Good morning. I just wanted to start by thanking you all for how well you take care of each other. I vow not to take what is not given. The self and objects are such as they are. Two, yet one. The gate of liberation. stands open. One day Master Zhao Zhou was outside the monastery and an old woman came along carrying a basket. He asked her, where are you going? The old woman said, I am going to steal Zhao Zhou's bamboo shoots. Zhao Zhou said, well what will you do if you run into Zhao Zhou? The old woman walked up to Zhao Zhou and slapped him. So I was wondering where it all starts, you know, stealing.

[01:08]

Because when we're little babies, like Kaliopi, pretty much everything is given to us quite freely and happily. Mostly. At least if you survive the infancy, probably, at least some of it. You know, you're kept warm and you're fed and your diapers are changed and all of that. You're taught to walk and talk and then they show you your seat in school. And for a while, I think it seems that everything is just going to be given to you, you know, forever. Till about maybe third grade, as I recall. And this funny stuff starts to happen. People who were your playmates when you were little, all of a sudden turn into categories. Popular kids are over there. They know who they are. And... The kind of unusual kids are over there together, and then there's the outliers who are separate from everybody else by themselves.

[02:13]

I played in the band, so we hung out in the band room. We were one category of nerd for sure. And so I think when this process of being aligned into groups begins is when this hunger starts to set in. And for those of us who are living in years of mass marketing, that hunger has been definitely a fuel by the encouragement to not only need things, have to have, but really to want them desperately. Like that one of everything in the Toyota ad. He knew he'd be happy when he had one of everything. So they're the things that we're taught to want, but then there are things we're taught we have to get rid of, you know, like dandruff and wrinkles and extra weight. I have all three. And they are products that are designed for me to help me recover my youth.

[03:23]

They don't work. But anyway, we are an imaginary dent in the universe that we call meat. And so we're a sucker for marketing strategies. You know, we're either spending our time and dollars trying to clean out the dent or trying to fill it up. One or the other. And these actions are what the precepts are all about. So cleaning it out is basically self-hatred. Get out of here. I don't want you. I don't like you. I don't need you. is also lies. It's a lie. And filling it up is a lie. You know, I have to have it. This is mine. I'm going to keep it. I own you. So on. So stealing is one of those you know, gotta have it. Fill it up. Precept. Violations. And what is it?

[04:28]

What is the treasure that one wants to steal? Dogen says the treasure is is the entire world in the ten directions, is one bright pearl. Seeing this, there is no treasure, no thief, no stealing, no face. This being so, there is only treasure. There is only treasure. So, you know, without that kind of clarity of vision that Dogen's talking about, we still keep moving around the world like a dent. You know, like an empty basket. And clearly there's something missing. But the worst part is, we really don't know what it is. So how will we find it? I told you that Leonard Cohen song that had been running through my head. That, you know, I can't forget. I won't sing all the verses. I can't forget. I can't forget. But I don't remember what. I don't remember who. It's very frustrating.

[05:32]

So I think out there in the real world, stealing is a lot easier than it is here in the monastery because you can actually get something, you know, that you can take home with you, like a car or some money, jewelry, a vase. But here, it's really kind of esoteric and conceptual. how we go about stealing. And I think we don't get much satisfaction because already most of everything we need is being given to us. So then we resort to things like overdue library books and kitchen utensils, which are somehow missing, you know, things like that. Work meeting announcements are usually about something that's been taken. And would you please bring it back? It's really petty theft. That black sweatshirt that ended up in someone's closet.

[06:39]

They don't know how it got there. So... He's not laughing. Why is that? So we do take things, though. We take extra time off, right? From zazen, we sleep, take a nap. We take breaks during soji, we take baths at unscheduled times, kind of taking what we're doing now and then. And we don't have so much to show for it except that it feels bad, like the people who are stealing things out there, in particular when we get caught and someone recommends us. We feel terrible. It's embarrassing. We kind of promise ourselves we won't do that again, you know, get caught. LAUGHTER So I think the real pain of this situation isn't whether we're caught or not or whether we get away with anything or not or whether we really needed to have that extra time or not.

[07:44]

The pain is that we actually think that there's something outside of ourselves that we need to get. It's the dent. That's the pain. Stealing is all about pain. So as Ryokan said, if the thief had only waited... One thief who took all his stuff, he just waited. I could have given him the moon. I could have helped him to wake up. What he really wanted was to be whole. So what we call objects are actually the very things that are giving us our life in every moment. By just being there with us. Just by being there. And that's why we love them so much and why we want to keep them. Because they're making our life. So these objects are nothing more than what we call seeing and hearing and feeling and touching and tasting and thinking. The objects of those senses, or sense and objects together, make us whole.

