Thank you, Lucy. Good morning, everyone.

[18:44]

My name is Tim Wicks. I'm at a practice here, and I'd like to give a very warm welcome to Reverend Esho Sudan, who's our speaker today. Esho has practices and teaches at Toshioji Senmon Sodo, the international training monastery of the Soto School in Okoyama, Japan. Originally from Australia, she was a resident at the Sydney Zen Center. and at Zen Mountain Center, Zen Mountain Monastery in New York, before ordaining in Japan under Seido Suzuki Roshi, that's Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi, who's the son of our founder, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, and she ordained in 2010. At Toshouji, she teaches Baika, which is a fascinating Zen hymn singing, and supervises translation and editing projects and overseas nuns practice and training. A very warm welcome to you. Thank you very much for coming to be with us today.

[19:48]

Thank you. And thank you for everyone for coming today. It's beautiful to see so many people here. This glorious morning when there's no doubt many other things calling you. And also a warm welcome to the people online. For me, it's wonderful. to be here. Our monasteries are related to one another, this temple and my monastery in Japan, very intimately related. My ordination teacher has the same name as Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi, so there is some confusion always, particularly inside the monastery when both are in residence. But I ordained with Seido Suzuki Roshi and Hoitsu Roshi is a fellow staff member at Toshuji and gives wonderful lectures for the monks and nuns. So it's wonderful to be here in the temple that his father founded and to be able to share some of these stories that trace back through our female line and ancestry and flesh out for you some of the wonderful voices that have been lost to history

[21:08]

that can be a really profound resource for our own practice and training. I was just struck by the courtyard when I came in this morning, and for those of you who've been to Japan and practiced or know the Japanese monastic landscape, the structure of the monasteries are often these buildings built around an empty space called the keidai, and it's It's a really powerful reminder of the heart of these teachings, this profound teaching of emptiness and this ineffable mystery that's underlying all the aspects of practice and training. It's a beautiful physical expression of that and to cross back and forth under the stars to and from Zazen is really to continually be presented with the the ineffability and the constant presence of those deepest teachings of which we are inheritors.

[22:14]

So I was really struck by this courtyard and the modern manifestations of that same principle are kind of leaping out from everywhere in this beautiful practice space. So for me, it's wonderful to feel this aliveness and freshness, the Dharma here. And especially significant is the abiding Aves' presence, Marco, who is here. For me, that's also a wonderful affirmation of how Western Zen has really managed to open the gates deeply. And that's the topic, I think, of today's talk, is to share with you the story of a precursor of hers who was during World War II in Japan in the times of the most intense adversity, she was doing the same thing of opening the gates of the Dharma as far as possible so that those mysterious, profound and life-changing teachings could be encountered and felt by the broadest and most diverse population that she could reach.

[23:35]

So to start, it's very hard to know. It's kind of, we need to go right back to the beginning briefly to the early days of Buddhist practice and to imagine or to re-invoke in our memories this moment when the foster mother and aunt of the Buddha knelt before her nephew slash son and extracted from him the assurance that women were equally as capable of enlightenment as men. We've come so far, it can seem so strange now that that was even necessary. But until very recently, and especially in Japan, there were still immense obstacles facing women who wanted to enter into practice and training, especially deeply in these places of monastic So I always invoke this Mahapajapati's beautiful and profound and intense aspiration as a start point.

[24:50]

And I don't know how many of you would have encountered, surely, I think everyone would have heard her name in the list of women ancestors that we chant. But what brought her alive for me was the Terigata, which is that collection of the earliest stories of nuns in India who had that same intense aspiration in the very early days of Buddhism and encountered that same ineffable quality that led them to really profoundly practice and realize what in their nature could alleviate their own suffering. And to hear in this collection of stories of these early nuns dating back to the third century, this lived experience of that aspiration coming to fruition and the adversities they faced is still one of the things I return to always in practice as fuel for my own kind of flame.

