So the topic of the class is the early Buddhist teachings on emptiness, at least how emptiness appears in the Pali Suttas. there is a kind of character that's made, often by the Mahayana, that the Mahayana had the teachings of emptiness, and the earlier tradition doesn't. And certainly you find a great emphasis on emptiness teaching in the Mahayana. But it also appears as being very important in the early tradition as well. And in fact, there are three discourses titled Emptiness Discourses. There's the Discourse on the Empty, There's the smaller discourse on emptiness and the larger discourse on emptiness. And you find a variety of teachings throughout.

[01:04]

But one of the things that stands out a little bit in highlight in this earliest Buddhist tradition is that the teachings on emptiness are closely connected to the teachings on karma. And it reminds me of, I think it was a Dalai Lama who once said that if you were going to either study, you have to choose between studying or knowing about emptiness or studying karma. You should study karma. It's more important. And the reason for that is that karma is the foundation for understanding emptiness. And in this way, that the classic early teaching on karma is a teaching about action and how actions have consequences. And the way that our actions... the actions of our mind, body, and speech, how those actions have consequences that affect us. And so if we're going to have different effects, different consequences, we have to take some responsibility for our actions. And unless you understand that connection between actions and consequences, how can you take responsibility for it?

[02:12]

How can you somehow interrupt the momentum of suffering, momentum of business as usual in the mind? without some appreciation that you have some role to play in interrupting that momentum and changing the course of business as usual. And so the Buddha taught that nothing, no activity and no experience that we have in our mind, no psychology, comes out of nothing. This doesn't appear spontaneously, and it's not there eternally. But it's there because of particular causes and conditions. And because it's there, because of causes and conditions, you can change those conditions. And so to have insight into how things appear, what causes them to appear, and how they come to an end, is the primary insight of the early Buddhist tradition of the Buddha.

[03:12]

To see how things arise, to see the cause for their arising, and to see how they end. is the primary insight. And it's the insight called insight into dependent origination, which has a little more specific meaning in the early tradition than it came to have much later in Mahayana. So you see how things dependently arise. And so you're probably all familiar with the Four Noble Truths. And the Four Noble Truths are just one application of this core Buddhist insight. Because the Four Noble Truths has the first truth is the truth of the arising of things. The second noble truth is a cause for that arising. Third noble truth is the truth of the season, or brings the end to that which has arisen. So the arising, the cause of the arising, and the season, to see that is to see dependent origination. So this lays the background for the teachings on emptiness in the early tradition, because what the early tradition is interested in is not a

[04:17]

Early Buddhism doesn't present a science about the world. It doesn't have physics, you know, where this is how the world actually is. So people say, well, the world is impermanent. Everything is impermanent. If you say that kind of in a metaphysical way, it's a piece of science. Most things are impermanent, so that's okay, but... But the early Buddha was not trying to make statements about reality. He was making statements about how we participate in our experience of reality. And there's a world of difference between those two. One has to do with the objective world out there, which maybe is not subjective, and the other has to do with the subjective world and how the subjective experience, our psychology, our perceptions, our beliefs, our ideas, our clinging, participates in creating our experience of the world. And so the teachings of the Buddha over and over again point back to what could be called phenomenology or epistemology, how we experience what's going on.

[05:25]

Because that's where we can have something to do about making this change. We can participate in the surviving and seizing of our suffering and our happiness. So the... So, to participate then, so when the Buddha talked about the world, he said sometimes the world is empty, very clearly. Someone asked, what's the nature of this world? He said, this world is empty. But when he said it was empty, when he defines the world, who doesn't define the world as the external world, he defines it as the world that we find within this phantom long body. meaning that the world that gets created through the world of our perceptions. Again, pointing back to the relationship of how we experience things, not what's out there. And this is an important distinction because you find plenty of books that want to compare the teachings of the Buddha with modern physics.

[06:33]

And I don't know if it's really such an interesting or valid comparison, since the Buddha was not a physicist. If anything, he was a psychologist. interest in the psychology or phenomenology of experience. So the emptiness teaching comes out of this idea that it's possible to see the arising, the cause of the arising, and the ending of things. In doing that, we see dependent origination. And so there's two primary practices connected to emptiness in the early tradition. And one of the practices is more of a concentration practice, samatha practice, and one is more of an insight practice. The concentration practice has to do with focusing on what in this particular discourse is called disturbance, which in a wider world could be referred to as suffering or dukkha. And then to back up a little bit as an introduction, for this early Buddhist tradition,

[07:39]

it's very, very clear that the primary purpose for which the Buddha is teaching is to help people overcome suffering. And so everything about what he's teaching is for the purpose of explaining suffering and the cessation and the end of suffering. So it has this almost like psychological or therapeutic purpose as opposed to a metaphysical purpose, as opposed to aligning ourselves with the true nature of reality Reality can be what it is, but we're trying to understand what is it that we're contributing, what's our contribution to suffering, and what can we do to overcome that and to end that and live without that claim? So that's the quest. And so how is it that the insight into emptiness supports that quest, supports that practice for going that direction? And so there's two practices. There's a practice of concentration, a practice of insight that can do that. And in doing concentration practice, there's a particular discourse, the shorter discourse on emptiness, that lays out a sequence, which is a particular formulation of a standard unfolding of meditation in the early tradition.

[08:55]

And that is that meditation unfolds from focusing on what's coarse to what's more and more refined or more subtle. So you start with focusing on what's relatively coarse activity of the mind. The ordinary street mind is relatively coarse. And then as the mind calms down, it calms down, it lets go of coarser activity and goes to more subtle. And as it goes to more subtle, then at some point lets go of that more subtle to something even more subtle, and more subtle and more subtle, until the variety of activities of the mind get more and more refined, more still, and there's less extra stuff in the mind, less a lot of extra activity being generated in the mind, the mind's not agitated anymore. So that's a classic movement in the early tradition, and in this particular discourse, it talks about a monastic going into the wilderness, like here at Kastahara. And probably most of you who've been here for more than, I don't know, a few days or something,

[10:00]

I had the experience that some of the things that you were preoccupied with before you came here are no longer so current in your mind. You know, you kind of forget. Sometimes you forget. You forget what day it is. You don't even know what to ask someone. What day is it? You forget about, you know, all kinds of things out there that were very important out there. You know, often experience in the wilderness people's concern with their personal appearance becomes much less important than if you're out there going to work or going to a high school prom or something. You know, where that's... So there's a lot of things that agitate the mind that can fall away in the wilderness. A lot of social concerns, especially if you're alone, a lot of social concerns can drop away. And part of the relief of going into the wilderness, going backpacking or something, is the way in which so many of the things that obsess the mind can fall away, and we get a different perspective. And you can sit there in the wilderness and say, wow, I'm so much calmer now.