[08:53]

You can't have one without the other. No object, no subject. So we also chant in our meals, before each meal, The emptiness of the three wheels, giver, receiver, and gift. And what that really means is you have to have all three. You can't have one without all three. No giver, no receiver, no gift. That's what emptiness means, the pentacle rising. They come up together. No meal, no chanting choir, no servers. Nothing happens. Nothing moves. So what is it that's missing? If it's already yours, what's missing? What is that? When Dharma does not fill your body and mind, we think it's already sufficient.

[09:54]

When Dharma fills our body and mind, you understand something's missing. Once again, what is it? What is it? Well, we don't know. And that's the frustrating part. We don't know, so we try lots of different things. We try on lots of outfits and hats and meals and recipes and all kinds of stuff. Looking, always looking, seeking. I went to practice discussion with Ed Brown long, long time ago now. He was at Green Gulch. He was practice leader there. I remember going upstairs into his, that scary thing, going into the room with the practice leader and particularly Ed. I mean, he's a really very strong presence. So he was a lot younger then, you know, 30 years younger. Young, handsome young monk, looking very serious. And I said to him, what about this monk?

[10:56]

And he looked at me a little kindly, sort of kindly, I guess. But then he started to laugh. And then pretty soon he was howling. And then I was laughing. And we were both laughing and crying and just, you know. And then I left. What about this longing? So... Although the urge to steal is usually connected with greed, it can also be motivated by anger or resentment, like when we steal something from an ex-girlfriend or boyfriend or from an ex-boss. The problem with that stuff is that it's very toxic, and pretty soon you'll get rid of it because it will remind you of somebody that you hate. And this kind of stealing also is a lot worse than the kind motivated by greed, as I said to you the other day, because... It separates you from someone else. It's cutting you off, cutting them off from your life. It's that push away, the dead trying to empty itself of something it doesn't want.

[11:59]

So that one actually creates a pretty challenging and perfect karmic storm. Because once you do the stealing, you also do the ill will and the deceit and the wishing harm and praising of yourself at the expense of the other and so on. So this is a one-way ticket to hell. So there's this other kind of stealing, yet another kind, there are many kinds, that results from a kind of laziness or carelessness. That's the kind I, well, I probably do all of them, but it's the kind I mostly remember noticing I was doing, particularly when I lived at Page Street. They had this drawer in the office that had stamps in it. So whenever I needed a stamp, I'd go in the drawer and get a stamp with the intention of paying them back, which I never did. I mean, who has a quarter? You know, I never walked around a quarter.

[13:00]

So I just kept taking stamps and probably many years of taking stamps. And I remember telling, by the time I'd become a practice leader, I told one of the students who was talking about being a thief. I said, well, I'm a thief. I've been taking stamps for years. And then the next day in my basket, there were 200 stamps with love written on them. I know, it was so embarrassing. And I just never took any stamps ever again, you know. So when we study the precepts, we begin by the literal study of them, the conventional meaning of them, what it means to really not take anything, you know, literally. Just what does it mean when you... Take something. How does that look? How does that feel? You know, so there's that saying I've been telling you, you say you're innocent while you're clutching the loot. So in this case, you know, stop saying you're innocent. And just notice that you're clutching the loot.

[14:00]

You've got something that wasn't given to you. And you know it. It's how you feel about it. And by taking these precepts literally, it illuminates these unconscious actions that we usually are doing where we're not noticing. those little subtle ways that we take things from others. Things I was mentioning, like time, small things, stamps, and stuff like that. And this is all of which is based on this illusion that we're separate from the world. It's based on the idea that there is a pocket in the universe, a dent, that's called me, that needs things. So this is the good thing about stealing. It helps you to see that, that it's just not so. So being very careful and attentive to our tendencies to steal in these small ways can help us to be alert to those possibilities of even larger and unconscious theft.