[25:57]

And there was one of the nuns who I remember, I'm sure I'll horribly mangle her verse, but it stayed with me from the very earliest days of my practice. Her name was Soma. And there was an early translation of the Terigata that I can no longer find. And she's saying, having a conversation with Mara, or delusion, the voice of delusion. And she says something like, If I were to ask, am I a woman or a man in this, I would be speaking Mara's language, or delusion's language. And she says, everywhere the love of pleasure is released. The great dark is torn apart, and death, you too, are destroyed. And when I heard that line, the great dark is torn apart, which I... haven't been able to find in any translation since, I felt once again that indescribable mysterious force that arises in us, that brings us to this room today, that awakens in us this possibility of transforming our suffering into wisdom.

[27:18]

So we have those voices from India from the very earliest days in these very very small but very powerful ways. And when we get to China, as Buddhism traveled from India to China, there are collections of the nuns and the voices of women from those days also. And one of the most wonderful collections is a book called Daughters of Emptiness and the verses of the nuns of China as Zen was forming as Chan. are also incredible expressions of the power of aspiration and its capacity to transcend even the most profound adversities and sufferings. And one of these poems I'll just briefly share with you because it kind of sets the stage for Susan Nagasawa Roshi and her students. Her name is

[28:22]

Ben Min, and she was teaching in the 12th century. And she, like all the women in this collection, or most of them, the biographies start with very little is known about the nun Ben Min, very little is known about. And we're kind of forced to re-encounter again and again how much silence there has been through the centuries around the voices of women. So it's a very good reminder, this poignant reminder that we know very little of the life, but we have these luminous expressions that still we can access and draw strength from today. And this poem is one of those kinds of verses. She writes, don't you know that afflictions are nothing more than wisdom, but to cling to your afflictions is nothing more than foolishness. As they rise, then melt away again, you must remember this.

[29:23]

The sparrow hawk flies through Sila, through the heavens, without anyone noticing. Don't you know that afflictions are nothing more than wisdom, and that the purest of blossoms emerges from the mire? If someone were to come and ask me what I do, after eating my gruel and rice, I wash my bowl. Don't worry about a thing. Don't worry about a thing. You may play all day like a silly child in the sand by the sea, but you must always realize the truth of your original face. When you suffer the blows delivered by the teacher's staff, if you can't say anything, you will perish by the staff. If you can say something, you will perish by the staff. In the end, what will you do if you are forbidden to travel by night, but you must arrive by dawn?

[30:32]

You can probably hear in that the intensity of her practice and training. It resonates down through the centuries, off the page, really struck strikes the heart. Particularly for me, those last two words, last two lines. In the end, what will you do if you are forbidden to travel by night, but you must arrive by dawn? I feel like that phrase really expresses the joy of practice, but also the predicament we are in. We receive these teachings, these intense and wonderful, profound teachings, and yet how do we bring them to life in our bodies, in this body, in this life, these wonderful, deep, liberatory teachings? And I feel that's a real challenge in that phrase.

[31:41]

So that brings me to Sozen Nagasawa Roshi, a long preamble to find her. She was one of those resonant voices about whom we know very little. But the little we know of her life is this incredible story of the intensity of her desire to alleviate her own suffering and the suffering of others, and particularly of lay women and women who, in her time in Japan, were often led to believe by and by the culture in general that they weren't capable of deep spiritual practice and training. So it became her mission to offer that. So she was born in 1888 and she died in 1971. So her lifespan covered the time when Japan was really facing incredible adversity before and during and after the war.

[32:47]

And it was a time when It was a time of particular challenge for Buddhism and for nuns in particular. When I went to Japan, something I found astonishing was that nobody there in my monastery seemed to know that the first ordained Buddhist in Japan was a woman, was the nuns in the sixth century, and that the first Buddhist temple had been established by her. and Abbas was the leader of the first. So this was not something that came up in my mostly male monastery training environment. So there was a time in the beginning where Buddhism was, there were an equal number of monks and nuns and the culture was much more open to women's presence there in positions of power and influence and at the heart of the tradition. And slowly over time, as Confucianism came in, Japanese culture changed and by the time Sozen Nagasawa Roshi was born, there were great discrepancies between the numbers of monks and nuns.