[11:04]

My mind is not disturbed by all the things I was disturbed by. The mind is now empty of those disturbances. Now I'm just here in the wilderness, just in the script. So in a certain way, that's the Buddhist starts saying that, says it that way. So the mind is empty of the disturbances of being in the sea. Then... what's left, what's not not empty, he says, is the experience of being in the wilderness, the sense of being in the wilderness, the perception of being in the wilderness. You are in the wilderness, but you don't know you're in the wilderness unless you have a perception of it. And that perception of the wilderness is a mental activity. And that mental activity is a relatively complex mental activity. It seems so innocent to us. I remember since the 30 years ago when I first came into Tassajara. I'd never been here before. And I think it was Keith Meyerhoff was driving me down still on Carmel Valley Road.

[12:06]

And it was kind of magical. But I got this very strong sense as I came in in the first days that I was here at Tassajara that I was painting all the trees and all the boulders with my concept of tree, my concept of boulder, my concept of people. Most people live innocently, happily maybe, not so happily, thinking that the way that they interpret events around them are actually what's out there. But we participate a lot in creating our perceptions of even the wilderness. And we have all our associations and meetings and everything to the wilderness. And so those kind of overlay our experience. Some people had watched Bambi. And so they come to the wilderness and that has certain associations. Some people were here for the forest fire and so that there may be different associations and so the experience of wilderness is filtered through a lot of different activities of the mind. So the point being that even the sense of being in the wilderness involves some activity of the mind and when the mind is active there's a certain degree of disturbance or restlessness in the mind that's going on.

[13:22]

So then the next stage is to let go of the activity that interprets this is in the wilderness I'm here in the wilderness and so what's more refined than the wilderness and in this discourse the Buddha says the person focuses on the earth element so rather than focusing on the mountains and the rocks and the rivers and things things things you're focusing on the more subtle kind of building block just the hardness of experience so there's a certain level of hardness you feel the hardness you see the hardness And so the mind drops the conceptual in favor of what's much less conceptual and more experiential, which here in this tradition is called the earth element. So then the mind is less active. So now the person recognizes that the mind is empty of the disturbance or the activity of mind that comes from perceiving that you're in the wilderness. So maybe it's better to explain it this way.

[14:24]

You can be in the wilderness and enjoying it. And it can be quite pleasant. And then you can close your eyes and maybe kind of rest the mind. And it's actually more restful for the mind, eyes closed, and not thinking about the wilderness and interpreting the wilderness than just thinking about it. So now the idea of wilderness, the thoughts of wilderness have dropped away and the mind is going into a more subtle place. And then the Buddha said, at this point, the person's mind gets steadied, has confidence and gets steadied on this more subtle way of being present for experience, just the simplicity of the earth element, the element, how the sense, it's actually both the sensate level of experience rather than the conceptual level of experience. Tuning into the sensate level of experience is more subtle. the mind is more relaxed, but it still has something which is non-empty, and that is the disturbance connected to the sensate experience.

[15:28]

So then, going into deeper meditation, the person drops out of the sensate experiencing of things. So you're not only experiencing the earth element, the hardness of things, the softness of things. And then, in this particular discourse, it talks about going into what's called the base of infinite space. So there's no longer an awareness of the world around us, no longer awareness of having a body, and the primary awareness the mind is focused on is an experience of vast infinite space, no, vast infinite consciousness first. And now this experience of vast consciousness, where the mind is not actively perceiving things and thinking about things and conceptually realizing things or experiencing sensations, is much more subtle and refined than that of the sensate level. So now it's empty of the disturbances of the sensate level, but what's not empty, what's non-empty of, is this experience of infinite consciousness.

[16:38]

Infinite consciousness itself is an activity of the mind. So the mind still has a very subtle disturbance. Most people, when they first experience it, this is pretty cool. It's so cool. How could this be disturbing? It's pretty wonderful. But if you hang out there long enough, you see this actually has subtle agitation built into it. And then the Buddha describes going through more and more subtle levels of meditation, of states of mind, where more and more things drop away. There's less and less activity of the mind going on until at some point the tendency of the mind to... label anything at all to assign meaning or value or concept to anything, including infinite space, falls away. And that subtle, very subtle and mostly innocent activity of assigning labels, signs, meaning to experience stops.

[17:40]

And this is called the signless, important experience in the early tradition. So now, it's been emptied of, it's a process of emptying, emptying, emptying. Now it's emptying of all these more grosser disturbances, and the mind is very, very refined. At this point, the Buddha gives a little different instruction. Rather than emptying yourself of that also, it says in this very subtle place, now to have the mind this subtle, there has to be very little attachments, right? Because if you're clinging, you can't, the clinging is a pretty, pretty, usually a pretty agitated state of mind to be in. So the mind has gotten thinner and thinner, the attachments have gotten weaker and weaker, and the mind is very refined, very soft, very peaceful. And then the instructions to turn the mind around and see how this experience of the signless mind, that experience itself is impermanent, is conditioned,

[18:45]

it arises and passes, it arises because of certain conditions that are in place, and that there's some very, very subtle intentionality, intention involved in having it be there, that's creating it. When a person sees that and lets go in a deeper place, then the Buddha says, at that point, because the mind is so subtle, it can let go of some of the deeper roots, the deeper kind of under structure, under foundation of clinging or attachment that is in our mind, stuff that's latent and can't often be seen. And at that point, the mind becomes free of three things. It becomes free of sensual desire. It becomes free of what's called the attachment or clinging to becoming, to existence in a sense. And it lets go of ignorance, the ignoring functioning of the mind, to ignore what's really going on. And then it says the mind now is empty of lust, empty of attachment of becoming, empty of ignorance.

