An unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely met with, even in a hundred thousand million kalpas. Having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much, Kodo. And I want to wish everyone a happy solstice. It's a joy and honor to be with you all. And even if we still can't be together in person, given the circumstances of the pandemic, I'm deeply grateful that we have the technology to make it possible for us to be together, at least virtually. And that because of this technology, even a wider array of people from all over the world are able to join in our exploration of the Dharma together.

[01:07]

So whenever I look at the screen of Zoom, I often think I see a virtual Buddha field before me. Welcome again. So last Sunday, I gave the Dharma talk for the Green Gulch Farm Zen Center Sangha. And I want to begin today the same way I did then. by saying that my intention is to be with you in humility. And I wanted to name that as someone who is limited on the relative level by being a particular body, one that is arising out of any number of intersectionalities, including that of male, queer, and white racialized. And as such, my views and experiences are limited. And therefore, no matter how much intention I have to do good and avoid harm, the limitations of my experience are going to engender ignorance.

[02:10]

And if that's a result, my words may cause harm. And if they do, I want to ask for both your forgiveness as well as your feedback. That is if you're interested in offering that. And I also want to offer gratitude. There are many, many conditions that enable me to be here in this way. Because according to the Dharma and the ultimate view, I don't come here as an individual. It's not something I do on my own. The entirety of existence, including all of you, supports me to be here. And therefore, I offer deep bowels to the totality of being. And in a related vein, I want to also take a moment to acknowledge and express gratitude to our innumerable ancestors, however we may identify and name them, including those of land, flesh and blood, labor, culture, spirituality, of religion, of vision, and so forth.

[03:20]

I'd like you to join me in honoring and appreciating all those who came before us and made it possible for us to be here today in the ways we are here. So commemorating and honoring their hearts and minds and bodies, their joys and sorrows, their accomplishments and failures, their strengths and weaknesses, their character and vision, their struggles and losses and griefs. All of these are woven into the tapestry that makes for this world and the present moment. And let us not forget, in everything that we do today, that we ourselves are ancestors for those who will come after us. Can we live in such a way that we constantly have their happiness and welfare and liberation in mind?

[04:25]

Can we live in such a way as to do them proud? I'm wondering if any of you are familiar with the word Sankofa. Sankofa is a word in the Thuy language of Ghana that translates to go back and get it, meaning to return and fetch something. And there's a particular symbol that's often associated with the word, which is that of a stylized, kind of heart-shaped bird, with its head turns backwards while its feet face forward. And in its mouth, it's carrying a precious egg. And this symbol represents the teaching that we need to look back in order to go forward. We need to go back and understand our history in order to know who we are and fully be ourselves in the present.

[05:37]

Rehi Dogen, the founder of our particular school of Sam, tells us that all moments, past, present, and future, flow into this moment. And Thich Nhat Hanh teaches that the present moment contains the past and that we can hear the past by being mindful of the present. So I imagine that many of you know, as many of you know, yesterday, June 19th, more of the day of celebration known as Juneteenth. And Juneteenth is a day in which we as a nation took a significant step forward toward the potentiality of freedom and collective liberation. So it's a profound day of celebration, even though many of us, and I'm speaking of those of us in particular who are white racialized in this country, weren't made aware of it in the education or the social and cultural circles in which we grew up in. I certainly wasn't. The 150-year-old holiday is also known as Freedom Day or Jubilee Day, and it recognizes when the United States ended its historic practice of slavery, legally and in the real world.

[06:53]

And in this sense, Juneteenth is a day for commemorating the freedom of all people living in the United States. Although the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Lincoln on September 22nd, 1862, freed the slaves in the South, for technical reasons, it couldn't actually be enforced in many places until the end of the Civil War in 1865. So Juneteenth marks the historical moment when Union soldiers marched into Gavison, Texas and announced the end of slavery. Almost two and a half years after the original proclamation was signed. I read that over 200,000 people had continued to be enslaved during that period of time. So given as we could say that Juneteenth

[07:56]

is America's true interdependence day. And in many ways, one fully realizes the first one. So even though the U.S. declared independence from England in July of 1776, the freedom claim was only a partial freedom. Because it was a freedom that was claimed for people of European descent, for white people mostly. And at the beginning of freedom for white people, the U.S. simultaneously instituted slavery for people of African descent in the U.S. The inside thing to realize is that the day this country celebrates independence is also the day the country sanctioned slavery for a big part of the population. So we might ask, what kind of freedom is that? And furthermore, the Declaration stated that all men are created equal.

[09:02]

But this all men was actually qualified to mean all white men, no men of African descent or other men of non-European descent, including Native Americans. And it was also nourishing no mention of women who had to wait until the 1920s to get the right to vote. So this became a paradox, a moral or ethical pondry, actually, that from the very beginning of our country, we had to find a justification and a reason why some people were not deserving of freedom. In many ways, Juneteenth represents the good and the bad in what makes the United States the country it is. It's symbolic of a liberation, but one that was delayed to a consistent opposition, the resistance to equality that is rooted in white supremacy. Those last American slaves were declared free months after they had actually been freed.

[10:07]

And still, freedom wasn't granted overnight. Some slave owners went so far as to withhold this information from the slaves until after harvest season, delaying freedom even further. And then a whole series of black codes were put into place to limit the freedoms that were formerly enslaved. Precursors to Jim Crow's segregation laws, black codes were strict local and state laws throughout the South and which served as legal ways to put the newly minted black citizens into indentured servitude. Taking voting rights away to control where they lived and how they traveled and to seize children even for labor purposes. Even now, the idea of delayed freedom resonates for many people, especially those who are still impacted in many ways by institutionalized systems of oppression.

