Good morning. Thank you for coming to the Dharma Talk this morning from Green Gulch Farm. Today's talk will be offered by senior Dharma teacher Kiku Christina Lenher. And we'll begin now with the opening verse. Please chant together with me. You should see the verse on your screen now. surpassed 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 taking a little bit of time to look around to see who all is here.

[04:14]

I dearly miss sharing the room with you in our bodies. And I'm sure you miss similar things. I'm going to page two. Mostly names, but lots of names. Page 3, page 4, and page 5. Can you all hear me? Yes. And is it loud enough?

[05:15]

So Chiriu mentioned my name. I need some water. I'm talking to you from my home in Mill Valley, which has by now become a segregated white community. It wasn't like that when Marsha bought the house, my partner, in 1984. But it continuously turned into that over the years. So that is a sad... because it divorces us from a large part of reality that is always here in our world. We don't see it.

[06:20]

We only have people of color now coming in to look after the children, to help in the stores, to be landscaping on construction sites, but they can't afford to live here. So there's no... other communal life possibilities in our reach. So the subject today is, I'm quoting a poem by Hafiz. He calls it the subject tonight, but I call it the subject today is love. And for tomorrow night, or tomorrow day as well. As a matter of fact, I know of no better topic for us to discuss until we all die. So to start out, I will during the talk occasionally connect to the topic of the practice period I led at City Center

[07:38]

together with about 100 people, that was centered on our body. So I would like you to, for a moment, tune into your body and feel it, sense it, and let it tell you how you might shift your posture or get more support so that you are the most supported physically And support it to be mentally awake and present. And while we're speaking, it's easier now that you're speaking from your own place to do that continuously while the talk is going on. When your body gives you signals it needs somebody, just follow it, trust it. I also want to start today with acknowledging the incredible storm we find ourselves in, all of us.

[08:54]

We're in the same storm, but we experience it in very different boats. The storm is composed of the viral pandemic. which has 3,800,000 confirmed cases worldwide, 14.1 confirmed state million in the United States. Worldwide, 143,000 deaths. No, that's not true, sorry. I mixed them up. Yes. In our country, 3.81 million confirmed and 140,000 dead by now. And worldwide, 14.1 million and 598 deaths.

[09:58]

In California, about 370,000 cases and 7,500 have died. And in Marin County, 350, 3,546 confirmed, and so far 40 deaths. So it's worldwide, and it's in our communities. And then the circles shrink to the circles of your community, to the circles of your friends and family in your life. I have so far not experienced deaths amongst our people we love and know, but that is just a straw of luck. And I also want to acknowledge that we also are

[11:06]

in the storm of realizing and seeing and feeling in tangible ways systemic inequity, inequity that is embedded in our bodies, in our systems. It's economic inequity. So white family wealth is seven times greater than black family wealth and five times greater than Hispanic wealth. And that's the number from 2016. Now the disparity is as high or higher than it was then. And there is also racial injustice and racial violence. ethnic violence and injustice. As of June this year, 105 Black people have died at the hand of police, and innumerable more have died from the pandemic or from the economic disparities.

[12:23]

And that creates an ocean of grief, suffering. So this is what we find ourselves in these days. We get to see it. We get to hear it. We get to feel it. We get to experience it in tangible ways. And it's a wake up call. It's a wake up call. to notice what we have come inured to, what we have gotten used to, what we don't see because we are conditioned not to see it. But because we are restricted, limited, we have the shelter at home,

[13:30]

We have time. We have, in some ways, more time. We can't do our habitual ways of running around and doing things that keep us and our world kind of known to us. We encounter unknown parts of this world that we have used to not see. We also start, because of the virus being absolutely not hindered by any boundaries, borders, other boundaries, we see how inextricably and completely we are interconnected. Beyond what we see, think, have thought, how we usually protect ourselves.

