I'm sorry, but I don't know. I'm sorry. I don't know. I don't know. Oh. In permanence. Literally in the midst of it. And the span also feels very permanent. And I'm going to... Adapt as best I can. Did you see everyone? 20.4. Let's start out by, I don't know, just setting up each other.

[01:57]

Let me do that. Okay. Yeah, I won't. Okay. Okay. Okay. My name is Rahul, and I want to thank the City Senator Abbott, Marco Rieger, and Otanto, Tim, for the invitation to speak today, and of course to thank City of Darwin teacher, Paul Howard, and Central Abbott, Dave Zimmerman, for being here. Sorry, this thing is a little hard for me. I'm going to focus now. And, of course, I thank Vicky Austin, my teacher, and then Gail Fransdahl, also.

[03:00]

Of course, she's here in spirit, in fact. When I was told I was going to sit in the SadoC, and it was excursion C, I thought Paul, in Posse, I thought because I'm used to blanching here. And that did have this very high platform. I feel like in the clairvoyant position, you're not supposed to be in a high bed. And when I was told I was stepping up on here, I just feel like, wow, really, a little uncomfortable for me. So sorry, let me adjust here in so many ways. All right. I really appreciate being the first one to give a talk here at the city center. And in some ways then, it's about, I would say, right or still for you.

[04:08]

It's the first that I have. And I think it's kind of a many years into, to kind of circle, you know, what is it that I want this year to be? How do I set my view? What do you say? How are we ending this year? Do people study resolutions and thinking about that? Right? All right. And I am going to be talking from some of my books, which came out early in August. Thank you for the invitation to talk about it. I'll call this year practicing anti-gresive lung with the NDH default cap. So I'm going to start the introduction here. I will say the book starts, and I'll say here also, the content warning. I will be saying some slow words.

[05:14]

This is not an invitation to use letters yourself, even if it's referring to you, because it tends to be activating for people. However it goes with the book, and so I will be saying it in this context. So the introduction, the onus of life, location, location, location. Where are you from? No, no, really. Where are you from? Hey, Jake, go home. People like you should live in this neighborhood. I was in your country and saved your people. Why do you act like a white girl? You're a Twokie, aren't you? People know what a Twinkie is.

[06:16]

Okay, a Twinkie is a derogatory word for someone who is perceived to be Asian or yellow on the outside and white on the inside. A banana is another derogatory word. Buddhism came to America some 4950 years ago. Don't you know this is the women's rescue? fucking lesbian. In each moment, we are located by lineage and ancestry, by others, by ourselves, by sight, by perception, by differentiation, by discrimination, by institutions, by policies, by governmental structures, by systems of oppression, by homophobia, by sexism, by genderfobia, by white supremacy culture, by racism, by erasure, by invisibilization, by exclusion, by inclusion, by equity, by love.

[07:41]

with hatred, with fear, with anxiety, with love, with care, with tenderness, with joy, in isolation, in community, in belonging, in the world, in time, in space, in emptiness, in homes. As a Vietnamese American adoptee, 1.5 generation, a convert, cisgender female, gender non-conforming, lesbian, so do Xencers, in the late mid-years of chronological life, I'm often located by others, as I don't always present or behave in ways people believe my social occasions to be. For instance, I'm often asked as I enter in a washroom, don't you know this is the women's restaurant?

[08:52]

Perhaps it would be because of my shaved head to be a priest, but likely it's also because I have been non-conforming in the ways I've cared for myself for most of my life, in gender and other socially perspective matters. When I was in Vietnam, in 2002, and traveling with the Vietnamese and Vietnamese American tribes, I would often ask for you to stay in a van as they went in to negotiate the lodging price. This was due to the unofficial, but commonly used, tiered pricing scheme. Lowest for current Vietnamese nationals, next level for Vietnamese and diaspora, and most expensive for orange. According to my friends, while my ethnic identity was visually apparent, the way I held myself was American. They felt that I exuded too much confidence and took up too much space compared to a typical Vietnamese female.