[34:01]

And most importantly, nuns were kind of underclass within the monastic world. So they weren't allowed to... run their own temples or retreats or to teach. And the highest rank they could attain in their training was the lowest rank that a monk could attain. And they had to wear the traditional black robes of a novice all their lives, even if they had practiced into their 80s. And most importantly, they couldn't pass on their own lineage and the teachings and all that they had realized in their lives of practice to anyone else. their teacher had to pass on their tradition to anyone that practiced with them. So this is a profound, tragic dimension of Japanese Zen culture that we can sometimes forget. And Soza Nagasawa, she was born into this situation for nuns.

[35:07]

And she lived in a prefecture where there were no nuns. So in some parts of Japan, population had become so small, there were none. And a wandering nun came through her prefecture and she said just the sight of this woman in robes was so profoundly moving for her that she recognized this aspiration and it awakened in her at the age of seven. But her parents were opposed and no wonder such a difficult context in which to live a life. It was one of the most difficult lives you could take up in Japan. So she waited until her opposing parents died when she was 27. It's kind of hard for us to imagine having to wait for our parents to die to fulfill our aspirations, but such was the power of the culture and respect for parents and teachers at the time. So when she ordained, it was with one of the most powerful teachers of her time.

[36:14]

And this teacher has really influenced Westerns in practice and training. Dayun Sogaku Harada Roshi. He was the teacher of Yasutani Roshi, from whom many of the Western lineages descend. And at the time, he was deeply respected. And she ordained with him, but couldn't practice with him. as a woman at the time. So she went to a women's seminary. And these were really powerful places of practice and training for secular education for women who couldn't receive an education otherwise. But they had no strong culture of Zazen. And being very determined and wanting to get straight to the heart of practice she found this unsatisfying. So she fulfilled that obligation too, and her teacher sent her to a Rinzai nuns training monastery, where a male teacher would come to give lectures, because none of the women could give lectures.

[37:24]

And this she found a little more satisfying, and she trained hard there. Then her teacher sent her to the training monastery he had trained in. as a young man. So this was an all-male monastery called Shōgenji, and it had this infamous reputation. It was a Rinzai school, a monastery. It was called the Peerless Demons Dojo. So this kind of ferocious, it had this ferocious reputation. It's hard for us also to imagine there was a time when You had to really bang on the gates and sit outside the gates of these ferocious places of demons practicing all together in order to access the teachings. And how formidable Soza Nagasawa she must have been to place herself as that person knocking on the door and being sent away and knocking and sent... They let her in.

[38:26]

And she trained amongst these male... monks underneath a male teacher in really extraordinary conditions. We don't have any descriptions of her time, but her teacher wrote about his days there. I'll just share a little bit of what he wrote. I had heard of the reputation of the peerless demon Soto, so I had come mentally prepared. But what surprised me most was how poor the food was. Food's very important in Japan, even back then. I had been raised at a poor temple, so I had never known the taste of a fancy dish. But here for two out of three meals, both morning and evening, we ate just porridge and pickles. The porridge was called sealing porridge because it was so very, very thin that the sealing would reflect in a black lacquer bowl. It was made in a big pot of boiling water with just dried ground barley thrown in and stirred.

[39:31]

And when eating, there was nothing solid there. It was just like drinking muddy water. So this is the kind of, this is what they were contending with. And after some time, Suzen Nagasauro, she became very sick, as you can imagine. She was facing all sorts of challenges. But she nevertheless had this very deep and profound experience of her true nature in that space using the Rinzai method of koan practice. So it became this kind of priceless experience in the midst of this great suffering, which eventually forced her to leave. So she writes of this time, enduring various hardships, how many times this body was at the verge of death. Yet the golden and unsurpassed words of Buddhas and ancestors were penetrating my bones and marrow. And I didn't have time. to spare, to listen to the worldly ways of criticizing nuns.