[14:39]

Even if we go out now protected with a mask and sanitize our hands, we don't know. We can't see if someone we meet has the virus, if we pick it up somewhere. We don't know. We know we haven't. Almost 14 days later, we know we haven't yet, but maybe we have in the meantime. So there's this... Complete interconnectedness is also so in our face. And how do we hold this? How do we respond to this? So because we're limited, because we have these limitations, we have an opportunity.

[15:46]

And for many people, that just happened automatically. It clarifies our priorities. So many things we used to fill our day with. We can't do. We can't go to the gym. We can't go. We can't meet with people. We can't. go to the movies. So that's like we are being put unsigned up for into a retreat situation. And first I used to say we're kind of in a three-month practice period framework, like the Zen Center practice periods where you put yourself voluntarily in. And now I feel like we've been moved from a three-month practice period again, unasked for, to a one-year Tibetan singular retreat. So this is challenging.

[16:47]

So we can study the self. We can clarify and apply our intentions. And we're forced to. If you are parents, With kids, your priorities, you have to look at all your priorities because the kids are home. You have to school them at home. How many computers or not computers do you have to do that? How much support do you have or don't have to do that? How are you managing with them? How are you keeping peace maybe in a small apartment in the city where there's no outdoors? So that by itself challenges and requests from us and asks us to clarify priorities and stretch and learn new things. So it's in relationships, priorities become clear.

[17:59]

So it's very interesting that many people have activated relationships with people that didn't fit in their everyday lives. But now with the virtual means, like how we are meeting now, they talk to friends. They haven't talked since years. I didn't take the time to look where you're all looking in from, but in some other groups, people from Europe join, people from all over the world are able to join. So there is new connections. So there is creativity in that. And I want to remind us that actually the vehicle of our practice, of our existence, is our body.

[19:03]

Without it, we would not be here. And it's the exact unique individual body we have been given and how it is moment by moment. It is our instrument, our vehicle of life, our vehicle of expression, our vehicle of experience, of learning. Nothing happens without this body in this existence. So Dogen writes in the Eheikoso Hotsuganmon, which is a vow, he writes, and he wrote this for monks, and I will shift it over to lay people. So we vow with all beings from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the true Dharma.

[20:06]

That upon hearing it, no doubt will arise in us, nor will we lack in faith. But upon reading it, we shall renounce worldly affairs and maintain the Buddha dark. And that in doing so, the great earth and all living beings together will attain the Buddha way. So we vow with all beings from this life on through our countless life, to hear the truth, like, for example, the truth that happened to George Floyd and what happens to innumerable African Americans. And with that fact, they have to live every moment of their life, with that threat. They have to live every moment of their lives. which we, just by the fact that we're born white, don't have to.

[21:07]

So now we saw the truth. We watched it for eight plus minutes. And our bodies respond. Our bodies know are completely, absolutely interconnected with everything. They know. They could feel it. They can feel it even when we don't see it. when it's happening unbeknownst to us. There was an experiment in the book, The Secret Life of Plants, which I read maybe 30 years ago, a long time ago. And they had an experiment. They put electrodes on plants. And in another room, they had a pot of boiling water and they threw a bunch of live shrimps into that water. And all the plants with electrodes on them had a shock reaction. did they know that there was healing happening in the next room? They have no eyes, they have no ears announced to us.

[22:13]

So we are as interconnected and as connected to everything. And we can feel it. We can feel that our mind is discombobulated, that we have maybe much more difficulty remembering things, that we We are maybe sleep disturbed. We are anxious. Even maybe we, in the case that, for example, I right now, I'm not under any immediate threat. But there's a continuous level of anxiety running through everything of grief, of profound grief, of a sadness that is bottomless, that is not. That is way bigger than personal. So we vow from this life on through our countless lives to hear the truth. That upon hearing it, no doubt will arise in us, nor will we lack in faith.

[23:20]

That upon meeting it, we shall renounce fixed habitual views. That's for the lay person. That's for everybody. Monk, lay, anything. So that's what is meant. We shall renounce worldly affairs. We will renounce. We will let go. We will investigate. We will be curious about what fixed views we are holding that are blinding us to the truth we are seeing now and we let go of them. That is what Buddhist practice is about radical questioning, open-hearted, curious, an investigation of all our experience, not just keeping them, oh, I know that, so I don't have to look at it.

