Everybody has problems, of course, and lately one of my problems is I'm having a hard time preparing dharma talks, and I think the reason why is because I really don't feel like giving dharma talks right now, which is unusual. I usually get a big kick out of it. But I kind of putter around in my study and pull books off shelves and scratch my head. I like doing that, and then I like coming to give the talk because it's a wonderful exchange of energy. Even though I'm doing all the talking, it's really a communication, I think, between us, and I like that. But lately, I haven't been in the mood, and I mean, I have a lot of energy to practice

[01:02]

with people and really enjoy that, and talk to people and so on, but when it comes to preparing for a dharma talk, not much happens, which is very inconvenient since right now there's a practice period and I have to give a lot of talks. Sometimes I don't have to give that many talks, so this is the wrong time to feel that way. So I sit there, and I can't really think of anything to say. What would you say? I mean, it seems like our practice is so supremely simple that what would anybody want to say about it? There's an old saying in Zen, you know, like giving a dharma talk is like taking a perfectly good sirloin steak and then gouging it with a knife, you know, making a big mess out of

[02:07]

it. Why would you want to do that? It seems like talking about it is an exaggeration. So all we do is, you know, we sit on these little black cushions, then the bell rings and then we get up, and we try to do whatever it is we're doing, and it could be anything. Well, not anything, but a lot of things. With a full heart and full sincerity, and then we try to be as kind as we can to one another, and that's about it, you know. What are you going to say about that? And, I mean, I realize that there are tremendous numbers of books written about this. Tremendous numbers. I mean, I keep getting these books in the mail, you know, books written over and over,

[03:08]

and I think, wow, you know, all these books. And I know that they're, you know, very engaging and entertaining teachings. I mean, I know myself, especially right now, I'm reading the oldest teachings from the Pali Canon, and it's really wonderful to read them, but, I mean, more or less, it just comes down to you sit down, and you get up, you do something, and you sit back down, and that's about it. Now, so today's talk is actually one in a series of talks that I'm giving to the practice period. So the rest of you who aren't in the practice period, your eaves is dropping, okay? You're just listening in, and hopefully it's not too boring. So for those of us in the practice period, it may seem funny that I just said what I

[04:14]

said about not feeling like giving talks, because just the other night I gave a talk that ran to about an hour and a half or so, and in that talk I said, gee, I feel like giving hundreds of dharma talks, remember? I have so many things I want to say, I feel like giving hundreds of dharma talks, which is true also. So I feel like giving hundreds of dharma talks at times, and then I, you know, start giving one of these hundreds of dharma, you know, like taking notes and writing down for one of these hundreds of dharma talks, and then I can't think of anything to say, and I figure it's probably because I really don't feel like giving any talks. But then, you know, one has to do it, so you start in, and then you think of too many things, and you go and you give a talk, and it goes an hour and a half, and you feel, boy, I said too much. Then you walk away, and afterward you think about what you said, and you think to yourself,

[05:17]

geez, I didn't say anything at all, you know? So, it's pretty confusing, all these different things, pretty contradictory and confusing, and I'm confused about it, but that's the wonderful thing about Zen training, you know, the bell rings, you go to Zazen, then it rings again, you get up, they ring a different bell, you go to a work meeting, they hit the clappers, you do something else, so, you know, when it's time to give the talk, the bell rings, you go and you give the talk, right? It doesn't really matter that much how you feel about it, I mean, not that you're unaware of how you feel about it, or you ignore how you feel about it, you know, you feel this way, you feel that way, and you feel a lot of different ways maybe, but you just go ahead and do what you're supposed to do when the bell rings. So, I was sitting there in my little hut, and there was a fox sitting outside on the

[06:23]

ground in the sun, and I was doing Zazen, as if I would never have to give another talk, you know, just sitting there, it was very pleasant, but then the bell rang and I realized, it's the end of the second round, I better get up and go give the talk. So, we have our various thoughts and feelings, but life goes on, and life creates us along the way. We create life, but life creates us. Not that we're passive, it could sound like we're passive, you know, we do various things, as long as we're alive, we're going to do various things, and we have various feelings, but we're not in control, we're not making what happens, happen, we're co-operating,

[07:30]

right, co-operating. We're operating, and the universe is operating, we're co-operating, and that's our life, and there's no use complaining, and I think there's a lot of fun in this too, and this is a good way, I think the alternative, whoops, I lost my reverberations, the alternative is to, you know, live in the middle of a raging storm, perhaps, pushed and pulled around by our thoughts and our feelings, blown around like trees in a storm, and getting drenched in and broken apart by our emotions and desires, and a lot of us have been through that, and that's too hard, I think, it's too difficult to live that way, and I don't think we would want to keep that

[08:38]

up for very long. So Buddha had a pretty powerful experience, and set his heart to rest, and come to think of it, he didn't feel like giving dharma talks either, but the gods talked him into it, and the first way that he thought to talk about his experience was what we call the Four Noble Truths, and I know you have all heard of the Four Noble Truths, right, everybody knows, and I think it's wonderful that he called the Four Noble Truths the Noble Truths, because they are truths that if we relate to them deeply and with all our heart,

[09:48]

they will ennoble us, they will provide a way for us to live a noble and dignified existence. Whether we like it or not. And instead of being trees broken and crashed around by wind, we can be tall, stately trees, maybe like redwoods at Muir Woods, just gently swaying a little bit in the wind and making a beautiful sound. So I think it's wonderful that they're noble truths. So the first of the Four Noble Truths says that discomfort or dissatisfaction

[10:49]

is pervasive and unavoidable. Now, often the English word used to translate the word dukkha, which is the word I'm talking about, is suffering, but today I've maybe translated it as dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction is pervasive and unavoidable. Sometimes we notice, powerfully notice, this dissatisfaction. Other times we think that everything's great and we don't notice it at all, but it's still there and it's piling up debris behind us as we're merrily going along with our lives thinking everything's fine, but actually this dissatisfaction is still there. It's because it's pervasive and piles are happening behind our back. But whether we know it or not, there is this dissatisfaction all the time and that's the first

[11:55]

noble truth. The second one is that there is a clear cause for this dissatisfaction and the cause is desire, because very naturally it seems like we always want something slightly more than what's there, or a lot more, but at least a little bit more, and so naturally we're dissatisfied with what's in front of us. This is the second noble truth. The cause of dissatisfaction is desire. And the third truth says that dissatisfaction can be truly set to rest, can truly be put aside or put behind us. And the fourth noble truth sets forth the path that we need to tread in order to set dissatisfaction to rest. So, four noble truths. Dissatisfaction, the origination or cause of dissatisfaction, the end of dissatisfaction, and the way to go

[13:05]

to end or stop dissatisfaction. So in all this you see how crucial some kind of consideration of desire is. Desire is really the pivot point in all this. So in our practice it's crucial that we have to focus some attention on desire and learn to practice with desire. Now we have to be subtle about this. It's a tricky business. If we think that what we're going to do here is eliminate desire, since desire causes dissatisfaction, I think that we will have a mess on our hands. I think we will do violence to ourselves if we think that way and practice that way. And we will make ourselves very unhappy, not too easygoing, very rigid.

