Here is one of a series of talks by spiritual
leader Lola McDowell Lee, spanning two decades
from the early 70s through the 90s. Lola was
a Zen Roshi, whose Rinzai lineage included Dr.
Henry Plotov and renowned Zen master Shigetsu
Sasaki. Lola was a religious scholar as well
as an ordained Christian minister. While the
talks are focused mainly on Zen and Buddhism,
Lola drew on many spiritual traditions, including
those of Jesus, Plato, Lao Tzu, the Hindu Vedas,
Meister Eckhart, and Gurdjieff. The Prime Minister,
Kho Tu, and he lived in the Tang dynasty. was
an outstanding statesman. He was a distinguished
general and he was one of the most admired national
heroes of his day. Now his fame and his wealth
and his power and his success didn't distract
him from his very keen deep interest and his
devotion to Zen. Regarding himself as a very
plain and humble, devoted individual, he very
often visited his favorite Zen master to study
with him. Now he and this Zen master, they seem
to get along very well. The fact that he was
a prime minister seemed to have no influence
on their situation, you know, this association.
There was no noticeable trace of politeness on
the part of the Zen master, or nor was there
any of this vain loftiness on the part of the
minister. The association seemed to be purely
religious, that of a revered master and teacher
and an obedient disciple. One day, however, when
he was paying this usual visit to the Zen master,
this general, this prime minister, he asked a
question. And he says, your reverence, how does
Zen explain egotism? And suddenly, this Zen master's
face turned blue. And in a very haughty and very
contemptuous tone of voice, he said, what are
you saying, you numbskull? And this really unreasonable
and very unexpected defiance so hurt the feelings
of the prime minister that this slight sullen
expression began to creep over his face. This
little bit of anger, you know, showed. And then
Zen Master, he then smiled and he said, Your
Excellency, this is ego. This is ego. It's a
big problem. Our ego function is a very basic
problem, and much more so than most people realize.
To function in this world, we need the ego. But
to discover what we truly are, then the ego is
the biggest stumbling block. Now during, now
next week, starting next Sunday night, the week
of seshin, you know, we're gonna have no talking,
no communicating with one another except in emergencies
and very dire circumstances and so on and so
on. So there will be lots of opportunities for
you to perceive egotism. Really. You know. And
that's part of what these rules and regulations
are for. So you can observe yourself rather than
observing the other guy. You can observe yourself
in reaction and your responding and so on and
so on. Now because you know many people And I
don't know how many of you here do this, but
many people live with the notion that the ego
is a little something that hides in here and
picks its head out every once in a while to get
us into trouble, you know. And then of course
others, they think about this ego as this myself,
this myself that I'm dealing with every day in
every way. And it's not getting any better. Could
this myself be the ego? Could it be? Then I jolly
well better find this real self or this true
identity. But then comes the question, how? I
am so caught up in this world, in this pseudo
self, In this ego, this myself, I don't really
know where to look. All I see is myself. I don't
know how to look. How does one seek the self,
the true self? Well, let's say, take a child.
Child is born. And a child is born without any
information, objectively speaking. It's very
wise, but it has no information, and it certainly
doesn't know that it's wise. He has no information
about himself. And because of this, we say he
is born tabulo rasa, with a clean slate. He has
no information in his mind. It's being questioned
today that this tabula rasa is not true. You
know, that he's being born with tendencies, so
he's not pure. You know, he's not all this clean.
But when you, if you really study the thing,
there is nothing in the psyche. There is nothing
in the mind. There is no content to consciousness.
It is his body. that responds, you see, at the
beginning. The mind has accumulated nothing as
yet simply because he is not aware of himself
and he has not met other. Also, the first thing
he becomes aware of is not himself. No. He becomes
aware, first of all, of other. Food comes from
out there. It doesn't rise in him. It comes from
out there. Bath comes from out there. He gets
clean from out there. Love comes from out there.
And as the eyes begin to focus, you know, the
eyes move out. The hands move out. Everything
is out there, you know, other than me. Other,
it's other, only he doesn't know, this is all
his world at this time, you know. The tongue
tastes, the ears hear, the nose twitches with
aromas, out there. Our senses move out, always
out, and so we are caught out there. We are born
into this world and it is for us a world out
there. A world seemingly out there. Then little
by little he becomes aware of a person. Later
on he will call her mother. Little by little
he becomes aware of his own body. You know he
looks at his hand. He girdles with it, and oh,
and that's something, but it's not his. It's
out there. It's other to him. You know, but it
is such a tremendous discovery. All through this,
you know, little things happening, he chewing
on things, and then it hurts. You know, sometimes
he hurts himself with the things he chews on.