[24:25]

No. Buddhism is telling us everything is in continuous flux, in continuous movement. Nothing is fixed. All compounded phenomena are unstable, unreliable, and unworthy of confidence. That means even when we turn our back, We don't know. We can't count on anything staying the same. And I think that truth also is so tangibly in our face right now. And if we take this as an invitation to look at it with curiosity and kindness and compassion and empathy and honesty, It will teach us. It's like when it says in one of the passages of Dogen, it says, walls, trees, and pebbles all expound reality.

[25:32]

All tell us about the truth. The whole world, everything is telling us how it is. But we look at it through the filter of our conditioning, unconscious biases, and habits. They filter out what doesn't fit. So, but we can start looking. We can start recognizing the filter and we can start looking through the filter. And then everything is helping us to be awake and to continuously keep waking up. So one of my students who lives in Canada, she told me she went to a Korean temple, I'm paraphrasing, to a Korean temple, and there were 10 Buddhist tenants right at the front door. You couldn't miss them. And the first one said, expect continuous change.

[26:37]

Not, there is, like we say at Zen Center, there is continuous change, you know, realities, everything is flowing, nothing is fixed. expect it, that's a different attitude, I think. And that's what we're experiencing. But if we start expecting it, we have more agency to meet it, rather than always being surprised or feeling the victim of the changes that come our way. So then, in the EIHEI KOSUKA KANBON, Dogen quotes a Zen master, Lung Yar, who said, Those who in past lives were not enlightened will now be enlightened. In this life, save the body which is the fruit of many lives. Save the body which is the fruit of many lives. Before Buddhas were enlightened, they were the same as we.

[27:43]

Enlightened people of today are exactly as those. Then he goes on. Quietly explore the farthest reaches of these causes and conditions. So how do we have fixed view? How do we come by them? Confessing and repenting in this way. So then we have to confess and repent and repair. And I think that is one. thing that these times are asking us. Actually, I realize I forgot one other crisis that is happening in this storm, and that's the climate crisis, that our natural world is in such horrendous despair that we lose wildlife, we lose plants, we lose

[28:49]

air quality, we lose water quality, we lose what we need for staying alive. So that is the other one, that's all, it's like one big storm, one big package. I also want to say I have, you know, it's hard for me to talk with only a screen, I'm absolutely not used, this is the first time, but I do have Behind the screen is sitting my partner, Marcia. She put on a rocker suit. We offered incense. So occasionally I look at her and what is very helpful to me is she will give me very honest feedback later. So that's very helpful. But I also find looking at you, you are much closer. I remember... The ones I know, I remember how it is to be in your physical presence.

[29:51]

My body remembers. My body remembers Terry. My body remembers Becky. My body remembers Irene from earlier times. It doesn't matter how long ago actually I've been in the same room. When I see your faces, my body creates a whole... energetic context around that. And the ones I haven't met in person, you come through with your energy and I meet you for the first time. So our life, our being is intricately and inseparably connected to the individual body we have been given and we have now. It is a body that continuously participates in and responds to every thought, feeling and action, to every experience, to every impact.

[31:06]

Our body is an organism of complete, all-inclusive responsiveness. functioning continuously, independent of our level of awareness. So it does its thing, whether we are aware or not. But if we become aware, and if we engage it, then we become a fabulous. In this phenomenal existence, we are children of planet Earth. together with all other species in nature. And as such, our bodies too have carried the innate capacity of nature to live in harmony with difference and equality. So Reginald Ray, who wrote the book Touching Enlightenment, says it beautifully, I think.