[14:10]

And maybe we will feel very guilty about practically everything that we do. And maybe we will even go crazy a little bit, or we can make other people around us crazy with our plan to eliminate desire. So I think we need a more subtle analysis than this, because that's what would naturally, I think, come to mind, logically come to mind. But it won't work. Once, some years ago, I had a big insight into this, my own desires. And so that's what I want to tell you about. I want to tell you about this insight, although I'm not really sure whether it will make any sense to you or not, but I'm going to try to tell you about it. One day, I realized, it was very startling to me to realize this,

[15:19]

I realized that every desire that arose in me was already satisfied. It was already satisfied. When a desire arises, even if you don't act on it, you don't do a thing about it, just in the arising of the desire itself, it is already satisfied, there is already satisfaction. The desire comes up in all its fullness and beauty, just like a sunset, you see. And there it is. And it's wonderful, you can really enjoy it. And then, naturally, since it comes up in that way and it's already satisfied, it very gently rolls away.

[16:26]

Now, before I had that insight, I always imagined that every desire that arose posed a question to me. How are you going to get rid of me? Or how are you going to satisfy me? There was always that question that arose with each desire, and so I had that problem to deal with it, and I was dissatisfied. But then, like I say, one day I saw that each desire was already satisfied. It was already complete. It didn't need me to do something to make it complete. That the desire was full and beautiful, just as it was. So, sexual desire, desire for food, desire for fame, desire for justification, all the millions of desires that we have, all these things are very natural human impulses,

[17:39]

and they are all very, very beautiful, just as beautiful as trees sprouting leaves in the spring. Actually, they're almost the same as trees sprouting leaves in the spring, that energy to begin. All of life comes from these desires. This is life. This desire is life. So, this is what I realized one day. Now, am I making sense? Are you following me? Can you understand this? Not entirely the ravings of a madman. So, what I'm saying is, if you can appreciate your desires like that, and if you can practice with and harmonize with your desires in that way,

[18:45]

and conduct yourself based on this appreciation of your desires in that way, I think that dissatisfaction can be reduced quite a lot, quite a lot. Now, it isn't easy. This is a good idea, you know, and you're saying, oh yeah, it's a good idea, but then the next desire that comes up, can you actually work with it this way? It's not that easy, I realize. And I think the Buddha was aware of this, too. That's why he said truth number four, there's a path, and the path has many aspects to it, because in reality, a very simple idea may be hard to realize in our living without some way to do it, without some program or system or something that we can do together to help us to realize it. And the reason that is, is that although we have a great deal of confidence in our minds,

[19:53]

when it comes to something like this, our minds are not necessarily our best friend. Our mind is very slippery, very quick, very clever, and we think we are our mind, so who is it that's going to get in there and do this? The mind is already turning desire in the way that it's used to doing, and we really can't get in there and do much about that. And as soon as desire arises, immediately, before we have a chance to think about all this stuff, boom, there we are, crashing around, trying to satisfy our desires, making trouble. It happens really fast. All our good intentions are not enough to get a wedge in there. So in order to work with desire in the way that I'm suggesting, one has to have a pretty stable mind. The mind has to be pretty settled

[20:58]

and trained, even, to some extent, in order to have the suppleness just to get in there before the habit takes over. So we need to do some practice, I think. It can involve, certainly, thinking and studying and so on, that's important, but this is not sufficient to stabilize the mind enough so that we can work with desire in the way that I'm suggesting. The brain is a little bit different from the mind. Buddha actually thought about this and recommended that the best way to stabilize the mind for this kind of work is the practice of awareness. And the best kind of awareness practice, the most concrete kind, the kind that will help us the most, is awareness of the body,

[22:05]

because the mind is so quick and so tricky. If we try to get in there with the mind, turn us around, it's like a magician, you know? Just when you think the rabbit is over here, it's over there. So if we try to start like that, we'll be confused. We'll think that we're doing really well, but we might be completely upside down. So awareness of the body is simpler. So Buddha recommended that we start with that, and one of the great ways of working with the body is with the breath. So I was recommending to my friends in the practice period that we work with our breath during meditation, and sometimes even when we're not on the meditation cushion, to check in with our breath. And that's, in a way, the whole secret of our practice period routine. We try to eliminate anything that might be complicated,

[23:10]

make a really simple schedule. You don't have to think about anything. And it takes a little while to get used to it. We just had the first week, so everybody's, sort of, everything seems new every day. But once you get used to it, you just sort of flow like water through the day. Everything is taken care of. Of course, you work and you do things, but you don't have to really worry about accomplishing anything. You just do it until the bell rings, like I said before. And the bell rings, you stop, and that's it, whether it's finished or not. And then, you know, you're supposed to stand in a certain way, walk in a certain way, bow a certain way, and then we have numerous ceremonies during which you stand and move and do things in a particular way. And all you have to do is really be aware of your body. How are you standing? How are you sitting? All day long. And with this kind of daily practice, one finds, I think, that the mind

[24:13]

slows down and becomes stabilized to some extent, and it then becomes more possible to see and work with our desires more carefully and with a greater degree of subtlety than is normally possible. At least, this is what we hope. How are we doing, practice period guys? Does this make sense? Yeah? You see? Think so, Mary? Think? Yeah. This is the hope, anyway. Now, the other night, in my hour and a half, I was shocked, you know, when I walked outside and looked at the clock. I didn't realize it was an hour and a half. It was almost an hour and a half. How can anybody talk that long? It's amazing. During that talk, I was talking about how we

[25:15]

condition ourselves to see ourselves in a very limited way. Everybody has, you know, I'm so-and-so, and I was born here, and I do this, and I do that, and I can't do this, and I can't do that. We all have our particular ideas about ourselves that we're conditioned into, and we have a tremendously powerful habit of thinking, you know, this is us. That's who I am. Now, I'm bringing this up not only as a review, but also because this idea that I'm saying here is very connected to the trouble that we have with desire, because I think it's where the desire actually comes from. It's why we can't just see desire as something beautiful arising. Because as soon as the desire comes up, this deep habit that we have of thinking we're this

[26:17]

limited person instantly kicks in, and our limited self, you know, comes up and just puts its big ugly face right in our face and says, oh, this thing is there. I think we need this. We've got to have this. Because without it, this limited self is really not really worth much, but we have this, or him, or her, or this feeling, or whatever, then we'll really be somebody, right? Then right away you're caught by desire. Sometimes the opposite way, because desire sounds like something we're going toward, but it's also something we might want to go away from. In other words, you know, our limited self sticks this big ugly face in our face and says, get me out of here. Let's get us away from this person, or thing, or place, because this limits and denigrates us, so we must flee.

