It's too loud. wireless interference. Some wireless device is interfering with this, just a little bit. I'll take it off. Yeah, it's possible to put the devices in the airplane. You have to sound a little bit That's it.

[01:29]

Thank you. For anybody who's sitting over here, just so you know, we usually angle those chairs, but we didn't.

[03:36]

So if you feel like not creating your neck and you want to actually turn it, please feel totally free to room your chairs. Are you ready, Dan?

[05:57]

All right. Good evening, everyone. Welcome, whether you're here in the city center, Zendo, or... joining us online and now or later. My name is Eli. I'm a resident priest here at City Center, and I'll be helping kind of facilitate tonight's event. So it's probably pretty clear by now, but in lieu of a Dharma talk, I wanted to welcome you to a community gathering with the City Center Sangha in collaboration with Community Village, who, if you may not be familiar, are a group of practitioners with a community-first approach to meditation oriented towards people in their 20s and 30s. So tonight, each community will say a bit about what defines their communities and kind of emphasize their uniqueness and ways that they connect younger generations to spiritual practice.

[07:04]

Tonight's panel consists of community village founders, Nina, is it Raddy? Caleb Tenenbaum? and then also Richard Bay. And then from Zen Center, we have current CFO, soon to be incoming president, Michael McCord, who's also a resident priest here at City Center. So as we come together, nearing the reopening of this beautiful temple in 2025, we really hope to more effectively engage with younger demographics. And so tonight will hopefully be the first of many gatherings to explore how our communities can enhance and support each other for deeper cooperation. So I'll start things off by giving the panelists some prompts, and then we'll open it up to hear your voices and to receive your questions. So with that, let's hop into things. And thanks again.

[08:07]

Nina, Richard, and Caleb for being willing to do this on such short notice. So if you could all just start off by briefly introducing yourself and then also saying some words about the community you're part of and the core practices that define it. Yeah, can you all hear me? I'm not so used to holding microphones, but that's good. So first of all, I just really wanna thank Eli and Tim and Michael and the San Francisco Zen Center for allowing us to be here. It's really beautiful. We're so happy that these conversations are happening. And also thanks for everyone who came. It's also lovely to see some familiar faces and we're really looking forward to having this much needed conversation tonight. So I'll say a few words about community village and maybe just the core approach we have.

[09:10]

And Eli, I feel like you already said everything, but I'll just repeat what you said. So community village is, we call it a community first approach to meditation for people in their 20s and 30s. And when we say community first... What we mean by that is a lot of our focus is we're trying to create activities around meditation practice and complementary to it. And it's just really one of the main things is we want to foster community around the practice and create opportunities to connect and talk about practice, talk about what we experience in practice. And the way it came about was actually ourselves as practitioners, that we were feeling pretty lonely sometimes. And we really had this urge to talk to other people about what we were learning. And on retreats, it felt a bit like, for me, I went, I was silent, didn't look at anyone, and then everyone was gone.

[10:19]

And I had these beautiful experiences, and I just wished to share a bit about them. And the same thing with apps a little bit. that so many young people who first get into meditation these days will use apps, and that's beautiful, but it's the same experience. It's just very lonely. And so it started from there, from this wish to create opportunities. And I think the core thing we do is we have a regular peer-led sit, and we'll say a little bit more about that later, but one thing we do there is we have community-building time. And what happens during that time is we create these events around meditation and we create them together. We create them in community. So everyone, whether you're a longtime member or you come to this for the first time, actually is called to say, oh, I would love to do this and have everyone share in it. And some of the things we do, for example, are mindful hikes or mindful picnics together.

[11:20]

Book clubs are a really big thing that... People like a lot. And also what we do is we go to other meditation centers, but together as a group. So we've gotten pretty good at carpools now. And so we will go with six, seven, eight people to visit various centers from various traditions. We'll go together. And then after that, we'll have lunch together or we'll have ice cream together, as I think is a tradition here for the Young Urban Zen group too. So just to, yeah. just to have community around that. And that really allows, I think, for deep friendships to form and community. And I think that's a lot of what we're looking for these days, probably no matter what age. And the last thing I'll say is one other thing we do is we have an introductory meditation journey that is also a lot about how

[12:23]

We want to be in sangha. It's a lot about community, actually, and about community practices. And there are some people here today, which makes me happy that we're a part of that. And yeah, I think I'll leave it at that. Did I miss anything? Thank you so much, Michael. So as you probably noticed from all the things that Nina was saying, that there's a lot of opportunity for overlap with what San Francisco Zen Center does and a lot of things to learn about what is growing up organically around us. And that's the reason for tonight is thinking of there's this phenomenon. If you come to Young Urban Zen, you notice that there's a lot of folks from... the commons from the center, from community village, and there's these organic communities that are starting to come and swell, and we'll have probably, well, we have almost every room, every place in this room filled up for Young Urban Zen.

