This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. I'd like to start my talk this morning by speaking about the third noble truth. So there are four noble truths.

[01:06]

This is the mythically and perhaps historically, this was Shakyamuni Buddha's first teaching. after he got with the program, after he saw how things were in a very deep way for us human beings in this life. Mythically, the story goes that after that, he went back to the five ascetics that he had previously been practicing with, and he gave this teaching called the Four Noble Truths, which is also called the first turning of the wheel, the first turning of the wheel of the law, of the Dharma. And the Four Noble Truths, I'm sure most of you, maybe all of you are quite familiar with the Four Noble Truths in English, are suffering.

[02:16]

Number one, the unsatisfactory quality of our life. Number two, cause. Suffering, cause. Number three, usually understood, usually translated into English as cessation or end of suffering. That's the one I want to come back to. And then four, path, the path to the end of suffering. So that's the way it's usually understood, but what I want to offer is a somewhat different understanding of this third noble truth, usually called cessation or end. And in order to do that, I have to tell you the Sanskrit, because the different sense of it comes from a different etymology of the Sanskrit.

[03:23]

So in Sanskrit, the Four Noble Truths are dukkha, suffering, samudaya, cause, nirodha, cessation or end, and marga, path. So Nirodha, one etymology of Nirodha winds up with cessation, end. And that's very good for Buddhist PR because then it's like, oh, there's suffering? Yeah, I know about that. There's an end to suffering. Take a look at that. So one etymology is that way. But there's another one that I think is quite useful for us to consider. So in this other etymology, the n-i part, the n-i part, means outside of or without.

[04:29]

Not like without lacking, but like without the castle, you know, outside of. And the rodha part means containment, or prison, or barrier, or wall. So in that etymological understanding of nirodha, we wind up with something like outside the obstacle, outside the wall. or unimprisoned, not imprisoned. So this, I think, gives us a very lively sense of our practice. There's suffering. It comes about through various causes. And then there's a way to be, where there's a practice of unimprisonment by.

[05:37]

unrestricted, unconstricted by that suffering. And then the fourth Noble Truth is the path to that thing, to that unconstrictedness. Again, the usual term for that third double truth is cessation. And as in, end of suffering. No more suffering. I don't know about that. I haven't seen that. I haven't seen that in myself. And I haven't seen that...

[06:41]

anywhere else, in anyone else. No more suffering. It may not be possible to eliminate our difficulties and problems and fears from our life. It may not be possible, it may not even, it may not be desirable to eliminate such things. I was thinking, oh, and it may not be desirable because that suffering comes from, at least in part, maybe not the neurotic part so much, but the more common human suffering comes from our connection, our relationship with other people and pets and life also. So some years ago, many of you know, my daughter was working in Colombia, South America, and she was doing international accompaniment work.

[07:56]

So she was in a peace community in the campo, in the countryside in Colombia. There was this community of people, of Colombians, who wanted to live a peaceful life, but they were on valuable land that the left-wing guerrillas wanted and the right-wing paramilitaries wanted. So the right-wing and the left-wing fought each other and also fought and persecuted and killed people in the peace community and... my daughter's job was to be an international presence in that situation as a dissuasive element. So she convinced us that the situation was not extremely dangerous, but

[09:10]

It's a dangerous situation to be in. And naturally, we felt considerable anxiety. That is not anxiety I would not want to feel. It's not like I'm trying to get rid of anxiety. It's not like that would be a good thing to get rid of that anxiety. That anxiety is valuable. And on a separate note, you know, I've been noticing recently that I'm getting old. This happens to all of us, but we may not notice it for a while. So when you get old, you lose. First you lose your hearing and your seeing and your senses and then you lose your faculties, right?

[10:21]

Your ability to have bladder control eventually sometimes, you know, excuse me for mentioning it. Then you lose and you lose and you lose and then finally you lose your life. Who thought of this idea? This doesn't sound like a good design. I don't like this. I don't like this is suffering. We don't like the way things are, this scheme that somebody, not really somebody, but anyway, that we live in the midst of. But again, this is not, it's not like I'm supposed to overcome. I wouldn't want to overcome my sadness. at losing not only those things, but of course, losing friends and parents, sometimes terribly for some of us, even children.