[27:19]

And right away we're tangled in our desire. And this is the whole very nature of this limited self habit that's so strong in us, is that it is not a satisfactory self. It is incomplete. It needs something. That's the whole nature of it. So every moment desire arises, and we get all twisted up in it, because our limited self is pushing us off a cliff, and we're stuck in it. With each desire that arises. So it's got to be something. We need to have something. We are not okay as we are. We need to study Buddhism, right? We need to get enlightened. We need to learn how to bake bread, right? We definitely need to do yoga and get more flexible, or take up jogging. We really need this. We need to get a PhD, or maybe lose ten pounds. Maybe five pounds would

[28:32]

be enough, but something. You know, we really need something, because the arrangement, the way it is, is not quite it, right? It's not quite it. I mean, not that we think of it this way. We might, but not necessarily. But it is like that, I think. I really do. We feel the unsatisfactory confinement of being stuck in this very limited notion of a person, and we have to make it better, somehow. Maybe we can make it better by believing this. Make it better by feeling that. Whatever it is. An emotion, a belief, an idea, a person. Something. Don't you know, we need something to make this situation workable. And, of course, there's no end to that. Because once we lose the five pounds, then we have to get a PhD. And then when we get the PhD, we have to jog. And when we jog, you know, there's no end to it, right?

[29:37]

So, desire wins. It rolls on and on, getting bigger and bigger. The wind comes up, the trees are crashing, branches are falling down, the trunk is cracking, and the stage is littered with bodies. And that's our situation, folks. That's how it is. Now, what was that? It's a bad, bad thing. Yeah, it's terrible. But that's it. I'm sorry. I think that's the way it is. Now, this whole thing sometimes gets worse. And even if it's not worse, it's pretty bad. Anyway. But there is such a thing as a kind of obsession with desire. What are you laughing at? Writers are always obsessed, aren't they?

[30:46]

So this, we have this. Now, I would say, myself, that obsession is actually constant, I think. But it's more noticeable at some times. But I think it's constant. And I'm sure that everybody in this room knows exactly what I'm talking about. This can be very dramatic. It can be very, fairly ordinary. It's when something comes into our mind and heart persistently, and we cannot let it go, even though we know it's very painful and very unpleasant. The more we want it to go away, the more it stays and gets bigger. And almost always, the cause of this is past activity. We have done something in the past, or we have said something in the past, that has produced in us an unrest. And this unrest produces obsessive thoughts and emotions. Or somebody else in our vicinity has done something or said something that produces this unrest in us. And the thoughts and emotions

[31:52]

churn on. And everything fails. We cannot stop this. So how are we going to work with this? Now, as far as I know, dramatic instances of this have not yet arisen in the practice period. But they will. Probably less dramatic instances have occurred. So, I would say that the way to work with this is, first of all, try not to do anything. In other words, try not to have a lot of activity going on. Sometimes it's unavoidable that we have activity because you've got to go to work or whatever you have to do. But you try not to make it more complicated than it already is. Because I know I do this all the time. I'm always thinking of

[32:53]

bright new ideas. And every bright new idea has 25 or 30 little things connected to it that one has to do. So at a time like this, don't think of any bright new ideas. Just do the minimum that's necessary. And try as much as possible to stay put in your awareness. That's the first thing. Try not to do so much and try to stay put within your awareness. Now, the next thing that you have to do is pretty hard. The next thing that you have to do is accept responsibility for this problem that's arising, no matter what it is. Even if it's actually and clearly somebody else's fault, you need to accept responsibility for it. Make your heart and your mind big enough.

[33:59]

Stretch the limits of that limited person and accept responsibility for what is going on. Because when we accept responsibility for it, it's possible then to work with it, to practice with it, and to learn from it and go on. It's difficult, like I say, because to accept responsibility for something thoroughly, something difficult and unpleasant, can break our heart, actually. We can have a broken heart. As long as we blame someone else or something else, our heart stays intact, but we're not really accepting responsibility. And if we're not accepting responsibility, we have no way to work with it, and desire keeps rolling on. But if we do accept responsibility, we may have a broken heart. So we have to accept responsibility

[35:10]

and, painful as it is, just let our heart be broken. It may be actually an advantage to let our heart be broken. We maybe have a greater possibility of calming down and working with our desires that way. I'm thinking of this because on Friday we had a funeral in this room for a young woman who had obsessive, enraging desire and aversion, and could not set it to rest, and so she killed herself. She shot herself, and it was very sad. And we had a funeral on Friday, and in the funeral her mother stood up to address her daughter, her departed daughter,

[36:18]

and her mother said very eloquently, she just began by saying, My heart is broken. It was very moving, you know. Almost everybody cried a little bit when she said, My heart is broken. So it was sad, but it also was very healing. It felt very healing, you know, for her to just say that. I think it was her saying that was, and coming to that for herself, was a healing, because I think she realized she couldn't try to hold her heart together, you know. That would be just to not accept what had happened and to go raging on with her grief and agony. So she let her heart be broken. She accepted what had happened, and now she had the possibility of taking full responsibility for this, not in the way of,

[37:20]

feeling guilty or it's my fault or something like that, but I have to live with my life now. And in that way, I think she will go on with her life in a beautiful way, in a creative way. So first, we have to stop doing a bunch of stuff and just be with our obsessive desire or aversion. Then, regardless of how difficult it is, we have to accept responsibility for it. And then, next, we need to make a strong vow or commitment to change our behavior, to take care of our behavior, to let go of what is difficult and troublesome, and to begin to do something that is positive. We may not be able to change what's outside of us.

