Good morning and welcome to the Green Gulch Farm Sunday Dharma Talk offered today by Reverend Angel Kyoto Williams and Green Gulch Abbas Fu Schrader. This program has closed captioning. To enable, click on the small CC icon at the bottom of your Zoom screen. Click Enable Captions. Using the same menu, you can adjust the size of the captions. To move the closed captions to a place on your screen that works better for you, you can use your mouse to drag and drop to a better location. Thank you. 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.

[04:25]

Good morning. Welcome, everyone. We are here at Green Goat Farm on the foggy coast of California, which... More and more these days seems like a tremendous blessing. And speaking of blessings, I am so grateful and happy to welcome my dear friend and longtime Dharma comrade, Reverend Angel Chiodo Williams. And I want to begin introducing Reverend Angel by reading to you the introduction that she was given by Krista Tippett back in 2018 on her program called On Being. Reverend Angel Kyoto Williams is one of our wisest voices on social evolution and the spiritual aspect of social healing. And for those of us who are not monastics, she says that the world is our field of practice. She's an esteemed Zen priest and the second black woman recognized as a teacher in the Japanese Zen lineage.

[05:32]

To sink into conversation with her is to imagine and experience the transformative potential of this moment. towards human wholeness. Now, long before that interview, as far back as I think the year 2000, another very good friend, Sala Steinbach, who for many years was the only black Dharma student at Green Gold Farm, told me that I needed to read a recently published book called Being Black, Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace by Reverend Angel. Sala didn't think that I should call myself a Dharma teacher until I was better informed about racism, starting with my own. So as a Buddhist, acknowledging my own racist conditioning and vowing to end it, being the great source of suffering that it is, brought me to follow up on Sala's request, and then some years later to follow up again when I was introduced to Reverend Angel, who was a guest teacher down at Tasselhara. That was probably around 2016 or so, which also marked the publication of her second

[06:39]

highly acclaimed book, Radical Dharma, talking race, love and liberation. So when Angel and I were talking about this gathering here this morning, we thought it was important to acknowledge the arc of our own efforts to bring the discussion of race into our Buddhist communities, communities which were and still are quite behind in recognizing how our own lives are rooted in a white supremacist culture, how it is no accident that students of color had not found a welcoming environment at the Zen center or any of the Zen centers around the country and how that really needed to change. Our initial offerings of Radical Dharma workshops at Tassahara over five years ago brought a few dozen people into the conversation and also allowed us to invite the students who were present in the valley to join us for an evening discussion as well. After a number of summer workshops, the thread of Radical Dharma remained somewhat modest. until the traumatic events of these past two years, the first being the murder of George Floyd and the second, the pandemic.

[07:44]

So from that time on, the interest and willingness to look into the mirror of our racial conditioning has become a national necessity to say nothing of the commitment within our own Buddhist communities to do so as well. And yet our conversation this morning as a Dharma offering will be addressing the very same primary concerns that the Buddha addressed over 2,500 years ago when he said to his own human followers, I only teach two things, the cause of suffering and the cessation of suffering. As dedicated Dharma teachers in the Zen Buddhist tradition and by virtue of our vows, Reverend Angel and I, along with a great many of you, are determined to continue the work of our founding ancestor. and for today in particular, in the field of our racial conditioning. So Angel, I know these two big events, as we've discussed, the killing of George Floyd and the pandemic, which you referred to as a massive timeout, have been part of your thinking for quite some time.

[08:48]

And I wanted to invite you to share with all of us how you see the waters that we are swimming in now. Thank you. And first, I just want to I express my gratitude for always your warm welcome here and the welcome and invitation of the larger San Francisco Zen Center community and all of the faces and peoples that I'm seeing here. I had an opportunity to scroll through and while some folks are off camera, I recognize a lot of people from all over the country. In fact, all over the world. And so... In many ways, I think that that is what I see at this time is there is, as you pointed to, Fusan, an increased awareness of the necessity to grapple with this, you know, to grapple with, you know, particularly, certainly as a nation, certainly globally, with the, I want to say that the illness, the sociopathy that

[09:57]

racial categorization and domination is all over the globe. And particularly in the United States, our hand in exporting this particular frame and shaping of racism around the globe, even when the British escaped and left it, and the Dutch, who began the transatlantic slave trade, put down enslavement of peoples, our country, the United States, continued to not only keep it, but to build an entire country on it. And that it makes it unique in that way, and our ways in which it's embedded in the institutions and history and laws are far too a little known by most of us, but our country, this country, United States, that you and I share, Fu, was really built on not only the enslavement of people, but its economic system is one of racial capitalism.

[11:07]

And that has been true for a really long time. And so that we're here 400 years later, 401 years later, after the understanding of the first enslaved person on these shores, that we're still grappling it is a testimony to the entrenchment of white supremacy. You know, many of us know that you couldn't even say white supremacy. I remember having a conversation with another dear Dharma brother, Reverend Greg Kosin-Snyder. And he said, you know, he said, and he's feminist and he's anti-racist and he is a socialist in all the ways and he, and it was several years ago and he said, but the one thing you can't do is you can't say white supremacy to white people, they'll just fall out, they freeze, they disappear. And that we've come this far in that many years, and this was maybe four years ago or so, four or five years ago, is also a testimony to how the quickening has happened in terms of the recognition for all manner of reasons which we can touch on.

[12:17]

The quickening has happened, and there has been nothing that has been a greater quickening than the twin pandemics, as people of many call them, of the death of George Floyd, the murder of George Floyd, and the ensuing uprisings, the Black Lives Matter, they've been called Black Lives Matter uprising. But I want to say the response to the deep recognition of racialization and the harm and pain that it is causing us And I think that that has been brought about, that was brought about in particular, not just because George Floyd was murdered, because as we know, many black men and black women were murdered and have continued to be murdered, Latino, indigenous peoples. And I think had we not been in a pandemic that we would not have seen the response that we saw, that the pandemic in essence is some form of our own practice as Zen practitioners, as Buddhist practitioners, we were on retreat, we were in a forced retreat, that the purpose of our own retreat and our practice is precisely to create a condition in which there's sufficient quiet,

[13:28]

in our minds so that we can actually hear ourselves in sufficient stillness in our bodies so that we can feel ourselves. And I think that those conditions coming together on a national and global basis created for us unknowingly an opportunity for people to actually feel, right? To not just know or hear or get a whiff of, yeah, there's racism and it should be dealt with, but actually to feel it. And to feel it not in just a moment, but to feel it in a sustained way because there was no place to go. We were home. We were in our own retreats, you know, not certainly not all of us, but enough, you know, they would call a tipping point. A critical mass of us were still enough, quiet enough, so that we could allow ourselves to to feel, right? Or sometimes even not so much allowing ourselves, but really it was, we were compelled to feel and to keep hearing and to keep hearing it again.

[14:31]

And to, in an embodied way, which is much of what our conversation about is in terms of practice, in an embodied way to having a direct experience and touching of the suffering that exists in us, to feel the pain. and the compassion that arises out of a response to suffering to go and take to the streets, to, you know, to take to conversations. I have seen and been a part of and continue, I know there will continue to be part of more conversations about race than, you know, certain, I think, I'm sure anytime in the history of this country and the history of, therefore, the history of the world. So I think that that's where we are. And we are at a critical point at this particular moment as some form of trans pandemic, I like to call it, is emerging for us where we're not post pandemic, but many of us are making our way through to back into spaces in which we're sharing physical spaces again.

[15:46]

And it is a critical time to see if we will be able to, specifically as Zen communities, specifically as Buddhist communities, as Dharma communities, as human communities of peoples committed to justice and to the relief of suffering throughout the world, if we will do what the Buddha called for us to do in his essential teachings, which is to remember. If we will remember that sati, that mindfulness means remember, that the core of the practice is about remembering what matters so that we can respond in a way that is appropriate, that is measured, and that does not situate itself in creating more suffering because that action is not yet seated in... a relationship with ourselves that really allows to see the ways in which these forms of suffering have inhabited our own bodies and our own ways of being and our own culture.

[16:59]

So that's a long introduction, but I hope comprehensive enough to get us going in a good complex conversation. I have some more for you. Thank you for that part. Because one of the things that we were talking about as kind of the frame, this statement by the Buddha, I teach two things. I teach the causes of suffering. I teach the cessation of suffering. And so the causes of suffering, the one we're talking about right now, racialization, white supremacy, that's just kind of come up. And like you said, we can talk about it now. I remember, again, saying to you maybe four years ago, the lid's not off. I think you might recall that audience we were with at Tasahara the first year we did Radical Dharma. And it was awkward. People were not comfortable using the term racism or white supremacy. Any of those things were like, you know, very quiet. The people who were mostly the guests who came. And then the second time, a few years later, everyone was talking.

[18:02]

It had become like, it's okay now. It's okay for us as a collective to begin to acknowledge our own role, our own part in this. So another thing you said, which I really appreciated it. Oh, may I say something to that? I think that, you know, certainly, and many of us here, I'm sure are leaders in all manner of way. And I want to say that was in no small part, not just to the conditions out in the world, but also to the modeling that you did as, you know, not just leadership, you know, but an abbess and someone that has been in Zen with the Zen center system. and has been deep in practice for many decades, that you modeled a willingness to not only just to talk about it, but to be an inquiry in a way that was transparent. We played at some point a kind of game, which comes from the work of Radical Dharma called Name That Whiteness. That was awful.