[13:28]

And sometimes it's the folks from Community Village carpooling here and then other folks going out and having ice cream afterward. So this is coming from how can we learn from what's organically growing up and coming into the temple? And San Francisco Zen Center, most people know what it is or has been, but the question is what will it be? And we want to tap into... our traditions and be able to share them and let them breathe. But anyone who has ever studied Buddhism knows that it has to morph and change in order for Buddhism to be relevant in the culture that it's in. And that's what's happened to every country that it went to. So San Francisco Zen Center has been around since really the early 60s and the late 50s had its foundings. And it's a core Soto Zen, Soto being the type of Zen and Zen being the type of Buddhism temple and one of the first training temples outside of Asia.

[14:31]

And we've had that going on with a model that's worked fairly well for us. And yet we don't want it to become stagnant. And we realize that there's a lot of things that we want to learn about what people are excited about today. and not just keep doing the same model that we've been doing with the assumption that that's what works and will always work. So that's why I'm excited to have this conversation here this evening. Wonderful. So am I on? Okay, yeah. The next question, and you didn't speak to this in slight, Nina, but if you could elaborate too. What are some unique aspects of each community that particularly from a practice perspective. So you can include rituals, the type of outings that you do, the type of teachings or how you collect teachings, and organizational structures or community structures in this case.

[15:32]

Yeah, so I think how we're unique is we are cross-lineage. So we accept practitioners from any tradition, teaching, or practice. And yeah, when we gather all these people, a beautiful thing happens is that we all get to share our different viewpoints and understand that there are different viewpoints and traditions and honor and respect each one of those as well. And like Nina said, we also visit other Dharma centers so people can find what resonates for them because there's many ways to practice. And we support the fact that the individual finds their own path, and we support that path, whatever it may be. And another aspect is that we are peer-led and co-created. A really important part is that anything we build together, we really wish that everyone gets involved and, yeah, have that be a community effort and have everyone's voices heard. Richard.

[16:43]

Yeah, I think, are we on the meaning of community? No, I mean, I think just to bring forth some of the unique aspects of each community, particularly in our practices. And so many people may be aware of Zen, but many people may not. So if you just want to speak to some of the rituals, the core teachings, and kind of in brief, because it would be too long, what our organizational structure... Not in great detail, but... The practice of Zen, chapter one. I think one of the things that I want to comment on are misunderstandings about what's going on here in the Zen temple that I commonly see and talk about with folks that come to Young Urban Zen. First of all, you don't have to be someone who calls yourself a Buddhist to practice here. Secondly, if you come here and you practice, We don't have a tradition of eventually we will convert you into a Buddhist, and that's our goal.

[17:48]

We actually let you unfurl as you come here. And I love the statement. Someone asked the Dalai Lama once. They said, there's so many great things in Buddhism. Shouldn't everybody be a Buddhist? And he, without hesitation, said, if someone is in a spiritual tradition that's working well for them, that's what they should stick with. And so just like when someone's on the priest path, let's say, at Zen Center, and they want to be a Zen priest, they don't come into the temple day one and say, I would like to be a Zen priest. They meet with a teacher. They see what's right for them. Sometimes someone might ordain as a Zen priest after five years. Someone might ordain as a Zen priest after 25 years. And someone might never ordain as a Zen priest. And it's just letting people come in and unfurl in the context that Buddhism holds letting a person reveal and become manifest in the universe. And that's the thing that I think a lot of folks don't realize is that if they come here and they meet with a teacher or someone who is a Zen priest, that priest has got a goal for them.

