Good evening, everyone. I'm going to assume you can hear me okay, but if you're having difficulty, please put a note in the chat field for Matt. Matt is acting as our host today, and he can let me know. But in the meantime, it looks like it's all okay. Yes? Excellent. Great. It's so good to be with all of you again, my friends. Thank you for joining the... online practice sessions late afternoon. And again, I'll just say how much I really enjoy our time together and look forward to these sessions and the opportunity to support each other during these particularly challenging times. But, you know, our Zazen, our practice, everything we do is always geared towards recognizing this one beautiful life together. And that beauty includes lots of challenges, lots of difficulties, but essentially the one open heart mind, one awake heart mind.

[01:34]

How can we together manifest and express that? So we come together in practice in order to find ways to discover that, touch it deeply, and begin to embody it and act it out in our lives. So if you are new to these online practice sessions, I'll just say that Usually what happens, there's about a 25-minute period of meditation with Zazen. And I'll start, for anyone who's new, with a little bit of a guided meditation that leads into it, and then eventually fade into silence. And then around 6 o'clock, I'll wrap that up or begin a Dharmet or a brief Dharma encouragement. And that will go for about 15 minutes or so. And then after that, open up the session to anyone who wants to share what's coming up for you and your particular practice. Either questions that you have about tonight's session or something that's been coming up for you during the week.

[02:37]

So that's the general flow of things. And before we go further, I just want to mention that this coming Thursday, we will not have a practice session. So that is Thursday, June the 4th. because City Center will be in Sashim. So there will be an afternoon, two periods of afternoon meditation that are open to the public. So you're welcome to join those. But there won't be the usual kind of guided meditation from me or another teacher, and there won't be a Dharmet, and we'll just be Zazen together. So it might be... you know, something that you also equally want to take advantage of. So just to let you know that, please do check the website for the change in the time, because I think it may start, the time may be a little bit different. I think at 5.30, if so, there's a period of walking meditation, and then at 5.40, the period of Zazen will begin.

[03:46]

And I think the room will open a little bit before 5 if you want to sit. the period of meditation before. Okay, well, how about without further ado, why don't we get prepared for our sitting? So please go ahead and find a position that's comfortable for you, that allows you to have your spine be upright and your chest open. Just being able to kind of Settle into where you are. You might wish to rest your hands in your lap, maybe taking the cosmic mudra, using your left hand gently in your right, and then forming a slight oval with your thumb tips touching. You can draw your chin slightly down and in, and then feel a gentle lengthening on the back of your neck.

[04:48]

like the crown of your head is reaching for the sky slightly. And resting the tongue at the roof of your mouth, your lips slightly apart, perhaps, and then take in the breath gently to the nose. Traditionally in Zazen, we have our eyes slightly open, Focus down in front of us a couple of feet. If you are sitting in front of a computer, it might be a little distracting, in which case it's better for you. Close your eyes. Just be sure not to fall asleep or get distracted by what's on the screen. And throughout the meditation, giving yourself over to both a physical and mental posture that is attentive to get relaxed. I'm going to ring the bell three times to begin our sitting, and then one time to end it.

[05:58]

And as I do so, allow your awareness to simply follow the sound of the bell, the vibration of the bell, for its beginning, its duration. And then once it fades away, become aware of what is it that remains. What is it that is always present and unchanging? that same focus awareness that you gave to the sound of the bell, bring awareness to your body, particularly to where the body makes contact to the environment.

[07:16]

Your cushion, your chair, your wheelchair, if you're laying down on the floor, wherever there's contact with the environment, just be aware of that. noticing the sensations of contact. And then bringing awareness to focus on contact with the breath. Becoming aware of the sensations of the inhale and the exhale. I find it sometimes helpful at the beginning of my meditation to take three deep, intentional breaths in. So breathing in, for example, on a count of four, and then holding it for just a little bit.

[08:20]

And then releasing. And releasing, extending the release to a count of eight, so twice as long. And doing this three times. each release, trying to let go a little bit more deeply throughout the body, allowing any tension that you might feel to simply be exhaled with the chakra. And after you've done that three times, you can Then allow the breath to just settle back into its regular rhythm, whatever it might be right now in this moment. And simply become an observer of the breath.

