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ask the world what love really is

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this is not a love poem

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it is a koan

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ask the world what love really is

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that it makes two lives pledge each other unto death

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these two lines

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most people first think of Li Mochou saying them in Jin Yong's Return of the Condor Heroes

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Li Mochou really does recite them over and over

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but she is only reciting someone else's words

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the man who actually wrote them

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was a sixteen year old boy

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his name was Yuan Haowen

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that year was the fifth year of Taihe under Emperor Zhangzong of Jin

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the year of yichou

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Yuan Haowen was travelling to Bingzhou for the imperial exam

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on the road he met a hunter who trapped wild geese

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the hunter told him

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this morning I netted two geese

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I killed one of them

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the other one escaped from the net

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but it refused to fly away

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it circled overhead crying out

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and finally it plunged straight down out of the sky

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and died hitting the ground

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when Yuan Haowen heard this

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he just froze where he stood

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he paid the hunter and bought both geese

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carried them to the bank of the Fen River and buried them

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he piled up stones as a marker

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and named it the Wild Goose Mound

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then he wrote that poem to the tune of Moyuer

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the first line

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is the eternal question every one of us grew up hearing

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ask the world what love really is

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that it makes two lives pledge each other unto death

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hey there

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hello everyone

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I am Leo Wang

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today I want to tell you a version you may never have heard

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this line

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is not the opening of a love poem at all

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it came from a sixteen year old boy

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who was stopped cold by the death of a single wild goose

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and what he wrote down was a koan

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he was not praising love

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he was asking what is this

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this thing that can make a goose throw itself down out of the sky

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what on earth is it

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more than eight hundred years have passed

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and this question

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still has no real answer

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these days when we quote this line

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the images that flash up are all grand passionate romance

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vows tears dying for love

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we treat it as a slogan

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printed on bookmarks

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written into love letters

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but look closely at the scene Yuan Haowen actually heard

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it was not two people at all

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it was two wild geese

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one had just been killed

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the other was not being hunted

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it was not trapped

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it was free

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it had a choice

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it could easily have flown away

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flown to another stretch of water

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found another goose

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and gone on living

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a wild goose can live twenty years

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it had plenty of days left

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but it did not

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it circled twice in the air

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made a decision

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and then used its own body

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to smash itself into the ground

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have you ever thought about this

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biologically speaking

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this makes no sense at all

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by the simplest logic of evolution

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the first mandate of any living thing is to survive

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a gene that makes you willing to die for your own kind

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should have been wiped out by natural selection long ago

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yet this gene was kept

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and kept very deep

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and not only in geese

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many pair bonding birds cranes swans albatrosses

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all show a full decline response after losing a mate

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they stop eating stop moving stop courting

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and for some of them survival rates drop sharply after that

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animal behavior science has a term for it

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the pair bond

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scientists later discovered

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that once two animals form a long term pair bond

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their nervous systems encode the other as part of themselves

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the brain runs a predictive model

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and that model is predicting all the time

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the mate should be here should be doing this should be making that sound

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when the mate suddenly disappears

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the whole model collapses

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what collapses is not a mood

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it is the entire operating system that kept it alive

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what Yuan Haowen heard from the hunter that day

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was not a heartbroken goose

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it was a living structure of meaning

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that was emptied out in an instant

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and then dismantled its own hardware

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now go back and read that line again

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ask the world what love really is

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that it makes two lives pledge each other unto death

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it is not an exclamation

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it is a cry of terror

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a sixteen year old boy

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ran into this force for the first time

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and it shook him

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he was asking

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what on earth is this

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twenty five hundred years ago

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there was another man

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stopped cold by the very same question

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his name was Ananda

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Ananda was the disciple who stayed at the Buddha's side the longest

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known as foremost in hearing

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every sutra the Buddha ever taught

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Ananda heard with his own ears

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you would think a man like that

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would be the most grounded the most steady

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but what the Shurangama Sutra opens with

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is exactly the story of Ananda almost being carried off by a woman

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that day

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Ananda went out alone to beg for food

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he passed by a well

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where a young woman was drawing water

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the girl was of the Matanga family

