We will start just about now since it just turned 810. So I'll just wait for Dylan to materialize. Okay, so my name is Heather and I am the Zazen instructor this morning. I live at the Urban Temple of San Francisco Zen Center. And our host today, who's behind the Zoom magic and the statue of the Buddha on the altar is Matt Nickel. And I'll walk you through a meditation posture and some guidelines for meditating. And then we'll sit for a little while.

[01:05]

And then we'll end about 9, 10 or so with a question and response. But since there's so few of us, I was curious if Lucia, Carlo, Stefano, and Nicole, if you all have any questions that maybe I could address as we walk through the initial sitting since there's just four of you. And Lucia, you're still muted. And if you all feel, Lucia, yes, yeah. I was just going to say good morning and just looking forward to spending time together. Okay, thank you. And what's your name? I'm Danny and my wife is Nicole. We're here together and we're just excited to sit. Okay.

[02:05]

Hi, Danny and Nicole. Lucia, we still can't hear your audio, unfortunately. Yeah, there's something not working with your audio. So I was just, I think I'm just going to begin then. Sorry, Lucia. So, and I say good morning, but it looks like there's somebody here from the UK. So it wouldn't be morning for Stefano. So good evening, Stefano. And so what I want to just talk about first is just one of my favorite phrases that helps to frame what we're doing in meditation. And in this tradition, the Soto Zen lineage here at San Francisco Zen Center, which was founded by Suzuki Roshi, who was the founder of all three temples, one in Green Gulch Farm in Marin, as well as Hasahara Zen Mountain Center in Carmel Valley.

[03:22]

And he's also the author of several really wonderful books on Zen, if you're interested, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, as well as Not Always So, are really wonderful introductions to our Soto Zen practice. So the phrase that I would like to mention is, to keep in mind while we're meditating, is body like mountain, the breath like the wind, and the mind like sky. So when we're sitting, our bodies are upright and stable, almost like a mountain or a triangle, if you will. So we're cultivating an uprightness, not with a lot of efforting, but just relaxing into an upright, alert position and trying to stay stable so that we're not either moving forward or backward or to the right or left. We're cultivating mindfulness to feel what our bodies feel like, to stay with our bodies before, during, and after meditation, of course.

[04:32]

So a body like a mountain to cultivate stability. And then the breath like the wind. So when we're meditating, we're not looking to manipulate any of the arising experiences. And this breath like the wind is how can we pay attention to the breath Just like we pay attention to the wind, we feel the wind, whether it's cold or whether it's hot, whether it's stirring or not. So the wind or air, we can't manipulate it and we can't control it. So same thing with our breathing. This practice is all about becoming intimate with what's arising for us on the cushion, in our bodies, our minds, just maintaining a level of awareness and awakeness. so that we can experience the breathing and the body. So again, the breath like the wind, there's a fluidity there, a lack of control, just an experiencing of the wind, just like an experiencing of the breath.

[05:36]

And then the third aspect of meditation is mind. So with the mind, like the sky, we just want to Notice any thoughts that might arise, any stories that might arise, just like passing clouds or passing airplanes or birds if you were the sky, and just let those pass. Just again, not trying to control anything, not trying to suppress, just like that mountain being upright and stable in the middle of whatever is arising. So body like mountain, breath like wind, and mind like sky. So depending on how you're sitting, if you're sitting on the floor or if you're sitting in a chair or a couch, you would take different posture. So let's just, I'll briefly discuss both. So with regard to sitting on the floor, you want to always make sure that your knees are touching the cushion.

[06:44]

Or if you're sitting cross-legged, on the couch rather than as if you were sitting on the couch like a chair. So if you're sitting with any cross-legged position, you always wanna support your knees, right? So your knees need to be touching what we call support cushions. You don't want your knees up and unsupported because it puts a lot of tension on them. So just, and so to help you with that is we also, when we're sitting on a cushion, is we wanna raise our, our seat. So we usually put on a, we usually sit on a smaller cushion that helps lift our sit bones and tilt our pelvis a little forward so that there is a sloping slight angle in our thighs. So our hips should always be above our thighs and our knees should always be touching the cushion. And if you're sitting

[07:45]

On a chair, you want to move to the front of the chair so that your knees or your legs form a 90 degree angle. The same thing with the couch. You don't want to sit with your back against the chair unless there's some physical reason that that's more supportive for you. So that's the lower body for both of those positions. With your hands, you can either rest them on the middle of your thighs. And you might wanna just roll your shoulders back and just loosen up. Make sure that your shoulders aren't up here by your ears. Just relax your shoulders and neck where we often keep a lot of tension. And so your hands, when you have them on your thighs, just make sure they're not pulling you forward, right? We wanna keep our chest, our heart chest area open. and our shoulders away from the ears.

[08:47]

And if you're sitting on a cushion, cross-legged, you can either keep your hands on your thighs, in like an easy pose, the yogis call it, or you can make a cosmic mudra, which is your right hand supporting your left hand, right, like this, with your middle fingers touching, one underneath the other, and then your fingertips They just touch slightly as if there were a thin piece of paper in between them. So that's what we call the cosmic mudra. And you would just rest your cosmic mudra on, well, if you're sitting in full lotus, you'd be resting it on your feet. So just find a comfortable place where close to the body, by the abdomen, the navel, to rest your cosmic mudra. And again, just be sure that you're not leaning forward and that your back isn't being stressed by any of these hand postures.

[09:53]

And then with regard to the upper body, just looking to have an alignment from our pineal gland or the third eye all the way down the center of our nose. through the sternum all the way down to the abdomen or the hara, as the Japanese would refer to it, your diaphragm area. So again, we just want to make sure that where our bodies are in alignment and upright. And then we tuck our chins a little bit. And in this tradition, we keep our eyes at a slight 45 degree angle. And this does a couple of things. It helps to But since we're not closing our eyes, it helps us not fantasize or get so caught up in any kind of dream-like experiences that might arise. So we keep our eyes open because that's also how we go through the world, right? We go through the world with eyes open. So we usually, in this tradition, sit facing a wall.

[10:58]

And I know right now we're facing this computer, which sometimes feels like a wall. And then we... We keep our eyes gaze, our eye gaze about 45 degree angle down the bridge of our nose. So it's a diffuse gaze. Gaze we're not trying to fix on anything. So this is not a concentration experience in the sense of staring at like say a flame and trying to get the mind really one pointed. It's just a relaxed, but alert and awake gaze. Our eyes being at a 45 degree angle down our nose also helps restrict visual stimuli, right? So that the mind and eyes aren't being stimulated by any visual stimulus in the area. So that's our upright yet alert and relaxed body posture.

[11:59]

And then what I'm going to suggest for this is we just follow our breath. You can silently count your exhales up to 10. So just notice the sensation of the inhale, the pause before the exhale. Just say to yourself one. Then notice the pause before the inhale. Take the inhale, the pause, and then the exhale. And again, you're not trying to manipulate this. You're not trying to breathe in a certain way. You're just noticing the natural rhythm and sensations of your own inhalations and exhalations. So again, this is breath like the wind. You just find what your breathing wind rhythms are, becoming very familiar with them. So you can just count the exhale up to 10. And if the mind wanders, which you probably will, come back to the breathing, come back to the naming, the numbering of the exhales.

