I vow to face the truth of that which I know is worse. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. First of all, I want to apologize for the otherworldly light in the room today. It's not a result of my transfiguration at Tassajara. It has to do with television. It's really nice people from doing a program for national public television. It's part of a series on ethics and religion. So, we don't usually film the Sunday Dharma talk, but we are doing it today.

[01:06]

And as I say, I have been at Tassajara for a long stretch of time, about a month, where I'm able to do peaceful Zen practice. It's really wonderful. And I came back to attend. Last night, we had the first in a year-long series of events entitled Buddhism at Millennium's Edge. And last night, we began the series with a wonderful, enthusiastic address by Professor Robert Thurman, which ended with a tremendous, rousing standing ovation and him yelling at us all to go out and vote. So, if you don't know about the series or have not yet signed up for it, bought some tickets,

[02:11]

I know that the office here has information and is doing ticket sales. The series is, I think, going to mark a very important moment in presenting Buddhism as an important factor in our reflections on the millennium ahead. And also, the money that the series raises will entirely go to building our much-needed staff housing here at Green Gulch so that we can keep going into the next millennium. Because as it stands now, the housing will fall around our ears, probably fall down around our ears before the end of this millennium unless we do something. So, please do come to the series, tell your friends about it. You'll enjoy it and it really will help us. So, since I'm back from Tassajara, I thought I would do like Garrison Keillor, you know,

[03:15]

who gives reports from Lake Wobegon. Tassajara is a kind of Lake Wobegon in its own way. So, I thought I'd give a little short report from Tassajara Zen Shinji Monastery. So, and I know that we have some youngsters with us today. So, I want to tell you about, in case you, when you grow up, go to Tassajara Monastery, you'll know what it's like. Well, we've had plenty of rain at Tassajara, as you have had here. And when it rains there in that canyon, it's pretty spectacular. By the way, you are all very brave to come out today.

[04:20]

I didn't expect anybody at all to be here except the Green Gulch residents. So, it's nice, those of you who came, bearing the elements today. Anyway, despite the rain, the road's been holding up. Sometimes the road goes out, there's slides, but so far, trees fall down on the road. But so far, we've been able to get through pretty consistently. We're building, renovating the dining room down there. It's kind of a wonderful, these projects that we're doing, these Zen projects, where you spend three quarters of a million dollars and you end up with exactly the same building you had before. Except it won't fall down in an earthquake, which is something, but it looks the same, exactly. So, that's what's happening with the dining room. And the work is going well, they're on schedule. And we were quite worried, you know, that the noise of the work on the dining room would be disruptive to the practice. And it hasn't been disruptive at all. It's been the other way around. The carpenters have been disturbed by the quiet.

[05:21]

It was, there was particularly the framing, the subcontractors for the framing were very creeped by the total quiet that pervaded all the time. No TV, you know, no radio, no music. They were quite uncomfortable, and you could see the way that they were looking at all the students as if, you know, they were like weirdos from Mars. They didn't know what to think. But as time has gone by, we've all kind of gotten used to it. And they got used to us, and we got used to them, and we're all one big happy family. Quite odd family in a way, but that's all worked out. In the Zendo at Tassajara, we eat all our meals in the meditation hall. So every meal is a formal meal taken in meditation practice. And when we eat the food, we first of all dedicate the eating of the food to the well-being and enlightenment of all sentient beings. And then we ask ourselves whether or not the effort that we have made today makes us worthy of eating this food.

[06:30]

And so far, we have eaten all the meals. So I guess we're doing all right. And they think so too. So thank you. I'm very well aware of the fact that the support of all of you makes the practice there possible. So thank you for that. And I really do hope, and my idea is, that someday all of you will have a chance to come to Tassajara for a 90-day training period sometime in your life and experience this life. In Zen, the idea of mountains and the idea of monastic practice are one and the same thing. And all Zen monasteries are actually named after mountains.

[07:36]

And even when they're in cities, they still name them after mountains. They call them mountain this and mountain that. And this is because of the old tradition in Taoism, in which it was understood that the way to achieve peace and go deep with one's spirituality is to go to the mountains, get away from the bustle of the world and enter the deep peacefulness of the mountains. Just to hear the sound of the mountain stream and to see the mountain clouds drifting by is the only teaching that we need. And so it happens that Tassajara really is in the mountains, deep in the mountains, very remote. And we have a very quiet daily schedule, which allows us to really harmonize with the clouds and the stream and to really make the clouds and the stream our teachers. And they are wonderful teachers, especially the stream, the big stream that goes by in Tassajara Canyon.

[08:47]

And you hear the sound of the stream all the time, 24 hours a day. When it rains, as it is raining today, we actually can't have any Dharma talks. All lectures and classes have to be cancelled. Because between the sound of the stream going by and the sound of the rain, you literally can't hear anyone speak in the Zendo. So instead of Dharma talk, we just sit and listen to the sound of the rain and the sound of the water rushing by. So this is the study in Zen monasteries, is the study of mountains and waters, also trees. The word tree, you know, in English is related to the word trust. We need trees, you know, practically speaking. But also I think we need trees because trees are a deep image for us of the possibility of trust and steadiness.

[10:01]

So, you know what, if you take her out, I want to tell you something that she should look at. On the altar, on the left, there's a little colorful jar and it's called an earth treasure jar, right? And it's full of healing stuff. And if you take the earth treasure jar and bury it in the ground in a place that needs healing on the earth, it will help. And so the reason I'm mentioning trees is that Wendy and some others from Green Gulch have been very concerned about what's going on in headwaters. And have gone up there a number of times and today they're going to go up this afternoon, still even with the weather, and bury this jar for the healing. So maybe take the children out now and on the way out, take a look, maybe go out that way and take a look on the left. And the rest of you too, when the lecture is over, please look. And maybe the children could give the earth jar their blessing as they go by.

[11:07]

That would really be good. Give their young, strong energy to the earth jar so we can give it back to the headwaters land. Sorry to be so boring. Great socks. Check out those socks. So, I would say that one of the main things about going to the mountains to study waters and trees is to gain an appreciation for the preciousness of our life.