[38:21]

Our true range of activity really resides in what we can do with our own life. So we make that vow to work with our life and enter the path, and then we have a lot of things that we can do. No matter how disastrous the situation may seem, we have many ways that we can work with it if we make this vow and commit ourselves to this. So that's a way to work with obsessive desire or aversion, is first, practice awareness and not running around too much doing things. Second, accept full responsibility. And third, vow to work with our life. And there's much more to be said about this process, but that's all I want to say now. Now, in traditional Buddhism, there's a wonderful metaphor for talking about all of this. And it goes like this. There's many realms,

[39:27]

and in a distant realm, the beings called hungry ghosts are wandering around, starving, and on a constant hunt for food. These beings have big swollen bellies that are just aching to be filled, but their throats are as thin as needles, so it's hard to get enough food down there to fill the belly. So they're very compulsive about their search for food, and they constantly want to be shoving food down their throats. So they're raging around with their minds clouded by painful desires about which they can't do very much. And also, they're very thirsty, and they're looking for water all the time. So eventually, they wander around and see a beautiful clear lake, and they make a beeline for that lake, and it immediately pops up on the banks of the lake. Fierce fighting demons who are, you know, fighting them off with swords,

[40:38]

and they have to fight with the demons. And finally, they slip around. Somehow, the demon, they get to the lake, and they take a drink, and the water in the lake turns to pus when it gets in their mouth. So this is a very unpleasant and pathetic situation that seems to go on for quite a while. So can you relate to this? Do you understand what this is like? So it's like that with us, right? Our desire is raging, and no matter what we try to do about it, we can't seem to satisfy it. We have a kind of boundless restlessness. And then, when we get close to the river, when we get close to some calmness or some relation to the teaching that's positive, then our demon-like resistances, which are so powerful, come up, and we have to do battle with our resistances. And then, we finally overcome them, get to the lake, take a drink of water,

[41:45]

come to full concentration, come to powerful relation to the teaching, and then it all turns to pus in our mouth. This happens. I'm sorry. It's terrible. We keep on going. Our limited self keeps coming up time after time. So it happens like that, and I'm afraid that it happens like that a lot. I'm sorry to say that there are many moments and months and years like this in the process of our spiritual search. So don't let anybody say that we told you it was easy and pleasant the whole time. It can be really nasty. So how do we get around it? Well, we can say a lot of things, but I think basically, we just have to be lucky.

[42:47]

I think that's it. Just lucky, you know, luck. Somebody or something comes along and saves us. We get lucky. And then, we feel better. And even if we're still raging around, we can see that it's rather ridiculous, and the humor in it makes us feel a little better. It's not as bad. So there's a story about Moggallana, one of Buddha's closest disciples. He was having nightmares, and he was waking up in the middle of the night with these bad dreams. And here's his dream. He would dream about his mother. And in the dream, his mother was running around looking for food, and unsatisfied, and all that, and couldn't find any food. And looking in the direction of Moggallana, as if to say, you know, can't you help me please? And then Moggallana would wake up in a sweat, you know, really upset. And this would happen to him every night for a while, having this dream. So he went to Buddha, because they were really good friends, very intimate together. So he told

[43:54]

Buddha about this dream. And, you know, what should he do? And Buddha said, well, you see, when you're dreaming like that, you're actually coming into contact with your mother. And she's in this hungry ghost realm. And she needs relief. So why don't we, you know, we'll have a special ceremony, and we'll get her over here, you know, and we'll give her some food, and we'll give her some teachings, and we'll satisfy her. It's as simple as that. And that made Moggallana feel a whole lot better. And so they decided to do that. Now, it just so happened that at the time that this all came up, it was near the time of the full moon when the monks and nuns that were practicing with Buddha always had a ceremony. Every full moon they would have a ceremony where they would chant their precepts. And they would look with awareness into themselves and see how they were keeping the precepts. And they would

[44:59]

accept full responsibility for how they hadn't maybe done enough. And then they would vow that they would do better next time. This was their ceremony. And every full moon they did this. And so they had the ceremony for Moggallana's mother right around that same time. So it became clear to the monks, I think, as it's clear to us, this relationship between obsession and grief, and remembering those who've passed away, and desire, and taking responsibility, and vowing to change our life. And ever since that time of Moggallana and his dreams about his mother, and the ceremony has this kind of double meaning. It's a ceremony for our own wild desires. It's a ceremony for accepting our responsibility for our life.

[46:04]

And it's also a ceremony for setting to rest the energies of people who have passed away, and the energies of those still alive that are restless in this world. And just remembering those who have gone before us and are no longer with us. So in Japanese, the word for hungry ghost is Gaki. And Seigaki means feeding hungry ghosts. And that's the name of our ceremony, Seigaki Ceremony, which we will have today in here at four o'clock, and you're all invited to come. It's an interesting ceremony, I think, and very powerful. The hungry ghosts come around. In the beginning, we kind of like summon them forth with various... We have a highly sophisticated and well-trained monastic orchestra, which you will hear if you come to the ceremony. And this monastic orchestra will

[47:10]

will, you know, play subtle music to cause the hungry ghosts to come out, because they're a little shy and kind of scared of people. Unlike that fox. I wonder if that fox has anything to do with this? Think? I didn't think of it. Hmm. Anyway, but they will come. But you see, you can't have any Buddhas around, because that really makes them shy. That's too much for them. They're not ready, say, for to see the Buddhas. So that's why we never have the ceremony around the main altar. We have to have it somewhere else where they don't notice the Buddhas when they come in. And you don't put any Buddhas on the altar or anything like that. So we'll do that, and they'll come in and we'll chant and offer them incense and food, which we have to cut up very small because of the throats. And so that's what we'll do. And you please come if you can, and you can add a name to the list

[48:18]

of names, because we will read the list of names of people who have gone away, passed away in the ceremony. Now, in China, they have a story that after the ceremony happened, Moggallana, his vow to save his mother was even stronger. So he went straight to hell to get her out. And he broke the lock on the gate to hell. And all these different ghosts came rushing out, and they were inhabiting the world. And this kind of story is common all over the world. And it usually is a story that says at this time of year in the fall, just as the year is turning, that there will be these ghosts walking around. And that's the same story about Halloween. That's what Halloween is. That's why we do Segaki ceremony around Halloween time, so that we can deal with all these ghosties. Now, the interesting thing is with all this,

[49:21]

such ceremonies all over the world are connected with festivity and joy. This is the interesting part. And in China, they have like special performances of operas, and they have circuses, and all kinds of stuff, because the idea is that you want to entertain the ghosts. They're all over the place, and you want to entertain them and show them a good time, set them at ease, and gently show them the door, because you don't want them around. It's not a good idea to be having obsessively communing with ghosts all year long. You want to make it light, and fun, and show them a nice time. Like if somebody comes over to dinner, you show them a nice time. But then when the evening is over, it's bye-bye. So that's how it is for us, too. We do it like that. So I find it enormously interesting that all of this should be associated in this way, you know? Desire and its ghost-like, haunting, suffering quality.

