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 evening, everyone. And a warm welcome to San Francisco Zen Center. And I'd like to dedicate this talk to my dear teacher Zenke Blanche Hartman and to my Dharma brothers Isan Dorsey and dear John King. Without those three people I would not be sitting here. Well I hear that tonight's topic is diversity although there was a very lovely description of that on the website which Rosalie actually pointed out to me this morning.

[01:02]

Thank you Rosalie. So it was a lot more eloquent than just simply diversity. Rather in the vein of how can we take the Dharma out How can we reach everybody? How can we meet everybody, be with everybody, and not just with a select bunch of people? How can we make what we all enjoy, the great liberation that we enjoy, how can we make that accessible to as many people as possible? So that was kind of my take on the topic. And if I have it wrong and you want to leave now, that's all right. So self-acceptance to me is the key to being able to be with everybody.

[02:05]

I remember hearing that Suzuki Roshi said that one of the great fruits of practice was the fact that one began to love everyone. And he said, in fact, he loved everyone he met. It's just that some people were a wee bit harder to love than other people. But generally, we can, through practice, we can actually end up loving everyone. And Blanche might be able to help my memory. I'm getting old. My memory's going. Was it Brother David Steindl that said... One of the fruits of practice is to be able to love everyone. And there are two ways you can do that. You'd either have to be incredibly promiscuous or celibate. So actually, was that brotherly? Yes. So I've actually found that celibacy was a great, great way forward for me.

[03:10]

I personally used to get very messed up around the difference between someone wanting to be warm and friendly and intimate and someone wanting to have sex. So it was something I actually worked on a lot with my Zazam practice and found out it was a lot to do with not particularly caring for myself. After all, why would anyone want to get close to me if it wasn't for sex, you know? actually taking on celibacy, which is not necessary for people studying Soto Zen, it's not a necessary choice, but taking that on was a great liberation. Now I'm not recommending that so tonight everyone should leave here and be celibate. I'm just saying that to me it was very, very helpful because I was mixed up, as I say. I didn't know the difference between someone wanting to be kind and wonderful and someone wanting to have sex.

[04:17]

So obviously that was a good choice for me to be able to get clear so that now no matter who I'm with, no matter who I'm having a practice discussion with, that one doesn't come up. That one's just a non-starter. But of course being able to be with everyone doesn't mean that we We have to start dropping things all over the place. I think one of the great, great mistakes in practice is this idea of dropping things. You know, you read in the sutras, do this, that and the other, and body and mind of themselves will drop away. And it always sounds like, ooh, bingo, it'll all drop away and it'll all be fine. when you find yourself looking at someone and thinking, oh, I know what he's like. You know, when you look at someone and start judging them, when you start going up that path, the idea is, of course, just drop that.

[05:25]

Well, I think that's not possible. If you think of the great way is not difficult for those who are not attached to their preferences. Sixth century... And the fact is that we will always probably have opinions, we'll have attitudes, we'll have judgments about other people, and that's basically what keeps us within that illusion of being separate. I think a lot of people beat themselves up really hard because they keep expecting, if they sit enough zazen, that they'll be able to kind of perfect themselves. And then everybody will just automatically be wonderful and lovable and, you know, will be perfect and there'll be nothing wrong. But that's not being a human being either, is it? I mean, we've all got our cross to bear, is what my mother used to say.

[06:26]

So how do we deal with the fact that we can try it the next time you get on a munibus? Well, try it right now. Look around the room. I bet you find yourself making judgments on people that you've never met before. Oh, I know what that person's like. Oh, they're like that and they're like that. And I think that's quite natural. There's a wonderful book by Rick Hansen, The Buddha's Brain, and it talks about this, that as human beings, we're still scanning. You know, is there a saber-toothed tiger coming? Oh, you know, is that an elephant? You know, is that danger? So we do that all the time. So the fact that we separate ourselves off from others through judgment is actually quite natural. because throughout history we've had to figure out is that a threat approaching or not. However, if we want to be able to be with as many different kinds of folks as possible, we have to be able to do something with that judgment.

[07:34]

So I suggest not trying to just drop it. I think that's like dropping the hand off the end of your arm. It doesn't really work too well. So if I look at someone and find a judgment arising, I'll take note of it. But I don't have to act out of that judgment. I don't have to be dragged around at all by that judgment. I can look and say, okay, I can hear my mother say, look at that person, you know, look at them. They're Jewish, you know. Don't talk to them. They're Jewish. you know, things like that. An immediate assumption, you know, you just think that one word, okay, there we are, we know everything about that person, and now I won't talk to them, you know. So, basically, to be with, I would suggest, accept that part of yourself that's got judgments.