[09:25]

It might be particularly helpful to become aware of the sensations of breathing. For some people, the sound of the breath is easier to follow. finding some touchstone in your present moment experience which helps you to connect to, ground with, and stay in constant relationship to the present moment. As you attend to the breath, recognizing your present moment experience. We're getting simple recognition by asking, what is happening now? It's coming forward that gentle curiosity.

[10:35]

Kind of a kind, receptive way to notice what's going on in this moment in my present experience. That might include bringing awareness to whatever thoughts, emotions, feelings, or sensations that we're raising right here now. Recognizing what's going on. And simply allowing the experience just to be there, just to be as it is. who'd recognize the experience, whether it's accommodative thoughts, emotions, feelings, body sensations, allowing them to be present without trying to fix them or avoid them or change anything in their experience.

[11:51]

There might be a natural tendency to want to turn away from certain unpleasant experiences, either body sensations or emotions, or even some thoughts. It's noticing if this arises for you. And seeing if you can simply soften a little bit, offer a little space to be just what it is, to observe it for what it is. acknowledging things as they are in this moment. Maybe even investigating them, calling on a natural curiosity, a desire to know the truth of what is, what is happening now? What is the experience of the present moment?

[13:04]

whatever way it's showing up. Particularly perhaps staying with the felt sense of the experience, the felt sense in the body. Being with that felt sense as best we can in a non-judgmental and kind way. you bring an attitude of care to our meditation. And this attitude of care makes it possible to honestly connect with our experience, including any hurts or fears or difficulties that might be making themselves known.

[14:12]

It's a process of recognizing and allowing and investigating with interest and care. It leads us to the point of not identifying with our experience, not making a self out of our experience. It's simply resting the natural awareness beneficial, even nourishing our experience by offering it, ourselves, some self-compassion, acknowledging what's difficult, offering it spaciousness,

[15:36]

the wish for ease, living, caring quality. Now, continuing in this way, recognizing what is happening now, doing our best to allow it to be simply as it is. Whether thoughts, emotions, feelings, and sensations are making themselves announcing, we can open to them. Maybe even deepening our attention through investigation and curiosity. What is the nature of this experience?

[16:37]

calling through me, to recognize a deeper, more fundamental model. You're the best to grab onto or identify with the experience, not making yourself out of it. Simply presencing With compassion, everything that arises in awareness. Continuing this way now in silence. Thank you, everyone, for sitting together again.

[29:58]

I'll transition now into my Dharmet for this afternoon, so make yourself comfortable. And for any of you who was here joining us last week, the last couple practice sessions, we've been exploring how to practice and be with fear. And for many of us, fear is something that's kind of moved into the forefront of our awareness. in our lives during this particular time of pandemic and social unrest. And today I thought I would continue with offering reflections and practicing for working with fear. It tends to be kind of an endless subject. You can continue mining and practicing for fear and it's kind of variances for forever. It always seems to in some way make itself known. So anyway, I wanted to today continue with the conversation and And in particular, offer one practice that I think is actually applicable to working with a whole series of difficult emotions and experiences.

[31:04]

So not just fear. And I'll say a little bit more about that in a moment. One of the things that I mentioned earlier last week is that it's important to recognize that fear is actually an intelligent emotion. You know, we often think this kind of thing like, oh, fear is bad. It's actually, there's an intelligence to it. It has a place in our nervous system for a purpose. It protects this organism, its essential information. So fear is often called nature's protector because it signals when we might be in trouble and then draws in various natural responses for how we might meet the particular perceived threats. And you might be aware of the kind of the primal responses that often come up with fear, fight, Flight, the freeze, I think you've all heard of those, right? And I often like to add a fourth one, appease. I think in this modern age, oftentimes we try to appease the thing that's attacking us, hopefully that it will kind of calm down and release us from its grip in some way.