[13:13]

Following your breath is what we call in meditation an anchor. So the anchor for our meditation this time is our breathing. Anything could be the anchor, but it's helpful, I think, to start with breathing because it's always present. It's a neutral sensation. There's usually not... a lot of negative associations with breathing, although there could be if you're somebody who has asthma or struggles with some respiratory situation. So again, counting the exhalations, one, two, just becoming very familiar with your breathing. Mind wanders, just gently bring the mind back to the breathing back to the anchor of attention. And if any thoughts arise that say that you're failing because your mind is wandering, just drop those thoughts, go back to the breath, treat those thoughts very kindly, don't engage them, and then just go back to the breathing, back to the breathing sensations.

[14:26]

I'm going to, in a moment, strike. this bell three times, which is how we start our meditation in this tradition. And we'll sit and I'll intermittently just, you'll hear my voice popping in and out as I remind us all about counting our breaths and staying present. And then to end the meditation, I will strike the bell once. And please, if you're feeling any physical discomfort, you're welcome, of course, to readjust your posture. You just might want to practice putting your hands in what we call gassho or just, again, being aware before you move, right? Just taking an extra breath or an extra inhalation, just moving mindfully. So not moving. Part of why we meditate is to become intimate with our psycho-emotional and physical habit patterns.

[15:31]

We become intimate with them so that we are no longer ruled by them. We can find some liberation from them. Okay, so now I will strike this bell three times. And if you like, you can focus the mind's attention on the bell sounds as the bell arises, persists, and then fades away. And then just begin your breathing. counting your exhalations from one to 10 and then 10 down to zero. Just remember that we're all working on cultivating mindful attention.

[20:20]

Attention is just a mental faculty that we all possess. It allows us to pay attention, of course, to what we're doing in the present moment. Just relaxing and paying attention to our breathing. Noticing any tightness or constrictions in the body. Just put your mind's attention there. Just send a relaxing, nourishing and healing breath into those constricted areas of the body. Meditation is about becoming intimate with our bodies and minds.

[21:29]

Intimacy is the opposite of avoidance and distraction. Becoming intimate with how the body feels when it's in meditation. Sitting still on Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon or evening. Just notice the physicality, the heat or the cold in your room. Sits bones, feeling the earth, whatever form that takes below you, the chair, the couch, cushion, yoga mat. Just staying connected to the physical body.

[22:37]

As my teacher would say, keep the mind in the room. Just keep it in the room. You'll get to the breath. If you need to readjust your posture, just make a mental note.

[24:45]

Maybe inhale and exhale a couple more times to slow down reactivity, habitual reactivity. Just move mindfully, gently. I will ring the bell to end this part.

[25:56]

Just do your best to focus the mind's attention on the moment before the sound arises, when the sound arises. how long it persists, and then notice as it fades away. So I thought what I would do is welcome Daryl and Cedric.

[27:07]

And just wanted to check in to see if anybody had any questions about what we've done so far. And then also just give people the opportunity to, since I can't see everyone, but if you need to stand up, if you're sitting on a hard chair or something, just before we... do another short meditation. So, and if for some reason you're not able to access the audio, you're welcome. Like Lucia, if you want to put any questions or comments in the chat, I think that that's possible to do that. And if anyone has any questions so far about what might've come up with your posture or your breathing or the mind while you were just spending these first, 10 minutes or so in meditation. Okay.

[28:16]

All right. Well, no one has any questions, then I will just start again with another short meditation period. And what I suggest with this one, is let's just focus a little bit on the mind. What was most transformative for me when I started practicing Zazen, which Zazen in Japanese means seen in meditation. Zen is the Japanese word for meditation coming from the Chinese Chan and Zah refers to being seated in Japanese. So Zazen is just seated meditation. What I found very powerful about when I began practicing Zazen back in 2003 or so, 2003 or two, was just the way that Zen practitioners and other Buddhist meditators work with the mind.

[29:26]

So normally we would believe all of our thoughts, right, our emotions, and listen to all the stories that might be happening, all these concepts that are arising. And we don't necessarily notice all those thoughts, all those stories when we're going about our busy workday lives or our busy shelter-in-place lives these days, right? The mind is just doing its thing and we often don't notice what it's doing. And then sometimes when we do notice what it's doing, It can cause us to suffer, especially if there's negative habits, habitual thoughts about something. So practicing Zazen really helps us relate to the mind in a different way. I think a transformative way. And then, of course, that's also relating to ourselves in a transformative way. So just like the saying of body like mountain, breath like wind,

[30:28]

and the mind like sky, the mind is boundless and pervasive and not locatable, just like the sky. You can't pinpoint the sky. It's everywhere, right? And one metaphor I like is if the sky were like our minds, it would just grasp onto everything that passed through it, right? birds in the plains and the storm clouds and the fluffy white clouds, the rain and thunderclaps. The mind, you would no longer see its boundlessness, its beautiful blue skies because it'd be cluttered. And I feel that that's what Zazen helps us with is the noticing of the clutter in your mind, just noticing mental energy, all right? And then learning how to relate to arising thoughts in a healthier, more compassionate, liberative way. So just like the mind, just like the sky doesn't grasp onto all that phenomena, all those conditioned material objects that are floating through it, it's the same with our minds.

[31:42]

The more we're able just to notice arising thoughts, the concepts, how we label things, how we label each other, those stories, those concepts, One teacher says lifting the veil of conceptualization. So the mind is something that we are not really taught to work with or relate to in most societies. So with this meditation, we just start to practice with the mind like this guy. And the founder of this lineage, Suzuki Roshi, who Roshi just means great teacher who was from Japan. He has this great phrase, which is, when thoughts arise, don't invite them to tea or don't invite them to coffee, whatever it is that you like to drink. Just acknowledge the thoughts and then just let them go because they're already gone anyway unless we grasp onto them. So there is a powerful way to work with thoughts and emotions, which the same teacher who spoke about...

[32:51]

raising the veil of conceptualization also spoke of emotions as heavy-handed thoughts, right? Emotions are often intertwined with thoughts and those compelling stories have a physical experience in the body, right? Joy, grief, anger, shame. There's a physical component to whatever the mind is generating there. So like I said earlier, this is all about becoming intimate with the mind, intimate with our breathing, intimate with our bodies. And so much of our society is about distractions from all of those, from ourselves, right? Disembodying. And this is about being a body, right? Practicing from the neck down. It's like, how can we go from this being the center, our brains being the center, of our experience to the body, practice being a body, practice being in the body.

[33:54]

And the breath comes in handy because the breath is always in the present moment. We can't breathe future breaths and we can't take back past breaths. So the breath is always in the moment and the body is always in the moment. And so we use the mental faculty of attention to yoke the mind, the time traveler mind to the physicality of the present moment. So before we sit again for another maybe eight minutes or so, if anyone has a question about that, I'm happy to hear what you have to say. And if not, then we'll just do another eight to 10 minute meditation. So. Right, we're good? Okay. You can raise your thumbs or your little blue hands. People are putting hearts in little, I mean, we're getting used to all these emojis, all these icons, the language of Zoom.

[35:04]

Okay, so let's start again. And I will strike this little bell again three times. And just like the sound of the bell, if you can relate to arising thoughts, in a similar way, not taking the bell personally, not taking the thoughts personally. Like all phenomena, the sound of the bell and thoughts, they arise, they persist. In a dynamic way, they persist. They're not like stable and solid. Everything's in flux, including that persistence and then the fading away, right? So just like the sound of the bell, our thoughts, our breathing, our physicality, everything is in a state of flux, right? Everything's impermanent, everything's transitory, okay? And perhaps that's our mortality or the changes that we try to deny are perhaps more in the forefront these days because of COVID.