[18:52]

And by the end of the year, this person will, you know, sow a rakasu or take the precepts of Buddhism. And if they don't, then there's something that's failed. And that is what I really want to illuminate is there isn't this fixed goal for a person that comes here. These are the traditions of Soto Zen that we think are beautiful and wonderful. And like everything in Buddhism, we have to be open to things morphing and changing or else it's a fixed idea. So all of those things we hold with great reverence. And they're just things that people do until they take on significance to help a person be in this body, in this moment, right now. Thank you for that, Michael. And later I will want feedback on that because, yes, we have maybe this attitude at Zen Center, but something is not translating or is not being recognized, I think, by many. But before that, if we could talk about what...

[19:53]

the concept of community means to each of your communities? The concept of community. I think for me, community is a practice ground. Probably a lot of you have heard something along the lines of, if you think your practice is going well, if you think you're enlightened, go spend a week with your family. See what happens then. And there's a reason for that, right? Because it's different. Practicing alone as me or you or any of us and then practicing with one other person or two other people or a family or all 30 or 40, 50 of us, hundreds of us online, who knows? It's different. It's just different. And so what community is for me is a bridge. Why should you have to go from yourself to the most difficult situation? I want to be practicing tomorrow when I'm having coffee with a friend.

[20:56]

I want to be practicing this weekend when I'm going on a hike with friends. And that's where truly we're able to support each other in the practice, where we're able to be mirrored and remind each other of the way that we want to show up in the world and of our true nature. And it doesn't happen unless we have people around us who are like-minded, like-hearted, and are able to, whether it's actually correcting us by saying, hey, you did that thing that you said you weren't going to do, keeping each other accountable, or if it's just something that arises naturally when we know that we've set an intention with our friends, our spiritual friends, and then we're not following it, and the discomfort that is felt there. Community is a practice ground. It's life. Thank you for that beautiful expression. Would either of you like to comment as well before we go to Michael? I think that the community aspect is one that is a lot of folks come to Zen for meditation first and usually some sort of focusing the mind or some sort of centering.

[22:18]

And then there's an assumption, well, there'll be people around. There'll be community. And then they hear about the triple treasure called Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And they're like, well, okay. I mean, I get the Sangha part. Yeah, there'll be people around. We'll practice together. But I think that it ends up being one of the most powerful teachers. is that, and many of you might have been at the Dharma talk last Wednesday night when Kodo talked a little bit about leaving the Sangha and kind of realizing the power of that structure that was here. It can be incredibly beautiful to have like-minded practitioners around you helping you raise the bar for yourself and to just remind yourself of your intention and how it is that you want to be in the world. And it can be incredibly maddening to be known and to be that intimate with other people who know you for your weaknesses and the things that you're not so great at. And after a period of time, the thought about the teacher coming here for meditation starts to morph into, wow, I'm learning a lot from the mirrors that the Sangha is holding up to me, and how I am not actually really as conscious as I thought I was.

[23:33]

And, wow, I really wasn't in that conversation. And I made that comment, and I took that thing personally, and, wow, I'm petty. And, you know, I think that, like, Caleb was saying about the family like you go spend time around your family you know this community here is a residential community and we have folks that come in from the outside that spend significant time with this community too and those relationships create kind of an extended family that you live in and it's a wonderful teaching experience and some days it can be very maddening and Yeah, but I think it's one of the unique things. It's one of the few places where people can come and practice and live residentially. And we have over 100 residents in the three different temples in the Bay Area. And to have that many people practicing and living together is very unique. And it's a beautiful teacher.

[24:35]

while I have you on this subject, it's not on your list, so sorry, I'm throwing a curveball, but I'm just curious if you could speak to some of the challenges that come up in your community or even the structure or how it's held or however that question lands. So, I don't know how you feel about it, but for me, when you say challenges, I think it's something that we don't want to shy away from, but we want to invite. I think in any community, these challenges are really an opportunity to grow. And for us, community, for me, community in some sense, when I was thinking about it yesterday, is really a process. And it's a process that for me personally, I feel has something to do with love and care, but also with discomfort and being willing to feel that discomfort and taking on that challenge and finding and exploring ways of how can we be together or

[26:03]

What does a community look like where we can invite these challenges in? And though it's hard, we know why we're doing that. We know we're doing that because we want to get to a place where we can feel that we belong to each other and where we feel that we're connected and recognize at the same time there is so much separation. And what is that? And not be afraid to talk about that. Yeah, that's what first comes to mind for me. And I could go on for ages, but I'll stop. I don't know if you have anything to add. I can share a specific challenge as well. Just Southern Knight, we have this new structure we started called Working Groups for the community to come together and work together on building the community in different ways. And so we're doing a fundraising working group right now. And one of the members came and said, you know, we were deciding, it was the end of the first part of the working group.