[10:01]

For most of my life, I have had to be hyper-aware of my social locations wherever I am. especially at locations imputed on me by systems of oppression. By location, I mean a framing for how an individual is designated a position in specific systems, and with it, the assumptions and privileges, for a lack of them, that come with it. This framing of locationality allows one understanding but that identity always comes with embedded social power that can change depending on which system is operating in each one's interaction with another, interpersonally and in structures. For instance, as an able-bodied Vietnamese American, I'm located in a down-power position, or location of less than which, within a system of white supremacy.

[11:07]

yet I am in a power or more privileged location than ableism. Understanding one's location is important, because depending on the embedded lack of the privilege of power, one's responsibility changes. I've tried to grasp solidly onto some of these locations at times, trying to be American or Vietnamese, for others, and for myself. At other times, I tried rejecting from locations, especially those repeated on me by others and by systems. I've done both in many ways, individually and with others, through academic studies, arts, therapy, volunteerism, activism, and work as a social worker. Then, finally, When my suffering could be processed thoroughly through those means, I bleed into my Buddhist practice.

[12:12]

At first, it was out of unheard confusion. After my graduate studies, I went back to Vietnam for the first time after 28 years. I thought I was going home. But after five months, I realized that the home I envisioned was simply that, a vision. carried from my past and my childhood. This threw me for a week, and I came back to the United States utterly ashamed. Who am I? Where did I belong? I'd been practicing late Buddhism for almost six years by then. With this gathering of old ideas about myself, I then decided to go to a monastery in Northern California to do some intensive meditation, chanting, and other Buddhist practices. Initially, my aim was a three-month intensive lecture, and I ended up staying there for three and a half years, and was aiming as a priest through the Septuzen tradition.

[13:20]

Fast forward to more than two decades later, and with the years of practice and being a Buddhist meditation teacher, I developed a lot keep sense of how to all my experiences of social locations in ways that are more grounding, yet responsive, fostering healing and respiration. So, at the beginning of the book, I wanted to really talk about location. I think when I find out from this view, I'm obviously in a literal position. They're in a power right now. And you all are lovely. Online, maybe more directly, I don't know. But I think, yes, right? Depending on how we interact, we don't know. Literally, I am like, oh, obviously, seeing Dharma teacher, Paul has more power in the temple and also in social locations to the United States, right?

[14:33]

So how we're located depends not just on our literal space, but who we turn to interact with. Now, yes, I did ask you to say hi to everyone, and that was also on purpose. So actually close your eyes and think back to when I asked you to say hi to people. think about what was some of the drive or motivation of the images for who you turn to, how we address people, what is the energetic sense, the motivations. Think about what might have been some unconscious

[15:35]

All right, go ahead and open your eyes when you're ready. Anybody want to say, share anything about how you chose to say hi to you or didn't say hi to you? Sure, tell us your name. Jacob. I chose to say hi to everybody I could see. And when we say being in a Zen form, in a Zen note, literally, we didn't get up to go grab it. No, I did not. Yeah, so that's kind of like a form here. Most people would think to get up. I almost said, feel free to get up, but then I thought that might be more chaos here. Anyone else want to share? Yes, tell us your name. Mishana. Mishana, yes. I think it was just proximity.

[16:37]

Proximity. Okay, now, think back. Who do you decide to sit next to? Or where do you want to sit? And I don't know what you just do, right? But also, perhaps, like, I'm actually a little bit hard of hearing, so I sit close, but then also as a... And so I sit back, even though I have a sense of I need to move forward to be more visible, but I have to fight these kind of conditions. And so we're taught how to locate ourselves all the time. And we're doing it all the time. And certain of us, depending on how much instruction we were given, explicitly or implicitly, depending on the various social locations that we've grown up to, have more and more messages about how we should comport ourselves.

[17:39]

And that's part of what we're taught, our conditioning. And some of it's perfectly fine. But the issue is, are we aware of that? And then from that, how did we want to respond? How much of it is old and unconscious? And are we willing to examine that and then bring more consciousness to? One way you can also talk about saying hi, or the exercise of saying hi, is that there's a teaching from the Prophet Khan Sakha Sutra on the endurance net. So it's described often as the universe is a net, and at each section in which the strands cross, there's a jewel.