[19:05]

And you were there willing, and I think it did a great deal to give people permission, which is something that we require. We require permission to break with the culture that we have been stewed in and steeped in and that has been so deeply embedded in our ways of being and seeing and knowing and feeling. And so there is something that is required because it's not just, you know, many people would think, and this is part of the white supremacy idea, that it's just an ideology, you know, and that you either believe in it or you don't. And, you know, good, well-meaning people don't believe in it. And there it is, end of story. And many times we've called race... a construct, a social construct, but I submit that it is not just a social construct, and it's not just an ideology, it is an embodied inhabited reality for us, that it takes over our brains, our hearts, like literally it can be measured on scientific devices, that it affects our physiology, that our brains respond differently to the suffering

[20:24]

of peoples of marginalized races, blacks and brown people in particular. And so for me, I consider this is evidence that it is not just an ideology and it's not just a construct that we can think our way out of, but really that it is a mass sociopathy that we are producing and advancing antisocial behavior on a massive scale, on a massive scale, something that we have been reluctant to acknowledge or disabled from acknowledging because we're so steeped in it that that sociopathy has actually become our culture. which is enormous. And if anyone is feeling a moment of like, whoa, did she just say that? Like, yeah, it's that serious.

[21:26]

And it's that big. And those of you that are... you know, Googlers and sort of Google therapists and psychologists in the way that I am, you can go and look up what sociopathy is about, what it means to be a sociopath. And you will find consistency with the behaviors that we spoke about in that game, name that whiteness, that the culture of whiteness has created some of the similar conditions and behavioral reactions in our bodies And the biggest cosmic joke, if you will, is that we then go about mistaking those behaviors and cultures and learned ways of being for who we are. And what our practice does is gives us the opportunity to have some insight as to that not being the case. Do you happen to remember a few of those white characteristics?

[22:29]

I remember perfectionism and standards of beauty and who's pretty and who's chosen and all that kind of thing. And certainly was true in my growing up, who we saw on TV and so on and so forth. The one I remembered vividly came from the audience. One of the BIPOC students who was there raised her hand and said, did we leave anything out of the whiteness list? And she said, yeah, they're whiny. I remember you had such a good laugh of that. Bingo. Yeah. And some of those characteristics are manipulation, right? That they'll go on the order of, so manipulation, so that correspond with sociopathy is manipulation. Manipulation so that one appears above others. one appears more important than others, including lying, including taking over the space, right, like asserting oneself in a way that takes over the space and makes oneself important, if any of these are sounding familiar.

[23:45]

uh lying or and or you know and i know that lying is a strong word that might have a lot of trigger energy for many of you but um you know active manipulation of of of reality of shared reality in such a in such a way to um advantage yourself um and to do that in a way that even when you know that those things are not necessarily the case with those things that you believe that you're expressing as true to create the appearance of them being true. Those were also some of the things. And those are in the manual, if you will, for what it means to be a sociopath. And one of the distinctions about sociopaths is that sociopaths are made, right? That they're made rather than born, at least as far as we can understand the difference between being a psychopath and sociopath.

[24:47]

And so that's why I advanced that notion because it's produced, right? By social conditioning, right? Particular instances, namely trauma, namely trauma. Yeah. And so as a reaction to trauma, and if the racialization of people, if the tearing apart of people from their natural impulse towards compassion and care and connection, if dismantling their physiological responses to compassion, care, and connection is not traumatic, I don't know what is. I don't know what is. And if we looked at it on an individual basis, we would understand it. We would look at someone and we would say, oh, look at this way that you're responding, kind of taking over the space, keeping those people behind, asserting your superiority, you know, manipulating situations so that, you know, those people can't get ahead, you know, and

[25:59]

And then creating a whole belief system, media, machine, laws. And so if we did that and we said, oh, well, this is what this person was brought up in. They were brought up in conditions in which it was told and that was okay. We would understand that they were traumatized. And so as a result of being traumatized and being in a situation in which this kind of behavior was encouraged, we would say, oh, yeah, they need help. We need help. Yeah. Yeah, one of the things you also said that I found extremely helpful and important, I remember a lot of the things you say, they come in as, you know, like banners. Like that was really helpful to me. And we try to remember this, you know, due to my own conditioning, which is forgetful. Like you said, remember, you have to remember. We were talking about some of the people at Zen Center, BIPOC students who are, you know, expressing their feelings. experiences of racism.

[27:00]

And, you know, it's a little shocking. I mean, like, we're just good people, right? You know, this is sort of like, well, where is that? Or how do we spot it or whatever? And you said something so good. You said, well, the... I think this is right. You can certainly add your own words. But the lid is off being able to express such a thing. There was a time you couldn't say that, that that hurts me or that's racist or that's not fair. You're doing that to me because of my color. There was so long when that wasn't allowed to happen, you know, ever. You couldn't speak up on your own behalf or on behalf of your friends. So it seems to me that, and this is the best part, the lid is off. And you said something about the relationship to trauma and how when the lid is off, the expressions that come from that unlitting are really passionate. And anyway, I really appreciate your sharing that, which I found so helpful. Yeah. And I think that's important because often, you know, one of the features, if you will, of the culture of whiteness is this politeness, right?

[28:10]

And a politeness that supersedes even, well, that goes to the extent of negating the reality that is actually, you know, present in the moment. And so there then becomes an adding insult to injury of wanting the people that have been traumatized and are now touching that trauma and expressing it to get it right, you know, and to say it all in the right ways and to be polite and to do it in a way that doesn't cause friction or upset or make people uncomfortable because that's another one of those features, right? Comfort, right? that the culture of whiteness. And when I say whiteness, I'm not talking about white people. White people are obviously part of whiteness, right? But I'm actually talking about the constructed, crafted culture over now centuries, right? That conditioned people to behave. I was at a Zen center once out in St.

[29:13]

Paul and... I was giving a talk and, you know, this is gonna be full of lots of, you know, cultural cues. And so it is often considered, you know, timeliness, right? Like in like sort of clock time, fixation on clock time is one of those other features. And so because of the clock time thing, and it was this long space and people entered in from this side, and because of clock time, largely, I was sitting in the middle of the room in the front, Largely, the white-bodied people, right? And so white-bodied people were on this side of the room because of clock time, right? They arrived earlier. So they went in and say they were largely on this side of the room, not 100%, but overwhelmingly and noticeable. And on this side of the room, closer to the door, when you came in later, was overwhelmingly people of color. Now the Midwest, which was, it was amazing to me, is fascinating because many places I go, there's a, you know, there's a quite striking, like it's, you know, white folks and it's black people, or you go in the Southwest and it's white folks and it's Latinx people, or, you know, and so there's, you go in certain places and there's like strong numbers of a particular racial ethnic category.

[30:33]

In the Midwest, so many people came together because they have each other as people of color. And so on the one hand, you had all sorts of different heritages of white people. You know, they were Italian, Jewish, Scandinavian, a lot of Scandinavian, Irish, you know, Irish Scottish, you know, lots of different backgrounds there, Polish. And for the first time actually that I had seen also the same, there were people, there were Hmong, there were South Asian, there were Caribbean folks, Black folks, Latinx folks from Latin America, Cuban, like really different people. So here this is, white folks on this side, people of color on this side. And I made a joke. And the joke, whatever the joke was, was so inconsequential in my mind, not a big deal, that I don't even remember the joke to this day. And I hope that somebody will tell me what the joke was. But I made the joke...

[31:35]

And this side of the room, it was like crickets. There was like a little tittering. This side of the room with the people of color, like uproarious laughter. And immediately everyone noticed this. And I paused for a moment and I looked up and I said, that was awkward, wasn't it? And he was, yeah, particularly the white folks were like, yeah. And I said, well, if you need any evidence that whiteness is a culture that has been constructed, there it is. Because there is nothing more similar about you folks that inhabit so-called white bodies than these folks that inhabit brown and black bodies, different cultures, different ethnicities, different backgrounds, different ways of being raised. And yet... there was some invisible cultural alignment that happened that just doesn't, that defies, it defies everything there is to defy about what it means to be different people other than white-bodied people have been indoctrinated and inculcated into a way of being that even made it a joke, not perceptible to them.

[33:03]

Wow. And it's phenomenal. And I said, I promise you, we didn't plan this. All of the people of color and Black people didn't go in a room ahead of time and plan it and say, we're going to play a joke. It was completely innocuous in my mind. And it was so telling in such a striking way that it affected not only... ways of people moving around, but actually the way they perceive, right? It actually affected the perception of being able to cognize and integrate a joke. I think that is more evidence to why, how important it is for us to have these conversations together. I mean, you know, for black and white identified people to be able to talk together about, instead of like, well, you know, It took me, it was, I don't know how many years ago, not long ago when I, for the first time recognized I had been talking, giving lectures for 20 years to all white people.

[34:11]

I never even saw that. Like that's how bad it is. You know, holy cow. So the fact that we have gotten this so completely separated conversations to me is also evidence of not getting the joke. We can't get the joke if we don't come together and notice. What happened there? You know, it's so powerful when we when we're together, how much we can learn so much quicker than when we're on our islands, you know. Well, and I think there's also, though, the case at what point we can be together, too. Yes. Because, you know, for many people of color and black black people. And so the term that is used for those of you that are not familiar is often these days BIPOC. which means black, indigenous and people of color. And the reason that there's that breaking apart is to acknowledge that there are different histories, right? There are significantly different histories in those coarse groupings of people that black peoples for the most part have a unique historical background in relationship to the United States.