[27:05]

And we went around and kind of said, do we want to continue in this working group? And one person said, no, I don't want to. I enjoyed this experience. And right now I don't see myself reflected in the fundraising goals. So I'd like to learn more about it before I continue. And I lit up from the inside because I said, this is amazing that he's sharing this, that he's courageous enough to speak his heart and say, no, I don't think this is working for me. So we said, okay, we're having a round table in three weeks, and we're going to talk about this as a community. We're going to go on a walk on Friday and talk about it and share more heart-to-heart. Hey, what do you want to see in this community? What are you not seeing that's important to you? And those are the sorts of challenges that I think, like Nina said, It looks like a challenge at first, and then you say, oh, wow, this is actually an opportunity for deepening friendship and deepening community. Wow, opportunity and challenges. We could definitely learn a lot, I think, from you here. Michael, did you want to speak to some of our challenges? Well, I think the main thing is just like any large organization, that when you first have the startup and the beginnings of something, there's so many things that are yet to be defined.

[28:17]

that it feels way more flexible and fluid in the moment. And then once you get momentum of several decades of like, this is how we do things, that I think that the organization just has to remind themselves of, oh, wait a second, there might be some things that work great, but are we really listening to what isn't working great? So just the momentum of having success can become your own downfall. And so this organization has had a lot of success and a lot of beautiful things come out of it. But because of that, you can end up worshiping the past. And I think that just the momentum of that is something that needs to be kept alive, that that is what's going on, that is the dynamic. And that's one of the reasons for integrating with different groups and trying to have discussions with people who have never been here before to see what it is that we can learn for what comes next. for that. And yeah, I totally agree with you, by the way.

[29:19]

So the next series of prompts are going to emphasize a lot more on how you all have engaged with young people. And so the first one is, what have each of your communities learned around what young people are appreciating and seeking? i won't i'm not going to define that uh yeah from what we've seen is um i think it's community it's uh spiritual friendship it's connection and like in the beginning the meditation for at least the non-resident and lay practitioner is is somewhat lonely because you sit at home or even come to a dharma center and there's really nothing outside of that um And so the fact that as Community Village, the events that we host, we can gather together like-minded people, have these events where people can have heartfelt, deep conversations, talk about their practice and their experience and how they relate to it.

[30:27]

I think that all is really something that helps sustain, support, and also enrich everyone's practice. I think of it like a net that is being built that is that is the sangha and so that's that level of support and it keeps getting stronger in which anyone is welcome to join in and be supported we're missing something because I feel like we have a lot of these components but yeah something is acting as a barrier Michael Would you like to speak to that? I know most of our connection is probably through Younger Bin Zen, but would you like to share anything? We just got a lot younger in the last three months because we had... Inzo Village, our retirement center, which we've been planning for a long time, a beautiful center up in Healdsburg.

[31:30]

We now have, I think, 12 people, 13 people living up there that were all long-time, multi-decade practitioners here, priests and leaders and abbots and abbesses, and they all... just moved and so symbolically we are feeling as an organization like their absence they used to live in this room they used to give this talk and now they're living in Healdsburg so I think that right now it's very symbolic that what's happening with Young Urban Zen is kind of exploding and a lot of interest in folks that however they self-define as younger are coming in, and there just feels like there's this opportunity right now for what will happen next. But yeah, I think the demographic feels a lot younger. I mean, I think for the first time, we have three Abbots that are under 60. Is that right? Well, I don't want to... Under 65.

[32:34]

Just barely, but not when he was ordained. But that's a huge shift, you know, just in regard to the fact that most people are in now Generation X or younger as far as the folks that are leading Zen centers. So, yeah, we need to keep our eyes open. I always am asked by people at Young Urban Zen, am I too old? like there's someone who'll come in, they've been coming for like eight years, and then they'll ask me like, can I still come here? And I tell them it's self-defined, you know, so including the urban and the Zen. So this next question is very much linked to that, but I was wondering if you could go to a little bit more detail about what structures, offerings, specific practices seem to speak to better to younger folks? And how did you go about even figuring that out?