[32:16]

To be embodied, to be in the body, is to be in connection with everything. When we begin to inhabit the body as our primary way of sensing, feeling, and knowing the world, then we find that we as human beings are in a state of intimate relationship and connection with all that is. It is to know and to feel our connectedness with other people as subject, not as objects. Our fixed views, our habits, divide the world in subject and object. But when our bodies only know subject, That means our bodies in their liberated states, because our bodies are conditioned to generations.

[33:26]

And I'll talk about this later. It is to know the natural world, the earth and the ocean, the rivers and mountains, as our relatives, others with whom we are in the relationship. It is to appreciate the other forms of being also as living, breathing, knowing and loving subjects. So maybe you want to check with your body if you need to shift a little to be able to be present. you free to do whatever you need. So there are two books that I think in terms of the racial biases we all carry in our bodies because they are

[34:47]

genetically passed on through generations. There is the book by Resmaa Menachem. It's called My Grandmother's Hands. And he talks about that embodiment of that transmission of views, of racial views, and has exercises in the book. It's a profoundly kind, nonjudgmental, provocative because it challenges our unconscious belief system, more or less unconscious belief system. It's worthwhile looking into. And the other one is by Robin DiAngelo, it's called White Fragility, why it is so hard for white people to talk about racism. So he Resmaa Menachem doesn't talk about bodies of color, he talks about bodies of culture.

[35:55]

We all carry a body of culture that has been passed to us by family generations, by societal generations, by circumstances that contributed to its creation. So Buddhism is a practice of radical questioning and is a universally inclusive process. It also says everything that ever happens to us is part of our journey toward realization. So everything that happens to us, we can look at and engage as helping us to wake up, to see something we may not have seen before, or to feel something that we didn't feel, or to understand something that we didn't understand in this way.

[37:11]

So in this, Buddhism invites us to take seriously our whole entire human existence, to take everything in our life, in our individual life, as the path. And also in our communal life, whatever is in our circles, whatever touches our life, becomes part of our risk for the mill to wake up, to become more understanding, more loving, more kind. Then it also is, you could think it's maybe not so optimistic, but it is because it says nothing leads us away. There's no possibility of true regression.

[38:18]

No actual mistake. Everything is learning, opening and moving forward. That doesn't mean you don't ever make a mistake. But when you know you made a mistake and you acknowledge you made a mistake and you make amends, you repent and make amends for repair, then you move forward. And we all know that. We had a... fight with a friend and we really made it up truthfully. We have a deeper relationship. Moved us to a deeper level of connection to more intimacy. So there is a fundamental and boundless optimism about what human life is and why we are here. And I think that John Lewis, the Congressman John Lewis, who died two days ago. Now we can see all these vignettes of his life and his quotes, and we've seen him over the years.

[39:30]

He is such an incredible, in Buddhism you would say, realized human being. I think he touches my heart and I think he touches most hearts. When he speaks, he's so authentic and so real and has such deep faith and such courage and such love for humanity. that he is really an incredible loss, but he has been here, and we know it, and we can go back with our technology. We can see him again.

[40:33]

We can be inspired by him again. And I feel every person who dies leaves a legacy that what has touched us about their being is now our responsibility to bring and continue in our life. We can't delegate it to him or anybody else we have lost any longer. It's now our task to what that meant to us, what was touched in us. We now have to cultivate and start manifesting in our own lives. So we do say, you know, learning means assimilating and it means incorporating. So it's interesting that we use these words. So it means walk your talk, manifest your intentions.

[41:36]

So if we change our views, If we understand something more, it has to be incorporated. It has to become manifest. It has to be embodied in our actions. So, I watched an interview with Jane Elliott. She's an old school teacher. I mean, former school teacher. She had a, it was one video on YouTube. You can watch. It's fantastic. There are interviews with her. And she has been working with racial injustice in her school rooms and with people. So she's in a big auditorium and she says to the auditorium, those of you who wouldn't mind being treated like a black person, please stand up.

