continues to be an incomparable place that has so deeply nourished my practice. So I'd like to begin by just acknowledging and bringing into the room the immensity of suffering due to the war in Gaza. So I'd like to just pause for a moment and offer silent prayers for the safety and healing of Palestinians and Israelis, Jewish and Muslim people around the world, and for all those who suffer due to war, violence, persecution, or oppression of any kind. The deep wish that all beings may be free from fear, hate, and divisiveness, and that we may work together to further peace, harmony, and respect in this suffering world.

[01:05]

Let's sit for a moment. Thank you. And if the particular way that I expressed that was hurtful to anyone, I apologize. So, a monk asked Yunmen, what are the teachings of a whole lifetime? Yunmen said, an appropriate response. And this feels so alive to me these days.

[02:09]

What is appropriate response? So again, Yunmen, a monk asked Yunmen, what are the teachings of a whole lifetime? Yunmen replied, an appropriate response. So the teachings of a lifetime refer to the teachings of Shakyamuni, Buddha during his 49 years of teaching. So Yunmin is saying these teachings are an appropriate response. The Buddha in his life spoke so often and to so many different people in so many different contexts. Spoke to large, large gatherings and small groups. and many, many individuals. He spoke to monks and lay people, women and men. So his response, often to questions from individuals, each time met the moment, met the person.

[03:31]

How he spoke to his son Rahula was not the same as he spoke to his senior monks. It was geared toward each person and the context in which they were asking. Sometimes his appropriate response was silence, choosing not to answer a question. feeling that that was outside of what he was here to teach. So he maintained noble silence. And there's a notable story when once he simply held up a flower. So many forms of teaching, many forms of appropriate response to this moment, this person, these circumstances. So appropriate to what? How did the Buddha orient his teachings?

[04:35]

How did he orient his appropriate response? Again and again, the Buddha said, I teach suffering and the end of suffering. That's really what he focused on. He wasn't interested in getting off the track. That's why he maintained noble silence with many more philosophical questions. That was not what he was about. Once a man, a lay person, came and visited him, he had heard that the Buddha was a great teacher and that he could be of great help. He really helped a lot of people, gave good medicine. So the man said, So I hear you're a great teacher and I'm having a lot of difficulty lately with my business. I do this and this and I'm having trouble with this and that.

[05:37]

Can you help me with that? And the Buddha said, no, I'm sorry, I can't help you with that. And the man was a little disconcerted because he'd heard the Buddha was a great help. But he tried again and he said, well, I'm also having a lot of difficulty with my wife. went on to describe the difficulties he was having with his wife so can you help me with that but i said no i can't help you with that and he finally said well what can you help me with and the buddha said in this world there are 80 different kinds of suffering 79 of them i cannot help you with and the man was Now, very confused. And he started to leave. And then he turned back and he said, what's the 80th one? And the Buddha said, how you relate with the other 79.

[06:39]

That I can help you. And the man sat back down. So. Practice. is not about fixing or controlling our lives, although that may happen. Our lives are often happier and more settled as a result of practice. But we don't do it, if we do it for that, it becomes, it gets off track very quickly, because we're trying to get something out of it. And that action of trying to get something out of it is suffering. That's the second noble truth. It's like the grasping, the clinging. It's not just the thing. Everything in the world can be suffering, but it's how we relate to it. So this relationship is manifested, our relationship to what arises through body, speech, and mind, what we do, what we say, and what we do within our own minds.

[07:51]

So the Buddha taught how to free our minds, but this is completely inseparable from how to live in harmony with others, how to support others, how to support greater peace in this world. This how to live is the great question of the Buddha. It was always what my teacher Sojin Roshi talked about. He didn't care about why. He would sometimes seem to drift off if I was trying to get to why something was happening. But he was very, very interested always in how. How are you practicing? How are you doing? How are you meeting this? So the how of the practice of realizing freedom from the suffering of our own minds. So the path, the path of practice is the eightfold path.