[11:09]

So we should recognize that from the original Juneteenth, 155 years ago, to 2020, it's Juneteenth. Black people have endured a continuous fight for equality and a different kind of freedom. A liberation that is truly on par with what every individual in this country should be granted. Well, Juneteenth is seen by many as an African-American celebration. It's really about our collective freedom and the freedom that comes with acknowledging and healing. This month of June also marks another important celebration of civil rights and freedom, and that is a pride. And right now at City Center Beginning Line Temple, we have both the Black Lives Banner hanging out front between two of the pillars, our front steps, as well as a pride flag hanging from the banister.

[12:18]

So it's quite wonderful to see both these expressions of celebrated liberation. The annual Pride celebration commemorates the rebellion of LGBTQ patrons of the Stonewall Inn in New York's Greenwich Village in response to a routine police raid on June 27, 1969. So what we now know as the annual lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender Pride celebration was born in a key moment of resistance. to ongoing oppression by police. And this year marks the 50th anniversary of Pride. Their first celebration was a year after 1970. Although due to the pandemic, there won't be the usual parade, the other festivities that are held at this time. And even though there have been lots of strides in gay rights since 1969, including

[13:23]

same-sex marriage now being legal in all 50 states as of five years ago. The fact is that the basic rights of the LGBTQ community continue to be under attack, as we saw with the recent legal challenges to the landmark civil rights law that protects LGBTQ people from discrimination in employment. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court's vertical money on Monday appalled our rights. But for every ring, there seems to be a loss. Just last week, the current administration removed healthcare protections for transgender people. And then there were the recent murders of two black trans women. Two more names added to a long list of people killed because of their race, their sexual orientation, and their gender identity. Killed because of difference. So both Juneteenth and Pride rose out of historical circumstances in which large-scale attempts made to overhaul or dismantle social political systems that perpetuated discrimination and supremacy were only partially realized, leaving an incomplete or unequal freedom for a large segment of the population rather than an all-out collective liberation.

[14:57]

And we have seen this dynamic often repeated throughout history, where efforts to establish a sort of measure of freedom for some hasn't always been equally applied to all when it came to how the terms of freedom are enacted. The Women's Rights Movement is of course another common example of how certain rights to freedom and opportunity were unjustifiably either withheld or inequitably applied. And now I would like to say that the history of Buddhism was free of such inequality and limits on freedom. Sadly, not the case. Now, Shakyamuni Buddha can be seen in many ways as a social revolutionary for going against the stream, as it's said. and resisting many of the deeply entrenched social and spiritual systems of his time, including those of an extremely rigid caste system that determined people's status and access to opportunities and resources.

[16:11]

But even after his enlightenment, the Buddha was not totally immune to having some of his decisions compromised, by certain forms of systemic discrimination that were prevalent in his time, and in his case, Peter. And we see this play out in the efforts by Mahapajapati, the Buddha's aunt and foster mother, to establish the first order of Buddhist nuns. So the story goes that when Buddha's father, King Sudhadhana, died, Queen Pajapati Katami, she was then in her seventies, asked her nephew to form an order of nuns so that women too could be ordained and devote themselves to Buddhism and develop to their fullest capacity spiritually. And the Buddha refused. So she asked again and he said no.

[17:17]

Gautami tried a third time and still her nephew the man she had raised as her own son, disagreed despite her entreaties, and he apparently gave no reason for his refusal. Of course, Katami was crushed, but she would not give up. She gathered 500 women who equally wanted to devote themselves to a spiritual path, to entreat the Buddha to change his mind to their cause. So they shaved their head and donned yellow robes, just like a monk. And then together walked more than a hundred miles, it said, to the next town where the Buddha had gone to teach. And when they got to the next town, to where the Buddha was teaching, they were greeted by the monk Ananda, one of the Buddha's principal disciples and his cousin. And they explained why they were there when he asked. Sympathetic to the cause, Ananda offered to speak to the Buddha on their behalf.

[18:22]

But he, too, got the same answer. No. So Ananda asked again and again and was repeatedly refused, just as Gautami had been. Finally, he asked the Buddha whether a woman could ever be enlightened and retain the bliss of Anarha. So he changed the strategy. Could a woman be enlightened? And the Buddha said she could. So Ananda queered, well then, why can't a woman be a nun? And with this question, he changed the Buddha's mind. Shakyamuni assented, and an order of nuns was created. However, we should be noted that there were eight additional conditions. These conditions are called the eight kharudamas, or heavy rules, that the lands had to follow, and which were above and beyond the monastic rule, ravinia, that applied to male monks, and which were supposedly added to allow more acceptance of the monastic order for women during the Buddhist time.

[19:39]

Now, While some say this was a matter of Shakyamuni Buddha practicing upaya, or skillful means, the historical impact of it was that female practitioners of the dharma, have for Beninia, often been treated as second-class citizens in their own spiritual traditions and communities. So I had I've offered three examples of historical circumstances in which the freedom and rights given to one particular segment of the population, often a representative majority in some way, were initially and unfairly denied to another particular segment of the population, often statistically a minority. And then, when the withheld freedoms and rights were later granted, we will often do so only partially or with restrictions.