[40:35]

So you can imagine she was receiving that kind of underbelly of dis-ease from the monks alongside her, as well as this intense training schedule and this diet. So after recovering, her teacher found a was sent to Hoshinji Monastery. And this is still a training monastery functioning in Japan to this day. And it also had quite a reputation for being a fierce, intense place of practice. One of the women in these... in this collection who's a student of Nagasawa Roshi was sent to Hoshinji, and she shares a little bit about that. And for those of you who've been to a Rohatsu session, you would know that session at the end of the year, the enlightenment, the Buddha time, is the most intense session of the year generally in places of practice.

[41:40]

So then Nagasawa Roshi sent one of her students there, and this gives us a picture of what The training must have been for her also. I had heard stories about Rohatsu before, and now I saw it with my own eyes. As far as could be seen, the world around was completely white with snow, and behind the zendo, people were taking off all their clothes and jumping into the water tank. Moo! Moo! Moo, moo, or one hand clapping, everyone was trying to awaken deep into the night, either going to the mountains or in between the stones in the graveyard, and the loud voice of desperate hard practice was echoing everywhere. Hearing that, who wouldn't be inspired? Even me, a person of low capacity, I couldn't help but jump out into the hail and snow, before the abbot's graves and on the mountainside. I, too, searched for my true form.

[42:44]

With the passing of the days, the appearance of all the sangha started to resemble demons. The sound of presenting the koan was getting increasingly fierce. How precious. Both those enlightened ones and those unenlightened were coming together, aiming at utmost realization and giving their best in their devoted efforts. I wished I could show it. even one glance of it to the regular people of the world. So this was the kind of climate of practice in that time. Times were tough. People were hungry. People were poor. And there was this intense sense that there was a mystery to be plumbed and the depths of it to be realized. And this collective effort and energy of people who came together in that recognition. So there's Intense times call for intense, intense methods. And it's really wonderful to imagine Sozen Nagasawa Roshi going through decades of this kind of practice and training.

[43:52]

So she spent 10 years there. And then she received Inkashome, and at that time, Shiho and Inkashome were passed on to her, which was a formidable achievement under such a revered teacher. However, it didn't entitle her to teach or to have her own place of practice and training to share what she had learned through all of this adversity with other women, particularly. So she created a women's training monastery called Kanonji in Tokyo. It's still there today. This was in 1935 when there was no support whatsoever in the Soto school for this kind of... creating this sort of a space. And so her and her fellow nuns went on takuhatsu, the traditional begging rounds, in order to raise the money for the monastery. And one of the nuns in this collection, also speaking about her time, received an invitation in the very early time when Kanonji had just opened.

[45:03]

She describes it a little. She says, when I was reading this invitation together with my teacher, the form of the letter from the Venerable Abess, each phrase and word penetrated to the marrow of my bones. It felt somehow frightening and precious. The letter said that the practice place was small and looked just like a pig pen. I recalled Hakuen Zenji, the great Rinzai teacher, and thought, even if it is a pig pen or a stable, If it is a practice place where a world-famous nun lives, who through her guidance is liberating women, where is the hindrance? There are grand monasteries with all seven buildings, but often there is no Buddha in those golden halls. So even if this temple is small, if the people inside it are all real bodhisattvas, surely the Dharma light of true transmission is shining there.

[46:03]

So even through this invitation sent out to these nuns, there is the sense of this, the formidable nature of what Soza Nagasawa Roshi was doing, the power of her aspiration, the power of her practice and training, forcing open this pig pen for people to come and practice. in deep suffering, many people in deep suffering in Japan. And for women especially who had lost their husbands or their sons in the war and were charged with kind of rebuilding the culture and holding together families, it was an immense time of pressure and suffering and adversity. And some of them came to Kanonji because they had this kind of universal existential crisis that many of us would recognize.