[08:57]

And about a third of that is shila or right conduct, right action, right speech, right livelihood. So again, it's how we are with other people. This is at the core of practice. And the precepts are a detailed articulation of right conduct, right action, right speech, right livelihood. So the path of practice is also an expression of realization in itself, how an awakened being comports herself in the world and with others. So what I want to talk about today is how aspects of the precept ceremony are alive for me in my own practice and how I found them helpful in finding an appropriate response, particularly within difficult moments, times when I feel caught or confused, and I'm searching for ways to reorient my being and my practice in a helpful and beneficial way.

[10:19]

The precept ceremony, the full moon ceremony in particular, is the oldest ceremony in Buddhism and dates from the time of the Buddha. So the full moon ceremony is a retaking, a renewing of the precepts of our vows. And there are a series of steps in the ceremony. to prepare a body and mind to receive the precepts. Because we can take them regularly without really noticing them, and then they can become more rote. So we're not really feeling our way into them. We're not sensing how they are for us. It's just things to not do. So this preparatory aspect has come to feel extremely powerful to me. And it's often called purification.

[11:23]

And I think in English, that can be a sort of a problematic word for many of us, like evil. It has this very black, white, dualistic, judgmental kind of feeling. But purification in a Buddhist sense, and this is particularly highlighted in the Mahayana and in Zen, is that it's not about getting rid of of eradicating that which is defiled but what we're purifying is our mind how we see things if we're seeing things as separate of course we want to get rid of them i don't want this to be a part of my life or a part of me i want to purify it and get rid of it but that's That's not purification in this sense. It's seeing non-separation.

[12:25]

It's seeing that I am not other than those parts of my life and those parts of myself that I may not be so happy with all the time, that I may really have a lot of struggle with. Whether that's parts of my history or ways that I react when I get caught, or just inner parts of myself that I think are not okay. And the same goes, of course, for other people. You know, I want you to not be like that so you don't bother me. That's suffering. That's the defiled mind in a Buddhist sense. But I don't want to use the word defilement. It's just that's an unpurified mind. So when we try to eradicate it, we're just increasing the separation and the suffering. Sometimes not immediately, sometimes it works for a while, but eventually it doesn't usually end up in such a good place.

[13:29]

So with this eye of wisdom, no separation between self and others, we can rest. We can come to a calm, stable point and be more available for our life. So the beginning of the ceremony is to offer incense, fragrance. And the essence of this is asking Buddha to come. The smoke from the incense or the fragrance from the flower petals is less tangible. It crosses the apparent barrier between our everyday selves and what is beyond. So we're asking Buddha to come, to be with us, the Buddha in us. So this sense that there is something beyond ourselves and we begin to turn toward that, to open ourselves to a bigger view.

[14:33]

And we bow. And we bow and when we go down, lifting hands above the head, lifting the feet of the Buddha above our own, Saying there is more in this world, more to this self than just my own self, my own idea of myself. I'm remembering many years ago, I was talking to someone who was a fairly new friend and they were expressing things about me that they thought were really great. And at that time I was... uncomfortable with hearing this. And I'm just like trying to prove that I was not so good. And, you know, by sharing, well, no, I'm really, I'm really this, that, and the other thing. And we were almost getting a little argument. And I suddenly thought, why is my view, even of myself, be settled to meet.

[18:36]

So avowing our karma is not about guilt or blame, but about practicing being upright with the totality of our being as it manifests on this moment. We take responsibility. It doesn't mean that we shoulder additional burdens. It means we take responsibility for what we're able to, moment by moment. And we find that we can keep stretching. We can keep stretching farther, easing our way into it. So then, on this ground, how are we orienting ourselves in a positive sense? What is our hearts in most requests from that point? So in the precept ceremony, we make homages, honoring, recognizing the pervasiveness of wisdom and compassion, saying homage to the seven Buddhas before Buddha goes back even before Buddha, this foundation of wisdom, compassion.