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and she fell for Ananda at first sight

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she went home and told her mother

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in this life I will marry no one but Ananda

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her mother knew how to work mantras

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she chanted an ancient spell the Brahma Heaven mantra

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and pulled Ananda in from miles away

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right to the side of her bed

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Ananda had been walking along perfectly fine

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and suddenly his body was not his own

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his feet just carried him that way

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by the time he came to

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he was on the verge of breaking his vows

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the Buddha was in the middle of a dharma assembly

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when he suddenly stopped

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and said to Manjushri beside him

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go quickly

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Ananda is in trouble

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Manjushri rushed over with the Shurangama Mantra

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and pulled Ananda out of that state

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after Ananda was brought back

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he wept bitterly in front of the Buddha

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he said

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master

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I have followed you for so many years

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I have heard so much of your teaching

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why did I still fall over something like this

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and then the Buddha asked a question

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that question

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became the opening of the entire Shurangama Sutra

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the Buddha said

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Ananda

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why did you leave home to practice in the first place

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Ananda answered

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I saw that you had the thirty two marks

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beyond compare in dignity

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I was drawn in by the beauty of that form

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and that is why I set my heart on practicing with you

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the Buddha immediately asked a second question

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and that one question

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is the famous seven searches for the mind

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Ananda

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you say you saw my form

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and a mind of love and delight arose

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so let me ask you where is that mind

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Ananda said

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the mind is inside the body

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the Buddha said

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no

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and in a few sentences he took that location apart

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Ananda said

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then the mind is outside the body

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the Buddha said

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still no

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and took it apart in a few more sentences

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Ananda went on

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it is in the eye faculty

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it is between light and dark

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it is wherever it meets things

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it is in the middle

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it is in nowhere at all seven places in total

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the Buddha rejected every single one

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all ten volumes of the Shurangama Sutra

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unfold from this one question

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do you think the Buddha was being hard on Ananda

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he was not

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the Buddha was doing something extremely gentle

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he was helping Ananda see one thing

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the thing that almost destroyed you

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you call it love

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you say it is the mind moving fine

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then let us first look for where that mind is

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once we find it

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we can talk about what to do with it

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they searched all seven places

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and could not find it

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cannot be found

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those three words

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are one of the most stunning conclusions in the Shurangama Sutra

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what does that mean

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the reason that force drags you along

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you think a specific person has hooked you

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but when you go looking for the you that got hooked

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you cannot find it

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all you find is a chain of reactions

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heartbeat breath thoughts images predictions fear

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you cannot find a center to point at

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it is like that wild goose

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at the moment it died

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you think it died for the other goose

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but if you really look at its nervous system

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it died for its own predictive model that had already collapsed

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the other bird was only the anchor of that model

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pull out the anchor

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and the model blows itself up

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the truth of attachment in love

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sits exactly at this layer

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when someone says I love him so much I could die

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he is rarely loving that actual person

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he is loving the story he projected onto that person

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the story of finally being seen finally being chosen

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and finally being kept forever

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the more the other person fits the story

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the more he believes this is the one destined for him

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the moment the other person breaks the story

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his heart breaks instantly

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think about it again

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the last time love tore you apart

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what was actually hurting

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was it that this person left

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or was it the version of you that deserved to be loved

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together with all the evidence it depended on

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collapsing all at once

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most people would say

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what hurts is that person

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but run their face their name their voice their habits

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through your mind one by one

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and you will notice

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what stings each time

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is actually some part of yourself caving in

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it is the future you thought you had already found

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it is the promise that you would never be lonely again

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it is the exit where you thought you could drop your guard

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the other person was only the scaffolding holding it up

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take the scaffolding away

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and every identity hanging on it falls too

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this is why the Buddha never said love is bad

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he only had Ananda look at one thing

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love is not bad

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attachment is a case of mistaken identity

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love is a very strong energy

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it makes two lives resonate with each other

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it makes a mother fight to the death for her child

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it makes a friend take a blade for a friend

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it makes a wild goose give up the sky

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the energy itself is neutral

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attachment

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is when the object this energy points at