[12:21]

In Zen monasticism, unlike Christian monasticism, it's always been the tradition that monks and nuns travel about. They don't take vows of stability to stay in a monastery cloistered for life. They travel about. Usually they do a practice period for part of the year in retreat, cloistered. But then the rest of the year they may leave the monastery and go home to their temples, or they may go wandering somewhere. And this was true even in Buddhist time. Sometimes in Asia, after many years of practicing in this way, monks or nuns may leave the monastery altogether and go back to their temples and not return to the monastery again. And those of you who are familiar with Suzuki Roshi's book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, will remember a very moving passage in that book when he writes about returning to Eheji Monastery many years after he had left there and hearing the sound of the bell and bursting into tears.

[13:35]

So moved was he by the sound of the bell. And monastic life is like that in Zen, touching us very, very deeply and emotionally. And partly I think that's because it's not something that we do our whole lives. And so we know that every day, every week, every practice period is really precious. We don't take it for granted. And through the experience of living in that way with gratitude and not taking things for granted, we come to realize that that's always true. Our life is just like that, always. I suppose also we go to the monastery in order to practice the abandonment of everything. In the monastery we are nobody and fundamentally there's nothing at all going on.

[14:41]

All our identities and schemes and plans and accomplishments of the past and of the future we leave outside the monastery gate before we go in. And some people find this pretty hard to take in the beginning because, you know, what's left? Who am I? But after a while, when you enter into the life, you find that it's a tremendous relief. In the monastery we have a full day of perfectly useless activity every single day. And the days roll by with a profound sameness as if nothing is going on. And after a while it feels as if every activity of the day were an eternal archetype. You know, getting up from the meal, bowing for service, sitting in zazen, lying down to bed at night, waking up with the bell in the morning.

[15:53]

It seems as if each of these things persists indefinitely as one activity. There's no progress, no plan, no development, nothing whatsoever going on and nobody here to experience the nothing that is going on. Once in a while, in practice period, in the evening the Ina will announce tomorrow morning there will be a shosan ceremony. And in the shosan ceremony all the students come forward and ask a dharma question of the abbot. That's me in this case. And the abbot has to respond to all of the questions. Early in the morning before dawn we do this and that's quite wonderful. And we had one the other day and somebody asked me, somebody said, I feel I'm just going through the motions. Where is the heart? And I said to him, it's in the motions.

[16:57]

The heart is in the motions of our lives. If we really just go through the motions, life is going through the motions, one motion after another, unfolding for no reason like a cloud, just floating along. But the cloud's rain, as we see today, does come down and makes all of life possible. Like the zero that is nothing, but whose nothingness makes all other numbers possible. Clouds are never afraid and zeros never worry. So I suppose that the main thing about monastic practice is that we are all learning to deeply internalize this life of going through the motions.

[18:02]

Of clouds and waters. So that all our lives we will not forget about this. And we can have a measure of fearlessness and no worry. Anyway, that's my little report from Tassajara Zen Monastery, where the women are strong. The men are good looking. And the meditation practice is above average. So that's just a little report. Really what I want to talk to you about today is something entirely different. I would like to talk about something that is probably the most important thing, not only in Zen practice, but in any spiritual practice, and probably in anything in your life. Although it's never mentioned, really, in Zen practice, because it's kind of assumed.

[19:06]

But I thought today, I'm writing about this, and I thought I would share some of my thoughts with you on the practice of persistence. Most of the Zen texts talk about Zen insight, which we all like to hear about. It's pretty interesting and elevating. But no insight without persistence, right? So let me talk to you a little bit about the practice of persistence. And the first thing about it is that in order to practice persistence, I think it's necessary to have a long view, a long-term view. Technical difficulties over there? No? Everybody's fine? It's a very equipment-intensive business, this TV business. Of course, I should talk, right? Plenty of equipment. So persistence, yes. Long-term view.

[20:15]

If you have a short-term view, like most of us have, and you look at things in terms of a week or a month or four years of college or three years in the Marines, and so on, then you're going to be impatient, and you're not going to be able to practice persistence, because you figure, I want to see results right away. Since you're expecting results soon, it's easy to get discouraged. And one of the real problems of our time, I think, is the fact that we're all looking at short-term results. Everything's speeding up. So in your business, if you don't do well this quarter, everything has to change. Even when I was teaching school, they had this same idea. They had what they call outcome-based education. So they would say, such and such a student should be able to do such and such a thing by such and such a time. Such and such skills will be demonstrable. So if you look at things exclusively in this way, I think it's going to be hard to consider things like inner growth, inner maturity, inner ripeness, goodness.

[21:34]

These things will not be able to be considered in those kinds of ways of measuring results. And these qualities, the inner qualities, to me, in the long run, are the most important for achieving lasting results in this world. So in order to practice persistence, I think we have to have the view of the bodhisattva, the being who is working on inner ripeness, and whose true goal is to work on his own or her own inner ripeness and share that with others, help others also to find that inner ripeness. And this bodhisattva view is definitely a long-term view, which is based on a strict agnosticism in relation to results. Of course, one can and must make plans and point toward goals in one's life, because there's no other way to be human except in a monastery, and not do this.

[22:44]

But you have to remember that fundamentally one never knows what's going to happen, and sometimes you achieve your goal and it turns out to be the opposite in its achievement of what you expected it would be looking forward. And the longer your view is, the more ambiguity you notice in results, and the more clear it is that planning that is exclusively results-driven is not going to work out. You have to remember, basically, you don't know what's going to happen. And I think that if you consider the traditional Buddhist teaching of karma, it will help to understand this idea of a long-range view. The word karma is a very common word now, it's probably in Webster's New College Dictionary, I would wager, although I had to look it up, but it's probably in there. I don't know what it says in there, but we all think, most people think that the word karma sort of has implications of fate, somehow.

[23:51]

And reincarnation, and so forth. But in the Buddhist philosophy, in psychology, the word karma is a fairly complicated and subtle word. We've been having a seminar at Green Gulch for advanced students studying Buddhist teachings of karma for several years now, and we're not even scratching the surface. We read these texts and we can't even understand what they mean, it's so subtle. It is. But I would say, more or less, it kind of comes down to something like this. That in any given moment of my life, and yours, we are presented with a situation whose roots have come from the past. This situation is a given, and I can't change it. But in the middle of this given situation, I now face a choice.

[24:52]

What am I going to do with this given situation? Will I thoughtlessly allow the worst to come from it, or will I, with awareness, turn toward the good for myself and others? No matter what my situation is, no matter how apparently dire or fortunate it is, this choice is always present. It's always staring me in the face with each moment of my life, and it is completely inescapable. And I always do make my choice, whether I do it consciously or not. And the choice is always decisive. Consequences always flow from my choice. Whether I can see them immediately or not, there will be always consequences of each choice that I make on each moment of my life. That's basically what the Buddhist teachings of karma are telling us. And there are lots of implications to this, if you think about it.

