Good evening. Hope you're all well, well enough. I'm going to ring the bell so we can sit together for a few minutes and then I'll start talking. Days don't seem so restful somehow, like lots of notice.

[05:06]

It takes a while to get to sleep at night. So many images and so many wishes for things to be otherwise. So I wanted to bring up something from last week. I heard the next day after we were together that someone had left a chat message asking the question quite quickly. Fine question. Why are you talking about politics? Which really was helpful to me in a lot of ways. It really made me think, am I talking about politics? And so I look back over my notes from that day and I saw that I'd mentioned the trauma I felt around the attacks on the Capitol and personal trauma for sure. And I think many of us can say that. And then I said that I believe the attack was connected to a history of racial animosity in this country and in this world, something that I believe to be true and that I hold as a view.

[06:16]

And I know that that view is not shared by everyone. I mean, clearly it's not shared by everyone. It's part of what we call polarized. We're kind of polarized about race. in this country. And then also last week, the Zen Center posted on our website a statement that has my signature as well as others about the events at the Capitol, which some of you may have read. Mostly there have been positive responses. In fact, we got more responses to that statement than we've ever gotten to anything throughout our long history. But some of the responses were kind of sharp and denouncing what we'd written there, which kind of surprised me again, including one person who said, you should stay out of politics because you don't know what you're talking about. And I do agree that we don't know what we're talking about.

[07:17]

I mean, that's a Yogachara principle. We really don't know what we're talking about. And at the same time, we have to keep on talking. It's really what we have. As a species, it's kind of our only hope, speaking of hope, is that we can talk. Kind of get it out by using words. Use your words, as they tell the kids on the playground. Use your words. So I went on then to connect the events of our day to the mind-only teachings, which for me... Bring it alive. It's like, well, what does this have to do with anything? What does this mind-only teaching have to do with my actual life? Which was another conversation I had last week with one of my students who was saying, what do those mind-only teachings have to do with my life? I'd really rather talk about my life. And I thought, yeah, I know, me too. And I find these teachings to be extremely helpful. Once I've managed to incorporate them somehow,

[08:20]

In my understanding, they have become extremely helpful in sorting out my life, which, of course, has to do with my mind. Your life is a creation of your mind, the Buddha said. So, you know, this example of our racial conditioning or any other kind of conditioning, gender conditioning. How we think of ourselves and how we think of our place in the world and all of the ways we identify ourselves as persons comes from the past. It comes from what we've been taught, what we've been told and what we believe. So these are called our personal truths. So as they appear in reaction to world events, for example, that's my truth that shows up. I do or don't agree with what's being said or with what I have a view. Buddha said, these are our views. And his first step in the Eightfold Path of the Four Noble Truths, the curative, the path of practice, which cures suffering, is right view.

[09:25]

Not just any old view, but right view. So what is a right view? I think that's what the key or the kernel of all of this politics is like. What's the right view? Is there a right view or is it just argumentation? The Buddha also said that enlightenment is beyond all argumentation. So he's kind of narrowing the field for us, you know. What's right view? And right view has nothing to do with argumentation. It's free of argumentation, of being right. So in the Yogacara, these views, views are called imputations. And we talked about that a bit last week. It's one of the three characteristics of all things. There's three characteristics. There's the imputational, what we think about it. There's the dependent core rising, what it actually is, which is beyond our comprehension. It's just there. It's just right in your face, that great big tree. I call it a tree, but the tree doesn't really care what I call it.

[10:28]

It's just right there. Same thing with the stars and the moon and the sun. Call it whatever you like, but it's right there. The moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie. That's amore, right? So we know. We know the songs about what's right there is the impact on ourselves, on our feelings, and so on. So imputations are about things that are right before our eyes, and we name them. We give them names. We have ideas about them. We call them things, name callers. So the appearances themselves, again, this is Yogacharya teaching, are inconceivable results of a vast network of causes and conditions called dependent core rising. Everything arises dependent on pretty much everything else. You know, I'm allowed to be sitting here right now and talking because of oxygen and gravity and the fact that it's not... flooding and there's no war and I'm not being chased out of my house and all kinds of all of those things allow this moment to take place.

[11:34]

The things that are not happening and the things that are happening. So those are called the causes and conditions of the present moment. Beyond comprehension, I could not possibly say how this is happening. You know, if I would leave one element out, it can't happen. So I have to name everything and that would take a very long time. So we don't do that, but we do use shorthand, these imputations to manage our way like monkeys in the trees. We grab a branch and then we can move through. But basically, the forest is beyond our comprehension. So the inconceivability of reality itself is that we don't know. We forget that reality is inconceivable. So not knowing that our views... Our imputations and the world itself, as it appears before our eyes, are truly different, are separate, is not knowing the true nature of reality. So that was the two fingers thing.

[12:36]

Imputation is this finger, my ideas, my stories, what I make up, my creation, using language. I look at the world through my lens of my story based on my conditioning, and I call it a tree. I call it a cat. I call it the moon. I call it my friend. I call it my enemy. Okay? What it really is is beyond comprehension. It's not what I call it. Not knowing that is delusion. Knowing that these two are different is awakening. The thoroughly established nature of reality is that these two, the imputational and the dependent core arising, are not the same. But we get fooled. That's the problem. We're fooled into thinking that what we think is what's true, what's happening. And that's why we argue and fight and why I'm right and you're wrong. You know, that's a pretty common experience for all of us.

[13:38]

Particularly right now, we're kind of in a heated battle of right and wrong. Everybody thinks they're right. So this evening, I wanted to offer... you know, all of you an opportunity, if you like, to say something about these major cultural divisions that are showing up, not only in what we call politics, you know, politics means about the cities, polis, polis is cities, this old Greek thing, you know, politics has to do with how the cities work, what goes on in cities or gatherings, you know, the anthills of humans that we have co-created. So, you know, it doesn't just have to do with politics, what's going on. It also has to do with economics, you know, how we get our food and how we exchange resources with one another. It has to do with our religion, what we hold as sacred. And it has to do with education, what we teach our kids and so on and so on.

[14:42]

So it's kind of a big, what we care about and how we do our cities, how we do our collective life is all of those parts. Politics is about all of that. Now, I happen to be have been almost embarrassed to say, but, you know, I grew up during the Vietnam War and the only major that I possibly thought would be of any use to me was political science. I need to know what's going on. How did this happen? Why are we fighting with these people? What's going on here? Why did the Second World War happen? Why were all those people put into gas chambers? What's happening here? And I was 18 and I was totally in distress about this world that I was about to enter as a college student. So I chose political science to try and understand it. So I read a lot of theory, which is about all I got out of it. It was a lot of theory. I also took myself to Sweden for a year because I'd heard they were socialists. So I thought, oh, maybe I can go find out what it's like to have a society that theoretically is based on sharing your toys with others.