[11:25]

So, I don't know if it's a good idea or possible for us to end suffering. our own or anyone else's. However, I do think it's possible and that our practice, our Zen practice, Zen teaching helps us so that we're not completely knocked over by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. So that we're not completely thrown for a loop by our difficulties and fears. So that we're not lost completely in them or caught completely in them and can't see anything.

[12:40]

tunnel vision. So that we're not imprisoned by them. That's that third noble truth. I think that's possible. To not be imprisoned by them. So not be imprisoned means to be free. To be free of the suffering of anxiety and fear and loss and so on. To be free, but free doesn't mean, you know, free doesn't mean it's not there anymore. It doesn't mean, it's not that freedom like you get rid of the bad thing and now you just have the good stuff. It's not that kind of freedom. It's freedom in the context of our life. So it sounds strange, but it's this unimprisonment in the midst of prison, in the midst of the difficulties of our life, free of our life, not go somewhere else.

[13:57]

So for those of us familiar with the kind of more technical Buddhist teaching, what I'm trying to talk about here is how the absolute... and the relative are one place, are one thing, are laminated to each other. Can't have one without the other. How emptiness manifests in form, how emptiness manifests in karmic consciousness. There ain't no other place for emptiness to go, to be, except in karmic consciousness. It's not like you get rid of this bad stuff called karmic consciousness and then you get emptiness. Then you get the absolute. Then it's all the white light. After you get rid of all the bad stuff. That's a very exclusive understanding. The Zen that I...

[15:04]

I'm trying to talk about, the practice that I can talk about is not the practice of that kind of get rid of the bad stuff in order to get the good stuff. Rather, how it is that we can be free of our suffering in the midst of our suffering. Patagiri Roshi used to like that phrase a lot, in the midst. But it was because he wasn't, you know, a native English speaker, he would really work in the midst, he would say. In the midst of our suffering, we must find the true way, he would say things like that. Very strong. In the midst. So...

[16:05]

So I think this is a kind of common misunderstanding of Zen practice. The misunderstanding is a kind of cost-benefit analysis of Zen practice. A kind of quid pro quo. That is, The quid is, the cost is, well, I'm going to really practice hard and sit zazen and da-da-da-da-da, you know, and not move and be very concentrated. And then the quo part is, then I'm going to attain something. I'm going to attain enlightenment, realization, so on and so forth and so on and so forth. And then that's going to be the reward for all of this hard work that I've been doing. And the reward is really going to be terrific because then I won't... I won't suffer anymore. I won't have any more problems at that point because I'll be so cool.

[17:11]

Oh, yeah. So there's an interesting correlation. There's an interesting, I would say, I'm going to suggest an interesting kind of proportional correlation. The more we feel helpless in the face of our own life, the more we feel incapable, unable to really meet our life, the more that, the more We want, need, think, imagine Zen to be a kind of magical, mystical kind of thing that, oh, you know, you get this thing and then all of that bad stuff goes away. Do you follow what I'm saying? The more you can't do it, the more you feel like you can't do it, the more you feel like...

[18:26]

The problems or difficulties or fears of my life are more than I can bear. The more you need some, you know, white knight. Or in another, you know, another religion, you need a certain kind of God. God will come and do it because I can't do it. So rather than that, The practice that I'm familiar with and want to speak about is the practice that actually sustains us and supports us not to do this magical, mystical thing, but to actually face the actual life that we actually have, to meet that fully. That's pretty good.

[19:30]

I think that's pretty good. A few months ago, I was at Tassajara for a weekend retreat that I was participating in, an alumni retreat. It's not exactly alumni like college alumni. I went to UCLA or so on and so forth. Not a kind of a practice alumni. So an invitation was sent out to many people, I don't know how many, maybe hundreds of people who had practiced intensively at Tassajara or here at Green Gulch or at City Center for some significant period of time, sometime in the past. gather all together, you know, gather those people together. And the group that actually wound up attending was not a very big group, maybe 15 people or so.

[20:42]

And some of them had practiced intensively at Tassajara a long time ago, like I had, back in the early 70s. was when I was there for a few years and other people. So people who had done this, you know, 30, 40 years ago. Is it 40? I hope it's only 40, not 50. So it'll be 50 years ago. Oh, my God. Anyway. And, you know, these people had gone on to, you know, they had done that. and then moved on in their lives to something more productive. No. They moved on in their lives to something. One person was a journalist, and another person was a doctor, and he has actually been an ER doctor in the emergency room.