[25:55]

I am presented with a situation whose roots come from the past. This means that I always have to have a degree of profound acceptance of my life situation. I need to understand and appreciate the past as effective in my life right now. The past is right here. All of the past is right here. I need to know and respect my roots and my history. I need to know that what arises now is in effect no one's fault, not my fault, not someone else's fault. It's just what has arised here now as a consequence of what has been in the past. But then, now I'm faced with a choice. What will I do? This is the part that is very, very empowering, that should give us a lot of courage to go on and do things.

[27:00]

Because no matter what my situation is, no matter how rotten it is and how limited it seems it is, I have the capacity to react to it with clarity and strength or not. And I must react to it. There's no way not to. This is the whole realm of human effort and skill and spiritual practice and training. And here is where I can definitely do something. And I must really do something about my own life and the world around me. With the absolute certainty that what I do, one way or the other, is going to be effective. Something is going to come from it. Definitely. If I make a mess out of my life, it's really going to be a mess. And it's going to affect me and others around me. And on the other hand, if I make an effort to work toward the good, it really is going to be the good. And it's going to have an effect on my future life and the lives of those around me. One of the questions that always comes up in different question and answer sessions here and everywhere else is,

[28:10]

Do Zen Buddhists believe in reincarnation? Somebody always asks. Well, I don't know what Zen Buddhists believe. Myself, I really don't. They believe a lot of different things. But I myself would answer that question. Do I believe in reincarnation? My answer is yes and no. To me, reincarnation is a kind of powerful and perplexing metaphor that seems to be indicating a serious and important truth about our lives. Certainly, it seems to me manifestly clear that there is no little thing inside me or anybody else that's going to fly out of me when I die and lodge itself in some other body, which will then secretly be the body that would be housing this little thing that flew out of body number one.

[29:10]

I don't think so. But that the energy of our lives goes on and that what we do in our lifetime, moment by moment, has wide and essentially unknown implications. And this is true for each and every one of us, each and every moment. This seems really obvious and very clear to me. And it makes of my life something of much greater mystery and power and moment than just this and that that I'm going to do between the time that I'm born and the time that I die. If you have ever had your eyes open and been able to see clearly enough to actually be a witness for the birth of a creature or the passing of a creature, especially a human being, it will be obvious to you that you are in the presence not of some mere mechanical alteration but of an ineffability that your language and logic and this life vision will not explain.

[30:25]

Where did the baby come from? Where did the living person go all of a sudden? Truly, I don't know. But I respect the fact that I don't know and that this not knowing, the ultimate basic fact of my own existence, is something that is there in my life all the time, every moment, although I often forget. So the practice of persistence really depends on this kind of a view, this kind of a long-term and deep view of our life. We need to know that there is much in our life that it is necessary that we simply accept. We need to know that in any moment we are always empowered to act for the good and that that action will definitely be effective in some way in the long run.

[31:33]

And we need to respect that our human mind cannot know the measure of any of this. We can only have some faith in it and go on with a bright hope. Another thing that often arises when we talk about Buddhadharma together is this notion of cultivation. You know, our Western philosophy and science completely is based on the notion that all of life can be understood externally. We can examine life as an object. We don't have much of a tradition of focusing on the subject. Even when we do focus on the mind, we focus on the mind as an external, so we study the brain, you know, or we collect case histories of patients,

[32:44]

as though all of human experience could be reduced to a laboratory experiment or to a social science survey. Of course, we are objects, and this information is very useful and interesting, but we are also subjects. And we need to appreciate that our subjectivity is a realm in which we can work, in which we can make effective efforts. We all have a kind of external view, you know, of who we think we are. We all believe in a kind of cult of personality. I am such and such a personality, this is the way I am. I was born this way, I'll be this way. That's who it is. But if we look inside, and meditation practice can be a very big help to let us really look inside, one sees that one is many, many contradictory people, not just one person.

[33:51]

And the whole point of Buddhist practice really is that all these many, many people can be seen, accepted, tamed, and brought into a kind of seamless harmony, and that their positive and beneficial aspects can be encouraged. And developed. All the way up to the point of our actually being able to be happy and content without illusions. And out of that happiness to be able to actually be capable of loving others, and in a very simple everyday way, being helpful. So one is not a person who has the quality of persistence or doesn't have the quality of persistence. We need to understand that the quality of persistence is essential and that it can be developed. And in Buddhism there are enormous textbooks about things like how to develop the quality of persistence and other important virtues.

[35:01]

And I recommend you read some of those textbooks, they're very interesting and really useful if you put them into practice. But I won't go into all that, details about it, but I'll give you my little plan. I like little small plans that are easy to carry out. So I have a little plan. Three things that you can do to develop persistence. Just in case you're interested. So the first thing you have to do is, I always like to give good practical advice, you know. So here's something you can do. First thing is, you can think hard and clearly about the disadvantages of giving in to frustration. Because giving in to frustration is the opposite of persistence, right? Persistence is developed in order to be a person who doesn't so easily give in to frustration. So first of all, think about what it's like to give in to frustration and think about how that never helps.

[36:04]

You never get anywhere out of giving in to frustration. And conversely, the development of the practice of persistence is really helpful. So go over that a number of times so you got it straight. And then you can remind yourself of it in times of need. Secondly, make a careful study of frustration. So you really understand what frustration is in its detail and you can really appreciate it. And number three, third step, once you've done those other two, you begin with little frustrations. And then work your way up to big ones. And apply and try to actually give rise to the spirit of persistence when those frustrations arise. So I'm going to say a little bit more about all those three steps. So the first one is the idea of thinking hard about the disadvantages of giving in to frustration and the advantages of cultivating persistence. So if you think about it, it doesn't take long to recognize that being overcome by frustration has very little to recommend it.

[37:12]

A certain amount of frustration is a good thing. If you have an experience of frustration, then you realize something isn't going well, isn't quite right. And then you look at the conditions and you figure out what you can fix or make better. And then you just do that with persistence, right? You apply persistence and you make the situation better. And then once the situation is better, the difficult conditions are ameliorated, frustration goes away, right? So that's good, that little frustration, very helpful. But being overcome by frustration, that's a whole other thing. Sometimes we are frustrated when conditions are actually appropriate, it's just that we don't like them. Sometimes we are frustrated by conditions that really are quite negative and horrendous, but we can't do anything about it.