[35:23]

It's their different terms used in different countries. But in the United States, that is different and distinct and significant from indigenous peoples, right? That indigenous people are not people of color in the same way. And then, of course, people of color are not all the same, you know, like Asian, East Asian, South Asian, Japanese, you know, Chinese, Latin. They're not all the same. But the locationality... largely of people having been immigrated to the country is a different historical reference, except for those Chicano people who the border crossed over them. Their history is unique as well. So just to name that for folks so that we're not kind of throwing around the acronyms and terms without an understanding. The fact is that for most of those people, and particularly for Black people, because of their unique location, we live, we don't necessarily get trained in race realities, we live them, right?

[36:28]

We live under the burden of, and the impact of race realities. And as a result of that, like anything that kind of keeps pelting you, right? you can grow on the one hand, a resistance, right? A resilience in it to be able to keep functioning because socioeconomically we often have to function amongst white people, regardless of how we feel about it for our economic survival. And on the other hand, the tenderness of that wounding is just under the, that armor is palpable. And so to enter into spaces in conversation, as you spoke about earlier, about when, as the sort of trauma, the recognition of like how much armoring there has been and how much wounding, right? You sort of like, any person that, you know, we talk about trauma that you know that functions in trauma, you can function it for a really long time without being aware of how deep the trauma is. And then when it's opened up.

[37:29]

Yeah. Right. It's like a kind of re-traumatizing. The experience of the pain is like out there and it's heavy duty. And so people are not necessarily always equipped to be in spaces in which, on the other hand, people that are just becoming aware are kind of like, you know... stumbling around, groping in the dark. In many instances, and this is where the term microaggression from doing the exact same thing, that the Black and Indigenous and people of color have been learning to armor themselves when they've dealt with their armor. And so I definitely appreciate the need for coming together. And there is also a really important and essential need for I call it caucusing, or being in spaces in which people can, and white people included, to work some of the rough edges out, and to get some rules of engagement in spaces in which we're having conversations about race that are more intimate.

[38:45]

This is what kind of safe... Right. And we're safe enough to be able to hear things. And you and I in dialogue, I think, creates this unique opportunity that invites everyone in. Right. It says we're all welcome here. It's not just me and it's not a black space and or people of color space. It's not just you and just a white space. So this is there's a kind of relative safety. I always tell people, if you're in a black body in America, there's no such thing as safety. That's a fact. But inside of that, when it becomes more intimate in your sanghas, in your communities, in your workspaces, driving into like, let's all have conversation together is also actually a feature and a habit of white folks often because it's uncomfortable. to not have command of it and know what's going on.

[39:45]

And so you will have many, many instances in which you will find that people of color will be like, no, we need to have some of these conversations by ourselves. We need you to go have your conversation yourself and work out some of those edges. So that you even realize that your way of speaking, your way of asserting yourself, your way of that you understand as yourself. Right. And so it's not it's not personal. It's social that you may understand. Like, this is just my personality. Maybe, maybe, maybe it's your personality. Maybe it's whiteness. Yeah. Right. Maybe it's your personality. Maybe it's ego. This is not different. Right. Maybe it's your personality, but maybe it's the way your ego has reacted to certain causes and conditions. And through practice, when you are still enough, you can recognize, oh, there's something that I have that's available to me that I can offer here.

[40:52]

Or conversely, there's a way that I have hardened here that I didn't realize. Was the result of the way my father treated me or my mother treated me or, you know, I was teased when I was a child. So this sort of relationship between the personal and the social, it works all the way up the line. I really remember very vividly when you came to Green Gulch to speak to the residents there, there was one young gay black man who was a guest student at the time. And he was so... you know, he was very shy when he spoke. And then he asked, he said to you, well, I don't know why my friends, his white friends, he was in college, won't let me talk to them about my pain. They don't want to hear it. They dismiss it or they make it small, they reduce it. And you said to him, you know, you can't talk from your wounds. You have to talk from your scars. And you said about yourself, I've done that work of healing myself.

[41:55]

And until you do that, you're going to be reopening these wounds, as you were just saying. So that idea that first you have to do this inner work, you have to prepare yourself for this work that we all need to do together, the collective work. And that's a big part of why you and I are both so grateful to the sitting practice and to having this opportunity to actually spend time with ourselves in silence. And really find all those things you're talking about, all that conditioning, it starts to bubble up like a, you know, I felt my first years of practice were like putting the garbage disposal on in reverse. You know, everything was just coming up, all those things, all those lies and all those things. And, you know, oh, my God, you know, the horror of what humans, how we grow and what we do while we're growing. So anyway, I feel like a lot of that cleansing has to take place for a while until you're ready to receive some new conditioning, you know, some different way.

[42:57]

So I really wanted to thank you again for that insight about scarring, you know, and work. And, you know, I'll just say, you know, particularly to people of color, to BIPOC folks here, you know, many of us, we're not in the era of, you know, whatever, you know, hundreds of years ago where we don't have relationships with white folks. We don't, we work with them, we play with them, we love them, we're married, we're there, you know, we have children, you know, so we're in the stew together, you know, many of us. And more often, that is true more often for BIPOC folks than it is for white folks, that BIPOC often cannot have a life without some relationship with white folks. White folks can have a relationship, have a life without any real relationship with people of color. And that's often not the case for us. And as a result of that, as these conversations are arising, many of us may rush to try to help our people, help our kin, help our white kin figure this out.

[44:10]

And then we get wounded because they're not ready. You know, they're touching in to their own sifting apart, peeling apart the layers of like, what if this is me? I mean, first, you know, the denial. I mean, you know, just the denial alone of like, no, I'm a good person because we have come to view the way that we operate and move in the world as who we are, which our practice is about peeling apart and going, no, you're not an it or a that, you're a rising and ever a rising and a rising again and a rising again. And there's some momentum to the way in which you have the fabrication that you tend to refer to as me. And that momentum is potent and it's powerful so that we do have this sense of like, oh, this is how I am, who I am and the way that I am.

[45:14]

So that when race in the conversation about race or white supremacy or whiteness come up, we take it personally, right? We attach those ideas to the fabrication called me, right? To that momentum of fabrication. And we take it personally and we feel it personally. And so of course, who wants to be considered a racist right so the immediate response of course is like not me of course not you in the sense of i don't it's not what i'm wanting for of course not you in the sense of that's not my wish from and certainly not you and that's the way that i want to see myself but yes you in the way that you have been dipped into the the icing right the the stew, of course you, in a extraordinarily long standing, constantly nuanced, ever refined set of instructions about how to be and relate to yourself and relate to this color of your skin.

[46:28]

Even those of you that came to this country later as a people's persecuted from from other lands. You didn't necessarily come with a racial category. But this country, you sit down and somebody turns around and they give you attention first. You go to apply for a loan and the loan comes easier. You go to apply for a job and the job comes easier. I had this wonderful conversation with Jon Kabat-Zinn and he said, you know, he said, I went my whole life thinking all that All that I got was because of me. Because I'm so great. Because I'm so smart. Because I'm so wonderful. He said, and then I started to do this work. And I realized that there were instances in which things came to me maybe a little too easy. They were just laid there at my feet. I didn't have to work as hard. Not that he didn't work. Not that you didn't work, not that you didn't do things, and not that everybody's life is a bowl of roses and that you don't have difficulty, trauma, economic challenge.

[47:39]

That's not what we're saying. But that the overarching shaping of the notions of the privileges that you're entitled to are overwhelming and impossible to... evade that kind of conditioning. And so it's not personal, right? No one picked you and said, like you, Justin, right? I want to pick you and lay this trip on you. And that's the nature of this racialization for no other reason than the fact of the color of your skin and how you came out of the womb You have this lot to bear that is the result of this culture. And so it's not your fault. And as I always say, but it is your responsibility. Because if you're here, you're people that are committed to relieving suffering.

[48:43]

I can't imagine why else you'd be here listening to me anyway. I can't imagine why you'd be here for the Dharma. I can't imagine why you'd be here for practice. Even if you're not... You know, at the point at which you're ready to fully articulate it, that yearning is in us. That yearning is there. You know, and in contrast to the Buddha, I would say, like, I teach one thing, which is liberation and the path to liberation. And I didn't, I wasn't interested in race. I wasn't interested in having that conversation, except that it inhibits the path to liberation. Except that it is an obstacle. to people that I have known and love that I think are extraordinary teachers, Dharma teachers, spiritual teachers, Eastern teachers. And man, are they stuck around race? And the reason I know they're stuck is because they contract. The reason I know they construct is because they can't even be at ease in the presence of the conversation, that they can't even have a conversation without backing up and obfuscating and

[49:48]

becoming aggressive and denying and distracting and redirecting. And we're not, we're not doing that because it's not part of the Dharma. Tell me what of the 10,000 things are not the Dharma. I want to ask you, may I ask you another question? It's kind of a practical one. Again, I'm going to ask you questions too. Oh, you're going, you can. This one was, I mean, such an honor to have you. I think you know I feel that, and we all feel that. So you said something else about your own personal way of handling assault aggression, which, again, has stuck with me, another one of those banners. In fact, you exercised with me at Atasahar. We played it. I got to be the hostess, and you were a visiting guest. And I said, oh, can I help you? And you said, no, I'm fine, thank you. And I'm trying to, I'm trying to take care of you. I'm trying to take you over. You're going, I'm just fine. Thank you.

