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Sunday Talk
AI Suggested Keywords:
The talk emphasizes the importance of embracing the Bodhisattva vow, the acknowledgment and engagement with personal suffering, and the companionship in moments of vulnerability and transformation. It discusses the philosophy of Zen practice as an approach to settle into the self, highlighting principles such as non-separation, anatta, and embracing life's mysteries through various tenets of companioning, like presence and compassionate curiosity. The talk also connects these principles to practical life situations, such as end-of-life care and personal experiences.
- "Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind" by Shunryu Suzuki: This text is referenced for its teachings on embracing suffering and Zen practice, reflecting Suzuki Roshi's emphasis on laughter and understanding suffering as a gateway to awakening.
- "A Bigger Sky" by Pamela Weiss: Weiss's book is mentioned to elaborate on the Zen teaching of anatta, the idea of no separate self, and qualities of interconnected existence.
- "The White Album" by Joan Didion: Quoted to highlight the concept of living in peculiar, inward times, akin to the state of human experience addressed in Buddhist practice.
- Internal Family Systems Model: The Eight C's from this model are compared to aspects of Zazen practice, highlighting elements such as curiosity, compassion, clarity, and courage as central qualities cultivated in Zen.
References to influential figures like Thich Nhat Hanh and their teachings, as well as sharing personal narratives of practice, further root the talk in lived Zen experiences, making the practice accessible and personal for contemporary practitioners.
AI Suggested Title: Companioning Through Zen's Gentle Mysteries
This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me okay? Yeah. Now I can see you a lot better. Mmm. My name is Myatsi Petran Horin Raika. Dharma Forest Bringing Harmony is my Buddhist name. And I received that name from Linda Ruth Cutts, one of my teachers. I was in her first ordination group right over there. And...
[01:01]
I would like to thank her. I would like to thank my teacher, Ed Sadezan. I was head student with him at City Center in 2014 and received Dharma entrancement with him in 2022. And all of that may mean nothing to all of you, but our teachers are so very important. And I would like to thank Eli, my dear Dharma brother, our Tonto head of practice here at Green Gulch Farm for inviting me to speak with you today. I look around the room and I just want to keep saying thank you. So I'll stop there and let that be communicated. I also want to acknowledge everyone who is joining us online. Many friends have reached out to say that they would be here today with us.
[02:07]
I lived here at Green Gulch Farm from 1995 when I came as a farm apprentice until 2005. And it's so funny, I come back often, you know, And still, as I walk the paths, I just come back to those very first days, you know? Yeah. If you know me, you know that oftentimes when I give a Dharma talk, this happens. And I've come to accept that. I've come to be at peace with that. I was terrified when I first started giving talks. I was like, oh, no, I'm just going to cry. It's like, it's OK.
[03:16]
So in this ceremony, the ceremony that I alluded to, where I received my Dharma name, we formally take the bodhisattva vow. And the bodhisattva vow is the vow to step in and take full responsibility for your life, for one's life, for our life. I'm... In transition now, I was working at Enzo Village for the last two and a half years, setting up the Zendo there. I was the spiritual life coordinator. And I met so many amazing people. I have so many friends from that time, many who are online this morning with us. And I'm transitioning from that work to end-of-life doula work.
[04:24]
And part of that is finally taking a chaplaincy training that I've wanted to take for many years. Perhaps some of you have taken that training. I know my husband, Miles, who's right here, has. And it's a beautiful invitation to become a student in a new way, writing papers and reading a lot. One of the things I came across the other day I wanted to share with you, and it is the 11 tenets of companioning the bereaved. So I'll go through this. There are 11 of them. Tenet one. Companioning is about being present with another's pain. It is not about taking away the pain. Tenet two. Companioning is about going into the wilderness of the soul with another human being.
[05:32]
It is not about thinking you are responsible for finding the way out. Tenant three. Companioning is about honoring the spirit. It is not about analyzing with the head. Tenant four. Companioning is about listening with a heart. It is not about analyzing with the head. Tenant five, companioning is about bearing witness to the struggles of others. It is not about judging or directing these struggles. Tenant six, companioning is about walking alongside. It is not about leading. Tenant seven, companioning is about discovering the gifts of sacred silence. It does not mean filling up every moment with words. Tenant eight, companioning is about being still.