[15:47]

And it kind of was like that in Sweden. And anyway, without getting into utopian visions, which is what I had as a child, I mean, the extremes of moral. So there's two kinds of politics, really. according to the theorists. One is political moralism, which has to do with ethics, with right and wrong, that there are norms. There are ethical norms. Norms are the same as precepts. For Buddhists, precepts are our norms, not killing, not stealing, not lying. Those are norms for a sangha life. Our communal life is based on political moralism. There is an actual direction that we intend for our lives and it's based on generosity and kindness and not killing and so on. The other kind of politics is called political realism. So in the one system, moralism has to do with ethics and norms.

[16:49]

The second system is based on power, irrespective of the ends that are being pursued. Machiavelli is one of the famous theoreticians of political power, political realism. I think we're seeing some examples of political realism these days, if I must say. You know, just power. How to hold power as the point. Now, the Buddha taught a system of political moralism based on generosity and nonviolence to the leaders of the cities when he was asked for his counsel. There are several sutras about him telling them, you need to meet frequently. You need to hold assemblies that are peaceful. You need to follow the rituals of your people. You need to be respectful to the elders and respectful to the juniors. You need to respect the children and the women and not harm them. So he had this, you know, list of prescriptions for a politically moral society.

[17:50]

And he taught that. So it also might be helpful to remember, as we talk or think about these matters, that one of the major prohibitions in the Buddhist Sangha, one that they took very seriously, was one called causing division in the Sangha. And along with murder and the abuse of sexuality, these were grounds for expulsion from the community. Another ground for expulsion, interestingly, was a claim that you're enlightened when you are not. So these are kind of taken very seriously among the Buddhists. So I think my own deep wish is not to cause division in the Sangha in any way. And therefore, it seems if that's a possibility, I would like to address that with you. I'd like to hear about that if there were some feeling that that were something I was doing or if we're doing as a community.

[18:51]

causing some division among ourselves. So we don't need to talk about that right now, but I'm certainly willing to do that when I open to questions in a little bit. And I certainly hope the person who left the chat message is here. I would really like to know that, that they came back this evening and might be willing to engage and explain a little better what the thought was about politics. You know, what does that mean? Because it's just a word, but for each of us, every word has elaborations. You know, if I say whatever I say, any word I say, there will be elaborations and opinions and preferences and so on. You know, I could say cheese and you all have your favorite cheese. Or, you know, somebody thinks yellow cheese, someone else thinks blue cheese. So words are basically stimulants for elaboration, for conceptualizing. So politics is a word. OK, it's just a word.

[19:51]

And yet much harm can come from words. How we use words really matters. You know, that's all we've got, really. I mean, we've got, you know, violence. That's not recommended. Nobody wants. Well, I don't know if nobody wants, but I certainly hope that we come to a place in our lives together where nobody wants that. Just talk. Try to figure it out. We can talk. So I wanted to begin by mentioning that. and offering the conversation. If it seems like, you know, an open conversation wouldn't be very, feel safe or, you know, useful, I'm also happy to receive emails and my email is easily available. If any of you would like to send me a message anytime, you're welcome to do that. Have a conversation. So... With that said, I might ask, is anyone like to make a comment at this time before I go back to the 30 verses of Vasubandhu's Yogacara?

[20:58]

Put the gallery view on so I can see all of you. There we are. There's a hand. Catherine. Can you on? Yeah, I got it. Got it. Good. OK. Hi. So this is one of my first this is my first time doing this with you all. I'm feeling a little nervous speaking up because these are issues that are really near and dear to my heart. Welcome. Welcome. Yeah. So it's a little it's a little edgy for me to speak up. I just want to acknowledge that. One of the reasons I feel really comfortable coming into this space is when I was driving to Muir Beach at one point from my house, I saw you guys standing outside with Black Lives Matter signs. And so there's something I've been telling people recently that I feel like has been helpful to help people understand what's going on in the country.

[22:12]

OK, so this explanation. So I'm going to bring up science and I'm going to tie it back into this. So we have used science to create civilization. We have used science to increase the birth rate from 40, which is what it was in 1870. We have used science to create air travel and go to the moon. We've also used science to study what's going on with us socially. And at a certain point when we've used science to see into the social structure of what's going on, we see time and time again, science proves through our studies that black people face systemic oppression. The opinions on what we do about that are gonna vary and different, but in my, maybe this is an opinion, but well, this is an opinion. people are entitled to their own opinions.

[23:16]

They're not entitled to their own facts. And I know that that's a really edgy thing to say. And I know that there are probably people in the room that are automatically going to disagree with me. But yeah, I am personally very convicted about these things and I'm very comfortable being convicted about them. So yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Catherine. That's a view. That's your view. And I think you recognize that. And she said, well, this is my view. And, you know, I'm pretty much of that view myself. And I don't really, I do... want to talk about this, but I also want to try and keep it within the range of the imputational, the dependently co-arisen. So, Catherine, we've been looking at some texts, which I'm happy to share with you. It's a teaching the Buddha gave called the mind-only teachings, which are about exactly what you're saying. How we see the world has a lot to do with our conditioning. So, you know, we're all conditioned in a certain way.

[24:17]

And most of us here are looks like or have white skin and so we've been conditioned to think of the world in a certain way based on how we've been treated so that's part of the mind only understanding is that our conditioning is kind of assumed that oh well this is how things are um i was i was watching uh on monday we gave enough sorry friday night friday morning we did the martin luther king uh honoring his birthday we had a ceremony in the morning and Part of that ceremony, we played his I Have a Dream speech. And usually people, when I've heard that speech before, it starts with the I Have a Dream part. But there's a lot he said before that. It was very contemporary to the issues that are being said now. And I think one of the impressions I had listening to him and speaking, I thought, this preacher, this minister is preaching to people who have suffered terribly. You know, he's talking on behalf of, in a way, in the Buddhist way of understanding the realms of existence.

[25:24]

He's talking to people who have, for most part, many of them lived in hell. So he's coming from a representative of hell. It's kind of hell to be treated this way. And then later in the day, I was listening to my teacher talk to a room full of people that look like us. And he was talking from heaven. And it's talking about Buddha and everything, and we're all the same. And I thought, whoa, this is really tonally different representation here. And I wasn't critical of it. I wasn't saying this is right and this is wrong. It was just really powerful to hear the voice of someone representing those in hell and hear the voice of someone representing those who, for the most part, have been living in heaven. So I think... For me, in terms of our spiritual lives, this is where the two intersect. It's like finding our way to break down these walls so that, you know, all of us have, some of us, I mean, sometimes we're in hell, sometimes we're in heaven.