[42:43]

Nobody stands up. She says, oh, I think you didn't understand the question. If you wouldn't mind being treated like a black person, please stand up. Nobody stands up. She says, so you know. That means you know. Why don't you do anything about it? Why do you put up? And that's the step we have to take. It's not enough to know. We have to not put up with it. We have to act that it's hindering that. We have to counteract that. And that's the same for financial injustice. And that's the same for climate injustice, climate change that's threatening.

[43:52]

That's the same for violence, wherever it occurs, violence is in families, in societies, in all layers of human life, you can find violence. the quotes by John Lewis. It's getting slowly to the end, and I'm looking for the quotes. I was pretty good so far. I'm no less shuffling through papers when I give a talk, and now I thought I didn't do it this time, but here I am, here it is. John Lewis says, when you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up.

[45:04]

You have to say something. You have to do something. So this is ancient twisted karma born through body, speech, and mind. You have to say something. You have to do something. You must be bold, brave, and courageous. And find a way to get in the way of what is not fair, not just, not right. You have to tell the whole truth, the good and the bad, and also maybe things that are not comfortable for other people. So that's another way we keep things under wraps, is to only... They are part of it, the part that we think we're going to get accepted with them, or we're not exposing ourselves. So it's a practice of vulnerability. It's a practice of uprooting taboos, unspoken taboos.

[46:12]

When you make mistakes, when you're wrong, you should admit you're wrong and ask people to forgive you. I am very hopeful. I am very optimistic about the future. There may be some difficulties, some interruptions, but as a nation and as a people, we are going to build a truly multiracial democratic society that maybe can emerge as a model for the rest of the world. And I do think we are at the crucial point. There's such a combination of those four things that we have a chance to wake up, to speak up, to show up, to manifest in the ways we can in our individual lives. So I'm not going to demonstrations.

[47:18]

because I'm low-hanging fruit for the virus at this moment. But there may be a day when I go. But who do I support? Where can I support? So we all can look for what we can do that doesn't endanger other people or endanger us. So I think it's time to wrap up the talk. I want to end it again with the Hafez poem. The subject today is love. And for tomorrow night as well. As a matter of fact, I know of no better topic for us to discuss until we all die. And then he has another one, a short one that I quote often, and it goes like this.

[48:23]

And love says, I will, I will take care of you to everything near, to everyone near. Thank you very much for... Bringing your energy to this talk, which came through the screen and co-shaped it, I wish you continuous good health, safety, wellness, courage to stretch, speak up, show up, learn, and share with each other. Thank you.

[49:27]

May our intention equally extended 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. I believe that Cristina will be taking questions or comments now. Before moving into that, I'd like to invite everyone to take a look in the chat window.

[50:34]

I'm sending a link now if you feel moved and able to donate to San Francisco Zen Center. Your donations are very much appreciated, and we rely on them for these programs. asking me questions. I also want to point out that we will be intending to post the question and answer session along with the talk on the website. So the questions that come on camera or audio will be recorded. And if you'd like to ask a question and don't want to be recorded, you can send me a chat and I can read it out for you. If you'd like to ask a question, please raise your hand digitally, if you can. On your device somewhere, there should be a button, Raise Hands. You may find it in More or somewhere around there, depending on your device.

[51:40]

So if you'd like to ask a question or make a comment, please go ahead and raise your hand. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, maybe now it's only one thing, no echoes. Okay, I wanted to say that your message is great. I love your message. I originally thought for a... Buddhists during these conflicts and all that would say a detachment and be peaceful and everything is not going to last very long. But in fact, you are asking, encourage people to speak up and show up. It's really encouraging and inspiring. However, I wanted to say that in my reality, I feel at least in this subculture or maybe...

[52:44]

local culture or current atmosphere, people are very afraid of different opinions. Almost in any kind of group situations, they want the speaker's talk to be pleasant to hear, so not offending anyone. To me, that kind of keeps the conversation at a very superficial level, even though it appears to be safe. So When you do, how do you deal with if you are telling some opinions without even knowing what may trigger the audience or the group members past horrible memories or whatever? How do you deal with that? Because to me, conversation dialogue is not about pleasing people. It's about to express honestly what you feel. And I don't know, I just encountered this a lot in here.