[06:38]
It is not about frantic movement forward. Companioning is about respecting disorder and confusion. It is not about imposing order and logic. Tenant ten, companioning is about learning from others. It is not about teaching them. Tenant eleven, companioning is about compassionate curiosity. It is not about expertise. So all of them really landed for me. And maybe as with me, It happened with some of you that it made you think about practice and what we're doing in our Zazen practice. Going into the wilderness of the soul.
[07:40]
I really love that. So as I started turning this and what's been so alive for me in this transition time is opening, continuing to open really to the mystery of my life, of others' lives. And this not knowing willingness to companion, to be with. So I've found in my years of practice, oftentimes my inquiry brings me right back to the very foundational teachings of Buddhism. And the Buddha taught one thing and one thing only, and that is suffering and the end of suffering.
[08:51]
I remember once talking with a friend some years ago when I was living in San Francisco and working in the development office at Zen Center and back and forth every day to Zen Center. And she finally was like, what is Buddhism? What is it? What is this? And I said, oh, well, it's so simple. It's such a wonderful practice. It's kind of always right here. helps us see how in any moment we're suffering and that we can wake up to that. And I thought this was going to be great news for her. And she made this face and she was like, I don't suffer. And I was a little bit surprised and not. I think our culture, it's embarrassing. And maybe we feel a little bit far from that, you know, as I say that.
[09:57]
Like, well, of course that's what we're doing. You know, we're looking at our suffering moment after moment. But I think that suffering just has like such a big kind of capital S in bold print, you know, suffering. But really suffering is, you know, it is a little annoyance. It can be an aggravation. It can be wanting to control this person in front of you just a little bit. It's like, as I said to my daughter yesterday, we were talking, I said, it's like constantly wrestling with the universe. And dukkha, the Sanskrit word for suffering, the translation is a wheel out of round. I love that. It's like, yeah. That's how my life feels most of the time when I take a breath and check in. Just a little out of round. Sometimes a lot out of round. Like when the wheels fall off completely.
[11:02]
Which is probably what brought a lot of us to practice that kind of experience. Knowing. So Thoreau famously wrote in Walden, you know, the mass of men lead lives a quiet desperation. And I read this quote recently in the novel The Correspondent, which if you haven't read, I highly recommend. But it's a quote from Joan Didion from her wonderful book, The White Album. And she says, what I have made for myself is personal, but is not exactly peace. Most of us live less theatrically, but remain the survivors of a peculiar and inward time.
[12:13]
You know, my life really feels like that, a peculiar time. and inward time. And what Buddhism offers us, teaches us, is that exactly that feeling is the invitation to practice. To go into that peculiar wilderness of our soul. I have some friends here with me, besides all of you and you. This is from Pamela Weiss's A Bigger Sky. I'm going to be up here recommending books, I guess. Some of the Dharma talk.
[13:15]
I just, I love Pam Weiss. Dear Dharma sister, wonderful teacher. And in this book, A Bigger Sky, she puts it this way. I really loved this. She's a wonderful writer. We mistake ourselves as being some thing. But according to Buddhist teaching, who we are is not a thing at all. This is the teaching of anatta. There is no separate, solid self. I was feeling very separate as I took the Dharma seat. Something very small and wild. I was very scared. And as I sit here with you, I feel that separateness just drop away. You know? We're not separate. Perhaps I'm the one doing the talking, but...
[14:16]
You're the ones doing the listening, you know? Inquiry and response arise together. But the Buddha came to see what the Buddha came to see is that who we are is an ever-changing stream of experience. And when we cling... to our firmly held beliefs, ideas, roles, this is who I am, and identities, we freeze frame reality, turning flowing water into frozen ice. This is what we can feel as we sit down, oftentimes in our zazen practice. It's why it helps so much to live. in community and to have a time that you have to be in the zendo and you have to sit down right in the middle of whatever's going on.
[15:26]
We freeze from reality, turning flowing water into frozen ice. And then we find ourselves pinched and bound, locked into tiny cells. feel this in our body. This invitation to relax. This invitation to melt. Or that might not feel so good. So actually we contract even more. Our cold sharp edges become a prison. We are here We are here and everything else is out there. You know? So this is part of our dance, part of our practice. This is the invitation. That is the invitation to return to our self.
[16:33]
As we soften and melt, we cultivate this self, we cultivate capacity to remember and return to our original selves. So, thank you, Pam. Thank you, Pam. So, Suzuki Roshi said, each of us has just the right amount of suffering. Just I love that you laugh because he laughed so much in his lectures, you know? It's wonderful to be able to go online and to read his lectures. And it doesn't say this in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, or Not Always So, or what's the one that cheer you just at becoming yourself, you know? And Suzuki Roshi laughed, you know, when you read the originals, it says, and he laughed, or when you listen, he laughed. My husband, Miles, as he was sewing his priest robe, he would listen to Suzuki Roshi lectures.