[50:49]

And I was just, I got nervous. I was like, wait a minute. What is this relationship with what's happening here? You know? And you said, I, you learned, I hope I got this right. That when someone throws stuff at you, whatever it is, I think it's called shade. When they throw something. Yeah. That you, you say inside yourself, that's not mine. That's not mine. That's yours. That isn't mine. You can't hit me with your stuff. I mean, of course, you can hit me with some weapon, but you can't hit me with your words because they're not mine. That's you. That's your hatred or that's your disrespect coming out of you. And I was thinking the corollary of that is for those of us who are the aggressors, whether intentionally or not, that is mine. I need to own that. And I need to be responsible for it and say, I'm sorry. You know, as soon as I recognize it and then learn that lesson again and again. So I hope I got that right. But I thought that's not mine was a great shield for anybody who feels that kind of oppression from hierarchs or whatever it is, you know, wherever it's coming from.

[51:57]

Yeah, you know, I would say it's even more than a shield. It is an expansion. of the space that you inhabit so that things that happen, things that are said don't land on you. They land in the space. And so it's not mine. And it's yours. And it also is collective. It's yours. It is yours, but it is also collective. It's inherited. I mean, it's in your... You know, it's in the way your parents, you know, taught you maybe the little funny look, you know, someone gave you when you had a black friend, the way that somebody's like pulled you away or just the message you get in the media, you know. A man does things, but a black man does other things, right? What does that mean? All these deep encodings.

[53:00]

And, you know, I think it's really important for me to share. That, you know, you and I had this conversation, and I hope I get this right. And, you know, you were talking, asking me about how I came to this. And I said, you know, this is the Dharma. I've been part of this practice and considered this my practice long enough that it wasn't like I came and I'm going to bring this race conversation to the Dharma. It's like... I discovered the very same things that I'm sharing, not because I'm a race professor. I'm not a scholar. I didn't go and, you know, try to get a whole bunch of studying. I mean, I've done, you know, checking in, of course, you know, and learning since then. But it was from the inquiry of the practice, you know, to be able to be sensitive enough and attuned enough and also honest enough.

[54:02]

And the discovery for me was not like, oh, look, white people are doing something. That's not my practice. That's not my inquiry. My discovery was like, oh, look at this bias against Black people in me. Look at that in me, right? And that I had to acknowledge that I could get a pass. Everyone would give me a pass. Of course, you're not holding racial bias. But my inquiry, my practice allowed me to acknowledge, first to feel it, to notice there's some funny thing going on there in my body when I would say certain things and can feel the untruth in those words. You know, like, oh, all Black people, I'm good with. Maybe not. Maybe not.

[55:04]

Maybe not. Maybe not so true. And to feel that, right, and to be sensitive enough and say, like, oh, I know that. That's my I'm not being honest with myself feeling. And then to take that to my cushion, right, to take that to my yoga mat, to take that to my... to my practice, take that to, you know, I would say, take that to my Jesus, whoever your Jesus is, to take that and say, let me sit with that. Let me be with that. Let me face that. Let me face that discomfort, that noticing of the discordance of my words. even to myself, even if no one else saw them. I mean, this is the courage of the practice, right? Even if no one noticed it, even if no one else could point it out and say, oh, I saw you did that. For me, that was the gift for me in my practice was to say, oh, I can develop the courage to, not to face you, but to face myself first.

[56:12]

I mean, that is the real, real work. That's the real. Deep, deep work, you know, is not to figure out how do I come out, you know, smelling like a rose to other people, but how do I, forgive my French, you know, learn to own my own shit and just to smell it and not to smell it and then go run, like to smell it and sit with it and go, oh, let me get used to this aroma. Mm-hmm. so that I can recognize it when it's surfacing in these other places, so that it's like I'm familiar with it. So that's what we mean when we talk about, like, doing the work. And, you know, foo, son. So I remember, you know, you were sharing just so openly about your journey of saying, and please correct me if I'm wrong, like, oh, I thought we had done it. It was the 60s. Like I thought we had done it.

[57:15]

We took care of that, you know, check, you know, we, that race stuff, we took care of that and then back to sleep. Yeah. You know? And so, you know, not that you just were running around being an avowed racist all your, all your life, but rather how deep it is, you know, and, and that the slumber just comes over you and, you know, there it is 20, 20 years. I know. I know. Would you share a little more about just that? Well, yeah. Let me fine tune the question. Because we can get caught in the idea that like, oh, I have a spiritual practice. There is Fu, and Fu's got a long history. Is it 40, more than 40 years? Yeah. Right. It's climbing up there. And and she's talking about race. So, you know, she she must like have it down.

[58:17]

Right. Like that, you know, that must mean we're kind of like over the hump. Right. Because we have a practice which in some ways can be a snag to telling ourselves the truth. And so I was I felt so moved by your willingness to share this at that stage, you know, these years ago when we. we met and we were in conversation. So if you would share, cause I think it would be helpful for those of us that may be a little shy about saying, well, wait a minute, I'm, you know, I've had a practice for 10 years, 20 years, 50, you know, 30 years. And how do I own, you know, that, that the polishing ain't done yet. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I, for my own personal pilgrimage through myself, I, my mind and my body and my history you know there's so much that goes back to when we're children and and you know you have your memories of your parents i have my memories of my parents and grandparents and i think i told you the other day i mean i remember very well having my grandmother with her white gloves on take my hand in the bank of america and walk in front of the line like in front of all these working people who were there to deposit their you know she she said we don't need to wait i said

[59:34]

what are you talking about? I was very young, but I remember being stunned and the looks on the people. But not just white folks. No, no, no. Yeah, that's the important piece. No, no, no. That's the important piece of the story. Not just white folks with hats on and gloves. No, that was my grandma. And she had me by the hand. And I was like, I already knew there was something really wrong. And I'm grateful for that. Something about me knows there's something really wrong, even though I might not know what it is. But I think there's something really wrong when there's those hateful looks on people's faces about my grandmother's behavior. You know, why are they hate? Why do they hate us? You know, so I think there was a kind of a growing up of the communal relationship that I was growing into a society which had some really crazy, harmful stuff. And, you know, I'm grateful I grew up in San Francisco, which is, you know, kind of liberal thinking and talking. Although we know there's a lot more going on under these floorboards.

[60:34]

And also going to San Francisco State, which for me was the closest to heaven I've ever been because it was completely the world. Everybody was there. Everybody was there. And it was not majority white by any means. And I really loved being there. And I thought, oh, this is what it's going to be like. It's the 60s, right? We're done with it. We've integrated. We're all together now. And, you know. It's the Starship Enterprise. And here we are on the, you know, we're going to fly through space together. And, you know, total and the falling back to sleep, I think, is the part that, as you mentioned, really hurts because I stopped noticing or I stopped feeling there was something terribly wrong because I'm in this Buddhist little enclave out here. And feeling like only really nice, good people could possibly be anywhere. And everyone out there must be like that. Some kind of delusional state of forgetting about, there's a lot more going on here than meets the eye.

[61:35]

So, and I think I also told you that within my own family system, there was the whispered name my grandmother, also my grandmother, made about someone in our family called the Sanchez woman. You know, she was a relative of some sort, but that was all we knew. You know, this name. And I thought, what is it I'm being taught? What have I been taught? And I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to unlearn it. And I think it's with having good friends like you and like Sala and others who are here. We have some good friends growing up in our community right now. We hope we can be good friends to tell us their own pain and suffering when they're ready. you know, so that we can be, we can listen. I feel like listening is my task for a good long time to come. You know, I need to hear, I need to hear you and others talk about things that I didn't know or I didn't see, I didn't look at.

[62:37]

So no, 40 years of Zen practice is 40 years of Zen practice, but every day you sit on that cushion, you'll notice something within yourself that is grist, Some gristle that needs softening. Thank you. I want to share just one piece from the work of Radical Dharma that our conversations and we're planning a workshop. The one we were going to do is being postponed until we're not sure yet, but when yet, but stay tuned. because we'd love to have you. But one of the things that I discovered from a process that I developed in the radical Dharma work, we do these like camps, we bring people together in physical space. We're actually doing one in October in New York at Omega Institute. But one of the things that I have come to discover is that when we essentially walk people through experiences such as the one that you just shared about your grandmother,

[63:46]

And we speak about it as your first experience, the point at which you were racialized, right? That you were racialized, which means like, okay, we have skin color, right? But that skin color and the meaning and association with the skin color is where the notion of race comes in, right? So we're different. We have... It's the technical term is different phenotypical expressions as a result of our background, heritage, geography. If you go further back, like geography, so our bodies form differently and the shapes of our noses and hair, texture and so on as a result of going way back as a result of geography. And then the human species ran all over the place and we form different ways. But, you know, it is much to some people's chagrin. well acknowledged that everyone came out of South Africa as far as we currently know.

[64:49]

And so this race thing though is assigning value, right? Particularly value, right? Associations and value. And those associations get under our mental skin as well as our physical skin. So that's what race is, right? It's like this... It's the connotations that we make associations with when I might look at someone and immediately I've told the story of moving to California. So I wasn't so young and I moved to California and I walked into a Mexican restaurant and there was a young white guy, blonde, blue eyed white guy, and he had a broom in his hand. And I thought to myself without wanting to think it to myself, what did he do wrong? Because it would have been okay if there was a Mexican guy or even a black guy with the broom in the restaurant. But it wasn't okay that a bright, blonde, blue-eyed, white male, young white man had the broom.