But little by little, he begins to be aware of
himself. He becomes aware of others and then
in contrast to other he becomes aware of me.
Now that's the road we've all come. Other and
then me. Now for a long, long time this baby
me, that is other and me, I and thou, The awareness
of me in contrast to awareness of other, this
is a reflected awareness. First, he is aware
only of his mother. He's not aware of what he
is. He's aware of his mother and what she thinks
about him. Because of the mother he is in the
contrast If mother smiles if she appreciates
the child if she says to it you are beautiful
And if she hugs him and kisses him the child
feels very good about himself If she ignores
him it doesn't think much about him the child
doesn't feel good about himself So either way
though Loving, lovingly attentive or ignoring,
the ego comes into its own. It reflects. There
is a reflection in us. Through appreciation,
through love and care, he feels he is good. He
feels he is valuable. He feels he is of some
significance. And something like a center begins
to build. And this is the reflective center.
what others think. And if a mother is sharp,
she will observe her child to find out something
about herself, because that's all he's doing
for a while is simply reflecting her. She has
to be very objective to do this, of course, which
most women aren't. A man can be much more objective
than a woman. Now if someone thinks the child,
if the mother thinks that the child is of no
use, and nobody appreciates him, and nobody smiles,
this is also what is reflected. It is what we
call an ill ego. It's sad. He's rejected. He
feels inferior. He's worthless. That's what his
center then reflects. So if we go too far in
any direction in the treatment of a child, the
ego becomes ill. You can become too attentive
and you can ignore too much. And either way,
this reflection becomes ill. So mama walks just
a very, very fine line and it's too bad mothers
aren't trained. that this is the case. And then
pretty soon father enters a picture and well
the same thing happens all over again. The father
supports the child, loves him. Or he rejects
him. Usually the father says, well, I want to
rear a strong, affectionate, valuable human being.
And he sets the kid on the chair and says, shut
up. You know, strange things we do. But anyway,
first the mother. In the beginning, the mother.
The child must learn to know his mother. And
then the father. Now when we begin in our later
years when we mature a little bit and we begin
to try to find this true self Same thing first
the mother We learn to know the mother then through
the mother the father can be approached We live
in the mother Just as the child lives in the
aura of the mother and her influence We live
in the mother because we are after all part and
parcel of nature and the great mother she's called,
you know and For a child mother is the beginning
Whether you take it on a personal level or we
take it later on when when when the person begins
to look This is the beginning mother is the beginning
Then, as a child grows up, however, with his
reflective center, others begin to enter in and
his world grows and grows and grows and it becomes
very complex because he discovers others do not
think alike. They all seem to have different
opinions. How can this be? They have likes and
dislikes and they don't, they're not compatible.
So it's all very complex. And now this ego, very
complex. Because all of these opinions are reflected.
And it's all reflection. It is an accumulation
of phenomena. The accumulation of phenomena,
it is a by -product of living with others. If
a child lived totally alone, he might never have
any ego to any great extent, but he would remain
quite animal -like. And of course, never having
developed this reflective ego, he could never
come to know the true self. That real true self
can be known only through passing through this
ego, passing through the pseudo self. So ego
is a must. We have to know other. Then we can
know me. Then we look at other within ourselves,
because this is all reflection. And then from
that reflection, again, now to an I. First we
have to know what is not true. We have to learn
to meet it. We become aware that we're living
a myth. and that we live in an illusion, a reflection,
and we learn that we do have deluded minds, as
sharp as we may be and as sharp as we may think
we are. We still have, you know, it's a deluded
mind, you know. But through a discipline, if
you come to know the false is false, then suddenly
truth opens her eyes and she smiles on you. Now
let's say this child becomes an adult. He's a
mature person. Now he wants to know something
about himself, really. And he begins to question,
you know, this whole thing where he finds himself,
this world. And he says, what am I doing here?
Who am I? And where did I come from? Where am
I going? And he's told he will find the answers
to these questions. in religion. So he begins
to look around for a suitable religion, usually
suitable to what he already thinks. And so by,
you know, in a way he kind of tricks himself.