[33:36]

Was it just trial and error? Was it just self insight? Yeah. So I think as for things that have worked for us or offerings that seem to be very popular, I'd say definitely everything in person. No one wants to be online anymore. There's this real craving for feeling the presence of others and everything. I mean, most of what we do is that, actually, and that is working really well. Hikes and picnics, everything outdoors, I'd say, is pretty popular. And, yeah, we measure that just by how many people show up and for the hikes, It's becoming more and more. I think the last one we had was 20 people on a hike. That felt really beautiful just to walk for a day together.

[34:38]

And another thing that works very well is book clubs. Our book clubs are super popular. Right now we're reading Awakening Together by EBMC co-founder and teacher Larry Yang. And that's really about how do we build inclusive relationships and welcoming communities for everyone. So we're reading that as a community and talking about how do we do that? What are ways to do that? So that's another thing that's popular and worked well. And then our 30-day journeys. So these introductory meditation journeys work so well. It's very small groups that come together of around eight people. And just the size of group is so helpful in creating very strong bonds and strong friendships. And we've done 20 of those so far. And some people who are here have actually done so. And many of the people who are in those have become almost like the ground on which Community Village grew and have really been so important for this.

[35:43]

So thank you at this point. and yeah I think in terms of more within the events and gatherings themselves I've mentioned that already what really works is smaller groups because one thing that's so important to create this deep connection and friendship is to allow yourself to be vulnerable and if you're in a group of many people that's Very difficult for most people. So having these one-on-ones or even smaller groups is really helpful there. And we do that regularly. That's worked super well. And our community board, I think. So really this creating events together and giving everyone the sense from the first time they come, you are a part of this and you can actively create this with us. And... One of the things we do there is we celebrate also. So we celebrate everyone for what they've created. We celebrate our volunteers.

[36:45]

And just this celebrating together and appreciating each other in that way, to me it feels really good, and I have a sense it does that for others too. Yeah. Would you like to add to that? I can speak a little bit to how we got here, which is, I think you mentioned it, a lot of trying things out, a lot of failing, a lot of, like, at the beginning, we had, like, more different types of gatherings and structures than we have now. This was two years ago. We had a whole lot less people. And so, like... Yeah, we came in with all these ideas and all these visions of, like, we're going to do everything. And we're going to, like, inspired by San Francisco Zen Center and Insight Meditation Center, like, we're going to have offerings for everyone and every type of thing you could possibly do. And then we have, like, one person show up. We're like, oh, yeah, okay, it's not going to work. Like, it's a bad idea. It's like, it's not a bad idea. We just don't have any members yet. So then we went through a correction phase of kind of being like, okay, what's really working?

[37:51]

And asking the community. What do you enjoy? What do you want that we're not doing yet? What do you love that we're doing? And refocusing. And now we're getting to a point where just yesterday we put out our May newsletter. We're starting to add more again. And we're starting to bring back some of the ideas we had years ago. So yeah, a lot of trial and error and a lot of active feedback from the community and discussion on what do you want? What do you want to create? What do you want to see created? And how can we do this together? Before I move on to this side for some more answers, I'm really quickly just very curious. Could you say more about... No, it didn't. Pardon me. I put it the last way. Thank you for the last response. It's clear why you all are a community-first approach. Before you go on, out of just curiosity, I'm wondering if you could say a few more words about what a 30-day meditation journey is.

[38:55]

I'm curious. Maybe others are. Okay, so the 30-day journey started in September of 2020, when I was sitting in my room, alone, meditating, as were many other billions of people in the world. And I thought, I want to connect with my friends. And so I started sending out text reminders of inspirational quotes from meditation teachers and guided meditations and reflection questions. And the idea was, you'll get a text every day, the invitation is to meditate every day. And then we get together once per week and we talk about what did we learn and how's it going. Most of the time it's like, oh, I forgot to meditate half the time, but here's what's going on with my spouse or my son or my friend that's really troubling me. And that's where the real grounds of community were born, where it's like, okay, let's listen to each other. deeply and let's share vulnerably about what's going on in our lives and see how the teachings can relate to that and how they can bring us some freedom from suffering, hopefully.

[40:01]

So what it is today is it's weekly content, meditation and reflection questions. It's weekly 90-minute to two-hour gatherings where we meditate together, we share about what's going on, and we get to know each other personally. And... Yeah, it's really beautiful what happens. It's for five weeks, so it's a structured amount of time that I think commitment and accountability are kind of dirty words in our generation. And what we're trying to do here also is to reinvent and retranslate these words and step into an experience where we can realize, as I have many times, that... these words are actually the portals to connection and the portals to meaning. Even though they're scary at first, even though it's just committing for five weeks, it makes a difference. That's the 30-day journey. Michael, I'm going to kind of say you, or Richard, did you have something to add before?