[50:31]

Taking care of others in this way, being willing to summon them at our own cost and maybe danger, and help them out. Grief, remembering, taking responsibility for our own actions and making vows to work on our life, and the joy of festivity and fun. That all of this should be mixed up together in one occasion is really funny, isn't it? It's kind of a little bit like life itself, which seems to be like that somehow. So, I think I did really well for having nothing to say. I mean, I've gone on a long time here. I can tell by people starting to move around a little bit. Must be time to end. So, whether you can come and join us today at four o'clock or not, please do consider desire in yourself and suffering and dissatisfaction in yourself

[51:47]

and grief and joy, and please use this time of year and whatever you're going to do for Seikaki or Halloween as a moment to reconsider all this and see what you should do next. You're such a wonderful audience, not a single tomato. It's great. Thank you very much. This part of the morning is sometimes referred to as question and answer, but I prefer to call it discussion, and often people respond to each other's questions or comments, rather than thinking that I have to respond to everything. I mean,

[52:49]

I already gave a really long talk, right? So, yes, Paula. What about happy obsessions? What about what? Happy obsessions? Well, happy obsessions are only the prelude to unhappy obsessions. So, enjoy them while you can and be aware of their nature. When you talk about taking responsibility, do you mean taking responsibility for your emotions and what you feel? Or creating that thing in your life? I think that I'm saying that taking responsibility for your mental state completely,

[53:51]

but not blame. Not blame, not like it's my fault, because blame and guilt, a little bit of it is good, because that might make us reflect on ourselves and do something, but obviously, I think we all know that blame and guilt itself can become an obsessive, afflictive emotion that blocks our possibility of doing anything. But I think we really have to say, this is my life, this is the situation, this is the way it is, and I can't blame it on him or him or him or her or her or this or that or the other thing. This is just it, and I've got to find my own way to work with this. I think that's what I mean. We really have to do that, because so much of our afflictive mental states are mixed up with blaming someone else or the situation, or if the world were different, or if only it was 14th century Tibet, I would really be able to do something. That sort of thing. I don't think there's

[54:56]

really any choice, but it's completely… Blaming yourself. Yeah, that's another… Yourself is only somebody else, right? Anyway. Right? You know what I mean? Well, you said that when an obsession comes up, there are three steps that you can take. The first one is to not really do anything at all. Well, to be aware, but not to do anything by way of… That permits you to be really fully aware of it. Well, my question is about whether the three things are sequential. First, when you're not really doing anything particular and just being aware, and then the third step, after you take responsibility, is to do something, to take a vow to change your behavior, whatever seems appropriate. How do you know when it's time to go from one to the other? How long do you

[55:58]

sit with it in awareness before you do something about it? Well, I don't think it's that A-B-C kind of thing. I think you just have to feel settled enough. When things are really bad and somebody tells you, you have to take responsibility for this, how do you feel when they tell you that? You're going to kill them because you're not ready for that at that point. You're not ready for that. That's not the skillful way to work with your mind at that time. The first thing you have to do is just stop running around and raging around and just be with it. So when you feel like you've been with it long enough to kind of feel like it's not an impossible stretch to say, okay, now this is my responsibility, then you just take that step. And then when you really have taken that step, the next step comes soon after that. But then, you know, afflictive mental states are powerful enough so that it all happens again.

[57:01]

It's not like, oh, now that I, you know, no, it comes and then you go through the process again and again and again. Maybe you could even say, as they often do in Buddhadharma, that this process happens on every instant over and over and over and over again. We're constantly going through this process. And so it's not like, you know, you complete this and that's over with and then you do this. So I think like that. Yeah. I was glad you put in a plug for desire because I think it's really helpful and I wondered if you could say a little bit more about working with desire because I feel like if I never follow my desire, you know, I might just sit on the couch all day and that some desire, you know, there's a desire to practice, there's a desire to take care of your child, there's a desire to find meaningful work. Some desires seem very wholesome and can lead us in the right direction while others, in my experience, lead us away from a wholesome way of life.

[58:05]

Yes, this is the part of the story that I didn't bring up in the talk which I was very aware of not bringing up and I'm glad that you brought it up and I knew that you would. And the reason I didn't bring it up is, first of all, the talk was long enough as it was, but also it makes, to bring this part up is much more complicated and subtle because what this is really, what you're raising is the fact that, yes, and also in addition to just being aware of our desire, taking responsibility for it, letting it come and go as I was advocating and all that, there is the idea that you do act on your desire. But once you open that door, then it gets really complicated because then, oh, I act on my desire, then right away you're in the soup again. So it has to, you have to, it's kind of tricky. For sure, once you, in the practice period or in the meditation period, when you don't really, it's not appropriate to act on your desire at that time,

[59:12]

that's a training moment, right? Then you can really practice, do not act on your desire. That's appropriate and that practice enables you to kind of get a grip on the situation because that instruction, some desires you act on, others you don't, can be very confusing and lead you to trouble. So do the practice of letting it go, have that experience. And once you have some experience of that, I don't say that you're completely, see everything, but you have some experience of that, some feeling for that, then that's the business of being alive, right? You have to discriminate. Now I have desires, how do I, some of these desires I'm going to act on, some of these desires I can act on with clarity, some desires that even might be wholesome desires, I don't feel like I can act on with clarity. This is a good thing that I want this, but the truth is that even though it's a good thing, when I try to act on it, it turns to ashes. Well, I'm not ready to do that. So what does it feel like to act on a desire with clarity? In other words, to take the energy of our desire

[60:15]

and turn it into enlightenment or turn it into the teaching. What does it feel like to do that? Well, in order to see that, I think you have to have the practice of letting desire go and study desire and understand desire and understand the difference between clarity and confusion and the difference between possessing someone and loving them, etc., etc. So I think this is the big koan of our whole path. This is our number one issue for our lives and it's fairly difficult to work with. So I was really addressing the situation of practice period or retreat where it's possible to let it go and not act on it. And I do feel like, I really do feel as if we all need to have that kind of practice somewhere under our belts in order to clearly work with our desire. I think it's impossible to work with our desire without some training like that and it's a never-ending process and we get caught. I mean, you know, great Buddhist masters think that they're acting on