[36:09]

And it's kind of hard when there's a global pandemic virus that's killing hundreds of thousands of people and infecting millions of people to get away from impermanence right get away from mortality so one of the main one of buddha's main teachings is that everything changes so let's let's practice with just for the next eight minutes or so with our thoughts as if it was just a deep personal sound okay just as if you're listening to this bell While you're sitting, noticing arising thoughts, noticing all those stories just keep replaying themselves.

[39:45]

Just remember the sky. It doesn't grasp onto anything. Everything passes through it without affecting it. Another way to keep the mind present and to notice arising thoughts, you could use this simple technique called noting.

[43:29]

And when a thought arises, just if it's a thought about the past, a memory, just say past. the word past, no elaboration. And if the thought arises about the future, just say future. Again, not engaging the thought, not engaging stories about the future or stories about the past. Just a simple noting past, future, future, past. Just a gentle noting to develop mindfulness and intimacy with the mind. In a moment, I will strike the bell again.

[47:55]

Just focus the mind's attention on the sound of the bell. Hello again and so just curious if anyone has any questions or feedback about that mini session or anything else that I have spoken about or is there anything that I haven't spoken about that you would maybe like to discuss before we say

[49:32]

Goodbye for today. Yes, Daryl, I see that you, did you intentionally unmute yourself? Yes, I did. I just wanted to say thank you, Heather. I've been doing this for a while and I try to sit with the instruction each Saturday to learn a little more than I thought that I knew. So thank you again. I really appreciate your being here. Thank you. I appreciate your being here as well. And I love, is that a painting that you did or someone else? On your screen, there's a beautiful painting of a person. Breathing in and out. Breathing in and out, the sky. Perfect illustration. I wish I had looked like that when I was practicing meditation. Sometimes, so do I. And I have a question for everyone.

[50:36]

Did you notice when I suggested that we note our thoughts, if they were future-oriented or past-oriented? What did I not suggest you do? Yes, I did, actually. Yes, and every time one would arise, I would think future or past. And I caught myself doing that automatically, so... Thank you. Thank you for that suggestion. Sure. Yeah. I think that it's really helpful. And did anyone else notice anything about doing that particular exercise? I tried to stop judging myself for judging my thoughts. Right. It's sort of like a little bit of a meta proliferation, right? Just exactly who is judging whom. Small mind, as we call it in Zen, interacts with small mind, right? So one of the things that we start to notice is how much mind proliferates.

[51:40]

So one of the functions of mind, maybe not a healthy one in some respects, is creativity, right? Its ability to proliferate. So you might hear the sound of the bell, and then all of a sudden you remember, like, I grew up Catholic. Maybe I remember the bell. And maybe I hated going to mass or maybe I love going to mass or maybe I heard the bell at Notre Dame in Paris before it burned. And the next thing you know, I'm back in my vacation in Paris listening to the bell. So that association is really beautiful, wonderful. It can be. And also it can, yeah, the cluttering of the mind, right? The proliferation, especially if those thoughts about the past or the future might cause suffering for us emotionally. So the noting, to me, I found very informative because when I started doing that, I noticed how rare I have a thought about the present moment. How often is mind in the present?

[52:45]

It's just back and forth. It's rare that the mind is in the present moment. So that's why this faculty, this ability of the mind, to cultivate attention, right? So basically it's just, we're paying attention to the present moment. And yes, those thoughts are arising in the present moment and any memories that might be arising or any future projections that might be arising, there are still present moment arisings, right? One of my teachers said that to me. So even if there's memories arising that are causing distress, it's a present moment experience. the memory, the emotions, the sensations. It's not like you're actually in the past. It's just you're in the present moment. And I find that that's also helpful to keep myself grounded in the present moment, that this is a past projection or a future projection and nowhere but right here in the present moment, having a present moment experience of that memory.

[53:55]

or present moment experience of some fantasy about the future, right? I think that helps with not grasping onto the arising thoughts. So that's one way to work with the mind and find to be helpful. And we just have a few more minutes. So if anyone has any burning questions or not so burning questions, you're welcome to ask me. And Lucia, do you think your audio might work? I think that my audio is working, yeah? Yes. Okay, yes. I appreciate your suggestion about the two words, future and past. To avoid to think about the future or the past and staying in the meanwhile, the present. So I think that it's a good suggestion even during the day.

[54:56]

when I want to find the time for a short meditation during my activities, for example. And so I think that it's a good idea to use the two words. So I think that I wanted to try during this week. It has been my first time with you and I appreciate your suggestions. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I think... whenever we can notice what we're doing in the present moment, it's helpful. So you can just like holding this mug and, or right now the mug isn't really hot, but I can say, Oh my God, the mug is not hot. And I remember when I had a hot mug of, and then right. The mind is proliferating or I can't believe my water's not hot. I wish I had, I'm going to get, you know, instant water thing. Like just, we're not really even experiencing the bug in its lukewarmness, right?

[55:58]

There's all this concepts between me and a physical experience of what I'm doing, right? That's that veil of conceptualization. So yeah, so it is just a process, a lifetime process of how do we penetrate that veil and have a more physical, vibrant experience of what's going on in the present moment. And I want everyone to know that at 925, there'll be an actual full on 35 minute meditation in this very room. So if you want to stand up and move around or just fade away and then come back at 925, you're in the right room for that. And normally when we're doing this meditation in the meditation hall here at San Francisco Zen Center, We also do a walking component. So for people, some people, it's very helpful to do intermittent walking meditation.

[57:03]

And you can find, if you just Google it, you can find ways to practice walking meditation because I think it's also helpful. Some people prefer to do some physical activity. So in this tradition, we walk slowly. Other traditions, they walk slowly. fast or they walk slowly and then fast. So we usually just walk around the meditation hall and just noticing, you know, the placing of our foot on the floor. And I, sometimes I say, we sit barefoot. So I, it's easy to feel the floor that way. I sometimes would say, you know, like heel, arch, ball, toes, as my foot goes down again, just noting that to keep the mind if that's helpful. And then just feeling my feet as they go in front of me on the meditation hall floor. So yeah, so then, so walking meditation can be helpful for people.

[58:06]

You can also lie down if you, for some reason, you're prevented from sitting. So you also can lie down and just try not to fall asleep. That's another way that you can practice meditation. You can do a body scan. So in this tradition, we don't focus so much on technique. But there are lots of body scan meditations out there. I mean, YouTube is filled with, I'm sure, of people, meditation teachers teaching different techniques. And I don't know if in San Francisco, of course, there's tons of lots of meditation people out there. So, yeah, appreciate your coming. And every Saturday at 810, we have a different meditation structure. Sometimes it's helpful to go to more than one and like us on Yelp. I'm just kidding. And just keep coming back until you feel like you can sit on your own and also join our online Zendo.

[59:11]

We have... sitting Monday through Saturday. So we call it sitting, seated meditation Monday through Saturday. The schedule is online in our online program calendar. And this is the same Zoom link for all those morning sits as well as afternoon at 5.30, Monday through Friday. So in the morning, you can sit with us. In the afternoon, you can sit with us. We also have Dharma talks today at 10.15. tomorrow at 1015, and then Wednesday evening at 745. And that is all, of course, free. So, okay. Well, I'm going to sign off. And I look forward to seeing you again. I don't know why there's an echo, but okay. All right. Everyone, thanks very much. Enjoy your Saturday. Okay. Bye-bye. Thank you, Heather. Thank you. Bye.