[41:05]

Okay. So Michael, I wanted to kind of... emphasize the work you've done specifically at the Common. You're very involved with Young Urban Zen and also have, to my knowledge, made good connections with a lot of younger students. And so I'm just curious if you could say a little bit about how that has happened, obviously through your Zen practice, even though maybe the rest of the institution has not made that connection yet completely. Well, I almost first feel like interviewing Richard and asking him how this happens. But with the folks that have come in that have been at Young Urban Zen, I find that the thing that has really connected the most has been building bridges to the relevance of what we're doing here to the mundane and the everyday life. And like, how does it translate?

[42:05]

And the thing I was really surprised with is the commons down the street, largely folks in their 20s and 30s. I was giving a talk there, and I asked what subject that folks would want to talk about. And several people that had been here at Young Urban Zen wanted me to talk about Zen ritual. And I thought... Now, that's not what I thought was going to be asked, but it was because what they found with working in a place where there are many of them working remote or in their apartments or having kind of an unstructured work life, and they found that the grounding of things that were being done in the temple were actually very translatable when the story was told. The thing that I think is oftentimes difficult is when the story or the external of what's going on here looks like of folks that are doing something really formal and really religious and if you come here and you do it wrong you're going to ruin someone's religious experience and they're going to be upset or they aren't going to tell you but they're going to feel upset and then you're going to feel guilty and then it was silent time but I said something or a bell hit and I didn't do the right thing or whatever so it sets up kind of like this mousetrap world where you're just kind of like oh when's something going to like spring on me like oh I shouldn't do that so it feels kind of like an unsafe space and so

[43:23]

So I think that the thing that seems to be translating the most is when we open it up where it's like everything that happens here is only for you. There is no significance to it. It is completely empty. And until someone takes on a ritual that brings some significance to their life, it is just something somebody made up. And there's no way you can mess it up. And making these connections to, and how does something that somebody came up with 800 years ago or 2,500 years ago actually live and breathe today in what you're doing? You know, how is that relevant to writing on uni or looking at a screen or having a relationship or dealing with your family or the existential problem of the world? How are those things relevant? And so I think that that's the job for Zen Center and for me and for all of us is to keep finding ways to build bridges that tell the story about how this lives and breathes today outside of just something that's within a temple.

[44:25]

Because if it just lives and breathes in here, then it's just a weekend exercise, a hobby. But it doesn't really have a future. Thank you for that. And so before we... and open it up to the audience for reflections and questions. The last question is just what hasn't worked? You did speak to some of the trial and error stuff and how you approached that. And where do we wish to learn more? And I mean that maybe more from the Zen Center side. I think Michael did hit many of the nails on the head, but I'm sure that there's also reflections you can even give to us that might be... helpful in helping us learn how to meet younger folks. So what hasn't worked for us or what can we offer that could work? Some of the specific challenges maybe of... trying to meet that age or also kind of throw dirt on what we're doing or say like, hey, this is why I think people may not be coming on Saturdays as much as our Young Urban Zen space or whatnot.

[45:42]

I think I can start with our challenges, which is actually I think somewhere we have a lot to learn from the Zen Center. One of our advisors was involved with a Harvard Divinity School program, two-year program, where they brought together 100 leaders of religious, spiritual, and secular communities. And what they were doing was something surrounding like, I think they phrased it as, applying ancient wisdom to modern social and spiritual disconnection. So we're all doing that in our own ways. And they wanted to figure out what are the similarities and what are the challenges that we face that unite us. And the first thing they found is this is some of the most important work of our times, of all times, really, I believe. But there's a lot of need for it, and there's a lot of wishes for it, especially after COVID, from what we've seen in the younger generation, this opening up our eyes to our... interconnectedness and looking for answers and so the two challenges that they said all of these communities for the most part face are finding a path to financial sustainability is very challenging and that often the initial spark of these communities comes from founders who have a lot of energy and a lot of passion and what a community needs to survive is for those sparks to be picked up

[47:13]

and for them to set the community aflame with love and with care and with goodness. And if that doesn't happen, then oftentimes what happens is the community fizzles out. And this happens every day. Secular, religious, and spiritual communities at all sizes are failing each day because we can't figure these things out. Zen Center's been around for quite some time. So... We're working on these challenges. We're trying to figure it out. We're really trying to open the door to a solution that is co-created and that we can figure out together. And it's not always easy. One thing that came to mind, we have a friend... Aaron, who runs an organization called Dharma Gates, and they provide pathways for young people to deep monastic practice across traditions. And they do retreats all over the U.S.