[32:11]

And if we're able to meet the immediate cause of our fear, to address it successfully in some way by addressing the threat itself and until the threat has passed, then afterwards we're able to relax again, come back to kind of a state of stasis in some way, spaces in some way. However, you know, this doesn't always happen. It ends up in some cases that we habitually start resisting, kind of processing our fear, kind of letting go, releasing the energy that's come up in our body. when fear makes itself known. And when that happens, our fear response goes into kind of an overdrive. You could say the fear response gets stuck in some way. And when this happens, fear turns into suffering. And maybe just very briefly mention, Stephen Levine, when he talks about trauma, part of what he focuses on is how, if you watch an animal, like if a deer or a dog is attacked in some way,

[33:20]

the whole body kind of goes up in energy, right? And this is energy coursing through them to either run or to freeze. I like that they were dead or to freeze from feeling the pain or to actually fight. So that adrenaline kind of gets charged up in the body. And once the threat is over, but if the animal gets away safely enough, that energy is released in some way. And oftentimes you'll see this with dogs. They kind of shake the energy off afterwards to release that energy. But as humans, we have a tendency not to do that. We have a tendency to go up into our heads and try to work the energy out by reliving the scenario, by coming up with a new story around the scenario of what happened, right? So the energy that actually got aroused in the body isn't often fully released, and it ends up being kind of a ruminative habit pattern in the brain instead. So I won't go into the science of all that, but I just want to mention that because when I talk about this way in which fear gets stuck in us and what happens when it gets stuck, we kind of end up in kind of a trance in our lives in some way, like always us.

[34:31]

So fear oversteps its boundaries and it begins flooding our life. It's as if the accelerator gets jammed on in some way. And... we end up kind of in this heightened reactive mode where all kinds of things kind of trigger our fear state, even the little small things that would normally be inconsequential to us. And if this happens frequently, very often, where our kind of fear accelerator gets stuck, or if it started at a very young age and continued persistently throughout our kind of growing up, then in time, the body begins to become hardwired and shaped by fear, literally gets wired through our neurons. So we can end up with that kind of persistent sense of tight, tense muscles, or a sunken chest, right, can protect ourselves, or a stiff back, or tight shoulders, and so on.

[35:33]

Many of you are familiar with the way that the body kind of tightens around fear. continually defending our existence in some way. So basically, as I said last week, we end up literally with a body of fear. It's kind of like a permanent suit of armor that is protecting us all the time because we feel we have to be in this kind of protection mode. So if this initial energy of fear isn't allowed to be released and let go of, it becomes trapped in the body. And then, It begins to run us. It begins to kind of shape our life in some ways. It determines, in many cases, the life choices that we make. And all this because fear, the energy of fear, is unprocessed. And it's unprocessed because we might resist the energy. We might resist getting to know it. But we kind of let the engine of fear keep running. And when this happens...

[36:36]

In time, it can turn into all kinds of other things. It can turn into chronic anxiety or worry. It can also kind of come out in behaviors that we try to numb ourselves to feeling fear. Through addiction, alcohol, sex, drugs, shopping, even Facebook. So any way not to feel our fear. And even in time, the image gets too stuck. it can actually become physical illness in some way. And unprocessed fear can become anger or a deep wanting to control things in some way. And if we keep pushing fear down, eventually it can turn into depression. Literally the word, to depress, to press down, to not feel what we're feeling. So this is kind of what happens when we're unable to work with fear, to process fear, to face fear.

[37:45]

So it's important to make the practice of facing fear something that's natural for us because it's a significant aspect of our evolving consciousness. So learning to skillfully acknowledge and work with fear is a pathway toward liberation. And there are a number of Dharma practices that offer us tools for how to face our fear. And I shared some of them in our last session. And today there's one in particular, like I mentioned, that I'd like to share with you. And it goes by the acronym RAIN. Are any of you familiar with RAIN? A few of you? So RAIN... RAIN was originally created by the Insight Meditation Society teacher Michelle McDonald, and it's often kind of unpacked in the teachings of Diana Winston and Tara Brach, if any of you are familiar, of all Insight teachers.

[38:49]

And my own teacher, Tia Strozer, Zen teacher, she's a very big proponent of RAIN, and she has even told me that she feels it needs to be one of the first things taught when students arrive at Zen Center. That's how important she feels it is to be able to understand and work with this particular tool for working with difficult emotions. And actually, as we work with it, over time, what it does is it deconditions our habitual ways in which we resist our moment-by-moment experience, the ways in which we resist the truth of this present moment. And resistance equals suffering. Again, the more we resist, the more we're going to suffer. The more we can be with and work with the experience of the present moment and relax and open to it, the less suffering we're going to experience in some way. So if you're not familiar with the acronym RAIN, I'm going to unpack it for you.