[60:11]

Bye, Cedric. Bye, Cedric. Bye, Daryl. Bye, Nicole, Dan, Lucia, and Carlo. And Stefano. We lost him in England. Oh, well. Bye-bye. Bye-bye, everybody. All righty. Bye, Cedric. Bye-bye, brother. Have a good day. You too. All righty. Thank you. San Francisco Zen Center City Center.

[125:33]

Today's speaker is Shosan Victoria Austin, a resident priest here at City Center, who's giving this talk today as part of a workshop titled Love and Power, How Zen Practices Help Relationship. Let us begin with the opening verse, which can be found in the chat. An unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely met with, even in a hundred thousand million kalpas. Having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning, everybody.

[126:48]

Can you hear me? Good. Well, today, thank you for the introduction and thank you so much for your technical support. Thank you, everybody, for being here and coming to lecture. I see so many Dharma friends from my Sangha, Dharma brothers and sisters, people who We've practiced together for decades and people who I'm seeing for the first time. I would like to encourage you to sit comfortably. And if your camera is off, you can stand, walk, or lie down comfortably. Actually, it won't bother me if you stand, walk, or lie down, if that's the way to maintain a sense of rhythm and comfort. as you hear this talk and as you respond internally and later externally.

[127:52]

So the workshop was described as love and power relationship. And today I specifically want to go into the shadow side of intimacy, the shadow side of relationship. because I think it's really important. And to do that, I would like to just show a couple of photos first. Actually, I want to show you first this photo. And this is my teacher, Sojin, Mel Weitzman and me. And the time is in the mid-1990s.

[128:56]

And we're studying, we're having coffee and preparing for my Dharma transmission. And... And the intimacy of Dharma transmission began with the fight. So I had been assisting Sojan and Tenshin Roshis. They were abbots together. And there couldn't be two different styles of a basial leadership. I don't know if you know them, but they had complete opposites. The only thing they agreed on was the Dharma. But they basically disagreed from their personalities and from their sense of priorities in life and agreed on the Dharma, but disagreed on many important decisions about how to study the Dharma. So I had a wonderful example in those two teachers, both of whom were sincere all the way from the inner light to the tips of their fingers with everybody.

[130:09]

And yet, as the assistant, the assistant is just kind of sitting there taking notes and typing and getting things, doing stuff to support the teachers. And that was my training. But the other training that I was getting was in fair fight. Fair fighting? where annoyance, irritation, anger were clearly reflected, for instance, when it came time to write some big document or to decide how to do something. And I would be like frantically trying to take notes on two completely different points of view. And then they would come to some unified position and present it to the sangha.

[131:11]

And that's what we would do. And the solution was so much richer and more mature and longer lasting because of that feedback that they gave each other. And because of how they survived annoyance with difference, I got some very valuable lessons about practice. And those were to hold me in good stead. When I had really enjoyed my position as the abbot's assistant and one day it was about time for work meeting and at the beginning of every work day at San Francisco Zen Center for people who don't live there or haven't been to live there, there's a circle that's announced with a a han, which is a wooden instrument that makes a percussive sound or a drum or another sound.

[132:23]

So at Tassajara, it's announced with a han. And then there's a work, actually, no, there's a work drum. I'm trying to remember Tassajara. There's a work drum. You can correct me if I'm wrong. And the work drum goes something like, ba-dum, ba-dum. And then there's a space of about five minutes in which everybody gathers in a circle at Tassajara or in the city. And then there's a peace bell that goes something like bong. And we stand in Shashu silently to ring that bell. So between those two, between the drum that makes you enthusiastic and the peace bell that allows you to settle, Sojin Roshi came up to me and he said, your time as abbot's assistant is coming to an end. I want you to be Tenzo.

[133:25]

Tenzo is the head cook. And immediately I thought, oh, no. That sounds really hard. And I said, I don't want to be Tenzo. And Sojin kind of dug in his heels and he said, I want you to be Tenzo. And I said, no, I don't want to be Tenzo. And then he said, I want you to be Tenzo. And I said, if it's so important to you, why don't you be Tenzo? And people are kind of gathering and going, and then he just stood there and he said, I want you to be Tenzo. Okay. And then the following Wednesday night, which was the city center lecture,

[134:31]

Sojan Roshi gave a talk about the importance of the Zen kitchen as a practice place. And I was training as Tenzo. And then we had the little kitchen work meeting right after the regular meeting that day. And then suddenly... Sojin Roshi was there and he was standing in front of the person who hands out the assignments and manages the crew who's called the Fukutan, which means the person who helps the Tenzo. And I thought, oh, what's going to happen now? And what happened was he put his hands together like this and turned to the Fukutan and gave the Fukutan. his full attention. And then he said, I'm here to volunteer.

[135:33]

What would you like me to do? And the Fukaten kind of went, wow, inside, but I can see that body reaction. And then the Fukaten said, apricots. And then Sojin Roshi said, how would you like me to do them? And the Fukuten showed him and then they bowed. And then Sojin Rishi stood at the table, you know, stood at the table, chopping the apricots. with a body language that was upright, open, and deep. And it was like time stopped, and the whole kitchen became peaceful and harmonious.

[136:42]

And it hadn't been, you know. So, you know, when people get together, sometimes they do get annoyed with each other, and... The abbots weren't the only people who were annoyed with each other. When I came to the kitchen, I found that everyone could be annoyed with each other and still practice together. And the very beginning of that was someone was standing there chopping. And the person next to them said, that's not how we do it. And that person said, And the other person kept criticizing them. And then suddenly we were having a fight in the kitchen and it was supposed to be silent. And then I thought, oh no, what do I do? What do I do? And that's the story for another time, what I actually did.

[137:47]

What I would like to focus on now is the body language that Sojin Mel Weitzman Roshi used. when he was in the kitchen. And I would just like to introduce the body language by showing some pictures of Maitreya Buddha. And so I've put together a little panel with Maitreya Buddha for you to see. Maitreya Buddha is the Buddha of the future. The Maitreya Bodhisattva is a future Buddha. So right now Maitreya's Bodhisattva And in the future, Maitreya will be a Buddha. And Maitreya is often seen as very, very serene. And in other versions, like Hote, Maitreya is seen as very happy. But today I would like to talk about Maitreya, the weeping Buddha, the weeping Bodhisattva, actually, who will be a future Buddha.

[138:52]

And so this photo is from Koryuji Temple. And there are two Maitreya Buddhas side by side. In Japan, Maitreya is called Miroku. And Miroku Bosatsu. And one of them is serene, like this, with a very peaceful face. And the other one is crying. just think about that for a minute. You can hold the picture of weeping miroku in your heart. And why would a person who's a bodhisattva and going to be a Buddha in the future take time to weep? What could that benefit? what could be the benefit for beings of having someone who is devoted and dedicated to the inner light take time to weep.

[140:05]

So nevertheless, whether we don't know or whether we do know, we can create a body that is tall enough and wide enough and deep enough to safely hold our tears, our anger, our frustration, our despair, our anything. And we can, even if we've slipped and allowed our despair, our anger, or our you know, sorrow to run us, even if there's generations of despair, anger, sorrow, frustration, rage, traumatization, or whatever there is causing us to be distorted in our reactions in the present day.

[141:15]

We can still create a body that's tall enough, wide enough, and deep enough to safely hold those reactions and cultivate the seeds of light in us. We can mourn where we're not Buddha and we can rejoice as we safely hold those reactions and allow them to transmute. in the fire of our experience and in the earthiness of reality. They can transmute into awakening. And so the shadow side of practice allows our practice its uprightness to be strengthened and stabilized. its openness to be expanded, and its depth to be experienced and expressed.