[48:16]

and have really, really an amazing organization. And they did a research study as well that said, why are young people not coming to traditional monasteries and Dharma centers? And what they found is, Michael, exactly what you said, right? It's... Initially, on their first perspective, it seems maybe too complex or abstract. There's a high barrier to entry. You feel like you need to come in here and know how to do all the rituals and things, and you don't know that you don't have to know. And so that's the perception, right? And it's like, whoa, that's kind of scary. And that's why one of the big parts of what we do is field trips to Dharma centers, because we think monasteries and Dharma centers are amazing. and we want to be able to bring people there and have that on-ramp where it's not just me on my own thinking, oh, I'm going to do this scary thing and check out a monastery. It's me with three friends carpooling an hour to the place, talking all the way down about our similarities and our lives and what we want to do together this weekend, happy that we're just together and connecting.

[49:24]

And then you go to the monastery, the Dharma Center, and then after you have tea and you talk about it, you say, hey, I tripped over the thing, and I think that priest is really angry at me. Do you think that's true? Someone's like, no, I think it's fine. Look at your own mind and see. Do you often find that you're thinking others are judging you? Let's explore this. This is the practice, right? All right, well, I think that we should open it up to the floor. So... If you have a question or comment, go ahead and raise your hand, and Kevin will be right over. Hello. I have a question, and maybe, Rich, you would be a good person to answer, not to call you out, but given your overlap between the two communities. I'm curious from your perspective, why...

[50:27]

you think the Zen Center is running into so many challenges with attracting younger people, as Michael said, to their temples, like beyond Yaz, which I think is a fairly thriving organization. Yeah, I think I actually talk to a lot of people, so I have some fairly good anecdotal evidence, and there is a somewhat popular answer, is that our generation has... an adversity to organize religion. I actually went through the same thing. I grew up Christian and lost my faith and turned devout atheist and was very against anything church-like or anything similar. And when I first got here, I got some of those vibes. And so there was that wall. But I came back for the world-class teachers and the Dharma and the history of this place. And I... was able to melt those walls but like everyone was saying from the study and everything there is uh that first initial i think uh aversion that has to be overcome and that's tough because that is the tradition that's that's what's been around for so many hundreds and thousands of years so um i don't have an answer as to how that adapts but we we're here to find out

[51:49]

Yeah, first of all, thank you so much to the panelists. I'm really enjoying the discussion and just seeing the similarities and the contrast and excited for the future. I was curious about rituals, especially if there are different lineages coming together. Are there, you know, rituals and how does that? Yeah. Curious about that. So I can start maybe by saying something about sangha time and how that looks a little bit. And then maybe you guys want to share about hikes or. So in the weekly sit that we have, what we do there is we have a topic for two weeks. that will usually be inspired by... We just did the Eightfold Path, for example, and went through all of them.

[53:11]

And what we do is, though, we try to frame it in a way that is very open and related to life, the question that we're talking about for two weeks. And then we invite people to bring in poems, text passages from activists, from Buddhist teachers. And... we kind of go around popcorn and share it. So there's this coming together. That's a ritual that we have. We ring a gong, then the next person will read. We ring a gong. Everyone else is in silence. We'll just take in what's been said, and then we have our meditation together, which is usually 30 minutes of silence. And it's really interesting, the conversation after, to see what resonated and why. The second week, we will have a popcorn read. We'll have a Dharma talk usually from a Buddhist teacher of various traditions. And we'll go around reading and we'll pass it along.

[54:13]

Those are two rituals that we have for our sit. And then we'll always have lots of time for conversation around that. Well, I will not claim credit because there's a circumambulation hike that happens at Mount Tam. It's brought to us by Philip Whelan, Allen Ginsberg, and some of the Beatnik poets. And we, yeah, a lot of us attend that. And there's a lot of ritual there in which we circle the mountain, which is a ceremonial, right, ceremony of that sacred object. And we have something like 10 stops and do various ceremony there. Johnny helps lead a lot of that. And there's conch blowing and lots of different poetry reading and meditation stuff. So that is, yeah, I think a good example of social, a blend of social and somewhat spiritual, ritual mixing.