[18:45]

The nodes, they're jewels. And because of the nature of jewels, the way they're cut, they're faceted, they reflect. And so at each end, there's a jewel, and so each jewel reflects all the other jewels. Sounds lovely, right? And it is about our inter-connectedness, how we reflect each other and impact each other. And it's a lovely image. Now, sometimes that's used, I think, to have the sense that, oh, all the Jews should be the same. That equality is that we all should somehow be the same. Wouldn't you say? Maybe it's just me. Now, I want to really bring in that the oneness, when we want to talk about oneness of practice, that it's the strands. It's the net itself is where we need to pay more attention, not just on the individual tools.

[19:47]

The tools are part of the net, so yes, we want to pay attention to the tools. And depending on if your part of the net has more torn or has not historically been taking care of the strands so that they're broken or that they're weak, then perhaps More attention needs to be put on attending to the jewels in that area. Then we build the net again. Probably the sixth. You know, when you look at cobwebs, especially those that seem like they are not attended to, or sections of it, you know, you see a spider, right? And there's a decisive one to get the bug. They're repairing the nets. And so we want to think about, hmm, where is it that I don't pay enough attention to the next? If we're talking about oneness, am I just interested in the next around me, or where I think?

[20:52]

And yet, the next, if we think of, if we turn our view to not just be on the jewels, becomes the words of the net. But the net becomes the thing that is more important, right? One way to talk about the net is, what is the connection between us? How are those connections made? As I was writing this book, and clearly this book arose out of a call from students. I'd like to say this book does not start out as a book. It started out as a response. So in 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, a lot of Asian American students got me up and said, hey, my health is feminist and violence.

[21:56]

against Asian Americans is going to be discussing, I'm afraid to leave my home. How often do you support me?" And so I actually have been developing these since 2017. I was at Generation X teacher conference, several people around were at, and it was right after we had another round of sexual misconduct in convert centers. And so the right use of power was brought in as a restoration model. And I got the right use of power, and we've done it here. And then I thought, well, I've been to a lot of trainings in my priest career, and some other models always been by nonviolent communication. And I don't know, really, I do. And yet, there must be something in the teachings themselves. That's where I go when I travel. So... I thought about the support of the Lyra Foundation, the Buddhist Foundation.

[22:58]

I've been developing the four cultures to be what I call the engaged version as a restorative model. So in that restorative model, we start out by saying harm and arming has happened, not just a bit of suffering. Because to restore anything, we have to acknowledge that there's the brokenness, but the values that we say that we uphold, the view that we say, oh, there's equality, there's equity, that we hold these views and values, and we have to agree on them. So much of a conflict in the world arises out of disagreement about what is it that needs attending or is broken and needs to be fixed, you see? And so it's really important that the beginning of restoration is to acknowledge what is.

[24:04]

So how you're doing these, obviously, there's three what I call essential aspects to restoration. One is this, acknowledging what is, which, by the way, echoes the first language, right? How many has happened? We have to acknowledge it. And then, knowing what chefs are especially needed, and learning how to cook those chefs in the office. And then, the last, a little bit of tea. So let's talk about knowing what chefs are especially needed. I will go to chapter 1, just very briefly. Okay, in each one of our trips, we are complete and whole. At O.H.M., I have no thought, so someone can get me a time check.

[25:05]

Time for it. Time for it. Thank you. The Ray of the Bell signals that is mentioned for Dokusong, an interview to discuss my practice with the Soto Zen Master at this 500-year-old chain monastery in Japan. I picked up a small mouse, the cast firing bell in front of me, one time, letting it break. Then, a second time, I rose and hurried down a long half of the communists, a woven straw flooring in traditional Japanese living spaces, passing through the Itai, a narrow room lying on both sides with robes of individual alters for deceased, somewhat annuity members. They silently witnessed the squish of cloth as my gall of black priest's robes rubbed back and forth above my ankles with each quick step. At the end of the hall, three steps rose up.

