Want to degress for a minute here. I think we talk about impermanence, life and death. It's sort of given Buddhism the reputation for being a nihilistic religion or just gloomy. think we all understand that what it is is a clear eyed look at things as they are. But sometimes, when you try to drive the point home, people feel a little appressed. Looking for good news. And I want to read something. I read it recently at a meditation intensive in Cleveland, from Joko Beck, was a American teacher who died a few years back. And she says she says this, we refuse to see the truth that's all around us. We don't really see life at all our attention is elsewhere. We are engaged in an unending battle with our fears about ourselves and our existence. If we want to see life, we must be attentive to it. But we're not interested in doing that. We're only interested in the battle to preserve preserve ourselves forever. And of course, it's an anxious, anxious and futile battle, a battle that can't be won. The one who always wins is death, the right hand man of impermanence. What we want out of life as we live it, is that others reflect our glory. We want our partners to ensure our security to make us feel wonderful to give us what we want, so that our anxiety may be eased for a little while. We look for friends who will at least take the cutting edge off of our fear, the fear that we're not going to be around one day. We don't want to look at that. The funny thing is that our friends are not fooled by us. They see exactly what we're doing. Why do they see it so clearly? Because they're doing it to they're not interested in our efforts to be the center of the universe. Yet we waged the battle ceaselessly. We're frantically busy. When our personal attempts to win the battle fail, we may try to find peace in a false form of religion. And people who offer that carrot get rich. We are desperate for anyone who will tell us it's all right. Everything can be wonderful for you. Even in Zen practice, we try to find a way around what practice really is, so that we can gain a personal victory. People often say to me Joko, why do you make practice so hard? Why don't you hold out any cookies at all. But from the point of view of the small self, practice can only be hard. Practice annihilates the small self and the small self unit isn't interested in that one bit. It can't be expected to greed, annihilation with joy. So there is no cookie that can be held out for the smallest self unless we want to be dishonest. Wait. There is another side to practice however, as our small self dies are angry, demanding complaining, maneuvering, manipulative self, a real cookie appears joy and genuine self confidence. We begin to taste what it feels like to care about someone else without expecting anything in return. And this is true compassion. How much we have it depends on the rate at which the small self dies as it dies here and there. We have moments when we see what life is Sometimes we can spontaneously act and serve others. And with this growth always comes repentance. When we realize that we have almost constantly hurt others and ourselves, we repent, and this repentance is itself pure joy