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gets mistaken for your original face

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mistaken for the place where you are safe

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mistaken for the reason you are alive

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in that moment

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you go from being someone who feels love

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to being someone that love feels

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subject and object have flipped

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and the second they flip

280
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love becomes attachment

281
00:09:31,699 --> 00:09:33,975
and do not assume attachment always looks like dying for love

282
00:09:34,339 --> 00:09:36,115
or some grand heartbreak scene

283
00:09:36,499 --> 00:09:39,355
most people never throw themselves at the ground for anyone

284
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in daily life attachment

285
00:09:41,739 --> 00:09:45,036
runs in very small very trivial ways

286
00:09:45,339 --> 00:09:47,135
he does not reply to your message for two hours

287
00:09:47,499 --> 00:09:49,176
and there is that tiny lurch in your chest

288
00:09:49,819 --> 00:09:51,576
he comes home today without saying a word

289
00:09:51,938 --> 00:09:54,615
and you spend all night rereading every look on his face

290
00:09:55,178 --> 00:09:57,455
he seems to smile a little more at one colleague lately

291
00:09:57,699 --> 00:10:01,115
and you start writing a script in your head with no evidence

292
00:10:01,778 --> 00:10:03,516
none of this means the love is broken

293
00:10:03,739 --> 00:10:05,457
this is a tiny wild goose

294
00:10:05,459 --> 00:10:07,755
circling twice a day inside you

295
00:10:07,938 --> 00:10:10,115
and every so often wanting to plunge

296
00:10:11,020 --> 00:10:13,717
watch that tiny lurch closely

297
00:10:13,860 --> 00:10:16,019
it and the goose slamming into the ground

298
00:10:16,020 --> 00:10:17,558
are essentially the same thing

299
00:10:18,301 --> 00:10:19,837
they only differ in scale

300
00:10:20,260 --> 00:10:20,977
the big one

301
00:10:21,341 --> 00:10:21,977
is called dying for love

302
00:10:22,701 --> 00:10:23,758
the small one

303
00:10:23,780 --> 00:10:25,737
is called jealousy or anxious clinging

304
00:10:26,061 --> 00:10:28,998
or I could not help checking his feed again today

305
00:10:29,500 --> 00:10:31,299
someone who can see the small one

306
00:10:31,301 --> 00:10:33,398
is not easily carried off by the big one

307
00:10:33,780 --> 00:10:35,659
because in small doses

308
00:10:35,660 --> 00:10:37,998
you have already seen the shape of that force clearly

309
00:10:38,773 --> 00:10:42,250
remember Tang Xianzu's famous lines in The Peony Pavilion

310
00:10:42,854 --> 00:10:43,811
love arises from nowhere you can trace

311
00:10:44,094 --> 00:10:45,151
and once it goes it goes deep

312
00:10:45,413 --> 00:10:46,291
the living can die of it

313
00:10:46,653 --> 00:10:47,671
and the dead can live again

314
00:10:47,974 --> 00:10:51,311
this too has been praised as a love poem for four hundred years

315
00:10:51,614 --> 00:10:54,710
but Tang Xianzu himself understood the dharma deeply

316
00:10:54,893 --> 00:10:56,071
when he wrote those lines

317
00:10:56,173 --> 00:10:59,093
he was on the same road as Yuan Haowen asking what love is

318
00:10:59,094 --> 00:11:00,771
not praise at all

319
00:11:01,094 --> 00:11:01,990
but diagnosis

320
00:11:02,271 --> 00:11:04,471
love arises from nowhere you can trace that seed

321
00:11:04,472 --> 00:11:07,409
you have no idea when it was planted

322
00:11:07,832 --> 00:11:10,068
once it goes it goes deep and once the conditions arrive

323
00:11:10,271 --> 00:11:11,049
it sprouts

324
00:11:11,111 --> 00:11:12,369
and nothing can stop it

325
00:11:12,672 --> 00:11:13,669
the living can die of it

326
00:11:14,031 --> 00:11:16,270
the dead can live again this force

327
00:11:16,271 --> 00:11:18,728
cuts straight through the border of life and death