[26:10]

I stop at the bottom and perform a short dash-up, ballet with palms touching and elbows out. Then in one swift motion, I grab the end of my zagu, a priest's dying cloth. laid it down on his tummy, and folded it into a square. I dropped down and started my full crustaceans as quickly as possible, body crouched in child's pose, both hands upstretched and palms placed on the floor. Then, with symmetrical precision, hands raised past the ears and down again before rising to stay. I did this three times quickly, as is the custom, after which I refolded it and split the Zabu back over my last years. One hour I picked up Sherwood, and then I headed up those three stairs to my dokusama Sake Harada Roshi, the abbot of Kōmu-shin-bi, one-story in the Balma, Japan.

[27:17]

I entered the room ready to ask the essential question of my life. I'd come to Japan after leaving an adultly white-pumpers-of-Kidlin Buddhist monastery in Central California, where I thought I would spend the rest of my life. When I was asked to be ordained after more than eight years of meditative Buddhist practice, I felt the deep calling to live as a Buddhist minister. But this did not come to me. I left the California monastery after three and a half years there, heartbroken and confused about the racism I had experienced on both a personal and structural level. The persistent white supremacy culture of the monastery made it unsafe and did not support me as a Vietnamese American practitioner. This was true for many other people of color staying there as well.

[28:19]

The experience was a strange thought to my understanding of Buddhism, grace practice, and my sense of place and all. As I drank my answer when we got California wrong to study, I figured out how to practice as a newly ordained priest. I was contacted by someone who studied under Sake Yamada Rashi in Japan. They urged me to study with him, as he was acknowledged as an enlightened Zen master. I only practiced until then and put out my white comfort signs in the United States, and I felt gone to the practice in Japan, the birthplace of this act of Buddhism. I'd been in Hoshinji for three weeks, trying to process my despair from having to leave California. There was another American at the monastery, a white one. Instead of being someone I could connect with, she had harassed me, saying things like,

[29:22]

You're good for nothing. You're trashy." And the way I thought about it, and I didn't put it, but I'll tell you, she also said, you should die. And his whispers, as we moved about the various ceremonies and tasks of the temple. I couldn't get away from her, either. You were housed in the same nuns' quarter together. We had come to Hoshinji around the same time, so we had similar synodity. and we were the same night, so we were often here together for ceremonies. Our thankful whispers seemed to follow me all over the temple. The grace of the land I experienced in California had followed me on the way to Japan. I took the room for dokuzon, with sepec brother. I barely sat down before blurting out the quintessential question of my existence up to that moment. Why does hatred seem to follow me wherever I go?"

[30:29]

I asked. Sake Karawana didn't hesitate. No hatred completely, K-N-O-M-I. No hatred completely, he answered. Then he grabbed the handrail, disliked and rang it vigorously, signaling the end of my envy. I sprangled out what were doing the frustrations and doubts in reverse order. My mind raced to make meaning of what had just happened. Nothing came. My mind had stopped. A koan in Zen practice is a story assigned by a teacher for you to work with. Various traditions have different ways of practicing their problems, but giving an answer to the teacher as part of the process is a commonality across that.

[31:31]

Now, how the teacher accepts or rejects the answer is part of the mythology of his practice. Well done, Pauline. At this very moment, what is the original face before your parents were born? Many people think koans are paradoxes, but really, they're stories to stop your mind, to bump it off this group of incessant and well-worn patterns of thinking, planning, and processing. Koans open us to an understanding that's beyond official thinking. Life also gives us koans. For me, Racism has been a column I've turned over and over to. Studying race theory was one of my answers to this column. Other answers from my life have included activism. My various work as a structure worker focused on addressing the harmful results of racism.

[32:42]

All these were good answers. And then you want to say, the question is more important than the answer. Why? Because questions often come up at uncomfortable moments. Deep questions arise when we're faced with circumstances in which our coping mechanisms aren't working anymore. At such moments, transformation as a page is possible, as we stay open to all answers. especially unexpected ones. The system of white supremacy centers whiteness, fragmenting us all into the delusion of severance. Aware of this dynamic and its harm to people of color, I had to be careful not to simply search outside of myself for answers.