[39:56]

The R starts for recognizing. So recognizing what is happening in this moment. For example, someone just walked down the street. You were walking down the street and someone walked really close to you. I was telling you this recently when I go out for my walk sometimes. People come up next to me. I have my mask on. I'm all ready. I'm doing social, you know, physical distancing and everything. And some jogger comes right up next to me, really heavy, right over my shoulder. And I'm like, ah, right? So fear comes out, right? Or, you know, I'm reading the news about yet another black person has been unjustifiably killed by the police. Or there's another environmental protection that's been stripped away by our current administration. And boom, the only fear comes up and anger comes up as well, right? So this R is simply recognizing, noticing what is happening. What is present right now?

[41:00]

Being present with it to notice what is happening. So notice the thoughts, the feelings, and the sensations that are arising as they're arising. And this is not an easy thing to do because oftentimes they are arising in such a way that it feels like a torrent, you know, like a giant kind of, you know, flood of different emotions, feelings, and body sensations coming up. So it's really hard to discern what is it what's happening. And oftentimes when we do have these emotions come up, the first thing we do is become reactive in some way. Or, for example, blame the other person for causing the reaction that we're having. That can also happen. So to recognize what is happening, just simply notice it and be able to drop our preconceived ideas about what it is, our judgments about it, and just remain receptive to it. Point is to be awake, to pay attention, mindfulness, paying attention to what is.

[42:05]

And then A, A stands for allowing or accepting what's happening. So this means just letting the thoughts and the feelings and the sensations that you're having be as they are. This does not mean that you wanted what just happened to have happened. Accepting doesn't mean like I should want this. It should be okay. It simply means acknowledging that you have this experience. The experience is present. This is what presence is. And you can even, if it's awful, name it, for example. Fear is here. Anger is here. Even joy is here. Happiness is here. Sadness is here. Grief is here. The idea is that although you're not going to indulge the emotion or the thought with further thinking or kind of defending it in some way, you know, neither are we kind of resisting it or inverting it, averting to it, or distracting ourselves from what's happening.

[43:19]

So we're not getting into it, getting involved, but we're also not resisting it. Kind of basically not touching and not turning away. Simply acknowledge and name what is happening and being willing to be open to whatever it is, to the experience itself. And then the I. I stands for investigation. Investigating the senses, the sensations that are happening in the body in particular. So... Often when we simply work with the first two steps of RAIN, that's enough to actually provide us some kind of relief or kind of reconnect us to presence, to our normal state of presencing. But sometimes what's coming out for us, it's too overwhelming. It's too big. You could say the fire becomes too big. And we need more help in the form of an appointed inquiry by really focused questioning.

[44:22]

So the steps. The step of investigating is primarily one of physically noticing, noticing what's happening for us on a physical level. What does fear or whatever emotion that we're having feel like? I encourage you to investigate the felt sense of your experience. What does fear feel like in the body? How do you know fear is present? For example, for me, oftentimes the heart beats faster. There can be a flush of energy or heat, a tightening in my stomach or in certain muscles. And these physical events is what we often call fear. And the energetic emotional component has to be willingly and thoroughly felt until the body is able to return to open relaxation. This is how we digest the energy, how we feel the energy, how we allow the energy to flow through us.

[45:30]

So you breathe, be with the experience, feel it, and wait. And breathe and feel the body. At first maybe tight, and then slowly maybe changing, and then over time relaxing and opening, the more we're able to be, with the experience, and eventually maybe even letting go of the energy. But if this process of fully feeling, allowing, recognizing, opening and relaxing, letting go, if this isn't thoroughly done, then we haven't really felt the emotion that was triggered by, for example, the initial thought in the first place. And fear, many times, is triggered by a thought. a story, a narrative about some kind of threat, something bad's going to happen. So if that energy isn't released, the energy, the emotion isn't released, again, it gets stuck in the body.

[46:35]

And in doing so, it adds to the conditioned structure that was triggered in the first place, right? Our nervous system. That armor gets reinforced in some way. So, This being able to be open to the physical event is what actually integrates the energy. It dissipates the energy. And if you practice this over and over, eventually what it ends up doing is it dissolves the particular egoic structure that is kept in place by that energy. Ego is basically trapped energy. And A lot of energy is resistance. A lot of ego is resistance, I should say. Resistance to what is. And so rather than adding more thought on top of it or more energy on top of it, how do we allow it to release and let go and dissolve? And it's through this type of investigation we have a real taste of the potential freedom that practice can offer us.

