Thank you for coming this morning to the Dharma talk from Green Gulch. Today's speaker is city center abiding abbot, David Zimmerman. We'll begin the talk with the opening verse. If you'd please chant along with me, it should show on your screen now. surpassed penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million kaphas having it to see and listen to to remember and accept i vow to taste the truth of the tatagata's word Good morning, everyone.

[02:15]

I hope you can hear me well. And I'd like to first start by expressing my gratitude to both of you as the head of practice at Green Gulch, as well as the inviting Abbas to Green Gulch, Fu Schrader, for the kind invitation to give today's talk on behalf of the extended Green Gulch Sangha. And of course, I'm sorry I can't be with you all in this time, given the circumstances. And I'm also deeply grateful that we have that technology to make it possible for me to join with you all, at least virtually, and that because of this technology, even a wide array of people from all over the world are able to join in our exploration of the Dharma together. So what I see before me is a virtual Buddha field. So thank you all for being here. I want to also begin by saying that it's my intention to be with you in humility.

[03:18]

And I wanted to name that as someone who is limited, if you will, on the relative level, by being in a particular body, a particular incarnation, and one that is rising out of any number of intersectionalities, including that of male, queer, and white racialized. And as such, my views and experiences are limited. And therefore, no matter how much intention I have to be good, to avoid harm, to say the right thing, the limitations of my experience are naturally going to engender ignorance. So as a result of my words, if the result of my words cause harm, I want to ask for your forgiveness as well as for your feedback. My feedback. If you really am interested in offering that.

[04:21]

And I also want to offer gratitude for the many, many conditions that have enabled me to be here in this way. Because according to the Dharma and the ultimate view, I don't come here as an individual. It's not something, being here is not something I do on my own. the entirety of existence, including all of you, supports me to be here. And therefore, I offer eight bows to the totality of being. As I was preparing to share some thoughts with you this morning, I noticed the temptation to do a kind of Dharma pep talk to make you and myself feel comfortable in the light of all the difficulty that's unfolding in the world right now. Too often, we want the Dharma to make us feel good, rather than point out unsettling truths, and particularly those that illuminate the depth of our ignorance.

[05:28]

And frankly, Buddhist practice isn't meant to be comfortable. It's actually meant to push our edges. And while I don't wish anyone to be uncomfortable either, in most cases, The truth is that we're in a time of disillusion. Some would say the death throes were what seemed at one point to many to be a comfortable, reliable, and certain way of life. But that was actually constructed from convenience, no fitting, and harmful illusions. So much of this It's coming undone now in profound and messy, but necessary ways. Perhaps like me, you feel this is a time of great reckoning, one in which we are being called to address some of the fundamental illnesses and forms of dis-ease in our society.

[06:37]

We are in the midst of two global pandemics. the novel pandemic of the coronavirus, and the centuries-old one of violence against Black people due to white supremacy and systemic racism. Representative Barbara Lee said that we're experiencing a pandemic within a pandemic. And I would like to add that if we look more deeply, we'll recognize that we are actually caught in a network of multiple intersecting pandemics, including those of police violence, economic inequality, global climate change, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and relentless warfare, just to name a few. These times of pandemic are both painful and difficult. absorbing people in differing degrees of anxiety, isolation, fear, disgust, and devastation.

[07:47]

But we're also witnessing at this time a dynamic and vibrant display of great determination to heal ourselves of both plagues as well as other forms of human disease. And this is what I see all the recent protests. They are a call for change. and their recognition of hope that something better is possible and a deep desire to manifest that change, that possibility. So if there's any good that might come out of these times of pandemic, it's that they have made us pause and reassess who are we as individuals, as members of various communities, and as human beings. We've been called on by events to each ask ourselves, what is it we believe? What do we stand for? What do we most value?

[08:51]

The Indian author and activist, Wunri Dazi, writes that, historically, pandemics have forced humans to break from the past and imagine the world anew. This one is no different. It's a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of prejudice and hatred, our avarices, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world and ready to fight for it. So we're living in a moment of profound change and uncertainty, the end of a great cycle and the opening of a space for that which is yet to come.