He's looking for an easy way. He doesn't want
any conflict. And there being more than 300,
I think it's pretty close to 400 religious sects
in the world, which is going to be most valuable
out of them. Besides, we don't really have time
to look, do we? Through that many. So, now within
the realm of science, scientists more or less
look at things in a similar manner. So they have
said that science as such is one. It's divided
into all its many aspects, like biology, anatomy,
neurology, astronomy, physics, astrophysics,
you name it. But all of this is under an umbrella,
which is called science. And science has been
looking for, well, in the Western world, since
the Ionian days in Greece, you know, looking
for a fundamental matter, a fundamental source.
And they finally, you know, came upon the atom
theory that there was, they finally found an
atom and that couldn't be divided anymore, so
that was the thing that held for a long time.
But when we come now from turn from science to
religion, with these almost 400 sects all looking
for a fundamental truth? Are they? Are all of
these nearly 400 sects looking for a fundamental
truth? Then we begin, you know, we look around
and we finally realize there are sects and there
is religion. See, truth also is one and truth
is universal. And so that if one looks at it,
that the source is one, then religion becomes
one, one religion. Meister Eckhart belonged to
this religion, the Buddha belonged to this religion,
Jesus belonged to this religion, to religion.
Muhammad, Ramanuja, Narajuna, Bodhidharma, Chuang
Tzu, Lao Tzu, Rinzai, Dogen, Hakuin, Zenji, you
know, and then we've got Jikuen, Kugai, and Tianli.
Yeah. To religion as such. There is a fundamental
source. There is a fundamental truth. And the
great traditions hold to it. And the little sects
vary from it. The traditions all have different
approaches and with a few of them you have to
get way inside before you can even see that what
they're approaching is similar to something else.
But under all, or overall, there is this everlasting
light. And it is the light that lighteth every
man. Never mind the buttons or the bows. You
know, the sects have divided. Should you tie
your shoes or should you button your shoes? What
difference does it make? You're wearing shoes
at all. Jesus was crucified on a cross. It was
a very large, heavy, wooden cross. And not too
many years later, there were bishops around the
Mediterranean. and in Rome and in Athens, wearing
gold crosses around their necks. This is society.
This is what it can do with man's search for
himself. The difference. We accumulate trappings,
which we think are essential. So, In a manner
of speaking, it is our society itself that creates
or helps to create this ego. It is the ambience
in which we live. It is the atmosphere in which
we exist. And this atmosphere in which we live
is encompassing. And it can be controlled. And
it can be manipulated. And we are reflecting
all of this. Have you ever seen a society that
could manipulate or control the true self? It
stands aside. Now, this child we're talking about,
you and me, we need a center. We're not yet aware
of our true center. We're very busy learning
how to live in this kind of an atmosphere, this
out there, this world. And when the time comes,
when it is built enough, all of a sudden the
urge comes and we turn around and we want to
look in here. So the child, you know, as he grows
up he goes to school. and he comes home and he
tells his parents he's first in class. The whole
family is very happy. They're hugging and kissing
him and so on. And father pats him on the back
and says, you are a pride to us. And mother says,
what a beautiful, dutiful child. And it's such
an ego buildup. Oh, he feels so good and he's
so satisfied. He can step out into this world
of out there now with some self assurance. with
some confidence in himself. But if the child
comes home and he's dejected, and he's not successful,
he's a failure, he couldn't pass, and he sits
on a back porch, and nobody appreciates him,
his ego is very shaken, you know, and he begins
to also reject himself. This is now in the reflection,
he rejects himself. Now we have got a real barrel
of monkeys to overcome. He is rejecting himself.
We see these people. They are constantly asking
for attention. Oh, in very subtle ways. We have
learned very subtle ways to do this. This pay
attention to me. This look at me. Just tell me
I'm okay. And then they have sometimes this superiority.
It's a kind of a stance. In their inferiority.
They're covering it. And you can see it in the
way they hold themselves. In the way they speak.
