Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for coming today to our Dharma Talk at Green Gulch. Today, it's my great pleasure to introduce our guest speaker, Reverend Duncan Yuken Williams, Soto Zen priest, Buddhist scholar and activist. who took some time to thank you very much, Reverend Williams, for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us this morning. Reverend Williams is involved in the organizing of an event. Hopefully he'll tell us a bit about an event this coming Tuesday, the National Buddhist Memorial Ceremony for Asian American Ancestors. So Reverend Williams is a professor and Chair of Religious Studies and Chair of Shinzo Ito Center for Japanese Religion and Culture at USC and is author of a couple of books on Buddhism and editor of many more.

[11:55]

His most recent book many of us have read called American Sutra about the practice of the Dharma during the Japanese internment and the Second World War. So much more could be said, but with that, I will turn it over to Reverend Duncan Luke and William. Thank you again for coming. We'll begin with the opening verse. 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.

[12:57]

Well, good morning, members of Green Gulch and anyone who is gathered today. I'm so glad to join you. And, well, I would like to say some things about, I was instructed, I think, to say some things about myself to self-introduce, but also some of the upcoming activities that are surrounding this moment in our nation's history when these issues around race and religion have been coming to the fore. So I hope I can say a few words from kind of Dharma or Buddhist perspective about these subjects. And I'm also very curious to hear from all of you in our kind of Dharma exchange during question and answer.

[14:08]

So first I wanted to start with a little bit of who am I? And that to me is actually a very Buddhist question. I think because all of us are in Soto Zen tradition, we know Zen Master Dogen's own words on this matter. He says to study the way A Buddha way is to study the self. He follows that with to study the self is to forget the self. And to forget the self is to be actualized by the 10,000 things. And to be actualized by 10,000 things is to drop off the body and mind of oneself and body and mind of others. And that no trace of enlightenment remains. And this no trace continues forever. continuously or endlessly. And so this is a very beautiful verses from or stanzas from the writing of Zamasu Dogen.

[15:12]

And when I was growing up, this question of who am I to study myself and to study Buddhism kind of came together when in my own family background, my mother's side of the family, Japanese side, was a very Buddhist family, and my grandfather, like a Buddhist leader. And then on my father's side, he's from the UK, and he has now lived in Japan for over 60 years, I guess. But, you know, he's British, and so Anglican, or the Church of England. So I would... growing up, go both to Buddhist temple and also to St. Albans Church in Tokyo, which is an Anglican church. And so fairly soon, you know, in teenage kind of years, I think it's not uncommon for people who come from a multiracial or multiethnic or multireligious family to question, like...

[16:15]

Like, who am I, you know? Am I Japanese or am I British? Am I Buddhist or am I Christian? Am I, you know, this kind of question of identity. And so for me, more than Christianity, when I was a teenager, I became very drawn to the Buddhist tradition, in part because, you know, we sometimes in Japanese way, we call it chudo or middle tradition. But somehow I felt that on this question of identity, Buddhism had a very flexible way that somehow, how should we say, respected in-betweenness or respected not having to have only one essential identity. And so I would come to learn, I think my entry into Buddhism was through learning about, oh, okay, the self is neither permanent nor independent from everything else, but it's actually interdependent and always dynamically shifting and changing.

[17:27]

And that felt more in line with my own experience growing up. And so I became to be more drawn to the Buddhist tradition than to the Christian tradition. And... Eventually, I came to meet my teacher. I was maybe 20 years old, and I met the person who'd be my ordination teacher. And I grew up in Tokyo, but partially in some parts of the area in a place called Nagano, Nagano Prefecture. They had the Japanese Alps kind of mountainous place. They had the Winter Olympics there many years ago. So this is a place I grew up in my small town. In Nagano, I think population is about 9,000 people. So small town and then big city, Tokyo. That was my life. And in Nagano, my teacher has a temple called Kotakuji Temple. And I remember when I was first meeting with him, he said, you know, you're interested in Buddhism and interested in pursuing more deeply.

[18:34]

One thing you should recall is that... to be the Buddhist person, you should be free. Free person. Your mind should not have to get stuck anywhere. So if you think you are British, or if you are stuck on the idea, I am Japanese, then that's like getting stuck in some, attached to one side or another side. And he said, we... In Buddhism, we do something called Jiju Zanmai, like a samadhi of the mind that is freely moving. And can you do that? Or would you like to enter that? So I said, yes, I'd like to try. And a few, maybe two years later, I finally got the courage to say, I would like to pursue more and become a Buddhist priest. And then I think many of you, you know this type of situation where...