[17:45]
It's not really the instruction of what you're doing as you're sewing your robes, but it's kind of a rule breaker that way. But he would just listen to Suzuki Roshi over and over, you know, taking refuge in Buddha and Dharma and Sangha, you know. And Suzuki Roshi laughed, you know. So, he found this quite funny. Suzuki Roshi. said we have just the right amount of suffering to awaken this way-seeking mind. Just that right amount of suffering is maybe, perhaps, what brought you here this morning. To be in community with fellow fellow practitioners, to hear the Dharma, to be together, to be reminded we don't We do not practice alone. We awaken together, always together. So these moments of suffering, these are the Dharma gates.
[18:51]
These are the Dharma gates that we vow to enter. We vow to move from this side of the gate to that side. I vow to enter them. My mother-in-law, Bernice Cowherd, Miles' mother, she passed away now some years ago. Miles and I were fortunate enough to be able to companion Bernice and Randy at the end of their lives. They died four months apart from each other and it became clearer when they were really needing some help and Miles and I moved in and we set up a bed in their family room at the senior living community where they were living. And she was so weak at that point and just so still fierce, you know. I remember putting down a glass on the table and she goes, Nancy, you need to put a coaster under that. She could barely talk.
[19:55]
I was like, Bernice. I'm so like her in so many ways, my God. And she came to practice late. You know, she wouldn't call herself a practitioner. But during COVID, she was always online. She was always there for everything. And then Miles' dad would join her online, you know, with his glass of wine. But they were there. And at the end of life, you know, he got more and more energized. He had Parkinson's and his medication, really. He just was nonstop activity. And she, it made her crazy. And Miles would say, Mom, stay in your lane. And she was like, I'm just going to put up my little zen umbrella. She would sit there like this. It was the sweetest thing. She was a total practitioner. She arrived at Tassajara on a zen and yoga retreat that she did a few times with her son. It was just so beautiful to watch the two of them go down to Tassajara.
[20:58]
And after her first retreat, she said to Miles, I don't know why I was so angry my whole life. Like how beautiful that she found this peace, you know? She found this peace in practice, you know? So, at the time of Buddha's enlightenment, he clearly saw the truth of suffering. And he saw that all beings He saw that we are all awakened beings. He saw the true nature, the settled, magnanimous self in every one of us. And that there was a way to actually teach this. And that is what we have been so fortunate to find.
[22:06]
in this lifetime. And that practice is to sit right down in the middle of our lives and to find peace or find whatever you find right there. Joan Didion, even by saying what she made for herself was personal, but not exactly peace, is also pointing to peace, that we can come to peace with our lives. Being with Bernice, there were some things in her life that actually were never fully resolved, but she came to peace with those things. It was so beautiful. to be a part of. And there's a sadness there.
[23:11]
There's a sadness that can arise when we really let reality be reality. We wish it wasn't so. But we can still come back to ourselves. and accept that. So this way-seeking mind, you know, right here, right here, this is the path. Here the way unfolds, as Dogen said. You know, our tendency is to, we're taught from a very young age, you know, we find our nervous system is regulated outside of ourselves. When we're little, we look to our parents, our caregivers to regulate us. And maybe they didn't have such great help doing that when they were little.
[24:19]
And they're kind of passing on what they know. We're humans. We're humans having humans. So of course, we look outside of ourselves for this regulation. And that's what we get to see. We get to see that, oh, I'm looking for love. I'm looking for validation. I'm looking, looking, like I'm having a hard time here. This Dharmagate, help. And then we're taught, or we're not taught, we learn. Perhaps we come across the teaching when my daughter was little, and she'd be, I was like, okay. just take a breath. She would say, that doesn't help. It's all I got. But I'll be here with you. I'll be here with you. My father said that to me when I was leaving Green Gulch Farm after living here for 10 years and I just couldn't stop crying.
[25:26]
He's like, well, I don't understand why you're leaving then. I was like, Dad, we've got to. I've got to leave. He's like, okay. And he's like, he was so sweet, my dad. He said, you know, Nan, I just, you know, as we are with those we love, you know. He's like, I wish this weren't so. I wish I could take this away. And I can't. But I'm right here, you know. Wow, all of our parents are showing up, Miles. So, Suzuki Roshi. This photo. As I left Green Gulch in full-on labor for the hospital, my girlfriend, Leslie Tila, my dear Dharma sister, handed this to me in the car. I went to the hospital like this, looking at Suzuki Roshi. In the back of a two-door rabbit.