[15:02]

Which applies also to the relationships that we have to other people. Maybe the most important kind of stealing that we do to pay attention to. So, for example, you take credit for someone else's work. Or maybe you make agreements with people which aren't so explicit so that it works out to your advantage. Or maybe you don't give your full energy or time to the task that you share with others. Oh, I just remember doing that the other day, oh my God. There were three of us standing there watching people carrying things up and down, talking like we really had business to do, like, gee, do you think they're done yet? Oh, I'm not going to tell you who it was, the three of you in this room. And we were like, you know, kind of enjoying the little joke. We didn't go down and get a thing and bring it up. Oh, I'm so sorry. Excuse me. Please. That is not good. The things we do for a laugh is really bad.

[16:03]

So anyway, not showing up, being late for work, not having the right clothes with you or your gloves. All of these things are ways that we take from one another. you know, that we don't necessarily own up to. You know, and then there's all the, you know, kind of the way of life at the monastery is, you know, to stop and talk to each other along the path and so on. I mean, that's how we live together. But, you know, there's a subtle taking that's going on there, taking our time. So, they're not bad things, really, in and of themselves. I really don't feel we should be beating ourselves up about any of that. These are rather minor, and they're also... I mean, I don't think we want to live a different way than that. I certainly wouldn't want to be in a Zen center where nobody did any of that sort of thing. I don't think so. Sashin's as close as we get. It's nice to take a break from taking breaks, but... I think the main thing is that we really connect to our tendencies.

[17:10]

Suzuki Roshi said that... After the Second World War, he said, we need to know our tendencies. I think one of the least flattering ways that we steal is by taking advantage of other people. And I have a very painful story of my own about a young man named Chris Persig. whose father wrote the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and Chris lived at Zen Center when I was there years and years ago. I was pretty new. I think I worked on a kitchen crew or something, and Chris was fairly new, and he was taking night classes at City College in his early 20s, maybe. I was probably closer to 30. And the thing about Chris was he was really good-natured, So he was the guy that we would always ask to do, to be a dish substitute for us. You know, everyone used Chris because he'd say yes, but then he didn't do it.

[18:14]

So it was perfect, you know. He didn't do it. So then I didn't have to do it. I didn't have to, you know, pay back anything. Nothing happened. So, you know, that went on forever. We were all just going, of course, Chris. I don't know. So we could go to the movies. And... But, you know, really, you know, you're laughing and I'm laughing, but actually he wasn't very kind to Chris. And, you know, I think he thought we were being his friends. And kind of in a way, we weren't being good friends to him. Not even in a way, we weren't. That wasn't good friends. Friends don't do that. You know, we took advantage of him. And in a way, he took advantage of us because he was getting thanked all the time. We just appreciated him for doing our dishes. So that's kind of a deal that we had going. And then one night, we were all called out into the street. This is the really hard part. And Chris was laying there in a pool of blood, and he was dead.

[19:17]

And we never found out who killed him. He was stabbed, coming home from school. And we just stood there, and he cried, and he cried, and he cried, and he cried. And the thing is, I feel that... Partly I remember Chris because of the shame I feel about not having had an honest relationship with him, about not showing up and, you know, really making sure he and I were not giving or taking something from one another that wasn't really being given. So I don't get to tell him I'm sorry. And that's why I carry him and will always carry him. And his lovely smile. Both things are there. So the stealing mind is the ultimate culprit in the actions that we take when we violate this precept. It's the way we look at the world. And yet sometimes the stealing mind can be turned on its head and result in some real intimacy with another, you know, which is what I want to talk about around this story of the old lady and Zhaozhou.

[20:27]

And so the thoughts I'm going to share with you next are ones that I pretty much thought about when I wrote an essay around this koan for a book called The Hidden Lamp, which is a series of, I don't know, hundreds of stories about women in the history of Zen, koans that feature women or have women in them. And then the commentary to these koans were done by women currently teaching in all of the world. So Sung Moon and Florence Kaplow put together this tremendous project to get everybody to get them in on time and get them edited and so on. But anyway, they did it and they got it published and it's a wonderful book anyway. So I have a short essay in there as well about this koan. So I think what this koan does is that it, let me read it to you again. One day Master Zhajo was outside the monastery.

[21:32]

Old woman came along carrying a basket. He asked her, where are you going? She said, I'm going to steal Zhajo's bamboo shoots. Zhajo said, what are you going to do if you run into Zhajo? The old woman walked up to Zhajo and slapped him. So I think this koan invites a deeper look at the world that we meet in each moment. All the complex causes and conditions that arise as we walk through the world and run into one another. Conditions which sprout up fresh, lively, and new in each and every moment, just like those bamboo shoots. Always fresh, always new, and always freely given. Just like the spring for us. And yet this old woman says she's going to go out and steal them. It's kind of curious. What's she up to? Why is she going to steal them? And so she goes with her empty basket, you know, with the dent, just like us when we go out shopping. We have a list and some cash, and we have things that we have to get, you know, and this longing to fill.