[20:00]

Shakyamuni Buddha, Naitreya Buddha of Great wisdom. Maitreya Buddha of the future. Manjushri Bodhisattva. Great wisdom. Samantabhadra Bodhisattva. Great activity. Avalokitesvara. Great compassion. And the succession of ancestors. So calling that in, connecting. And then the four Bodhisattva vows. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless and I vow to enter them all. Last one. Today is unsurpassable. I was so present.

[21:03]

I lost the next moment. Thank you for your help. We can't do this alone. So this is how we orient ourselves toward our fundamental vow. And the all beings that we vow to save include ourselves. It cannot be otherwise. If we try to just save all other beings, our suffering will not be helpful to other beings. If we try to just save ourselves, we disconnect from the world and that is also a form of suffering. So, having made these impossible vows, we know we can't do this alone. We need support. So, we take refuge in Buddha, as the perfect teacher, Dharma as the perfect teaching, and the Sangha as the perfect life.

[22:11]

So going for refuge means that we can sit in the lap of the Buddha, that we can sense something larger, and more stable, ultimately more stable than the fluctuations of our own mind. I love that phrase, to sit in the lap of Buddha. To be held, to be held by the practice, to be held by the wisdom and the compassion to, and I think in many ways, to allow ourselves to open to that as it manifests in the world, to bring it into our world and to see it in other people, to allow that to be there in our meeting with one another.

[23:20]

The practice of seeing all beings as Buddha, letting them see, letting others see you as Buddha, and letting yourself see others as Buddha, suffering Buddha, joyful Buddha, peaceful Buddha, angry Buddha, all Buddhas, all our Buddhas. And then with all of that, we're really ready to take the precepts. So the three pure precepts are to do no harm, to do all good and to live and be lived for the benefit of beings. The early version in the Buddha's time, the third one was to purify the mind instead of living and being lived for the benefit of beings. And I think that's partly where the Buddha was focusing his teachings and mostly, but also having purified his own mind

[24:29]

He came back into the marketplace to share the teachings. And all of the teachings are about how we share this practice. So I think it's how we embody the practice, how we live this practice. So I don't think they're actually that different to purify the mind and to live and be lived for the benefit of beings. Because to purify the mind, to reduce the sense of separation, to know that self and other are not ultimately separate, even though we also practice respect for our own boundaries, other boundaries, the actual physical needs. It's not like, oh, I am, you know, you are me, so you'll want whatever I want. No, not so. It's much more interesting to say, I am you, and how are you? And how does this work? So.

[25:30]

And then finally, the ten grave precepts. Not to kill, steal, lie, etc. And every morning here and at morning service, the first thing and in many, many practice places, we chant. All my ancient twisted karma. I now fully about. So I don't usually do the whole ceremony on a daily or regular basis other than when we do full ceremonies, full moon ceremony and do parts of it in the morning. But I find it very helpful as a grounding and reconnecting, I think more than grounding, a practice of reconnection to sit with

[26:38]

in a less structured way, I chant first, but then just to sit with all my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, worn through body, speech, and mind, I now fully avow. What's arising now that has led me to this place where I feel the need to reconnect? What's up in my life? What am I not looking at? What am I missing? What is asking for my attention? It might be in my body. It might be in my relationships. It might be in my actions. It might be very granular and it might be very wide. What am I doing with my life and how am I doing it? But to feel into the various aspects of my life and how has my karma impacted me at this time such that not as fully present as I would like to be.

[27:54]

It arises from a deep wish to be more present than I am, to reconnect more fully, to reconnect to others. So starting with just what's up? What's going on? Not taking it so personally, but seeing the big picture, very wide view. And that's like, oh yeah, there's that. There's often some feeling there. That's when I know that things are getting close. They're getting tender. It's like, yeah, that's the bunny right there. So there's a softening, tenderness. Pema Chodron so often teaches, start where you are. Sometimes we have to look a little bit to say, where are we? Where am I right now? Here it is. That's where practice can begin. And then the pure precepts are just such a simple and universal way to

[29:05]

to connect with the next steps. Okay, I'm connected now, I'm present, now what? Now what? How do I go back into my life, back into the world? I vow to do no harm. Or I like to refrain from harm. often i refrain from evil but again i like refrain from harmful actions of body speech and and this there are all the specifics of whatever i'm now aware has been kind of going on that is not as helpful as i wish but this refrain from is very powerful to not go there to not do it yeah, I want to avoid this, or I want to indulge in that, or I just want to get this off my chest with so-and-so, whatever it is.

