Elena Brower

I'm sure you guys are co-regulating all the time.

All the time.

In very beneficial ways, and that's not nothing.

Allergic.

I spend a couple months of the year, the last few years, for a month, three weeks to a month at a time, in practice period at the Zen Center in Santa Fe called Upaya.

And Saturdays are silent.

The final week is totally silent.

And by silent, and most of the day is actually pretty silent.

But by silent, it's not just we're not talking.

It's that we are not even looking at each other.

Our eyes are cast down.

There's no personality.

It's really hard to do this right now, but I'm going to do it anyway.

No personality, no recognition, no, hey, how are you?

Everything cool?

I have a few friends and we'll like do like a little pinky touch in the Zendo right now and again, but it's more about fortifying our sense of self as capacious enough to serve.

rather than our sense of self as like an egotistical, I'm so great, I can do this.

And that is not an easy practice at all for people in our society, but it's shown me a lot.

And now I have lots of friends with whom I can sit and sip tea in silence.

Three, four, five pours, we can just sit together without talking.