[08:39]

Accept that. It's going to be, you know, a... cold day somewhere hot when, I'm trying to be more polite tonight, when you finally get rid of all your judgments. So can you just accept that that's how you are, that's how it is for you right now, and don't be dragged around by it. You may have an opinion, but you don't have to fight for it. So in other words, it's as my teacher always used to say, Blanche's big teaching, just this is it. Things as they is, that's what Suzuki Roshi apparently used to say. Just being able to be with things as they are. I don't see Mark Lancaster tonight. Oh, he has the flu. But he was talking about what he calls Samantha practice, shamatha practice, just being with things as they are.

[09:50]

And, you know, we can see that as soon as you sit down and start to practice your zazan, an idea comes to mind of how it should be and what you should look like and all the rest of it. But you might be sitting there feeling grumpy. So just be grumpy. You might be sitting there feeling angry, so just be angry. And there's the key because you can't really go around thinking I can be welcoming to everybody if you haven't welcomed this person right here. If you cannot accept yourself just exactly the way you are, well, there's not really much hope for going around being warm and loving and kind to other people. And to me that was one of the great, great benefits of practicing Zazen because I suffered from suicidal depression most of my life until I was about 30.

[10:57]

I really didn't want to be here. I really didn't like myself. I thought I was completely unacceptable. It was just a bad experience to be on this planet. And it came to a head right before I came into Zen practice. I ended up with post-traumatic stress disorder and actually became homeless for a while. So the wonderful thing about Zazen, about the practice that we're sharing with everyone, is if you're actually practicing being right here in the moment, then that means that you must be fine just the way you are, because that's how you are in this moment. So there's no point in saying, I'll be fine when I lose five pounds, gain five pounds, get the Botox treatment, you know, have that plastic surgery. It's about right now.

[11:59]

So if you're practicing your zazen, you're just sitting, you're just staying present, then surely that means when you're here right now with you, that it's okay. It's just okay. I remember my teacher saying to me, you must want people to love you. And I said, no, no, I just want to be okay for myself. And that's something, raise your hand if you think you're okay. Okay. Raise your hand if you think they're okay. Aww. Aww. I find that a wee bit sad, you know. I suggest a practice for that. The next time you find that self-criticism coming up, like I'm so stupid or I'm not good enough, put in something positive. Now this is not you know, our Soto Zen practice, but it is actually in that book that I mentioned earlier, The Buddha's Brain.

[13:06]

And he says we get so used to this negativity, this not good enough, this self-disparagement, that it seems normal, and it's not actually a normal thing to feel that way. So he suggests every time you spot yourself saying something like, ooh, I look terrible, Right away, put in the opposite. No, I look absolutely fine. And he actually, Rick Hansen says, we can retrain our brains so that we stop having that attitude, firstly about ourselves and then about other people. And here's Vicki. Welcome, Vicki. Oh, well. So when I was thinking about this whole issue or the whole idea of being able to be with, I thought about, I work out on the streets.

[14:16]

I left Zen Center four and a half years ago and I've actually put some flyers, some little information things out on the front there because I have a little nonprofit, and we work with an enormously diverse group of folks, and so your support is always needed. I don't have any great donors or rich people or temples or churches or anything like that behind me, so there's a wee information flyer out there. And, you know, you could not be out on the streets going into different SRO hotels and shelters and things like that if your prejudices were right out there in front of you, if you could not see our interconnectedness, if you could not be with people, it would be absolutely pointless to try to walk in and start working with folks.

[15:17]

So self-knowledge about this is really important. It's not actually something wrong to find out you've got a prejudice. There's nothing wrong in finding out you've got a bad attitude about a certain kind of person. What would be not fruitful would be to be dragged around by that and to keep acting that one out. So someone said to me, I hear you're talking on diversity. You do know that's not just about race, don't you? What's the first thing you think you can tell about someone when you see them walking towards you with the sun behind them? What would be the first judgment you could possibly make? Anyone? Gender, thank you. So actually that plays quite a big part in my life too. I was teaching in Boulder, Colorado a while ago and people didn't know me

[16:23]

Like a lot of people here do know me, but they didn't know me at all. And that was a big problem for a lot of people because they couldn't tell what gender I was. And it actually really, really upset. I know, I know. God, I look just like Marlon Monroe as well. That's just for the benefit of the tape. I look so cute. But it upset. some people very, very much. And it happens in my everyday life when people assume that I'm a guy. And I don't care. I really, really don't care one way or the other, to be honest. But it does really upset people. So everybody's got, as I say, my mother used to say, we've all got our cross to bear. Everybody's got something, some kind of judgment going. But the most important thing, to come back to it again, is let's not be dragged around by that.