[53:47]

And I'm coming from New York, so it's, like, difficult to adjust. Yes. Yes. I think you encounter a cultural difference in how New Yorkers kind of, if we make a type, kind of a type, which is also, of course, there are many, many different people from New York. But there's a different style. There is a difference. So I think partly what would maybe help is just saying I'm coming from New York. So then people have, see, I'm coming from Switzerland. So it's a very different culture. So I'm perceived here, or I heard, I mean, I came here in 88, that I'm persistent, you know, tenacious, you know, bold, because the way we talk is maybe a little bit comparable to New York and West Coast, East Coast, West Coast.

[54:59]

So I think then saying, oh, that's a cultural difference already opens the field. It takes it out of personal. takes it out. This person is, or my sister lives in New Zealand. And she said when she, they had an abutting piece of property where a little creek ran through and there was always a puddle at the bottom in that field, you know, it was kind of swampy place. And she went over to talk to her neighbors and said, I think we have a problem with the creek. Could we talk about this? And the neighbors were absolutely, flabbergasted and offended and she said it took her a long time to understand if you use the word we have a problem in New Zealand that means all the other means of peacefully talking have been exhausted. This is the moment we go to court is when we have a problem.

[56:01]

So in Switzerland you say we have a problem we say yeah oh yeah we have a shared problem what are we going to do about it in New Zealand you can't say that. So Understanding that there's a cultural difference of expressing helps take it out of the person. That will be helpful. Then I think it's very important to also be sensitive to in which environment people are open to really listen to each other and to hear other experiences. And let them be the person's experience, not to take it on as, oh, it's my fault or not my fault, but as a learning. And there are groups where that's not happening and there you might not speak up so much. To really find your circles where that's possible and to also say, I feel we stayed all in a pleasant, you know, you can sometimes give some input and it's a slow development.

[57:05]

It's a skill that is, has to do about deep listening and in some ways be more interested in learning than in sharing your opinion. Okay. I think opinions are very difficult because they are already part of fixed views. But if you can put things in questions, that this is... you wonder about this, might also invite people to become more forced. Great suggestion. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you for your question. I wanted to read a question that came from the chat. Mm-hmm. What can predominantly white sanghas do to include and do no harm to people of color? I think really turn the light inward and be interested in how whiteness is, how having been born white,

[58:30]

and live growing up in whiteness is shaping what we see, how we perceive, how we act, and that make the unconscious and also the physical teachings we've been given. You know, we walk, most of white people, And that's also not true. You know, in every segment of humanity, there is an enormous amount of variety. So I'm not speaking for every white person. That would not be fair. But in general, white people can walk down the street unafraid. And we don't know. We don't even know that that's not true for everybody. We hear it, but we don't try to... to feel it, because that's part of that we just think, well, I'm not the danger, so why are they afraid?

[59:33]

That's totally not the right question. So we have to turn inward and really be willing to look at and start admitting how we've been conditioned by being white and how that conditioning is actually harming people of color. and keeping the status quo going on and on and on. I hope that is, is there more to that question or is that satisfying preliminary answer? Thank you. Don't see a follow-up in the chat. If there is a follow-up, you can chat it later, please. So next is Terry. Hi, Terry. Oh, you're still muted.

[60:38]

There. Hi, Terry. Hi. It's great to be in your presence again. You talked... You talked briefly in the beginning about sadness and grief, and that really touched me. And could you say just more about that? How do I deal with that or experience it or what it means? I think everybody... You know, we are really all totally connected and we are at the same time absolutely individual. So some people feel the grief, feel very connected to the grief. Some people feel much more connected to the courageous activity and the grief is more in the background.