[19:55]

And this, the Buddha said, is the supreme emptiness. So the supreme emptiness is not the emptiness that focuses on the empty nature of existence, but it's the empty nature of the consciousness of the mind when there's no clinging there at all. Since clinging is the cause of suffering, if you see suffering well enough, you'll see the clinging. And then if you let go of that clinging, there's a cessation of that suffering, which is the first three of the four double truths. So the concentration approach to emptiness in the early tradition is one of emptying the mind of disturbances until the last remnants of any kind of agitation and restlessness in the mind is let go of. dropped away. Would that make sense? Should we go on to the insights part or do you want to ask questions? Yes?

[20:57]

Could you quickly just restate the three things that one would be free out of their blood if they were to like all of the scientists as well? Yes. Clinging to sensual desire, clinging to becoming, and clinging to ignorance. Was the version included within one of those, or was that probably... That's interesting. Pretty much everything is dropped before that. But for some reason, this early tradition singles these three out as kind of one version of the kind of root clangings a person has. In other texts, they say greed, hate, and delusion are the root. So how these things all relate, and why the different texts there are different descriptions, I don't know. Is there any chance we can open windows in here? It's like the air is like totally... It's warmer outside, but air flow might be nice.

[21:58]

It will be better to hear, however. It will be better to hear. Should I speak louder now, or is it still okay? A strange question to ask, but the people who can't hear can't answer. Can everyone hear? Can you hear in the back? So, more questions? It was the fire and brimstone. What? It was the fire and brimstone. I don't have fire and brimstone, either. But, um... So, the insight part of Enkia's... So the insight part has to do with look at how we see our experience. So it has to do with the first part. You don't have to see much, except you have to see the nature of disturbance and how to let go of the disturbance and get more and more subtle.

[22:59]

That's the path of concentration. Insight is to see something more particular about the nature of our experience, how we're experiencing things. And for the insight part of the practice, the Buddha emphasizes seeing that the world is empty of self or anything pertaining to self. It's empty of anything that makes sense to call me, myself, and mine. Now remember, the world, the Buddha defined as, you know, this phantom long body. So it's really something very close. It's not the world out there, but kind of how we experience. And in particular, He focused a lot on the ways in which we experience ourselves, the self, to look at those experiences of self and to see in those experiences there's nothing that qualifies as a self or to belong to a self.

[24:02]

So he talks about the five aggregates, the five skandhas, so form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness, that to have insight, to really see that there's nothing there that qualifies as self. Now, it takes some doing to actually see that. It isn't supposed to believe it, because the Buddha says there's no self there, but to actually see that in those things you can't find anything that has to do with self. So, maybe it's worthwhile stepping back a little bit and seeing what the early tradition has to say about self, because of It's so important to this real tradition to have insight into not self. So, probably many of you have heard that Buddhism teaches there's no self. Have you heard that? Yeah, like they're really important in Buddhism, right? No self. And some of you are confused by that? Well, there are Buddhists who teach that there's no self.

[25:05]

But the Buddha in the Pali Canon, the early Buddha, he never taught that. So it's a misattribution to him when people say the Buddha taught there is no self. In fact, there's a number of places the Buddha described inappropriate ways of reflecting or considering our experience, what's going on. And so here's an interesting list of inappropriate ways to pay attention. Or say a different way, when we experience the world, we often experience it through the filter of some framework. We have some framework, some bias, some preconceived ideas of what's important. They overlays what we're paying attention to. So if we think what's important is, I guess you have, I don't know what, but if I want to buy a couch, I've noticed when some years ago, many years ago, we were interested in couch, I was really surprised how many couch stores there were.

[26:09]

I had no idea there were so many couch doors. But now, you know, I started picking up couch doors and going down, because now my mind was interested in that. So, we often had things that interest us. You know, when I was a teenager, I was interested in particular people, and those people would stand out, and my interest around those people stood out. But, you know, that doesn't operate the same way anymore. So, we often see it, we don't see things innocently, we bring a certain orientation And one of the orientations, a lot of the orientations, has to do about the nature of self. And even the idea that there is a self is part of that orientation. So what orientation, what preconceived frameworks for our experience do we bring? What's appropriate and what's not appropriate? So the Buddha said, this is how one attends inappropriately.

[27:12]

And inappropriately for the purposes of becoming free of suffering. Remember, that's the whole game in this early tradition. So if you're interested in becoming free of your suffering, it's inappropriate to frame your experience around these kinds of questions. Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past? Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what, what shall I be in the future? Or else, the person is inwardly perplexed about the immediate present. Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound? So probably without a lot of reflection, you can probably put a lot of your concerns into what are these categories.

[28:16]

I didn't write it down here, but in the next paragraph, the discourse says that the whole reflection or the idea that there is a self, there is no self. leads to a quagmire of belief and confusion. So here we have the early Buddha saying, don't even bother making the claim there is no self. But don't get involved either with a claim that there is a self. So isn't that confusing? What are you left with if you're not supposed to think about that? So he goes on to say, if you want to consider reflect appropriately on your experience for the purpose of becoming free of suffering, then you should frame your orientation to your experience by noticing the suffering.

[29:20]

Noticing the suffering and noticing the cause of the suffering and noticing the end of it. Because if you get involved thinking that your happiness is dependent on creating a particular self or being a particular self, then your happiness is already dependent on something which entails suffering which is needing to have a self. And if you think your happiness is dependent by getting rid of yourself, then you're already, that's also involved in something, you don't see the suffering that's inherent in that. But the Buddha says go more directly. Like if you go to the doctor and something ails you, and the doctor wants to know all about were you in the past, what were you in the past, where are you going to be in the future, you know, you have 15 minutes of Kaiser. You know, and then the doctor asked, you know, what's your favorite sports team? And, you know, notice how the giants are doing. You know, you're looking at your clock. You want the doctor to get to what ails you. That's what you want to talk about, to get to the point.

[30:23]

So in the same spirit, I think, the Buddha is saying, if you want to overcome suffering, become sensitive to it. Look at it. And look at your experience directly from that point of view. So, the inside approach... is to not so much pay attention to self and not self, but rather to notice how the activity, the mind's activity of saying that this is the self or this is not the self, the mind's activity of saying this belongs to me, this doesn't belong to me, that those are activities of the mind and are not inherent in reality itself. So, for example, you know, you all to go to the zendo in the morning to meditate. You put all your shoes outside in the shoe rack, right? And then you go inside, and you do whatever you do in there, and then you come out. He knows what they do, right?