[65:55]

That wasn't his location. That wasn't his status. That wasn't the right location for him in my mind, especially in a Mexican restaurant. Turns out white folks own the restaurant, but that's a whole other story. So that's the challenge though, right? And so is that these connotations get built in. So we have people visit the point at which not they recognize that they were different, right? That, you know, people's eye shapes are different and skin is different, but rather when it became clear that those differences mattered, right? That... that they have some kind of an impact in the way that you recognized that something was going on there. And what we have discovered through this process is that when people revisit that, and it's a, It's not just remembering, so you may try and that would be good and you might get something out of it, but I'll just say that it's not just like remembering when that moment happened, because many people have remembered like when they realized like something was up there, but through this process, it kind of walks you in in a different way.

[67:12]

What has happened, what people realize, it's kind of like revisiting the original site of trauma as far as people remember, like that traumatic moment. The one thing that has been consistent, and this has been, of course, hundreds of people now, is that everyone knew intuitively in just the way that you said that something was wrong. The word almost 58%, excuse me, 48% that the word that most people say all sorts of words, you know, shame, guilt, they share these things from the perspective of either... a perpetrator of some kind of thing, a victim or a recipient or a bystander. So it really, you know, it covers all the bases. And so whatever it is, whether they said shame or they felt like, you know, sadness, the word that most often comes out is confusion. Confusion, that they were confused.

[68:14]

And confusion is a conflict. So when we have confusion, it's a result of a conflict. And the conflict is that something, you knew something already and you have introduced something that doesn't jibe. What that tells me is that we fundamentally know better, that there is a deep intuitive wisdom of this is, something's not right here. And we're going along and we recognize difference and people are different and they look different. And then that point of racialization, we are actually confusing the natural human organism to just be curious and open and receptive to difference and to receive it. And when something intervenes, we have this experience of like, whoa, confusion. And that is the most promising thing that I have experienced.

[69:15]

is that down there under all the conditioning over and over again, different regions, different places, different locations, different races, different heritage, all of the immigrants, all the things that we know better, that at the core of who we are, we want to be connected and we want to be curious and we want to care for each other. And that racialization is a... It is a corruption of our basic humanity. That is such an upbeat way to end our formal part of our conversation, because I think it looks like it might be time to invite people to ask questions, if you're open for that. In a few minutes, Angel, is that okay? We take a little break and then come back? You have some more energy to... A little more. Wherever I'm with you, I have lots of energy.

[70:16]

All right. Love to hear other voices. Okay, great. That was a wonderful ending for our formal part. So, Kogetsu, do you want to help us out with a short break and then bringing folks on who'd like to join the conversation? Yes. Did you want to do the closing chant? Oh, okay. Do a closing chant here? We do it now, and then it's the closing of this part, and then people can't. are free to go if they need to. Of course, they're free to go anyway. Those who would like to stay for the question and answer are welcome to, in about five minutes, come back if you need to take a little break right now. And we'll be back for a little while too. May I ask something before folks go? I just like this little polling reaction feature, if you know where it is. You can go for it if you don't know what I'm talking about. You can use your hand. Is this helpful for people? Are you getting some juice out of this? Is it illuminating, fascinating, or at least uncomfortable in a good way?

[71:18]

Yes? Yes. Okay. And if you're not getting something that you need, and this is when you come back for Q&A, then let's try to see if we can touch into what would be useful for you. So thank you. Great. 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.

[72:19]

I vow to become it. Okay, so we'll be back in about five minutes. Yes. And also, I wanted to thank everyone for joining us today. If you feel supported by the Dharma offerings of our temples, please consider supporting San Francisco Zen Center with a donation at this time. Any size is greatly appreciated. And links will show in the chat window now, different ways to donate. And we will be taking a five minute break before returning for Q&A. And let's return at 1130. Thank you. Welcome back, everyone.

[78:48]

We'll begin Q&A now. To offer comments or questions, please click on the reactions icon at the bottom of your Zoom window. In that panel, there's a raise hand button. If you are on an older version of Zoom, this feature is in the participants menu. You may also offer questions or comments through the chat, which I can help post for you. I will look for people raising their actual hands in their video feeds as well near the end. And just to note that you will be requested to unmute when called upon. It looks like we have an offering from David. Hi. So I just realized something a few minutes ago. I'm a part of an organization. I won't mention the name because I don't want to get them in trouble. but it's a wonderful organization of white people mostly. And the director is just so wonderful and has told me so many, shared so many wonderful resources with me.

[79:56]

In late January, I had an outburst in one of the groups because I had witnessed the Asian elders being jumped on in Oakland. And she was really kind to me and loved me to death and brought me to a book on my grandfather's hands. which I was very grateful for. But I realized something was wrong. And I realized that there's a constriction around this white leader who I very much admire. And I wanted some ideas of how to approach her. It's scary because she's so valuable to me that I don't want to say anything that will jeopardize my cherished relationship with her. But I know she's I know she's constricted. I can just see it. I just feel it. I know it. And I have a sense that she doesn't see it at all. Do you have any thoughts? Well, you know, David, I wouldn't say this in maybe some other time.

[81:09]

So I'll just say that this is really about now. The truth is, is that if you have love for people, that the only way you can be in real relationship with them is to be whole and to maybe set the table with, you know, this may not come out the way or this may be difficult for you to hear. And it comes from my desire to be in integral relationship with you. And we have to be in integrity with ourselves. And the truth is that we know that conversations about race are going to be painful. They are going to be difficult for people, uncomfortable for people. And on occasion, maybe many occasions, depending on our families and so on, they may sever the relationship as we understand them.

[82:12]

And if the... only other option is that you are left being out of integrity with yourself in order to be with this relationship. That is how this project has worked, right? That is how the culture has been created, is to situate people. Fu, you and I were talking about this, right? It has corrupted the essential need for human beings to belong and to be connected to each other. And so what we do is we cut these little parts of ourselves off in exchange for so-called belonging. And really the result is that we start to form clubs, membership clubs, rather than true belonging. And so I encourage you that you're in your own inquiry about what is the place in which you are not

[83:13]

willing to continue to carry the burden of the person's... I just want to say that being out of integrity in terms of your honesty with the person. Your experience of that person is your experience. But if we're out of integrity of our relationship with the person, people, because we can't tell them and it's hindering our ability to be open and spacious and honest with them. then we have a responsibility to ourselves, to our own humanity, to clean that up. You know, Reverend William, when you're talking, I realized something. I realized that there's no way that I'm going to be untruthful to myself. And what I realized is I had prepared myself that by being truthful to myself and to her, that I may lose a relationship with her. That's what I have to do to accept. That may happen. I have to accept that. That's right. And that's actually the truth.

[84:14]

And so for anybody that may have the question about their family member or so on that is difficult and they're not going to accept it, this is the truth. And I often speak about there is suffering and there's suffering that leads to more suffering and there's suffering that leads to liberation. There's pain that leads to liberation. And so there's maybe the pain that leads to liberation. And that doesn't mean you're going to get to keep... all of the relationships in the form that they are currently in. But if they're built on a faulty foundation of untruth, or of you being out of integrity, or you having to hold the weight of that relationship in order to protect their naivete, right? Or in order to protect their feelings of comfort, then you're, my friend says, donating yourself. You're martyring yourself. And we have to, particularly as people of color, we have to disavow ourselves of that location because that is actually how we become complicit in maintaining this harmful and pervasive and pernicious and insidious house of pain.

[85:37]

Thank you, David. Thank you for sharing. And I feel the... Thank you. No, I get it. I get it. And yeah, it's just what I have to go through. See what happens. I think she might survive, but we'll never, we'll find out. Yeah. We'll find out. I hope it goes well. Yeah. I'm going to do a call out to Latoya, who I saw had her hand up earlier. in the talk, and I don't know if she's still listening, but if you are, if you'd like to ask a question or offer a comment. Hi. Wonderful to be here with you all. I'm thankful and gratitude for being here with you all. I think the question that I'd just like to call and I value and appreciate the sentiment of BIPOC individuals doing the work of healing so that when we're engaging, there's less harm.

[86:52]

Yet can you speak to the importance and the necessity of people who are white-bodied taking on a bit more of the onus of doing some of the personal work so that they are showing up in ways and relating in ways that are less harmful? like basically sharing the load. Yeah, maybe as a white body person, I could respond to that. Thank you for the question. You know, in our community where we're really trying our best to catch up after many centuries of falling behind, you know, we're really trying to understand these dynamics. And I think that at beginning we were like, oh, well, the BIPOC students can help us. You know, they're the ones, they'll be on the committees and they'll help us explain everything to us. And then, you know, we'll get it all right. And it was pretty clear after a while that they didn't, they said, no, we're not going to do this work. You do the heavy lifting. You're the ones who have to study racism.

[87:54]

You're the ones who needed to get this system and set this up and understand it and now take it apart. You know, it's not our job to do that. And, you know, it was sort of like, wow, it was a little bit like my first... I did my first DEI training years ago, and the first thing they did, they had half black-bodied people and half white people selected to be in this group, this training. And they said, all right, all the black people, please leave the room, and all the white people stay in here. And I felt absolutely bereft. And then in the other room, they're laughing. They're having this wonderful, joyful feeling together. And I was feeling like... Now, here's some pain. Here's some pain of being left here with our own stuff that we have not cleaned up and that we have not really paid attention to. So I do think we, I don't know, I'm going to say we. I think I do believe it's my problem, the personal part of it, my own racial conditioning, and my community, I think, does understand it's the white leadership problem to really address and look at and hold and also invite people

[89:04]

BIPOC students to speak first, and to listen, you know, to really be willing to listen, and not just take over the space as Angel was saying. So there is so much work to do. And there's some simple lessons that we all need to take on for ourselves. And I think the one you're bringing up is really is really a big one. You know, Zenju, who you may know, once was at a gathering, and there was one of our Zen students, white Zen students stood up and said, You know, Zen Center is really racist, and you guys better do something about it. And so on and so forth. And Zenju, who's black, said, why don't you go home and work with your people? She said, I'm not your project. I was like, whoa. You know, I'm not your project. You take care of your stuff. You've got to go take care of your stuff. So we, I, have been hearing this for quite some time, and I thank you for saying it again. And Latoya, you are gracious in saying, you know, ask them to share the burden.