[26:32]
He's a great doula, let me tell you. He is there for all of you. Birth, postpartum, end of life. He's a full-range doula. And, you know, the story goes... that, I have to watch the time here, the story goes that he, when he barely agreed to let this book be put together, his students, you know, Trudy, Trudy Dixon, thank you. See, we're in it together. Trudy Dixon was the one who really did this. I guess she was a real force. Thank you, Trudy. And so he willingly let this be put together. And when the first versions arrived at city center, they're in the lobby, the red linoleum floor, a bunch of students were around the boxes, opening them up, you know, and Suzuki Roshi came over and they were pulling it out and he looked at it and then he turned it over and he saw his photo and
[27:47]
and he tossed it back on the desk and turned around and walked away. You can let me know later if I misquoted that story, those of you who were there. So this is from the lecture Original Buddhism, and Suzuki Roshi says, Walking, standing, sitting, and lying down are the four activities or ways of behavior in Buddhism. Zazen is not one of those four ways of behavior. He goes on. I'm skipping the part about the Chinese school, the Zen school, the this school, the that school. His point in writing this was just like, it's all Buddhism. Priest, lay, having taken a vow, not taken a vow. If you're a Buddhist, you're a Buddhist. There, you got that little mini lecture within a lecture.
[28:48]
Zazen is a practice which contains innumerable activities. Zazen started even before the Buddha and will continue forever. Zazen practice is the practice which includes the various activities of life. So actually, we do not emphasize the sitting posture alone. How to sit is how to act. We study how to act by sitting, and this is the most basic activity for us. That is why we practice asen. Buddha taught us how to act through our practice, and that is why we sit. So what fuels your activity? What fuels your actions?
[29:54]
All of our suffering arises from our confusion. From greed, hate, delusion. And we are told In order to see this, we must stop. Pause. Take a step back, the backward step. Shine the light of inquiry here. Here the way unfolds. People understand this sitting posture as just one of the four basic postures of man. human. And they think, I now take this posture. But zazen is all the postures. And each posture is Buddha's posture.
[31:00]
This understanding is the right understanding of the zazen posture. turning toward our suffering. I was in conversation this week with a friend, practitioner, therapist, and she mentioned, kind of offhand, the eight C's. And I was asking, and she mentioned a few of them, curiosity, compassion. I was like, what is this? The eight C's. And it turns out it is a part of internal family systems. The eight C's. So I may have to go through this a little quickly because I'm watching the time. But the eight C's are actually who we are at our core.
[32:10]
This is not what it says. necessarily, if you look this up online in internal family systems. But when I went and looked them up, I was like, this is zazen. Like, this is practice. This is what we are cultivating as we settle into ourselves, as we cultivate the settled self. That we then, as Suki Roshi was saying, take into every posture, every activity. every interaction until we catch ourselves not doing that or finding that the wheel isn't quite round. And this is where we actually can return to this settled self that we all, that we all embody. So the eight C's
[33:12]
our curiosity, shining the light inward, inquiry, the open mind, the receptive mind, the way-seeking mind, beginner's mind, compassion. As I name these C words, the eight C's. As you listen, Suzuki Roshi said he wanted us to have the feeling of Sazen, the warmth and kindness of Sazen. So perhaps you can feel these things. What is it when I feel curious? When I feel compassion? Compassionate? A warmth, a care, a kindness.
[34:13]
Calm. Cultivating this calm, unreactive mind. Oftentimes when I sit down on the cushion in a chair where I bring my awareness to my body, what's happening in any moment, I really can... feel my nervous system just buzzing. So just a few breaths are just such a kind thing to do for ourselves at any moment. Clarity. The ability to see situations objectively. Clarity, clear-minded, clear-mind precepts, clear-mind. A friend of mine doesn't drink alcohol, you know, and she said to me once, it's not, it's just, it's because I actually love having a clear mind.
[35:28]
I was like, ooh, I like that, yeah. Courage, the bravery. to face difficult feelings, the bravery to actually let go of a story that maybe we've been holding onto very tightly because it feels very safe to do that and very unsafe to let it go. I was in a practice discussion with Kathy Fisher, a wonderful Buddhist teacher, former Green Gulch resident, took many years. And I was telling her about a relationship with a family member that I had just been struggling with for years, for years, just wouldn't let me go.
