartoon strips. Not reliable descriptions of the nature of things.

[66:02]

How do we make the distinction, you know? It's one of the reasons why having some company makes such a difference. When I get too lonely and only have my own thoughts, I may get more confused about what I listen to is reliable and what is perhaps not so reliable. I'm a great believer in keeping myself and my friends in a feedback system so I have some sense about which is which. Oh, well, so I've been taking this practice pretty fiercely since Wednesday night. Fierce. Fierce gratitude. There is a... But not trying too hard. No. Alright.

[67:06]

It takes a lot of alertness. Alright. Okay. A lot of alertness. That's every negative thought in my mind. Okay. So anyway, I mean, I like it. I've seen a lot of judgment, you know, about what I eat, what I look like, you know, the regulars. But I hadn't really anticipated, you know, how much judgment that I leveled against myself. And in particular, since I, you know, was laid off my job on Tuesday, I realized I really gotta get the deprivation and money thing. This would be a great moment for me to meet this challenge. So last night, I had dinner with a 77-year-old friend who's just very wise. And essentially, she talked to a crowd of people. It was very perverse. You're surrounded. You know, not minding what other people have and just being pleased with what you have. You know, she's very happy.

[68:07]

And it was kind of mind-boggling, really. And she said, don't even worry about my emails. And I thought, oh my God. Don't worry. Be grateful that you lost your job. I mean, she's not a Buddhist. But she did leave. Buddhists do not have a corner on the truth. But anyway, it was really interesting. I don't know that I had exactly expected that. But I really like her attitude towards life and towards other people a lot. And I think that's what I wanted. Now I want to make one comment in response to your description of being a little surprised at how much judging you're aware of, particularly directed against yourself. I think that description about judgment, habitual judgment, I hear it often.

[69:09]

that what is habitual is so unconscious that it's a real piece of news to find out, wow, I didn't have any idea I was talking to myself this way. So that first level of noticing is really important. Because then you begin to get a sense of, oh, this is a very strong, pervasive pattern for me to have some awareness of. Yeah, I mean, I take all shoulds, ought tos, not like, whatever. I take all those as judgments. I think they are. And it's really been kind of neat to have to list 10 things very quickly. I have a range of things now, depending on the moment. Yeah. You know. So, persevere. Yes, I am.

[70:10]

Fiercely, yes. Fiercely. Fierce is actually a pretty interesting word, I think, because, you know, this is one of the sort of possibilities that I know from the Tibetan Buddhist sacred art. this notion that there can be fierce compassion. I mean, the kind of emanation that you don't want to meet in a dark alley unless you've really got your act together. Fierce as in serious, with full energy. Because there are some situations where that's what's called for. So sometimes called fierce and sometimes called terrific. Oh, I remember terrific. The terrifics. Yeah, and those were the ones I really liked. Yes, that makes sense. It means wild. It comes from pharaohs. Undomesticated. Dickens said, tame birds sing of freedom, but wild ones fly.

[71:11]

Yes, yes. Ferocious. Yes. There was a figure you told me about one day about having ferocious compassion, and she learned that for a long time. Palden Lama, who is the Dalai Lama's protectress, is the most fierce form of compassion I know of. And she means business. You do not mess. Yes, you do not mess with her. Very serious. On her donkey, going through a sea of, you know, we don't need to get into the details. It's a powerful, powerful image. Powerful. Really powerful. One of the things that occurred to me this week as I was thinking about gratitude was that I think that I tried to use something that was akin to gratitude all my life as a defense against being in the experience of being in situations that were otherwise hard to tolerate and not being aware of the other feelings that I had of resentment or anger or grief or assertiveness.

[72:24]

So, and one of the things that I want to do now is be aware of those feelings more in myself. And so, when I first heard the exercise, my thought was, well, this is going to be an obstacle for me to have those other feelings. But I think that the problem is that I'm making a dichotomy where there doesn't need to be one between gratitude and other feelings that I haven't wanted to let myself happy for? Yeah, I think that's accurate, and that in fact, the more I'm able to allow gratitude as it arises in some genuine way, I actually have an increased capacity for what may be dark and challenging to be with. That my actual capacity to be with myself, whatever is arising, benefits. So, you know, what you're saying reminds me again of how important it is for me to ask myself, what is my motivation?

[73:34]

Because I may do all kinds of so-called good practices where the motivation is unwholesome and so the practice becomes an exercise in that kind of perversion. So I think what motivates me to do a particular practice will always be very important to check into. We can use the whole path for hiding and for protection. And then, what are we doing? We're hiding. Well, I hope you all have a happy and a happy Thanksgiving. That's enough. And thank you very much for being here. Those of you who are going to stay for lunch, you're welcome to. We have the tables here we can put down. How many people are going to be here for lunch?

[74:36]

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. So we need eight, nine tables. Now I have one request. Please don't dribble. because we have a wedding here. We got really clean yesterday, and we have a wedding tonight. So we have to only inhale and don't dribble. It's all right. We can clean up afterwards. So we'll have lunch until lunch and hanging out until 1.30. And then I'd like to have a quiet time for people who are going to stay for the seminar so we can have a rest period from 1.30 to 2.00. And those of you who are going to stay for the seminar will sit at 2.00 and begin the seminar at 2.30.

[75:36]

And when we finish with our lunch, we need to take the cushions and what we need for the seminar over to the Buddha Hall, which is where we're going to do the seminar today. so that wedding preparations can begin. Do you want those tables outside? I don't know, we'll figure it out in a minute. I haven't thought that far. Michael? Oh, the seminar you're speaking of, is that what I think you... If I remember correctly, you said it's the precepts study? No. Or is this something... No, this is, we're actually studying sutras. Oh, sutras. And we meet, we have a sutra study group that meets in the afternoon of the days we have half-day sittings. And we are currently studying the sutra on dependent origination. And we are into our second, this will be our third meeting.

[76:39]

or second meeting, I can't remember. We did the first meeting twice, so it's really our second meeting. And we tend to be studying very slowly. We do what we do very slowly. And how late into the day does that go? We end at five and we sit for half an hour. We have a two and a half hour sutra study with a little tea break in the middle. Is this something you can join? Yes, you may join. You may plunge yourself into studying sutras. It's not much fun if you don't study a little. And it's an effort to corral our wishing we would study by doing it together. It's a little bit the blind leading the blind. We're really studying together. and having the great, I think, the great benefit of talking together about, now what does this mean?

[77:43]

Which can be quite helpful. And because Bill is an practiced student, he digs around in all the various and sundry commentarial literature and helps us with figuring out how to study. And I think that particularly because for a lot of us we have a certain kind of fear around intellectual study as practice. One of the things we're doing, a group of us have been studying together for a while, really helping to discover the great benefits of that. But definitely people are welcome to join us. We tape the seminars so if people miss a seminar they can always fill in. This particular sutra that we're working on right now is an extremely important one. and dance, but worth the digging. And what is the fee for the study? It's $10 for the afternoon. And could I try it out just, for example, this afternoon?

[78:48]

You could come as a voyeur and see what you thought. You'd be more than welcome to come in that role. Sort of smell it out. Absolutely. More than welcome to join us. I would never encourage anybody to do something they hadn't taste-tested first. So, take good care of yourselves and thank you for coming. Then you'll need one more for lunch.

[79:14]

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