[09:58]

And this convergence on multiple pandemics have brought us into a time of crisis, The word crisis comes from the Greek crisis, which means a turning point in a disease, a watershed moment that can lead to either healing or death. A crisis is a critical, decisive moment demanding our urgent attention. Not attempting to want to push through this time of crisis, to get past any discomfort and uncertainty as soon as possible so we can get back to normal. Given that we're biologically prone towards stasis as an organism, it's a natural human tendency which you can see in the push to reopen the country for business as usual, even though the number of coronavirus cases and deaths in some areas far exceed the earliest days of the outbreak.

[11:00]

As the writer David Hollis advised, in the rush to return to normal, use this time to consider which parts of normal are worth rushing back to. For some of us, and particularly those of historically marginalized and oppressed communities, normal is the last thing we want to be turned to. Normal just means more of the same heartbreak, pain, and inequality. What would it be to actually take the time to truly hear the cries of the world, to bear witness to all that is unfolding, to hold space together for our grief and struggles, and to truly learn the lessons of interconnectedness that this time of transition is teaching us? For me, this time of pandemic and crisis has a liminal quality to it, bringing us to a space in which we might pause, reflect, and deeply discern what is it we need to let go of, and what is it we wish to become.

[12:26]

The word liminal comes from the Latin root word limin, or linin perhaps, which means threshold. the space between what is and what will be. The Franciscan priest, Richard Moore, describes in Banality as any betwixt and between situation or object, any in-between place or moment, a state of suspense, a moment of freedom, between two structured worldviews or institutional arrangements. It relates to change in a singular personality, as well as social change and transition in large-scale settings. It opens the door to a world of contingency where events and meanings, indeed reality itself, can be molded

[13:32]

and carried in different directions. The monality also refers to moments or periods of transition during which the normal limits to thoughts, self-understanding and behavior are relaxed, opening the way to novelty and imagination, destruction and constriction. So, Liminal space is an inner state, and sometimes an outer situation where we can begin to think and act in new ways. It is where we are betwixt and between, having left one room or stage of life, but not yet entered the next. We usually enter liminal space when our formal way of being is challenged or changed, perhaps when we lose a job or a loved one. during an illness, at the birth of a child in a major relocation.

[14:37]

You can say it's a grace time, but often it doesn't feel graced in any way. It doesn't feel like a blessing. It feels like hell. But in such space, we are not certain or in control. This global coronavirus pandemic that we now face is an example of an immense collective liminal space. In a tricycle article titled The Wisdom of Uncertainty, the Zen teacher Kurt Spellmeyer wrote that liminality in-betweenness is the Dharma's dwelling place. As it is discovered in the practice of Zazen, the very vulnerability and openness of liminal space allows what doesn't serve our liberation to be released, thereby making room for something generally new to unfold.

[15:44]

In this space, we are empty and receptive. It's the realm of not knowing. The middle space is the space of beginner's mind. It's where we are most teachable, often because we are most humbled. Both liminality and zazen keeps us in a suspended state in which we can't so easily confirm our ego or our usual ways of thinking. Both embrace self-study, deep inquiry, the questioning of our perceptions and previous narratives about who we are and how the world is, and in doing so, opening up to imagining new possibilities and ways of understanding. And it's often the case that we avoid liminal space, as it can be scary to hang out in this place of not knowing and uncertainty. Having much of the work of authentic spirituality and human development, including the work of enduring our racial biases, is to get people into liminal space and we keep them there long enough so they can learn something

[17:02]

essential and new. Liminal space is about building resilience so we can be as resource as we need to move forward and take action when it's time. Richard Boris says that in liminal space, we sometimes need to not do and not perform according to our usual successful patterns. we actually need to fail properly and deliberately falter to understand other dimensions of life. We need to be silent instead of speaking, experience emptiness instead of fullness, anonymity instead of persona, and pennilessness instead of plenty. In liminal space, he says, we descend and intentionally do not come back out or up immediately.

[18:09]

It takes time, but this experience can help us re-enter the world with freedom and new creative approaches to life. Now, one analogy that comes to mind when I think of liminality is not of chrysalis. As many of us learned in science class, when it's time for the caterpillar to mature to the next stage of being, it forms a pupa or chrysalis. And once encased, it begins the process of becoming undone, of disintegrating, of, you could say, digesting itself in some fashion. It literally turns to mush in order to transform. And this mush, or completely undone state, is one of liminality, an in-between state in which the previous shape is completely dissolved.