[21:51]

which I think, I don't know the medical profession that well, but I believe that you only go into the emergency room like for a little while usually and then done with that. Now you can do something else. And he's been an emergency room doctor for 30 years or something like that. And another person who was, you know, construction business and then got into investments and real estate, the usual stuff, you know. So I want to tell you about something that came up in that meeting. But first, so even though this had to do with people who had done this intensive period of practice, I think what they said, which I'll tell you in a moment, is true not just for somebody who has spent five years at Tassahara or, you know,

[22:54]

a year in the farm and garden program here at Green Gulch. But true for anyone, even if this is your first time listening to this kind of talk. True for, even if it's, you know, even if you come here on Sundays and listen to these Dharma talks, or if, you know, in the city there's a group called Yuz, which is Y-U-Z, Young Urban Zen. That's the group. And this Young Urban Zen, the city center has a lot of these very interesting groups that meet there. So these are people who are interested in Zen, but... Maybe they're not interested enough to actually show up at 5 o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday, you know. So once a week, on some evening of the week, Yaz meets at city center, and there's lots of young people, like 70 people, 80 people, you know, people who are interested in this stuff.

[24:04]

So, though I'm talking about these people at Tassajara, I mean it to be more widely inclusive. So anyway... So, mainly we just kind of hung around with each other, which was very nice to do. And then we'd get together as a group, and then there'd be prompts. Various creative minds would think of prompts to be part of a stimulus for the discussion. So one of the prompts was, what effect does Did your time of practice, years, months, whatever it was, what effect has that had on your life? What was the takeaway, so to speak? Now, 20, 30 years later, maybe just 10, maybe 20, maybe 30, maybe 40 years later, what would you say was the main thing that happened?

[25:11]

You know, the forest, not the trees. So, I was surprised. Not everyone said this, but most people said some version of, well, it helped me. face the difficulties of my life. Or, when I was having a really hard time, I had some reference point. I had some stability. Some foundation. Some of those words people actually used, and I'm also elaborating to clarify. You know, and people spoke about, one person spoke about when they had received a very, very serious medical diagnosis.

[26:29]

And another person spoke about big relationship problem between him and another person. very painful relationship problem. And a third person spoke about a very painful relationship problem, her own relationship to herself and how for years she has and continues to work with a seemingly intractable wave of alienation and disconnection and depression that can come upon her. That what practice, excuse me, helped with was facing into, that was one of the phrases used, facing into

[27:50]

the difficulty, the problem, the fear. No one said, oh yes, well, because of my Zen practice, I could easily handle the difficult parts of my life. No one said, oh, well, you know, due to my deep, my great realization, Dogen wrote a chapter, a fascicle section of the treasury of the true Dharma I, the Shobogenzo, a section called Daigo. Great Dai means great, go means realization, great realization. And I've been listening to Shohaku Okamura's commentary on Daigo. It's really... Great. Anyway, no one said, oh, due to this great realization that I had during Sashin on, you know, January 12th, 1981, due to that, well, after that, I didn't have any problems.

[29:06]

Nothing happened. You know, it was all cool, man. Just coasting after that. You know, nobody said that. No one said, well, Zen really helped me solve the problems. Not even solve, you know. No, it was simply that practice gave allowed and encouraged and supported me in meeting the difficult aspects of my life. So I think that a starting point for our practice, a starting point of Zen practice, is our willingness to be with our life.

[30:10]

And at the heart of that willingness to be with our life, is the willingness to be still. Sit still. The willingness to stop. The... Buddhism came into China from India around the turn of the Christian era. But Zen didn't arise, the school of Zen, the Zen school, there were premonitions, but it didn't arise in strength until, you know, like five or six hundred years later.

[31:16]

The main, I think the main, if not the main, then at least a major meditation school, that Buddhist meditation school in China before Zen, connected to Zen somewhat, but before Zen, was called in Chinese Zhir Guan. Zhir is C-H-I-H, and Guan is K-U-A-N, Zhir Guan, which Zhir means stop. The main meditation school in China for some hundreds of years, was stop and look. That was the name of it, Zhir Guan. Guan means look, see. Just like Guan Yin, seeing. Guan Yin, she who sees. So this stopping, this stillness, this willingness to be still, is...