328
00:11:19,231 --> 00:11:20,549
you call that the greatness of love

329
00:11:21,151 --> 00:11:21,348
no

330
00:11:21,712 --> 00:11:23,249
that is the greatness of obsession

331
00:11:23,962 --> 00:11:26,179
here is a crucial distinction

332
00:11:26,283 --> 00:11:30,279
if you take only one line from this video let it be this

333
00:11:30,803 --> 00:11:32,899
the force that carries you through life and death

334
00:11:32,923 --> 00:11:34,682
and the force that wakes you up

335
00:11:34,683 --> 00:11:36,580
have never been the same force

336
00:11:36,803 --> 00:11:37,960
what crosses life and death

337
00:11:38,283 --> 00:11:39,260
is obsession

338
00:11:39,523 --> 00:11:40,840
it can carry you very far

339
00:11:41,002 --> 00:11:42,179
it can carry you into another birth

340
00:11:42,202 --> 00:11:44,460
it can make you chase one person for a thousand lifetimes

341
00:11:44,683 --> 00:11:46,260
but it will never wake you up

342
00:11:46,482 --> 00:11:47,240
quite the opposite

343
00:11:47,523 --> 00:11:48,319
the deeper the obsession

344
00:11:48,683 --> 00:11:49,819
the more real the dream

345
00:11:50,999 --> 00:11:52,076
what wakes you up

346
00:11:52,320 --> 00:11:53,456
is a different force

347
00:11:53,720 --> 00:11:56,817
it is the awareness that sees the obsession running

348
00:11:57,200 --> 00:11:58,397
it does not have to do anything

349
00:11:58,759 --> 00:12:00,177
it only has to see

350
00:12:00,600 --> 00:12:01,356
see it once

351
00:12:01,799 --> 00:12:03,177
and it loosens an inch

352
00:12:03,440 --> 00:12:04,397
see it a hundred times

353
00:12:04,720 --> 00:12:06,216
and a whole wall comes down

354
00:12:06,709 --> 00:12:09,286
this is why every serious contemplative tradition

355
00:12:09,429 --> 00:12:11,985
from Buddhism to Daoism to the Stoics

356
00:12:12,388 --> 00:12:13,406
when you follow it to the end

357
00:12:13,429 --> 00:12:18,646
never points at love itself but at mistaking love for yourself

358
00:12:19,268 --> 00:12:20,065
loving someone

359
00:12:20,349 --> 00:12:22,085
is an event in your life

360
00:12:22,349 --> 00:12:24,806
believing that without him you are no longer you

361
00:12:24,829 --> 00:12:27,166
is a false statement about what you are

362
00:12:27,709 --> 00:12:30,806
the Buddha had Ananda look for the mind in seven places

363
00:12:30,868 --> 00:12:33,445
not finding it was not a denial of the mind

364
00:12:33,589 --> 00:12:34,506
it was telling him

365
00:12:34,868 --> 00:12:36,465
this mind is not an object

366
00:12:36,868 --> 00:12:38,085
it is an event

367
00:12:38,349 --> 00:12:39,105
it is happening

368
00:12:39,388 --> 00:12:41,085
but it is nowhere

369
00:12:41,148 --> 00:12:42,205
an event

370
00:12:42,309 --> 00:12:45,506
how could you stake the whole weight of your life on it

371
00:12:46,156 --> 00:12:48,733
let us go back to the goose that threw itself down

372
00:12:49,156 --> 00:12:52,334
if what the hunter met that day was not an ordinary goose

