So I begin with a quote from Zen Master Dogen, which is that enlightenment is just intimacy

with all things. I've known this quote for a long time. I never knew the word just was

in there. All you have to do is be intimate with everything and then you're free. But

I'd like to just start tonight by inviting you to imagine what that means, to just

slow us down right from the start and just have you just check in for a moment and imagine

intimacy with all things. Intimacy right this moment with the life inside you. What does

that mean? Intimacy with someone at work, your boss and employee, somebody that you work

with, with a cousin or a sister. Intimacy with the person sitting next to you, even if you don't

know that person. What does it mean? What's the quality of heart? Intimacy with the squirrels,

the birdseed at the feeder. Intimacy with the weeds. Intimacy with the wind. Intimacy with the

sounds that are right here. Can you begin to sense the quality of openness, of awakeness,

of tenderness, that unconditionally makes room. It's that the heart space where everything that is

is welcome. Okay so whenever you'd like to open your eyes. So realizing whether we call it

intimacy, our loving presence is our potential, both in evolutionary terms and in spiritual terms.

It's our potential to realize and trust and live from loving presence and it's an expression of

full awakening and it's also a need. We need love to evolve in a healthy way, developmentally.

Now research shows that we need a certain amount of loving attention in order for our neuronal synapses

to be formed. And they've studied rat pups and they see that the rat pups get enough licking and

grooming, there's more synapses. It's part of what we need. So we have a longing for love and we

flourish when love is there and it expresses who we are. When there's a sense of belonging, we are at

ease and we're able to flower. It's the primary subject of most poetry and most literature and therapy.

So the poet Hafez says, the subject tonight is love and for tomorrow night as well. As a matter of

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