[38:23]

Or we can only do something about it at enormous cost. And that's another case where we're often overcome by frustration. Things like being frustrated with another person, you know, a family member or co-worker, whose behavior you can't change. Getting frustrated over an illness that you have that you can't do anything about. Or a loss in your life that you can't prevent or replace. Or an emotion that arises in you that you just can't get rid of, it's going to be there no matter how much you wish it weren't. Or deep-seated underlying frustration over the enormous social and ecological conditions that prevail nowadays that are not so easily changed. All these things are examples of the kind of frustration that can overcome us if we're not careful.

[39:28]

And when we are overcome by frustration, then frustration escalates, it turns into anger or despair or some other form of shutting down, like habitual daydreaming or withdrawal or even addiction. And this is getting us nowhere. It's entirely counterproductive. The serenity prayer of Alcoholics Anonymous that says, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, is very wise, I think. And this is, in other words, echoed by the Buddhist sage Shantideva who writes, Why be unhappy about something if it can't be remedied? Excuse me. Why be unhappy about something if it can't be remedied? Why be unhappy about something if it can't be? In other words, just remedy it. Why kvetch, right? And what is the use of being unhappy about something if it cannot be remedied, he says.

[40:38]

So if we think about this and remind ourselves of it in the midst of our frustrations, we will not be overcome by them. Or if we are, we'll have some other good advice to give ourselves. Now persistence, on the other hand, is very helpful, always. Nothing bad about persistence. Persistence is not just grit your teeth and tough it out. It's a positive quality of just calmly sticking with a steady kind of good humor to what you decided that you wanted to do in the first place. If you made a good decision in the first place to do something, then it's good to keep going with it without getting derailed right away. Hardly anything that's worthwhile in our lives is accomplished without persistence. So the cultivation of persistence is definitely helpful. And giving in to frustration is definitely not helpful. And even if you do decide to give up something that you were pursuing, you're better off deciding to give it up with a calm mind of persistence rather than the confused, messed up mind of frustration.

[41:57]

Because then when you decide to give it up you always feel kind of bad about it, incomplete. But if you have a good, calm mind, you say, OK, time to give this up. Fine. So the second one, study frustration carefully so you can really understand it and appreciate it. Usually what happens, tell me if this is true for you too, true for me, when frustration arises the first thing we want to do is figure out who to blame. That's the first thing. Makes sense, right? This is a rotten situation? All right, who caused this? Who messed this up in my life? But as soon as you begin blaming, even if the person you blame, as we quite often do, is ourself, maybe especially if the person we blame is ourself, then frustration begins to increase and it snowballs. And the reason why this happens is because we're leaping over the actual experience of being frustrated into some other realm of blaming and the frustration starts piling up.

[43:06]

So blaming is pretty useless. Now I understand if something's broken and you want to fix it, it's good to figure out where is it broken and then fix it. That's good. But this is not the same as blaming. Repairing something and finding out the cause of its disrepair is one thing to do with persistence and a clear mind, but getting onto this blaming train, it really gets a heavy weight and it drags you down and you don't get anywhere with it, really you don't. So notice this, when you start getting frustrated and blaming someone, notice blaming. Catch yourself, if possible. And instead of focusing on the blaming, take a step back and focus on the actual feeling of frustration. What does frustration do to your breathing? Do you feel a tension in the shoulders?

[44:09]

Do you feel some pressure in your head? Do you clench your teeth or your fist? What kind of thoughts fly into your mind when you're very frustrated? Are there memories that come up? Are there visual images that come up? In other words, what is the anatomy of frustration? And it's an odd thing, but it's really the truth I found out from experience of myself and many other people, that if you take that step back and study frustration in this way, without blame, somehow frustration calms down and it's relieved and you won't be overcome by it. You'll still be frustrated, you'll be experiencing frustration which is not pleasant, but you won't be overcome by the frustration. It will instead, if you continue to practice like this, dissipate more quickly.

[45:12]

You will digest the frustration and go on. There's a story that Zen teachers often tell on this point. Once upon a time when the Tenzo, the head cook of the monastery, went out to cut some greens for the soup, he accidentally sliced off the head of a snake and tossed it in the basket with the greens. Through the process of cooking the soup and serving it up into the zendo, it seems that no one noticed the snake head in the soup. And the snake head ended up in the abbot's bowl. And when the abbot called the Tenzo in demanding an explanation, the Tenzo simply grabbed the snake head out of the abbot's bowl and swallowed it down. No excuses, no blaming, he just gobbled up the frustration directly. That's what we have to do, gobble up the frustration.

[46:17]

So that's the second step, right? Study your frustrations. The third step is, starting with small frustrations to the big ones, see if you can begin actually bringing forth, cultivating the positive quality of persistence. So like the formation of any habit, a bad habit or a good habit, it's the same thing. You have to start with, it takes time, you know, to build up some steam behind it, and you have to start modestly. And of course, in order to cultivate persistence, you have to be persistent. Yes, it's true, cultivating persistence takes persistence. But you already have some persistence, right? Otherwise you'd be dead by now. So you have to take that little persistence that you actually already have, that persistence that gets you out of bed in the morning, and, you know, make it bigger, make it stronger.

[47:22]

So at this point, you know, you have really talked to yourself a lot, you've gone over this, and you know that frustration is useless, persistence is far better, and that it is possible to cultivate persistence. You have already studied frustration very carefully, you understand its ins and outs, you're familiar with it, and what arises in your mind when it happens, and you're not going to be fooled by that. And you're willing to digest your frustration. And so now your frustration feels a little bit more expansive when it arises. You see, it's not quite this, it's still there, you're still frustrated when things happen, but it has a little spaciousness in there. And you no longer, you know, feel that you have to avoid frustration at all costs, you're kind of interested in it, you think, ah, frustration, good, let's see what we can do now. So when you're going to get to that stage through the other two practices, then when frustration arises, you're very alert, and you turn toward the frustration,

[48:29]

and just stop everything. And just start breathing. Follow your breath. Drop frustration, and just follow your breath. You could, with following your breath, maybe do something like smile on purpose. It's very helpful. One of my sons used to have this practice, in the midst of frustration, he would smile on purpose. And it would help him to drop the frustration. Skillful practitioner, this son of mine. Or you could just work on purpose, relaxing the muscles of the face, which you will notice are quite tense when you're frustrated. You can just relax the muscles in your face, or in your shoulders, to stop and breathe and relax. Drop the frustration. Kadagiri Roshi once told me that when he was frustrated, he would close his eyes, and imagine he could visualize in his mind's eye a beach with waves and a sunset.