373
00:12:52,517 --> 00:12:54,993
but an awakened goose what would happen

374
00:12:55,717 --> 00:12:57,814
that goose would perch on a branch

375
00:12:57,836 --> 00:12:59,454
and watch its companion be carried away

376
00:12:59,757 --> 00:13:02,613
it would feel a huge wave of grief rise up

377
00:13:02,757 --> 00:13:04,533
that grief is real

378
00:13:04,556 --> 00:13:06,133
it is part of its life

379
00:13:06,436 --> 00:13:07,314
it would not suppress it

380
00:13:07,517 --> 00:13:09,094
and it would not pretend to be fine

381
00:13:09,357 --> 00:13:10,714
but at the same time it would see

382
00:13:11,076 --> 00:13:12,893
that this grief is a force

383
00:13:12,997 --> 00:13:15,574
a force passing through its own body

384
00:13:15,796 --> 00:13:17,974
it would not turn itself into that force

385
00:13:18,196 --> 00:13:20,773
it would not let that force make its decisions

386
00:13:21,695 --> 00:13:25,152
it might cry beside its mate's grave for days

387
00:13:25,615 --> 00:13:26,812
and then one morning

388
00:13:27,255 --> 00:13:28,552
it would beat its wings

389
00:13:28,615 --> 00:13:29,792
and take off again

390
00:13:30,176 --> 00:13:31,473
not because it stopped loving

391
00:13:31,656 --> 00:13:35,272
but because it saw the love was never in the other bird

392
00:13:35,335 --> 00:13:38,152
the love was flowing through its own life

393
00:13:38,255 --> 00:13:39,052
the other one is gone

394
00:13:39,495 --> 00:13:40,292
but the flowing

395
00:13:40,695 --> 00:13:41,473
is still there

396
00:13:41,936 --> 00:13:42,292
of course

397
00:13:42,615 --> 00:13:43,912
a goose cannot do this

398
00:13:44,255 --> 00:13:46,393
and most of us cannot either

399
00:13:46,816 --> 00:13:49,593
but that does not mean the option does not exist

400
00:13:50,016 --> 00:13:50,993
it only means

401
00:13:51,016 --> 00:13:53,993
it takes a pair of eyes that can see yourself

402
00:13:54,375 --> 00:13:55,974
and growing those eyes

403
00:13:55,975 --> 00:13:58,312
is what all practice is for

404
00:13:59,514 --> 00:14:01,232
so the next time your heart breaks

405
00:14:01,233 --> 00:14:03,331
or you watch a friend's heart break

406
00:14:03,434 --> 00:14:05,611
do not rush in with stop thinking about it

407
00:14:05,794 --> 00:14:07,251
time heals everything

408
00:14:07,274 --> 00:14:09,690
he is not worth it none of that helps

409
00:14:10,073 --> 00:14:11,530
you can just sit with them for a while

410
00:14:11,554 --> 00:14:12,951
and then gently ask them

411
00:14:13,394 --> 00:14:14,390
what hurts right now

412
00:14:14,593 --> 00:14:15,591
is it that person

413
00:14:16,113 --> 00:14:18,390
or the self you had hanging on them

414
00:14:19,154 --> 00:14:21,290
that question might stop them for a second

415
00:14:21,593 --> 00:14:22,511
and in that pause

416
00:14:22,833 --> 00:14:24,451
they start looking back

417
00:14:24,713 --> 00:14:26,131
and the moment they look back

418
00:14:26,274 --> 00:14:27,890
the question of the seven searches for the mind

419
00:14:28,073 --> 00:14:30,251
reboots inside them

420
00:14:30,715 --> 00:14:31,853
back to Yuan Haowen

421
00:14:32,316 --> 00:14:35,172
that day on the road to Bingzhou he buried two geese

422
00:14:35,395 --> 00:14:36,493
and wrote a poem

423
00:14:36,956 --> 00:14:38,154
but his whole life long

424
00:14:38,156 --> 00:14:40,613
he never gave the answer to that question himself

425
00:14:41,196 --> 00:14:42,993
that line asking the world what love really is

426
00:14:43,316 --> 00:14:45,195
he left standing until the day he died

427
00:14:45,196 --> 00:14:46,013
never filled in

428
00:14:46,836 --> 00:14:48,034
I have always felt

429
00:14:48,036 --> 00:14:50,332
that is the most powerful thing about the whole poem