[26:30]

It's not like a set thing for anybody. I've been in hell. I've been in heaven. I've been in other places, Chicago. But anyway, the way we live and how we experience the world, it ought not to be by what group. we belong to. I mean, that's what, as I think we all know, that's what racism is about. It's like considering a group of people to be a certain way. It's not about one person or another person. It's about a group. This group is better than this group. This religion is better than this religion and so on. And that's how we go. We roll like that. It's how we play football. It's how we set up teams. It's how we do all kinds of stuff. We compete based on who's better. So that kind of mind that creates categories of better and worse is what the Buddha said is the cause of our suffering. So I do want to go back to the yoga chart teaching, but Heather, I saw your hand was up too. So I wanted to give you a chance to say something if you like, and also Bill. Heather, did you want to speak?

[27:32]

I think you're on mute. There we go. Everyone let me unmute for a minute. I wanted to say that not saying anything is also a political statement. And I've noticed that people don't usually criticize Reverend King, for example, for saying political things, even though he was a religious figure. He was a reverend. And I always think it's interesting that there's this perception that Buddhism in general and Zen in particular should have this kind of toneless quality. And there are a couple of things that I've heard from teachers over the years that made really big impressions on me because this is a question that I had myself. One thing was that... couple of years ago, there was a protest at Fort Sill against a planned child internment.

[28:46]

And when I heard it was going on, there was no question that I would go. But I really didn't know who else was going to be there. And when I got there, I was one of the few householders. It was mostly teachers. And that really struck me. And many of the teachers came to 2,000 miles away. to this small place. And then another thing is, many years ago, I heard Musong in Austin, and he was talking about equanimity, I believe. And somebody asked, you know, I don't know, I don't understand how to counsel equanimity, for example, to a child who's being abused. Mm-hmm. And he said, oh, you know, these teachings, they're understood to be for everyday situations. If someone is being abused, of course, the compassionate thing is to speak up.

[29:51]

And from, you know, that conversation, I started to think about how not mentioning to a harmful person that they are being harmful is no kindness. It's a kindness to meet a harmful person and say, you know, it looks like to me you are hurting people who are innocent. And so that's it's been a very interesting practice for me to examine. It's difficult in personal situations and in these larger contexts, too. But I think the main thing is that saying nothing isn't nothing. Yeah, the Buddha wasn't quiet. I mean, he did a lot of sitting. I mean, we all did a lot of sitting. But part of the sitting is to feel where the need is to respond and to be considerate about your response. You know, I mean, it's not, I mean, just throwing more gas on the fire is not exactly like, well, that works, but it, you know, then everybody's hurt.

[30:57]

Yeah. So I don't think anyone is recommending violence among the spiritual people. Let's not do that. If we leave that out of the format, then what is the creative response? How do you, you know, there's comedic. I mean, Woody Allen had this thing he said about, you know, Asking someone if it's okay to kiss on the first date. Some guy was going to beat him up. And he said, do you think it's okay to kiss on the first date? So there's this kind of comedic response you can do. How to break down the tension. You know, bring people into a state of confusion. The Buddha with Angulimala, the mass murderer, addressed him. He went and found him. And he said, you know, the guy was trying to kill the Buddha. And the Buddha just turned around. And he said, why can't I get you? Because I've stopped. I've stopped. My aggression, my anger, my fight. I'm not fighting. I don't want to fight with you. My partner worked for years as a social worker at Ward 86 in San Francisco.

[31:59]

So there were a lot of street people with addictions and some violence. So she said, yeah, the thing you do when there's some violent thing happening is you put your hands up. It's okay. It's okay. The monks do that with the elephants in the jungle. It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm here. I'm just going to walk right by you right now. Mostly it works. Mostly it works. It's not 100%, but better than, you know, this with an elephant or with some angry person who's, you know. drug-addled in whatever way that might lead them to violence. So I think skillful means, the Buddha taught skillful means of finding ways to disarm situations. But he also said, you know, if there were someone, like someone killing lots of people, that actually taking their life or stopping them in some way, if necessary, by taking their life is not killing.

[33:02]

So it's in the sutras. It's very surprising. Saving lives is by taking that person out who's, you know, doing these things that we know happen is not killing. So, you know, we have this moral ground. We're trying to navigate our way through this moral ground. And it's certainly up right now for all of us. So, Bill, I want to go to you, too. Happy to hear what you would like to say. You are muted. Oh, there you go. There you go. So first of all, I'm not really familiar with Buddhism that much because I'm just newly engaged in practice. But my impression on Buddhism, I think, is really about enlightenment really determines. Enlightenment is something that, for me, is like emotion will not be helpful.

[34:06]

sympathy and all the other forms of emotion were very likely to mess up the process. So I feel like that also applies to our politics, the way we view politics, the way we view religion is, sympathy is really good. But I feel like sometimes people are, their sympathy is too strong to the point, their rationality is not as strong as their sympathy. So when they see those things, they're not seeing those things with the right mindset. And I don't know how much... I would like to share my perspective on politics because I'm really passionate about politics for many years, but I don't know if I can tie that into Buddhism or connect that with Buddhism, but I will try. I feel like one question I've been asking for a long time is really interesting.

[35:11]

It's like, how do most pro-life person happen also to be pro-capitalistic? I'm sorry, I missed the first thing you said. How do... How do every pro-life person, like, you know, pro-life, like, who don't think we should end abortion? Yeah. And also happen to be... pro-capitalism. That's what most conservative people are like. Most liberals, they also fit into the same parts. Usually when you think about a liberal person, you will have a list of opinions they will be entitled to you. So that's what fascinates me, because this country is so divided into the two parts, and if you look at which what each side actually believes, there are lots of unrelated things they believe.

[36:12]

Like they will have all entitled to this opinion, but abortion also happen to believe this economic system works best for the country. And that's where I acknowledge that I feel like on the surface yes we're talking about politics but deep down i don't think it's all about politics um like there's a historical aspect to this political polarization and there's a religious aspect to this political polarization far stronger way more way stronger than political aspect of it well none of this oh sorry that's it okay So one of the things I think that I've come to understand, as I said, I was a political science major, so I did start off with the idea that politics must be where you go if you're going to change the world. I don't think that's anymore. I actually feel like it's in the heart.

[37:16]

As you're saying, it's in my heart and how I feel, my personal ethical understanding and belief about not harming and so on. I haven't found a party that actually lines up that well with my... with my, you know, with my heart. And so, you know, maybe I've got my own party, starting my own party. The Peace and Liberty or something like that, Liberation Party. Peace and Freedom was a party when I was young. I think for all of us, finding a way of bringing our moral conscience into our lives and living that life, modeling the life that we wish others to live is probably the best shot we have. You know, by being kind and not arguing and finding the patience to abide within your own emotional distress. You know, we all get, I mean, that's not going to go away. No matter how long you sit, something comes at you that's disturbing and that roils the waters of the mind. So the first step is always to calm the mind.