And in the way they don't speak. It's just the
way they hold themselves. It's there. And finally,
if they've got smarts enough, they wind up in
Zen. And all that's taken away. Little by little,
huh? That's what teachers forward, to try to
arrange, if possible, situations in order for
us to see ourselves. For usually, not always,
but usually, when people see themselves, they
will drop the contents of the psyche that they
don't like, that they have looked at now. And
they realize they're simply reflecting family
and society. And in dropping that, in seeing
it and dropping it, it allows them to become
a real person, you know, an individual responsible
for himself, to himself. Which, after all, you
know, is a mark of maturity, isn't it? This responsibility
for oneself. And sometimes this is the problem
between husbands and wives. A man can be very
successful in the business world and he works
very hard and he has very little time to give
to his wife. And she thinks she's not getting
enough attention. There always seems to be something
more important than me. And so she feels rejected.
Sometimes, nowadays, it's the woman who succeeds
and the husband doesn't know how to act with
this reversal of roles. You know that she is
more important out there than he is. And this
is difficult for some men to deal with. He begins
to ask for attention, just as if it were the
opposite, she asks for attention, which is done
very subtly. but very often leads to arguments.
You know, it's like one time our monk, you know,
our monk that we dump all kinds of things on
this monk. He and his wife had been at a cocktail
party. And as we all know, the beverages served
at a cocktail party sometimes loosen the tongue.
You know, inhibitions are dropped. The sensory.
has disappeared for a little while. But they're
going home and they're walking along the road.
So this monk says to his wife, darling, has anyone
ever said to you how fascinating and how beautiful
and how wonderful you are? This made her feel
so good. You know, she was so happy. He had never
ever said anything like this before. And she
knew she finally had his attention. So she looked
up at him through her lashes and batting her
baby browns. Very coyly she tells him, I wonder
why no one has ever told me this before. So the
monk looks at her and he says, well, then where
did you get the idea? Bless her heart, huh? Well.
So we have a center. which society has given
us. We've acquired it. It's shaped for us. We
have a notion of who we are because of others.
This is not direct experience. Then there is
a center with which you were born. It's given
you by existence. Nobody shapes it. To know something
within this center that has been given you is
direct experience. Now, in order to see into
this, to have this direct experience into the
center given you, The ego center, the one shaped
by society, must be displaced somehow or overcome
for a period of time, be it one second or one
minute or two minutes, enough to allow you to
peer into the perceived, you know, into the depths
of this center. And one glance of this direct
experience will tell anyone how little he really
knows about himself. Ego -wise or any otherwise,
any otherwise, how little we really know. Being
born in this world at a certain time in history,
in the history of humanity, We all partake of
a certain background. The way the religionists,
the sex, and the scientists believe. It all forms
our background, and we hardly ever recognize
it as background. But it is the background in
which we grow up and which we reflect. And from
this background, that we do not even cognize.
We don't say, oh, that's the background in which
I live. How often have you said that? No. From
this background, we fashion our lives. We fashion
how we live. And man, by and large, at this point
in time, seems to be quite satisfied that he
rules the earth. And he also feels he's a much
better off than his predecessors. After all,
what did they know? They didn't really know about
atoms. Not really. We know much more about them.
We know that the atom is divisible. They didn't
know that 2 ,500 years ago. Man has lived, man
as such, has lived through many ages. And there
was a physicist And he classified these ages
and he called them the magic age and the mythic
age, geometric, medieval, infinite, and mechanistic
ages. And he called each of these ages a mask.
It was a mask of the universe. It is how man
sees the universe at a certain period in time.
It is his mask, this background. The universe,
he said, we don't know. We know the masks. And
his name was Harrison, this physicist. He says
that starting way, way back with a sort of a
speculative and maybe fictional account of the
magic universe. And it existed like hundreds
of thousands of years ago. Now scientists are
putting it back that far. When homo sapiens,
that's wise men, we began to acquire advanced
linguistic skills hundreds of thousands of years
ago. The magic universe. An animistic world.
That is, we endowed everything with an anima.
That is living. And that is living. And that
is living. We endowed it with a livingness. But
to them, all livingness, the things, they were
vibrant with spirits. And the spirits were motivated
by thoughts and by feelings of human beings.
So that a human being could stand beside a bush
and say bloom to the spirit that was inside.
the bush would bloom or It would say to another
bush die and the bush would die The spirits were
motivated by what man thought and felt seen The
thing of the world they lived in you know spirits
everywhere in everything, huh? Hosts of spirits
pervading our world And their laws conformed
somewhat to ours and their rules and regulations,
you know, and they also had very primitive social
codes, these people. And now this Mr. Harrison
said in this book that he left out the mystical,
because in the magic world there was not this
mystical thing that we have today. But he said
this magic applied simply to what originates
in the human mind as to what activates out there.