[19:35]

Zen teacher says something like this, like, well, you have been saying you want to become a Buddhist priest. And do you even, in fact, know what it means to become a Buddhist priest? This kind of question, you know, you don't want to answer strangely. So I just said, I don't know. Please tell me. So now he has to tell me something. And so he said, well, when you become a Buddhist priest, you will have no more holidays. That was the first and main thing he said to me. Initially, he said in Japanese, you will have no holidays. And he explained, you know, when you put the robes on, when you become a Buddhist priest and you have robes and you take on that identity, it means how can I help you? to everyone else. And so when you are at the temple, especially this temple in Nagano, you know, it's a parish temple, has about 800 family members.

[20:38]

And if one of the parish or temple, you know, membership people come to you, let's say 8 p.m. at night, and they're very worried about their child in junior high school, who's been anxious about passing their exam, whatever the consultation is. He's like, you can't say our temple closes at this hour and it's too late for you to talk to me. So he said, you will have no more of something called your time. You will have no more holiday. Everyone else gets Sunday off or weekends, you know, Obom period in Japan or New Year's, holiday for everyone. It's the busiest time at the temple. So he said, given all of this, would you still like to become a Buddhist priest? So I said, yes, I would still like to become a Buddhist priest. And his answer was, well, then you must make every day a holiday.

[21:44]

And that part, he said it in English. And I think what he meant, you know, over the years, I had to mull that over. But I think he said it in English because, you know, on the one hand, it means... There is no day that is not a holy day or sacred day. It's not like a Christian way of like what you set aside one day or Islam, you know, Friday prayer, like every day is a holy day. But also, it means also, I think, however busy you are, you become in your life. If you have the right mindset, you know, when we were growing up as kids in Japan, there was a cartoon movie. TV cartoon show called Ikkyu-san. It's about the famous medieval Rinzai Zen master Ikkyu. Ikkyu means one Ikkyu rest. It's like one big holiday. So that's the kind of mind we need for the to become Buddhist priest. Very busy, but in that busyness we have some very still point and also kind of

[22:55]

where we can be on holiday, relaxed in the most busy, stressful times. That's our type of practice for the priests. And so that's how I became, I was 22, I guess, when I became, I'm 50 almost this year. But so about 30 years ago, I became involved. in Buddhist way. And, you know, over the years, I've thought about this question of identity. And there's a question inside of people who study these type of topics from a, say, multiracial perspective, people who have two languages, background, or multilingual cultures, or something like that. And they say there are four main patterns that people who have this type of thing situation in their karmic makeup have to deal with or tend to lean towards.

[24:01]

So they say some people lean towards essentialist identity. So that's the idea that, you know, I may be all these things, but essentially or foundationally, I'm X. And so people kind of pick and choose one thing to kind of, that's one way that some people deal with multiplicity. Other people deal with it situationally. So sometimes we call it code switching. But like when I'm in Japan, I think I may act a little bit differently when I'm in the United States, even though my wife is always making fun of me. I'm on the phone with some people in Japan and apparently I'm bowing on the phone and like my voice modulates and according to the honorific. And then she's like, they can't see you during the phone call. But somehow... I'm kind of like situationally, my identity, my manners, et cetera, shifts and changes. I think this is a fairly common thing too.

[25:03]

And then integrational, like a third way is people say, well, I don't like to have a different kind of self I present in different situations and circumstances. I like to just be myself or have a self that is fully integrated and I present one integrated person. thing in any kind of, so that's another kind of way to think about it. And then fourth one is transcendentalist, you know, like to transcend, like Buddhist, Japanese, Buddhist, like these are all artificial categories. So I'm going to identify with something more transcendent, like I'm a human being or something like that. What I realized that is all kind of different ways of leading into this question of who am I? And somehow I used to think very much like, oh, the Buddhist one is situational because, you know, we have a free mind. We can adapt and be free, you know.

[26:05]

But then I was like, oh, but, you know, we are also very hybrid. We know the multiplicity and hybridity and kind of integrating that and not being worried or... afraid of, oh, so maybe that's the Buddhist, oh, no, maybe it's, I think over the years I've come to know, now that I've lived five decades, we can live all of these in different moments of our, phases of our life, and not be so stuck on anything like this either. And somehow this is also, how should we say, if we study like... Tozam's five ranks or anything in our tradition in Soto Zen Buddhism, we also know things about positions and not that one is higher than the other, but these are all kind of ways of being in the world and become a little bit less worried about these type of questions of identity.