[38:19]

Calm your mind before you speak. Calm your mind to discern what's actually true, what's actually real. And to also be considerate of what your response is going to be. So the Buddha was a moral philosopher. He was teaching basically morality. He was not just teaching some abstract metaphysics about the mind is like this. And isn't that cool that when you see a tree, you think it's a tree, but actually it's the universe itself. So that's all kind of fun. But when it comes down to living together in harmony, this is work. And I certainly I live in a little microcosm of the world and we do all of it here. You know, we have all of our disagreements and argumentation and yada, yada. And we we need to call on these teachings as a way of calming ourselves and discerning what's real. Calm the mind, discern what's real. So the Buddha basically taught in a way there are two elements to his teaching. On one side, they liken it to the wings of a bird. So a bird can't fly with only one wing.

[39:22]

The two wings are wisdom, discernment, discrimination, understanding, and the other one is compassion. And those two have to be equally strong. If they're not, you've got a very weird bird. It's very hard to fly. So wisdom is always at the service of compassion, never the other way around. Wisdom in its extremes, when it's not modified or modulated by compassion can be cruel. Just reasoning. It's kind of like political realism. What's going to work? You're not putting the compassion side in there. Compassion by itself, without wisdom, can be sentimentality. And just like... Oh, I feel so sorry for all these people. So I'm just going to do all this stuff and take care of them and, you know, blah, blah, blah, without any real plan, without any real sense of how you're going to do that.

[40:24]

So these are actually, this is like grownup stuff. In order to be grownups, we need to cultivate compassion and wisdom, a real understanding of how the world works, how the mind works. That's where we're starting in this exploration of the mind only is if you don't know how your mind works, it just, it, You're like the clock that is running your life. The Zen master said, for you, you are chased by the 24 hours. I chase the 24 hours. I move the 24 hours. You're moved by the 24 hours. Meaning the clockwork of your mind, if you don't understand it, you're just on automatic. You have a response and you act. You have another response and you act. Like we were talking about these five steps. And Bill was saying how helpful that had been. You have a sensory impression. You hear a sound. Your attention turns toward the sound. You have a feeling about that sound. And then you name it. That's a duck. I know that's a duck. And then you have a reaction.

[41:25]

I'm going to go take a picture of the duck. And then you head off with your camera. So maybe you're hungry. And you head off with your gun. So it depends on what your motives are. What's your intention? So you have to be clear. What's my intention? What am I doing out here in the woods? Or what am I doing here in the city, in the political body? What am I doing in my community? When I have these reactions, am I aware that this is my system? My mind is enacting its impressions of the world without my participation. If I'm not aware of how the clockwork functions, then I'm just basically at its mercy. I'm at the mercy of automatic systems, of conditioning, You know, I just always do it this way. And we experience ourselves as habits, as creatures of habit. I do it this way. I always do it this way. And I'm proud of myself because I always do it this way. You know, you can build a whole system of identity about how you do it, how you do things.

[42:26]

So we're kind of trying to crack into that and see, well, really? How about you want to try something else? You want to try something creative? You want to try finger painting? You know, and being more involved in finding out ways to... to be exciting and experiment with your life. You know, that's an offering that's being made from these teachings is to break out of our habits, you know, figure out how they work and then break free of our habits. So I would like to go back to the mind only. Thank you all for your offerings. I appreciate it. I do want to say some more about the... Getting our way through the 30 verses because we're getting kind of halfway through. I'd like to, you know, by another at least one or two weeks, I'd like to finish. So last time I was talking about these things, which I mentioned already, the imputational, your idea about things, about things, things being stuff that you really cannot name accurately.

[43:27]

You can't really say what it is. What is it? What is that? What is that? amazement right there in my face. Whether it's a person or a tree or the sky, it's amazing. It's whole universes are there, as the poets say. Whole universes are in a drop of water, as Dogen says. Moon in a dew drop. So these spiritual people are always giving us these kind of awesome invitations to awesomeness, to really looking with a kind of childlike awe at what's there before we name it. Before we call it a cat or a dog or a tree or a friend or an enemy, you know, what is it that's coming? I don't know. I'm not sure. So, I'm now up at the verses that start with 15, for those of you who have been following along with these verses. So, the Vastupando has been teaching that we have these...

[44:29]

I think you all hopefully are familiar with the above-the-water line qualities that you experience, your actual experience throughout the day is based on what you were taught as a child, your five sense organs. Your five sense organs, very basic. And I really recommend you take a tour of your sense organs maybe once a day just so you remember that that's what's happening. Go from your ears to your eyes to your nose to your mouth to your skin. Just take the tour. That's all you know. That's what you know is coming through your senses plus what you think. So that's the big one. That's kind of the problem because that one will take over and dominate. You can be walking through the forest, talking to a friend, and not see those pretty little flowers on the floor of the forest. Or the bird up in the tree. You're not even going to hear the bird up in the tree because you're blah, blah, blah.

[45:33]

Or you're thinking. So how to quiet that conscious discursive thinking. How to quiet that down. That is the skill set of the meditator. Quieting the mind. Tranquility. One of the ways of quieting your mind is to come to your senses. Come into your senses. Spend time with the colors in the room. So I was saying to you, one of the examples last week I gave you, for those who were here, is from this website called Help Now, of when you're anxious, when you've got some trauma, you're feeling some anxiety, there were these 10 things that were recommended. And I mentioned that they were in Larry Ward's book, America's Racial Karma. It's a really fine little book, has all kinds of good stuff. And he's a lovely man. We were teaching together a couple weeks back, and I really enjoyed meeting him and listening to his teaching. He's a Thich Nhat Hanh disciple.

[46:34]

And so one of the exercises I mentioned to you last week is to look around your space and notice the primary colors, one after the other. So, you know, just take your time, take a couple minutes, and you look around and you notice the color red. Turns out there's a lot of red. A lot of red going on here. And then switch to green. It's amazing. Our minds, our color sense can do that, you know. And then you can switch to yellow. And blue. This is just a tiny little corner of reality for us, is color sense. Picking up on colors. And we're fast. We're so fast. We can do it. Shapes is another meditation. Looking for squares. Or for circles.

[47:37]

For triangles. There's a very famous Zen painting. Zen drawing of exactly that. There's a triangle, a circle, and a square. This is a classic meditation practice. So these are all ways of calming the mind. It's a very, very important first step. Calm down. Right now, we are being called to be hysterical, to gallop along and to have opinions and to say what they are and to be very noisy. So we're saying, you know, here in this political party is calm down. Let's all calm down first. And then we'll talk. Then we'll have vipassana, insight. from our calm positions, not from our agitated positions. All you know from this is agitation. Of course. From here, you can see the whole horizon, and you can see everything on the horizon as well. You can see what's coming, what's going.