[142:25]

And we can learn this through the body of zazen, through Buddha mudra. So Maitreya's face of serenity could be seen as a state that Maitreya Buddha is in, or as a practice that Maitreya Buddha is doing. So if you remember, the weeping of Maitreya didn't ruin the posture of Maitreya. And we can be that way too. So let's look at some of the physical qualities that we can establish in Zazen posture that awaken the possibility of holding anything that comes up. as if it were arising in Buddha's pure land. Maitreya is often associated with pure land.

[143:28]

And the practices that we do with Maitreya Buddha are often devotional or looking towards a pure way of seeing anything that comes up. So what are some of the physical postures and actions that help us to hold? life in that way, in this way. Let's study them in the body. So what I'd like to ask you to do, remember Hote and how Hote just goes like this with happiness. You can start by just expressing happiness in your upper body in some way that you can. Okay. And allow yourself to feel the impact of that. OK, no matter what else is occurring in life. And it's been a very difficult week, right? No matter whether you're living in the US or anywhere else or whatever your political position or political spectrum position is.

[144:33]

It's been a challenging week as, you know, in so many different ways. So let's look. Just for a moment, like if you're sitting on a chair or on a cushion, you can do this upright. If you're lying down, I'll explain a different way of doing it. If you're walking, I'll explain a different way of doing it. So if you're sitting on a chair or cushion, take the outer hand and hold the seat of your chair or the bottom of your cushion and just steady your arms. so that you can draw the inner shoulder blades slightly forward without strain. If you're standing, have your arms by your sides with the palms facing forward, and your shoulder blades will come towards the back of your chest, and you can do that if you're walking too. And that will help the front of the body express itself.

[145:38]

So... You'll notice that, and you can let go of that if you can maintain that, the torso action that you just felt. And notice how at the beginning of inhalation, after the pensive moment at the end of exhalation, there's a kind of a space. And then in the beginning of the exhalation, the feeling of who I am begins to arise. You might have to... get meditative to be able to notice this. So if lecture's too exciting to notice it, then just hold that thought for the next time you do zazen, okay? But you can try it a couple times if you want to just steady your arms. And then as you inhale, let the lower diaphragm open to receive the inhalation. You'll be able to feel that at the beginning of inhalation, there's a kind of a rising mind. which is a rising of the self.

[146:40]

And you'll notice how at the end, if you hold your chest up as you exhale, as the chest stays up and the body empties of breath, there's a kind of emptying out, not just of breath, but of the sense of self. Okay, so you could try that if you want for a couple breaths. And this steadying of the arms and torso, is one of the postural features of Maitreya Buddha to hold anything. So this feature of making the body upright enough to hold anything is one of the postural features of Maitreya. But the content of what Maitreya holds, the developmental content of what Maitreya holds is pain and joy, the responses to pain and joy.

[147:50]

And so we find that there's a long process of awakening for Maitreya Bodhisattva in which the pure land of Maitreya becomes more and more capacious. It always stays of the nature of friendliness or loving kindness, but it expands to be able to appreciate the opening quality or gateway qualities of pain and also the gateway qualities of pleasure without averting from pain or attaching to pleasure. And we call those openings to that compassion, compassion, and sympathetic or empathetic joy. You can create the capacity for that in the body as well. So for instance, when we feel pain, often our diaphragm becomes hardened in one place or another.

[148:55]

Our body becomes withdrawn or narrow in front. If you think about painful experiences, if somebody's in pain or experienced sorrow, they often take a posture as if they were being gut punched. But we can actually open the posture to even the feelings of pain. And one of the way to do it is by stabilizing a sense of physical enjoyment. through the body. So what I'm going to ask you to do is just to bring your arms out to the side, whether you're standing, walking, sitting, or lying down. If you're lying down, you can have your palms back of the hands flat on the floor and bring your arms flat on the floor and slightly press your arms. But if you're standing, you can turn your hands up, your elbows up, your upper arms up, and then open

[149:59]

the collarbones and the inner shoulder blades and lift the chest so that the area right under the collarbones becomes full. And then you can put your hands back in the mudra and you'll feel literally, the body is very metaphorically in this way, a wider sense of tolerance for suffering. So we worked with uprightness, with heart support, and openness, with tolerance as features of Maitreya's posture for pain. But what about for joy? Okay, so what I'm going to ask you to do now is to, if you're in a chair or on a cushion, You can place your hands again under the cushion or under the seat of the chair. If you're standing or walking, you can bend your arms.

[151:04]

Actually, everyone can bend your arms. Don't hold your chair. Just bend the arms and have the palms face each other. And make the upper arms very stable or solid. And now spread or open the chest to the arms. OK, so that is another way to that's a way to feel and hold joy in the body that no matter how expansive it is, it's bounded by the arms. So it's safely held and you can bring that into your sitting posture if you put your hands into the mudra. Let the arms be stable and feel what that gives. So the ups and downs of pleasure and pain can be safely held. And when we can hold ups and downs with always being upright, open, and deep, that is the posture of Maitreya Buddha, who can weep or laugh.

[152:23]

with abandon and turn everything that happens over to harmonious existence in the Buddha's pure land. Okay. So anyway, I spent a lot of time on how to create the posture, a posture that opens the possibility of future awakening while holding the emotional challenges and celebrations of the present moment. And that to me is the beauty of the visualization of Maitreya as a bodhisattva who waits to become a Buddha. because not all situations have been responded to.

[153:25]

Not all pleasures and pains have been held. As long as there's one pleasure or pain, one sorrow or attachment that hasn't been held and transformed, Maitreya's Buddhahood remains in the future. And that's why Maitreya is a bodhisattva. Bodhisattva means awakening being, turning over those emotions to the light that's inside all of us and safely holding it there so that it can be appreciated, held up, and transformed to the fulfillment of our deepest wish for and with all beings. So what does this have to do with intimacy? So far, I've just talked about intimacy with the self.

[154:27]

Intimacy with the first moment of selfhood after the exhalation is over and the inhalation begins. So far, I've just talked about that. But what about when something happens? What about when you're asked to go to become the head cook and you don't want to? Or there's annoyance between two people you idealize and you get scared. And frantically take notes to handle your fear. You know, just speaking, just hypothetical. That really never happened to me. Nothing like that ever happens to me. I have no shadow because I'm a completely awakened Zen Buddhist, Soto Zen Buddhist teacher and nothing. Nothing bothers me. I see no evil. Everything's fine. Fine. It's just fine. So anyway, just saying that the point of having people who train and become examples for other people is not that things would stop happening to them.

[155:43]

It's not that they would never experience a reaction ever again. It's not that we're aiming for perfection. Besides the settled, upright, open, deep posture, there has to be a dynamic tension. Otherwise, there's no transformation and no awakening. There has to be the fire of what happens and how we hold it and how we make mistakes holding it to show us the limits of our capacity in the world. This is true whether we're an individual, whether we're a relationship, which is like a body that's not two and not one, whether we're an institution, which is a corporate body that holds a relationship with the world, or whether we're a culture that's a kind of a, you know, like a zeitgeist that holds

[156:49]

You know, our dream life, our imagined and potential life in a structural way. So what is the shadow? Why don't we start with interpersonal relationship? Because it's more visible in interpersonal relationship. And that's why Dave and I have been focusing on interpersonal relationships. love between people for the past several years. The past several years, we've been doing these workshops twice a year. But what you don't see is that Dave and I have been studying this material and trying to work with it. And he's been like, I don't know how many books he has written over the past five years. He seems to just be able to write books and focus on these topics and bring them up in very accessible ways. So if you haven't read any of his books, I highly recommend books like How to Be an Adult in Relationship.