[31:23]

And they come out, you come out. Now, if everyone left with different shoes than you came with, your shoes wouldn't care. The caring, the idea, this is my shoes, belongs to that world and mental activity. And that mental activity can change quite quickly. You know, you see someone's beautiful shoes, they have the right size, you admire them, the owner says, here, these are yours, they give it to you, and now they're yours. The next person comes along and admires your new shoes, they say, those are really nice, and you say, sorry, they're mine. And so we create a sense of mind as an activity of the mind. And luckily, there's enough common agreement about how we create this activity that things are pretty orderly. But this is activities of the mind. And a lot of human suffering arises out of this particular activity of making things, seeing things as self, or seeing things as mind. And you can see that in meditation sometimes very clearly.

[32:26]

If there is, for example, physical pain, like a knees hurt, It's possible to actually feel the difference between looking at the pain as being my pain versus the pain. Many people find that when they attribute the pain as my pain, it's much easier to feel self-pity or feel aversive or kind of like, this is about me. But if it's just the pain, and you free yourself of that activity of calling it mine, there's much more ease in that experience. with the Buddhist emphasis on the whole approach to self, was not to negate or affirm the existence of self, but rather to ask us to look, to have insight into how our selfing, the activity of selfing, functions in our mind, what those are. And to recognize and appreciate how much selfing, how much activity of making a self arises in the mind in relation to all kinds of experience. And to recognize how that activity either has a lot of suffering part of it,

[33:32]

have to do it, or if there's no conventional suffering, then it still involves a certain degree of agitation. Maybe it's not agitated in the conventional, ordinary mind, but as the mind gets quieter in meditation, then it doesn't, you can see how a very innocent, you know, even such innocent activity as, these are my shoes, is a coarse activity in a very still mind. Very peaceful mind, you can see that thought bubble up, And, you know, why bother? Why pick it up? Why get involved? Just kind of sullying the mind to have those kinds of thoughts. And whereas if you're walking around normally here, this is my shoes, it's not nothing. So to have insight is to begin looking into the nature of that activity of selfing and to see how it's an activity and how the activity of assigning self, me, myself, and mine, is not inherent in the things of the world.

[34:33]

It's not inherent that those shoes are my shoes. It's not inherent that if I'm grumpy one day, there's grumpiness. I could say my grumpy. As soon as it's me being grumpy, then there's my concern about you seeing me being grumpy. And I'm supposed to be like, you know, I have dharma transmitted here. I'm supposed to be kind of, you know, greedy. pretty, you know, well-practiced guy, you know, would do my reputation really bad if I end up showing up here grumpy. And so now I'm concerned, so now I want to hide. It's very complicated. You know, the whole world of self gets pretty complicated very quickly if I get wrapped up in it. If I just leave it to be grumpy, there's just grumpiness today, then it's just, you know, it's a lot more useful. A lot more useful to be grumpy than being the one who's grumpy. And so that also goes with good states. You can be happy. And it's a lot more useful to be happy than to get caught up in what it means for me to be happy. So we start seeing how the things of the world, there's no need to assign, this is mine, this is me in that experience.

[35:44]

And so the Buddha said, to have insight is to see that nothing in the world, it belongs to me or mine. There's no self in this world. There's no self in or nothing pertains to me in the five aggregates. No matter where you look, you don't see any self. Since the attachment to self is one of the really deep-seated attachments that people have, to begin loosening up the grip of selfing is one of the powerful ways of beginning to experience greater happiness or freedom or liberation in this early tradition. So that's the second form of emptiness, to see the empty of self, that how things are empty of self, without needing to posit that there is no self. And in this way, emptiness is an attribute. Emptiness is a characteristic of things. As it says in the Heart Sutra, form is empty, empty is just form.

[36:45]

It's a characteristic. You don't have form without it being empty. You don't have emptiness without it actually connecting to something that's a form. Actually, the Hartsuit would actually be referring to the five aggregates, right? So empty of what? And in the early Buddhist tradition, they would say it's empty of self. So that's the insight approach. So any questions about that? Yes, please. Oh, OK, glad you asked. So the question was, she couldn't understand the leap between karma and emptiness.

[37:48]

We made a strong point earlier about the connection. So karma tells us to begin looking at how are our activities in mind. Karma, the word karma means action. That's what it literally means. So how are actions, activities of mind, especially our volitional activities of mind, how they have consequence and their role that it plays in our suffering and our happiness. One of the very significant forms of karmic activity action that we do is to create a sense of self. Selfing is part of that. So when you have insight into how selfing operates and the emptiness of self, how there's no self in, then you're beginning to tease apart or take responsibility for that karmic activity. And then you can put that karmic activity to rest, to seize it, and experience the happiness on the other side of that activity.

[38:53]

So the insight into the emptiness is the insight, actually what you see when you see that is you see how, you see two things. When you see form, you see how form arises and you see how it passes. You see how a sense of self, an idea of self arises and passes. When the mind is still enough and quiet enough to have insight, you don't just see how it works. you know, see the existence of something, you actually see that it's an impermanent phenomenon. You see how the mind creates an interpretation. You see the birth in the mind of, this is my shoes. And it's not inherent in the nature of the universe, these are my shoes, but you see how, oh, these are my shoes as a thought that gets born. And anything that gets born, gets born from causes and conditions. And when those causes and conditions change, then it can cease. And so you see the seizing of that thought as well. And then to see those things is to see karma, the functioning of karma.

[40:00]

And if you see the functioning of those, you also start seeing the emptiness of things. Because if you see how the thought of self arises, how the thought of self seizes, is there really a self then? You know, is that a true perception? Is it just a thought in the moment? Does that make a little more sense? Yes. I heard that possibly the Buddha used talked about the arising of no self, talked about no self, but didn't really, you were saying that he didn't teach no self, but I heard that possibly that might have been because there was such a deep rooted culture of their being a soul and being parnesian and it could be possible that he didn't force that because it would have been so radical for people of the day so it was like skillful meetings and teaching and that really he was teaching us so I mean if it were a different audience maybe more people that understood

[41:21]

We could attribute that to him if we want, but there's no evidence of the Buddha ever teaching that. There is evidence of the Buddha saying, don't get involved in that kind of way of thinking that there is no self. That's not appropriate or useful way of thinking that there is no self. It's also not useful to think there is a self in this way. And there were times in this early tradition where people asked him point blank, is there no self? So he had a chance to answer the question. He didn't answer it. The whole idea of understanding our experience from the vantage point of self and not self, that's not interesting. What's interesting is understanding our experience from the nature, from the point of view of what's the karmic activity that gives birth to suffering and the end of it. And the activity of self in this part of it. So the Buddha never said there's no self. He used the word anatta, anatman in Sanskrit, which might be, as you said, be very closely connected to the teachings of atman or atta, of self or soul in the earlier Indian tradition.