[48:40]

The Buddha... The word teaching of name of the Buddha is the Tathagata, that which comes and goes. There's an awareness there. Your awareness is like that. You know when things are coming and going if you're awake. You can see the movement of the mind. You can see the movement of things in your environment. Okay. So anyway, so this exercise about looking for colors, primary colors, I thought... I was reading. I've been reading some fun things since we have all this time. Being home, we were watching, my partner and I were watching this series called Dickinson. I don't know if any of you have seen it. It's on Amazon. Amazon? It's on Apple TV. Anyway, it is kind of a wonderful... period piece about Emily Dickinson that's played in a kind of contemporary vein. She's kind of a smart lady, and she says these very sassy things, and she's very funny. And I found it very well done.

[49:42]

I think it's really delightful. I'm looking forward to the next season. We finished the first season. So anyway, I went back and got my collection of Emily Dickinson poetry out, and I was reading, started to read some of her poems, which I have a renewed appreciation of because of the mind-only teachings. I mean, isn't that nice? So I'm having this Buddhist kind of theoretical adventure with Yogacara, and it's totally opening up some windows and doors into other offerings, other artistic offerings. So anyway, I'm reading Emily Dickinson, and I found this poem I thought I'd share with you, which is, to me, is, you know, mind only. She's got a lot of mind only poems, actually. So she says, a thought went up my mind today. that I have had before, but did not finish some way back. I could not fix the year, nor where it went, nor why it came the second time to me, nor definitely what it was, have I the art to say.

[50:48]

But somewhere in my soul, I know I've met the thing before. It just reminded me, twas all, and came my way no more. A thought went up my mind today that I have had before, but I did not finish. Some way back, I couldn't fix the year. But where it went, nor why it came, the second time to me, nor definitely what it was, have I the art to say. But somewhere in my soul, I know I've met the thing before. It just reminded me, t'was all, and came my way no more. Good girl. So, you know, these poets and philosophers, I was telling you, I also was reading Existentialist Cafe, which is another delightful adventure in these wonderful thinkers who are meditators, you know, meditators of the mind. And they're trying to understand what's going on here, you know, with this coffee cup.

[51:51]

They're looking at phenomena. They're trying to figure out what is reality. You know, they're not metaphysicians. They're not trying to figure out who's God and what made the universe. They're not going out there. They're going right in here at the cafe, at the table where they're drinking coffee. What is coffee? What is taste? What is sight? What am I smelling? What does it mean? How can I say it with the least words? How can I describe my life with the least amount of verbiage? You know, this is what these guys are doing. They were really trying to pare it down to get at some basic understanding of the mind. and of reality. So, you know, it's like the color yellow, it's all over the place. You start looking at the mind only teachings. So there's one other citation that I found in Dogen, the great master of mind only teaching and of Zen. So Zen comes from the combination of the middle way or the emptiness teachings, Heart Sutra, which we talked about some months ago, and the mind only teachings, which we're talking about now. So Dogen is infused with both of these

[52:54]

And that was his training from when he was a very little boy. So, you know, he became a monk when he was like 12 or something. So he's been at it a long time. By the time he was a grown-up Zen master, he had read just about all of it and had a great deal of poetic insight. So this was called a fascicle. These are chapters of Dogen's major teaching. His body of work is called the Shobo Genzo, meaning the treasury of the true Dharma eye, you know. A monk called Fada visited the assembly of Hui Nong. Hui Nong was the sixth Chinese ancestor. The first one, Bodhidharma, came from India to China, and after that there were six more descendants, and so Hui Nong is the sixth from Bodhidharma, Chinese ancestor. And he was at Jialin Monastery in the Shan region of Tang, China. So this is while ago, 9th century. He boasted that he had chanted the Lotus Sutra 3,000 times.

[53:56]

This is the story. So the six ancestors said to him, well, even if you had chanted the sutra 10,000 times, if you don't understand the meaning of it, you won't even know your own mistakes. Poor guy. Fada said, well, because I'm stupid, I have only been able to follow the words and chant. How can I understand the meaning of it? Fada is kind of an honest guy. I'm not that bright, so I just keep chanting it. I don't get it. I don't understand. And Hway Nung says, well, chant it for me, and I will tell you the meaning. So Fada chants the sutra. And on chapter two, which is called Skillful Means, Hway Nung says, stop. Stop right there. The essential meaning of this sutra is the cause of the Buddha's emergence into the world. Many parables, many stories in the Lotus Sutra. We've been studying the Lotus Sutra right now as well with Reb Anderson. During January, we're doing an intensive studying the Lotus Sutra.

[55:00]

Many parables, stories are expanded, but there's nothing more than this. The cause is the single essential matter. We're getting down to it. It's like these phenomenologists are trying to find out what's the basic thing. So Dogen is going to tell us right now. What is the single essential matter? It is the Buddha unfolding knowledge and entering realization. You are originally Buddha knowledge. Talking to you. You, each one of you, are originally Buddha knowledge. You have this knowledge. You who have this knowledge are Buddha. You should trust right now that the Buddha knowledge is your own mind. What are you going to do? You already got it. Now what are you going to do? I mean, that's the challenge. You know, there's no way out. Buddha's own mind. Your mind is Buddha's mind. This is the mind. Same mind. And then he said, when your mind is deluded, you are turned by the Dharma blossoms, by the clock.

[56:05]

The world turns you when your mind is deluded. When your mind is enlightened, you turn to Dharma blossoms. You're the boss. If you cannot clarify the meaning after chanting the sutra at great length 3,000 times, you become its enemy. Thinking beyond thinking is right. Thinking about thinking is wrong. If thinking and beyond thinking do not divide the mind, you can steer the white ox skillfully. So then he goes on and says more about that. The meaning of the sutra is clear. It is you who are deluded. It's your mind that's confused. Your mind, when it's not confused, is Buddha. Anyway, so, you know, over and over again, this is the color of the true teaching. The simple color of awakening is it's your own mind. It's. You don't look outside. As soon as you're looking outside, well, that's what your mind's doing is looking outside.

[57:09]

That's all. So you're kind of using your mind to go look for your mind and to go look for enlightenment. And that's what the joke that keeps being told by the Zen teachers is like, whack, come on back. Where are you going? You're there. This is it. You're already there. You've arrived. It's this moment. Whoops, now it's this moment. Whoops, now it's this moment. There is no thing. that you can hold on to, that lasts. There's no person to hold on to it that lasts. There's no entity-ness here that's a thing, and there's no things you can get a hold of. And until you realize that, you keep trying, like that monkey in the trees, to get a hold of something. I got it now. Oh, now I got it. Oh, now I got it. But, you know, if you just hold on to one branch, you're going to get stuck in the forest. So you're going to have to let go and take another one, which is what we do. We're kind of moving through time and place, trying to get things. That's our way. So one reason we sit still is to pay attention to that tendency we have to try and get something.