[17:25]

So I would say the first part of working with this is working with our Zazen. You can see it. What a wonderful gift. You can see these things rising up. Before you have to make a fool of yourself and let them out of your mouth. So we actually can get used to seeing these things arise, those feelings of separation, of difference. And then we can leave it alone and not be dragged around by it. So in the street ministry that we have out there, and I say we, that's not the royal we. Actually, some of my students now are volunteering at different places. We have someone about to start at Maitri Hospice doing massage, and another guy works at Glide. So if you're looking to mix with folks, there's plenty of opportunities. So one side of what we work with in the ministry is Zazam. because to me that's the ultimate way to get to be with everyone, to watch the judgment come up and not go there.

[18:36]

So that's one side of things. And then the other thing that comes in very handy when you want to be with people is to actually have some decent techniques, some ways that can help you to be with folks. On the streets, I don't wear robes, for example. That helps. I wear T-shirt and jeans on the streets. But more than that, now I'm not just talking about being with what's seen as oppressed people or poor people. I'm talking about being with everyone. My wonderful teacher pulled me up short once at Tassajara. when I was sitting there and I found a photograph of homeless children in Scotland. And I took it to Zanke and I said, I can't sit here in luxury staring at a wall. There's no poor people here. Look at these poor people.

[19:38]

They're dying on the streets in Scotland and I'm sitting looking at a wall. What good is that doing? And Zanke pointed out to me that I was prejudiced. The idea that, you know, poor people have it a lot worse than rich people, I don't think so. She was right. It was prejudice. I actually think now that everybody's got about the same amount of suffering. It's just got different causes. So please be assured I'm not targeting one group or another. I love that phrase that we're all, we're like a field of daisies. When you look at us, we all look the same. If you get up close, you can start to see those different things. But those are the joys of life, not the difficulties. And how do you deal? Here it is. When working out on the streets, I first noticed...

[20:41]

that case managers, social workers, so forth, all had better communication skills than I do. And I used to be a teacher of children. And what's interesting in learning to be with is we do tend to, especially if we're going to give advice, you know, run a group, We do tend to be perceived as, you know, they're the specialist, they're the person, and they'll be all authoritarian, and they'll tell me what to do. And in actual fact, what I found works most with folks is something called harm reduction. Now, I know some of you have heard about harm reduction, and probably some people haven't. But I discovered that you cannot... Get along with everybody if your attitude is this. I know. I know. I'm going to tell you.

[21:43]

I know about this. I can show you. No. There's a wonderful set of skills called motivational interviewing. If you want to study that, please, motivational interviewing. And it's also part of harm reduction, which is in this book. And basically, it's what they call in therapeutic terms a client-centered modality. Basically, what it is, is say you had a problem. Just say, imagine for a second you had a wee problem, and you came to me for advice, right? Now say the problem was alcohol. Say you were drinking a six-pack every night. So if I go and say, you're drinking every night, stop that. Now those of you who have bad habits, which is probably all of us, you know if someone goes, stop that, you shouldn't do that, that's bad for your health, that often that brings up the opposite, brings up resistance.

[22:57]

So motivational interviewing, and harm reduction will give you the techniques to say, oh, you're drinking six beers every night. How is that? And if she doesn't think it's a problem, then I'll give her support and we'll work along and eventually maybe she'll think it's a problem. Then we can do something about it. If she says, yeah, six beers every night is getting to me, but I'm not sure... then you give support. You see, it's all about the person you're with. It's not about you. So then she might say, I say, well, is it a problem? Do you feel it's a problem? And if she says yes, then I give that support. And then I might say, do you have a plan? And she might say, well, tomorrow night I go sit with Jeannie, and Jeannie doesn't drink. And I'll say... Great.