[27:08]

And now I want to shift over to more, less about my personal history and more about where we are as a nation in America today, because I think there is a big question of identity of our nation that we are facing today. There is one vision that says America is essentially, foundationally, a white and Christian nation, that it therefore has a kind of singular or even supremacist kind of, you know, there's only one way to salvation, one way to one identity of that kind of idea. It's a certain kind of vision that we see throughout the course of our nation's history and we hear about it to this day. But there's a different vision of America, which I think is a more Buddhist one, which says that America is multiple, that we're a multi-ethnic nation and religiously plural one.

[28:13]

And quite frankly, to be a religiously free nation, to actually manifest and actualize the notion of religious freedom written into the U.S. Constitution, we actually have to presume multiplicity. And so I want to talk a little bit about that, the idea of multiplicity and what can we say about who we are as a nation, our identity from a Buddhist point of view. And I say this in the context of the ceremony that I'm trying to help put together for May the 4th. It's the 49th day. I'm sorry. Yeah, May the 4th is 49 days since the March Atlanta shooting. Unfortunate incident. Eight people dying in a mass shooting targeting Asian massage parlors. And six of the... people that died were Asian women. And I think of young Ayue, who is one of the women who passed away, very devout Korean Buddhist practitioner, and who, I should say, it was very sudden, unexpected way to pass away.

[29:38]

And her two sons, very much in mourning right now. And so we would like to do something for the family on the 49th day, you know, in Buddhist tradition, 49th day is the day we believe Shizukuchi, where the deceased person kind of transitions or journeys to a different realm. And so we mark that for the person, but also for those remaining. That's the tradition of 49 days memorial service. But it's also in the context, you know, not just of that death, but I think because you all live in San Francisco Bay Area, early this year, you must have known in the news, there was also, you know, security camera footage of a kind of video of Vita Ratanapakti, who was... Buddhist immigrant in this country, who just walking, taking a daily walk on the streets of San Francisco, and he was just a very senseless, unprovoked assault on him.

[30:53]

And he unfortunately died of brain hemorrhage shortly thereafter. And the Thai Buddhist community kind of rallied around the family and helped with that. But These type of incidents, and of course, in my own neighborhood here in Los Angeles, you know, my temple, Zenshuji, is one of several temples and Buddhist temples in Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles. And one of our neighbor temples, Higashonganji Buddhist temple was vandalized. Stone lanterns outside were destroyed. Somebody tried to set the temple on fire. And this follows on the heel of last, you know, November. There was a one-month period, a spate of six incidents at six different Vietnamese Buddhist temples in Orange County, vandalized, where, for example, some of the statues were black, you know, spray paint and graffiti.

[32:00]

Some people put Jesus on the back of the statue and things like this. You know, sometimes it's race and sometimes it's religion, but there is a vision of America sometimes that excludes the people on this type of basis. And it's not just exclusion in terms of law or policy, but exclusion in terms of, you know, just community manners, verbal harassment, physical assault, desecration of houses of worship. It's just a very unfortunate situation we live in and what's happening to, you know, our grandparents, you know, the elders, Asian American people just being able to go outside and take a walk. These type of things are very worrying. And it's also a time when, you know, we just had Derek Chauvin trial and Dante, you know, there's so many incidents, unfortunate, in African American communities, all these different communities where, you know,

[33:06]

Sometimes things, stereotypes that people inherit or the type of racial trauma and racial karma that we inherit in our very own minds and bodies, whoever we are, sometimes just because they're unattended to, come out. And I've been thinking a lot about how to repair. this type of, you know, it's one thing to try to do some fundraising for Higashi Honganji and repair the stone lanterns, but how do we repair our hearts and minds, our bodies in America? Because it doesn't matter how many laws are passed, if we do not deal with this very deep karmic seeds that in different kinds of bodies persist, and do the deep kind of work of racial reparation, that kind of repair, deep work of repair, unfortunately, we're going to see these type of incidents occur again and again and again.