[42:35]

But the prefix is not no-self, it's not-self. And just like emptiness is often seen as being a characteristic of things, an attribute, so not-self is an attribute of things. So my shoes are not self. My body is not self. My feelings are not self. My perceptions are not self. Meaning I can't find self in that. There's nothing there that qualifies as a permanent, abiding, autonomous, independent self in that experience. And to attribute that kind of self to our body, our feelings, our perceptions, our mental formations of consciousness just leads to further suffering. So... I don't think the Buddha was just, he had so many chances. It's a big body of literature that's attributed to him. He had ample time. I don't think we, we don't need to attribute. And also we don't need to come up with the idea that he was really teaching there's no self.

[43:36]

It's just not a needed, it's not a needed concept. It's kind of leaning into the physics again. You know, it's like, it's enough to understand the phenomenology of our experience to help us become free without getting into the metaphysics. Yes. So, how do we get around in this normal world if we're not selfing all the time? Not only am I wearing long shoes, but other people are responding to me as a self. No, the Buddha never said you're not supposed to self, either. But if you understand how selfing, the activity of selfing, is an activity of the mind, then you can take some responsibility for that activity. And you can... in certain situations, you can assume, you can figure out what's the appropriate concept of self that's useful in this situation and what's not useful in this situation. So, for example, when I was here at Tassajara, I spent a year in the kitchen.

[44:43]

I had a great time in the kitchen for the most part, except when we were going to kill each other. And it was great. And I spent the next two practice periods having my sense of self intimately connected with becoming the head cook, Tenzo, or becoming a guest cook for the next summer. Certainly, I was the best cook at the Sahara and most experienced. Certainly, they choose me. And I spent a lot of time in the zendo during the meal, especially planning menus and analyzing the food. And I was going to be, the gill was going to be the guest cook or something. Very prestigious job. I was going to have all my prestige, my status in the community was going to be very high. It was great. I would say that that, in retrospect now, that that kind of selfing, that was not a very useful way of selfing. Right?

[45:44]

You know, I didn't let go. But there are other things that are useful. So it's useful for me to know which of my shoes when I go to the baths, right? Because I'd upset some people if I left with different shoes. So that's useful to have that idea. It's useful for me to have the concept that the kind of self I am, the kind of person I am, is I'm a father. Since I have kids, I think it's a good one to keep close at hand. But it's a role, which is important to me. maintain and keep going, understand how it's conditioned and created and has responsibilities entailed with it. But if I always go around here holding on tightly, I'm a father and that's my identity. Well, it's important to everyone to see me, I'm a father, please. I just create a headache for myself. I should know when I can drop that. Or being a teacher, like sometimes I'm a Buddhist teacher. And when should I be a Buddhist teacher? I should know that. That seems to be a useful thing. People think it's useful. Otherwise, Greg wouldn't have invited me here. He thinks it's useful, so that's why he invited me. So I'm going along with the fiction.

[46:45]

Hopefully it's a useful idea. And if it isn't, I apologize. But, you know, there are times when I shouldn't be a teacher. There were my early years with my relationship with my wife. Sometimes she would tell me, Gail, you're using that voice. And, you know, it was a teaching voice. You know, I had to drop being a teacher at home, right? So we have much more fluidity if we understand how selfing is an activity rather than something inherent in who we are. And then we can pick and choose between when it's useful to have a sense of self and when it's not, and which kinds of self to have and which not to have. But no matter what activity of self we choose to have in particular situations, it still involves a certain degree of the mind being active, being restless. And you might not notice that going around your normal life, but when things get still and quiet enough, on vacation, on wilderness, in meditation, in deep meditation, it becomes very clear that you don't need to pick up that activity.

[47:54]

That activity actually disturbs the mind. And some of you, perhaps, have had very still meditation. Maybe you've had the experience of doing very peaceful, very still meditation, and watching an innocent thought, maybe even a wholesome thought, beautiful thought arise. And see, that's a nice thought. It's beautiful. It's pleasant in and of itself. But you know, not having that thought is so much more pleasant. It's so much more satisfying than getting involved in that pleasant, that kind of particular activity. And so part of the course of meditation is to begin appreciating that even healthy, appropriate senses of self that a person might create can be put to rest as well. And it's to our benefit to put it to rest certain times. and to have the flexibility to be able to do that. What many of you will find, many meditators will find, is you sit down to meditate, and you bring with you yourself. And you can't put it down so easily. You're concerned with this and that, and who said what to do, and what position you're going to have here at Tessahara, and are they going to make me tenzo, and they didn't make me tenzo, and you're sitting there, not meditating, but trying to work out a better self.

[49:05]

So what did the Buddha teach about meditation techniques? He had a lot of different meditation techniques. It was my putting in the two categories. There's that approach, which more has to do with calm abiding, with tranquilizing or settling the mind, which is considered the concentration approach. And then there's the insight approach, which has much more to do with seeing into how this mental activities work and seeing the permanent nature of all this experiencing, and which leads to a calm abiding and leads to deep insight. How to do that, there are a variety of techniques. for doing that. For the concentration approach, I just gave you the technique. You sit down and start noticing these things that I described.

[50:12]

For the insight approach, you start bringing attention into the present moment, into the immediate way in which we experience the present moment, and start noticing how the experience of the present moment arises and passes moment by moment. And so there are then those practices that teach us to have insight into the nature of that. It's a simple answer, but there's lots and lots of places where the Buddha gives much more detailed instruction. Is that specific to these particular situations? Are there specific instructions of Buddha? No, it's pretty general. Yes. So teaching in one, a lot of their awakening as a process by which you go beyond, completely beyond, some of the logical things, and conceptualize in order of consciousness.