[23:59]

So do you see the difference there? When you're being with other people, forget about this. This set of perceptions, this way of looking at things. Some of you may know of the Ark of Refuge, the church on Howard Street. Howard Street at 6. It's a city of refuge. It's a wonderful place. And the bishop there, Yvette Flanders, trains people who want to go and work in the SRO hotels and shelters and things like that. She gives people training on how to present themselves, how to be with people. So this, not being authoritarian, is a very, very big deal. Not carrying yourself into any meeting or even a relationship with, you know, I'm the authority. And the first time I met Bishop Flunders, I went into her church and she had about 40 people who were all trying to learn how to work on the streets and in the shelters and SRO hotels.

[25:09]

And as I walked in, she was standing there going, it's not about you! It's not about you! It's not about you! And that's the thing, to be able to be with people, it's not about you. It's... about the person that you're with. So to be able to be with people in a way that encourages them to come out and them to present with the other part of it, with as little judgment as possible, then, then the rubber's meeting the road there. Then you're beginning to be able to be with folks. And even if that judgment arises with our Zazam, we can We can deal with that. So I do want to do a wee tiny bit of promotion of harm reduction because recovery is included in harm reduction.

[26:13]

And one of the obstacles that we find with working with people is if folks are using alcohol and drugs. or chocolate donuts, too much television, or too many bad relationships. People, all of us, tend to use something to keep the world at bay. So in particular relation, I didn't understand harm reduction at all when I first started working out there, but I didn't know why, what was wrong with just saying to folks, you know, well, Obviously drinking is harmful, stop it. But it's very interesting and it's got more to do with just what substance you're using. This book is fabulous. If you want to get some training, you can actually train yourself from this book. Although I would recommend the Harm Reduction Training Institute in Auckland.

[27:17]

They have all the courses you could want, and I teach there too. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm thinking everybody can read it. It's called Over the Influence. And it's the Harm Reduction Guide for Managing Drugs and Alcohol. And it's two friends of mine. They have the Harm Reduction Therapy Institute in San Francisco. And... The basic thing about harm reduction is to lessen the harm that you're doing. Not everybody can or wants to go into complete recovery to work with whatever it is they're working with. So this is a way to lessen the harm that you do to yourself or that other folks are doing to themselves. And I presented my work, a combination of Zazen and harm reduction, at the 2006 Harm Reduction Conference, National Harm Reduction Conference.

[28:22]

And the other priest on the panel with me, his whole job was going around explaining to churches and temples that harm reduction does not mean encouraging people to use drugs. It doesn't mean enabling. Here's just a few wee details I went through and thought, what's the most important thing? What would be the most important thing for you to know? For example, by demonizing certain drugs over others, we disproportionately punish the people who we perceive use these drugs most. For example, While African Americans use drugs no more than whites, approximately 7% of each group, they represent 35% of those arrested, 55% of those convicted, and 74%, 74% of those sentenced to prison for drug possession.

[29:35]

So, right away, if we can actually help in any way to stop the spread of this demonization of this whole idea that there's something totally and utterly wrong in using recreational drugs and alcohol. We've been using them, right in the introduction, we've been using drugs for about 8,000 years and we show no signs of stopping soon. But the last two centuries or so we've learned to extract potent active ingredients and make our own stronger drugs and that's where the problems have started with that. So if anyone wants to have some skills to be able to work, I would say to meet with anyone, including yourself. There's the two wings to the bird, the harm reduction and the zazan.

[30:44]

That combination to me is absolute dynamite. This working with harm reduction gives folks, you know, I mean, as I say, I had substance problems myself in the past and, you know, if someone's doing this with you, that's just shaming and always makes you want to do more, you know. And in harm reduction, we don't even use the term addiction. We don't call anyone an addict. We don't say anyone is diseased. We go from, there's a continuum of no use, experimentation, occasional use, regular use, heavy use, abuse, dependence and chaos when your whole life is about getting the substance, the person, the chocolate donut, the TV shows. So getting your, getting your, something that helps you to keep the barrier up.

[31:48]

So there's what I think of as an absolute dynamic combination. To put together some of the skills of harm reduction and our Zazen. What could be more harm reducing than Zazen? What could be a better way to blow away any cobwebs between you and other people? I brought only one poem tonight. And it's Rumi, Rumi, one of my favorites. And I just want to stress again this whole thing of being kind to ourselves first. You know, why would we be so hard on ourselves?