[34:19]

Judy mentioned I wrote a book called American Sutra about what happened to the Japanese American community back in World War II. The Buddhist priests were targeted by the FBI. Temples were under surveillance. Priests got picked up. You know, today we don't think of Buddhism as an un-American or anti-American. At that time, it was literally thought of as a threat to national security or religion. And so temples were vandalized then. Priests were put into special internment and concentration camps. The entire community was eventually rounded up and put into different camps. They were told when they entered these camps that they could only take what they could carry. So if you can imagine, if your government suddenly tells you you're deemed a threat to national security because of your race or religion, and then you have to head to a place for a destination unknown, for a time indefinite, and you're allowed to take one suitcase, what do you take?

[35:24]

And when people arrived, you know, with what they could carry, those suitcases, they were told, it's like entering a prison, they search for contraband, and they deemed anything written in Japanese like a sutra book, would be considered a contraband. You'd think maybe like, okay, guns understood, maybe because they worry about time of war and espionage and sabotage, like maybe cameras, but why would a book of haiku poetry or a sutra book be considered such a threat? What they allowed was if you had an English, Japanese dictionary, that was permissible when you went into these camps. even if it had Japanese language in it. And then the second exception was if you had a Japanese-language Christian Bible, that was also okay. So what is the message that people received back then when they went into these camps, horse stables, and other places that were suddenly their new homes?

[36:27]

The message, I think, was that foundationally, America is an Anglo-Christian nation. you know, Anglo both in the sense of whiteness, but also in the sense of English only, and a Christian, you know, essential nation. And that if they intended to convert to Christianity or learn English, that was deemed more acceptable. But for those of us who may be bilingual or who are immigrants and have a culture and so forth, and a religious faith that is not Christian, that was deemed at that time not only un-American but anti-American. And so I think about these things, about how that past is connected to today. You know, how, for example, our first Asian-Americans...

[37:30]

When they arrived, the Chinese arrived in large numbers in the middle of the 19th century and they set up temples. The first Buddhist temples in America was this community's temples. And they were also vandalized and burnt to the ground. And there are many incidents of massacres of Chinese miners at Buddhist temples in Wyoming. Like this is all happening in 19th century. It's part of our history. And they were called the heathen qini. It was like a slur word. The qini being like a racially unassimilable group and heathen, meaning of a non-Christian, uncivilized religion. That's what was used in debates and testimony in the United States Senate when they were passing the 1881 Chinese Exclusion Act, which was the first immigration, federal immigration law.

[38:33]

Up until that time, people came to America from every part of the world. They didn't need visas or they didn't need any kind of special. People just came and America was welcoming to different people of different backgrounds. But this is the first law that began the whole process to target one group of people because of their religion, because of their race and national origin as unwelcome. in America. And I think, as you know, in recent years, we have similar kind of, you know, the travel ban. It doesn't hurt, you know, just like the World War II internment executive order, 9066, doesn't have the word Japan or Japanese American anywhere in the executive order. Everyone knows that there was no mass roundup of German Americans or Italian Americans in America during World War II, despite being at war. It only targeted Japanese. Same thing with travel ban. It was a way to target one group, the Muslim kind of religion, as being unwelcome.

[39:40]

And on the southern border, talk of a wall to keep out this kind of almost like an invading caravan of migrants. It was a very similar language as back in 1881 when that first immigration law, the Chinese Exclusion Act, was held. It literally talked about building a symbolic wall on the Pacific to keep the Chinese out. So this is our legacy in our country, unfortunately. We have all of these things that in different generations our ancestors are involved in. And we, unfortunately, we receive everything. all the wonderful things from our ancestors, but all of the imperfections too. And last year in June, I became a US citizen. I came to this country when I was 17 years old.

[40:42]

And for three years, I remained a Japanese national and... But somehow I felt this is time to become a citizen. And I went in my robes to the naturalization oath ceremony. Somehow I wanted to remember all of the people, Chinese people, Japanese people, during all these different decades of our American Buddhist history who persevered and struggled... found in their own teachings of Buddhism and their practices some way to be resilient. And I remember thinking it's good to do the naturalization oath to defend the constitution of the United States. The first amendment, such an important statement of the values of what it means to be a citizen of this country, especially

[41:49]

to process equality under law and religious freedom, that it would be honor to my ancestors, my Dharma ancestors and others who, you know, persisted in their faith, not only in Buddhism, but in the promise of America. And so I wanted to do something like that and become a citizen in that manner. And so... In a few days, we have this 49th day service and we will be doing a part of the ceremony. You know, it's like a regular memorial service. We have memorial tablets and we'll be recalling names and, you know, typical way we, I think you must do also, you know, chant the sutras. We have echo or dedication verse and we name names, right? So, We transfer any kind of positive merit that comes from our suture restation to our ancestors.