[20:44]

And I share these in part because they serve in my mind to underscore the truth that there can be no personal liberation without collective liberation. Given this, we might ask ourselves, what is the value and integrity of a freedom that comes at the price of the denial of freedom for others. How can we ignore or turn a blind eye to the way in which our well-being and prosperity might be placed in the degradation and dehumanization of others, including through violent means such as slavery, murder, rape, and theft? Particularly if we consider ourselves practitioners of the Buddhadharma, which has as one of its core teachings the undeniable interconnectedness or interdependency of all beings.

[21:51]

As Suzuki Roshi said, interdependence means we should not ignore anything, and we should understand the relationship between each one of us, including yourself. And he also said that to have sincere practice means to have sincere concern with people. So our practice is actually based on our humanity. I would add that the essential nature of humanity is freedom. And that loving awareness is itself liberation. as River and the Angel, Keira Williams, whose identities include that of being a black queer woman and Zen priest, wrote an article for Tricycle magazine a couple of years ago, and it was titled, Your Liberation is on the Line.

[22:59]

And she starts off her article with the following. I think we are finally at a place where we can accept the truth, that no one escapes from oppression. Not one of us. Everyone is deeply wounded. It's true. Some people seem to be in position of what we call privilege. But we have to rethink that word. We get stuck on this notion of white privilege or dominant privilege, as if the marginalized people want what the people with privilege have. But I want no part of it. I want no part of any illness that renders people unable to see the beauty of all of our differences, the beauty of my own mixed-race-ness, blackness, queerness, all the things I am. I want no part of an illness that renders me unable to connect to love.

[24:04]

That is not a privilege. So we have to begin by recognizing that the construct of white supremacy is an illness. I don't wish it on anyone, not on myself and not on you. But we've all been told a lie. And our work, particularly for those of us who say we identify with this path of liberation, is to free ourselves of that lie. To get in there and observe that that construct and the ways in which it limits us from our full potential. This disease keeps us from fully knowing each other, from seeing each other. Every single one of us must be, by way of our commitment to liberation, committed to being the cure. No one has ever touched liberation. No one who has ever touched liberation could possibly want anything other than the liberation for everyone.

[25:06]

So we are being asked to fully commit to our own path of liberation, and to do so for the benefit of all. The Buddhist vision was essentially one of collective liberation, even though a lot of the emphasis in early Buddhist teachings was on personal practice and salvation. From a Mahayana perspective, such as then, the vision that I'm in, is an expression of. From a Mahayama's perspective, however, personal practice is at the service of collective liberation. And while the early Theravada tradition of Buddhism, which tends to focus on the stages that the Buddha describes in his personal enlightenment process, focusing on his personal path of liberation, in the Mahayama and Zen traditions, we tend to focus on the Buddha's initial statement upon awakening beneath the Bodhi tree.

[26:13]

He said, I and all sentient beings together attain enlightenment. I and all sentient beings together attain enlightenment. And this together is the root of the Bodhisattva aspiration to forego nirana and remain in the world as samsara as long as any being remains who is suffering. Toni Morrison said in a commencement address up in our college, the function of freedom is to free someone else. So what do celebrations of freedom, such as Juneteenth and Pride, have to tell us about our collective liberation? And the deeper question may be, what is liberation? What do we really mean by freedom? What is real freedom for anyone at all?

[27:16]

And how is it that the function of freedom is only realized in the actualization of someone else becoming free due to our efforts? It's my experience that through Buddhist practice, we discover true freedom in our own hearts and minds. And this happens by virtue of first coming to recognize the ways in which we are suffering. As the second noble truth points out, we suffer because we're caught in a grip or in the chains of some kind of self-oriented, you could say, compulsion, some kind of craving, some kind of desire, aversion, a resistance. And when driven by compulsive desire, we can't really operate as a free agent because fear and reactivity has the upper hand. So we end up believing and doing and saying things that aren't really for our well-being, that causes dis-ease, distress, anxiety, and other forms of suffering.

[28:30]

We can say that the function of Buddhist practice is to uproot the ways in which we cling, hold, resist, and so forth. so that we can see it clearly and release it, to really release it, to really set it free so we can be free? How is it that each of us is enslaved by the diseases of greed, hate, and delusion and self-conceit, the conceit of the separate I? And how might we be released from these limits? that the operating word in Buddhism is release, not relief. We're just using Buddhism for relief, for some kind of comfort or stress relief, and we might continue to perpetuate all kinds of the ways that we are actually culting in the present system, either psychologically or externally, of clinging, holding, and exploiting.

[29:44]

just to make ourselves comfortable. We have to be careful of the tendency to use the Dharma to maintain comfort, including that in the form of unearned privilege. Practice isn't about making ourselves comfortable in order to feel good. It's meant to push our edges until we become so free of self-clinging that we are unconditionally liberated and unbounded. In his book, Towards Collective Liberation, Anti-Racist, Organizing Feminist Praxis and Movement Building Strategy, Chris Krass writes that if systems of domination are interconnected, then systems of liberation are also interconnected.

[30:55]

If systems of liberation are interconnected, then we must help white people, men, and middle and upper class people create and win these systems and go through a transformative process of change while working. systemic change. While personal transformation has always been a part of anti-oppression politics, interconnected liberation brings with it a vision that creates more space for possibilities of who we are becoming, as opposed to just knowing what and how we do not want to be. So, If we're working within a vision of collective liberation, then those of us who are white will work to end racism not for or on behalf of the interests of people of color, but because our lives and humanity depend on the eradication of racism as well.