[157:54]

And he's written a couple that talk about the shadow side. And so what is the shadow side of intimacy? Maybe it's a little non-threatening to say, okay, well, if we're working with metta practice or the practice of maitri or loving kindness, As we move through the friendliness, compassion, sympathetic joint equanimity, which are kind of a heart education, they train the capacity of the heart to hold the insights that we experience in Zazen. So the heart mind has to be trained. Otherwise, we can have the most profound insights in the world and still be complete jerks individually and collectively. That is possible. It has been known to happen. But we don't want it to happen. We want to develop. So what are the possibilities? What are we working with as we move through those?

[159:00]

So I want to say that each step of the four Mahabrahma Viharas takes us away from seeing the world or other people or ourselves as an object. and develops a subjective unity in a very particular way. So for instance, if we have hardened concepts like repulsiveness and limitations on our best intentions, but we may still need to hold other people as objects for ourselves. I may have to say, okay, my twin sister, okay, sister. You know, you are you and I'm me. We're identical twins, so differentiation is a big deal for us. Okay, you are you, I am me. But there still is that time, you know, do you remember that boyfriend I had when we were in high school and what you did? You know, so there might be a concept that's been hardening since I was in high school.

[160:05]

And working with friendliness. or loving kindness, allows me to remember that in the context of our entire relationship. And instead of holding my twin at a distance, because of that past karma, I can create a shared story or shared experience when there is friendliness or loving kindness. So it becomes more not two, not one. But there's still a sense of objectification. Suppose that I've had a habit of cruelty towards my twin sister in relationships for all of that time. You know, my reactions around intimacy are distorted because I'm scared that... You know, whenever I have someone who I care about, my twin sister's going to come in and steal.

[161:08]

She doesn't really do this. She never does this. She only did it once when we were like 14 years old. Really, she's not like that at all. I'm just setting up like a straw person so that we have something to talk about. But she really is not like that. She has a much better sense of humor and tolerance for people than I have ever had. really. But, you know, suppose I was cruel to her. You know, like, suppose that, like, when bad things happened to her, I kind of I kind of went inside nanny nanny bo bo and you stole my boyfriend or whatever. And saw that as a justification to get back at her in subtle ways. Well, I could work on that through being able to feel the shared pain and so cruelty is addressed through compassion and then what about if I am very well practiced in loving kindness and I'm into compassion and have practiced it for a long time well I can get kind of bored and slightly burned out by the practice of always being involved in

[162:31]

pain and being able to feel together pain. And so there's this aversion and boredom, which is a more subtle form of objectification, which are addressed through empathetic joy. And then finally, what if I kind of attach to the possibility of awakening or the benefits of friendliness and so on? That greed is addressed through equanimity. I don't have to be excited by the, like the compassionate superpowers that come with focusing on the four immeasurables. So I have to understand that my real enemy is ill will, whether it's gross or subtle, that what can fool me and make me stop short of real intimacy that has a full range. is like a drama of affection and aversion, which can be gross or subtle.

[163:34]

And my real intention is to be able to explore the pure land of not one, not two. So I need to keep working at the foundation to notice hindrances or blockages and create not just a physical structure, but the emotional structure that's cued by that physical body of uprightness, openness, and depth or capacity. So I just want to point out some of the shadow things that can come up, whether we're working with ourselves, whether we're working with another, or whether we're working with a larger group of people or audience. So For instance, like if we were angry, let's say we were angry at injustice, the cultural injustice. So one of the things that we could do is if we were angry at a cultural injustice.

[164:44]

We could get over involved with revenge. and not be willing to repair. We could be bored by the process of repair and actually be more interested in, okay. So for instance, let's say sexism. Let's say I got some really important, massively important position and men came to me and said, you know, there's so many women in positions of power and authority in your administration that I don't really have anyone to relate to. And then, you know, I could say something like, nah, let's talk about it in 1,500 years. You know, that imbalance stands because we've got 1,500 years to make up for, so, or 15,000 years or whatever it is, a large... amount of years to make up for.

[165:48]

So I'm getting mine. You got yours. I'm getting mine. So too bad. Suck it up. Okay, so that's called abuse. That's called the shadow of abuse. Okay, so instead, we have to be willing to understand both sides of the duality with compassion and empathetic joy so that we can repair instead of retaliate. And suppose it's, you know, we can be vengeful in any relationship and so on. So that's an example of the shadow. Of course, anger always has a message as do every emotion. All the emotions have languages. in which they are constantly giving us messages of what is needed for repair or non-objectification.

[166:53]

Okay, Matt, I see you. I see you opening your picture, which is a very, very subtle hint, which I appreciate that we're getting close to 11 o'clock. And I promise that I will be done with the lecture and ready to do Q&A between 11 o'clock and 11.05. Thank you very much for that. Okay. So another example of the shadow. Let's say, you know, no matter what happened in the United States in the last week, that we are grieving how divided the country is. Or let's say, no matter what happened in our relationship with our significant other, In our very tiny space in which we live with one other person, we are upset about something. Like I heard from a couple that have very different styles of where to put socks after you're done wearing them at the end of the day.

[168:01]

So one of the people in the couple thinks that you just take the socks off and you just leave them because it's time to relax. And the other person in the couple thinks that when you're done with those socks, you either roll them up and put them back if they're clean or you put them in the laundry bag if they're dirty. And this has been going on for 10 years. And now because they're together and the place that they live is small, this sock thing has become like an emblem for every single problem in their relationship. And so, you know, at first they were doing, you know, the thing that I was called into to speak about was that they didn't realize that they had this conflict about socks. This sounds so silly, doesn't it? Socks. But basically what they were doing was that they were denying that they had this problem about socks.

[169:03]

And so they were just getting more and more annoyed with each other. And they asked me to come in and kind of facilitate a conversation that was practice-based. And it turned out that the gateway into the entire issue was SOX. And I don't know what they're going to end up doing. I don't know if they're going to end up like, okay, for one week we get to leave the socks on the floor, and the next week we put the socks in the laundry basket, or we do something in between, like we have five minutes at the end of the day where we play basketball with the socks and the laundry basket. I don't know what they're going to do. But the main point from the point of view of the Maitreya Buddha practice is that the grief, is the thing that the grief is the matter, the great matter that Maitreya Bodhisattva stays on this earth to resolve.

[170:08]

And that the resolution itself is the pure land to become Buddha. And so the precepts are a way, you know, are a specific way that we can work with this. All the practices of Zen work with this. And exactly how they work with this, I don't really want to, like, you know, kind of describe how they work with this. Instead, what I would like to do is invite us to work with this. Invite us to work with every emotion. on the wheel of emotions and every message that the emotion is giving. And what is the neutral message of that interactional emotion? Like for anger, it is, what is my boundary about socks? What is your boundary about socks? How do we negotiate those boundaries? What about respect is brought up in this longstanding conflict about socks?

[171:14]

What issues about respect? And what needs do I have? So that's the message of anger. So you see, when we turn to face the anger and acknowledge it with another person, we're open to feedback as a kind of a, so the anger can become a kind of compost for the expression of awakening in the relationship. Anyway, I'd like to quote. Dave is also a Shakespeare, sorry, geek. He loves Shakespeare and really, yeah, I don't want to, actually, I don't want to denigrate. I'm not denigrating geekdom. I'm a geek as well. I'm a Zen geek and a yoga geek and many other kinds of geek. So I'm not denigrating geekdom.