[42:58]

And then they in turn become present and I think teach us something. And I think what they teach us is something about repair. And I think I want to kind of talk a little bit about that. We're going to have a beautiful ceramic lotus flower. but one that has some cracks in it. In the Japanese kind of ceramic tradition, maybe some of you may be already familiar, but we have a repair practice called kintsugi. Kin means gold, and tsugi comes from the verb tsugu, to join. And so in classic tradition, if you have a beautiful tea ceremony cup and you drop it in breaks or a plate, instead of throwing it away, You can repair it with a lacquer resin and join it back together. And then you add a king or gold kind of paint on top of those crack lines.

[44:01]

And what does that mean? It's a type of record of the history of this teacup, the history of some breakage fissure. And in our nation, we have this too. And we're going to symbolize it with this ceramic lotus flower. And we're going to take a note of who we are as a nation, the various traumas and hurts and suffering and these fractures that have unfortunately happened in our communities. And we're going to note them, fix them, heal them and mark them in such a manner. where we can do it not, how should we say, individually, but as a sangha. And so our event is called May We Gather. It's a call for sangha because when we are in mourning or when we are hurting, I think the Buddha taught us, and this is kind of going back to identity, you know, when you learn who you are, you can let go of

[45:16]

Forget, you know, the self. You can let go and be actualized by the 10,000 things. 10,000 things is a code word for everything, right? We are interlinked together, interlinked with all of our ancestors. And when we come together as Sangha, it's such an important treasure, three treasure, you know, such an important treasure for us because we don't, suffer alone but we also don't don't get the freedom alone we need to do it together so maybe I will end with I started with Dogen so I should probably end with something from Dogen too you know about what we need to come together as a Sangha I sometimes think of Dogen's text, Tenzo Kyokun.

[46:21]

I'm sure many have read this one, instructions to the monastic cook. And it has so many practical teachings and things, attitudes that the person serving in the position of Tenzo or the head cook of the temple should... be aware of, things like don't waste anything of the foods and so forth. But I think maybe big picture, it's cooks should know what's in the kitchen, what's the ingredients that we have available. And then you make a meal, not just for yourself, for all the sangha members, all the trainee monks, et cetera. And then you make it not just for physical nourishment, but for the practice, you know, to do the practice well.

[47:24]

We have that kind of spirit to join the cooking ingredients to help the people. So, you know, the kitchen, of course, is ourselves. We have to look, who are we? and we have to see the ingredients, even the rotting cabbage or something. You know, we all have parts of our personality, parts of our things that, you know, our ancestors didn't resolve. So we have it in our own mind and body. But it is, we have to embrace, you have to know it all, right? And then good cooks can cook the things, you know, with, nice ingredients. But Zen cooks, we have to cook with even not nice ingredients. We have to still cook something that is worthy. And so it is, I think, with our nation.

[48:29]

We have to kind of embrace it all. We have to have a reckoning with even the most difficult or traumatic or ugly parts of our history. And figure out a way as sangha to transform it. As I said, I don't think we can do it alone. It's going to require everybody. And that's how we alleviate the mountain of suffering. It's such a big mountain, ocean of tears, but we need to do it together. And I think that is the meaning of sangha. And I hope on this 49th day moment for thinking about Atlanta and everything else that's been happening, we can come together as one big American Sangha to do the liberation together, alleviation of suffering together. So maybe I'll end there and then have, I know there's closing verses and then very happy to be in the Dharma exchange or dialogue with you.

[49:42]

all of you question and answer, anything is fine. So thank you so much. 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. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to be coming.

[50:43]

I want to thank everyone for coming today. I have a few announcements. First, one of the events that are coming up this Tuesday is the National Buddhist Memorial Ceremony for Asian American Ancestors. It's at 4 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, and I'm going to paste a link in the chat window with information. about that and how to get into that event. We are also having our spring fundraising campaign known as the Zenathon. I will also post another link in the chat window for that. I encourage you to visit the website to read stories from your friends, teachers, and fellow practitioners about the heartbeat of their practice and contribute to the Zenathon. You can also make your own page and become a fundraiser. Your generous support allows San Francisco Zen Center to keep on providing opportunities to practice together and share transformational teachings with thousands of people worldwide through our online programming and residential training.