[47:13]

One woman, Kazuko Kasashima, who is in this collection says, what brought her there was, I realized that what I had done for the last 30 precious years was just eating, sleeping, waking up, laughing, crying, and getting angry. I began in earnest to seek something more, a faith that unshakable, no matter what circumstances would bring. So I think most of us in this room can recognize that perennial recognition that there must be something underneath this surface wave-like nature of life that we can access. And others were really suffering because of their circumstance, because... in particular the nuns of the time who had no answers to what the people in there around their temples would be asking them for reassurance or for comfort.

[48:17]

And they felt they hadn't understood the true teachings and they had simply attended a seminary and they didn't know how to alleviate the suffering of others. So many of these nuns would come to Kanonji, feeling charged with this task to support people through the most difficult time, one of the most difficult times in Japan's history, and they simply lacked the depth of spiritual experience to deliver that. So she would practice and encourage these nuns and these lay women to come, and also lay men practiced with her too. And she particularly encouraged Sesshin. So the coming together in person simply just to encounter one's nature and really penetrate to the depths of that nature to unearth what is never born, what never dies, what is always there, unimpacted and unaffected regardless of the circumstances.

[49:21]

So her kananji became this place of most intense training, because that was what she had inherited. And just before finishing up, I would just like to share one of the stories in this collection that is perhaps the most moving that opens the collection. Because one of the most incredible things about Suzan Nagasauro, she recognized that we need to hear We need to hear about the possibility of these teachings coming alive in our own lives in a profound way. We need to hear those stories and stories of people like us, not special people who went to mountains for decades and saw something. We need to hear about the farmers and the school children and the doctor's wives and all of these ordinary People who are nonetheless able to recognize some absolutely unshakable, indestructible truth about their being.

[50:31]

And for some of them, it wasn't years in the monastery. It wasn't weeks and weeks of intensive. It was simply sitting down with oneself really deeply and wholeheartedly in that one moment. And their whole lives changed. So this is something that's available to all of us. And Sozen Nagasauroshi knew this, and she encouraged her students who had had some kind of a shift or opening in their practice. She encouraged them to write about it. And those stories were published in a Buddhist magazine, and then they came together in a Japanese collection. And that's what this book... in this body, in this lifetime is, it's the translation of the stories of the women and nuns who were practicing under Sozen Nagasauroshi, ordinary people with this deep suffering who transformed that suffering into wisdom and then went back into their lives and shared that with their communities.

[51:39]

The nuns would go back to their temples and share it with their people and the lay women would go back to their families and working worlds. And so they would spread this really profound medicine amongst them. So I'll just share one of the deepest stories and then I will close. And I need to say just before I do that Susan Nagasaroshi was also absolutely key in changing the Soto constitution so that women could transmit to their students, women could have equal status to monks. And that occurred in the 1950s. So it's really recent history. And it's the reason I can sit before you today in this form and share this with you. So she's really one of the women to whom we owe the most in terms of how much she really opened the doors of the Dharma wide for all beings.

[52:43]

So there's a wonderful woman in her collection who studied with her, Momoyo Nakayama. She writes, May 7th, 1945 was a day I won't ever be able to forget when I received the remains of my son's body, returned ceremonially with the news of his death in war. The grief and anguish I felt when I held in my arms this small box made of plain wood cannot be expressed. Even with such words as, I felt like vomiting blood, or I was in heart-rending grief. Only other mothers who have experienced this can know the feeling. From a world of light, I was thrown into a world of darkness. I lost all desire to live. All my happiness was taken away. I lived in grief, empty like a soulless puppet, devastated by the loss of my child and grieving day and night.

[53:52]

I don't know how many times I decided to follow my beloved child into death, but each time when I was about to do it, I would clearly hear his dear voice saying, Mom, you must not die. Please be happy. Please live in happiness. So my son was firmly not letting me suffer sorrow or die. I just had to cry until it was enough. People criticized me as a foolish mother, as a prisoner of my emotions. I had fallen as low as one only can. In the morning and in the evening, I would make a ceremonial food offering Chanta Sutra and offer incense and flowers before his spirit, which brought me some consolation, and I continued in this wretched state day and night for over three years. I was a teacher of over 2,000 children, one who guided young mothers, but now my own life was in such a pitiful condition.

