So I'd love to hear just a little bit about your story, how you're growing up and if Christianity and Buddhism were always present together for you or if that evolved or how that happened in your life.

So, no, my interest in Buddhism was something of an anomaly in our family, though my mother was certainly the first person to give me some books on Zen.

I think Zen Catholicism by Dom Elrod Graham, which she'd been reading in the 60s, and she gave me her copy when I was, oh, probably 20. in my early teens, and that would have been by the early 90s.

And then she gave me some contemporary books on Zen, including the famous Zen Mind Beginner's Mind when I was in my late teens.

And I should add, at that point, I had already entered the New York City Ballet at the age of 16, and I was a full-time performer.

16, 17, 18 years old and dealing with the intense exertion, pressure, psychological, physical demands of that career.

And as you can probably already tell, my mother's Her face and lifelong.

for

Yes.

And then these amazing circumstances came together for us to found the center to acquire that land.

And then I went back into solitary retreat for a short time, but then circumstances meant I needed to take on an administrative role.

And so that was a whole aspect of myself that I had not engaged before in this life, but I figured it out.

So that was about a year and a half.

But then I'd gone back into retreat.

quite strictly in the beginning of 2023.

Yeah,