[172:15]

I'm using geek in its kind of complementary sense as a fanatic about a particular subject, which you study the beginning, the middle, and the end. So Dave points out this quote from Taming of the Shrew. My tongue will tell the anger of my heart or else my heart concealing it will break. My tongue will tell the anger of my heart or else my heart concealing it will break. And just to reveal in a neutral way. What that emotion is brings up the possibility of using it as a gateway of establishing loving kindness with it, of safely holding its pains, of acknowledging its joys, and of finally...

[173:38]

holding it up in the light of Buddha's pure land. Anyway, I offer this very brief introduction to the shadow side of intimacy for the benefit of your relationship with yourself, with your past and present, people and beings and for the benefit of all beings may I be well happy and free from suffering and the causes of suffering may you be safe and well happy and free from suffering and the causes of suffering and may we together with all beings, be well, be safe, happy, joyous, free from suffering and the causes of suffering.

[174:57]

Thank you very much. Shall we chant the closing verse before transitioning to question and answer? May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it.

[176:02]

Thank you. If you have a question, you can raise your blue hand by clicking the participants button and then raise hand. And we'll call on you and ask you to unmute. As Reverend Shosan Victoria mentioned, at 1 p.m. Pacific time today, there's a workshop she's co-presenting with David Rico, PhD, Love and Power, How Zen Practices Help Relationship. Registration is open until start time at the link that I will post in the chat. Feel free to email me, which will also be in the chat if you have any questions about signing up. Thanks. Thanks, Brendan. Thanks, Matt. Miguel. Good morning, Victoria. Thank you. Thank you very, very much for your talk. I really appreciate it. I have questions.

[177:09]

I think my primary one is it's working with this kind of intimacy of sharing a narrative. I could see this very easily with my siblings. I know that between us, we have the us versus them and softening up into that shared experience that we went through a hard time together and we came out the way we did. as we are, and we're complete people, even though we're radically imperfect. The big thing that still hits me, the thing that comes up with me in this one is like, still, I get angry with them. Still, I wish that they were different. I wish that they had not done or they will do. And I catch myself sometimes not being able to link with them on a deeper level and going through something superficial, like my brother and I currently are bonding over the Mandalorian. We talk baby Yoda in action figures. We're grown men, by the way, for hours. But trying to talk to him about deeper things, I encounter a wall, which leads to the whole question of the responsibility, the responsibility of those who have done harm, those who have been harmed.

[178:22]

Often I put the impetus on him to rectify them. Oh, for the record, I'm the one who has done some things to this poor boy that shouldn't have happened. And likewise, back at me but it's that responsibility as someone who has done the harm and embraced that change I think what comes up for me is these feelings of shame of remorse I just how okay in the framework of Maitreya Buddha how does Maitreya Buddha sit with this kind of shame where you just don't want to sit with it you can't face it okay OK, so what I would like to point out, let me let me show you. Let me share something with you. OK, just wait a second. I want to share a. Post attendee soon, so I want to say creative inter. So I want to share this.

[179:30]

Let's see if I got the address right. There are many people who are focusing on exactly this problem. And so here's an example of an organization in Oakland that focuses on narratives and on restorative and recreation of training, education. And I think it's very important for all of us to understand that this is part of our wealth as a country and as a world that we can take refuge in. And so I would like to point you to getting this kind of education that allows itself to be specific to actual abuse and actual narratives of growth and change. Why do I say this?

[180:34]

It comes from personal experience. So Creative Interventions, by the way, has a reparations toolkit that talks about how to work with larger issues. And it's really, really complete. And the first step is acknowledging the harm. Studying and acknowledging the harm. to be able to express it, but to be able to express it not in ways that target the other person, institution, or group, or culture, but actually express it in neutral or friendly ways. Let me do another share, because this is something that I... This is something I've worked with a lot. So I've been working with trying to understand how to talk about sexual abuse and harassment.

[181:35]

Although, you know, you could also talk about this racism or with family karma or anything. And so I looked for ways that we could describe past abuse in neutral terms that relate to specific actions. So these are terms that are used in the legal profession, hostile environment and quid pro quo. But when you get below this line to what actually happened, people use language that's more like, you hateful person, you abuser, you perpetrator, or I'm a victim or something like that. And when we use targeted, when we use loaded language like that, which we always do when we're in families, we don't have any choice but to use that kind of language when we are dealing with someone who has known us since we were born. We slip into, well, you're another.

[182:40]

Or you're evil or whatever it is that we slip into, but. The beauty of a framework like this is instead of saying, oh, you know, you you abused me. You can say you repeated sexual stories or jokes when I didn't want to hear them. And that's an example of sexual hostility. So it's important to create friendly or neutral language to talk about things that happen. Now, how does that relate to. How does that relate to, you know, working with a family? Let's say you have a family who like mine is a survivor of intergenerational trauma. So I come from a Holocaust survivor family, right? When I was growing up, my father said, don't trust anyone because when they come to the door to kill you, only the family willing to die for you and sometimes not even them.

[183:45]

So I didn't get to learn how to trust even people in my family because clearly my father was giving me a lesson that I couldn't live with. I couldn't live that way. And I couldn't live with my father as long as he spoke that way. It was too painful. But then to the cure for that was I had to realize this is my father. I accept my father. Now I have to set my own boundaries and learn my own lessons. And then see if there's a way for me to bring this back to the family neutrally or in a supportive way. Sorry for the length of this answer. Thank you for your really valuable question. Thank you, Vicki. This is all very, very helpful. Sorry, I'll be quicker for more questions. Cynthia. Am I unmuted?

[184:49]

I can hear you. Aloha. Aloha. I'll just give you a little of the big island, big island aloha, since everybody could use a little Hawaii, Hawaii. My question is about sexual intimacy. and the wisdom of a physical sexual relationship and whether that wisdom, like that sexual intimacy is something that I feel like is a little bit of a shadow even in Buddhist practice. And so if you could speak a little bit about that and also for those of us who choose not to engage in a physical sexually intimate relationship, as monastics do or other people, like how do you work with that energy?

[185:51]

Thank you. You know, that's actually the subject of like a one week retreat. So what I want to say, first of all, is just mahalo for your question. You know, so sexual intimacy is great. You know, it's fantastic. It's like how the whole human race happens to be here. You know, without sexual intimacy, we wouldn't be here because there wouldn't be any point for most people because there wouldn't be any, there wouldn't be any attraction to having non-intimate or unrewarding, unfulfilling relationships. And the same with non-cis, gendered and sexual, you know, kind of non-heterosexual intimacy. It's great. It models all sexual intimacy, models a dance, a dance of difference and equality with the other who can be seen in polarizing ways, can be seen in harmonious ways, can be seen in an infinite number of ways.

[187:13]

So it's always new and always ancient. So I'm a celibate monastic, and I have been for a long time. But what I want to say is that sexual energy and sexual expression are not the same thing. that all creative energy shares some of the life force of sexual energy. And all sexual energy shares some of the life force of creation. And so we could study this for a long time. But I think the way to work with it is twofold. One is that the energy of the universe exists, whether we personally are here or not. We're its people.

[188:15]

It's not our energy. We're its people. And so to actually understand how we channel and aesthetically choose to express that, I mean, beyond what's not aesthetic and what's a deeper issue for us, there are always aesthetic choices in creation. Can that harmonize with and go with? what the situation actually is. So that's one thing. And the other thing is that we personally should not be misusing sexuality no matter what. We need to respect it as a primal energy and handle it appropriately. And I wanna say that when I became celibate, it was because It was because my life had exposed that I had something to learn.