[36:32]
Perhaps some of you can relate to this around friendships or family members or And I was kind of proudly, I later realized, telling her of how I was practicing with this and how I had gotten to this place of okayness, of just letting it be. And she said to me, oh, but bodhisattvas never give up on other beings. I was like, what? I'm like, no. That is not what I wanted to hear. I was like, I have to go back in. But, you know, with these teachings, it's like, okay, giving over, giving in, is not the same as kind of giving up, you know?
[37:38]
So how can I continue to allow the mystery of this other person's life to be a mystery? I'm sure it's a mystery to them as well. My life is a mystery to me. And I took a vow to be completely responsible for it. Goodbye, kitchen. Thank you so much. So courage. And this is why we practice together. To confess to each other. I grew up confessing. I was a Catholic. Still am in deep, deep, deep ways. But... You confess for the first time when you're six years old and you take First Communion for the first time and you're lying. You're making up all these things to confess. Like, oh, I confess.
[38:42]
So I think I always had this trigger around confession. But I've really come to appreciate the true form of confession, like to confess your heart to someone who really, really is listening, is companioning companioning, you know. So confession, you know, can I confess to you, you know, how this is, and then to be encouraged along the way to not give up, you know. And also to keep yourself out of harm's way, you know, to really take care, to have compassion ourself as we as we go into those layers looking for the wisdom the mystery okay how many more C's do we have that was courage confidence confidence you know I think all of this returning to the settled self returning to our true nature you know we
[40:01]
In time, I think we realize that we can trust ourselves. I can trust the Dharma. I can trust this moment. Oftentimes, I think, I find myself leaning into conversations. A teacher once told me, it was a like meal time at city center. I was like trying to keep up with the conversations I was telling a teacher, trying to keep up with Miles actually. And she said, why don't you try, when you notice you're doing that, why don't you just come back into your seat, come back into alignment. You know, we can do this in meetings, when we're in groups, when we're driving, you know. Confidence, trust, creativity.
[41:04]
Creativity. We can be creative with our suffering. We can be silly. We can be kind with it. We can laugh at ourselves. Oh my God, there I go again. Creativity. It brings up beginner's mind. Like, oh, I'm doing this for the millionth time. It's like, oh, but actually this is maybe even the first time. You see playfulness, you know, and with Zen teachers oftentimes, very kind and playful with their students, you know. Huitzu Suzuki Roshi is so silly. Suzuki Roshi's son, he's hilarious, he's so funny. connectedness connectedness this is emptiness connectedness fastness we are all completely connected to everything you know we come from this connectedness you know here with a newborn they're completely connected they have no question you know
[42:27]
They wake up in the morning, ha, ha, ha, ha. You know, they're just like, it's a new day. And they're just like, no. No. And then we spend the rest of our lives trying to remember, you know. We're connected. After my daughter was born, I was living here at Green Gulch, and Norman Fischter was avid at the time, and he comes down, he knocks on the door. I'm in my pajamas. It's like, I don't know, noon. I'm there with the newborn, you know. And he's like, oh, I just came down to see the baby. And I was like, oh, yes. So I gave him the baby and he sat on the couch with me and he's just like this with the baby. I was like, he's here for her, not me. I said, do you mind if I go take a shower? But you know that, oh, when you're with a newborn and they're just, oh. I mean, it's kind of like, you know, when you look at Suzuki Roshi's eyes in this photo, you know, oh, we're so connected. So I've said a lot.
[43:37]
I hope you're all okay. You're probably a little bit of everything. As my daughter told me when people were saying to her, have you been good? Have you been bad? It's like Christmas is the next day and she's like, Mama, I'm a little bit of everything. I'm like, don't worry. Santa's going to come. Don't worry. I'm not just good. I've been really bad. It's okay. We're all a little bit of everything. The mystery of our lives. We have a few moments now for question and answers. It is 11.06... and we should stop in about 10 minutes. And I want to get us off our cushions and into the day. But before we go to a beautiful tea that has been prepared for us out here on this side of the zendo, maybe a question or two.
[44:46]
Anyone have any questions? This is often kind of a sharp, Turn of events. You're like, I'm sure there must be a question in there somewhere, but it's fine if nothing comes up. Hi. Thank you so much for giving the talk. At the very beginning, you said that you often cry. Can I ask why that is, if you know? You know, I don't see it coming. The feeling is, uh-oh. That's kind of the first thought. It's like, uh-oh, here it comes. But it is a tenderness.