[32:22]

is or is an essential part of this support, foundation, reference point for meeting our life with composure. To meet our life with composure. Composure means not be thrown for a loop. Or not be thrown for a loop or not be thrown for a loop by being thrown for a loop. Or not be thrown for a loop by being thrown for a loop by being thrown for a loop. Any place, anywhere along the line is OK. They're all equally effective. And at the heart of this composure, the root of this composure is stillness, is sitting still, which we do in Zazen practice.

[33:46]

In our Zazen practice, we cross our legs or sit in some stable way, and then we don't move. That's one of the instructions. Some of you may have come for Zazen instruction this morning, and that's one of the instructions. Don't move. Don't move is okay, but don't move can be misunderstood as though it were an order. Don't move. Actually, I think there are, I've heard, let's put it that way, I've heard of Zen practice places where everyone is sitting zazen, you know, at some ungodly early hour of the morning, and then the leader says, don't move, as though they were telling you what to do. or not do, as though it were an order or a prescription. Don't move is not essentially that kind of a thing.

[34:46]

It's not some, you know, the thing of attaining enlightenment, you know, we're supposed to do it the right way, and part of doing it the right way is that you rigidly adhere to some rule that someone tells you about how to do it. Like, don't move, as though that's going to be part of the secret that's going to get you to where you want to go. So then you rigidly adhere to this rule. They say, don't move, so I better not move. That's not what don't move is about. Don't move means... what I've been saying. Don't move means this willingness to meet another person, to meet our life. Don't move means don't avert, don't look away, don't run away.

[35:55]

So it's kind of revolutionary. Don't move. Don't run away. We like to run away. We habitually run away from our life, particularly from our problems. We want to run away. One popular method of running away is called avoidance and denial. So Barbara Tuchman is a historian and has written a number of books I believe, quite excellent historical books, mostly about specific periods of time, like a book called The Guns of August is about the beginning of World War I. I actually, I haven't read any of Barbara Tuchman's books, but I'm not gonna let that stop me saying something about that.

[37:39]

My son, actually, quite a few years ago, somehow became very involved with Barbara Tuckman's books and read a lot of her books. Anyway, one of her books, uncharacteristic for her, wasn't about one particular time. The title of the book is March of Folly. And March of Folly is about a number of different historical periods or incidents. And the essential thesis or the essential idea of March of Folly is that here we are in a given situation and then she outlines whatever it was. I can't say exactly which ones, but... And pretty much everyone in this situation knew exactly what was going on. And pretty much everyone knew what was the right thing to do to take care of the situation. And then... Everybody went in exactly the opposite direction.

[38:44]

March of folly. So our powers of avoiding and denying, yes, I have 18 fingers on my right hand. Our powers of not seeing what we don't want to see and seeing that which we want to see are truly astounding, both in the, you know, this is within our own personal self and in our relationships, but also this gets played out in the culture and in our national and international life. So I'm going to try something. I don't usually talk about this kind of thing, but I'll mention it. So it may be, I'm not sure, but it may be that we are in exactly that kind of a march of folly kind of situation.

[39:57]

Having to do with the the extreme increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the consequent heating of the outer layer of the planet Earth. And I'm not sure, but it does seem like it's one of those situations where it is really simple. And straightforward. Carbon dioxide traps heat. We have the greatest levels of carbon dioxide for some hundreds and hundreds of thousands of years. Therefore, it's going to get really hot. It seems pretty straightforward. And yet, I don't know what the exact percentage is, but some significant percentage of our fellow Americans.

[41:01]

Matt. manage somehow to see it some other way. My wife and I participated last week, Sunday, yes, a week ago. A week ago, right around this time, we were standing on 58th Street in Manhattan with 311,000 friends. trying to let the world leaders, so-called world leaders who were meeting in the UN, to let them know, hey, wake up, smell the carbon dioxide. To let them know that let's not march follow-ly. I mean, Let's do this other kind of march.

[42:05]

We participated in the march, the climate march in New York City, the People's Climate March in Manhattan. And I had forgotten how humid the East Coast is. Wow. It is really humid, even when it's like 70 degrees or something. My sister, we were in the interfaith contingent. So we were waiting for other people to go, and then we were going to go. What we didn't know was that our contingent didn't enter the march until toward the end, until about 300,000 people passed us by. So we got there at 11, and we stood, some thousands of us interfaith folks stood there, pretty packed, for two and a half hours. And I took a break for a while. But my sister didn't take a break.