430
00:14:50,836 --> 00:14:52,733
it is not that he could not think of an answer

431
00:14:53,275 --> 00:14:54,773
he deliberately left it blank

432
00:14:55,436 --> 00:14:57,413
because any concrete answer

433
00:14:57,475 --> 00:14:59,493
would seal the question shut

434
00:14:59,956 --> 00:15:00,633
and this question

435
00:15:01,115 --> 00:15:02,773
has to stay open

436
00:15:02,875 --> 00:15:05,292
so that everyone who meets it later

437
00:15:05,316 --> 00:15:07,013
gets to answer it once themselves

438
00:15:08,260 --> 00:15:08,698
today

439
00:15:09,060 --> 00:15:10,957
the question has been handed to you

440
00:15:11,180 --> 00:15:12,357
have you ever noticed

441
00:15:12,461 --> 00:15:16,117
the instant the thought what is love arises in you

442
00:15:16,300 --> 00:15:19,877
you are already standing where that goose could see from

443
00:15:20,020 --> 00:15:22,158
you already have one foot out

444
00:15:22,461 --> 00:15:23,538
the other foot

445
00:15:23,861 --> 00:15:25,558
does not move by more thinking

446
00:15:25,660 --> 00:15:29,158
it moves by turning again and again to look at the one asking

447
00:15:29,540 --> 00:15:30,857
can you see that one

448
00:15:32,001 --> 00:15:33,239
if you can

449
00:15:33,241 --> 00:15:36,578
you will understand that the deepest love in this world

450
00:15:36,680 --> 00:15:38,458
was never pledging life and death

451
00:15:38,641 --> 00:15:40,618
the deepest love in this world

452
00:15:40,800 --> 00:15:42,137
is a person who is awake

453
00:15:42,200 --> 00:15:44,578
who knows he will lose everything in the end

454
00:15:44,680 --> 00:15:48,578
and still stays open enough to love with his whole heart

455
00:15:49,080 --> 00:15:50,417
the goose does not understand this

456
00:15:50,641 --> 00:15:51,997
and at sixteen Yuan Haowen

457
00:15:52,440 --> 00:15:53,777
had not worked it out either

458
00:15:54,121 --> 00:15:54,838
but I believe

459
00:15:55,241 --> 00:15:57,377
he slowly worked it out later

460
00:15:57,641 --> 00:15:59,338
because the center of his later life

461
00:15:59,401 --> 00:16:01,537
was no longer romance

462
00:16:01,840 --> 00:16:03,777
he went and compiled the histories of the Jin dynasty

463
00:16:03,960 --> 00:16:07,738
copying the memory of a fallen country one word at a time

464
00:16:07,761 --> 00:16:08,818
to leave for later generations

465
00:16:09,161 --> 00:16:10,118
that is another kind of love

466
00:16:10,560 --> 00:16:12,058
a larger kind of love

467
00:16:12,960 --> 00:16:13,517
and that kind

468
00:16:14,001 --> 00:16:16,177
has already walked out of attachment

469
00:16:17,104 --> 00:16:17,622
this video

470
00:16:18,064 --> 00:16:19,801
I hope is not an answer

471
00:16:19,905 --> 00:16:21,041
but a start up

472
00:16:21,464 --> 00:16:23,541
starting the question you asked as a child

473
00:16:23,785 --> 00:16:27,462
and buried for a long time what is love really

474
00:16:27,944 --> 00:16:28,901
who am I really

475
00:16:29,464 --> 00:16:31,222
and the me that got hooked by love

476
00:16:31,545 --> 00:16:32,342
where is it

477
00:16:33,650 --> 00:16:35,546
tell me in the comments

478
00:16:35,609 --> 00:16:38,327
what was the first image this video pulled up for you

479
00:16:38,689 --> 00:16:39,886
was it one particular person

480
00:16:40,650 --> 00:16:41,886
one particular night

481
00:16:42,530 --> 00:16:45,046
or some feeling you still cannot name

482
00:16:45,609 --> 00:16:47,409
every comment I read

483
00:16:47,410 --> 00:16:50,467
I take as a chance to look back together with you

484
00:16:50,729 --> 00:16:51,786
and tell me too

485
00:16:51,809 --> 00:16:55,426
what kind of practice story you want next time

486
00:16:55,729 --> 00:16:56,447
I am Leo Wang

487
00:16:56,689 --> 00:16:57,864
see you next time