[32:52]

I always say there's enough people out there ready to beat us up without us doing it to ourselves. So I want to encourage everyone in kindness and gentleness towards themselves because only in that way can it spread out to other people, you know. And as you know, I always think humor helps, but I promised not to tell any of my crude jokes tonight. I brought Rumi instead. Move into your house of joy. If you knew yourself for even one moment, if you could just glimpse your most beautiful face, maybe you wouldn't slumber so deeply in that house of clay. Why not move into your house of joy and shine into every crevice? For you are the secret treasure bearer and always have been.

[33:55]

Didn't you know? So how much more fruitful to think of oneself as the secret treasure bearer than to think of oneself as, if only they knew me, they wouldn't like me. The other thing about breaking down that barrier, I was so grateful when I came here and began to lose my walls. I remember the first time anyone put their hand on my shoulder, because as I say, I'd been living out on the streets and it was all pretty hellish. It was Hillary Parsons. who used to live here, some of you may remember her, walked up and put her hand on my shoulder and I felt like it was the first time anyone had touched me in years. And learning to sit and look at what I had thought of as the worst of myself, and then learning to be able to say it to other people,

[35:01]

You know, guess what? I'm like this, you know? Guess what? I'm not perfect, but guess what? That's what makes me like everyone else, you know? Just the relief of being able to sit in Zazen and rest with whatever I was and discover that I really wasn't that terrible after all. So I think our Zazen practice is... an enormous, enormous treasure to share with others. Honestly, it can make me stop hating myself. So I would really, really encourage everyone in those two pathways. Kind, softening, gentle, Zazar. where you can learn to be with yourself and all your funny bits. And then I really, really highly recommend some of the skills that you can find in harm reduction so that you can be with people and actually skillfully be with folks and then offer some help and some support.

[36:20]

Now this is a great topic. I don't know at all what time it is. Does anyone have a watch? Pardon? Only five minutes? Not unless anyone's driving me home. We're stopping right now. I live at the beach. I actually would like to have time to open this up. Just because I'm sitting here wearing the brown thing, it doesn't mean. Could you say something about the precepticists intoxication of mind, you know, I vow not to intoxicate mind or body of self or others. How that plays into your work and honor that. Right, thank you. Good question. Yes, I vow not to intoxicate mind or body of self or others. My view of intoxication would be

[37:27]

Listening to gossip, that I would think would be intoxication. Watching bad television, that's intoxication. Hating people, that's intoxication. Judgment, that's intoxication. Some people use that to refer to alcohol and drugs, but I think it refers to a far wider range of things. Now, of course, if you're taking your vows, I vow... not to intoxicate my inner body, we could say alcohol, I vow not to take alcohol or use alcohol and drugs. It used to say, one of the old versions was, I vow not to sell alcohol or drugs, kind of a right livelihood. Now, the great thing about self-acceptance, acceptance doesn't mean approval. That's a real key.

[38:28]

You can accept all of yourself without having to approve about everything you do. So similarly, ideally, you might want to not be drinking alcohol. Alcohol, by the way, is the most dangerous substance above heroin, cocaine, crack, all the rest of it. Alcohol is the most dangerous. So you might bow, I don't want to intoxicate mind or body, I don't want to, so that might to you mean alcohol, I don't want to intoxicate my mind. That is something that you have to decide for yourself, I believe. Do you find that a glass of beer is an intoxication? That's something you have to decide for yourself. I actually feel that one of the big drawbacks to organized religion, all organized religions that keeps people from walking in that door and the door of a lot of churches is because they'll be told what to do.

[39:37]

The Ten Commandments, you know. This is how you should be in your life. No, in harm reduction it would say if you feel that you cannot control you're drinking, for example, so that every time you have a drink, you get intoxicated. You might want to look at that. So I would say it absolutely depends on the person. If you know that you can have... I'm a medical cannabis advocate because if I have a student who's using SMAC I would rather they were using cannabis. If I had a student who was intoxicating themselves with alcohol, I would rather they would use cannabis because we're talking harm reduction. So the most dangerous substance is alcohol. We judge that by how many of the effective dose it takes to kill you.