[90:11]

I'm like, nah, y'all take the burden. Take it. Take it. Okay. Take it. That's where we're at. Right, we're not in this like, let's dole it out evenly. Can you take a little bit more? Can you please, you must do this work and you must take on the lion's share. I would say, look for your 90%. The lion's share of not only showing up to do your own personal labor, I like to call it, your own personal labor, But also to, in the meantime, because there's a lot of meantime, see where it is that you might leverage your own privilege on behalf of supporting and shielding Black people and people of color from the continuous onslaught of these systems because they don't stop while you're having your conversations, right?

[91:18]

The impact doesn't stop, you know, while... White folks form groups and have conversations like racism, like it's still happening. And so don't go so deep down in your hole that you just are like gone and not recognizing like, yeah, we are these bodies are still in danger. They're imperiled. They're they are still under under resourced in all kinds of ways. And so I would just add to that to pay enough attention. And I love that in the Zen practice that when we sit, that our eyes are not closed. That we sit in a way that is about being present with the world. And so even in our inquiry, even as we do our inquiry, we don't go so far away that we forget that the world is there and it continues as we do our inquiry. And so it's not this linear, like, okay, and then once you finish doing all your work and figured it all out, then you can kind of turn around and show up because that's neurotic and self-involved as well.

[92:31]

And so if it sounds complex, it is. It got built that way. It got made that way. It got made that way precisely so that we can go, whoa, that's a lot. I don't know if I can take that all on. And similar to the personal challenge that David brought up, the only other alternative is for you to continue to live in this pain and in the misery that is created by this most inhumane conditioning. And there is material resources, access, privilege. that you may benefit from, but what does it mean that we have predicated all of our conversations about who wins on material, on the material, right? When we talk about privilege, we talk about the material privileges. What is it doing to us spiritually? What is it doing to your humanity?

[93:33]

What does it do to your parents and grandparents and the lineage of your people's humanity that they were soaked and and bathed in this kind of conditioning that so segregates us from not only people, but also from our most essential nature as human beings. Latoya, ask for the whole thing. Yeah. Ask for the whole thing. And I heard you say, and you give it. And you give it. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Our next offering was from Chintan, but they're having bad rains in Mumbai, so his internet is kind of going in and out. So when he comes back, I will call on him again. And up next is Susan. Thank you.

[94:34]

And to let you know that if Chin Tan comes back because he has intermittent internet, feel free to let me know and I can ask my question another time. But first of all, what a deeply moving event this is. I've been living in a predominantly white place, which has been difficult for me. And as a privileged white person, let me say, but from which I am moving. But what you're offering today, both of you, is really so beautiful, just in general. So mahalo nui loa, you know, all aloha. And the question I have is, you know, I've been doing some trauma work both in my life, but also projects, creating some projects.

[95:40]

And so what you said, Reverend Angel, about acknowledging that someone's hatefulness is coming from their childhood trauma is, And what the innate desire for connection is, is so beautiful and true and completes a circle for me in which you can come to compassion. However, that's in this moment when I'm here with you. When I am hearing someone say deeply hateful things, it pisses me off. And that's also, I want to acknowledge my own racism and that I'm coming to what I'm dealing with, but to push that away and things are said very casually, so you have to sort of cut across something or it's like you're in the hardware store and two people start talking to each other and they get into it because that's what they belong to.

[96:51]

That's what makes them feel comfortable. And actually, the last time that happened, I just said, OK, I'm going to leave this hateful conversation now. Well, that doesn't do any good for anybody. You know, it was just in the moment. But how when we're we're experiencing this all along because somebody assumes, oh, well, you know, you've got white skin, too. It's OK to say that stuff here. Anything. Thoughts, reflections that either one of you have so that I could carry some sense of compassion out, but also that's not okay. You know, how to break that. Thank you. Want me to go? I imagine that you might have had that experience. My experience is a little as an outsider, but I'll share after.

[97:55]

Yeah. Yeah, I feel like I've been that person, not on purpose, but yeah, having that conversation about whatever, them or they. You know, it was part of my childhood. It was about... Certain people are bad drivers for certain reasons. I'm like, oh yeah, of course I know that. I mean, it's all this crazy stuff that has been fed to us, you know, through our portals of learning. And my entire education was just junk. You know, it was junk. It was patriotic junk. And I really feel like I'm going through a re-education. So a lot of it is just how do I not be that guy or person in line saying stupid things that you would then... comment on. I want to really spend a lot of time, as you said you are, with your own racialized background and history and as a result of how we look. I look this way, so I get to walk around the world with a certain kind of passport that is false.

[98:57]

So I would say just being honest and trying to be as neutral. I don't think coming from hatred is very useful. It's like putting gas on a fire. I don't really try, even though I'm irritated too, I would, like you, I would be pissed. So that would be something I would really try. First of all, I'd take about five breaths, you know, really calm myself. And then if I can come forward with something that I, you know, would be perhaps at least memorable, I would want to. I would want to say something there like you did. I thought that was pretty good. I don't want to be part of this hateful environment right now. So I think that was really well spoken. And I might use that line myself. And I think every time, sometimes I get mute and I think that's not okay. I want to overcome that. I want to overcome the tendency like, well, I don't want to make it worse. And then the 90% rule or 99% rule I've just learned is it's 99% my responsibility.

[100:02]

So I need to take responsibility. And so do you. And so do all of our white-skinned allies and brethren. We need to take responsibility and learn what to say. And Angel, maybe you have some good ideas about things you've said or others have said that might be skillful for us Buddhists who are trying not to throw gas on fires. I appreciate some suggestions. I mean, I think everything you said is I would agree with. And of course, Susan, there's always just being sensitive enough to be aware of your own, your physical safety, first of all. I would say that especially true, you know, so those contexts are different, you know, depending on the body that you're in. Gender, right? And all of those things. And so I just... you know, stay awake.

[101:04]

And that is not okay, is actually the phrase, exactly what you said is what I often encourage just to, that is not okay. For me, that's, I'm owning it completely. And I don't have to make them anything, right? I don't have to make them, you know, it could be ignorance, it could be hateful, it could be just, you know, trying to impress, you know, any number of things. I don't know what it is, but it's not okay. And so for me, that's a full ownership statement, full stop. That is not okay. And you'll see, know right away from their response, whether that is the opening to a conversation or, you know, the place where your commitment to disruption ends. Looks like Chintan is back.

[102:12]

Oh, good. Thank you so much. I am sorry because I got disconnected. We have a heavy rainfall here and we've had a lot of damage here in Mumbai because of that. So I hope you'll forgive the internet connectivity problem. I really loved your book, Radical Dharma. I read it a little before the pandemic and it helped me a lot as a queer person living in India. Though you did not touch upon queerness in your talk today. What you said about race really touched me because I think an extension to racism is this idea of American exceptionalism, which I encounter on every visit of mine to the US, especially when programs on peace building conflict resolution and nuclear disarmament are organized by white American people who are refusing to talk about race related conflicts, but are keen to talk about conflicts that people of color have within themselves.

[103:28]

So I wanted to highlight that part of racism as well. And it's particularly difficult to talk about with teachers that one thinks of as polite, kind and nice because so much energy is spent in comforting them. You know, one has to think so much about calling something out because one will have to like, you know, uh, deal with their coldness about it for like a week or so after that. So there is so much pain involved in, uh, you know, uh, comforting white people about their, uh, lack of awareness. That is something I wanted to share. But in terms of the question that I wanted to pose, how does one reconcile the fact that it is white Buddhist women teachers who also open up discussions around gender for me in ways that male Asian Buddhist teachers don't. For example, the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh who I connect with do not talk about gender. But people like Rita Gross and Jetson Martin, although they are white women, they open up conversations around gender in a way that are really beneficial for me.

[104:38]

So how to sort of stay with that is something that I struggle with a little. Sorry for taking so much time. Oh, please. Thank you so much. Yay, queer women. That's part of our bond. We love women and we love men and we love children and animals and plants. So loving, that's a really big part, you know, loving the world, loving others, and then feeling the pain that comes when you love so deeply. You know, I'm glad you're feeling support from women. I remember early on in my Zen, time, I'm sure Angel shares this, is there weren't many women. One of my first questions of my teacher, male teacher, was, where are the women teachers? This is 40 years ago. And he said, look under your nose.

[105:39]

I thought he was being sarcastic. So the fact that we really need to look to ourselves to be the speakers and the teachers and the ones who are training to get ready for the work, I think that's a really big step. And each one of you on these tiles today is that, you know, each one of us is the 99% responsible for loving the world and caring for it and each other. So go Mumbai. I'm so glad to have you as part of the team. Yes, indeed. And, you know, I had similar, in my first book, In Being Black, I spoke about... speaking to both Bernie Glassman and Pat Inkyo Roshi about race. And I was like, well, where are the black folks? And they said each of them completely separate from each other. We can't name, you know, we can't really speak about that.