[33:43]

Like many Asian and Europeans and other people of color, At some point, I could learn to value myself, reclaiming the validity of my own experience, in any moment, and in any condition. Buddhist practice, over many years, has supported me to return to knowing and trusting my hopes. No hatred completely. That moment, with roshis, stopped my mind. from its official grouping to try to understand racism. All my intellectual theories and years of anti-racist work didn't address my suffering in a useful way at this crucial point of my life. But no one stopped my frantic search to find some weird reason why hatred kept following me. Nearly done, right? Systems of oppression,

[34:44]

I have written from all my grace theory and science. What I needed was to let tend to the hurt and harm from being a target of grace. The reason we practiced to be able to find saddenes and clarity is not dependent on the conditions of the world. To find such saddenes and clarity, we have to attend to our suffering and body, heart, and mind. The colonel racing room is not just something I wanted to understand. What I really want, even now, is to heal from the hurt and pain I get. So the reason that I really developed the engage foreign cultures.

[35:46]

And then we don't talk about the foreign cultures, and I don't know if this is an obvious teaching, but we don't specifically talk about it. And technically, the Eightfold Path is considered a better learning teaching on how to be taught. On our path, right, the person who is enlightened develops the Eightfold Path. In fact, we focus much more on the sixth form, because it has to be the behavior of the dogisara. And so that's partly why we don't hear the specificity. However, to lead the eightfold path to support the born of a kid, by the way that we lead to this heart and heart has happened, understanding the second is how do we fully understand the causes and conditions for the rising Army, Army, or NR. And it's sort of similar to the classic psychology. However, we focus much more on the system.

[36:49]

We're still doing personal work to overcome racialization, but we focus on how we're not just, it's not just, it's not only for me to overcome what are the impacts of racism or other versions of the Army. It's to understand that whole systems are responsible for how it's conditioned. And therefore, systems need to shift so that the healing is not just an individual healing, but a societal healing. And those are important. And then the third is, you know, I like to say the good news of Buddhism, right, is that there's agency. Where is the possibility to now that we have agency in the midst of our environment? Possibly, of course, it's the creation of the end of suffering. And then the last is the Eightfold Path. Now, knowing what shifts, I think, but really, I think, elegateness of the Eightfold Path is that it really lays out for us what it is that we can work on

[38:08]

And so, as I said, I laid it out as acknowledging what it is, which is to, as the book is laid out in these three ways, the first part is seeing the world as it is. So how can we have a view of the world? And then also, how concentration, the practice of meditation, the practice of concentration. The Eightfold Path, well, there are eight of them, broken into three sections. One is called the wisdom section, which is still for you, which is to understand the four-go-chip and karma. Recently, I was thinking, karma... Karma, of course, broadly, is complicated, and it's very complicated. But one way of thinking about karma is that it's habitual tendency, or habitual motivation, or unconscious. energy, the way in which things are conditioned, and we act in certain ways, and we behave in certain ways, and we speak in certain ways.

[39:21]

We are conditioned, and our condition is bad, by the way, right? So much of a form and a zen bit of music is just, like, back to the sea, and then we alternate, right? It's not the condition, but it's In a way, it can help us all move together as one body. And then you can bump into somebody, and then you have to say, oh, sorry, sorry, and then you break the silence of this unknown. Right? So you break everyone else's responsibility. So just because things are conditional or thought forms doesn't make it bad. The idea is, are we conscious of how we're conditioned? And are they useful now? They might not be used to it. And in fact, for racism, so many of our parents taught us ways of dealing with the impact of racism. You've heard about how, in particular, black children, black male children, really are set down by their parents to talk about how they have to be very careful, how they hold themselves, how they talk to some people, especially cops.

[40:36]

In certain areas, there's just a way, of course, white people. You know, when I was in Vietnam, my mother would teach me how to move out of the way when a GI is coming out. So we're taught these things, and the idea is that it's for our safety. Our parents often promise things for our safety. And of course, it can go the other way around, you know, if you're taught that certain people of color are unsafe, and so you shouldn't interact with them. And so the issue is how can we examine how we've been conditioned and are they useful for us anymore? Is there safety issues in the moments that we have to be attended? At times, it certainly is true. My first home was, you know, more than others. So it's not in itself a bad thing. The key is, is it useful now? Is it true in this moment, in each moment that you are? We want to work on that.