[55:20]

Yeah, and maybe I'll just mention that. Yeah, because we don't have that many of our own rituals yet, right? We're in our infancy. So a lot of what we do is like, we don't want these rituals to die. These rituals that have been around for a long time are amazing. And so we want to build bridges to introduce people to them and to participate in them and to show up with a young crowd that's going to enjoy it and that's going to keep it going. So hopefully we'll have some more of our own at some point, but a lot of it is about the cross-pollination. Thank you. Thanks for the question. We have time for one or two more questions. Thank you to you all. I guess I'm curious what you all think. How do we spread these teachings, create sangha with more people, bring more people into the practice?

[56:27]

without diluting them, without gentrifying them? Thanks for that question, Johnny. I think this is always the question, right? For me, I can speak personally, it's about engaging wholeheartedly in the practice personally, and then about learning from our elders and incorporating advisors and mentors and people who we can learn from who have been involved in these traditions for decades. It's one of the reasons that we're so honored to be here having this conversation, because... We need this. Just as much as Zen Center is looking for the new answers, we're looking for the old answers. And so I think it's about this dialogue.

[57:31]

Exactly what we're doing tonight is how we do it. If we're not having these dialogues, then it's going to grow separate and they're going to be against each other and it's going to be polarized like everything else and a lot of other things in our world. But if we can come together as a cross-lineage community, if we can come together as Community Village and San Francisco Zen Center, if we can have these conversations and pass on what we know and not speak as much about what we don't know, then I think we're going to be able to keep things going. And I feel that doesn't only apply to lineage, right? but always being conscious of whose voice is in the room and whose voice is in and who do we still need to invite whose voices are not heard. Your question makes me think of about a thousand movies or a thousand books that have to do with the older generation and then the younger generation wanting to...

[58:39]

have their freedom and to make things a new way and these old ways are not working for me and the older folks are saying, you know, but you're losing the faith or you're losing all the stuff that worked and you don't realize the stuff that used to work and the younger people are saying, but this feels so stagnant and it's not mine, that's yours and whatever, you know. And I think the thing that I really appreciate in the Zen tradition that we have to remember is doesn't just happen in-house is a tradition of warm hand to warm hand. That's how it was passed down from generation to generation was through an intimate relationship with the previous generation and remembering that even the founder of this temple here, Suzuki Roshi, would get mad at his students when they were trying to be a copy of Suzuki Roshi. because they had to live into their own dharma. They had to live into their own life, and yet he wanted to teach them the core, or as we call it, the wind of the family house. So that was something that we wanted people to take and then riff on, but you can't do improv and jazz until you learn your instrument.

[59:46]

And so the whole thing had to do with warm hand to warm hand, and that's in-house. Now what we're looking at, I think, has a lot to do with can we do the same thing with folks that aren't in-house. And that's what we're trying to do this evening and what we've been trying to do with Young Urban Zen is to get to know people on a personal level and to hear each other's stories and to really listen to what is a beating heart for you rather than what is just going through the motions, you know? And that's what I'm excited about because there's a lot of life and beating heart that come here for Young Urban Zen. And that's where I think the next Warm Hand to Warm Hand will be teaching each other. Thank you all. So that is going to conclude, I hope, one of many conversations. Caleb, Nina, Richard, Michael, thank you so much for your time, your care with the questions especially.

[60:53]

I have to say that I was forwarded an email by one of my Dharma mentors and they're like, check out this cool little group that's happening. It looks, you know, because they know things that I'm into and then I'm scrolling on the page and I'm like, I know, I... that's Richard, you know, that's Sid. And I'm like freaking out. They're all holding up Zen mind, beginner's mind in a book, or I mean in a picture. And so I was just like, how do we not know about this? Or, you know, how have we not uplifted this connection? So just deep appreciation for what you're doing. Great gratitude for coming. I learned a lot. I hope others did. And really, I really want this to just be a start of something bigger. So thank you all. And thank you everybody for coming and joining us online. That's it. Good night. Do you have any cleanup requests? I appreciate those words.

[62:16]

I'm going to be bugging out by email soon enough. And yeah, I wonder how wisdom went. I want y'all to be there next year.

[62:25]

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