[61:41]

So I don't know. It's not... I think we should engage where we are being engaged, and that will lead to bigger engagement, bigger views. So I don't know. I think if you feel a lot of grief or you feel that underlying sadness, dying of COVID is not an easy death. You can't breathe. So if you're sedated and you don't feel anything, maybe your body doesn't struggle so much, but you're basically suffocating by the devastation of your lungs, or then from other organ failure, if that's not the lungs, go first. But I think you could do a little ritual every day. You could just invoke... all the helpful spirits and entities, mahasattvas, bodhisattvas, to concentrate on the people that are suffering and grieving and wishing them well and wishing them support and wishing them ease in their, you know, what eases their suffering.

[63:02]

And so you could do, and that would be a manifestation and embodiment of an intention. And that has effect, that energy moves like the virus has no boundaries. It moves into the whole universe and it's tangible and it changes something. It's like a butterfly's flapping its wing somewhere and then there's a storm somewhere. There's no limits to that energy. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, you gave me somewhere to begin. Thank you. Christina, there was a follow-up question from the question prior on the chat with respect to what can predominantly white sanghas do to include and do no harm to people of color?

[64:09]

Are there specific actions as the follow-up? Well, for me, one specific action is actually reading the books and studying, doing the exercises that Murismar Menachem I find it very hard because I do think white people have to be cognizant enough and skilled enough to counteract or have new ways of relating based on their understanding of their white biases that we just inherited.

[65:28]

We didn't choose. So that's one of the difficulties. A lot of us are not consciously racist or intentional. And it's very hard to to find out that we are unintentionally very racist in our behaviors, in our way of talking, in our way of thinking. So I feel like we have to become more cognizant and skillful in those ways. And that's for me an action, become cognizant and more skillful and more embodied before we can really engage it together. I mean, there have been so many innumerable attempts at inclusiveness, diversity, and it always has ended up hurting people of color in some ways. It always has created more continuous hurt.

[66:30]

And of course, one would like to say, well, tell us what to do, but I think that's exactly not true. But that's not an appropriate question. We have to find out ourselves. It's our job. So I do think there are things happening at Zen Center. And it's up for me to the people of color that are involved in those groups. It's for them to judge whether that's helpful or not. So I feel not very skillful in that area. I have lots to learn and to... So maybe there's more questions.

[67:32]

So to me, this is like I'm having a conversation with the chat person. So this is how far I got right now. So if there's more, please say something more in the chat and maybe in between, somebody else can have full sweat time. Thank you. Next is Cyprian. Go ahead, Cyprian. And Christina. Thank you for your talk today. I can't see you on my screen anymore, but I assume you're still there. I am. Oh, there you are. I have a comment and a question, and my comment is just the profound sense of relief that I feel in hearing your articulation of the truth of our moment and especially of the...

[68:34]

grief that we're all carrying and so up and not able to acknowledge so thank you for that and my my question has to do with the passage the second passage from the eh kosovotsu gunman that you quoted the the lines from zen master lung ya which i have always puzzled over the first two um those who are not enlightened in previous lives will now be enlightened in this life, save the body, which is the fruit of many lives. I wondered if you would say a little bit more about your understanding of those two lines. It means, you know, it is based on the understanding that we have many lifetimes, which we live in a culture that doesn't think of many lifetimes. And I think that is, actually detrimental in the terms that it supports us having fixed views.

[69:39]

It doesn't help us to grow. And it doesn't connect us to the time of nature, which has its own time, and mind is much faster than body or... So it just accelerates everything, and therefore then we get overwhelmed and we hold on to whatever fixed use we can. So I think this is all part of a package. So the quote comes from an understanding that we have many, many, many lifetimes. And that means we're all, because we all innately as living beings have Buddha nature as a seed. that will start to grow. We will start to wake up. And so we will become like Buddhas of the past. Maybe not in this life, but when we know that we can do our very best to wake up as much as we can in this life.