[49:39]

And that when he was very frustrated, he would close his eyes, and he would be there, and he would just drop his frustration. Letting the frustration wash through you, fall away, and feeling calmness arise. And you can work on this, it's good, little tiny things, like you forgot your keys, you know. You get mad when you forget your keys. Frustrating. Just like little things like that, like look out for those things. This time, this week, it's going to be one of all the times I forget my keys. Next week it's going to be, you know, when I misplace something else. And after a while, as you can build up to where you can do this with, you know, you have this practice, and so when major frustrations, serious frustrations arise, this practice is there for you. And the more you practice it, the sooner you're able to catch your frustration before it snowballs, and turn it into persistence. All the way up to the point where frustration doesn't arise very often,

[50:44]

and when it does, it goes away quickly. And instead, there can be a general spirit of persistence that arises fairly consistently with whatever you do in your life. So this is my little plan. It's three steps you can cultivate the practice of persistence. Whoever thinks about things like this, persistence, you don't even think about it. This is a good way to think about it and cultivate it. Of course, as I said in the beginning, it's very important to practice these steps without expecting results. Because ultimately, the practice of persistence is not that easy, when you really come down to it. To have an attitude of persistence with the most fundamental frustrations of our life. Like the inevitable fact that whatever we set up in our lives will fall down.

[51:49]

The inevitable fact that we will lose our life. We will lose all our friends and loved ones. These kind of frustrations are not that easy to overcome. And Zen practice focuses on frustration and the development of persistence at this level. And this is why one of my favorite themes, which always makes me cheerful and happy, is when I mention that basically Zen practice is about failure. It's about practicing failure. Total, absolute failure. Sometimes I give talks on this and the students are in tears. They say, go on about this. I'm jolly and they're crying. So to practice total failure is the ultimate in the practice of persistence. Total, absolute failure.

[52:53]

And in Zen practice we come back to this point over and over again. The fact that right now, just the way we are, with all our problems and all our issues, with all these built-in frustrations of life that come from loss and impermanence and the final absolute vanity of everything human that we would ever attempt to do, with all of that, at the same time, everything is great. And we are all Buddhists and everything is perfect in what we do. And the only thing necessary for us is that we embrace this point and appreciate it. Of course we can't do that, so it's frustrating. We're always falling to one side or the other, either crying over our problems or in a stupid moment of pseudo-transcendence thinking that we're beyond all our problems,

[53:55]

which we're not. And many of the Zen stories are turning on this pivot point. How to see failure as an absolute, total failure, beyond any notion of success or failure. And we're so stuck in good and bad and success and failure. For instance, the old Zen master Deshan, who used to say to his students, whether you're right or wrong, still, 30 blows. And in our practice, which I think, I hope, generally speaking, is a lot more gentle than Master Deshan, still practitioners, I think, do go through the psychological impasse with failure. And if the practice group and the teacher treat this impasse with kindness and respect, it's difficult, but it can be ultimately very useful, very strengthening. And one will have, over and over again, the inner experience,

[54:57]

because it's not that somebody else is telling you this, but you have over and over again the inner experience of being completely off, completely wrong, of failing to grasp the fundamental point. In other words, of getting those metaphorical 30 blows, whichever way you turn. But finally, you see that, gosh, it is so simple. What a boob. I'm just myself, that's all. Letting go of all ideas of who I'm supposed to be, of gaining and losing. There aren't any mistakes. Even mistakes aren't mistakes. And anyway, it'll never be perfect. Nobody's perfect. And that's good, because it wouldn't be human if it were perfect. One of my favorite Zen stories is one about Master Jingjing.

[56:02]

One time, like today, when it was raining outside, Master Jingjing said, What's that sound outside? And someone answered, It's the sound of raindrops. Well, the Master, like all Zen masters, wasn't exactly asking about outside. And so when the student said, It's raindrops, he said, Oh, people today are so upside down. Losing themselves and seeking outside. But here's the wonderful part. The student said, Well, what about you, teacher? And he said, I almost don't lose myself. So, this is the practice of persistence, and it has all these dimensions,

[57:03]

from learning how not to freak out when you lose your car keys, which is, you know, useful, right? On the job, not like wanting to punch out your co-worker every day. Practical, useful stuff. Everything from that, all the way up to a kind of profound acceptance and clear-eyed wisdom about the human predicament. So I recommend the practice of persistence to all of you. And I think that, for me, one of the great things about it, a kind of a by-product of it, or we can even say a result of it, but if you think of it as a result, it might mess you up. You get frustrated when you don't see it. But I think what does happen with a persistent practice, a persistence over some time, is that what arises in you is a feeling of warmth and love.

[58:10]

That which you are persistently, you know, dealing with, you begin to be affectionate with, even if it's your own shortcomings. If you persistently practice Zen, you will love the practice, and you will love the people who do the practice. If you are in a relationship with someone for a long time, with a good spirit of persistence, and work on your frustrations with the person in the relationship, you will have a strong feeling of warmth and love with that person. If you take up a profession or a craft or art, and you persistently work at that craft or art or profession, over some time, dealing with your frustrations in this way, and raising up the spirit of persistence, you will come to love that craft or art or profession.

[59:13]

So this very simple thing like be persistent, you know, has many dimensions and wonderful, beautiful results for our human life. So I'm coming from the mountains to visit, and to tell you that persistence is great. Please consider the three-step persistence practice, or you know what, make up your own. You don't need those three steps. You can have five steps or one step, or the no-step persistence practice. So it's great to be up to visit all of you, and again, thank you all for braving this weather and coming to visit us. And I hope you didn't mind. It really does feel like we're on another planet with this kind of lighting, doesn't it? Maybe that's nice. Okay, please take care of yourselves.