[40:43]

And so with alcohol, that's very few. With cannabis, there is no fatal dose. Now, you could think, oh my gosh, you're sitting there recommending using, and I am not in any way recommending people use it. What I'm saying is, if you do use substances of any kind, alcohol, drugs, chocolate doughnuts, and you want to, you feel it's having a deleterious effect, then you might want to look into something like this, one of the harm reduction groups so you can have the skills so that you can lessen that and not be harming yourself. So that would be what I would say. Good. I'm talking a lot about substances but it just strikes me that it's a part of

[41:49]

I was talking to people in many different areas of life and I was just sitting there yesterday talking to a student of mine and that's Alex and he's also that Alex and he's a great guy, I really like this kid and he comes to school and he just keeps on with the student and he knows that and he has a high chance of probably eating at the bar and I'm sure he's on the school so he comes to school for that reason. You know, a lot of teachers over the years, I'm just like, oh, no, what's your problem? And I said, I don't think we just talk. I thought, yeah, you know, what's the story? What to do? What are you doing? It's like, I found out, like, the other teachers are even near the school for this specific issue. And it just strikes me that I guess I'm curious to hear from you What are some of us, aside from talking to people about substances, what are some of the really good parts of life where we might use home reduction tactics?

[43:00]

I mean, I actually think everywhere in life. Because so much harm is done by judgment. You can push people away so fast by being authoritarian. by telling them, no matter what it is in life, if it's sexual practices or, you know, surviving on the streets, I mean, anything. You cannot be with people if you're up there and they're down there. You just can't do it. If you want to meet people, that's gashot. That's meeting people. So it's a hopeless situation if you go into counselling anyone of any kind, believing that you know, and that's what Yvette Fongers was on about, it's not about you. You do not know better.

[44:00]

If you genuinely, if you really look at your motivation, are you helping the person to help yourself, make you feel better, or do you really want to be of use? We are monks because we want to be, well, sorry, I'm a monk because I want to be of service, that's a big part. So I have to learn how I can be of service, not how I can go in and tell people things and instruct people. So, yes, being with, asking the other person what they want, asking the other person what their dreams are, and not assuming anything. no assumptions whatsoever. So again, that wonderful openness that Zazan gives us. And I don't think you have to be perfect, you know, and in fact sharing our imperfections really unites a lot. So I would use it for

[45:01]

Just about anything. Here's one final statistic, being as we mentioned other things. HIV, for example, it was first used to help prevent the spread of HIV. Let me just see. I have that, and then I'll stop. Here we are. So yes, nowadays if you look up the word harm reduction online, you'll find harm reduction in the World Bank, harm reduction in the economic situation, harm reduction in the, you know. This will just last something, calm. So here we go. Here's how it started. In 1985, the year before Nancy Reagan started America's Just say no to drugs. Sorry, I can't really do an American accent. The British government opened a program in Liverpool in response to the AIDS epidemic and started using the term harm reduction.

[46:04]

While we in America were pouring billions of dollars into supply reduction and law enforcement, the Liverpool, that's in the north of England, where the Beatles came from, The Liverpool Public Health Department was offering medical care, clean drugs, that's methadone, morphine or heroin, clean needles, and safe injection education to injection drug users. So that started in 1985. By 1989, injection drug users in New York City... had an HIV infection rate of 60% compared to an infection rate of 0.1, 0.1% in Liverpool. So that's harm reduction as it first manifested in the effort to stop the spread of HIV infection.

[47:15]

So I've instructed people on clean needle use. I can do safe sex instruction, everything, applies to everything. If you wear a seatbelt when you're driving in your car, you are practicing harm reduction. If you wear a hairnet to keep your hair out of the food at Zen Center, you are practicing harm reduction. Any other quick points? So just I want to give you every encouragement. The biggest key, harm reduction, has wonderful, wonderful tools for meeting folks of any stripe. But Zazep, it's just the great gift. to be able to sit and see ourselves clearly, to be able to watch opinions come up and thoughts come up and judgments of people come up, and just give it that second and watch it go away again.

[48:26]

Then talk to that person. So one of these days I'm going to write a book called Muni Meditations. So the next time you're on the Muni bus, try it. You don't have to just do zazam when you're staring at the wall, you know. I have two sanghas. We do it 24-7 if we can. It's much more useful that way. So next time you get on the bus, sit down, look around, and find out how many people you're judging. And then let that judgment flower, you know. and then let it wither away, and then you're free. And that's the great liberation of Sazam, great liberation. So you're all perfect just the way you are, as Suzuki Roshi said. So I hope that we can all work towards that, knowing that you are just perfect just the way you are.

[49:33]

You're just fine. And then that way you can extend that out to everybody else. You're just fine. You're just glad. So thank you so much for coming and Zazen 24-7 is the only answer. Thank you. 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 Dorma.

[50:14]

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