[32:03]

And one way to move through any guilt or shame that those of us who are white racialized might feel in the process, is to get clear on what we have to lose if white supremacy and that privilege continues, and what we have to gain by choosing the side of justice and humanity, and locating ourselves alongside the people of the world struggling for liberation. My teacher, Tia Strozo, told me that one of her teachers, Katakiri Roshi, once said, in the absolute, we are completely forgiven, and in the relative, we are completely responsible. People who are racialized as of color can't be expected to cuddle those who have harmed them, meaning white folks. And we who are white can't place a responsibility for change on those who have been hurt by us.

[33:12]

We who are white need to do the work by understanding the collective karma that comes with 400 years of the centering of whiteness and of our honor and privilege in the ways we have harmed others because of it, whether or not intentionally. We need to study the causes and conditions that have given rise to systemic white supremacy, acknowledge our errors and the pain they have caused, apologize, ask for forgiveness, and then take deliberate steps and actions for true reconciliation and resolution, which includes a commitment not to engage in the harmful behavior again. being requested at this time of amplifying the message that Black Lives Matter, the truth of Black Lives Matter, and to more clearly recognize the ongoing systemic violence against Black and brown bodies, to once again look more deeply into how it may be that we have participated in systems of domination, harm, and oppression, even if in a majority of instances, intentionally and unknowingly.

[34:35]

Ignorance doesn't absolve us of responsibility. Yesterday, a number of residents of the Givers Mike Temple gathered in the afternoon on Zoom to commemorate Juneteenth Day. And our director, Michael, and his assistant, Fatima, created a slide presentation with music by Anonymous Monk. during which students took turns reading the Emancipation Proclamation. And then a number of folks shared various passages and reflections for the occasion. And I was particularly struck by the personal statement shared by one of our senior students, Kristen Diggs, who identifies as a black woman of mixed race. And I asked her if I could share this with you all. And she said yes. And she wrote, I feel that... Without the kind of detailed knowledge that was presented to us today, detailed knowledge of our shared collective national history, without detailed knowledge of our shared collective global history, we cannot treat people properly.

[35:53]

We cannot treat people properly. We cannot treat properly the people who walk through the doors of San Francisco Zen Center. to join our lectures on interdependence, wisdom, compassion, non-separation, and living for the benefit of all beings, while being terribly ignorant of or indifferent to our history. We must know the kind of history that people and things have, and we must understand the relationship between each one of us in order to bridge the gulf between the promise of our vows and their fulfillment, in order to bridge the gulf between what we do inside these privileged walls and the rest of the world in which we live and upon which we fully rely for our true, dependently co-arisen existence.

[37:00]

She has a beautiful way with it. So I'll be frank and say that here at Devisis Gosens, as a community and as an institution, there's still significant work that we need to do to address the ways that white supremacy and privilege continue to undermine our stated mission to express and make it accessible and embody the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha. The question at the forefront of my mind at the moment, in which I hope you will join me in, responding to is, how can we become a community that fosters awakening to these systems of harm in our bodies and between us? I want to understand how we can go beyond a fragile, superficial harmony in our community, one in which there is only partial freedom, to be a better community, to be a truly anti-racist,

[38:03]

to be a song in which freedom for all is what we fundamentally strive for. But to do so requires that we dismantle or tear apart what we have to tear apart, to undo certain forms that are harmful, and also to take responsibility for what we have to take responsibility for. We also have to engage in a loving accountability, one that listens, is humble, is disciplined, and which apologizes. And it's a loving accountability that tries again and again, that persists like Mahapajapati did, even though we don't know what we are doing at times. Let us be rooted in our bodhisattva vow and vision.

[39:11]

Let us act with love. A love which is the knowing of our shared being. And let us be powerful in our work for collective liberation. Okay. I'll bring this to a close by saying that if it's true, as Thich Nhat Hanh says, that the next Buddha is Sangha. And our work is to learn how to be a community together. To do this, we must understand how racism, along with other dimensions of oppression, divides us so that we can dismantle the system piece by piece. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, in the final Sunday sermon he gave just three days before he was assassinated, We must all learn to live together as brothers and sisters.

[40:14]

Or we will all perish together as foes. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. So now we'll chant the closing verse. And then for those who would like to continue the conversation, we'll open the room to anyone who might have further reflections, questions, or experiences that they'd like to share.

[41:17]

I thank you all again for joining together in this path of liberation. May our intention equally extend to every being and place With the true merit of Buddha's way. Beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Illusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to become... Thank you so much, Abbott David. If anyone in the assembly would like to offer a question or a comment or an expression, you can raise your hand, and you should find that option by clicking the participants button.

[42:27]

I would also like the assembly to know that... We'll be recording the Q&A to publish online. We're finding there's so much rich material in the discussion at the end. So if you would prefer to not have your voice recorded, you can send me a chat. And I can give the question to David on your behalf. So just send the chat to Codo CC Eno. Thanks. Good morning. David, I want to say thank you for pretty much giving voice to a concern that I've long held as being a member and participant in our greater Sangha. Thank you also for highlighting how these struggles are things that I think we have to face constantly.