[61:20]

their desire for clarity and enlightenment and then they find out later, you know, wow, there was a little place there I wasn't aware of and I didn't know what I was doing. So it's a, you know, it's a constant refinement and we go back to stage one and keep going through. So thank you for bringing that up. And it's also very situational and very personal and very individual and so I couldn't even begin to put out any general statements, you know, because every general statement will be the opposite in a given case. So I always think that common sense is not to be denigrated. I mean, just ordinary everyday common sense has to be mixed in with all the lofty ideals of our practice and I think we have to be commonsensical about our lives too. So thanks. Yes? My question is kind of along the same lines. It first came up for me

[62:20]

last year when I saw Thich Nhat Hanh speak in Berkeley and I was left feeling confused about how it seems that a lot of the teachings are about our desire that are on some level like for our own end in terms of like our own clarity and our own somehow getting through the suffering that we've subjected to and dealing with our own stuff and he to me is someone who somehow has managed to be such an activist, you know, he's incorporated somehow this teaching into social change at a level that I don't understand how it works together that way, how you could stay so in touch with what you are needing in your own journey and still incorporate struggles that are so much larger than yourself. Yes, well this is very much like what Laura is bringing up. It's the same kind of difficulty and maybe one nice way to think of it is you and I are a team, okay, and so today

[63:29]

I'm in the monastery and you're out there working for justice which is hard to do and exhausting and you try to take care of your practice but also it's pretty hard to keep your balance but you get unbalanced on purpose because you know that what you're working for is right and in accord with Buddhist teachings but we're a team so next week you come in here and I go out and I do the work that you're doing so that you can have a break and so that I can understand my sitting practice better because otherwise if I keep sitting here for a long time I may get to think that this is the only important thing and the other people outside are really only in my mind. Well it's true you know that they're only in my mind but I don't really understand that unless I go out and change places with you. So I think if you know we have a the way that we usually think of things is like what's the

[64:32]

right thing to do and then I should do it and I shouldn't do what's wrong and I should figure out what it is now I should do it so if you're doing something different you must be wrong and I must be right it must be this way if it's not this way I can see that way you know but actually suppose that it's many ways and that we do what we need to do depending on the situation so I actually think that everybody who's socially active it seems to me maybe this is self-serving because I'm in the business but it seems to me that everybody who's socially active should have some contemplative life that they pick up and put down because otherwise I think it'd be really hard to to have to be straight forward with what you're doing and continue to do it year after year after year day after day and the other way around so so we're in it we're all in it together and we and we help each other out so I think it's like that. But Norman isn't it also not it's not like either you're doing one or the other necessarily I mean there's a way in which

[65:33]

if you really experience your the boundaries of yourself breaking down or you understand that you're interconnected with all beings through your meditation practice then naturally part of that is is sharing trying to alleviate the sufferings of others as your own suffering. Right so sometimes she becomes me when she sits down and I become her when I get up so it's these two people that are a team can be in one person it's not separated out into different individuals so in in one day you might get up and sit. I know for many years I lived in the Berkeley and practiced at the Berkeley Zen Center and I used to have different jobs and things and what I would do is get up in the morning and sit and then I would you know sally forth into the world at large and do various things and my idea was well just like all the monks I'm now cleaning up you know cleaning and sweeping the garden so I'd go out and sweep the garden whatever that meant for me that day and then I would come in in the evening and meditate some more so I felt like I was living in a monastery even though I was in the world at large and so sometimes when I was sitting I was

[66:38]

you know not active and when I was doing things I was active so within each day or within each individual and then there's also such a thing as times when you're completely active and you don't really have time to sit in the morning in the evening people have that happen too in their lives and other times when they drop entirely what they're doing and they go on retreat and even in one moment you know a moment when we put our energy out and then even in the middle of an encounter with someone we come back in and take a breath and let go so you know I was saying in my talk the other night there's two parts of our practice sitting down and getting up sitting down and we can't do without either one and we have to see how these two completely depend on each other and so I see that it's difficult but I don't see any other way really you know I don't see any other way to do it yes sometimes you talk about desire and one of the things I've done in my life is like I'll have

[67:46]

these desires and I'll get caught up in it and it is suffering and it almost takes illness for my body physically to tell me that something's wrong because I'm too caught up in this desire like for instance you have a dream okay I want the house I want the kids I want you know it's like you're kind of raised with this and you tell yourself mentally that this is going to make you happy and you get it and then all of a sudden you can't really change your thoughts or you know because you're it's like you it's like a repetitive thing you've been doing for years and years and all of a sudden you get really really sick and it's like you don't have any choice but to look at what you're doing on a day-to-day basis like sometimes I wonder when people say well they're workaholics I mean now the last few years I realized workaholics wow there's something to that it's that repetitive desire you know where we don't really we don't

[68:46]

usually don't go to retreat we don't sit down we don't reflect on our day-to-day are we excited about something you know yeah yeah I know a lot of times that's what happens somebody gets sick and then they they're laying in bed a lot and they have a chance to think about things and depression yeah so that's yeah it happens that way it's true and I and I always think it's such a shame that you know like how come they didn't tell us when we were little you know how come they didn't tell us when we were little that we should really that part of living is taking time to look at what's really important look at what we really want what our heart really is and that and that that's that looking at that is a skill and it takes time and so how come nobody told us that they only told us rush on ahead and get this and get that and then we do it and then we get sick or something so I saw documentary last night on battered women and it was very intense and that came up is that how come as a child no one told us you know they said

[69:53]

okay get married do this but they never said something like don't be with somebody that beats you up that's not love don't be with somebody who makes you feel insignificant as a person you know we just as we don't teach our children some real basic ingredients it seems like just to talk to them yeah yeah that's very important and I and I have some hope that that is changing that I know that I see lots of young people who do know these things you know know a lot of things that I know things at 16 or 17 that I didn't know when I was 30 you know so I think you know little by little it is changing yeah I'm confused or skeptical is talking about ghosts I'm wondering another name for them or other how they relate to Buddhism well uh how about energies okay okay good

[71:02]

the flight is ceremonial correct yes well you know uh take this funeral ceremony that I was alluding to in my talk now you know what did we do we got a bunch of incense and uh you know we have fancy clothes we got a little bell you know you walk in you throw a little incense around mumble a few things what's the big deal you know and yet uh if you do take these little elements and and uh combine them with our daily practice and the energy of everybody sitting over many many years and one's own practice and empowerments and so forth and you go in and do this it becomes a powerful occasion for people to settle their hearts around this death that happened and they really appreciate they come together it provides a framework for that they come together they have a chance to express themselves they have a chance to put to rest this this energy that's been

