Tonight and next week we'll be exploring what I sometimes think of as three key facets

of spiritual practice that really serve our awakening and our freedom and there's an ancient

teaching story from the Upanishads that I've always loved and every time I revisit it I feel

like there's more that that comes out of it as happens with all really good teaching stories.

So I'd like to share with you a bit of this story and we'll use the story as a kind of grounding

for both weeks and I'm going to read you a little bit of what you can find it's one of the

versions you can find on the web of Nachikita and the Lord of Death. So Nachikita is a young man from

India he's the son of a rich merchant who also happens to be a very miserly guy and when his father

was making donations in order to receive a gift from the gods Nachikita noticed that he was donating

only the cows he owned that were old our lame are blind so publicly he brought this up he challenged

his father and basically in his father shame and anger his father said I give you to Yama which is

death you know that's kind of like saying go to hell you know but he said I give you to Yama

and Nachikita being a very sincere young man and taking things literally he got okay so he

took him for his word and went off into the dense forest searching for death and finally he sat

and waited for death to appear and he sat through pain and he sat through hunger and he sat

through exhaustion and he arrived in the land of Yama he was greeted by Yama's three assistants

who were as you might imagine pestilence famine and war this three assistants and they told

him death was out so he said I'll wait and he waited and he waited through three days that were

pretty intense pretty miserable for him but he waited patiently and finally Yama arrived and

sensing the boy's patience and his determination and his sincerity he offered him any three

boons any boons of his choosing to continue on his spiritual journey so Nachikita's first wish

was for peace with his father that all be forgiven that he that he lived his life with an

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