[106:41]

You have to. And it's easy to think in some ways that that's just a cop-out, Chintan, but it's also just true, you know? It is true. And that forged... In fact, that was the reason that I wrote Being Black, first of all. That was the reason that I wrote Being Black. I looked and I was like, that's right, you can't. And I don't even know if I want you to. Because you can't represent that suffering, that direct touch of suffering. And so, you know, Fu and I... and myself, I hope we are modeling this, like, I can't speak for where white people are. I can speak to white people, but I can't speak from being a white person. And so we need you to be able, all of yous that have that and hold that, stop waiting. You're the ones that you've been waiting for. Stop waiting.

[107:42]

You're right there under your nose. And I was just doing an interview. I have a, I have an audio program coming out at the end of August, I think it is. And it's about belonging. And some of the same topics are touched on. And I was speaking to Tammy Simon, the founder of Sounds True. And she said, one of her questions is something along the lines of like, how did you do this? What did you have to go through? And I said, I had to give up a lot. So it's not like... hey, go do it, and everyone's going to accept it. When Being Black came out, Buddhist bookstores, we still had those things, those dinosaurs called actual Buddhist bookstores. There wasn't just one bookstore in the world on the internet. But Buddhist bookstores refused the book. And they said, because it wasn't a Buddhist book, it was a Black book. And, you know, I had my little...

[108:43]

I felt so, you know, like pushed out. And so much so, and I don't think I've ever said this in public, that my book for the next, you know, 15 years, it was like my bastard child. It was like this, like I thought I had offered this into, you know, the Dharma, the loving Dharma community and that what it needed was someone to, you know, to just say it and then people were going to, You know, wake up and take it on. And then 15 years later, there it is, me, right under my nose, writing Radical Dharma. And so there is hundreds of years of momentum. It's not going to just change in one moment that you raise your hand, in one teacher that you talk to. It's 15. It was, there were 15 years ish between being black, which I was talking about basically the same thing and radical Dharma.

[109:48]

And here I am. And it's me, it was me then. And food just helped me recognize. She was like, well, what? That was like kind of the first thing that was really talking about race and the Dharma. And I was like, it was the first mainstream, whatever we called mainstream. And so I'm not making you a promise. that it will go the way that you want it to, or it'll go the speed that you want it to, but I am absolutely certain that it's you. I'm absolutely certain that it's you, that it's you that has to say something, and you that may have to give up things. I mean, I promise you, actually, you'll have to give up things because the system will not yield, right? The redistribution of power is something that has to be taken, and it has to be... You know, it has never given, we have never had any, any massive shifts in a rebalancing and a reorienting of power that has not come about first, before the laws came about, before people had to push back, often break laws, often lose a great deal.

[110:56]

And that sounds unfair. And that is the way that it happens. because the power will not yield itself. It is going to maintain the status quo. And so gird your loins, deepen your practice so that you can be able to speak from your scars, not from your wounds, and that you are formidable in the way that I feel you already formidable as you call people in. Angel, we're a little afternoon, which means nothing in terms of timekeeping species that I am. It's just that, what did you call it, timely? Timekeepers are everywhere. Yeah. So I want to offer you the clock and the timing of this. And I know there are lots of people still with their hands up, which would be wonderful.

[111:59]

But we also promised a follow-up series. one thing we can do is promise that and keep appetites wedded perhaps for further conversations about this, which is so essential to our future and our survival. So there is a question about the conversation, the recording being available. Apparently there's a SFCC Dharma app, which I didn't know about. And so it will be, it will be available. And, and I'm happy to, keep my responses a little more scotch and see if the three people whose hands that I currently see up, if we can meet them. And so we'll, George, Anthony, Fania, we can speak to you. My request is that you, if you have a question, that you get to the question and not proceed it with too long of an explanation.

[113:00]

We'll do our best and maybe we'll have to go back and forth. But if we can do that, then I think we can have, we can get to hear all the voices that have inquiries. Is that workable for you, Fu, and also for Kogetsu? Because I don't want to steal away everyone's time. It's time with me. Kogetsu, is that okay with you? Yes, no problem. It is. Okay, before we do that, I just want to say like... send love because we can't see them. There's my no big deal squad of people and they're all on a call together. So it's like, I don't know, 10 or so people together. So I just want to send love. They're sending a little hi to me. And so they wanted to sit together to all share and be at the talk together. So they were kind of like group watching. And so I send my love to them. And Kogetsu, I think you're monitoring the who's next. Yes, Fania is up next. I'm Blake calling from the Temescal people's indigenous land.

[114:12]

I just was wondering, Fu, could you... give advice to people of color, how to, in practice advice, how to deal with our pain, and to Angel, perhaps, how you can give advice to Caucasian folk with regard to practice, how to sort of deconstruct their notions of whiteness. And thank you for your conversation today. when the bombs are just celebrations in the background. Yeah. I'll invite you first, Fu, and it's good to see you. Good to see you. Boy, advice to people of color. Wow. Well, you know, it's universal. I mean, the Buddha was a person of color. And, you know, and so we've taken, we've...

[115:14]

accepted and received the gift from thousands of years and thousands of people carrying the Dharma as the treasure it is, you know, over thousands of desert miles and into cultures and trying to translate all of that into languages. You know, dear Thomas Cleary just died, who translated these huge tomes from Chinese, you know, into readable English. So we've been given, we've been given, this is a gift. The Dharma is a gift that's been given to us. And I, you know, I'm always... I'm always a little concerned about cultural appropriation. You know, like here I am wearing these Japanese male monastic clothes. So is Reverend Angel. And at the same time, you know, I do think Suzuki Roshi really wanted us to take this, you know, don't just put it somewhere in your bookshelf and then walk on. You have to embody the Buddha's teaching. And so, you know, we... We dress like the Buddha. We use bowls that the Buddha used. We try to think like the Buddha. So I think that's true for everyone. You know, the more we can understand the Dharma, the more we can understand what of ourselves needs to really get out of here, that garbage disposal stuff.

[116:20]

We got to clean out first, the Lotus Sutra says, first we clean out the gunk, the hatred, the confusion, the lust. And then we fill in with the Dharma, the light. The light of the world, the joy of the world, the awesomeness of being alive. Everybody looks at a flower and goes, whoa, you know. So we share our humanity is so shared that out of Africa, we all came out of Africa and saw these mountains and rivers and celebrated our vastness. And then we kind of got greedy, didn't we? And we were ruining it. So I think we as a species have got to get it together. Stop doing these hateful things. Stop being lustful, like the Buddha said. Be calm. Sit down. Don't eat too much. Share your toys. And be nice to people. Be respectful. And to animals. So, I mean, we've known this since we were little kids, like Angel said. We already know what's bad and what's good. So we vow to be good.

[117:21]

We vow to avoid evil, do good, and work for the benefit of all beings. That's the simplest vow. That's the basic vow. And if we can just write that down and commit ourselves to it, I have faith. It's dwindling because I'm getting old. But I have faith that this planet might actually revive and before it's too late. I pray that. That's my prayer. So for everyone. Well, I love that you gave that response. So I can give the one that got a little bit more like... A little bit more. That is the essential teaching is to sit down quiet enough that you can hear yourself and still enough that you can feel yourself. And Zazen, the central practice of the Zen tradition, the

[118:25]

sitting meditation, mindfulness, wherever you are on that spectrum is that. And I think about this sense of, let me say something first, just inside of the Dharma community, since you invited me to offer something for white folks, white body people in particular, after years of being asked the same question, something occurred to me and I want to share it to you. Someone said to me, well, why do you think that there's so few, you know, black people in the Dharma? And, and, and, you know, in this exploration, it really occurred to me for the first time, I was like, that's the wrong question. The question is why are there so many white people? And that's a question that of assumptions of privilege and access. And yes, Suzuki Roshi gifted it, but also the way that the sense of like, I can take this, like I can receive that.

[119:32]

And to remember that it was a gift, it's not owned. And that was my earliest rub in my own dharma. life and practice is that i had to assert for myself that white folks don't own the dharma i had to be clear y'all don't own the dharma and so i can sit comfortably in my seat when i say you do your work you you carry the burden and i can sit comfortably because i don't feel like you own it and now i'm asking you to let me carve out my little way let me let me Beg of white folks to do something or, you know, can you please? No. This Dharma belongs to all of us. It does not belong to you. In fact, more accurately belongs to none of us. And so I don't have to ask you your permission.

[120:33]

All I have to do is make the invitation for you to do the labor that is yours to do, for you to do... the courageous work of returning to yourself to interrogate how deeply in your skin, in your body, this notion of race, of whiteness has gotten in. And the single most potent thing I think you can do is to notice when these questions come up, do you contract? Do you... Does something in you go, that is your work. That there is that contraction. I equate that contraction to be an embodied expression of suffering. That is evidence of your suffering. And that's not mine. And so whether you like my question or don't like my question, people can ask me questions all day that I don't like, that I don't care for.

[121:41]

they don't make me contract because they're not mine. And even if they're trying to throw it on me to put it on me, it's not mine. And so there's contraction. But if a person of color says to you like, Hey, I, that, that thing you said, I don't like that. You don't have to agree with them, but if you contract, you have something to do. You have work to do. If you contract, if it's not yours, if I say to you, you know, Blake, why are you wearing that funny hat on your head? Right. There's no contraction. You're just like, I don't have a hat on my head. But there's no contraction. Right? And so just that. That person, no one causes the arising in you of contraction, of suffering. in you upon a question, upon an inquiry, upon a challenge.