[43:06]

But then, so then she wasn't feeling well. My sister was with us. So then she wasn't feeling well. So I held her hand and we were trying to get out to the sidewalk. Excuse me, my sister's not well. Excuse me, excuse me, you know. And then suddenly I felt this pull. And I turned and looked and she was falling to the ground. passed out. But she was surrounded by very sweet interfaith folks. So everybody kind of, you know, just kind of gently, you know, gentled her to the ground so that she didn't bump her head and stuff. And people were calling for medics and so on. Doctors, people showed up right away. Then we, that made room. Then we Got over to the side. She was okay, actually, after some rest and some Gatorade. Bought some Gatorade.

[44:08]

Then we were ready to join the march, but our whole contingent had left. But we went anyway. There were still thousands of people around us anyway, behind us still. So that was a good thing to do. I appreciated the opportunity to participate. So our powers of avoidance and denial as methods of running away are strong. And I want to get to some other things, so I'll just briefly mention one other thing, which is another popular method of running away, which is locating the problem, the difficulty, one way that we are not sitting still, not facing our own life, is to locate the difficulty in the other person or the other group.

[45:17]

You know, I was raised in the Jewish in New York, actually, in Queens. And so I'm very familiar from my cultural background. I'm very familiar with being, I never experienced this personally, but in the past, being part of, that's the group that's the bad ones. So you get rid of the bad ones and then you just have good stuff. Just get rid of the bad people. Call Jews, call this, call that. Shakespeare, you know, wrote The Merchant of Venice, which was about a Jewish merchant. You're probably, some of you may be familiar with it. I saw Al Pacino playing, he's not Jewish, but I saw him playing The Merchant of Venice. And there's that very famous speech where he says, I can only paraphrase it, but he says, when I prick my skin, I bleed just like you.

[46:33]

Very, very moving. Anyway, so if we do that, if we project the problem, the difficulty, which is intimately connected with our fear, if we project it onto the other person or into the other group, then we just have to build an eight-meter-high wall to keep those bad people out, to keep them over there, and then we can stay over here. Or we can build hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles of fence. Then... That'll solve our problems. Then we won't have problems because the bad people who we don't want here won't get in. So I'm portraying this as, and I feel that it often is, can be, very primitive, undeveloped.

[47:46]

wrongheaded, misguided way of working with the difficulties and problems and fears of our own life. And that our practice provides some alternative to that. Each morning here and at most Zen temples in the world, we recite, after practicing zazen meditation, we recite various sutras and various other things.

[48:51]

And one of the things we recite is called the Heart Sutra. The Heart Sutra is the heart of perfect wisdom. So perfect wisdom is prajnaparamita, This is a body of literature that was composed, actually, like I was saying, in those early centuries after Buddhism came to China. And the Heart Sutra, one reason why it's called the Heart is because it's like, this is the heart of the matter, but also because it's very condensed. It's only a page long. There are other versions of the Prajnaparamita, other versions of the Perfection of Wisdom teaching that are 8,000 lines long and longer than that. So Heart Sutra is hard to understand partly because it's so condensed and also because it's rather technical. It refers to rather technical issues which if you were practicing in 2 BC you would probably be familiar with but now you might not be familiar with, you know.

[50:03]

So the Heart Sutra is the one that says, know this, know that, you know, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. It's a long, long list of know this, know that, know this, know that. No Four Noble Truths, no 12-fold chain of condition co-production, etc., etc. At the very end of that no, no, no, no, no list, the last one is no attainment. That's the last of the no's. No attainment. Then, the Heart Sutra says, with nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on prajnaparamita. And thus, the mind is without hindrance. Without hindrance, there is no fear. It may not be immediately obvious to you, but that's what I'm trying to say this morning.

[51:12]

That's actually what's being said there is what I'm trying to say in less technical, more ordinary language. With nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on the perfection of wisdom and thus relying There is no hindrance. And without hindrance, there is no fear. In the world of attainment, in the world of quid pro quo, in the world of the cost-benefit analysis, we think, oh, that sounds really good. No hindrance. You get rid of hindrance. You get rid of fear. But that's not, again, that's not what I'm trying to speak about this morning. With nothing to attain means not focusing on the attainment orientation of practice.

[52:14]

To kind of translate it into more ordinary English, not focusing on that attainment aspect of practice, we sit still and face our life. And when we sit still and face our life, we have some way of meeting our life and being in our life and meeting our difficulties and being in our difficulties and some freedom from them, simultaneous with their existence, not somewhere else. Essentially, I'm not going to go into detail, but essentially relying on Prajnaparamita refers to that stillness, to sitting still. Or sitting still is an evocation, or is not an evocation, but an example or an expression of the sitting still I'm talking about.