[60:18]

Thank you very much. The divisions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. The barbaric gates that surround us, I vow to enter them. The dust that weighs us to the bone, I vow to become. If you understand a little bit about it, if you think you work it, if you work something out, it's better to go out, and when it comes back in, it's even worse, because you've got to get it done with. Yeah. So... And repeated patterns. Well, the first thing I want to say is to plead ignorance, because this is obviously an important issue

[61:50]

that many people have, and I'm aware that there's much written and studied and discussed and so on about it, all of which I'm ignorant of. And I assume that all this discussion and these books and so on must have something to it. So that's probably as much as, you know, the best input. So, given that, just so that I'm not presenting myself as somebody who knows about these things or has thought about them extensively, although, goodness knows, in our community, we spend a lot of time, because people get in relationships, right? And then the suffering or the joys of those relationships end up being something that the teachers and leaders do hear about. So it's not like... And I'm not a monk, so I've been in relationships and I'm married, so I have some appreciation of it.

[62:51]

So I'll just say the first thing that comes to my mind about how it might relate to Buddha's practice, and I hope it will be of some benefit. Well, first thing is that, consider the fact that in the very beginning, Buddha basically said, in effect, relationships, too hard. Can't handle it. Buddha said, right, we're not going to have relationships, because it's too hard to practice and have relationships. So, I mean, if Buddha said that, then you know right away that this is not an easy proposition. One needs a lot of persistence, right, in order to practice in a relationship. And then, I think the next thing is, that one has to have, and this is the hard part, I think this is the problem, I would say, is that one has to really be trusting. You really have to trust. I think in any kind of relationship that's really

[63:51]

lasting, wholesome, positive relationship, first of all, to me, there would always be some spiritual basis to it. Because as long as the basis of relationship is, you give me what I want, I give you what you want, how long could it last? Because what I want is changes. What you want changes. Pretty soon, you're not giving me what I want, and I'm not giving you what you want, and then we suffer and we finally part ways. So a relationship based on that is going to be, you just should know in the beginning, well, okay, let's have fun and then suffer. Because that's what will happen, you know. So, you know, that's not so bad, it might be worth it, you know, as long as you know that in the beginning. The problem is we don't know that, but if we know in the beginning, well, we're going to have some fun and then we'll suffer and then it will be worth it, you know, then it's not so bad, I guess. But if I think the relationship that aspires to last longer than that

[64:53]

would have to have a spiritual basis, in other words, you might not give me what I want, I might not give you what you want, and still, our being together has a wider and deeper significance than that. So that's the first thing. And then, there has to be a deep trust. Basically, it's a risk, right? Like in the Christian wedding ceremonies, there's a line, I plight thee my troth. I plight thee my troth. In old English, it means I risk my personal truth in this marriage. I'm willing to risk my personal truth so that we can be together. It may cost me that. And I'm willing to take that risk because I trust you. I trust that you will take care of my...

[65:57]

that my surrendering to you will be all that I need. For my deepest personal truth and fulfillment. Which, you know, is a risk, because suppose it's not so. And yet, if one is unwilling to take that kind of risk and you're always waiting to see, well now, is she or he taking care of me properly? As long as you're scrutinizing that, then of course you won't draw forth from the other person that kind of trustworthy activity unless you trust. So there's a big risk involved, in a sense, on a very deep level. An enormous risk. And so you have to be willing to say to yourself, in a way, you know, like, I mean it's an oddball thing, but it's really true, I think, that the kind of renunciation that a religious person makes in saying I abandon the world, you know, and trust my practice is similar to what a couple would make.

[66:59]

I abandon the world because I trust you. And I trust what happens to us in this relationship. And that, just like renunciation for a religious person is not a simple thing. You know, you're constantly reviewing it and working on it and finding how you're not renouncing, you know, and trying to let go. And the same in a relationship. So then, of course, the ability to renounce in that way, you know, requires that one has some clarity about, you know, your own life, right, and who you are and what you're trying to do. And then if you find that there are these kind of repeated patterns, then you have to, you know, address that and look at your life and see where do these patterns come from and how can I let go of them and so on and so on. But I think this idea of renunciation and risk and trust to me is what it's all about. And we see how rare it is, right, how seldom such relationships occur in this world. And it's not that different in a way

[68:03]

than from having a relationship to a spiritual teacher that's based on trust and renunciation and risk and so forth. So these kind of human relationships, we really deeply want them and they are transformative and very, very important, but they are rare. So we all struggle with how can we do that in our lives. So, yeah, it's hard. So good luck, you know, with it. And it definitely, I really feel that having an active spiritual practice in your life really helps. It really helps. I mean, you see how difficult it is and it doesn't make it simple. But I would say that without that, gee, you know, we just have to be a one in a million lucky person to be able to do that without some sense of spirituality in your life to go back to, you know, go back to the cushion and, you know, let go and work with it some more.

[69:04]

And I know that you do have a regular practice, so, yeah, good luck with it. I hope it works out really well. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No. Well, that was pretty much it. No. Yeah, I mean, not much more to say. Yeah. You know, I think that persistence leads to trust. Because, like, I often notice that, like, if you take care of something, like, say, like here, we have a practice of taking care of the altar. And that's somebody's job. Somebody takes on that job for a while. Well, after a while, every day you clean the incense bowl, every day you dust the statue or whatever.

[70:05]

After a while, you begin to feel very tenderly toward the altar and the incense bowl and things that you deal with and work with and take care of, that you maintain and take care of. You feel a sense of affection and trust in the persistent effort, and so, out of persistence, trust grows. And trust is necessary, you know. So, for me, trees are like that. The practice of persistence, like trees, totally embody that, right? They are there, right, through wind and storm and rain and everything. You know, that tree is there. And there's something about the nobility of a tree that inspires me. And I like to, I always feel good around trees. And I love to go in the high mountains and hike with the great forests of Jeffrey Pine and Ponderosa Pine.

[71:06]

And there's a feeling there that you get in all kinds of trees. And they're all different, very different kinds of personalities. But they do, all trees, to me, express that feeling of steadfastness and trustworthiness that I would like to feel that I could manifest in my life. And I think that that does come from a kind of steady persistence in practice. And like I say, all the juicier, flashier kinds of things are often what we talk about, you know, insight and compassion and this and that, but just this idea of persistence and just going back over and over again, you know, to the same thing, with a good spirit of, you know, not looking for results and not worrying about it. Out of that comes a feeling of faith and trust comes. And that's, you know, such an essential quality for our practice. So for me, trees are that. And it's just funny that the word in English, tree, is related to the word trust. And that's why I think,

[72:08]

you know, we have a lot of students who are passionately involved in that, you know, carted off and jailed and pepper spray in the eye and all this stuff. And she obviously is passionately concerned about the trees. Why is she so passionately concerned about trees? I think it's because of this, because, you know, we have to save the trees, you know, there's a human thing in there, you know, apart from all the reasons that they take them down. Gee, you know, it's not the same if they grow other ones. You know, there's 20-year redwood trees that they will harvest for timber. It's not the same thing. You know, because those trees are tamed. You know, wild trees that just grow up have that feeling of steadfastness and powerful, persistent practice.