[19:11]

The shape that is to come next has not yet been revealed. Yet as I understand it, within this mush that was once a caterpillar, there is already a code, or DNA, that contains the information for the shape that will come forth from this mush sometime in the future. In this time of pandemic, within pandemic, we are all in the chrysalis now. We're all liquifying in this in-tune states. We're being prepared or preparing to bring all of our true selves and our collective selves into a new cycle or new way of being. If we sincerely take up the practice of Zen, then each of us will experience going through our own nasty process of undoing, of becoming undone, of dissolving and untangling old karmic formations.

[20:22]

The transformative work of the individual Dharma practitioner requires that they first dismantle, dissolve, and release previous chronic incarnations, that of a separate self, that of a particular ego, even that of a racialized person. And as you probably come to realize if you practice, it's often a painful, uncomfortable process. when rife with confusion and uncertainty and discomfort and grief and tears and fear and anger and so forth, if I can tell you how many times I've sat on the cushion and been crying, feeling this dissolving, happening, not understanding the process, and yet coming back again and again as I've been instructed to the breath, to the present moment, direct experience, to awareness of self, So our work of stabilizing the mind, of ruining the breath and awareness, so we can allow things to fall away, this is the work that allows us to sit in the fire of our karma.

[21:33]

Our practice is not about cultivating a mind that doesn't feel our karma, the consequences of our actions, or transcends it, or even steadily resists it. It's about cultivating a heart and mind that can feel the suffering of the world, that can sit in the fire with a still, vast, open heart line. In Zazen, we develop the capacity to sit in stillness, to be unmoving but not unmoved, to hear our own cries, as well as the cries of the world, and to fully embrace them. And then in time, we may find ourselves able to get up, get out of our cushion, our seat, our place, and take that stillness and openness and groundedness into the world in order to meet and attend to the suffering of all beings, not just our health.

[22:43]

By being reduced to the mush of a cow builder, through this process of self-digestion, we can in time discern and let go of the karma, to see the nature of karma itself, to see that it's transient, and that karma is not who we are. Now it takes great courage, patience, and fortitude to stay in the chrysalis. It's important to stay there in that indiscriminate, unconstructed space. And we can, as long as we can. Because that is where we begin to see ourselves as an emerging. Not just from the history of a person that has been invented, curated, that is constructed, that's a construct. But to have a heart that feels the pain of everything that is. We're going through all the cycles of grief and transformation in this process as various former selves and ways of orienting the world are dissolved.

[23:59]

And in doing so, allowing something new to come forth and spread its wings. I confess that in my own work of studying and enduring my racial conditioning, This little process of dissolution of the construct of whiteness that I've inherited is at times extremely uncomfortable. But it's essential not only if I want to be free, but also for me to fully manifest my good self at the help of liberating all these. If I'm able to stay in the crispness and not move out of my discomfort too soon, My experience of what comes out of that is love. Love is our heart's understanding of our profound connection with everything. I think of love as the knowing of our shared being.

[25:04]

Love as the knowing of our shared being. The knowing and felt recognition that we are the same Buddha heart and mind. You're mistaken for the nature. Fundamentally bright, luminous, vast, loving. And compassion also rises out of our capacity to stay with discomfort, as growth is an active response. And finally, the third capacity that arises is that of courage. Courage is the choice, the willingness and its strength to face pain, danger, uncertainty, or fear, and not turn away, despite how intimidating it may be. In facing difficult moments of dissolution and disruption, we may find ourselves trying to avoid our true feelings, and thereby protect ourselves from pain.

[26:09]

But often this kind of avoidance causes deeper pain for ourselves than others. It doesn't help alleviate the difficulty for anyone at all. And while it seems that we should hold on to what comforts and privileges we have, often trying to hold on to our ownership or status actually hastens their loss and often really harms others in the process. You can see this now happening in our culture as the white supremacist system tries to hold on to its status. How can we practice to address our blindness to karma, both personal and collective, which may be contributing to the suffering of others, including the flaw of societal injustices? How do we hold close rather than avoid responsibility for our actions, for our living karma?