[43:35]

I know that I came to the Dharma practice looking for release and comfort, a place to kind of hold up and wait out the storm. And in the last couple of years, I've been learning that that's not the case, as you eloquently put. It's more or less learning to stand out there and get my face wet. What I want to ask is pretty much Well, again, thank you for this. Collective liberation and personal liberation. The microcosm where I see this in is within my family, where the older generation is struggling with the younger generation. They're more rebellious than we are. They are out there protesting. We're scared for their personal safety. But when we try to bring this up, it comes up as, well, our intolerance comes up. Our old prejudice comes up and our old fears come up, especially as people of color, we're afraid to be heard out there.

[44:39]

But at the same time, too, we're like, don't rock the boat. We don't want to lose what we've gained. In terms of collective liberation and personal liberation, how can a person move beyond their old fears and prejudices and be, like you said earlier, this ancestor that will support these terrible young people who just gave me a headache. Let me ask you this. Turning into your own wisdom, your own sense, what do you find helps you in this endeavor? I think what comes up to me is I literally don't want them to make the same mistakes I could. So reflecting on those struggles and that pain, I try to advise my younger kin not to hold on to anger.

[45:49]

It's a hard habit to break. Fear is a broken lantern. It'll keep you aware of what's in the shadows, but it won't light the way. And as old people, I tell my children that I love them. And I can't be out there with them. I'll bail them out. That coming from a place of love to understand and hold them while they go through their own process of discovering what's true for them. Each one of us has to go through that path. and make lots of mistakes to find our way forward. And the generation before us and our parents and, you know, elders can't necessarily get that wisdom into our particular bodies. We have to live it from the inside out.

[46:51]

We have to live it through our own experience. But what we can do as loved ones, as elders in the community, is hold the space for them to find a way to make mistakes. If they come to us to offer what it is that we have found ourselves to be helpful at some point, right? And occasionally maybe offer some guidance here and there if they're receptive to it. But I find that basically people have to discover it for themselves. They have to be open and receptive to discovery. in order to find out what really works for their liberation, as well as for collective liberation. And I think, you know, as I say, you know, younger activists and truth seekers and tellers, you know, we all go through that process. You know, I did, you know, as a teenager, you know, as a man coming out gay, you know, it's just like finding my truth and then trying to express that and finding out that

[48:01]

expressing it through hate and aversion, didn't make me feel any more connected. It didn't free me up anymore. And in time, it was really like coming from a place of love. Only then could I stay in the truth of my own being and serve the world from that place of truth. But that's a discovery each of us can make. And it's wonderful sometimes people have written and shared how they themselves have discovered that process and maybe we can glean some of that for ourselves and put it into action or try it on at least. So holding that loving space for them to find out for themselves. And then if they get hurt, whatever, take care of them. Do it to help them heal until they're ready to go back out there and continue the effort. Thank you, Evan.

[49:05]

Thank you, Miguel. Good to see you again. See you, too. Thank you, Reverend Miguel. Next, Johan and Fatima. I'm looking for them. Here. Can you see us? Not yet. I have to change screens sometimes. Oh, there you are. Okay. You're in a different screen. Hello there. I hear typing, so I'm having trouble hearing you. I don't know who's typing. I think it was Kodo. Go ahead. First of all, thank you so much for your Dharma talk. It was so... And second of all, a thought just dawned on me while you were speaking.

[50:17]

I'm not sure who's responsible for inviting people to give Dharma talks. I would love to see more black teachers and teachers of color. this is a great forum and also it would diversify our members that who comes and listens to the Dharma talks. So whoever is responsible for that, that's just the thought. And third of all, I'm wondering how can we reconcile this idea that There is a field beyond right and wrong, and the things are perfect the way they are on the one hand, and then on the other hand, this drive for change and social change.

[51:23]

That's it. Thank you for both of those questions. So the first question is, our Tante, our head of practice, is the one who usually invites speakers, and I and other people often offer suggestions. And in the past, when I've held that role, I've really tried to make an effort to bring in a diversity of teachers, including a member of teachers of color. And actually, this fall, Abed-Ed and I are gonna be co-leading the practice period. and it's going to be focusing on the bodhisattvas and bodhisattva archetypes. Because we have two white men leading the practice period, I specifically have asked Nancy, our new tanto, to have on Saturdays teachers of color and women, right? So that it's just not this, you know, ongoing blankets, you know, list of white male teachers who are giving Dharma talks. And even though I bring, you know, some diversity in terms of as a gay man,

[52:29]

I think I want to see a fuller rainbow of expression. So suggestions that you have, anyone has, or speakers that we can invite. We often go outside of the Zen tradition, you know, to go to Vipassana, Tibetan, you know, even Christian traditions and Muslim traditions. So it's been sometimes like, what is the truth? each tradition that we can bring forward. So it's something I'm deeply invested in. I want to see it come be more manifest. So that's my answer to your first question. Great. And then secondly, how to reconcile, you know, this we're perfect as we are, and yet there could be a little bit of change. The nature of existence is change. Everything is incumbent. It's constantly unfolding. in this realm of just impermanence, of constant change.

[53:31]

So we're naturally going to gravitate towards that. Because nothing's fixed, and because nothing's fixed, in each moment we're coming together in a relationship. All beings depend on their carism, coming together to find their way to fully manifest and express themselves. So that unfolding in its entirety is absolutely perfect and complete. There's nothing missing from this unfolding of the universe. There's nothing missing here. And yet within that, everything is trying to fully express itself, fully manifest itself. And when there are conditions in which that isn't freely able to happen, for example, you know, slavery, homophobia, you know, gender inequality, economic inequality, all those conditions which limit our capacity to fully express ourselves on the relative level, then we need to address them.