[45:50]
I think I kind of feel connected to my heart. Yeah, tenderness, a vulnerability, a connectedness. Earlier, I can't remember what I said right before it came up, but I had a thought, and that thought led to that, and it was when I was leaving here after living here for 10 years. A tenderness came up, and the abbot, Jiryu, was living here also at that time. And so anyway, he just kind of came up with a thought, something I said. Yeah. I'm curious about your question, because I'm wondering what is in there for you. Sorry. to put you on the spot.
[46:53]
You mean why I asked that? Do you know where your question comes from or how that touched you? I think maybe because I haven't cried out of sadness in a long time. I think primarily I've only been crying out of the same, I think, tenderness or love for my brothers or for an experience. And I was wondering if that was the same impetus for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A wise friend once told me that when they were in therapy, they were told they hadn't cried in years. and was talking to their therapist about it because I think because they had cried and they were so excited to tell their therapist about this. And the therapist said something like, well, it's often not around sadness, you know, but it's a release, you know.
[48:04]
So, I mean, I was very energized, kind of nervous, I think, when I took my seat. So perhaps it comes, maybe it's kind of an out-breath, you know. Nice to explore it with you though. Thank you for your question. Thank you so much. You're so welcome. One of the things that really struck me was you talked about approaching your work as a end of life doula. and approaching that with curiosity and a learner's mindset and a beginner's mindset is what really struck me. And I guess I'm really curious about your perspective on how that beginner's mindset, whether you're approaching your own suffering, other's suffering, interacts with, in a way, also being a teacher in moments like that.
[49:16]
Yeah. I'm curious about how that tension or if there's a tension there for you and how you interact with that. Yeah. As you say that, what comes up for me is in those tenants, it's like you're not figuring it out. You're not the leader. You are here companioning. We're in this together. So I think that's where to keep kind of noticing. when those things come up. How do you then view yourself like in this role out of just curiosity? Yeah. I mean, I feel like I'm companioning. You know, when I was working at Enzo Village, I was working with people who were in their late 70s, early 80s, mid 80s. They're all right there online. And I was, it was practitioners who were So I was setting up the zendo, setting up the practice for them to move into.
[50:17]
They all had just lost their homes, their identities, their, you know. And what was their, what is, what does practice mean to them now? Enzo Village zendo is all chairs. You know, it's like so cool. But it's like, what? So I was constantly kind of, trying to follow their lead, like figure out who they are, what they needed. That was the same situation when I was taught to at City Center during COVID. And we weren't in all of a sudden from Monday to the next, we weren't practicing in the Zendo, we were practicing online. It's like, okay, what does practice look like now? So I think it's this... inquiry and response, they arise together. So I think if there's a real inquiry, you know, who is this? What is before me? You know, what's here right now?
[51:19]
You know, I think that's part of the dance. That's really beautiful. I really love that. But... No, I actually, I don't have a but. It's a follow-up question. How do you view, like, your teachers then? Do you view them as... I'm just honestly really curious about your perspective. How do you view the teachers that you've had? Does that feel like a companioning as well? Absolutely. They're just that much further along the road than I am. When I look back, I started practice when I was 30. I'm now 61. And it's like I think of all the things that I went through from the time that I... started practicing, you know, like becoming a mother, living in community, leaving community, divorcing, being a single mom. Like when I start my father dying, when I think of all these huge things that happened in my life and that I was then practicing with, when I look at my teachers who are that much older than me, I'm like, they have, they're
[52:31]
grandparents, they're, you know, they're looking at end of life, you know? So, I mean, I would tell people at Enzo Village all the time, I feel a little bit like a voyeur, you know, like I am trying to see what's going on here. What does practice look like at end of life, you know? And it gets so fast for some of them, so deep, so mysterious, you know, life review. Anyway. Yeah. So. No, I love that. I think the idea of companioning, but we're all on different stages of the path. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Right. A companion doesn't mean like we are necessarily the same age. Some of my best friends are 20 years older than me. It's like practice kind of like in a way, after now having said that, it also kind of puts us at the same age or something. Thank you. You're so welcome. I think that that brings us to 11.15.
[53:35]
So I'll be out here at the tea. I know that you had your hand raised at one point. So if anyone has a question, please don't be shy. And maybe we should end by chanting the Bodhisattva Vows. Thank you so much for your attention, for being here. giving this talk with me this morning. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.
[54:26]
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