[58:10]

I want to get something. I'm going to get something out of this, you know. And right in there is the liberative understanding. When you see that is the possibility of being free. So these teachings of the mind only are really to say, you know, the mind is like the ocean. The waves are like your current experience, your current thinking, what you think is going on. That's just a little wave in the ocean, then it goes down again, and then there's another wave, and it goes down again. So, if we move forward to verse 17, this transformation of consciousness that Vasubhanda has been talking about in the first 15 or 16 verses, this alaya... And then the manas and then the sixth sense consciousness is that whole shebang, that clockwork of consciousness and how it works that he's been describing to us is conceptualization. Telling stories, making up stories, imagining things.

[59:14]

What is conceptualized does not exist. Thus, everything is projection only. Imagination. All you got is what you imagine. Period, the end. So if you think that what you're imagining is something that's actually out there, he's saying, no, it's what you think is out there is what you think is out there. That's all. I just think it's out there. And I think I like what's out there or I don't like what's out there. And that's right. That's what you're thinking. And that's what's true for you right now. So as I've said before, what Vasubhanda's doing in the first half of the 30 verses is teaching us about our afflictions, our hatred, our anger, our opinions, our grabbing a hold of things. These are our afflictions as humans. We're born with all of these tendencies to grab and to want and to try to get and to protect the self, the affliction of self-clinging. And if I'm a self, I'm going to do whatever I can to get the best I can for this one, number one, numero uno.

[60:21]

That's our way. That's what we've been taught, you know. Our culture is particularly fond of that approach. You know, get the best you can for yourself. So overcoming the barrier of afflictions is the first step. You know, we have to kind of get to be a little bit better people. You know, do that, the kind of cleaning up the act, clean up your act, you know, don't talk like that as much, you know, try to calm it down. Don't don't speak in that way to other people. See what happens when you do that, you know, conflict. So you try to learn how to do things a little more gently, a little more kindly, more generously. So and then in the barrier of afflictions, when you overcome afflictions, basically the main affliction to overcome is the affliction of a separate self that needs to be protected, that needs to be safe from the other. Actually, the other is the thing I'm imagining I need to be safe from. This is my imagination. Here I am, you know, in the dark closet of my imagination, afraid of the dark closet of my imagination.

[61:27]

The irony of it all. So it's the delusion that leads to our alienation and our separateness and our loneliness and all of the things that we suffer. And that, you know, this is about Buddha was a physician. He didn't want us to suffer. So he wanted us to get out of the closet. of our imagination. Consciousness in all the seeds transform in various ways through the mutual influence produced by conceptualization. So there's a complex system going on. Lots of thoughts producing lots of thoughts. Seeds, seeds, plants, weeds, flowers, blossoms, all of that. Karmic impressions and the impressions of the grasping self as monkey in the trees and other produce further ripening in the form of karmic effect as these karmic effects are exhausted. So we run along We run out of that storyline and we pick up another storyline. And then we run out of that one. That wears out. And we pick up another one. And day by day, we've got this whole drama that's going on. And basically, we can write our journals about our life.

[62:29]

And it's all full of drama. And then this happened. Then this happened. And turn the page. And on we go. On we go. So we're just running through this kind of pattern of karmic effect. And eventually, each one is exhausted, runs out of steam, get another one. And then he says, verse 20, whatever thing is conceptualized by whatever conceptualization is of an imaginary nature, it does not exist. This is the imputational. You are imagining things. You are making things up. 21, the other dependent nature, what's actually there, is conceptualization arising from conditions. It's just what's coming up because of all the causes and conditions that you're looking at and saying is that way. I think it's like this. That's my story. The complete realized nature is the other dependent nature of always being devoid of the imaginary. This is always free of what's imagined about it. Your lamp is free from what you think of it. I am free from what you think of me, whether I know it or not.

[63:32]

And you are free from what I think of you. And so is the tree and the stars in the sky. Reality itself is free of what we think of it. So we want to get free of thinking of things in a certain way. you know, transform our thinking about things. And that's where our freedom is going to come. It's the imputational that has to be changed. We can't change the dependent core rising. It appears. But by changing the imputational, we can have a big influence on how we treat what appears. And then what happens next? Because it's all loose. It's loose cannons running around on the deck. So we can behave in a way that transforms that. So next week, because I'm noticing we are past time, I will carry on and get to the end of the 30 verses. I'll have a little bit of commentary to share. And then I will turn the page on Vasubhanda in the Yogacara and go to the next great teacher in the Transmission of Light.

[64:33]

If any of you remember where this all started, it started with a text called the Transmission of Light, which names all of the transmitted teachers in the line that makes up Zen. So we've been going through these people. We went with Buddha and Ananda and Mahakashapa. And then we skipped up to Nagarjuna, who's the emptiness teaching. And then we went to Vasubhanda, who's the mind only teaching. So now we have the two big sets of philosophical underpinnings for Zen. So what's going to happen next, my plan is to jump ahead to Bodhidharma. who is the Chinese, well-trained Chinese teacher, Indian teacher, who was sent to China by his teacher. And it's interesting to note that when Bodhidharma went to China, he took with him a mind-only sutra, the Lankapatara Sutra, which for the very beginning years of Zen in China was considered to be the primary understanding, was mind-only.

[65:39]

It was later on... the sixth ancestor who I mentioned, Hui Nong, who changed the lineage from the mind only to the Prajnaparamita, the emptiness teaching. So it was a big shift that happened with the sixth ancestor. Now, after we look at Bodhidharma and his teaching, then we'll go briefly through the five ancestors that follow Bodhidharma until we get to... Big number six, because a whole big thing happened with Hui Nong that has influenced the entire career of all of us Zen folks. You know, coming from Bodhidharma, a whole bunch of stuff changed. Rinzai Zen and Soto Zen and Suzuki Roshi and everything else. There's these rivers that flowed from how these people understood the Buddhist teaching and how they convinced others to buy into their understanding. So schools were formed. by the fact that other people came and valued what these teachers said.

[66:40]

And they said, I like that. I think I'm going to take that on. I'm going to teach that to my students. So those of us at Zen Center are basically committed to teaching Suzuki Roshi's style of Zen, Soto Zen. So that's part of what our, I came here and I like it. So that's my way. And I'm carrying on that lineage by my own choice and giving my own life. So she's gone, but Soto Zen is flowing through those who live. Continue. Anyway, that's where we are. We're up to 22. And yeah. So I greatly appreciate all of you hanging in there. I know this is kind of like, huh? You know, it's, Anyway, it's okay. I'm not that sorry. I think it's such wonderful stuff that I'm just going to keep on bringing it to you. And please, as I said, your questions are always welcome.