[73:09]

So that's why I think people are so emotional about this. Because it's like an archetypal thing. That's what I feel. Yeah, Gloria. Yeah. Right. That's right. Yeah. Well, that's, like I was saying, that's the cardinal thing about the practice of persistence. You can't really look for results. The practice of persistence means you keep going. Even if results are not coming for a long time or are negative or seem to be negative for now, yeah, that wouldn't, it doesn't change your feeling of the practice of persistence. You do it anyway. Even if you know it's a lost cause, you know, you still do it.

[74:10]

And if you win that struggle, I mean, when do we finish the job of protecting the environment or trying to promote justice? Will we finish that job and then say, oh good, we did it? No, I mean, it'll be an endless, and there'll be many ups and downs, and one never knows. Like I was reading about England in the early part of the 19th century, in the Industrial Revolution, they passed the first forward-looking social laws anywhere in the world. Which were called the Poor Laws. And the Poor Laws were designed to alleviate the plight of the underclass that had started to develop as a result of industrialization. And the reason for passing those laws was a liberal law to help poor people. And the result of it was that within 20 years or so, or 25 years, they had greatly increased the numbers and the destitution of the underclass as a result of the Poor Laws.

[75:12]

And that was the result of it. So, in other words, you don't know what's going to happen. Sometimes something works really well and it has the opposite effect from the one you intended. So, you can't really look at it in terms of short-term results. You just have to have the absolute certainty and faith that doing the right thing has good effects in the long run. And, you know, not to be stupid about it, but not to get completely discouraged that things don't go the way they ought to. You keep going. Clearly, you know, one has to have a spirit to keep going with practice, to keep going with doing good no matter what with some faith that this is going to be beneficial. And that faith in itself has its own reward, right? Because if you're persistent then all these qualities of love and trust and so on are palpable,

[76:17]

but you don't know what's going to happen in the world. So, yeah, I mean, they might cut down those trees and that would be really terrible. And I am sure that if they do, I think it's going to be, you know, a really shocking thing because I'm sure that there will be people who will give their lives. There will be people killed, and that will take us to another level of understanding the importance of these things if that happens. I mean, I really pray that it doesn't happen. But if it happens, that they cut down those trees, and if it happens, it is likely that there are some people who will be killed in the process, that's going to be really something. We're going to have an international grief of shock realizing what's going on here. Yeah. Yeah, Dino, you had your hand up.

[77:17]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, in a way, you know, persistence completely involves letting go because what we're attached to basically is the results, right? We're attached to, I'm attached to you because you know, I'm attached to this or that because of what it brings me in my life.

[78:18]

So I'm not, attachment comes with future projection and results. With the practice of persistence, the idea is you go forward, you make effort regardless of what happens. So in effect, if you're going to practice persistence, you have to practice letting go moment after moment, like, well, okay, we're not really in conflict. But I think that there is, that you do raise an issue that is a real difficulty which is, as Sonia and I were talking before, what's the difference between persistence and stubbornness? Because sometimes, I said a little bit about this, that sometimes you actually do. You decide you're going to do something and you persist with it, but sometimes you have to stop doing that. And you say, okay, well, no more of this. And how do you do that? How do you know?

[79:18]

And I guess I would say that the practice of persistence itself will lead you to that kind of wisdom. What you don't want to do, as I was saying in the talk, is not to let go of something out of frustration. In other words, this is too hard and I'm having a hard time with it and I'm miserable so I'm quitting. My advice to people is when you find yourself in a situation like that, don't quit. Don't quit until the difficulty of your situation, you can meet it with the practice of persistence and then you clear your mind. And once you clear your mind and once you know where you're going, then with the clear mind that comes out of the practice of persistence, then you can stop, give it up. We don't pick something up and then persist in it for our entire lives. We change. But it's hard to know. Am I changing because it's really clear or am I changing because it's too hard for me

[80:22]

and I'm frustrated? That to me is the hard part. But I think real persistence, as I'm discussing it, does have to do with letting go entirely of having a kind of mind all the time and just going ahead. And that's the mind of letting go. Yeah, okay. You had your hand up. I just wanted to ask, I understand about persistence, but that would be assuming that what you are working towards is something that's good and worthwhile. Yes. It's not so easy in some ways that you want to achieve or want to do it. Good point. what you're persisting with is worthwhile. Well, of course, from my perspective, that's not so hard because if you're doing spiritual practice, you have precepts,

[81:22]

you have various moral teachings that you have reflected on. And you have good friends who will basically call you on it if you're confused. And that's just totally arbitrary. And basically what it comes down to is that which is harmful, would harm oneself or others, is not a positive thing to pursue. That which would promote happiness in life for yourselves and especially for others would be a positive thing to do. And all the moral precepts of Buddhism come from that essential factor. But sometimes, you're right, it can be subtle. You're not so sure. And then I think it's a question of how much you've cultivated your practice and you kind of trust your gut. But then, of course, your gut is lesser or more educated.