[27:11]

to where I could say more about going through the chrysalis of individual and collective karma, I want to abruptly switch gears and make a confession. All week long, the first part of this talk really wanted to make itself known and be shared. Whenever I got to this point about how we need to willingly abide in and be undone during this time of pandemics in the minority, They stalled. What to say next didn't want to come forward, didn't want to reveal itself yet. Something we then recognized that it wasn't time yet to try to get beyond this stage, to offer some comfortable escape or hostile path out of the particular chrysalis that I find myself in. The work of transformation is still unfolding. And some recent expression resisted being forced to perform or produce too soon and on demand.

[28:29]

So frankly, I've been in a bit of a cold sweat for several days, trying to figure out what to say from this point on that would be truly helpful in terms of encouraging you all in the practice of the den. I found myself scanning Dharma books for the perfect Zen koan. asking others if they had suggestions for corns or poems about liminality. And yet coming across anything that felt alive or resonant enough to really, that really spoke to a deeper intuitive expression that needed to be made. And this is one of the challenges I experienced as a so-called Zen teacher, trying to say something that's truly authentic and beneficial. and that will hopefully meet you to some degree wherever you're at. And I feel I often fail, including in my attempt to offer something today.

[29:31]

But then yesterday morning, following Zazen, the residents of City Center, held a memorial service to honor the black lives lost to police violence and systemic racism. And then After breakfast, we had a community gathering. And the intention was to offer the space for anyone who wished to speak to how it is that they're experiencing with these tender, difficult, uncertain times. So we had approximately 90 minutes in which beloved Song of Friends had the opportunity to share what has been coming up for them during these past weeks. and particularly since the killing of George Floyd and the outpouring of anger and protest and demand for racial justice and the anti-systemic violence against oppressed communities. And my experience of our SOMA meeting was that it was beautiful and painful, loving and raw, and powerfully sobering exercise and truth-pelling.

[30:43]

A number of residents particularly those of color, spoke to how they felt that the white institutional leadership of the San Francisco Zen Center and other Sangha members have repeatedly failed to truly acknowledge their experience and address their pain in the face of white supremacy. Not only have white Sangha members too often failed to truly listen to and hear our dark friends of color or ask them how they're doing with genuine curiosity, When we actually get around to it, it's kind of rather late or it's not coming. And I heard that not enough work is being done to cultivate trust in our community between white practitioners and those of color. So that there is a true foundation for learning, change, and transformation. I heard that Zen Center as an institution at times inadvertently puts second our mission to express. makes it accessible in the body of the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha.

[31:49]

Because too often leadership gets wrapped up in the day-to-day operations of running a business in a residential training community. It takes a lot of work. It's true. And yet, one priest of color asked that we as an institution be less inwardly oriented and instead be more porous. and malleable in responding to the cries of the world. Of course, the cries of the world have always been present, but in the recent months and times, they have been more intense and amplified by the portal of the internet. This is something that sense in relationship has also been asked to address, particularly on our social media platforms, by members of extended sangha, including perhaps some of you here today. And despite various efforts since it has made over two decades and more to take up the study of diversity, inclusivity, equity, and accessibility, we have yet to see true cultural change.

[32:57]

A change which includes whiteness no longer being centered or privileged. And there are understandable reasons why we haven't been able to realize our vision of a truly diverse, accessible, and inclusive practice committee. but there can't be excuses. There's much work that still needs to be done if we are to truly embrace and realize the responsibility to lead by the aspiration of our beliefs of the vows. Much, much more was said that I will include here. But I think you get the sense of what was being brought forward by the Sangha, my loved ones. and a beloved community. And at the end of the meeting, when it was time to conclude and it seemed that it was expected for me as the habit to say something in summary, perhaps, in regard to all that had been shared, I suddenly froze, unable to speak.

[34:04]

I froze in overwhelming heartbreak. And then I began to cry. as I felt the deep pain and distress and hopes of so many people in the Sangha that I love and care for. And I've had a responsibility to serve in various roles of the 20 years that I've been living and working at Zen Center. The feeling that arose in me was one of tremendous sadness and regret. And for a few minutes, I could only sit in silence and be with the pain. I could only breathe into it. Being with it. Breathing into the pain and the sorrow and the regret and the shame and the feelings of inadequacy. I tried to breathe with awareness that this breath is a gift. And now I breathe it on behalf of all beings.