[22:38]

And in this way, we're enacting the Buddha's first and second noble truth. You know, there's an anguish about something I need. That's the suffering. And then there's this desire to get this thing, which I don't even know what it is, that's going to satisfy that anguish. So that's the cause of suffering. The desire for things to be brighter or better than they are. So if we only had some bamboo shoots, we could brighten up the afternoon meal, or if, you know, if my parents would just stop fighting, or if my father weren't an alcoholic, or if I weren't getting old and preparing to die, you know, it was kind of if only thinking that we do, how much better things would be, right? So to the Buddha's eye, all of these myriad conditions fit together perfectly. Give her, receive her a gift. They're all arising together. It's kind of like, you know, this magical moment, the big bang in reverse. You've got the old man, the old woman, the bamboo shoots and spring and just this is it.

[23:42]

Each moment. Creation itself arising fresh. So when Jajo says, where are you going? I think he's challenging her. To respond. Where are you going? And so she tests him back by slapping him. She tests his humanity. What are you going to do, big guy? Little woman. Slaps you in the face. A real test. Kind of a cliffhanger. I mean, it ends there. We don't know. We get to say. What does he do? So she's pretty sassy. And she's maybe kind of figuring out if he remembers who he really is. Do you know who you are? Do you remember me? We've been together a long time, like millions and millions of cowboys we've been traveling together.

[24:47]

I've changed your diaper thousands of times. I was your wife and your sister and your mother. And you were my husband and my brother and my friend. Did you forget? You forget who I am? You know, she's all women, he's all men, all time, all meetings together, forgetting over and over again who we really are to each other. You're my sweetheart, you're my daughter, you're my mother, you're my friend. I think the slap was to, you know, open his loving heart. And we don't say this word love very often in Zen. It doesn't show up in the koans or in the teaching stories, hardly at all. And I think it's maybe fear. Fear of that emotion that we feel for each other, that love we feel that we dare not say, including the fear we have of each other's bodies. Men and women, men and men, women and women. Scary.

[25:48]

Intimacy is very scary. The lovely bodies of children and of women and of old women and of old men. Amazing. Amazing. So I think this story's about love, and I think it's about sex. And I think it's hidden. You keep it hidden. And that's the precept I'm going to talk about tomorrow, the hidden precept. So does he hit her back? Well, I don't think he does. I think he laughs his goofy old head off, and I think she does too. And then I think they walk together as we do. together in community, taking care of each other as best we can, stealing each other's bamboo shoots. Smile. So I'm going to end with a poem that Kodo kindly gave to me earlier in the practice period before he broke his toe.

[26:51]

May I? It's okay. Yeah. Thank you. It's called To Hold by Lee Yong Lee. So we're dust. My wife and I make the bed. Holding opposite edges of the sheet, we raise it, billowing. Then pull it tight, measuring by eye as it falls into alignment between us. We tuck, fold, tuck. And if I'm lucky, she'll remember a recent dream and tell me. One day we'll lie down and not get up. One day, all we guard will be surrendered. Until then, we'll go on learning to recognize what we love and what it takes to tend what isn't for our having. So often, fear has led me to abandon what I know I must relinquish in time. But for the moment, I'll listen to her dream and she to mine. Our mutual hearing calling more and more detail

[27:59]

into the light of a joint and fragile keeping. Would you like to hear that now? Yeah, isn't it wonderful? So we're dust. My wife and I make the bed. Holding opposite edges of the sheet, we raise it, billowing, and then pull it tight, measuring by eye as it falls into alignment between us. We tuck, fold, tug, fold, and tuck. And if I'm lucky, she'll remember a recent dream and tell me. One day we'll lie down and not get up. One day, all we guard will be surrendered. Until then, we'll go on learning to recognize what we love and what it takes to tend what isn't for our having. So often fear has led me to abandon what I know I must relinquish in time. But for the moment, I'll listen to her dream and she to mine. our mutual hearing calling more and more detail into the light of a joint and fragile keeping.