[54:34]

We need to, you know, as the Bodhisattva, go into the nut and really do the work there because that's where our freedom lies, getting down into the nut and actually actively creating the ground for the blossoming, you know, of fully realized liberation to all beings. Then I'm just wondering, do you feel that we can heal everything by being present? Is that sufficient? Well, I think there's presencing, and then there's the activity in which you are expressing that presencing. Right? So, presencing includes activity. They're not two separate things, necessarily. We have to see how, you know, practice and realization come together as one. That's what we're trying to do.

[55:34]

And that's part of our training at Zenzen in terms of how we do work practice. And my fully presence, you know, taking that presencing that we do on the cushion and then carry that into my dated activity. And when we do that, we can see the ways in which we're not present. We're not deeply inclusive of the totality of being in the moment. And that's what we study. What am I leading out? What am I discriminating against in some way? What experience, what appearance, what other person, what situation, what condition? Because it's in that discrimination It's in that not willing to presence what's true in this moment, what's present in this moment, the suffering arises. So we keep studying what's the edge of that. That's why I say go to the edge, clear to the edge of your contracted state and keep trying to melt beyond those edges to widen the sphere of inclusive awareness so that the space for everything to be as it is can be truly held.

[56:47]

Does that offer something that makes... Yes. And I have a Dokusang with you next week, so I'll just continue the conversation. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks, Bettina. Next, Adam. Thank you for Adam. There he is. Do I come again? Yes, you are. Hello, Adam. Thank you so much for the Dharma talk. The idea of liberation as kind of an interconnected struggle between people, that was really powerful to me. and to realize that, especially as a, as you put it, rich white male, you know, I'm in a position where, you know, I can't experience my own liberation without kind of thinking about the liberation of everyone else.

[58:00]

One thing that you talked about that was to me really powerful as well as the concept of relief rather than release or belief rather than. And this is actually something I've been digging into a lot in my current Zen thinking and Zen practice. which is that Zen is actually a struggle with the self. There's actually a struggle involved in Zen. DT Suzuki's work, there's a quote that kind of struck me recently where he says, what is Zen? He says, boiling oil over a blazing fire. So there's actually this certain intensity. I think actually one of the things that your talk actually brought to my attention is the way in which ignoring that struggle and saying, okay, I'm just looking for relief. actually kind of enables a deeper form of delusion, you know, you say, okay, I just want to, I want to feel good. So I feel guilty right now. So I'm just like, you know, it's not a big deal. Let's just let it go. You know, it can be read in that way. And I think people often, you take Zen as a, oh, let's just get that feeling to go away.

[59:01]

You know, I've certainly done that in the past. And so I guess my question for you is how to bring that concept of release rather than relief deeper into my Zen practice and in particular, how to do that. in the context of the Soto Zen tradition as well. So what does it mean to really kind of face yourself, focus on release rather than just trying to get over an emotion? What does that struggle really look like and how do you face that fully as an individual? And then I guess in the specific context of this discussion as a you know, a rich, you know, white male who might have something to lose, you know, as well in that context. And as you pointed out, so much to gain as well. You know, I think we all have something to lose. And that losing is self clinging to self, clinging to the conceit of a separate eye in some way. So all of us have to go through that. And that form of clinging manifests in a myriad of ways, depending on our particular conditioning

[60:04]

you know, our karmic conditioning and the field in which we grew up in. So it's not our fault, necessarily. It's just causes and conditions coming together. Here's the garden that we found ourselves particularly growing up in. And suddenly we have to recognize, oh, yeah, so how am I going to address these particular causes and conditions? Because I assume that everyone is flourishing in the same way, right? In Zen, we often talk about sitting in the midst of the fire. and not turning away. And like a massifier, touching and turning away at both well. So staying, again, this idea of presencing, how to stay with the experience that you're experiencing, to not move away from it. And I really feel that it helps best to do that on a physical level. That's why in Zazen, when we talk about sit and don't move, And this not moving is both a physical not moving, but it's a mental, emotional not moving.

[61:11]

Not turning away from whatever is manifesting in this moment to fully embrace it. So I really, on a physical level, I try to study where is there turning away? Where is there any sense in my body of contraction? Because usually if there's a contraction in the body, it is replicating or expressing a contraction in the mind. A contraction around some fault or idea, some belief in a separate self, in most cases. And contraction can either be grabbing, desire, or it can be pushing away. It's basically the same thing. So to study that contraction and the way that arises and the narrative that contraction is rooted in, whether or not that narrative is, hey, I'm a good person, or I'm not good enough, or whatever particular stories that we have, that we have constellated around and laid itself out of in some way.

[62:14]

Oftentimes those stories we've been given, they're not even ours to hold. So this sitting in Zazen and watching the stories, watching the narrative burn up, watch the whole thing go up in flames and just allow it to be released in flames. And the flames, you know, another way of seeing this is the light of awareness. Just really looking deeply with utter, complete, loving, compassionate awareness at the experience, pouring it in that luminous light and keep shining on it. And in time, these contracted states kind of like you know, an iceberg, you know, or an ice cube begin to melt. They begin to soften and they begin to release. Right? So just trying to get rid of them isn't going to do anything because they're going to come back.