[41:41]

And then the second is, when we shift to learning what shifts are needed, we want to go to what the world needs now, or cheat this book. Skillful motivation, which is actually thinking. Skillful thinking. And Buddhism thinking is not passive. This is why the more popular translation of stock and thought in these phases. The intention, I like motivation. And motivation, because to me, motivation does give you the sense that there's you're thinking, and then you're motivated to move, to do, to speak. And so it goes actually into the second third, which is what's usually called the ethical conduct section. I like to call the compassionate conduct section, which is skillful speech, skillful action, and skillful life. This is the interactive part, right?

[42:44]

How we speak. Skillful action is essentially the life precepts, and then skillful life. How can we use the energy about life? Not just the work, but it's about work and the teachings, what kind of jobs are more wholesome than others. We bring in the meditative factors of skillful efforts, and skillful mindfulness into that. And then, realizing the wholeness of the world. This is where we get to learning how to put this justice into practice, which is really part two, part three. So we want to realize the wholeness of the world by the precepts, and skillful action, which I have reframed as skillful enactment. Because to me, enactment gives us a sense that it's not just the precepts I have to normalize and, you know, decide that I'm doing it right, good or bad, for other people. I mean, it really is, to me, echoes a sense of that.

[43:49]

I'm vowing to enact what I hold true. The values that I hold. The precepts. How do I bring those into my mind? How do I act on this? You know, recently, And I just finished a whole series of the precept studies for eight months. And someone I talked to in practice a schedule said to me, they won't just finish themselves. They get to write their own, the end version, so that's in their own words. By the way, I got it from Vicki Elston, my teacher, so I passed it on to my students. And then I deal with them. sample here. I'm just working it out. I print it out for them, or I lay it out, and then I send it to them these days. And so, you know, I say, other people put them up. So you can look at the precepts all the time. And so this person said they were so bad about something.

[44:51]

So, so bad. And then they looked at that precept, and they're working with everything. Like, I vow. that when I'm angry, to really examine my anger and find where is their compassion. And so when they looked at that, they just thought, okay, where can I have compassion yet for myself and for the person who can't? And they said, that made everything. They gave them a moment. It's not like stopping them on. It's another version of stopping them on. For myself, they showed with the Whose fault is it? Whatever your thing is that makes you angry. It stops you, and then it says, oh, re-centers. This is my value here. This is where my enactment is. I'm going to enact this by pausing, thinking through, and recalibrate how I want to be in a world with another.

[45:55]

And they said, wow. That was amazing, and I didn't think that it would be such a thing, right? Here we go. The permanent strikes again. So, I'm a little frustrated here, but that's okay. All right. So, and then still fully, what is the energy you want to put behind it? All right, I am way behind on my stuff, so I'm just thinking. There we go. I'm going to end, actually, with a chapter with the version there. And I'll take some questions. The day after that wine-style meeting in Japan,

[46:56]

Secondly, however, she offered me another chance for a dog was on. My brain went down, then my vows, and went into the practice discussion room, ready to share my insights about how his answer had affected me. Before I could open my mouth, Roshi launched into a lengthy story of Chakmuri Buddha's life and enlightenment along with the histories of other early Buddhist ancestors. Thirty minutes. Then, once again, he'd write me out of the room. We never spoke about my question again. This event impacted me deeply, and I continued to turn it over for many years afterward. Why do you remember my doka songs with sake-gagada, Rokshi? This last part has always puzzled me.

[48:01]

I've been wondering, what was this point of it all? In writing this now, I have an understanding of what it was teaching me. The Buddha and ancestors were searching for the same things as you and me. We had to suffer. I think Roshi, was saying that there can't be spiritual bypass. He realized, and after that initial exchange, I too realized, that I was looking for a way to explain away the hurt and pain by wanting to discuss it. Discussion isn't wrong. Theory isn't wrong. Activism isn't wrong. But we can't use these things for spiritual bodies. We can't use Buddhist practice or any methods, such as race theory or activism or jobbing, as a big stick over the human condition inherent in the First Noble Truth, experiencing the hurts and pains of our lives, trying to get away from it via any method,

[49:21]

is to try and stick over or bypass fully experiencing our life as it is. Our practice is to get closer and closer, to know it completely. Because in doing so, we can actually then have more clarity on how we can heal. In Pali, I first recorded my notion of Buddhism, the term Yemiso Bona Sakara, is usually translated as wise attention. It can also be translated as attention that takes the whole into account. This is what Segei Hagare Roshi was pointing out. The practice of investigating duka, which sees it in context, in totality, in the whole match of the duties, and not just the hurt and pain, Then, the rest of the engaged four-member kids offers us descriptions and practices for how we connect the Greek net to the wholeness of life, that our existence is seen, relevant, healable, and valued.