[29:06]

Is there anything you would like to bring up? No. No. That's over. Okay. That's all. there's sometimes a tendency to look at the very roots of the tradition to find some position for what is currently happening. And I feel like, especially at Zen, that I often really are trying to fit Shakyamuni Buddha somehow in the Zen tradition, you know, like somehow make him fit and what we are doing. And sometimes it feels a bit like is twice you give to children when you have like a certain shape of a circle and a rectangle and you have the circle of Zen tradition that have the rectangle Buddha very hard to fit it in but sometimes feel like it doesn't really work so well because if you look at the early Buddhism the Buddha said you have to basically have to experience jhanas to get liberate

[30:21]

We don't teach that. It seems to work. And there are other teachings from the... Can you tell me what you're wanting to say? I'd really like to know. I'm trying. Okay, all right. Is it going to take a while? No, I hope not. Okay. there is this old teaching and Zen has evolved Zen has changed and we don't care about the trials anymore as far as I know and we have the Mahayana teachings but they are quite different from the early Buddhism so I think my question is maybe it would be good to have the coach at some point to say actually we are doing something different it's not exactly the same as the early Buddhism Things have changed. So why are we trying so much to make something old fit into something new that has evolved?

[31:30]

Yeah, it does. We're doing something different. That's just me. I don't speak for the tradition. I can only speak for me and you for you. So I don't know if what you said is true or not. And I don't know if what I said is true or not. It's just what I think. I think we're doing something different and not something different. I think we love the old material. I love it. I like practicing the jhanas until I get bored. So there's nothing wrong with any of it. If you want to practice the Vasudhimagala or you want to do the jhanas or you want to, you know, just sit there and do shikantaza, I went to a jhana teacher and we practiced jhanas and it was really fun. And he said, yeah, that's it, you got it. And I said, great. I said, what do you use them for? And he said, I use them to get ready for shikantaza. Is that the square, is that the triangle in the circle?

[32:33]

Maybe. You know, it'll fit. And the square around. You can put them all together. They don't have to be separate. They can be linear. And also, just like that single-celled creature that became you over a long period of time, things change. But they don't lose. There's never been discontinuity between that first life form and you, or you wouldn't be here. You've never died. Yet. So, you know, I don't want to cut it off, and I don't want to say it's the same or differently or whatever. I think it's open to conversation, which is, I think, what you... Opening a conversation. No, I said we should know if how they're talking about Buddhist nature is a Seneca heresy, which is also part of Mahayana Buddhism.

[33:42]

It's the Mahayana Buddhism said that the Seneca heresy is heretical. So I'm just looking at the Mahayana tradition and the dialogue that it's having with itself. You know, this is an ongoing conversation. What did it mean when the Buddhist said four noble truths or non-duality or the middle way? And that's all we've been talking about is his first sermon for 2,500 years. And it's a dialogue back and forth, back and forth. That's all Nagarjuna talked about. It's all the Sangha talked about. It's all Suzuki Roshi's talking about. Four Noble Truths. And the cessation of suffering. What does it mean when the cessation of suffering? How does that happen? Well, he said it's a way of life. He didn't say it's a hookah bang. He said it's a way of life. It's the fourth Noble Truth. The way he lives. how you think, how you understand, how you get a job, how you talk to people.

[34:48]

That's in my... So, you know, this is a really open discussion, and we can certainly, you and I have had it many times, and we can have it many more times, I hope. Along with everyone else. I don't think it should ever close. Like, okay, case is closed, Zen is now Zen, and Polycanon is a polycanon and never, they shouldn't come together. I think they have to come together. They're, you know, it's family. Sean. This image is coming up right now of stealing The impulse to steal might come from this idea of an empty basket, which is some sense that we don't have this vast treasure of the universe that people said something like Dogen said, it's all treasure, something like that.

[35:58]

Yeah, something like that. Direct quote. Yeah. And it seems like what's coming up is that's the biggest theft, is this delusion. of not seeing this ultimate treasure, we're like stealing it from ourselves in some other way. Yet, so this image of me, like we're just coming up with like seeing this treasure and there's this opportunity to see it and be with it and some delusions, clouds we might say, like get in our way. And then we're like, oh no, don't have it anymore. Do you see the treasure that's waving its hands right now? You do? Yeah. Great. Me too. This image was coming up of like your, when you're talking about the clouds, like watch where they collect, you said in a past career, some time ago.