[47:46]

So then the final step. letter is N. And N in the initial mode of RAIN stands for not identifying. So there's no need to identify a need in just what happened. And this non-identification means that your sense of who you are is not fused with or defined by the limits of conditioned emotions and sensations and thoughts. So Emotional sensations of thoughts, they're just passing mental and emotional events. They're like clouds as they move through an open sky. So they don't have to build or, you could say, rebuild a me on this passing content of the body-mind. You don't need to grab onto the clouds and make a self out of it, compacting it. grabbing more and more.

[48:50]

This is what we do. We take our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions, our memories, and we compact them, we hoard them, and we fix it and freeze it into place, and we make a self out of it. And we believe in the self. So instead, what we can do is, like the open sky, just observe this passing phenomenon. Be an observer. Recognize that the content of the thoughts or the feeling or the sensations is not who we are. And eventually, the more we do this, even the identification with an observer, some subject observing what experience is happening, that too also falls away. But to simply make the initial shift of not identifying with our experience, is a great place to start. So starting there, focusing on that. Non-identification is the realization of and the resting in what we might call natural awareness or presence.

[50:02]

So I presented the N in its traditional form, which is non-identification. More recently, RAIN has been updated and there's been a new twist added to the N to offer a different orientation. So rather than N standing for non-identification, some people are using N to mean nurture or nourish. When we nurture ourselves with a gentle attention and understanding, for example, when fear is present or whatever the experience is present, then it further awakens love. So in the former version, I or investigate, that kind of inquiry part, already included a kind of aspect or an attitude of care. The caring may gently investigate. But really what people like Tara Brock is kind of pointing out in the main process is actually the nurture step.

[51:09]

The end is actually, in some cases, better engaged as its own full step. So the essence of healing intention is understanding and love. Then what happens after if you focus on the kind of nurturing aspect of RAIN, what remains then, or you could say the after RAIN, becomes just open awareness itself, the tender space of awareness. And this is the place where we can rest. and be at ease. And it's kind of like that freshness that you feel after a rainstorm. Everything kind of glistens and just feels alive again, once you've gone through the process of rain. And we come in contact with the ground of our being and everything begins to bloom in our lives, nurtured by a spring rain.

[52:15]

So I see I've gone over it once again. So that was my brief kind of introduction or overview of RAIN, and I hope you find it as beneficial, too, if you decide to take this up and engage it, particularly working with whatever various fears or storms that you might experience in your life these days. And... So why don't we open up the session now and see if there's anything that you'd like to share. Matt has put in the instructions below in the chat box how you can raise your hand through the participant field. And then we'll identify who has their hand raised. And then he'll help me to unmute you so we can hear if you have a particular question. So is there anything you'd like to share or any inquiry? I see Atiyah, you have your literal hand up.

[53:19]

So why don't we see if we can unmute you. So there you go. Hi, David. Hi, Atiyah. Good to see you again. How are you? Good to see you too. Thank you so much for your talk. And it's a great practice. And I'm glad we went through it again because all the emotions are very strong right now with everything going on, with the killing of George Floyd and all the protests. So thank you for that. And I do have a related question about what's going on out in the world. You know, what do you see is our responsibility as VEM students? to be engaged in these racial justice efforts and social justice efforts. How is it tied to our practice? Because I personally see it as, you know, a continuous practice.

[54:21]

And I'm curious what the Zen Center and our teachers are going to do to be more actively involved and engaged in these matters as we've seen really critical. So I'd love to hear if you have any reflections on that, please. Thank you, Atiyah. Thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you. My perspective is our practice fundamentally is geared towards creating the conditions for liberation for all beings to wake up and to be free. And so I see all the Dharma teachings pointing to how do we... You could say recondition ourselves or decondition ourselves out of karmic conditioning, out of having the minds that are fearful, not able to clearly see our deep interconnectedness, not able to see the causes and conditions for how suffering arise, including the conditions for suffering and oppression, for racial injustice, economic injustice, homophobia, and so on.