[50:41]

When we learn access to contexts that validate us and support us to thrive, not to survive, but to thrive, Additionally, we each remember that all beings want the same thing, to be free from suffering and the cause of suffering. This is what connects us all. Denying that systems of oppression exist is to deny reality as it is. Learning to negotiate these systems with self and collective-determined agency is a practice of engaged liberation. In practicing collective liberation, this is what I wish for us. That we may come home to a sense of wholeness, grounded in one that is safe and of value to all. May we then aspire to start that out, to work together to strengthen safety and care for each other.

[51:46]

This is the work. Thank you for your attention. We're having some audio problems, so if... Leon, actually, your microphone is the only one that's working right now. So when people ask questions, if you could repeat them so the online folks... Sure. No microphone. Does anybody have a question? Yes. How do you... I mean, it's an observation. It's an observation. I like the way our farmers get done.

[52:50]

And what I find, especially currently in the secular world, and social conversations, is there's also competition of harm. So what's the Buddhist approach? Yeah. You know, it's really young. I didn't bring a question. I didn't for you. I mean, that's a deep question for you. So just if you can correct me if I'm wrong. One is that you appreciate the framing of the first two of those, and then how to address the art in the world, especially right now in Palestine.

[53:57]

So, first of all, I would say that it takes courage to practice gushisa. I mean, most of us We come to the practice, at least in the, I know I've been raised in the area of the United States of U.S. culture, and most part. And certainly I started meditation intensively on energy, but we come to it for the calmness of the concentration of the results of concentration of the body, weakness, and calmness of mind. And yet the harder work is actually all of the other parts. on that foreign language. The practice instruction of the first sum of Jews is to investigate . And this is why that there's a sense, and part of the song is that it seems like a certain chunk of the area is an impressive

[55:12]

for what's happening in Palestine, between Israel, is that there seems to be a fight about which, whose heart is bigger. And so, and why is that? So, one is, I would say, as long as we're even in duality, then there's always opposition, right? There's right and there's wrong. much harm than comparison. If we keep on comparison, then do I want to usually step up as compared? Not one big step. And so, if we keep doing that, then it just keeps escalating, and becomes a fight. It's like, let me talk about this. When you fight with someone, you know, you go to the therapist. I'll leave this at the point. Maybe I don't want to teach you and say, oh, are you trying to be right? Or are you trying to connect? The U.S. is similar.

[56:12]

If you keep thinking, fighting for who's right, then chances of resolution doesn't happen. But what is important now, and what is key here? And I think what is different about the courses that this book was written for, the Dharma being anti-racist and notice rising from the mind, is that So much of training on race and nationalism is about how to understand other people. And I think that's useful. However, what really is needed is having room for other voices to tell us what is the hurt and harm. and to take that in and give it as much value as we think our government are.

[57:13]

And the irony of that, though, is that you have to heal your own harm. This is why this book is written mostly to people of color. It's actually for everyone. And it is affected by white supremacy culture or nationalism. And, or because of nationalism. So we have to heal from that. Because when we can, again, to our children, we're paying many of the space to really look up and see other people, they may not give it as much value. If there's a culture in which my pain needs to be seen, my pain needs to be seen, and it's continually pushed down, then it makes it hard for a kid. Then it becomes that, like, this part is bigger than this part. This is why, so to the ceasefire group, it's about how we're for peace here. How we all, if we all want peace, not about both groups, and usually anyone, both groups have equal amount of historical, extreme amounts of historical degradation, oppression,

[58:34]

And so, if we think of it as continually upbeat each other, then actually the fight continues. That's why. Tioia will say that, you know, the learn more practice, right? They've written this book called The Two Wings of Reason. One is the wisdom, and one is the And sorry, students, you've seen this already. So there are two ways. And one is wisdom, and one is compassion. Now, for a bird to fly, right, most ladies are not straight. However, if we depend too much on wisdom, what happens? We just fly in a circle this way. If we depend too much on compassion, what happens?