[35:08]

My heart mind tells me that every breath is sacred. Every breath contains within it our collective pain and sorrow and joys and loves. Our lives are linked in undeniable intimacy. So the question at hand is what action am I going to personally take in order to truly realize and honor this profound intimacy? My teacher, Tia Strozer, told me that one of her teachers, Katakiri Roshi, once said, in the absolute, we are completely forgiven, and in the relative, we are completely responsible. People who are racialized as of color, can't be expected to coddle those who have harmed them, that is white people.

[36:16]

And we who are white can't place the responsibility for change on those who have been hurt by us. This is something that was said by one of the Muslims. We who are white need to do the work of understanding the karma that comes with over 400 years of the centering of whiteness in our unearned privilege and the ways we have harmed others because of it. Whether or not intentionally, we need to study the causes and conditions that were taught in Moderna that have given rise to systemic white supremacy. We need to acknowledge our errors and the pain they have caused, to acknowledge our ignorance and to apologize, to ask for forgiveness. and then to take deliberate steps and actions for true reconciliation and resolution, which includes a commitment not to engage in harmful behaviors again.

[37:18]

And I hear from black people in other oppressed communities of color and sangha, in our society at large, that they don't want more words. I hear that they want to be shown the action that I'm taking for a coordinated effort to make meaningful change to the citizens of racial bias and oppression, to systems of climate conditioning of body, speech, and mind that have been truly, literally built into their land, into our cultures, our society, our institutions, and which keep impacting them in any number of harmful ways. As one of the residents said in the meeting yesterday morning, we just don't need to have difficult conversations. We need to have meaningful conversations, ones that connect.

[38:25]

So I want to say to all of you as beloved songer, that it's my intention to bring up to the lyric forms of karmic conditioning, including that of being a white male. and address that on behalf of our mutual and collective liberation. Of course, I can only really do this in relationship with all of you. Our work of waking up and waking out is both personal and collective. We each have inner work and outer work that needs to happen, and in many instances concurrently. Because this work can all be done truly in relationship, because we are dependently originated beings. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, we inter-are. That's why communal practice is so important in Zen.

[39:25]

Weaking up together, we see our true nature is the same true nature as everyone. Ashtaruni a man of color according to our modern parlance, thunderously declare at the moment his enlightenment. All sentient beings are enlightened together with me here and now. The work of waking up is messy. The work of enduring chronic conditioning is messy. And the work of enduring the centuries-long reign of white supremacy And systemic racism in this country is also messy. I think it's going to be messy for a long time. It's vital work. As Alice Walker said, you have to go to places that scare you so that you can see. You can see. What do you really believe?

[40:26]

Who are you really? The conversations we need to have with each other are going to be messy, painful, difficult, tender, loving, and, I hope, ultimately healing and transformative. We need to find courage and skillful ways to stay in this normal space, to stay in the chrysalis of this historic world, until the time when all beings are able to simultaneously burst forth to recognize their fundamental nature of liberation and peace. As Dr. W. so briefly writes in his poem for the interim plan, what is being transfigured here is your mind. And it is difficult and slow to become new. The more faithfully you can endure here, the more refined your heart will become for your arrival in the new time.

[41:31]

Okay, I'll end there. While my talk this morning was perhaps a little unconventional and not filled with a lot of traditional Buddhists and quotes and references, I hope it's still an issue and encouraging, if so great, taste of the Dharma. So as I understand, I think we'll now chant the closing verse and then those who would like to continue the conversation. Welcome to home up to anyone who might have further reflections or sharings, questions, experiences that we'd like to offer. Thank you all again. May our intention equally extend to every being and place. with the true merit of God's way. Beings are numberless, I vow to save them.

[42:42]

Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to be comforted. If you would like to offer a question or comment, please raise your hand. virtually if possible or on screen if you're not finding the button. You can go to participants or more somewhere on your device you should see a raise hand button. We'll give it a few minutes to consider what you have to bring up.

[43:46]

Claudia, unmuting you now. Hi. Thank you for your talk, David. I wanted to ask about sort of the ways that Zen Center has benefited from systemic racism. So I think it's important to talk about bias, but it's also important to talk about housing policy and the incredible violence of gentrification and history of land ownership and I don't know, when Sun Center goes to a prison, does it think about it as a racist institution that needs to be abolished? I feel like talking about personal bias is just the teeniest, tiniest beginning of the conversation about racism, and I'm really curious about the other ways that Sun Center is thinking about these things now. Thank you, Claudia, for your question. In my understanding of the work that needs to be done is on a personal, interpersonal, communal, and world level.