[55:30]

All those conditions. are rooted in, fundamentally, a sense of separation. And so I find that practice supports me and helps me to first come back to kind of a sense of my deep intimacy with all beings. You know, that's profound interconnectedness, interbeing, as Thich Nhat Hanh says, right? And when I'm able to rest in that and also engage a will from an open heart and an open mind, then that informs my activities. How do I step into the world? Step, you know, get off my cushion and then into the world to actually address what are the conditions that are perpetuating suffering? And those conditions are one of my own personal conditions. What are the conditions in my family, you know, in my community, in my sangha, in the wider world, in the governments? So there's many layers of conditioning that we have to deal with, including systemic, in terms of ways that our governments and our institutions are set up in structure.

[56:39]

So I think when we're practicing, we have to practice at all those different levels. But first, we have to really, I feel, get grounded in our own capacity to be present, to sit in the middle of difficulty, to sit in the middle of fire, for example, using rain as a tool, I think it's a great tool to be with whatever it is that we're experiencing, the various thoughts, feelings, and body sensations that are arising in response to the suffering that we see in the world and also the suffering that we feel in ourselves. How do we become loving witnesses to this suffering? How do we be with it? And when we can be with it, we can see the nature of the conditions that could rise to it. And then that helps us to discern what skillful means, what's upaya, what's a way to engage the world that will help to relieve suffering.

[57:42]

Each of us has to figure that out for ourselves. There are many different ways to engage transforming our own suffering and the suffering of the world. So we have to identify what, for us, feels most important in our life to attend to. And many of us have different capacities. We can't do everything. To try to do everything is actually overwhelming and it comes from a greed mind, right? So we need to be discerning what energy and what capacities can I direct my attention towards being able to affect change in some way. So, and that may mean for some of us You know, that means going out and protesting, raising our voices, calling out injustices. For others, it may mean working in organizations that help to affect change at different levels, you know, economic change, you know, address racial injustice, address immigration, address domestic violence.

[58:50]

So each of us has to decide for ourselves what's the way that we want to transform our conditioned being-ness together in a way that is liberative for all of us. So many of the teachers at Zen Center, each of us, like each of you, is trying to discern moment by moment, what today is the way that I can do that? For my particular skill sets and capacities, what do I think would make the most powerful effect And I do know many Dharma teachers feel that actually offering this practice and dedicating the time to share the practice of the Dharma is the most powerful, effective means to create transformation of our society. So the energy is how do we create a refuge, a practice center where people can learn how to meditate? to be with their experience, to learn how not to identify with their thoughts, feelings, and body sensations, but instead to be aware, awake presence, to be a loving presence.

[60:04]

Once we get grounded in that capacity, then we can turn out to the world and address the suffering that's also around us. So that's how I would respond to your particular question. question, and there may be other Dharma teachers with a different perspective, I find myself particularly kind of dipping in and out. You know, I'm here, I live here, I try to create a practice center to support people to learn how to do Zen, and then at times I will go out enjoying protests and demonstrations, but given what it takes to actually support a community with these practices, I find most of the time my energy, and I think the greater gift that I can offer is holding this role of sharing the Dharma and letting those who are maybe much more skillful than me, you know, and able to kind of organize protests and demonstrations in other ways and engaging social transformation, let them, you know, step forward and do that in a way that I deeply admire and appreciate.

[61:16]

So thank you. Thank you. Thank you, David. I appreciate it. I'm just curious also whether you might consider holding a town hall to follow up on the statements that Senator put on Facebook yesterday about specific actions that Senator will take, you know, to allow people a chance to be heard and also to hear from leadership about what specific actions will be taken. That would be, I think, really helpful to have open dialogue. Thank you. I appreciate that suggestion. I'll bring it forward to the other leaders and see how we can consider that. Thank you very much, Atir. Thank you very much. Thank you. I see Lori Yobu. Please forgive me if I didn't pronounce your last name correctly. I'm muting myself right now. Yes, you did. So I went back to what you started with two weeks ago about... The fear rising in you when you see people without masks. So I tried to look at this for myself. What is the feeling that comes up for me when I've got a mask on and I'm biking?