[67:43]

I do have an email. And if there was something about the teaching you wanted to ask about, I would certainly welcome you communicating to me about that. Okay, so I'll say goodbye. And if anyone wants to stay on for a few minutes and ask a question or something like that, you're welcome to do that. Just raise either your actual hand or your little hand. It's down there under the reactions box at the bottom. It's in a new place now, I've noticed. My little hand is under reactions at the bottom of the screen. Millicent. Australia. Yes, well, nice to see you again. Thank you, Sue. Yeah, we just had a wonderful gathering yesterday. We did. A hidden lamp. Yes. Welcome. Nice to see you. Thank you.

[68:45]

A quick and easy question. The Dogen fascicle you were talking about, which one is it? Hoke ten Hoke, Blossoms Turning Blossoms. It's particularly one of his... You know, he was a Tendai monk, so he studied the Lotus Sutra for a very long time. So this one is actually directly related to the Lotus Sutra. Hoke, H-O-K-K-E, Ten, D-E-N, Hoke, H-O-K-K-E. Blossoms turning blossoms. Yeah. It's a delightful fashion. Catherine, is that your old hand or is that a new hand? It's a new hand?

[69:46]

Yeah, it's a new hand. Oh, okay. Yeah, I just, you had mentioned that there was a book you wanted to recommend to me, and I was just wondering if you could repeat the title and also maybe give a little more explanation as to why. Happy to. I think it's a very accessible book. I think those folks who've been reading along, following along, have found it beneficial. Yeah. I trust that's true. Anyway, it's called Inside Vasubandhu's Yogacara. Kind of a long, hard to know what that is. But anyway, it's by a man named Ben Connolly. C-O-N-N-E-L-L-Y. And it's very helpful to bring you up to speed on this teaching of the mind only teaching. I think he does a lovely job. He's a very good teacher. He's a Zen teacher. And I think he makes much of this accessible. I've found it very helpful. Anyway, so that's the one I was going to recommend. Thank you. You're welcome. Lisa had a question about a suggestion for the next text.

[71:01]

Yeah. Lisa. Since all books come from afar now, do you have a suggestion for what the text will be, or will there be a text for Bodhidharma? Yeah, I'll give you that one. I'll give it to you next week. I will finish up the 30 verses, Scout's Honor, and then I will tell you, because I'm going to think about it a little bit. There's some There's a lot of stuff. So I think I'll pull through what I have and recommend maybe one like his blood sermon is really amazing. The blood sermon, Bodhidharma's blood sermon. There's also, you know, he's kind of an apocryphal figure. I mean, a lot of these, there's a really wonderful book. Maybe I should recommend that first called Seeing Through Zen by Dr. McRae. Seeing Through Zen has double meaning, seeing through Zen and seeing through Zen.

[72:04]

Yeah. seeing the world through Zen and then also penetrating, like, oh, I get it. I get what Zen's up to. So it's a kind of double. He plays with it in that way. And seeing through Zen, he basically is saying that the Tang dynasty, the great masters of the Tang dynasty, who are like the golden age of Zen, as it's called, are mostly apocryphal. They were created in the Song dynasty as retroactive attributions. So the guys in the Song wanted to have these really great predecessors. I mean, I'm going to be a really great, Suzuki Roshi is my, right, is my founder. So that gives me a lot of cachet. So what they were doing was something very similar. They were creating these very big personalities in the Tang dynasty so that they were descendants of these great teachers. And they... did some writing for them and they gave them biographies and all that. But there's really very little evidence of most of them having even existed.

[73:05]

So it's kind of, it's both fun and discouraging as Reb and I were saying some years back when we began to get this scholarly material. Well, this is sad. You know, that's not what I want to hear. I want my Zen guys to be like the real thing. And I want them to have said those amazing things. And, you know, and as McRae says, it doesn't matter if it's a good story, it's a good story. You know, and these are beautiful writings. Somebody wrote it. And so we wouldn't, you know, so it wasn't Bodhidharma. Somebody wrote it and it's wonderful teaching. So I think that the trick is to really pay attention to the Dharma as it floats through these cultures. and becomes illuminated. So they all had a big influence and it was really believed to be so until very recent scholarship that these were actual people and they actually did do these amazing things that they're attributed to them. So we're in the reality school by no fault of our own.

[74:10]

These scholars have done all this work now, right? So there's no tooth fairy either. I know. Are you sure? There used to be when I was little. Maybe she only comes to kids. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Kate. Hi, Kate. You were also at the reading group yesterday. Nice to see you again. I was at that group and I really enjoyed it so much. I enjoyed it so much that when we finished, I called my sister in the Midwest and we had a conversation about it and I was very excited. And I was explaining to her that, oh, you know, through the years in San Francisco, I would go and do Dharma talks. at the Zen Center, and they were so beautiful, and I would always sleep feeling full, and with so much to think about.

[75:19]

But I didn't step into practice. I was very intimidated by practice. And so I was having this conversation with my sister, and she said, yes, but where, who's a Christian, and she said, but where is God? You talk about Buddha and I hear you talk about these things of which I'm not even sure I'm telling her correctly. And I'm not even sure when I talk to her, I'm so new. I don't even know if I'm telling her anything that's correct or not. But I said to her, when I see a teacher next, I will ask them. I thought to myself, is that Buddha mine? God? Maybe, maybe not. So I will ask. So I'm asking you. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah.

[76:21]

I would. Yeah, I think for Buddhism, God is basically dependable arising. It's creation itself without the creator. The miracle of creation, which, you know, we can all testify to. Yeah. The flowers in spring and the mist on the fields and, you know, the magic of the violin. I mean, I think God is in the living of it. A living of this life is the God, you know, the weaving, incorporating the forms of spring. So it's not like there is or isn't something. In fact, the Buddha declined to answer those questions. Is there a God? Isn't there a God? Is there a life after death? Isn't there a life after death? He said, those questions are not going to help you become free. You're going to have to become free from what it is that's got you trapped. So you have to start there with this finding the realization of your own entrapment, of your own how the mind is caught in its structures, its habits.

[77:33]

So he was really about freeing beings from the causes of their suffering. And then, you know, I always say to people, it's fine. You can have, you know, you can do whatever you want. You can decorate your altar with anything you like. You know, it doesn't have a, I have a Ganesh. You know, I like Ganesh. It's got an elephant nose. I think you can have anything you like that inspires your sense of this is alive for me. This is a life, you know, without having to join a particular club. So, yeah, Suzuki Rashi said, you know, Buddhism isn't like those other religions. It's not like Christianity or Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism. I know you're looking, you're looking like, huh? I know that's exactly right. It's like, what? I'm actually not. Oh, okay.