[36:59]

Yeah. Yeah, I remember. The treasure is my question. Are clouds part of it? Absolutely. Absolutely. If without the clouds, we got nothing. Nothing. Vast emptiness, you know. Non-imaginative wisdom, no clouds, no person, no self, no nothing, no problems, no nothing. No imagination. You don't live there. That's like standing at the top of Everest and watching everything drop away. And you can't breathe, you know. And you're going to drop away if you don't get off of there. So non-imaginative wisdom is a confirmation that there's nothing happening. That this is an illusion. But we don't live. We can't live there because that's not what humans are built for. That's not what ships are built for. So we have to learn how to sail on these illusions, on these clouds.

[38:03]

Without the strings. Cloud, you know, monks are called clouds. Cloud Hall. Ringgold, just Cloud Hall. That's where the monks live. Clouds then become a reminder of the treasure rather than... They are the treasure. They are. If there's a treasure, it's what you got right now. You're looking at it. I don't mean me. You're looking at it. Is it? Always. Every moment. is the treasure. The whole universe. That's what Dovid said. The whole universe is the treasure. What are you seeking? The whole universe is the treasure you're seeking. What is your suggestion to do, say, when I notice myself stealing?

[39:26]

And, since we're all thieves, when I notice other thieves stealing? Well, you put it back. That's half. And that's probably enough for a beginner. When you're ready to teach other people, then you won't be stealing. You show them how by not doing it. But we're all thieves. I mean, it sounds like we're never going to stop stealing, right? Well, it depends on whether you're talking literally or you're talking like just funny mind stuff, mind games. I mean, all of it. Really? You're not? Okay, that's fine. That's fine. That's a commitment.

[40:28]

The commitment is not to steal. The precept is not to steal. Yes, I confessed. That's right. So you're confessing now that you're a thief. I'm confessing I'm a thief. I don't want to do that again. I don't think I'm going to do that again. That's why I confessed it. I could feel the pain when I recognized that. I didn't like that feeling. I'm not judging the other people who are with me. I think they're adorable, and I'm not judging them at all. I wanted to join them. I wanted to be with them. So there's love. That's important, too. But I'm going to choose not to do that again. For me. For my sense of my own character. Oh. And I've got to do that all the time. They made me the abbot. I am really stuck. You know? People are looking at me. I used to be having a lot more fun.

[41:30]

Driving fast. Now I go slow. Thank you. Whoever said that. Thank you. Thank you. Come on. Moan. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard life. And you deal with precepts. Watch out, guys. Be careful. Zen's an alligator. He'll eat you up, and then you become an alligator. That's the story I heard. Yeah? I think in some other spiritual traditions, a lot of times when we hear about stealing, especially when we've been stolen from a really concrete way, I'm definitely thinking about a time that my bike got stolen. There's encouragement, it seems, to forgive the person that stole from you. And I wonder if that's a thing that then encourages.

[42:35]

And if so, let me tell the difference between I think I'm supposed to deliberate myself from some kind of ill will and a real authentic. Well, first, you have to find your bike. Then you can forgive them. So we report it to the police when people steal things. We want to get it back. It's not okay for people to steal our cars or our bikes or whatever. It's not okay. We don't want them to do that. It's bad for them, too. It's good. You know, it's not good. So, you know, when you get your bike back, you can say, it's okay. And if they say they're sorry, you can say, it's okay. Maybe you learned a lesson. I don't know, it's very complicated. There were these, I was talking to this guy who does juvenile, because a lot of people who are stealing are, you know, like, they don't have a bike. That's why they took your nice bike, right?

[43:36]

They can't afford a bike. It's not too often the kids from Ross are running around stealing bikes. Or skis or anything else, or cars. So we know that we're talking about the redistribution of wealth, which is a traditional stealing is a form of redistributing wealth and has been forever. So, it's complicated. My friend who works with juvenile offenders said that a lot of those kids will do things like stealing because then they get thrown in juvenile hall and, you know, something called prison. Juvie, I guess. And they get fed there and they also get talked to by adults who are not just drunk or violent. So it's actually a better scene for a lot of these kids than their homes. So the closer you look at, you open the lens on anything and pretty soon it's not so easy.

[44:41]

And then when you see that, forgiving isn't so hard. I got mugged at Page Street by two kids on the way home from high school who lived in the projects. I didn't feel so good when we showed up at court and one of them, who was probably 16, was holding his baby. And I just felt like, ah, the whole society, you know, we're carrying the weight of the whole badly distributed system that we live in, of advantages and privileges and all that. So theft is a really, you know, very interesting dynamic. Maybe it's easier than you think when you know more about it. Could be. Could be. Yeah. And maybe you could give something back. Maybe you could return something and clear that up for yourself.