[70:48]

And that would mean to take everything that comes our way to use it as a teaching, to see it as a teaching that everything is expounding the truth. Everything is showing us reality. And if we start really being interested, particularly about the things that get in our way, then we use this life and save this body that has been given to us, which in Buddhism is said it's a very rare... special gift to have a human body because it's the one existence where you have the most capacity to wake up. Thank you. You know, when the grief you're speaking about, I mean, it's the grief of today, of now, but it's the grief of hundreds of years of

[71:53]

of oppression, of hundreds, thousands of all the humanities, years of violence, oppression, wars and devastations and pandemics of the whole humanity. It's just right now we are in a concentrated moment. Yes, breathing is always good. Not breathing out. Lauren? Hi, Lauren. Can't hear you.

[72:55]

Lauren, you are unmuted, Lauren. It seems to be an issue with the microphone. If you'd like to chat your message, I'd be happy to read it. In the meantime, I would like to tell you another practice that I think is really, really helpful and important in these days, and that's the practice of appreciation. If in the morning when you wake up, you name out loud all the things that support your life, that you have a bed to sleep in, that you slept well, that you're waking up, that you have something to put on the table, that whatever it is, small... that we've gotten so used to, we take it as granted, and each thing you say out loud and you say thank you.

[74:16]

And when you go to bed at night, you do the same before you go to sleep. So that in the midst of limitation, deprivation, struggle, difficulty, you frame your day with what supports you and your night. Because there... We wouldn't be sitting in this room and listening to each other if we hadn't been supported profoundly. So to just keep saying that and to the partners you have, to the friends, just say thank you. And that will make you feel that in the midst of the difficulties, you are also living in a supportive universe. Can you hear me now? Yeah, I can. Oh, okay. I was starting to feel like maybe I didn't need to ask this because what you were just saying seemed like a nice way to end.

[75:20]

So thank you again. You mentioned at one point in the talk, like, I can't remember the example, but you said that's the wrong question. And I've been thinking actually a lot recently about how to ask better questions. just in general, but, you know, specifically with doing this own inner work on racist conditioning and just in general, all the conditioning that I'm, you know, working with waking up to and unlearning. So I was curious first, what your thoughts are on working with ourselves on asking better questions. And if possible, the second piece I would, I'm struggling with a little bit is especially with, um, maybe people in my life, I'm thinking of like family members who might not be in the same place and have a little bit more of like a cynical view on things. How can, I mean, working with that and helping, you know, I know that some people may be not as receptive, but just working with that, if you have any thoughts.

[76:30]

Yeah. Well, you know, to live in harmony with all beings is what we say when we take to the refugees and take refuge in Sangha. That means with the ones that are not receptive, with the ones that have other views, with the ones that are not available. So can we create a field big enough so that they're there, but we're not butting our heads against them? We just include them. So I think for all the ones we can't really have communications, we put them in a field of kindness. We put them out to grace in a field of kindness.

[77:34]

And leave them there. And every day we say, I hope you have everything you need. I hope you're well. I hope you're safe. And we turn towards the things we can really that meet us or we can meet in ourselves. And the others just so you have maybe you're surrounded by a lot of grazing fields of kindness. All these groups and people. And that will change something. And. You know, we say to people, or we used to say, or I heard it, and I have said it to students, don't talk about your practice. It's confusing. It's challenging. It's actually not. You can only talk to somebody who is practicing, too, in some way. But your family members and your friends will notice how you change. who you are becoming, how you are becoming more of you. And some of them you will lose because they want it to fix you and you're not that.

[78:40]

But some of them, the relationship will get deeper. And they will understand your practice by the manifestation of it. How you've become more patient, maybe, or less sharp, or more equanimous, more relaxed. I don't know. or more active. Some people are so relaxed they become more active. Thank you. You're welcome. Is there anything more waiting? I don't see any more comments. Okay. Well, then maybe it's time to say goodbye.

[79:41]

Okay. Michael. Hi, Michael. If you'd like to say goodbye, go ahead and you're welcome to unmute yourself. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Christina. Thank you, Christina. Thank you. Thank you very much. I love to thank you. Bye. Bye. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, too. Thank you so much. So welcome. Thank you, Christina. You're welcome. Thank you. Oh, there's a dog waving.

[80:48]

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