[122:46]

So if you're resisting, that's yours to do. Whether you agree with them, whether it's right, whether it's true, is not actually even the matter. That you resist, that you resist life, that you resist... as it is-ness, because right in that moment, that inquiry, that is the truth. Not what they're saying is the truth, but the inquiry that it's happening is the truth. And that you resist is resisting life. And our practice is to enter life completely. The things you like, the things you don't like, the things that are comfortable, the things that are uncomfortable, to enter life completely. And so that's my encouragement, to enter life completely, to receive it completely, to receive the Dharma completely. And there is no conversation that exists outside of the Dharma if you're entering life. Next we have George.

[123:54]

Oops, I said shorter. I'm going to go shorter. Okay. First, thank you so much for this marvelous sharing. I work with young people in schools all over the area in which I live, Marin. And young people are desperately hungry for tools to use to move past the insanity which we're immersed in. Any ideas on how we can bring the Dharma, probably call it something else, into schools to give them some of these important tools? Well, I'll say with a slightly shameless pitch, mindfulness is that, right? Mindfulness has become the way in which we have found some language and people of different religious faiths, non-faiths, so far seem to have been willing to allow that idea of mindfulness and sort of drilling it down to its simplicity.

[125:03]

And so that I would encourage you to just kind of take a look into the mindfulness movement, if you will. And I'm part of a group of people that created a training to teach people how to speak mindfulness, even if you're a Buddhist, right? How to speak the big language, the big tent language, so that you're not losing your dharma, you're not watering your dharma down, you're not watering your practice down. in the essential skillful means that the Buddha taught himself, being willing to speak to people exactly where they are. And when that's not with a Buddha behind them, or when that will keep them from liberation, the commitment is to the liberation, not to the icon, not to the symbol, not to the book, because that's not where the Dharma lives anyway. It's not where liberation lives. It doesn't live in the book. It doesn't live in Buddhism. It doesn't live in the Buddha.

[126:05]

It lives in that direct transmission of the encouragement for us to be with ourselves and see ourselves. And so that's what I would encourage, whether it's there or somewhere else there, mindfulness training programs that help us to express and let many mindful ed, there's mindful education. So it's taking fire. And George, just so you know, right now, I'm working with two very wonderful teachers who are helping us create a children's program, family and children's program for Green Gulch that hopefully will be, you know, worthy of bringing the children to because we're going to put some time and energy into it, which we haven't really had before. We get 100 children swarming in the Buddha Hall and then we're sort of like, ah, you know, so now we want to actually try to organize it. by age group, have some real folks who've been trained in mindfulness education. Also a lens of diversity lens, make sure we're bringing the folks in from different places around Marin, around the Bay.

[127:11]

So stay tuned. You know, we have to wait till after the young ones are vaccinated. So we've got probably a year to roll this out, but it will be on our website and my hopes it'll be a really worthy offering. to the young ones and maybe replicable that other people, you know, steal this program. That would be our hope. So thanks, George, and for all the work you do, which I know has been lifelong. And I really appreciate that. Well, thank you so much. Your gifts are plentiful and profoundly important. And I am so grateful for Zen Center. It's a gift. Thank you, George. Thank you. Being part of it. Thank you, George. Last is Anthony. Hello. I'm very grateful to be here for the time may be fruitful. I in past have lived in a plurality black city and have liked to consider myself

[128:20]

like the token white friend, which is certainly not without its problems. But then in the last two years, I've moved to a more rural, absolutely, not absolutely, but much more overwhelmingly white place. And the work is so different. And I don't know, I don't always know what it looks like here. So I guess my question is for those of us who find ourself in a place where the white caucus is is our entire field of practice on a day-to-day basis. How is that different and how can that work? Because I fear it's so easy to just fall back into sleep because the friction is less present. To hear from you, Fu, because you... you know, have been, you spoke about like speaking for 20 years to people and like, it's like, it was like all white room.

[129:25]

And so how do you navigate that space in which there isn't the pressing reminder of the, you know, Chintan or Latoya or somebody, you know, black or queer or female or whatever it is in whatever the particular form of marginal, marginalized community. community is, they're not there pressing you. How do you stay awake? Yeah, well, I was going to say I live there. You know, I mean, like where you do, Anthony, I feel like I've lived there a long time since I left San Francisco State. I wondered where the people went. And so there are, you know, certainly wonderful representatives of different races at Zen Center. It's not... quite as maybe as pure white as where you are now when there are places like that. I certainly grew up in a white ghetto, South San Francisco. And so the need to stay conscious inside myself and to make sure that I'm doing whatever I can personally to...

[130:37]

develop and honor the friendships I have with people who are not all white people and also to invite teachers of color to invite. I mean, I'm so grateful that Angel is willing and available sometimes to be with us at Zen Center. And I so deeply honor that. And we need to keep encouraging the people who have gained mastery in their own lives to help share with us their example. and their teachings. And until it's not so noticeable, like, oh, this is no big deal. It should be the no big deal universe where it's not a big deal to have a black teacher or a white teacher or an Asian teacher. And for now, it's a big deal. And we have to be intentional about it. And so, of course, we have an institution. It's not a town. You have probably very little control over what goes on in your community. But, you know, I don't know if you have a sitting group or if you have a discussion group or a book club.

[131:38]

That's a good way. I'm going to do a book club when I get to my retirement place, which is probably going to be quite white, is to have a book club. And we can study all of these different issues together, the suffering and the causes of suffering. And at least we don't have to be ignorant in our caucuses. Yeah. Other than that, I really don't know. I trust you to look for cracks in the sidewalk there. Anthony, I would just say, you know, the primary thing is for you to, you know, be in your practice of staying awake, you know, or returning awake, because we fall asleep, we return again. And that's the most important thing. And often, you know, we want to, we get excited or we feel maybe guilt even, right? To, you know, just like have to do something.

[132:40]

And, you know, maybe this moment, you give some space to it and let it come to you, let it arise, right? Like what it is that is, you know, called for in this particular moment. come to you to invite conversation. We don't have to go up and fix the world. You don't have to become a savior of all the things. So there may be conversations. In fact, I will promise you that there will be conversations that will arise similar to the way that we spoke to earlier, where there's just a moment of noticing and maybe inviting conversation, like, that's not okay. Would you be willing to have a conversation with me? But I would start with yourself, you know, put your own seatbelt on, make sure it's really locked in well and take care of yourself.

[133:41]

And, you know, you don't have to go and wear a superhero cape. You can live your life and be in integrity with yourself. in the reality that we are in, race and the challenge of race and the harm of race is gonna find you if you stay awake. Thanks so much, I appreciate you both. I could ask so many follow-up questions about this, but I know we're much over time, so just gratitude. Gratitude and welcome to your new current home. Well, so, so nourishing. Time with you is so nourishing for me. And I'm so happy that we're going to be growing some more opportunity for people to join in the conversation.

[134:44]

I think it's so important. And I will do my best, you know, to take good care of that. And thank you. I hope that the people that are here and the other people and whoever's listening to this, watching, listening to this video afterwards, wherever you are, will have had their interest piqued in our full workshop, which we intend to have some structure for that allows people that are new to the conversation to have some space and as well as people that are, you know, let's just say further along on the path to also have opportunity for deepening from where you are. And so that's our intention is to create a space that acknowledges that not everybody's in the same place and that some of us would like some more rigorous deepening. And some of us are like, hey, you know, let's go easy.

[135:47]

I'm just getting my toes in this pool here. And so that's the intention for the time. So please keep your eyes open. And I just invite anyone that doesn't currently have a practice space that you feel, you know, connected to or that is supporting you to know that there's both San Francisco Zen Center and the offerings that it has. And we also have been holding through the pandemic. We kind of refuse to call it a sangha, but, you know, it is in all intents and purposes. What we call a no big deal sit. So you can find us on the Liberated Life Network, a really simple, gorgeous body of people and simple practice that the mottos are, if you will, to come as you are and to leave as you must. And so you can just come and go and also to mind your business. So it really is about our practice.

[136:48]

It's not a race space. And whatever is true and real and alive comes up in the space and in sharings and reflections, and we hold space for that. So it has become something extraordinary. There's people of many different races and backgrounds. We've kind of accomplished not having to make race the center of our conversation. Practice is the center of our being together, and race comes up because it does, but so does everything else. If you'd like to join us, please do. And we appreciate so much everybody's time, energy, spending your Sunday morning, afternoon, and evenings with us. Or maybe in some people's cases, it might even be Monday by now. So thank you. And thank you, Fu. I love you so much. Oh, I know. I love you too. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. We'll be back. Who else said that?

[137:49]

That guy? We'll get back. The former governor here. Yeah, that guy. All right. Everyone take care. It's been wonderful. Thank you. Hey, Reverend Angel, what is your website called? That's the most beautiful website. If they don't have it already, they should have it. That's fantastic. You can learn how to make tea, the most wonderful, delicious tea and many other things. It's a generous, beautiful. I enjoy it just for itself. And so please check it out. Yeah. Please join me. Thank you so much. Yeah. Bye bye, everybody. If you want to unmute yourselves and say goodbye, you're certainly welcome to do that. Yay. I'm so glad. Yay. Wow. thank you so much thank you [...] folks that are not on camera Sandra good to see you and Shindo

[139:09]

Good to see all of your amazing faces and your representation wherever you are. Ocean, good to see you. We'll see you all soon again. Thank you so much. Take care. Stay safe. Bye everyone.

[139:58]

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