[51:25]

And then, by virtue of seeing persons arrive, then draw back to next, or experience making sense of what experience ideas and all of these questions related to our work. Because that is essential insight that the process of labor. And so I'm not sure that I hear that it seems to be a framework or whether that it seems to be a framework. Because I think that I'm giving you a framework of a refinement of the natural process itself. Is there a goal beyond that? Well, both happen. So I don't know if I understand your question, but the first approach, the concentration approach, is one of refining the mental processes, making them a little more subtle. The second approach has to do with insight and understanding. And that understanding can happen at different levels of practice, different levels of subtlety in the mind. To see the arising and passing of self and to see that something is not inherently self, to see how self is a creation that arises.

[52:27]

But when there's a transcendent experience or when there's a radical cessation of pretty much anything that we recognize as mental activity. It provides a very different vantage point for understanding how things arise and pass. And you realize then there's actually nothing which doesn't arise and pass in our experience. And then once you've seen that, then the person at least will no longer believe that there is something out there in here which has the kind of permanence and inherency that qualifies as a self. And so because you see how everything arises and everything passes, there's nothing that has the constancy that allows for a self. And so that, what you're calling transcendent experience, this radical cessation, is often what's required to have the deepest insight and confidence in the dependent arising nature of this reality of us. And so it's that.

[53:29]

very radical, so it can happen in different levels, this insight, but when the insight happens, there's a much more radical cessation level, then it affects the inner activities of functioning of the mind in a very different way than just seeing. And one of the ways that early tradition talks about this is it is an uprooting, that something actually comes to an end once and for all. And it's that after that kind of deep experience, that certain things, a person will never be the same in particular ways. Is that answering your question? Since I didn't quite understand, I couldn't quite hear it all. Yes? Is that which sees impermanence impermanence? Can you be a little louder, please? Is that which sees impermanence impermanence? Is the seizing impermanence? Is that which sees, in a rising and passing way, that which sees impermanence Is that which sees it and experiences it, is that impermanent?

[54:33]

Well, that's what, in this radical cessation that happens, there's clearly the cessation of that which sees as well. But that which sees, is that impermanent? It's clearly seen as being impermanent, yes. It's very clear. That which sees, sees it as well. very clear that that which sees, seizes and begins again. And begins what? That which sees, awareness itself, seizes and then begins again. And begins again. But does it stop beginning again? Sorry? Does it begin again forever? Does it begin again forever? Well, this is how it gets into more of the theory of this. I don't know so much, but I can tell you kind of the Buddhist metaphysics of this, which I don't think the Buddha was so interested in.

[55:37]

But as long as a person is alive in this lifetime, it says, that consciousness awareness arises and passes. There's enough momentum to keep it going. But at the moment of death, but that momentum has no clinging to in it anymore. And so there's no further becoming, meaning that when the person dies, the mechanism by which the consciousness gets reborn to the next life is through wanting to be reborn, reaching out and grabbing and clinging. And so if clinging has been uprooted completely, then in the moment of death, there is no reaching forward into the next life and there is no further future rebirth. at that moment, that which sees impermanence then ceases to exist. That impermanence ceases to exist? No. That which sees impermanence arises and follows. That which sees it, if it stops clinging, it ceases to exist.

[56:44]

Maybe. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I haven't been there. I don't know. And I think it's an interesting question. But I think it's a kind of question that this early tradition, at least, was not getting involved and not interested in. Because what I was really interested in was trying to focus on that which is pragmatically useful, functionally useful, to help a person become free of suffering. What's clinging in relief? Sorry? What's a clinging in relief? Yes. Then that, when the first time has him alive. Yes, it's an interesting question, but it's not practical. It's a question which doesn't have barren, the relationship to that, on freeing you from suffering. What's your free from suffering, that question? It could arise. It's interesting. You can take a philosophy class or a goodology class, and you can look into it, but it has no value for your freedom. You're already free. So you could be curious about it, the curiosity thing,

[57:49]

But the person who is free has no need to answer that question. It's not relevant for that person. It's an interesting question. It's certainly an interesting question, but it has no relevance in terms of helping us become free of suffering. What? Once water is free of payment, then the question of suffering becomes pass-ex. is no longer important. That's right. Another question becomes significant. Sorry? Another question becomes significant. Why? Why should it be significant? So you're certainly interested as a scientist or as a curious person to be interested in all those works. You know, it could be interesting, but there's no need to answer the question. I mean, I'm interested in astronomy.

[58:49]

You know, I think it'd be fascinating to understand how the universe was born and all that. But understanding how the universe was born and understanding where the universe is going to end is not really relevant for the task of my suffering and ending of it. So what I wonder, listening to you, whether your question belongs more to that category of, you know, very interesting questions like astronomy as opposed to something that helps us become free or suffering. I'm missing you. I apologize, I miss you. Okay, I apologize for missing you. Maybe later we can do it more. Time? Oh, a question? Yeah. Is effort inherent in intention? Is effort inherent in intention? Yes. Intention is an activity of the mind, and if there's an activity of the mind, the mind is active.

[59:52]

Active is effort, energy involved. Now, sometimes there's no self-conscious effort, and so sometimes when people talk about effortless effort, it seems like it just happens easily. Effortless intention, just like there, the intention is there. But there's still, you know, you need energy, you need the mind to be active, the neurons have to be firing. for this to be happening. And when the neurons fire, there's activities. And when the mind gets stiller and stiller, then something that's seen as effortless in one state of mind is seen as requiring effort in another. So, for example, thinking. I mean, if you're often in ordinary consciousness, you don't feel that it takes much energy to think. But if you're in deep meditation, you can feel the effort it takes to the age of thinking and be involved in it. connect to it. So it refers to the signless. You said intention drops away. No, so the instruction here is that the experience of the signless in that state is a very refined, verified state.

[61:00]

The person sees how that state itself has been conditioned and formed out of intention. There's intentionality behind it because it belongs to the conditioned world. It's part of the conditioned world. And so the conditioned world that we are part of, dissipated in. So seeing how it's conditioned and seeing that it is conditioned, so we don't take it as absolute. We don't take it as the truth or the absolute or we don't make it into some ultimate thing. So like for example, I mentioned earlier that the meditation state of infinite consciousness. Some people take that to have that experience, this is the most ultimate. It's so much more peaceful than any other state of mind I've ever had. It's so blissful, it's so expansive. This must be it. But actually, this is also a creative activity of the mind. It's very subtle. And it takes a very refined, concentrated mind to notice that this is an activity of the mind that can be settled and quieted down further. Now, the signless is still an activity of the mind that's operating, an activity of the mind.