This primitive, meaning primary, world that disappeared
about 30 ,000 years ago. I might say one thing
Aristotle, he is the father of our sciences and
so on. He was an animist. He endowed things with
an anima, a livingness. So it hasn't, didn't
altogether disappear 30 ,000 years ago. We're
still holding some of it. I think if you really
look inside of yourself, you know, you will see
some of this. And then came the mythic universe
and these magic beings that lived in the trees
and in the rocks and so on, were all assimilated
into ascendant beings. They were now ruling over
us from on high. Now some of this still survives,
this mythic. It kind of reflects our order of
social life, what they did then. And it rose
about 10 to 20 ,000 years ago and reached its
most advanced stages in Mesopotamia and Egypt
and India. And see 20 ,000 years ago, that's
about the time the Vedas were written. And the
most advanced expression that this period of
time had was in the Zoroastrian. We really should
do a thing on it. Zoroastrian, by the grace of
Constantine, Emperor Constantine, we didn't become.
In those days, the cults were many, I think you
sometimes say they were legion, huh? Many, many,
many, many. And this man, Constantine, wanted
desperately to be the emperor. So he and the
Christians made a deal. See, Christian at that
time was just another little sect along with
everything else. Zoroaster was a big one. They
made a deal with him. If he would become a Christian,
They could altogether overcome Zoroastrian and
they would make him emperor and this is what
happened and So he decreed when he became emperor
that everybody should become a Christian for
Christians Not to buy our own choice Our choices
are not always what they seem this is simply
the background into which we've been born. And
this background that we have now of this, not
now, but the mythic universe, we bought at a
stiff price. The world of what we call matter,
the rocks and the trees and the clouds, All became
spiritless. Hmm? It was dead. We live in a world
of dead matter. Instead of all this vibrancy,
dead matter. And now out of this then, our world,
this mask was riven, you know, cut in two by
the dualists. Good and evil. Soul and flesh.
Free and predestined. Divine kingship. The tyranny
of it. The appeasement to the gods by human sacrifice.
The massacre and the enslavement of nations that
worshiped other gods. Contolerated. Then we witnessed
the rise of science. They rejected the gods.
The development of the Ionian scientists and
philosophers, Pythagoras and Aristotelian systems.
Do you think that in this present day, we have
arrived at the final mask, the final belief of
this universe, is our modern universe. And we're
confronted in it with the problems of rocks and
trees and clouds. But it's coming to be no longer
dead matter. It's going to be rocks and trees
and clouds and observer. It all boils down to
observer. Whatever you see has any meaning to
you. What you hear has meaning to you. So the
world that is coming more and more and more will
be trees and rocks and clouds and observer. Not
necessarily me, just observer. And this is started
only back about 20 years ago. And this man says,
and already we sail the perilous seas where the
universe in which we live is recognized as reconstructions
of the mind -brain. And it was Eddington as another
scientist who had a tendency toward being a philosopher
and he wrote, and I think all of you are familiar
with this, we have found, now speaking of scientists,
we have found a strange footprint on the shores
of the unknown. We have devised profound theories,
one after another, to account for its origin.
And at last we have succeeded in reconstructing
the creature that made that footprint, and lo,
it is our own. Our mind. It is so near and so
dear and so full of all kinds of intellectual
nonsense that we have from our masks. It's also
full of passionate, rubbish sentiments. And I
will say that some of it is very useful for our
daily life. There's just no denying that. But
because of these accumulations, we're miserable.
It's like we're in a trap. And we feel like we're
under some kind of bondage. And we want nothing
more than just some freedom and some naturalness
and some spontaneity. And we don't seem to get
it. Now... Zen masters in Japan, they know this.
They have gone through the same wearying experience.
They know that we are so immersed in our own
construction, reconstruction of the universe,
that comprehension for the real does not come
easily. The truth of Zen can never be attained
unless one comes to it with one's whole effort.
The climb up the mountain is very slippery. It
is not a childish pastime. It is the most serious
task that you can undertake in your life and
it is lifelong. And in this search we find this
climb up the mountain, that we all have our values.
They're given us and some of them we picked up
along the way because we liked them, we've acquired
them. Some are buried very deeply, so deep we
don't even know they're there. We need to sit
and look just within, you know, so they will
rise, you know, it's called digging them up.