[51:49]

We will also be taking a five-minute break before coming back to Q&A. If anybody needs to sign off right now and wants to say goodbye, feel free to unmute yourself. And then we will come back today at around 11.05. Thank you so much for your wonderful contribution to my awareness. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for talking with us today. Welcome back, everyone.

[58:07]

We'll begin Q&A. If you'd like to ask a question or offer a comment, you may raise your hand to the reactions button on the bottom of your Zoom toolbar window. You can also send me a chat if you would like me to pose a question for you. And I will also be looking for people with their actual hands raised as well in their video feeds. So it looks like our first offering is from Frederick. Thank you very much for bringing forth your background of multi cultures to a man who was raised as an Anglo. I very much appreciate hearing perspectives that are different than mine.

[59:08]

I think it's valuable to remember that where I lived in Maine, which is a very Anglo state, we had a very large movement of the Ku Klux Klan. And do you know who the Klan was against in my parents' history? They were against the Catholics. And of course, they were against the Jews. I'm in my hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for this week. We've traveled across the country and have found that there are many communities that we feel have suffered that have shuttered downtowns and troubled to drive streets and interstates. And I feel that there may be a lesson for me in having compassion. toward all beings, particularly those who are feeling on the outside, I think, of much of what is happening in this country.

[60:15]

I think our neighbors in Southern Kentucky and Appalachia and West Virginia, which we drove through, are not far from me in Pittsburgh, the man who shot and killed nine Jews celebrating the tree of life synagogue. are coming from a pained experience. And so I wanted to just share that with you and see, can you offer some notion about, speak further about our collective suffering and how many people are feeling left out. Frederick, thank you for your reflection and question. the reason I mentioned that this project of America and this project of repairing our what we have inherited as the kind of I would call it like racial karma of our country is a project for everyone is because it can't be solved just by my sangha

[61:34]

Or it can't be, you know what I mean? Like, we have a wonderful sangha, to be sure, at Zen Shuji Temple. Quite a few, our temple leans a little bit older. Our 70-year-old, 80-year-old Japanese-American, you know, but we can't solve it alone. We need to, as an entire American community, come together. Because this racial karma, as you were saying, you know, the collective suffering, and feeling excluded. It happens at many different registers and many different communities, and we inherit all these things from the past, our ancestors. So if you can imagine, you know, I'm trying to imagine like, on the one hand, I imagine... the ancestors of people who had, you know, their temple burned in California in the mid 18th century.

[62:44]

What did they, those people, you know, they're now what, seven generations in America, but they're still told, you know, you Asians called the coronavirus go home. So that's what you're talking about, kind of. feeling of not belonging. But I'm also thinking about, you were also talking about the people who are pained that are doing the mass shootings or the vigilantism or the, what kind of racial karma is being passed on to them that they would act in such a way where the, how should we say, basic human dignity and manners is not there, right? To, to, to, like Vicha, Ratnapakki, he just taking his walk and just, you know, like some basic things are not there. What kind of karma did that person have to assault an elderly person like that?

[63:47]

So it's incumbent on all of us to see and examine what is in our kitchen. What are the ingredients? What are the things that may be rotting and kind of spreading the mold to other, you know, all these things. We have to take inventory. And where can we start but ourselves, you know? And I think when we started with ourselves that we can also see, okay, we're interlinked with everyone else. And so we can see how we, are both interlinked to the people who, you know, may have been at that Tree of Life synagogue as worshipers. And then we can also see how we link to the person that's causing the pain for those families. And so I think this is the, how should we say, big task of Buddhism is we have to

[64:53]

not feel that we are separate from anybody. So this is not so easy practice. Buddhism is actually very simple. We see things clearly, and then we know we are interconnected with everyone else. We feel that on a deep level. That's basically it. Wisdom and compassion. That's the two things we need to fly. and to freedom. And so, but that's, we can say very simply, we need to know who we are, and then we need to feel it in terms of when we know who we are, we know we're interconnected, but it's not so easy to do, especially when some of the people are acting in unmannered ways, in the most, sometimes very horrific ways, but how we also them too. This is a big, huge task we're asked to by the Buddha to attempt.