[62:04]

And what does it take to let that activity come to the name? And at some point, when the mind is this refined, this still, there cannot be any more self-conscious effort in to still occur. Because the self-conscious effort itself belongs to a core state of mind, keeps the core state of mind in place. So what's required is a kind of insight, spontaneous or kind of clear insight, and a radical leading things along it. So it's a combination of this radical, this insight and radical kind of leaving things alone. Something in the mind, some very, very subtle activity in the mind can give up or drop away or fall away that you can't make happen. So I don't know if that answers your question. Yes? I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about the relationship between the self and

[63:06]

music or art or just poetry or like creation and things and all. It's something that I've been grappling a lot with in the last, I don't know, six or eight months or so is this feeling of, I don't know, like especially being here, I'm primarily a piano player and I've been playing piano since I was four or five years old. And this is the longest time that I've ever gone in my life without playing piano. And so I've been thinking a lot about, OK, well, what does it mean really to play piano or to play music? And what is this energy that's coming up that feels like I need a piano to release it? It feels like self-cleaning, but also like, well, I experience a lot of, I think, in playing music, a feeling of offering energy not as attached to myself, especially since before I came here, I played in a church setting really often.

[64:25]

So yeah, I'm wondering if you can elaborate on just my connection between selfing and creating. Or does that make sense as a question? Not so well, but let me try jumping in anyway. So the question is between selfing and creativity. And she said that she is a pianist. And so there seems to be a lot of momentum and strong habit or urge. She's driven to want to play music. She hasn't played music this long since she was four years old and coming to Tessahara. So it's kind of a challenge to be here that way. anything that we do regularly can have a lot of different functions for us and we soothe us or bring benefits to us and if we don't have those benefits then we can feel disoriented there can be a lot of selfing around creativity around music art so for example I had this interesting experience when I was about 20 and 19 or 20 where

[65:33]

when I was 18, I think, in college, freshman, I started taking art classes just for the fun of it. I discovered art. I had never done much art before and enjoyed taking art classes. It was fun. It was a guest. And I even became an art major because it's the only way I could get into certain classes, art classes. But then this magic day happened where I decided I was an artist. And the amazing thing is that the day I decided I was an artist was the day I stopped doing art. Because somehow then I had to do art for the identity's sake. And so, you know, it's kind of a strange, kind of a dramatic story. But, you know, it's so easy to tie creativity, artistic expression, with a sense of self, rather than just letting it work through us freely. And, you know, if you've done it most of your life, the music every day or it's a regular thing we do, chances are that there's a lot of interesting material to look at, of selfing around it.

[66:38]

And not only selfing, but also your beliefs about what is needed and necessary to be happy. And is it really the case that you could only be happy if you have a certain outlet for your energy or creativity? Now it is sometimes said that musicians have a, what's it called, a leg up for doing meditation. It can be a little bit easier for musicians to get into meditation and people who don't have any musical background, so hopefully it's easier for you. So I would think it's a great area for you to explore. So the insight approach, the mindfulness approach, would be to actually stop and look more deeply, more carefully at what's happening to you. It's a great opportunity to be here and not have business as usual. So you can really grapple and look at the underlying forces within you that are operating that maybe you would take for granted and not even notice if you had free outlet to do what you want to do.

[67:42]

So if I may say this, it kind of reminds me of something, it's non sequitur maybe, but there are two ideas of freedom, two forms of freedom. There's the freedom to do something And there's a freedom from. So in America, there's a lot of emphasis on freedom to. Freedom to vote, freedom to own property, freedom to speech, freedom to assemble, freedom to shop. So they have freedom to. And there shouldn't be any government, please, limiting me my freedom to do what I want to do. So if you have an unlimited credit card, Then you can shop to your drop. You can shop and all your urge to shop, you're free to shop and it feels great, you feel expensive, freedom is so great and you feel so liberated. Until you max out on your credit card.

[68:43]

And then the urge to buy and to have can't be fulfilled anymore. And then the pressure, the momentum of wanting and everything that wanting is associated with, becoming a better self, your identity connected to it, your ideas of happiness and pleasure, the urge, so then you get uncomfortable until you learn how to be free from your compulsions. Buddhism, in terms of freedom, Buddhism is not like the middle name of Buddhism, right? It's freedom. Buddhism, at least in the early Buddhist tradition, puts much greater emphasis on freedom from than freedom to. And so rather than looking at how to be free to do your music freely, this opportunity to be Tassahara is a chance where you can't do your music. And so this gets you a chance to look at all the forces inside of you. So the compulsions, the compelling nature of it, the beliefs, the sense of self, everything connected to it, until hopefully you come to a place where you're free from having to do music.

[69:49]

And then you might find when you do go back to music, You're telling music in a different way. Well, you're no longer moved to. Make sense? You want to answer your question, you think? You have the family when to stop. Yes? Okay. I think what's kind of liberating it is that work needs to be done to get free from all you can be able to talk like that. in order to be more liberal. Does that work in the Buddhist teaching need to be in meditation? Do we have to meditate? Is that one of the things we have to do in order to be free from? You know, I'd like to think that this teaching is for everyone, bus drivers and bankers and lawyers and

[70:53]

I don't think he ever said it. He did often in his ancient discourses recommend to his monks and nuns to go meditate. That's true. He said, you know, meditate now lest you regret it later. But that was to people who had renounce being bus drivers and things like that and you know we're dedicating their life to this one pursuit and one argument to be made is that if if your primary purpose in life your primary direction orientation in life is to become free of suffering and not to drive buses then maybe this is the most efficient way to really do it all the way to go to the depths of it but anyone can practice in their life as it is So a bus driver might notice after some time that she's really attached to being the fastest bus driver on the block, and how much suffering that involves.

[72:03]

Or, and you realize, oh, I've created clinging to a concept of being, how to be a bus driver, and clinging to whatever the people think about me, this hurts, and I think that I can let go of this and feel more peace. So that kind of very immediate, so the Four Noble Truths, the insight that can happen that the Buddha taught, can happen anytime at all at any kind of level of consciousness, any level of reality. So the bus driver might see the suffering around being a bus driver, but there might be a much more subtle forms of attachment that might not be accessible to the bus driver unless the mind is really still. Now, does a bus driver need to do that? Buddhism doesn't present any obligation to anyone. But if the bus driver wants to get down to the subtlety of the mind, then perhaps something comfortable to getting the mind still enough, like as you do a meditation, is really helpful. Can it be done other ways?