You just observe and they'll rise. And then we
can re -evaluate some of these values in the
light of day. We can say to ourselves, when a
value comes to mind, why do I hold such and such
a value? Why? And then trace it back. Why? And
we find in so doing that the values that have
an egotistic source We find them ugly. These
are ugly values. And we find also that they usually
go against the welfare of humanity. Let's not
forget that this little ego, or big ego, or medium
-sized ego, is a mischief maker. A value. has
no value when it is not subjectively free from
egotistical impulses. When a value is free from
the ego, it is just so. Just so. You know what
just so? It has no value. It is just so. Lao
Tzu says it very well, anything that can be named,
anything that can be designated as this or that
is not down. The very moment that you say it
is good, the good loses its goodness. The really
good is just so, just so. It's no more and it's
no less. It's just So, for instance, when God
saw the world that was created in response to
his fiat, when he said, let there be light, and
he saw this light, and he nodded and he said,
yes, that's good. This good has nothing whatsoever
to do with our human way of evaluating. This
good, the term that he uses, is the is -ness
of things, the essence of things. It is not something
added. If you add something, it becomes a value
less, but this good is just so, just so. The
value of something is something inherent. What
is beautiful does not come, you know, claim for
itself that it is beautiful. If it is beautiful
and it stands before, you don't hear that rose
shrieking, look at me, I'm beautiful. It just
stands before us and we all know it's beautiful.
The moment anything says, any of us say, I am
beautiful, all of a sudden, right up nose against
it, there's the ego. And everybody drops their
head in shame. And you know that. Now, Sue said,
when a beauty makes display of beauty, it becomes
sheer ugliness. So beauty is just so. A human
value is just so. Just so. Don't make anything
more out of it. It's a lot easier to live with
just so. It is good. It is just so. It is just
good. It is just so. Now when you, in your practicing,
you know, whatever you're doing outside in the
world, You stand aside of that doing for a moment.
You know, you can do and stand there and watch.
And you look and you observe. You watch what
you're doing. You know, if you really watch,
it won't be long before you can see the source
of your misery, of your anguish. No. And if you
don't, why, you come to me and I'll help you.
But if you're going to observe, then observe.
I mean really observe. Just don't say, I'm observing,
I'm watching. And as long as you say the words,
you think you're doing it. Rather not say the
words and do it. Just saying it doesn't amount
to anything. Because I mean observe. Observe
yourself. And when we question ourselves, which
we should do, You know, we had a whole boom boom
of that last week. We don't ask ourselves a lot
of philosophical questions. No. We need a very
direct approach to ourselves. And that's what
happened now with this Zen master and his prime
minister. He wanted to make a direct impression.
And so he made his face turn blue. That's a good
art. Make your face turn blue. Red, yeah, but
not blue. And then in this very haughty and contemptuous
manner, he says, what are you doing, you numbskull?
And everything has changed. Immediately, everything
has changed. This minister is being brought down
to earth with a thud. You know, there's his feet
now. And now he knows he has to look at himself.
He knows that. He has to look at this ego, which
prior to this moment he may have only speculated
about, as we all do. Speculation is not direct
looking. Now, see, he's been given this gift.
It is his to deal with. And you know, there are
a lot of people that are fearful of dealing with
themselves. of dealing with their values, of
dealing with their ego. But there was this very
great Zen master in China. And again, he lived
in the Tang dynasty. It was a terrific dynasty
for the growth of religion. And it is said that
he lived to be about 120 years of age. He didn't
start looking for his religion until he was 60.
And he was enlightened when he was 80. And he
lived to be 120. And his name was Joshua. Yeah.
And in the monastery, the Joshua that's famous
for the moo. In the monastery where he lived,
there was a stone bridge that was known all over
the empire. And at one day, a visiting monk came
and asked Joshua, We hear so much of your stone
bridge. I look at it and I see it to be no more
than a rickety old log bridge falling apart,
rickety. And Joshua answered, you just see the
log bridge and you do not see the stone one?
And the monk says, Well, what then is a stone
bridge? And Joshua says, horses pass over it
and asses pass over it. Yeah. There is a stone
bridge. We all stand on it. And now, may the
peace and the power that passeth all understanding
hold us and keep us in the Christed consciousness
while we are seemingly separate one from another.
And I thank you very much.