[45:01]

So all these different levels need to happen. And I think what for San Francisco Zen Center, it's hard sometimes to speak as an institution because what I feel is this collective of beings who are all making their efforts and the institution rises out of that collectiveness. And in many cases, the collectiveness, you know, as you recognize, has for a long time in our culture been one of predominant whiteness, informed by it. So I don't think that many of us who go into the communities, who do outreach and prison work necessarily, always take in mind, how is it that we got here? How is it that I have the capacity to be a representative at the San Francisco Zen Center, to have the privilege to be able to be in this place, you know, these beautiful buildings, this land that we have, all the resources that we've been gifted in many ways, right?

[46:04]

That we're actually necessarily conscious of that when we go into communities that haven't benefited from our privilege in so many ways. So it's actually a conversation that needs to be had. And I know you're someone who really wants to bring that forward. So I truly invite you to help us with that. I need to learn as one of the leadership, one of many, how do we really look at the systemic structure of our community? One of the things that I reflect on is that, you know, San Francisco Zen Center has inherited a number of different karmic intersectionalities. You know, we've inherited also that from the Japanese culture. which is, in many cases, the Zen culture there, you know, highly patriarchal, you know, hundreds of years and thousands of years of patriarchy. That deeply informs who we are as a community. So we have centuries and centuries of conditioning that go way back, even before the practice of Zen came to these shores, right?

[47:14]

So we have to kind of look at all the entanglements of history, long history of Zen, conditioning, right? And see how together those have created systems that impact others in negative ways. It's, you know, it's really hard to actually hold the space to think of that, that it's important. And I, again, I hope that we as an institution can think of that because part of that process, I think this time calls for us as an institution. Part of what we're trying to figure out as we bring to life the practice here, in this particular time and place, what is true liberation? And one of my questions is, what is the system of liberation? And you need order, you need some kind of structure, you need to contain your practice. I finally believe that. It's important.

[48:14]

That's the Christmas, right? You come to Zen Center and the practice itself, the schedule and the forms and ceremonies, hold us in the chrysalis. So what is a liberative chrysalis? What is a liberative structure that we can create? And I don't think, you know, obviously it's no longer for those who identify as racially white to be the ones who are saying that that is, because we're failing. We're failing to recognize that. So I want to be able to bring all voices into the center. And for us to together think about that and envision what it could be. What is the system of liberation? What's a new narrative, the freedom that we can create? So that's my response. And again, I appreciate your support and question.

[49:15]

Thank you. Fred? Thank you. Thank you for your meditation today. I just wanted to meditate about everything. I'm sorry, Fred, I'm having a little trouble hearing you. I just wanted to emphasize Earth Day Month and this month and racism as Martin Luther King Jr. as a champion of environmental justice. So just about this meditation about racism, simple basic needs will feel

[50:25]

route that people may have clean clothes, that they may have clean bedding so that they can sleep and they can have a clean environment so they can sleep. So basic meditation and emphasize the importance of everyday and both clean environment and environment purpose. Thank you, Fred. Thank you so much. And as you noted, and as Martin Luther King noted, and many others at this time, I'm thinking of Tanisara, who brings to awareness the convergence of racism and global change and economic inequality, and saying all those come together and impacted each other, we really entangled and we really need to study deeply their entanglement and how it is that we can together undo them.

[51:33]

So thank you for bringing that awareness forward again. Sita? What a joy to see you again, Sita. Hello. Hello. Hello, Michael. Yeah, he just stepped off. But thank you for that talk. Just a question on, we're in this political, you know, great divide, and it just seems, just this chasm of, you know, such divisiveness, and it's impossible to even have a conversation that has any sort of common foundation. How, what do you suggest in terms of, you talked about love and talked about sort of bringing, you know, trying to bridge those in a way that we both come from a place of understanding, but how do you even, David wants to see you.