[59:36]

We fight too much in a self-purposed way. However, we do need to have strength in both and the wisdom of discernment to narrow which by means a little bit more effort to direct us in the direction we want to go. So, at times, we over-detect one or the other. We don't give ourselves to one another. as much previous. I don't love to know when I'm fighting somebody or I have a disagreement. I perseverate on the facts. I know right now there's a lot of stuff about it, but the facts are this, and the facts are that are important, especially when we're on the internet this day. It doesn't believe it in one sentence. It just means part of our practice is to realize when we're falling too much on the one side or the other. Our practice is to find the equanimity, to have a sense that nothing will go well, by either one or the other. Where's the middle way of when we do it?

[60:43]

Or in any sense, when do I all be set up? Does that answer your question? Do we have time for one more or not? One more short. One more short. All right. I'll go just pause, because if you have two people talked before, so I said, anyone who hasn't spoken would like to speak. Thank you, Bill, for your wish to engage. And I invite anyone who usually hesitates to move forward. All right. Ready? Justin, what do you want to honor to get into the referral? You're correct. Yeah. Or when you've been harmed by one person, and it might be related to structural things, but that person isn't going to get an answer.

[61:48]

Yeah. So this is why, oh, sorry. The question is, what do you do when an arm is putting it down to you by an individual, even though there's structural stuff behind it, and that person isn't going to Fix it. Give it in any way, is what you said. Oh, give it in any offense. Yeah, this is the hard part about restoration, is that we want amends, and they don't want to come. Because the problem is, for someone to amend, they have to agree on what the issue is, to acknowledge what is the harm. And many of us, you know, even though I mean, how many of you, when I said, probably not being a habit, just like, a little bit, but that sounds like, well, I mean, sorry, it sounds like a lot, probably not being like, I don't do that, I don't do that, you know, and so part of the part is the, you know, no hatred, no conflict, how do I try to force, how hard I'm not working.

[62:55]

So two things I would say. One is that, hopefully, the structure, will then move up, right? And if you have gone for the structure and they refuse to do anything, the other hard way is, you know, hard of discernment and wisdom is to know when the environment that you're in is toxic. And so it's not going to be a bit of restoration. They might later, hopefully they will later, but I am at some point you have to decide this is more hurt and harm is happening, especially from denial of the hurt. And the trick is to find others who support you, so that you don't feel isolated. Part of any oppressive genocidal system is that they fragment us.

[63:59]

They silence us. They create conditions in which it feels unsafe to speak their truths. And that falls on the people who have the power of any organization or system to really understand, right? Many of you did all of us bringing someone in to help with anti-racist work. organization. That person that, oh, we'll start out by talking to everyone in the sunbed about how they see this. And they're at the other restaurant, they say, well, what are you going to do? What's your plan out with you? And they're like, no, we talk to everyone first. Because from there, we figure out what needs to happen. Many of us want systems to come in and fix everything.

[65:04]

It helps to have a curriculum to have some layout. But what has to happen is that everyone has to be willing to do the work. And if the people in power are willing to do the work or create an environment in which this kind of work is valued and important, then it's never going to change. So that toxic environment You know, you have to say, oh, that's a person home right there. It's that better than that. I can't get myself. So how do I get support and then how do I, perhaps, bring in weeks to attach it in my way? All right, I'll give you respect all the time with you. Yeah, a lot of names on the channel, and they came with me, and it was sort of a great thing, and it was a good way, [...] and it was a good way.

[66:20]

... [...] About to the sun.

[67:42]

Oh, shit. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone. This is why they gave us both these things. As you know, it's obvious that we're going through renovation here and finding our way in this new year. But I want to hope you know that the design building is open for Zaza in the evening. and the mornings, also obviously the government talks, and we'll also be using the conference in the next year.

[68:48]

All right, Barbara, for different events. So this is a transformational time, but you're invited to join us for all the events here at the conference site. We can just find that schedule on the website. There's also...

[69:04]

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