[55:03]

Finally, I met Sozan Nagasao Roshi of the nuns' training monastery, and I listened to one of her talks. At first I thought, how could a nun who has never given birth or raised a child, let alone had her child be killed, ever understand this pain and this suffering? There is no one in this world I can turn to, and my heart remained shut tight. However, as I listened to her, I was deeply moved. by her character. There was some untouchable intensity about her. And at the same time, a childlike innocence that was pulling me towards her. I was gradually drawn in more and more by her words and started to think maybe I would even give Sazen a try. I went at first for two days of seshin, then three days, and finally I completed a whole seshin. As the retreats piled up, my own foolishness keenly sunk into my mind.

[56:08]

I realized that although Roshi didn't have the experience of giving birth to a child, of raising him and having him killed, from the perspective of practice, she possessed exalted experience surpassing that of the mothers of the world. She was strict and fierce, yet the shining light of great compassion from the depth of her mind was guiding this community composed of very different people with complete mastery. This was the true mind of compassion. I then resolved that I too would train under her and break through the ultimate barrier. From then on, I pushed forward in a literal do or die struggle, relying entirely on Roshi. However, I soon found out it is easier said than done. During Sesshin, And maybe some of us who've attended session can appreciate this. The suffering, the sorrow, the anxiety, the misery I experienced were beyond words.

[57:13]

People who haven't done it cannot imagine or know the suffering of it. I jumped into this world of practice as a beginner, not knowing anything about it. And initially I was completely surprised. When the assembly started to earnestly intone moo out loud, I thought it was ridiculous, and that maybe I had walked into a mental hospital, and this was a gathering of the insane. Meals were another surprise. How many times did we reverently put our hands in gachot when receiving two slices of pickled radish or the rice gruel, the water for the cleaning of the bowls, and so on? From beginning until end, it seemed there was no break from holding our hands in Gafsha. There was actual beauty in this solemn way of eating, so harmonious and graceful. But on the other hand, it was accompanied by a sense of rigidity and tautness. In the pursuit of Mu, I didn't change my meditation posture.

[58:15]

I didn't sleep. I lost sensation in my whole body from the pain in my legs, and sparks would fly out of my eyes. despite the fact that I was in this continuous struggle of a thousand deaths and a million hardships, I had to go on. There's many pages of suffering and adversity that I will fast forward through until Momoyo has this deep opening and really something falls away in her experience, revealing to her the deep truth of her indestructible nature. She writes, the timeless, indestructible life is continuously bestowing me with every moment. Living and working together now with my dead son cannot be expressed in words. This is the Buddha mind. That is the Buddha mind. There is nothing that is not the Buddha mind. This is joy.

[59:16]

That is delight. My life is complete and overflowing in this fresh, pure, vast heaven and earth. During a lecture, Roshi said, like a clear dew, my mind, if placed on an autumn leaf, just as it is, a ruby. When my mind is colorless and transparent, no matter what circumstances arise, I can adapt to them. I have started a new life, a life worth living, where with every step, I am repaying the kindness of Buddhas and ancestors. So this is the first chapter in the book, and then there's 29 more of the same story in different textures and flavors, which is really just a wonderful encouragement for all of us. I'd like to

[60:22]

Yeah, I'd like to just speak from my heart for just the very last moment to say thank you so much, everyone, for being here and for listening, for being, to have encountered this dharma is absolutely extraordinary in this time. Even with the dharma everywhere on the internet now, we don't have to bang on the gates of the demons, zendos to access it. And yet that provides its own challenges to really finding and treasuring this incredibly powerful inheritance we have access to. So thank you so much, everyone, for coming today. And thank you for listening. May we pay our attention to this. Thank you.

[61:48]

God bless. God bless. God bless. Good morning, everyone, and welcome.