[30:17]

And often there's some little awareness. It's like, that's maybe not the most helpful thing. Prior to that moment, we don't have a lot of choice, but when there's that awareness, however small and slight, that there's a... You know, and you override it and you don't refrain. You just go for it. It's like sometimes there's bulldozing ahead and sometimes there's like, oh, this wasn't such a good idea. But this power of refrain from, of just not going all the way there. Not say that one thing. eat that thing or to not pick up the phone again or look at it, that is. And instead of going and doing the things that you wanted to do and intended to do. They're small, they're often so small, but they can be quite pervasive and can kind of add up into patterns.

[31:29]

And picking out maybe just a few. I want to refrain from X because I see how it causes suffering. Not because I would be a better person, you probably will, or you may, but it's to relieve suffering, our own and others, to have the capacity to refrain from. So if it feels like suffering to say, I wanna refrain from this, it hasn't gone quite deep enough. The refrain from is based in a clear seeing of, that is the refrain from in this practice, on a day-to-day basis, please refrain from harmful impulses. But in our intimate little practice, our intimate small practice within, it's not about trying to control oneself or stop doing something.

[32:33]

It's seeing the suffering of the refrain failure to refrain, the not refraining, and vowing to stay close to that. So next, to do all good. What good do you want to cultivate at this time? What do you wanna bring forth? What would be most helpful, most beneficial? Not the full laundry list, just one or two what's most alive this can be a practice of what's most alive for you there's the big picture and this is just what's alive and then to live and be lived for the benefit of all beings how will that manifest how would you like that to manifest

[33:36]

in what small concrete way I've often done that practice walking up Tassajara road from Tassajara to the first overlook which is about a 15 minute walk up there and then standing at the overlook and you can You can see the valley, you can see where it comes together or Tassajaras, but you can't quite see Tassajara. And to just take a few moments and just to reorient and be with, be with myself in a peaceful, grounded way. And not to stop there, but how can I help? How can I be of service in the world? How can I not cause harm and how can I be of benefit?

[34:39]

And one of the things I found very helpful that I've tried to cultivate over the years and for a while was sharing it with senior leadership here, is something called yutori. It's a Japanese word and it means spaciousness. And I learned about this from Naomi Shihabnai, the poet. And she learned the word yutori from one of her students. And the student said, here in Japan, we have a concept called yutori and it is spaciousness. It's a kind of living with spaciousness. For example, it's leaving early enough to get somewhere so that you know you're gonna arrive early. So when you get there, you have time to look around. And the student gave all these different definitions of what utori was to her. And one of them was because Naomi was teaching poetry.

[35:56]

So the student said, so you can be in that space of the poem and it can hold you in its space and you don't have to explain it. You don't have to paraphrase it. You just hold it and it allows you to see differently. You don't have to explain it. You don't have to paraphrase it. You just hold it and it allows you to see differently. So this sense of spaciousness is something that we can cultivate in many ways because its opposite is a kind of a scarcity or a contraction or stress of not being on time and rushing or, oh, many things. You can probably fill them in.

[36:58]

And little things and very concrete things. One of Naomi's students, a boy, said, define utori as having enough cord on your device to reach the wall comfortably. So there's the internal part, there's the practice part, and there's what's happening in our physical lives that contributes to utori, that contributes to a sense of spaciousness. So it might be closing the closet door and straightening your shoes or cleaning up after breakfast, you know, just, oh, there's crumbs, I'll just wipe those up. You know, little things that may help calm and settle the mind and body. So I think this is so powerful because so much of the harm in the world comes from when human beings are not refraining from acting on harmful impulses or harmful choices.