[78:33]

It was interesting because yesterday Florence was saying that she was at the Universalist Unitarian Church in Champaign-Urbana, and this is where my sister lives. Ah. Yeah. And so, and I went to the university there. Yeah. many many many decades ago and so i'm very familiar with champagne urbana and so um but i was curious about um oh so she's a buddhist priest which she also gets to be a minister that's pretty interesting and um you know so i i was kind of just i don't know the you know i i felt like there were some connections that were happening yesterday, just because I know, I know the lay of the land there and she is there. And then my sister's there. And I grew up on a farm about 45 minutes outside of there.

[79:35]

So I know the territory, you know? And so, but I mean, it kind of blew my mind that a Buddhist priest would also be at the helm of, you know, what I think of as like a church, like a regular church. Although, you know, I know that Unitarian is all encompassing of all ways of all spiritualities and all theologies and that. So in a way it makes sense. But to me, somehow it felt really satisfying that, you know, I said to my sister, so then really, if she's giving, if she's giving like sermons, I wonder if she's really giving Dharma talks, you know, just like all these things. Right. And then I'm just like, but wait, sermons actually probably are Dharma talk, but they're not based on the Dharma.

[80:41]

They're like based on a different person's holy person's viewpoint or, or, practice or whatever mode of belief that they brought in that they gave us, gave the world, right? So anyway, it just was really fun. And I remember telling my sister, okay, so based on the Dharma talks that I've heard through the years, I'm imagining, and this is just my imagination, which you just spoke to in this whole last hour, right? About our imaginations. But I said, I'm imagining that Buddhism would say that about this whole, is there a God or is there a Godhead or is there not a Godhead? I'm imagining, I'm telling her yesterday, that Buddhism would say, what does it mean?

[81:44]

What does it mean? And so anyways... So we just had a lot of fun with the teacher when I see one next, which is right now. And I said, but I have, that's you. I have been to a lot of Dharma talks and I have read, you know, Zen mind, beginner's mind and some of Roshi's things that he has put forth. And so I told my sister, you know what I bet? I bet you that Buddha would say, what does it matter? It doesn't really matter. If there's, is there a God? Isn't there a God? Does it really matter? Because what really matters is just right now, this minute, that's what really matters. Now, this is an imagination. I have no idea. Yeah, that's a pretty good one. I like it. But I was just making it up based on, you know, the Dharma talks that I've heard at Zen Center. But so. Anyway, now you've given me an answer, and I'm going to report back to my sister in Illinois.

[82:52]

That's wonderful. And maybe she'll go to Florence Church and maybe check her out. Who knows? Oh, that's how it works. That's just how it works. I joined the Interfaith Council because I really like – I was a Christian kid. I grew up as a Christian, Episcopalian, way back in the day. And, you know, I loved church, and it was really sad when I couldn't believe in God anymore because I – Didn't get it. I thought, I don't get that. So, you know, I had to wander around in the desert for a long time. Like, what am I going to do now? I'm a very spiritual person in my heart of hearts. You know, I like to be like Teresa of Avalar and, you know, gaze at the stars and think all these romantic things. So I felt really bereft of a no God. And so Buddhism has been a wonderfully solid kind of like in its... Lack of solidity is oceanicness. It's like, oh, I can swim. You know, I don't have to be on ground here. But one of the things that I said to my friends in the interfaith, so nuns and their nuns and rabbis and all this stuff are really good friends.

[83:53]

I said, you know, we're not like minded, but we're like hearted. Say that again. We're not like minded, but we're like hearted. We're like hearted. We all want people to not be suffering and we want the kids to have food and go to school. And, you know, so that part was so clear. Everything we did and wanted to do was coming from that that same like heartedness. But they start talking about their different doctrines and stuff. And I go, I don't know. Now we're starting to go off, you know. Anyway, nice to see you, Kate. Welcome back. Thank you. Yeah. You too. Yeah. Yeah. And I just say that what you addressed at the beginning, I'm very I have a lot of gratitude for your speaking to that because it's on my heart a lot. And so. I just I think right now it's it takes courage.

[85:02]

It takes courage. And so I just appreciate it very much. Thank you. Your courage and your speaking to it. Thank you. Yesterday we were doing a story that I had comment, a poem that I had commented on in a book called The Hidden Lamp. That's why I knew Kate and the other lady, I've forgotten her name. But the poem was about the This woman who's looking, he's walking, an old woman is walking in the woods with a basket. And Zhao Zhou, his great Zen master Zhao Zhou, says to her, where are you going? And she says to Zhao Zhou, I'm going to go steal some of Zhao Zhou's bamboo shoots. And Zhao Zhou says to her, well, what will you do if you run into Zhao Zhou? And the woman goes up and slaps him in the face. So this is a con, which I thought was a great con. So I had written a little commentary on that. But I think courage was one of the words that yesterday too came up for me.

[86:07]

It's like, I think it takes courage for us to speak, you know, not to be afraid to say our thing. And also it takes playfulness, our willingness to not hold on to our views, but to offer them freely. Like I want to play with ideas. I don't want to beat you up with them. Yeah. I'd like to hear what you think and how you see things. And then listen to how I think and see things. And maybe we can come up with something so we can play together and not have this kind of, you can't be in my space. You can't be in my playground. So I really think learning how to collaborate, which is one of the principles of political science, is collaboration versus warfare. So I'm all for collaboration. and I'm grateful to have the teachings, and I'm grateful to have the Sangha, which is what you all are, the great assembly. As Rep has been telling us, you are the great assembly. So thank you all so much. I wish you a good evening, and please take care.

[87:11]

Stay safe. Hopefully vaccines are on the way. Hope you all get one soon, and then maybe we can meet in person. That would be lovely to come out to Green Gulch. We can go to Champlain. Good night. Thank you. Good night. Good night, everyone. Bye, everyone. Bye-bye, everyone. Bye-bye. Good night, friends. Good night. Good night, Phu. Good night, guys. See you next week. Yeah, wonderful. I look forward to it. Have a good retreat all week. Oh, it's really fun. I mean, yeah, it's complicated, but it's... It's really fun. There's like 220 people or something. And Reb's doing public, you know, he's doing this thing, like come forward. And have you seen any of it? Did you go in on any of it? You know, so it's really like public doksan. And the first day he started, because the first chapter of the Lotus Sutra is the Great Assembly, is introducing the Great Assembly.

[88:11]

So he named every person. 200 names. And we're all going like, is he really doing this? He really was. And so we just had to relax. And after a while, it was like, oh, yeah. It took about an hour. And it was like, so now he keeps talking to us. And we're the great assembly. And I thought, that's pretty cool. The great assembly. The great assembly. We'll reconvene tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow. That's right. Enjoy it. Thank you. I will. I do. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye.

[88:45]

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