I'd like to start tonight's talk with a story that I shared a few years ago here, and

I really love it.

And in this story, there's an elderly king who's looking for an heir, and he's a very democratic

kind of guy, and he invites everybody in the whole entire kingdom who might be interested

to come and be interviewed.

And he's very gracious and welcomes all these different people that come, and before

he interviews them, he gives them some time and makes the palace baths available so

they can be clean.

It wants to be real egalitarian, and so he gives them dressing rooms to choose whatever

they'd want to wear, and with great cases of jewels that the women can choose from,

and lavish array.

And then he wants to feed them well, so there's this banquet that he has with all delicacies

and music and dancing, and he's sitting up in his chambers, kind of waiting for the first

to come in, hearing the merriment below, and hours and hours pass.

And nobody comes up to be interviewed, and finally he asks his counsel, he's kind of

depressing what's happening, and the counsel says, you're Majesty, now they're all gone,

and when they descended downstairs, there's all the litter from the party, and the food's

gone, the silverware's gone, and the place has kind of been emptied out, and the people

have gone.

And that's it, nobody interviewed with the king.

They forgot why they came.

Now I suspect everyone here has a sense of what the Dharma teaching is in this one, but

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