[38:10]

And it's to move out of delusion, fear, reactivity, and trauma of which there is so much in the world. It's to create a space of subtleness And that's the ground from which we can begin to be of more active service. This is the ground for doing all good. May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. And may we see more clearly the roots of suffering. learn how to nurture peace and to take whatever actions we can to further peace in the world thank you our intention equally

[39:27]

Beings are no less. I am bound to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I am bound to end them. Dharma gates are countless. I am bound to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it. So I think we have some time for questions now. And also this is a moment if you need to adjust your legs or refresh your posture, feel free to do so. And if you have a question, you can raise your hand. I'll come over with the microphone. And if you're joining us by Zoom, you can also raise your Zoom hand, and we'll unmute you.

[40:42]

Test. OK. Thank you, Linda, for this wonderful Dharma talk. So in the context of the pure precept I refrain from all creating harm or all evil. What was coming up for me was I've noticed there are things in the world and in my own life that I don't feel sorry for about my own actions but it still impacts other people. Such as being gay. My dad when I came out he was deeply harmed, disturbed, and impacted. But I don't necessarily feel sorry for that harm that was created. And same thing with my mom. When I decided to move to the U.S. and decided to become a Zen Hmong and live here, she was deeply disturbed, harmed because of my decision to stay here and all those actions on my part.

[41:51]

But still yet, I don't really I understand I can relate but I don't you know sometimes we say the intention and the impact but there are situations where I don't feel I don't want to be sorry for who I am because if I choose to refrain from that particular harm that will require me to sacrifice who I am and that balance is it can be really profoundly hard to find that. I wonder if there's anything you could say about this. Thank you for your question. That's such an excellent one. And no, you should not refrain from who you are, not to try to stop who you are and your choices in life for the sake of not harming others. This is where self and other do their dance. you might have empathy or compassion for your parents' suffering, that they are suffering because of this, and I'm sure that their reactions to you were also causing suffering to you.

[43:08]

So, this is a great tangle, and this is what we practice to be upright with, having compassion, but not being controlled by others' expectations if you feel that this is the right path for you. You are the only one who can make those determinations. Thank you, Linda. I find the emphasis you put on refraining from very helpful. But I'm asking about something else. At least I think it's about something else. A friend of mine, a very dear friend who I felt like was a role model for me, died and she lived in Morocco.

[44:16]

And I have discovered talking to some of her students who she was very close to that she was routinely very abusive to the people who in her life who had lower status than her her students and her caregivers and I am a very distressed and somehow unable to get over the contradiction between what I experienced and how I saw her and also perhaps how I romanticized her and what I've learned since she died. I just don't know what to do. I keep on thinking about it. I don't know what to do with it. Can you give me any help?

[45:19]

Could you say how it's impacting you? What's your experience of the impact on you of learning this about this person? It makes me think so much less of her. It makes me... I guess it makes me put much less value on what she gave to people. Although that's not how these people feel. You know, these two people, wonderful people. And also, strangely, her death in coming forward has given me a chance to have this deep, deep encounter with these two people on Zoom, which I just cherish that. So I want to somehow get, I keep on thinking of Thich Nhat Hanh and his compassion for the man who threw the girl little girl out of the boat you know that I I somehow he embraces all of it and I'm having trouble embracing all of Rosalia I think that most human beings are very complex and complicated and have many sides some of them

[46:46]

not helpful, some of them profoundly harmful. And I have heard it said that the greater the light, the greater the darkness. People can get caught in being a teacher and having people elevate them. And people aren't saying, hey, that's not okay, what are you doing? I don't know what the context was that this was all happening in, so I can't. Well, she went to Morocco and was teaching there, teaching English, doing theater, and she was very, and this one young woman that I talked to, she said everything gave her, in the culture and her position, gave her permission to do this. She also, perhaps she never spoke, she had very bad rheumatoid arthritis And she never spoke about being in pain, but perhaps she was in pain all the time. Well, so you're describing two things, living in pain and where we might take that out, and that is often a function of privilege.

