Good evening.

I was reflecting on today on the interviews and just on the retreat and realized that for

me one of the best descriptions of what goes on is forgetting and remembering and then

forgetting and then remembering and just what I watch myself, I watch all of us when

we forget the signs are real clear, there's a stuckness and kind of a contraction into

a small sense of who we are and when there's a remembering it has a different experiences

to it but the common denominator is there's a quality of presence that has room for what's

going on rather than reacting, whether it's the image of the mountains and all the

weather systems just happening, they're just happening, are I often like the metaphor

of ocean we're back to the oceanness and the waves are coming and going and it's workable.

And in the Zen tradition they say that the very heart of Zen is being able to respond appropriately.

And I like that because when you're in your oceanness different waves come and there's

a capacity to respond either spontaneously or creatively or with heart or whatever is

called for.

Some of you might remember this is one of my more favorite descriptions in this kind

of Zen line, it starts a wild back and old tired looking dog wandered into the yard.

I could tell from his collar though no tags and well fed Billy and the fact that he was

clean that he had a home.

He followed me into the house down the hall and fell asleep on the couch.

Now my dog didn't seem to mind and he seemed like a good dog and I was okay with him so

I let him nap.

An hour later he went to the door and I let him out.

...