[63:17]

We haven't gotten to the roots of the contraction. We haven't gotten root to the felt sense in our body of a separate self. So by staying present with and observing that contraction, and studying that contraction, and being with the suffering that's in the midst of it, and loving it into release. Literally loving it into release. Because we're so not separate from it. We're holding it with deep empathy and compassion, wishing it to be free. And the wishing is wishing this karmic conditioning to be free. Because it knows our true nature is already free. The Buddha mind is boundless. The Buddha heart mind is boundless. There's no contraction whatsoever there. It's just a play of, you know, dance and lights and appearances and so on.

[64:22]

So again, study the contraction in every situation and say, ask yourself, what am I holding on to? What am I afraid to let go? What courage or entitlement or comfort am I clinging to at the sacrifice of a deeper liberation? I hope that's encouraging in some way in response. Yes, definitely. Yeah, sorry, I was muted, so I couldn't respond. I think there's a certain humbling experience to being muted, so that's probably a good thing to learn not to speak sometimes. It feels like there's an element of trust in that narrative. It's like sitting in a fire is scary and it's painful. You have to kind of trust that it will go away eventually, but even that to me feels maybe wrong, to have that expectation of a result when you're sitting in the fire. Yeah, it's hard not to let go of an expectation, but even that has to burn up in the fire.

[65:27]

And trust comes from actually doing that, making the effort. It comes from experience. But the more we make the effort, and we actually learn, I'm okay. I'm actually sitting in the fire, and fundamentally, I'm okay. And actually, I'm even better than okay. Because I let go of something that was confining me, limiting me, So the more we do that, we actually discover that it's actually beneficial and actually great. And in time, we might even begin to turn towards challenges and problems that we might have. The kind of like, ooh, I really want to study this. Yes. You know, I want to, oh, I'm contracting in some way. I really want to say, what's the cost of that? Because I know when I do that, I will eventually probably be free of it. Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you so much. David, I want to acknowledge that we're a couple of minutes over.

[66:30]

And Hakusho and Marie has had a hand up for quite a while. And I saw Brenda's hand up go up a few minutes ago. So I'd like to ask if you would be willing to continue for a minute, knowing that some of the group may need to go. I would be willing to continue, and I support anyone who feels they need to leave at this time to do so, take care of yourselves. Thank you for asking. Pakusho and Marie. Thank you. Thank you, David, for your talk and all the work that went into it and the care. I appreciate it. I have a question that's maybe building on your conversation with Miguel I'm appreciating the concern with the young people going out to protest and I've also been feeling a huge amount of gratitude at the wisdom of their anger and their courage at expressing their anger and just yeah putting bodies on the line and just and

[67:43]

just being amazed at the power of that anger. And so I think my question is about, you were talking about responding with love, and so I'm curious about how you see the relationship of love and anger. I've been moved by a talk that Mama Rod Owens gave recently. She said, in my Dharma training and in retreat, what I began to see was that my anger was really valid and that it was trying to teach me in Dharma communities where we're taught that we just need to suppress our anger and that anger is wrong. There's no place for anger in our Dharma spaces. And that's just another strategy that these spaces are using to control bodies, these bodies, because our anger, especially if we're in Dharma spaces, is actually helping us to look at things that feel really off. I'm just not angry for the hell of it. Forgive me for going on in my question. I'm just, I think also as a white bodied person, there's anger and there's also, I'm also examining shame, which is also considered sort of a negative emotion.

[68:54]

But I think white people in the face of all of this anger are getting in touch with like, we're asses. We've been asses. We're learning to not be asses. And I feel like I'm curious about the relationship between love and anger and love and shame and whether they can be one, actually. So I'm sorry for a convoluted question. I just want to make a plug for Rod Owen's new book called Love and Rage. So it just came out last week, I believe. So I would highly recommend it. He's a wonderful speaker and comes from the Tibetan tradition. And anyhow, check it out. He also has another book that he did with Angel Kyoto Williams and another author whose name I'm forgetting at the moment called Our Radical Dharma. So a plug for Lamar Rod Owen. I think at its core, as you said, you said, there is a wisdom in anger.

[69:59]

And... to first identify what is that wisdom. And that wisdom usually means there's some form, there's some felt sense of separation. Something's been torn asunder, right? And what's in that, the healing orientation of anger is to come back to repair and wholeness, right? So anger is a signal that there's been this severance, this disruption, you know, this splitting away from a greater wholeness, right? What I think is important is that we need to find a way to express that anger that brings to light the pain and the truth and the call for reconciliation, coming back to wholeness, again, through healing. So what's a way to express that anger that supports that to help it? And, you know, each person is going to have to find a way to do that. And I think that's part of the challenge. In the Buddhist tradition, we say to do so nonviolently.

[71:05]

That's about it we make. How do I do this nonviolently? And so find ways to do that. And I think for those of us who are white, who are actually receiving the full expression of that anger, I think What I try to do is really recognize beneath that, there's a deep request for healing and wholeness. That's actually saying, please join me, you know, rather than keeping me separate in some way. Can we come together, right? And to hold presencing in the fire of that anger, which has been burning so long. It's... been brewing so long that it burns quite bright and forcefully right now. There's so much there that has gone into that that we need to actually recognize for those of us who are white and honor it. And it's not easy.