[65:55]

And so I feel like this is something also we cannot do alone. So that's why it's wonderful to be in Sangha and exchange ideas and approaches to how we can do it together. Particularly, let's include those that are, I'm afraid that people may not hear from people who live on the coasts as we do. I in New England now and my home in SFCC, people on the coasts and people in the inland may not maybe passing it in the night, it feels to me. So it's valuable for us to have compassion and have understanding and try to broach people that live in less, less, safe, valuable, or economically consistent communities, economically advantaged communities.

[67:01]

Thank you. Thank you. Looks like our next offering is from Carol. Thank you very much for your moving talk today. I have long been a fan of jizuyusamai, and I say the word fan in particular because I don't feel very practiced at experiencing it or expressing it, but I have certainly been a fan for a long time of that particular phrase, especially as it's in the bendawa. And I heard you move. I heard you move. You said something today twice, a particular phrase. You said it twice. The first time when you started, you said, samadhi of the mind that is freely moving or close to that is what you said.

[68:06]

And I was wondering. And then you said again, I think freely moving or free, free use the word free. And I was wondering if freely moving was applying to. the samadhi was applying to the mind. And I liked the phrase, and I wondered if you wanted to offer anything about that particular phrase. Thank you. Thank you so much. I thank you for picking up on what I was saying. Who knows? I never know what is coming out of my mouth. So, you know, I was thinking, how should we say, unobstructedness. You know, that was kind of where I was coming from in terms of we are kind of interpenetrating with each other, but on an unobstructed way. So that sense of freedom, I think, was probably what I was trying to intimate towards.

[69:13]

But... I don't have any more deeper things. Just my phrasing. But did it kind of make sense to you? Yes, yes. Unobstructedness. Now, that's a good phrase. I don't use that phrase very much, but it brings to mind the unconstructedness and stillness from the Bendawas. Unobstructedness. That's good. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next offering is from Yashar. Hi, thank you for speaking with us today. My question has to do with maybe my own ignorance, but I grew up in the Bay Area and I feel like I'm fortunate enough to not really witness anti-Asian or

[70:17]

maybe overtly pro-Christian behavior in my daily life. And I wonder, how do I practice in my daily life so that I can make a meaningful contribution to this particular problem as opposed to the practice with the mind of saving all beings? How can I be more intentional with this particular problem when I'm not readily seeing it in my vicinity? Thank you very much. You know, I always feel like, earlier I said, there's a mountain of suffering. There's so much different things going on. And, you know, these few years I've been involved with a Japanese American kind of racial justice organization called Tsuru for Solidarity. And it's a, we started,

[71:18]

mainly because many of our World War II Japanese American camp survivors were feeling, because they themselves experienced it back in World War II where their fathers were taken away by the FBI and put in these different camps and they went to these other camps, like they've been feeling what's going on on the southern border with the child separation policy and so forth as a kind of deterrent to migrants coming up north. And so I've been involved with different kind of things. I had to learn more things about what's going on with that particular issue. And then some other things with some of my friends in kind of the black reparations movement, I've been trying to have a kind of Buddhist approach. And I realized like some people are like, Duncan, why are you so focused on these type of race issues when there's global climate change, there's, you know, all these other pandemics, like, why do you do that one so much? And my answer, and it's because all of it, it is a mountain of suffering.

[72:21]

So it's not like one couldn't, you know, there is work to do. And so my answer to you about yours is more like, we all have, in Japanese, we call it goeng. I don't know what the best English translation, but maybe there's some like, we have a kind of karmic connection. or it's like a mysterious karmic, invisible karmic connection to certain people, things, situations, circumstance. And if the circumstance is karmically not there for you to have a particular, you know, how should we say, involvement with this one, there's many other things that you may have. And then the thing is in one phase of one life, maybe you have... No karmic connection. And then two years later, you have a very deep one because your friend was attacked or something happens that gives you a karmic connection to something.

[73:26]

And so there's no need. I feel like there's no need to be anything other than very organically connected to things. And so... When you feel it on this particular one, that's when you should do something, is my opinion. Is that okay? Yes, yes, that was a wonderful answer. Could you tell me what the characters are from Go-En? Sure. Go is just an honorific. That's often used in Japanese. On or Go. And then Eng is from yin-eng. Like, you know, usually translate Pratichya Samutbara from Sanskrit in Japanese is yin and causes and conditions, that one. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Our next offering is from Mary Ann.