[72:11]

so upsetting and disturbing for some weeks now since the suicide and not that now everybody's fine and they walk out smiling no but but it does mark a watershed it doesn't change the situation it does give people some new way of looking at and working with what that's about so i've come to uh after many years of resistance and indifference to uh ritual i've come to see that it's useful has its place and has its place authentic ritual can be helpful and uh so a ceremony like today i've been talking to the practice period about how they can use the ceremony uh as a way of uh in the same way that we use the funeral as a way of making a watershed so that we can go on and work with our uh energies that are in this direction we can use a ceremony like this today in that way also if you have your the name of one of your loved ones in the ceremony as i

[73:15]

do uh it's very powerful to remember that person at that time so it's got a double the ceremony has two different sides there one is we just remember someone has passed away and if we have a lack of clarity in that relationship we can bring that up in the ceremony or if not just how wonderful to remember that person i don't think about them every day but now in the ceremony i can really deeply think about them so each ceremony is a meditation you know you go there and you focus your mind on the energy of the ceremony and when your loved one's name is read you focus your heart on that person and uh it's a continuation of your relationship with them that you had during your life if you decide to use the ceremony to meditate on unfinished uh energies in your own life of desire and so on then you bring that to the ceremony and you let yourself settle with that during the ceremony and it can be transformative like i say not that you walk out of there and everything's fine but that it gives you some leg up some beginning or middle or end or something to keep working with so that's what i

[74:21]

think you know and i think the the ghost stuff and all that is a wonderful expressive way of looking at all this i think it's uh i i enjoy it quite a bit i i could go on and on about uh the different hells and different i mean buddhism has the most colorful hells that you ever saw i mean tons of different kinds of hells cold hells hot hells just kind of beasts and demons and oh it's fabulous you know and so i i love it because everyone describes sort of a different nuance of the kind of lunacy that we provide for ourselves you know just in the course of living and i think it's a wonderful kind of poetry and for me poetry is very real and uh you know one can visualize and so forth and so on so it's quite nice the difference between uh christian hell like dante you know i've read dante's version of hell which is very gruesome and horrible and everything and dante's hell uh you know in dante's hell uh begins and ends with judgment you are the worst part about the hell never mind getting burned up it's the judgment that god is telling you thumbs down to you buddy

[75:26]

and not only that but it's forever and ever and ever now that's really grim and you know when you're down there in dante's hell i mean you are not a happy camper you know you it is bad down there it's dim and dark and dank but in the buddhist hell it's not about judgment it's about simply well you did this then that's going to happen naturally but then later on once you brood around in one of those hells and burn up several times then you get out of it you do you get out of it and you go somewhere else and you keep circling around through all these different places until finally ultimately inevitably no question about it you will become buddha it's not great so okay you know if we have to be down here you know burning up for a while well it's pretty terrible but that's looks like that's what we're gonna have to do so we do it with some faith that will later on you know once we exhaust the energy that

[76:28]

we're here for we will then be reborn in another realm which hell is about the worst you can get so maybe we'll be reborn as a cockroach or something like that you know who knows and a human being it's great to be born a human being see it's really big deal to be a human being is that's why you have to honor and respect everybody because we all have been through tremendous stuff right to get to this room think of it wow all that we've been through we're so honorable and noble creatures that we made it to this state so you know we should all really appreciate each other who knows what tremendous things each one of us has done to achieve this beautiful birth in which there's just enough suffering in the higher realms there's no suffering if you're a god you don't suffer you don't have a body you just live on a raw incense smell and it's wonderful and you're happy you're blissful never get a stomach ache you know

[77:31]

nothing but the problem with that is that you can't practice because why would you practice no suffering no incentive so that's why the human realm is the best it's perfect because we have just enough suffering in the hell you can't practice either because you're just on fire all the time you can't do anything but in the human realm just enough suffering so that you have to do something but also we have you know a bright intelligence and we have a body that's that enables us to practice and so on so it has that sense of the realms in buddhism it's a wonderful poetry i really recommend that you read about the hells and the six realms and all that once we had a wonderful uh workshop which we should do it again sometime it was really fabulous where we gave some teaching about the six realms we talked about each of the six realms and all the different hells and all that stuff and then we asked people to visualize just whatever came into their heart as the realm where they have resided or will reside or

[78:37]

just whatever came into their mind then quick draw it like a sketch of it and then we went up to the shop and we had all this paper mache and everything and we made masks of that creature in that realm and we spent a whole day or a couple days making paper mache masks of that realm and it was really wonderful then we hung them up all over and we wore them to the sagaki ceremony but we have that was a several years ago we haven't done it since but it was really fun we had a lot of children came and children worked with us making and they made masks and everything you know um something i've been thinking about off and on talking about how wonderful it is to be human being and when i look around at human beings as a whole mass and then i look at nature and all the animals and nature and the way that nature works where there is killing and there's this that the other thing in social structures but it seems that it's all for a purpose it's not from pure anger or hatred

[79:39]

or any of those things and then i look at the human race and what in this case the negative part of it and what we're doing to each other and how we are and and i can't help but think that to be human is not quite as much as to be some of the other animals in the world we have more further to evolve i wonder if you could address that in relationship to what you were just saying mm-hmm yes well the we have a checkered record there's no question about that yeah and there's much to be uh you know regretted uh as human beings but we are human beings right at least right now and uh so i think it wouldn't really serve us to uh be embarrassed about that or feel badly about i know people who really feel ashamed of themselves for being human really because they feel like look what all humans have done it's terrible you know and they really feel feel badly about being human in fact they sort of like don't

[80:41]

like human beings pretty much they really don't like them and uh this is a real problem because they're a human being you see so i think we need to be very clear about all of the ignorance and confusion of the past that has created such trouble but i think we also have to have a healthy feeling that you know we're a human being and and since we're a human being and when i say it's great to be a human being i don't say it's not also great to be a fox for a fox i mean if a fox wants to be a human being that's a problem for a fox fox should really feel like hey it's the best to be a fox you know but for us we should feel like hey it's really the best to be a human being and uh i know that human beings have made a lot of mistakes i've made a lot of mistakes uh and i'm you know trying to work on myself very hard and uh so think of you know naturally people who haven't taken up the cause of working on themselves will make mistakes and those mistakes have resulted in a very big mess but all the more reason to feel like okay i'm