[72:07]

It really isn't. And particularly if we have this identity of I want to be a good white person and it's not my fault I was conditioned and so on. At a certain level, it's not our fault. All of us are conditioned. but we still have this ability to be responsible, to respond to that. So I think, I noticed a lot of Zen communities have a tendency to be, what's it called, anger adverse, right? Or conflict adverse, right? Because we think we're supposed to be all harmonious, right? But it's a form of spiritual bypassing at times. If we're not really able to go to the root and hear the other person, the Bodhisattva vow to hear the cries, to hear the cry at the roots of that anger, is a request for love. And if we can respond to that request, that joins us.

[73:13]

That calls us both forward to do whatever work that we mutually need to do. As white people, we have our work to do, and people of color have their work to do. We all have work to do in undoing this chronic entanglement that we're in. And we all need to hear the pain that has come as a result of that entanglement. So that's my... Oh, sorry. That's okay, I have to say that's my initial response. Yeah, I'm really appreciating your... you're highlighting the longing for wholeness and how that's what we should be bending to is sort of non-separation, reuniting what is no longer whole. And I'm also just thinking, listening to you is like, and maybe there's a time when like full on anger with nothing else is like totally beneficial.

[74:16]

And we just have to go through these phases and honor these moments where we're not at the moment of repair yet. There's just a time when it's like, it's a step to wholeness, like wholeness in a little while. It's a process, it's a journey. And I talked in Greengrass last week, I talked about being in the chrysalis and how the caterpillar goes into this cocoon and then turns to mush before it can transform into a butterfly. We're in the chrysalis right now, you know, and we're going through this process together, and it's a messy process. It's uncomfortable, it's difficult, it can be painful, it can be unnerving, we can't find our way or place necessarily, but this undoing has to happen. This undoing of karmic systemic systems, both externally and internally, has to happen for the DNA of

[75:17]

our Buddha nature to really be able to flourish in the sense of being enacted in the world. Thank you so much. One more, Brenda. Thank you, David. As others have said, thank you so much for this Dharma talk. It reconfirms for me why I'm here. My question might be a little bit related to Marie's. It's kind of a historical question. I was struck. I've heard the story of Mahapajapati a number of times. And as always, I'm struck, you know, as you highlighted this morning with her persistence. What struck me this morning was that she brought... 500 women with her. And I don't always hear that talked about.

[76:21]

In fact, I rarely hear that talked about. And I don't know if 500 is precise, but a lot of women. And so I'm kind of wondering partly what, you know, we don't know much, but she was maybe doing some organizing ahead of time, maybe some teaching, maybe some things like that. And then I was also struck that one might see this as a kind of demonstration where she's bringing a whole group of people forward to a place where there is power and she keeps hearing no, and then she's going back perhaps, and maybe there's some anger in the group coming back and saying, we're gonna ask you again. So I wonder what thoughts you have on that. I read somewhere a Tibetan female teacher said that was the first women's march. You know, that was 500 women, you know, going, tracking the Buddha down and speaking to power and saying, we're here, you know, we have a request and we want you to listen.

[77:29]

Right. And what little I understand, I haven't done a lot of research in that area, but Because at the time there were a lot of wars going on, there were a lot of widows and other situations. So a lot of women who, and particularly in Indian culture, when you become a widow, your status somehow is even lessened, right? And so Mahabajabi had this tendency to befriend and attend to many of these women who didn't have... families or husbands or whatever else status in their community. And so she built these relationships over time. And in her engagement with them, they too, I think, hearing her speak of the Buddhist teaching, her own nephew, had this flavor of what it's possible to be free, to be truly liberated. And they were inspired by her in her own way of being. And so...

[78:31]

She said, you know, we all want the same thing. So let's make this request. And, you know, a lot of times it's unfortunate in our society, you know, we don't hear another people unless it's, you know, a giant mass of people who come and express, you know, themselves. We have trouble hearing one voice. You know, maybe we can hear 500 voices. Maybe we can hear millions and millions of voices, right, to advocate for change, which is happening now, right? We've had a number of one voices here, but until the collective voice, that mass begins to come together and really call for change and begin to have the forest of their truth be felt on a very almost physical level by those who are not needing the request. Until that happens, then sometimes it just kind of doesn't get realized. So anyhow, I was inspired not to study more about how that all unfolding happened.

[79:37]

But again, this idea of our collective, our collective wish to awaken spurs change. Our collective wish to be free together spurs transformation and fundamental change. Thank you, Brenda. Thank you. And thank you, everyone. And thank you for those who stayed on beyond the usual time to be together. I appreciate your presence and your contributions. And thank you for joining together on this cap of iteration. Be good care. Thank you. Thank you, David. Thank you. Thank you so much, David. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you, David. Hi, David. Thanks, everyone. I see a message from my drummer, Sheldon.

[80:40]

Hi, David. Good to have you joined. Good to be with you. Oh, an image, even. A face. I'm going to recommend this talk to everybody who will listen. When will it be available online, Kodo? It should be as soon as the first half of the week. We'll post it to one place on Monday, and depending on that person's timeline, it could be up Tuesday. Great. I'm going to suggest our song go down here, listen to it as well. And Shogun, if you don't see it and it's getting to Tuesday, Wednesday, send me an email and there's another way I can send you a link. Great. Thank you, Karo. It's wonderful to see you, too. Great to see you, too, Shogun. Thank you, Hojo-san.

[81:40]

Take care. Take care, friends. Bye-bye.

[81:43]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_93.7