[82:23]

Sometimes you trust your gut and whoops, and that's how you learn. Little by little, you can trust your intuition about what's harmful and not harmful. But there are some sense that in a way it's not only Buddhism that has moral and ethical teachings. Any spiritual tradition does. And not only spiritual traditions, but there's a sense of civility and there's a sort of, what do you call it, a societal sense of right and wrong. Even if you don't have any spiritual practice at all, I think that one has a sense that there's such a thing as decency and being respectful and being selfish and grabbing things. Nobody thinks this is good. Nobody thinks it's good except somebody who's really misguided and messed up. So one knows, in a way. It's not so hard. When it comes to specifics,

[83:26]

though, I guess this career, that career, this kind of thing can be a little bit dicey. Say yes to this. And then, when it's a miserable failure and everything goes wrong and your life is a mess, you say, whoops. Yes? I had a thought while you were speaking of frustration in the talk and I haven't had a chance to think it through clearly, so I bet you have. And that's why I'm going to talk now. And it relates a little bit to Bino's question. And it's the relationship of frustration to choice. It occurred to me as you were talking that we usually think we're frustrated because we don't have a choice, but I think we're actually frustrated because we think we do have a choice. And that every time I'm involved in self-blame

[84:26]

or American blame, I think Americans need this practice more than anybody else because we appear to have more choices than anyone else. And if you don't have choices, you're not as frustrated. If the social laws are such that you could never get divorced, you don't feel as frustrated as if you think you could. Or if you pick the wrong car to buy or the wrong TV or the wrong mushrooms. So it's this relationship of frustration to choice and the illusion that the choice really matters in a way. Yeah, I think that's true. It seemed to me that there was someplace valuable to go with that thought and I haven't had a chance to do more than that. Well, that's one of the virtues of monastic practice is that you live a life in which there's almost no choice. Yes, that's what I was thinking. You guys have it easy. Oh yes, no question about it. It's very easy. Living in the monastery is really easy. You know, the bell rings, you've got to get up.

[85:27]

You know, they'll drag you out of bed. And you don't have to choose what you're going to do during the day. You just go through and you do the schedule. Everything is, you know, what are you going to have for lunch? You don't think about it. What restaurant will we go to? Imagine all the suffering that comes out of it. Where are we going to eat tonight? What restaurant will we go to? Oh my God, the suffering that people undergo. You know, this doesn't happen at Tassajara. You know, you just go in there and you eat your gruel and that's it. If it's this kind of gruel or that kind of gruel, that's where you're going to get. There's no choice. And I think that, so I think you're right. I think that it really does, so when you practice in that way, which, you know, even if you don't go to the monastery, even if you do like one period of Zazen, that's the case, right? If you do one period of Zazen with this spirit of persistence, in other words, doing this period of Zazen for 20 minutes long and whether I like it or not, I'm going to sit there for 20 minutes. No choice for that 20 minutes or that one day retreat or that one week Sashin or whatever it is. So I think it is very important to train yourself in this spirit because of course,

[86:28]

really and truly, we don't have any choice in our life. This life is the way it is and we don't have any choice. The choices that we make are details, right? When it really comes down to it, there's no choice. We're born, we suffer, we die, there's a little joy in there maybe, poof, that's it. It's all the same for all of us and that's it. And the rest of it is, what's the difference? We put on a blue shirt or a green shirt, what's the difference? So, so if we realize that, you see, if that's our reference point, then we don't get all that worked up about our choices. You know, like, where are we going to eat tonight? Okay, well I want to go there, she wants to go there. But you know, really and truly, what are we going to do with this food anyway? Chew it up into some disgusting mass and then poop it out in the toilet. So why am I going to worry about this, you know? So that's the thing, I think you're right. To really have

[87:31]

as a reference point the choiceless nature of existence is very important. And certainly, if you practice as a monk for any length of time, you will have that as a reference point. Even just, you know, like I say, retreats give you that sense of life. There was something about your third point in your three-point plan. I'm not sure if I understand it right. About trying to first approach small frustrations. It feels to me like the small frustrations are really all there are. The big frustrations is kind of an illusion of big frustrations. the frustration of growing old is really the frustration of dealing with an ache that you have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in some way it almost feels like I reversed the plan. Big frustrations first and then worked down to the really very small frustrations. That's a good, I'll think about that. That's a good idea. Yeah, I think that's,

[88:33]

you're right. I mean, there isn't anything but just, you know, the ache that we have right now. Although, there is a very strongly persistent idea that there is something more than that. And that's maybe what's frustrating is the idea that we have. Like, you know, the idea that we're going to die which is after all just an idea. But yet it's a very pervasive underlying thing in our psychology. And that's what I meant by big frustrations. I was thinking about that in particular. It's like, you know, the real frustration with dying is like not being able to take one breath. Right. That's really all it comes down to. That's right, yeah. Because nobody dies, of course. You know, you're just here, you're alive. And then the next minute you're meat, right? So there's no such thing as death. There's just, one minute's this and the next minute's that. Death is a concept and so much else in our lives that the big things that are upsetting to us are like that. But they're fairly persistent concepts and one can't

[89:34]

trivialize them. But you're right. I agree with you, yeah. Many people say, and I think they really mean it, that they don't mind death, say, what they mind is, you know, falling apart and all the pain and suffering and discomfort and, you know, awfulness of losing the body, losing the mind. To give it all up may be easy. Yeah. Well, I'll think about changing the plan. It's a good idea. I'll say like, maybe I'll say like, something like, and the Raja method is, you know. Somebody over here? Yes. When you talked about reincarnation as really, it seemed very fresh to me when you said that. I feel that's pretty much how I feel about it. But,

[90:34]

at the beginning in Buddhism, so it causes a conflict in my mind about the Dalai Lama. I don't understand this phenomenon. Can you explain it to me? Well, I don't know if I understand it either. But, certainly in Tibetan Buddhism, there does seem to be a much more literalistic sense of reincarnation as if the essence of one person flew into another person like I was saying. That's a ridiculous idea. It does sound like they're saying that, right? However, there's one thing that's definitely clear. And that is that of all the sort of tenets of formal Buddhism, the most fundamental tenet of all is the non-existence of an abiding self. That, it's a little bit like what Raja was just saying that there is not

[91:36]

an abiding self. There is a thought that we might have of an abiding self which is a very persistent delusionary thought. But there isn't such a thing actually. What there is instead is the coming together of conditions to produce this moment which then falls away. And then this moment itself becomes one of a number of conditions that then produce another moment. And these moments, although they appear to be related and are causally related, they call it, they say it's like pearls on a string which are, there's no string. It's unrelated pearls but they look like they make a continuous hole. So the fact that, in other words, this is to say all phenomena are empty of any substantial abiding self. This teaching of emptiness is clear in all of Mahayana Buddhism and it's a teaching that the Dalai Lama has taught himself many, many, many times.

[92:36]

So he's clear, there's no doubt that he's clear and the pundits of Tibetan Buddhism are clear on the fact that there is no substance that travels through different bodies despite the fact that the popular teaching makes it sound like that. It's real clear that Tibetan Buddhist doctors, so to speak, don't see that that's so. So then you say, well then, what is rebirth? What is it all about? Well, it's just that the siri It's just that it's just that

[93:11]

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