[52:44]

How do you even do that in this, you know, such a, in this environment? How do you, where do you even begin? that it just seems completely impossible, even if you are trying to come with some understanding, you know, that's just like completely cut off. Thank you, CTAD. Hello, Michael. Good to see you again. You know, what I try to listen for in these conversations is, what's the fear? What's the fundamental fear that's driving people? What are they most concerned about? What are they trying to protect, right? So I kind of, I studied that in myself, particularly when I find myself getting activated and reactive, you know, lots of conversations. What's my fear? And if I can name the fear and be within and recognize it in another person, in that I think also points to something that, that, you know, fear is an expression of separation.

[53:50]

So I think in that it points to some desire for wholeness, for connection, for coming back together. So if I can witness another person's pain and fear, including people that I have strong political differences with, try to understand their view and maybe more the karmic conditioning that they're kind of living out of and hold it with a certain spaciousness, but also fierce compassion, one that speaks to truth, the truth of our experience. How do I meet people from my own truth as much as I can? And it's going to be limited truth. So speak from that place to try to cross the divide. And it's... It's hard. It's not easy.

[54:52]

It's frustrating. But I keep coming back to this need for staying grounded in my own sense of the awake heart mind and reaching from that place to meet another person's fear and whatever it is that they're working from, you know, and see if I can enter more deeply into Just seeing something beyond that fear, the sense of separation. I hope that offers a little something. Yep. So good to see you both again. Good to see you. if there are no more questions or comments at this time.

[56:02]

Another moment if someone would like to come on. I'm enjoying scanning through the Buddha field and seeing this beautiful presentation of beings and love in front of me. There's one comment I see, and someone mentions, thank you for your talk. I appreciate you saying that even in the Zen center, racism, especially passive racism, is present. That's what systemic means. It's everywhere in the air in which we breathe. Yeah, that's true. And for some of us, some people, like George Floyd, and others,

[57:11]

so prevalent that they can't breathe. A comment from Christopher. Go ahead, Christopher. All right. What? Can you hear me? I can't get here and see you. Good to see you. Thank you so much for your talk. I think something I'm anticipating more of and with trepidation and excitement is not having friends of color tiptoe around my unconscious whiteness. And I feel like a lot of my friends of color, you know, are very gracious in, in allowing a painfully slow learning curve in their, in their white friends.

[58:18]

And, and, you know, sometimes I, in real time, I'm hoping friends, George Yancey is a philosopher that talks about whiteness kind of ambushing you. It's, it's like an unconscious process. Like my conscious identity is, of being like a compassionate, caring Buddhist, anti-racist. It's a nice, pretty identity, but whiteness is like this unconscious process that ambushes me and takes over. And I anticipate Friends of Color maybe being more emboldened to call me out on that. And I won't have this chrysalis, sheltered, quiet space to hold that in maybe in the moment. And I guess kind of like tactical on the ground, real time strategies for keeping equanimity and compassion and non-defensiveness kind of in the mix.

[59:22]

Just any advice you have on that kind of like real time kind of scenario when your unconsciousness is made visible and there's that like kind of hiccup in the system, it's kind of like buffering of like, identity correction. Yeah, just something you could say to that phenomenon. Thank you. Thank you for your question. I find myself, whenever I am confronted with my unconscious bias and racism, you know, I come back to my body and my breath. We're all embodied beings. We start with that awareness. So if I can ground myself in my connectedness, my own embodiment, which is the connectedness to the earth as well, which is connectedness to everyone. Stay grounded in that way and allow myself to actually feel all kinds of crap going through me, a lot of unpleasant energy and coursing through.

[60:26]

I can stay grounded with that and just allow it to wash through and inform the body at a deeper level. And that bringing awareness to the kind of the stuck places in our embodiments, how whiteness has been frozen within us, right? Bringing the light of awareness to it begins to fall those places of embodiment, embodied white supremacy, right? And over time, that constructed, the unstructured embodiments of whiteness begins to dissolve more. And we begin to soften and begin to become more open and poor and willing to receive the feedback, the reflections from our friends of color. And actually, not just from our friends of color. You and I as white men need to get better at calling each other in, bringing to awareness the times we're unconscious of our whiteness and how it impacts others.