[53:24]

It's an expression of that perfect wisdom. So I think the last thing, I think I've said pretty much what I wanted to say this morning, but I wanted to say one more aspect, which is, this is the practice I'm referring to called sitting still or facing one's difficulties, so on. This is easier said than done. Yep. So this is easier said than done. So I don't know if I made any sense in speaking this morning.

[54:27]

I made sense to me because I kind of, I knew what I was talking about. I hope you had some sense of what I was talking about. But it's really easy, much easier to make sense of it when you're talking about it. and much harder to get it, to work with it in our actual life. You know, for example, I was just saying a few moments ago about that thing of don't, essentially I was saying, don't project difficulties onto someone else or into some other group, because that's a way of rejecting them, that's a way of not looking, that's a way of not sitting with them. But sometimes the problem is in the other person. It's not an equal opportunity employer. The problem is in some group, in some way, in some misguided idea.

[55:31]

Not in a vicious condemning way, but just, hey, no, no, no, no. This is not right. This is not good. You're doing the wrong thing. Stop. Sometimes we have to say that. When? When is it that we're supposed to say that? And when are we supposed to say, well, I'm just projecting my difficulty and it's actually something I should be working on internally? Who has the rules about when to do one and when to do the other? Nobody. We're always looking for that rule. We want that rule. We wish that rule existed that would tell us when it's one thing and when it's another. But that rule doesn't exist. It's very, very problematic in life. I heard Tavis Smiley. Any of you know Tavis Smiley? He's a radio commentator.

[56:33]

I enjoy listening to him. And he was being interviewed by another radio commentator... tell me. It's another loss. I knew his name a few minutes ago. I'll give you a hint. He does forum on KQED and his name is Michael Krasny. They haven't got me yet. Michael Krasny was interviewing Tavis Smiley and Tavis Smiley just wrote a book called The Death of a King, about the last year of Martin Luther King's life. And just maybe exactly a year before Martin Luther King was killed, he gave a speech condemning the Vietnam War.

[57:36]

And this... maybe the first speech that he gave in that way, and it was very much different than anything he had said before. And he got blasted. Blasted for it. Not just from the people who you would expect would blast Martin Luther King, but he got blasted by the New York Times. He got blasted by people within his own civil rights movement. How dare you? How could you? This is crazy. You're wrong. You're stupid. This is terrible. Unpatriotic. So on and so forth and so on and so forth. And pretty much that last year of his life, I think, was pretty miserable because he had the, one can only say in retrospect, he had the courage to stay with his own truth while what he was getting back, what people were telling him, was no, no, no, no, no.

[58:47]

So it's very hard to know how to be and how to practice and how to sit with one's difficulties and problems. because there aren't markers. There's no one giving, no one gave Martin Luther King a grade A. Good, you did really good. No, in fact, they were giving him an F minus. There are no markers. So that makes it very hard. do have help in our Zen practice world. The help in our world is called Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. That's the help that we get. It's not exactly markers.

[59:54]

It doesn't tell you what to do, what not to do, but it helps to have Buddha, the ideal, that example for us, and dharma, the teachings, the many, many teachings about how things are and how we can, how our body, speech, and mind can align with the way things are. And sangha, which is our friends and our practitioners, our other fellow practitioners. who also are sincerely, sincerely making an effort, sincerely making their best effort at acting in ways that are as much as possible not simply the usual greed and aversion.

[61:08]

Though imperfect, our sangha, our friends are imperfect. Big news, huh? But still, with us being imperfect and our friends being imperfect, but still to make this sincere effort is good. It's a good thing to do. Okay. I think I'll stop there for now, and I'm going to end the talk, and we'll chant and then bow, and then we'll have the exciting part of the morning, which is that Tova Green is here from the city center, and she and others, there's been a raffle to help raise funds for the construction.

[62:14]

You see all the construction going on around here. And today is going to be the drawing for the raffle. And the winner and winners will be announced, which is very exciting and fun. So I think that's good. The only The only comment I was going to make was that since I was the one who gave the talk this morning, I thought I should win. So, no, I don't really think that. But anyway, I thought it'd be fun to say it. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[63:17]

Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[63:43]

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