[45:45]

I feel good. I appreciated the last comment today. And my thoughts go to our country was built on that. And so we inherit a lot of carbon because of that. We took land that was in ours. We contributed to slavery, and we continue to incarcerate people. issue is one that, I think, poisons us to a degree we're not even aware of. Yeah, I agree. So, the fact is, you know, somebody could steal my heart.

[46:50]

Somebody could, ouch, blame the victim. these deep wounds to each other all the time. And we're, you know, like society doesn't even address that. Or it's, you know, I just, I just, it's extremely, and I think the reason why that is that talk about love is because we really don't know what love is. You know, what does it mean to really love your eyes and see how complicated and how injured we and everybody is and how to do that. Yeah. Well, I think that's enlightenment. I think that's awakening when you see how complicated and difficult everything is and how pervasive suffering is and what's causing the suffering and what to do about it. That's why we listen to the Buddha and his teaching.

[47:52]

I think it's exactly what he was addressing. Yeah, more, yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe so. But as I was saying yesterday about, you know, not using the social ills of the world to avoid looking at your own stealing or your own failure. So we have to keep also a personal eye on ourselves within the collective, along with the collective. Yeah. But you don't know. Yeah. Well, don't stop with the United States of America if you're going to start looking. I mean, because I'm going to say, you know, the slavery started with the British Empire.

[48:54]

So, you know, the British Empire was like the Dutch figured out capitalism. You go back, you know, we can't stop looking all the way down. Turtles all the way down. It's easier. Contained. Well, why don't we do that right here in this very room? Let's not wait for somebody else to show us. Let's do it. Well, that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. I'm afraid a lot of things, but I do them anyway. I'm getting real scared it's didn't appear, but I do it anyway. There you go. So... Heather.

[50:02]

Thank you for your teaching. So I confess, you know, I have a lot less fun. And then who? They're having fun. Good Edo! Oh, yeah. I feel like sometimes being Edo is like my penultimate. I was skipping down by the old year, you know, and skipping, skipping. This doesn't say you can't skip. Can you add that in for next? And skipping is fun. And then today is nearly as fun. It's not fun, you know. So, Graham, you know, he saw me skipping, and he said, you know, we don't skip.

[51:07]

Yes, we do. We don't skip. I'm really annoyed with it. So, you know, now I'm in this position, getting back to the first set for Manning. And, um... Sometimes I think I'm just the worst, you know, because I often, I don't, and we've talked about this, I don't really want to recommend anybody. And sometimes my recommendation, like, recommends, and sometimes that makes me uncomfortable. And sometimes I resent that I have to even say something to somebody. And other times, like, it doesn't really bother me if people take the shit. Like, I'm sort of all over the place, like, you know, okay, well, that's cool. Oh, I can't read this or that. And then if I did this myself and I'm telling them something that they shouldn't do that I've done myself, it's not really, it's just like not fun. That's like parents. Exactly. You tell them to stop doing something that you just did. Don't point your finger at me, young lady.

[52:09]

My daughter said to me, I said, you stop doing that. She says, don't talk to me like that. I said, don't talk to me like that. And then we're going back and forth. I said, I can do what you're doing. She said, no, you can't. You're an adult. I said, no, I'm not. You're not. Nobody's got it down, Heather. I promise you. Just speaking of the stolen bike, I got my wonderful bicycle stolen, Shokun, last year. And actually there was a video on the building, a security video, at least that video of this kid stealing my bicycle. And I just chose not to pursue it. I mean, I felt really kind of crushed that my bicycle was stolen. But I just, I was actually really able to forgive him. I didn't really feel, I felt sad. I wasn't really angry at him for stealing it after he needed it more than me, or maybe he wanted to sell it and get money, whatever he needed. But then like small things really triggered me, but like him stealing my bicycles, I was like, ah, it sucks, you know? And then someone does something silly, like, you know, Europe takes too much kamashi over there, the cheese cheese.

[53:14]

He's been nervous. Oh, Jesus. She's very inadequate, you know? Oh, no. Is she inadequate? No. Okay. Can you spit a sign on you which time it is? No, no. That would make it more fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[54:15]

That's true. Why are you skipping? Skino. Skitsino. Anyway, we'll think about praying for you. Thank you for sharing. Okay, maybe we should take a walk, huh? Thank you all very much.

[54:36]

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