[61:31]

We can't make the labor and the work be all people of color. They're exhausted doing it. So I'm told. They want you and I to do the work together. So if we sit and be with that feeling, right? I often kind of think of it, you know, it's awesome sometimes your leg goes numb, right? You're sitting there, you're kind of peaceful. You kind of know your leg's numb, but you're kind of okay with it, right? And then the bell rings and it's time to get up and it's only, you know, it begins to hurt. Actually, you can't move at first. You feel frozen, right? You can't move. And slowly the blood comes back in, the awareness comes back in, and with it, the pain, the discomfort. And we have to pause and be with that, create the space for that blood, that life force, to enter back into those places that weren't enlivened. And take time and ask for help from others, from our friends.

[62:35]

The few of those who are willing to do the work with us. And then in time, we can begin to take the steps we need. Afterwards, we can move together with each other. So, in body, coming back to the body, coming back to breath, coming back to groundedness, and coming back to awareness itself. The space in self-awareness that holds everything in a wide, open, indiscriminate place. to hold that, and be tender as we go through this process together. I appreciate all the work that you've done, you've helped Zansana, and please continue to help us as a community, as a Sangha, to do this work, breaking up to our lightness, de-centering our lightness, becoming embodied as a how to say it, multi, you know, expression, very lower being, you know, can remain low body, can it truly be manifest here?

[63:47]

Thank you very much. Well, maybe one or two more comments. Okay. MK? Yes, hello. Thank you so much, Abbott David, for your offering today. You're welcome. I am new to Zen practice. And as I have begun the process of following all of the Zazen and the structures, I find a lot of personal pain coming up from my own past. And as we are in this moment of great pain in the world, and really recognizing the privileges that we've all, I'm part white and part Asian, that we've all grown up with.

[64:49]

I find myself thinking my own personal pain has no place and that I feel quite guilty for feeling it in a way because there is so much systemic There are so many systemic problems that need to be addressed. And I was wondering if you could speak to how one deals with the fact that one might have one's own personal pain and also be in this moment of great world pain and how you deal with both. I feel myself quite overwhelmed. I feel myself wanting to put all of my own pain aside and just throw myself into every cause that I can conceivably... myself into to be more effective in addressing the world's pain. I don't quite know how to balance the two. I was wondering if you could speak to that, to people like myself who are new practitioners that maybe don't know how to balance that yet.

[65:52]

Thank you so much, NK, for your question. I appreciate it. Myself, what I find I need to do is, and I find supports, you know, works for many others, is always begin with your own pain. Attend to that. Because unless you're able to attend to that, you're not going to actually be able to be of service and make effective change in the world. So coming back to this one, and at the beginning of your practice, really making an effort to get a little bit more attention to offering yourself a kind of a healing, loving kindness, you know, space. Give that a little bit more weight. Attend to that for some time. Don't dismiss it. Your own personal pain and the pain in the world are equal in many ways. You need to hold them both, but there's different times to hold each of them based upon where we're out in our own process of becoming undone and blossoming into something that's already fundamentally

[67:01]

our nature, right? So it's important to, I feel, you know, particularly right now, get a little bit more space to what you're feeling at a personal level. Allow that to be a little bit more resolved. And it doesn't mean you can still take time to, you know, attend to the pain of the wider world, you know, in whatever way you would like to do that, you know, write letters, go and protest, have meaningful conversations with others, whatever that is for you, you can still do that and still allow that to be expressed. But even all activists need to be able to have the capacity to some point kind of step out for a moment. We could say step out of the battle, we're here to talk about, and that's a key on using reward analogies, but to step out and restore and re-nourish you know, come back to something deeper in us that allows for true resilience.

[68:05]

And then when we're ready to go back out, you know, and be of service to the pain of the world. I hope that offers something. Yes, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, MK. Good to meet you. So Jiru, anything else? Thank you all very much for coming. In the chat window now, I'm posting a link that you can use if you feel moved today to donate to Zen Center. We do appreciate and rely on your donations. Thank you all for coming. And David, thank you very much. Jiru, can I mention one thing? For those who are white racialized, Zen Center does have an unpacking whiteness group. affinity group that meets on a monthly basis, and our next meeting is going to be on Monday.

[69:09]

So maybe I could ask you to post the link to that meeting into the chat field so that anyone who is what identified and would like to participate to do our study, to do our work together. I just want to offer that. Okay, friends. Thank you for posting that. Thank you all very much. I appreciate this time and this conversation together, and I look forward to continuing it. And you're all able to unmute at this time if you'd like to come on and say goodbye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Thank you. Thank you, David. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[70:10]

Thank you.

[70:21]

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