[189:19]

And I found that as soon as I started practicing celibacy, I learned so much about intimacy that I kind of re-upped my three-month commitment and I'm still practicing it. So if I had chosen to do something else and get remarried, I would still be practicing it because that's how we learn. That's how we wake up. So thank you for your question, Mahalo. Okay, one more question that I want to bring in Dave because I think he might have something to say about these issues. Matt, who's next? Shannon. Shannon, okay. Hey, Shannon. I can't hear you. oh um let me see i can i can hear you kind of your connection is very slow i can't i can't hear you so well can you still hear me it's very slow and drawn out maybe you could put your question in chat and tim could ask his in the meantime would that be okay

[190:39]

Would that be okay, Shannon? I'm not hearing. Now, can you hear me? I can kind of hear you, yeah. I'm sorry. I'll try, and if not, we'll just let the next person go. I'm sorry. Sure. I first want to express gratitude for the idea of conflict being a place of growth, and it's something I'm going to share with my students because we talk a lot about the importance of diversity, but I hadn't thought about how difference can actually support us to grow. So thank you. That's huge. And then, you know, I was curious about how we can create a container that you're talking about as a sangha and as an institution. I've heard from other speakers about how we need a place where anger can be expressed.

[191:49]

And when you were talking about being in the kitchen as Tenzo, what we can model, but also like what structures we either can examine or something so that we are creating that container within our community so that we are more aware of or supportive of being welcoming and Okay, I think I got enough of your question and now it's cutting out again, but I just want to tell quickly a story of how we resolved it in the kitchen at that time. Would that be okay? Can you hear me? I'm going to think it's okay unless I get a quote from you, unless I get a stop from you. What happened was everybody was criticizing everybody else and everybody was getting hurt. And everybody assumed that everybody else's criticism and feedback was hostile.

[192:52]

And so the next kitchen meeting, we started the meeting as we always do with the check-in and then I got up and locked the door. And I said, no one leaves this room until we have a shared intention. and a commitment to criticize only on the basis of our shared intention, that intention goes for 30 days. And the intention has to be 25 words or less, and everyone has to agree on it before we leave this room. And if necessary, we will do takeout for lunch. And so that's what we did. So we created a container that everybody had to commit to. to set up a intention that we knew was temporary and agreed to limit our expressions of anger and hostility and rage and reaction to that one narrow arena of our shared intention for 30 days.

[193:58]

And so we did that. We created a shared intention. Together we vow to make simple, wholesome food in accord with Buddha's way as an offering to the Sangha. That was our first shared intention. So I was sent to a long, long time ago, and I remember that shared intention because what happened next after everybody committed, and I asked the Fukuten to, I asked, oh, oh, oh, there was one thing that we did that held it in place. So... If you received a feedback about that criticism, you could ask, you have to bow and say thank you, and you could ask a clarifying question. If you received a criticism about anything else, and there were forms to, you know, set those criticisms up for the next kitchen meeting or whatever, but... If you received in person a criticism about anything else, you could jump up, point to the person and say, disqualified.

[195:07]

So we did that. And so we had all these people, like the beginning of the week, we had all these people jumping up and going, disqualified, disqualified. And then by the end of the week, we were actually following the form. And we got some incredible developmental feedback by agreeing to an arena and a fair way of giving it. So I just want to say that. Oh, I've gotten a five-minute warning now. I'm sorry. So anyway, let's realize that feedback is actually the most important ingredient in in understanding impact so we can have the best possible practices set up for ourselves. And without that feedback from those we've othered or those who feel othered, without that feedback, our chances of success with our Pure Land Intention go down and down and down.

[196:20]

But with that feedback, We bring back in the life that got lost and pushed away when their experience got pushed away and they became the other to us. So that is what I would say is our single most important ingredient to ensure success, because even imperfect intentions and imperfect forms and ways of doing things become transformational and iterative. They'll become like iterative designs or five-minute sketches that just get more and more refined towards our purpose if the feedback is well-established and not taken as other or hostile. So if we can maintain friendliness with difference, that's the key. So Dave. Thank you. Please. I think we had one more question too.

[197:22]

So maybe that person wants to ask the question before Dave gives some words of wisdom and we finish at 1130. Otherwise, Dave, you can start with wisdom anytime and you have to unmute yourself. Okay, Dave. I'm unmuted now, right? Good. I just wanted to say thank you so much for your talk. And I loved how you brought in the physical postures that also help us hold the feelings. So our topic in the workshop will be how to work with the shadow side that comes up in a relationship. And it could take the form of being self-centered, it could take the form of retaliating. It could take the form of kind of a passive aggressive style where you notice that you're trying to hurt the other, but you're doing it in a way that's surreptitious.

[198:34]

And working with our shadow side is a way of making that conscious and moving it into the realm of repair instead of competition or revenge. And we all do this, and it's just part of being human. But the more we notice it and bring mindfulness to it, it no longer has to rear its head in ways that we're not even noticing. How about shame? Like in the first question, we heard a little bit about familial shame when they tried to do this. Yeah. When Miguel brought up the word shame, he made me aware that shame is the origin of so much of what's in the shadow.

[199:41]

Shadow is a word used by Carl Jung. to describe the impulses that we had in early life that were socially unacceptable or unacceptable within the family. And we got it that it's not safe here to show selfishness. It's not safe here to demand things. It's not safe here to be greedy or aggressive and so we disavowed those feelings and convinced ourselves that they weren't really in us. We saw them instead in other people. And working with the shadow is a way of re-owning all the potentials that any human has and

[200:43]

just no longer acting on them. So that's part of what we'll be talking about in the workshop. Yeah, it seems to apply. Sorry, we're in our last minute, but it seems to apply also to the sexual harassment rubric where we call people perpetrators or horrible instead of acknowledging them as people and repairing the harm. Yeah, that always includes judgment, another thing we let go of in mindfulness. Okay, and we should know that there are two shame dharmas in our Buddhist practice, Hriya and Apatrapya, which that we do not want to let ourselves down and we do not want to let other people down.

[201:45]

And that's not what's meant by shame here. The shame that you're talking about is a kind of distorting perspective as opposed to a realistic desire to live up to our vows. by not letting ourselves or another person down. So that's the entire difference between something remaining in the shadow and being about and touched and safely held and transformed. So is that okay? Yeah, and thank you. Thank you. Shall we call it a lecture? And thank you, everybody. Thank you. Matt and Brendan, and I also want to thank, I also want to thank Abbot Ed, Abbot David, Tanto Nancy, and head monk Sozan for holding the practice period on bodhisattvas that allows this teaching to come up in this way.

[202:51]

Please take care of yourself. See ya. Thank you, Vicki. Thank you. Wonderful talk. Thanks so much, Vicki. Thank you. Take care, everyone. Bye-bye. Thank you. Thank you, Vicki. Have a wonderful afternoon. Thanks. You too. See you. Thank you, Dave. Take care. Thank you, Vicki. Thank you. Thank you so much. See you later. Okay. Good to see you. Thanks, Waco. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Vicki. Thanks, Loretta. Great to see you. Thank you. Shannon? Where's Loretta? Loretta's here. Tim?

[203:54]

Didn't hear your question, but I'm looking forward to hearing it. Hi. [...] Brandon, so good to see you. Hi, Dagmar. Great to see you too. Loretta. Nice to see you. Wow.

[204:17]

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