[73:05]

Probably. There are other ways. There are people who have experienced an awakening without, you know, without meditating. And in ancient discourses, there were people who became awakened, for example, and listening to the teachings. As we ever thought, and one of his disciples were teaching. And there's something about listening to that, getting insight and understanding in that part of working. Yes? I think it's possible in the cycle of the mirror at Tassajara to experience these subtle states. Is it possible in the cycles of Tassajara to experience which kinds of states? The subtle states that you describe. I think it's possible and whether it's possible for you I don't know but I think it's possible I think that there's a wonderful it's a very powerful environment environment to practice in here and sometimes the power of the place sometimes get lost people dinner for a long time but not lost and still affecting you but sometimes it's

[74:18]

things get seemingly ordinary and get used to it. But it's a very powerful place to practice. And I think it's a very powerful, the alternation between the summer guest season and the practice period to go back and forth. I think it's a beautiful design for practice to go back and forth. I think that seemingly the way that Buddhism classically has been designed, Buddhist practice, is to have periods of going back and forth between periods of retreat and daily life. In the ancient world, the monks would go on retreat for three months then they go travel around the world. At Tassahara, we do three months at a time, and then the world comes here. But still there's an alternation, and you get to see different parts of us. The bus driver, who would be good for the bus driver to occasionally go on retreat, and they had an alternation that could be helpful. So the three-month practice period and the amount of sinning you do here is a very significant amount of time. The environment, the overall practice here, the work practice here,

[75:18]

The whole environment is set up that can be really helpful to get the mind concentrated and get the mind strongly mindful. The causes and conditions are in place here for you to work with your mind, the way your mind is, for you to be able to taste that. I don't know you well enough to answer. Yes? I can't hear you. Okay. I was just wondering about practice and stuff. The way I'm seeing it, it's kind of an airy paradox because that's when you practice is trying to achieve something or read something. And so, practicing it. How do you practice? Because it seems that practicing you do have a goal. Yes. And then if you try to not have a goal, that itself is a goal. So it's in practice. So the way I'm seeing it right now, it's kind of a paradox. It's not just the right thing in the results.

[76:19]

So I understand your question, I believe. And so what I've done so far, mostly in this class, is try to present you a perspective from this early Buddhist tradition. Would you like me to continue to answer from that perspective? Yeah. Okay. So from that perspective, the Buddha actually emphasized the importance of having desire, the importance of having some sense of a goal, of a possibility. And it's a very simple one, the possibility of being free of suffering. It's not a metaphysical thing. It's not becoming the best meditator on your block. The goal is to become free of suffering. And then it's often said in English that the cause of suffering is desire. And therefore, you have to get rid of desire at the end of your suffering. But how can you have desire to end suffering if you're supposed to get rid of desire? Right? So it's paradox, right?

[77:21]

But the paradox is a false paradox because the Buddha never said that desire is a cause of suffering. He said that clinging is the cause of suffering and clinging is a particular kind of desire where the desire has compulsion as part of it. The Buddha encouraged his followers to have a desire, have strong desire for liberation. And because it's that desire that gets you to practice. Even if you have a strong practice, like here at Zen Center, sometimes they say you're supposed to have a goalless practice. You're not supposed to have any goal when you sit and meditate. But, you know, for the people who teach you that here, they do. They teach you that sometimes still? Still being taught here? You know, I guarantee that most people who teach that here have put in a lot of effort, had a lot of strong desire to come to Zen Center, live at Zen Center, make the effort to Kaka Tassahara. make the effort to get up in the morning, you go sit zazen. I mean, you know, you've got to have some kind of desire. You don't, in order to kind of do the strong practice of having no goal here, right?

[78:27]

I mean, these guys are not lazy. You know, sitting back and say, everything's fine, I have no, you know. You know, practice as if your hair is on fire, it says somewhere, right? That's, you know, people who hair is on fire, they have desire. So the problem is not desire. The problem is clinging. Now, remember, there's this refining process. We're looking at, in the early tradition, we're looking at how mental activity functions and works and get a deeper and deeper understanding of how mental activity works. And we understand the appropriateness of activity at one stage of life and the inappropriate other stage. So in some areas of life, having certain senses of self are appropriate. In other areas of life, having the same sense of self is not appropriate. So you have a sense of the appropriateness of it. So having a strong desire for practice is appropriate in certain phases of practice and not appropriate in other phases. And we have to have the wisdom to know how to use it. So, for example, to have a strong desire for sitting zazen in a goalless way, without desire, is what gets us up in the morning into the zendo.

[79:36]

And, you know, to get us out of bed, you know, for an alcoholic who's really struggling with alcoholism, comes to a Zen Center teacher and says, you know, what should I do? Teacher says, come to the Zendo and practice goalless sitting. That alcoholic needs to have strong desire to get to the Zendo. Once the person's in the Zendo, it's really powerful there in that context to let go of all your desires, only to pick it up when you leave for some other purpose. Right? The Tenzo, I hope, or the Eno, I hope that the Eno is is able to let go of a lot of his desires when he sits at Zazen. When he comes out of the Zendo, I hope that the Tanto has a desire for the welfare of the students here. I hope that when he sits at Zazen, he's not thinking about that. My hope is when he comes out of the Zendo, that's his job to think about the welfare and the desire, right?

[80:38]

So different desires in different situations and the freedom to pick them up and drop them as needed. And so even the desire for liberation has a role of the time and place. As the mind gets more and more subtle, that desire, it's clearly at some point, that desire is muddying the water and getting in the way. And when it's clear, when you have the insight, the sensitivity to see that desire is muddying the water, then you know, oh, I have to let go of that desire too in order to be able to continue here. Does that resolve the paradox? If you want to be resolved, some people like keeping the paradoxes. Yes? Could you explain briefly some of the distinctions or what sort of characterizes the Vipassana school of Buddhism or what makes it what it is? So what characterizes the Vipassana school of Buddhism? The strong characteristic of the Vipassana tradition is that it focuses on the inside part.

[81:44]

of what the Buddha had to teach. So developing the capacity to see clearly and deeply the nature of how all this works is the focus, as opposed to focusing primarily on the concentration practice. Simple answer? Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[82:24]

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