[62:18]

This is not very comfortable. And I see people without masks. And what I came to and what made me incredibly sad, and this goes back, I'm sure, to my ego, is that they don't care about me getting sick and dying. And I felt incredibly sad. And I know that's all my ego. But that's I kind of dug down into your inquiry about the feelings that come up. So any comments and thank you very much. Well, I think you're very right on that. Actually, most of the time, fear is about us. It's about our own well-being and safety. And yes, it could also be about others. in terms of, you know, if we love our children and other family members and friends and just people that we care about, that our fear can be for others. But there's an aspect of that sometimes that's actually about fear of me losing someone I love, right? So there's that kind of, there can be a little bit of a hook there also that's about selfing, right?

[63:25]

But that's why fear is natural. Yes, of course. Of course we're afraid to get sick, right? And that makes perfect sense. So that's part of just noticing, oh, yeah, there it is. There's the fear. And that fear is revolving around, I don't want to get sick and die, you know? And for me, you know, for example, for me at Zen Center, if I go out... and I get sick, and then I come back to Zen Center and engage with people or other residents, then I could very possibly make others sick as well. So then my concern about them gets activated as well in the process. So it's a reasonable concern. So thank you, Laurie. Thank you. And I see Joe. Joe Tedesco. Hello. Hi, Joe. Thank you very much for your talk. The eye, the investigation, and rain.

[64:27]

Do you have a specific technique you follow, for instance, such as asking, is there an underlying belief here? As you mentioned before, a lot of this starts with thinking or thoughts or beliefs. And I ask, as I practice this, or practice something similar, I feel that I could get too heady in investigation. And I've been a little concerned or worried about that. So I wonder what your technique is, if you have some suggestions, please. Well, it can vary depending on what the nature of the experience is that I'm working with. And one of the things to avoid, to not get too heady, is actually... It's kind of like dropping a question or a pebble into a pond. You take the question, the inquiry, just a simple question, and you drop it in, and you just let it be there.

[65:29]

And notice what kind of ripples does that kind of extend outward. So it's not kind of going up here thinking about it, but actually dropping the question into the experience, And I'll say a little bit more of that. And then see what on its own comes forward as a response. And maybe nothing will come forward as first. So if there's a particular body sensation, I noticed a number of years ago, I noticed sometimes when I was home, I'd walk around the house and I would notice that I felt really tight in some way. And I pause and I stop and say, what is this tightness? So focusing on the physical sensation, what is this tightness? What is this about? And the more I investigated and just generally, I wasn't trying to get into a probe, but just to generally invite, you know, through the question, something to make itself known.

[66:35]

I discovered that underneath the, you know, the tightness was anger. And the more that I work with that anger and ask the question, then what does this anger have to tell me? What is this about? I noticed beneath that, there was fear. I'm afraid. There's some kind of fear there. And I often notice it happened near the end of the day, after a full workday. And if I would scan through, I realized that I was afraid I didn't do enough. Or what I did wasn't good enough. So I was getting to the core belief underneath the fear. I'm not enough. I'm not good enough. I can't do enough. What I did wasn't enough. That essential feeling of lack that I think many of us maybe feel at the core of our being in many cases. So going through that process very gently, very carefully,

[67:40]

First, identifying the physical experience, right? And then identifying the emotion and identifying those thoughts. Sometimes when I teach transforming depression and anxiety, I talk about this kind of triangle, thoughts, feelings, body sensations. And we all seem to have a relationship. And if you notice a body sensation, you often know that you can notice that there's a particular emotion or feeling that comes with it. And also you can identify a particular thought that comes with it. So notice, is there a thought feeling and body sensation related? For me, starting with the body, going through the body, checking into emotion, and then seeing what is the belief that gives your eyes the emotion is a helpful way to unpack through inquiry and gentle, caring investigation what's happening here. Is that helpful? Yes, it is.

[68:41]

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Jim. And I see we're almost out of time. I see Debbie has her hand. So maybe we'll do one more question and then we'll wrap up for the evening. So thank you. Thank you. One benefit for me of the sheltering in place is that these are on Zoom and I'm in North Carolina and I can... Thank you. I see a role for sitting to ground myself and center, fill with compassion and open, but I feel a real need and a calling to not only sit, but to act. And I have difficulty with so many of the, quote, peace groups because there's so much anger and even violence. And I've been wondering how I might find Buddhist groups that are active on issues of social justice or political action? I mean, other than Googling it, but I don't know if anyone has recommendations.