[74:28]

Thank you. Hi. I live in Venice Beach. So I am glad to hear your talk. And you're just downtown, right? In little Tokyo. That's right. Right. So I imagine during the pandemic, you have been doing things by Zoom and your upcoming remembrance of 49 days will be online. Yes, that's right. Well, we are actually gathering in Loro Tokyo in person with 49 Buddhist leaders to the main hall at the temple that we are holding the ceremony, which is Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple in Loro Tokyo. It was one of the temples that was vandalized last month. But... we are holding it at that very ground because we want to transform the place from a place of hurt into a place of healing and transformation.

[75:51]

But we are limiting the number of people in the main hall to 49 Buddhist leaders so that we can be in accordance with the county guidelines for percentage of in-person gathering in houses of worship in LA County. but also symbolically 49th day, 49 Buddhist priests and monastics and lay leaders. And so we are doing the ceremony itself in person. But if you go to www.maywegather.org, you can see on the upper right side, a button called live stream. It's going to be kind of broadcast nationally or into, you know, anyone can watch it. It's 4 p.m. Pacific Coast time on Tuesday, May 4th. You can view it, therefore, just by clicking that button, a YouTube video thing will appear and you'll be able to view the whole thing live from wherever you are in the country, East Coast, West Coast, wherever you are.

[77:02]

And then if you can't make that... because of your work or the commitments, from the very next day, it'll just be a video that one can watch on that website thereafter. So that's the plan. Thank you. I imagine that eventually your temple, your sangha will open up when the pandemic is under control. And I was just thinking, Oh, yes. Yes, I got this at the Zen Center. And I was thinking in the future, it's one thing to read this. And it's another thing perhaps to be in a text or book study. So I'm just making a request or planting a seed for the future that maybe there would be a book study.

[78:07]

in the future where a person could read this, but also come to the Sangha and hear you speak about it or help us interpret it. Okay. Well, very good. You know, anyone is welcome to our temple. We have a kitchen too. So sometimes the learning can be like book club or that kind of thing, but also in the kitchen, Our 80-year-old women's member of our women's association, they are very strict with their cooking practice. And I learn a lot from them every time I go into the kitchen to cook together. So that's another way to practice when we can, in fact, gather and be in person in a more regular way. So thank you.

[79:08]

Well, thank you then. I hope to visit eventually to come from Venice Beach over to the Sangha. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I'm not seeing any other hands at the moment. I am looking at the video feeds and seeing if anybody has their actual hand raised and I don't see anybody at the moment. might be it for today. Oh, we have one offering from Shindo. You're still muted, Shindo. Shindo, you're still muted.

[80:10]

Reverend Duncan, thank you so much for your talk. I really appreciate your talk. And it was very nourishing and very balanced. Usually, you know, like without accusing one or the other for any kind of suffering. I really appreciated that very balanced and healthy outlook. And also you talked about your life and you brought... Buddhist teachings and Dogen Zenji. I greatly appreciate you for that. And I really appreciate your book too. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. more questions, maybe I'll just echo Shindo's appreciation.

[81:16]

Thank you very much, Reverend Duncan, Yukon, Williams for being here and hope you will come again soon. And any of us who can join on Tuesday at four will be with you via the live stream. So I hope you feel our presence and support. Thank you so much for your presence today. And if you happen to be able to join on Tuesday, we appreciate your support and encouragement. You know, I feel we make, when we recall things, recall names, recall our ancestors, we make them present. It's kind of like when we chant, you know, Buddha's name, Nimbutsu, you know, we chant the name of the Buddha. It's kind of like we bring to life, you know, we absent Buddha present again. Never absent really, but we make it present by doing that act.

[82:18]

So coming together, I feel this is why we do it. And so we can feel you even if you are not inside the same room. And so please, thank you so much for supporting if you can. And I'm sure we talked about Karmic Connection. we will have connections in the future as well. So please, please take care. Thank you for all of what you do in your sangha and please take care and have good rest of the day. May it be a wonderful holiday for us all. Okay, thank you. If anybody would like to unmute now to say goodbye, you're more than welcome to do so. Thank you so much for a wonderful time. Thank you. Thank you so much for a wonderful time.

[83:19]

Please come again. Thank you very much. Yes, please come again. Thank you. Many thanks. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for managing everything. You're very welcome. Thank you, Duncan. Thank you. Good to see you. Thank you. Thank you.

[84:22]

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