[47:59]

Yes. And that is deeply conditioned and blind. If you're the person sitting on top, you're not so aware of the people underneath, but if you're... on a lower level you're acutely aware of all the people on top. So that's her karma and we all have our karma and it's complicated and perhaps you could see if it's helpful to just have some compassion for her and her blindness and her inability to connect with people and instead to treat them badly, to abuse them, while still appreciating what you did receive from her. That sounds like was very positive and very valuable to you. And not throwing that away, just because sometimes the parts of people don't integrate very well, sometimes really poorly. Okay, thank you.

[49:02]

I think that's going to be very helpful to me. Thank you once again for this Dharma talk. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And me, myself personally, I wanted to just ask a couple more questions in regards to the sort of unity of all beings and what not and how the self is supposed to relate to all of being for the sake that a lot of practices are centered around purifying and making sure one's mind is connected to all and living for the benefit of all beings. Yet the distinction of self is very strong there We should not eradicate self in our attempt to purify ourself. And so I wanted to ask if you could just say a few words on sort of one's self in relation to other beings.

[50:10]

How are we to benefit other living beings as well as live with other living beings? First, just the self and other apparent dichotomy. I often find it helpful to think about in just physical terms to start with. Like when I breathe in or eat food, there's something that's outside of me, and then it's me, and then it becomes not me. So I think that I am, like my orientation is this body-mind. That's how I orient, and It's very, very helpful for living beings that can move around to see themselves as separate so that they can see what's out there, they know where they are, and how to not get hurt, and how to not die.

[51:16]

It's very, very useful that way. And I think it was kind of an effect, so to speak, of just this development that we also have this sense of self that we want to protect at all costs. And we can get caught in that in really unhelpful ways because it becomes self versus other. But there's all kinds of times when we're not really noticing that. The part that does the self is like this little part of the front of our brain and there's the rest of our brain and the rest of our body that is actively involved in just being with the world in seamless ways. Somebody throws you a ball, you just grab it. You don't think. It's not like, I'm gonna catch the ball now. Hand and ball come together. So I think a lot of it is, it's like the self is sort of extra.

[52:23]

It's kind of added on. It's something that we learn to do. And it's learning how to use this extra capability for good rather than harm. And that's kind of where we are as human beings. How do we not just fight and tussle and survive one-on-one, groups or tribes or whatever it is. And this culture is remarkably individualistic and everything in it supports that. You buy more toothpaste now. So there's a lot coming at us all the time that reinforces it. So it can be hard to remember that this is a story We create many stories, we can't not create stories.

[53:26]

Because it's meaning, it's how we make meaning, it's how we make a narrative out of the world. A narrative or a story is what happens, what leads one to another, it's not just moment, moment, moment, moment. That means we can learn. So how do we tell good stories? How do we tell helpful stories, beneficial stories? Stories that create the world that we long to live in and that we also include all beings so that we are curious about what world would you like to live in? How would that be for you? So this reflecting inward and curiosity outward are two sides. The Buddha taught four foundations of mindfulness and there's a, as it goes through and gives different objects of meditation, And the four foundations are body and breath, feeling, thoughts, and dharma's different patterns.

[54:34]

But between each instruction, there's this kind of refrain, and one part of it is, you know, the reflect, reflect on the in-breath internally, reflect on the breath externally, reflect on the breath internally and externally. And there have been different interpretations of what that means, internally and externally, but I really appreciate the one from Analio that Larry Yang also talks about, which is, internally is within myself. and externally as others? Can I be with your breath as well as my breath? Can I decenter myself and just be with your breath? And can I be with your experience? Can I listen fully?