[69:45]

Googling is a great thing these days that offers so much. There is the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and they're a great resource. They're very active and I think are really able to offer many resources. There's another one that It's keeping my memory at the moment. But you could just go ahead and Google it and find out for yourself what kind of resources there are there. And yes, it can be a problem when we engage in social action without being grounded in love. And I think if we try to engage social transformation from a place of only anger, then we're going to burn out and we're going to hurt others in the process. We're not going to be as effective. So what I find helpful is when I sit and be present with whatever I'm experiencing, with my sadness, my grief, my fear, my aspirations, when I can hold that with love and notice that at the center of all that is a deep love, a deep sense of connectedness to all beings.

[70:59]

that I want to see manifest in the world, that I want to act from and manifest. Then when I get off my cushion and go into the world, I can do the action from a place of love. And that means a place of non-separation. I don't see other. I see us, we, together, working through our particular karmic conditioning to be able to see where are the places that we need to bring light to. in order to liberate ourselves to really experience our own sense of love and to share that love with others and to see love in others, to see that we're both of the same aware presence. So always I feel it's important to any social action to come from a place of love. But that doesn't mean that anger doesn't have a place. Anger actually is a form of wisdom. It's saying something's not right here.

[72:00]

Something is hurting. This has to stop. It points out to a certain violation. Of course, we have to ask ourselves, what is it that's being violated here? Sometimes it's just a sense of my egoic separate self, in which just me protecting me, me, me. It's all about me. Other times it's about anger. can be about us. The violation is a sense of our connectedness and our wholeness. That is what's being torn and harmed. And that wisdom says we want to come back to a place of repair, a place of wholeness. That kind of anger has at its root clarity. A loving aspiration. And, of course, we don't want to act out of that harm, out of that anger.

[73:01]

We don't want to hurt others from a place of anger. But we can use that energy and transform that energy to do something constructive, right? To really make change in a way that isn't continuing to perpetuate harm. And that's a challenge. How do we act in a way that doesn't reciprocate hurts or harm or damage? but doesn't perpetuate a lineage of suffering. You have to find a way to act that that lineage of suffering and harm doesn't get continued. And I think love is the foundation for that. It's the discerning lens. Can I meet this situation, see the person in front of me, even if I extremely disagree with them, even if they're still hurting me, Can I still fundamentally see them from a place of love, recognizing that they may be hurting me because they're not in touch with their own love, their own sense of inherent love.

[74:09]

And they're not in touch with our sense of interconnectedness. They're coming from a place of ignorance. Okay. Then I open my heart to the pain that they must be feeling to hurt others because they must be hurting me. tremendously themselves after acting in ways that had urinus. And they may not be aware of it. They may not be conscious of it. Many of us are conditioned to be unconscious to the ways that we hurt and the ways that we hurt others. This is so much about what racial oppression is about, right? White supremacy is being unconscious to the ways that our society has been structured, the ways that we have been conditioned to preference one skin type over another. It's all based on ignorance. It's a whole history of ignorance that we've inherited. Whether or not you're white or black or other ethnic identity, we are impacted by this systemic lineage of historical ignorance, basically.

[75:20]

So only love this deep wish for all beings to be free is going to dissolve that. But it takes effort, it takes time, it takes diligence, coming back again and again. And being able to also come back to Zazen and to sit, to be grounded in aware presence, in loving presence, to restore yourself with loving presence. then when you go out into the world, you have that nourishment to carry you forward, to sustain you. I hope that's helpful, encouraging in some way. Yes, very much. Thank you so much. Thank you, Debbie. Thank you, everyone. I'm sorry I went quite over. So thank you for staying with us. And thank you all again for your practice. Your presence, as I've said before, continues to sustain me and nourish me in my practice.

[76:26]

It reminds me, like, what am I doing this for? I'm doing this because I feel your support and encouragement. And together, we can create a world in which love is the fundamental expression. Freedom is the fundamental experience. Liberation. and recognizing and living from a place of interconnectedness. So be well, my friends. Take good care. A reminder, we won't have an online practice session on Thursday because of the sushin, but you can still come and sit sasin. So please join us for sasin. Okay, take good care.

[77:08]

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