[81:41]

i have this possibility i better work on it i better i better do it not to feel badly about being a human human being or dislike human beings i think uh it's obvious that in our crisis in our world human beings are still pivotal right because if we do a lot better things are going to do better if we do a lot worse things are going to do worse so i mean it really really isn't up to the foxes and the deer you know to turn things around i mean they're doing they've always been doing their best you know it's us who have to do better and so the way to do better is to begin with gratitude for you know who we are and where we're at a vow to look at what's going on and go forward to do better and and uh so you know i don't think there's a percentage in putting human beings down myself even though i understand it and and and a lot of people do uh feel that way and it's it's i think it's reasonable to be ashamed you know for all of us

[82:42]

what we've done collectively but then to get up and go on from there that's important too you know i was thinking back about the business of ceremonies and things and i know there's a part of me that's a hungry ghost uh i learned it when i was a little kid uh and i first was introduced to the most wonderful thing in the world which was a catalog and over my life i think i could pass examinations and catalogs you know it's it's and and and i mean there's that part of me i know that i i know about and i think you know we in our own way uh become these hungry ghosts for a little while or or these uh uh disembodied spirits that i mean that's part of us and and uh and and we've lost

[83:43]

somebody uh that feeling of incompleteness of things that we might have done or should have said or all this kind of stuff uh that's us and uh and the ceremony is valuable uh for for those who are there uh never mind whether or not the hungry ghosts actually get the door or not and it's just my sort of reaction to that yes thank you yeah i feel that way too um i want to ask about the ceremony from this perspective that was just shared um i have there's a sense that just came to me when i when we heard the last part of your talk that it would be good for me to um be present with this on behalf of my whole lineage and uh for my own evolving self and the wounded self and i wouldn't be working with uh the idea

[84:47]

or relating to those who have died but my own individuation process from my own family of origin and my own guilt about being different and separate and having the quality life that i want that no one in my family has ever chosen and there is a hungry ghost part of me that i uh can sense and also in my family so i was wondering if um you might give a angle of thought or perspective on how to use the ceremony for in that way there's a part of me that feels danger of inviting the family who was toxic to be healed in that situation but on the other hand that would fear and that would that's not discouraging which others to do it um yeah well you could come to the ceremony and bring all of that you know and hope uh and and hope that the ceremony will settle some of it and that's the beauty of it is that it might be it would not be a good idea

[85:48]

to bring this up so powerfully on your own because it would be frightening but that's the whole thing is that we provide a safe space we get all this stuff you know robes and gear and we get all the monks and their sophisticated music and we got the incense and we got we got uh and we will you know so so that's the whole point is that we're telling the first thing we're going to do is we're going to tell hungry ghosts don't worry you know you can come it's all right you know we're not going to do anything to you everything is fine here this is a very safe place and it'll be safe to invite people that are living yeah yeah it's a very safe place whatever it is uh i mean i'm saying this i'm i'm leaving the ceremony i mean i hope i you know i can pull it off but anyway uh that's the spirit you know i think that we can handle it that's the idea

[86:49]

we put all this together and with our collective energy and our practice we can it'll be safe i'm just asking what would i how would i come to that what would i come bring bring all of what you just said the feeling of that the energy of that to your breath come to the ceremony and just when it's time to chant do the chanting be aware of your breath and the rest of the time just stay with your breath and stay with your what arises in your mind and just that's all you have to do yeah i'm profoundly sorry that i hadn't heard this all before today because i can't be there but i thought at least i don't think i can but i i saw to another i will be next year because it sounds i've been to nine funerals this year and i think 13 the year before we've all been having multiple deaths occur in our lives now it isn't just one person although each

[87:54]

person is terribly special and i had the concept when you were talking of being able to bring them all exactly yeah at one time and they all knew each other they didn't all but many knew each i mean that that this yeah would be more like a multiple yeah yeah it's an amazing feeling you know i mean to sit there and see what we have uh when someone dies uh sometimes we do a funeral you know because the people come and they're they're a part of the community and they request the funeral other times though we don't do a funeral we simply chant a service for the person which we do frequently and we have their name on the altar well during the segaki ceremony we take all the people that we've had a service for during the year and we read the names of every single one of them in addition to all of our teachers and supporters of the past and students

[88:55]

and monks who have been in our lineage who have died it's hundreds and hundreds of names and it's very profound to sit there and listen to all these names and realize so many of us you know are gone and it's a meditation uh on death itself that we also you know will be gone and that that's part of every moment and that's certainly a part of what the ceremony is so yes if if there had been a funeral during the year you would bring that name and hear it read again and this time another in the funeral also i'm sure all funerals are are this similar in that they're all the purpose of bringing things uh to the fore and putting them to rest but this is another opportunity and every year we can have this opportunity yeah yes but the first thing because when i was hearing about this and i will be there um was i was thinking how wonderful it would be to um bring in the spirit of my grandmother that i never met who died just before i was born so so it doesn't

[89:57]

need to be in the immediate past year it couldn't be any yeah yeah yeah yeah right it doesn't need to be in the immediate past year no but but for us in terms of the temple we don't read the names of everybody we've chanted a service for for 25 years there's some names that we have read for 25 years and these are the ones who are you know particularly important to the sangha and in addition to those we read all the ones that we chanted for this year in addition to that we read all the names that anybody brings in from any from any year so i mean it takes a long time to read all these names you know yeah it might be uh enriching to realize that native americans all over our country will be in their way uh same thing but it's an extremely powerful joyous occasion beyond i believe really yeah and they prepare for it all year long

[91:03]

yeah i know that's wonderful yeah it's different cultures all over the world as i was saying do celebrate this halloween we've lost the spiritual side of it i think and it's a party and that's the remnant of of what it what it was at one time but that's yeah all over the world we have it and even halloween has that sort of welcoming yeah it goes right it does sort of meeting yeah yeah it's fun yeah so there's there's the one we've really talked around this uh ceremony and its value and the realization of these our connection with these people and our connection with our own mortality and so nicely but there's a question remains for me when she used the word energy again and you have these descriptions and discussions and i i admit to feeling confused and uncertain as to

[92:07]

what that energy is what i'm sort of a scientist and energy has a rather different meaning for me so so where do we go when we die no there's this energy to which we refuse it seems to me that we go into each other's minds in the way that we've been describing we are we our existence continues in that way and we honor that existence in these ceremonies and recreate beings in that way it's cathartic to do that um and and still still here energy these spirits are somehow an energy i don't know well uh that's a kind of vague word energy it's true but what you said sounded good to me you know that's what i would mean by it the the the impulses and kind of uh energy or uh what do we want to call it an impulse to move forward that's in my

[93:11]

mind as a result of people that i've known that's uh impulse to move forward that's in my mind as a

[93:16]

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