[55:36]

Can I show up fully and completely for your experience as you're expressing it right now? And to let go of the worry about what am I going to say next, or how am I going to do it, creates more space. It's like, oh, now we're in kind of this interpersonal zazen, this interpersonal field where there is a certain flow and a connection. I don't know if that touches anything that you were asking. No, trust me, that touches much more than what I was asking before. But I think one other thing I wanted to say was, because I tend to be someone who tries a lot. I try hard, I work hard, internally and externally. And my teacher would often, he would look at me and he would say, just trust yourself. I would say, do you have any feedback for me? He'd say, just trust yourself. And I didn't get it for the longest time that his feedback was, just trust yourself.

[56:37]

And it's not, anything you do is okay. But finding trust within yourself creates the ground. When you are settled in there, the next steps will appear. Okay, thank you. So that just about brings us to time. Thank you so much, Linda, for your presence and your words. We'll now have the exit and then I'll share some announcements at the end. Welcome everyone to Beginner's Mind Temple and thank you for being here.

[59:25]

My name is Kay, I'm the head of the meditation hall. I want to share just a few announcements with you. If you are newer to the temple, you should know that we have regular morning and evening meditation most days of the week. Evening meditation at 5.30 Monday through Friday and morning meditation Tuesday through Saturday. You're welcome to join us. The Laguna Street door is open a few minutes before that time. And if you are newer and would like to receive meditation instruction, on Saturdays before the Dharma talk at 8.40 we have zazen instruction. Zach gave the class this morning. And then after the Dharma talk, there is kind of an introduction to the forms and how to enter and exit in the zendo, how to move about the temple.

[60:31]

And so Zach will be leading that this afternoon, or actually still this morning, just in a few minutes after we exit. You can find Zach in the hallway here, and then he'll take you downstairs to the zendo. I think this is next Sunday, a week from tomorrow. We have a half day beginners sitting from 9am to 1pm. This is a great opportunity to receive some more extended instruction and kind of be in the temple for a half day. And then this year the only other retreat that we have will be Rahatsu. which is a week-long intensive meditation retreat, you can still sign up. That will be starting the evening of December 2nd and going through December 9th. There's both a kind of in-person option, and then also there's an online seshin, which is just the last three days of that, that you can join from your own home.

[61:46]

This coming week on Wednesday, our Chusso, Andreas Elson, will be giving the Dharma talk in the evening. And next Saturday, Greg Fain will be giving the talk right here in this room, same time. So today we have our last public community lunch of the year. You all are welcome to join. It'll be in the kitchen. The We're going to serve up a little earlier, maybe around 11.45, you'll hear the bell ring when lunch is ready. And it's by donation, pay what you can, and we'd love to have you join us for that. Following lunch, there'll be a tour today at 12.30. This is a tour of the temple and an in-depth look at the renovation project, which is happening starting in January. Our architect Helen Degenhart and our central abbot David Zimmerman will be leading that tour.

[62:49]

That'll start at 12.30 in the dining room. I think it'll start with a slideshow and then there'll be a tour of the temple. So right now there are tea and cookies available in the courtyard. Feel free to stay and hang out until lunch. And is there a message or announcement from our Urban Gate Sangha? Hello, everyone. My name is Richard. I'd like to announce the Urban Gate Sangha. We meet on Saturdays. It's a great way for non-residents and lay practitioners to gather. What we do is we volunteer for various shifts at the temple, learning how to ring the bells and whatnot. And then we participate in the schedule, the zazen, dharma talk. And then we also meet afterwards for our practice discussion with the teacher. So you get to do a little dharma study as well. So all this is on the calendar, or you can come ask me any questions, and thank you.

[63:50]

Thank you, Richard. Let's see, what is next? We will exit from here. Please return your questions to the rack. We will be setting up for a ceremony, a Jukai ceremony, this afternoon. So I'm wondering if... if maybe half a dozen residents could stay behind and help me set up the room. And just this row of chairs can return to the dining room if anyone feels able to lift chairs. The rest of the chairs can stay in here for this afternoon. Thank you all again for being here and have a great day.

[64:27]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.35