[63:45]

My name's Kevin. I have an email here at City Center, and I have a presenter. I have a couple of announcements. I just want to say that as soon as we're finished here, a show will be in the Welcome Center right across the hallway for a Q&A. You can stop and get tea and cookies first, and then go over to the Welcome Center, or go straight to the Welcome Center. And this is the book that she was talking about, just published by Shambhala, called In This Body, In This Lifetime, Awakening Stories. of Japanese Soto Zen women. And it's for sale in the bookstore. And Aesho is the editor. And she'll be glad to sign the book for you if you like. So that's available today. I want to tell you about another book. Who here has read Zen Mindy Beginners by? Hopefully everybody. So there's a new book coming out by Suzuki Roshi. July 15th called Becoming Yourself.

[64:45]

And these are another series of talks that Roshi gave that have been worked on, edited by Sojin, the late Sojin Mel Weissman, as well as G.M.U. Bruchman-Bailhams, the Abbott of Green Gulch Zen Center. So this book will be available in a few weeks. There's also a little barcode here where you can scan to order your copy. And we're very excited. This very card is available also in the Welcome Center. You can pick one up. And it'll be a whole other set of talks by Suzuki Roshi for us to enjoy for years to come. So also thank you for being here today and joining us. It's always a pleasure to have you here for everything that we do. Also please consider supporting Zen Center with donations as well as your presence. Memberships really help sustain all that we do here at Zen Center, and we thank you deeply for your support. There will be Zendo forums following the Dharma talk also with Ellen.

[65:49]

Ellen's there. Ellen, you'd like to meet you in the lobby. So if you're curious about the Zendo, what the sounds mean, what the soundscape is, where to move in the Zendo, how to find a seat, different things mean in the Zendo. Ellen will be your guide for all of that. And you can meet Ellen in the lobby. She'll take you down and show you everything that you need to know about the Zendo and how to appreciate it. The next Dharma Talk will be this next Wednesday with Roger Hilliard at 7.30 in the Buddha Hall. Anybody who is new to Zazen and is curious about sitting Zazen, we'll have a beginner's half-day sit. on Sunday, July 13th, and they'll be from 9 to 1, and you can register for that on the website. We're also very pleased that next Friday, June 27th, we'll be hosting Tibetan monks from Tregom Monastery. They'll be here doing a world healing and peace, world peace and healing puja.

[66:55]

Puja is chanting. So there's eight monks coming, They reside at Draypong Monastery in Kentucky. The main Draypong Monastery was founded in the 1400s near Vasa in Tibet. And monks had to escape in the late 50s when the communist takeover happened. And they now have a monastery in southern India, which houses about 2,000 monks. And similar to what Aisho said about it was a way for people to get education, that's true of Tibetan monasteries. Children can go at a young age and learn how to read and write, as well as become monks, learn Buddhist doctrine, learn meditation. So we're very happy to support them. All the money we receive that night, it's by donation, goes to Dreypunk Monastery to help support their efforts. So the monks who are coming travel around the country on a sacred arts tour, and they do different presentations of Tibetan Buddhist culture and art. So if you're available next Friday night, please come.

[67:58]

We'll be doing the chanting here. Maybe next year we'll have them for a longer time, and they can do a sand mandala or something like that as well. Urban Gate Sangha are the folks who help us out every Saturday with the Zazen as well as the Dharmata, if the Urban Gate folks can raise their hands. So if you are interested in becoming an Urban Gator, it's possible. Talk to anybody who's raised their hand. You can talk to myself. You can talk to Tim, who is over there. And we can tell you about how to become involved. It helps to support practice. After the Dharma talk, there's a get-together with Tim. Have a Dharma discussion and a light lunch. So it's a really great experience. And if you're interested, please talk to one of us. As I said, tea and cookies are available in the lobby. So please help yourself. And thank you so much for coming today. If there's a Zafu... please bring it back to the shelves over there. And if you're able to carry a chair back to the dining hall, that's also very much appreciated.

[69:01]

Thank you. Have a lovely weekend.

[69:09]

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