This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning and welcome everyone. You brave the annular eclipse, which apparently we're still in the midst of for another half hour or so, although you wouldn't know here in San Francisco with all the fog. know whether or not it was a usual day or something different um each morning here at beginner's mind temple before we begin our nine o'clock work circle we ring the dental bell the big dental belt downstairs in the basement and as we do so we observe a moment of silence to reflect on peace And this was a tradition that started about 20 years ago during the, I believe, the Afghan and Iraqi wars.

[01:02]

And so we have continued to do this ever since then. And so before I continue with the talk, I thought we would take a moment in light of the tragic events that are unfolding in Israel and Gaza. this past week, including the horrific violence and the tremendous loss of life, to ring the bell. I'm going to ask Adon actually to ring the bell that is in here and then invite us to observe together 60 seconds of silence during which we might reflect on and offer prayers for peace and well-being for whoever in the world. may be experiencing the impact of war and conflict and everything that is related to those events so if you would please May all beings be free from hate, fear, sorrow, and confusion.

[03:04]

May all beings experience safety, freedom, dignity, benevolence, and peace. Thank you for joining me in this wish for peace. And those of you who might know me, might not know me, my name is Tenzin David Zimmerman, and I am a resident priest here at Beginner's Mind Temple. And I also serve as the, what am I, central abbot of San Francisco Zen Center. And even in times of great distress and sorrow, it's important that we also make time to express gratitude and appreciation. So today at City Center, we're actually having a special celebration. We're holding what we're calling a Members and Volunteers Appreciation Day. And we used to hold these kind of regular annual membership and volunteer appreciation events twice a year, I believe.

[04:16]

And we haven't done so, unfortunately, since the pandemic. So this is our first time in four years that we've had the opportunity to do so. a great joy. And so this celebration today, it's an opportunity for us and for San Francisco Zen Center as an institution, our community to acknowledge and express our deep gratitude for the great sangha of volunteers and members and supporters who contribute their energy, their skills and their resources to the practice at San Francisco Zen Center's three temples. I would say actually four temples, because we have the online Zendo. Thank you, online Zendo temple participants. And I would say that it's kind of the heartfelt feeling for many here in the community that the very survival of San Francisco Zen Center has depended, since its founding,

[05:23]

on the significant generosity and friendship of the wider Sangha that has practiced and supported Zen Center for its 60 plus years of existence. So, of course, this support has taken many different forms. For example, we have volunteers have made generous donations of time and labor and talents, whether in the kitchens, the various kitchens at Zen Center, the bookstore, the library, the garden, and also through our outreach activities. And also members have supported the work period at Tassajara. I don't know how many people have ever been to a work period at Tassajara. Few of you. And then also we have workdays at Green Gulch Farm. That happens, I believe, twice a year. And members have supported to build and patronize Many of Zen Center's businesses, such as Greens Restaurant.

[06:25]

How many people have been to Greens? If you haven't been so, I encourage you to check it out. It's a wonderful vegetarian fair. And also, of course, contributed significant financial support. And this way of working together and practicing generosity together, practicing dana paramita, has been a cornerstone of Zen practice. And it's a means by which practitioners can take zazen, take our meditation practice, our mindfulness practice, from our cushions, our seats, meditation hall, out into the world, while also forging intimate connections within the sangha. So as... part of this day of appreciation right after this talk, we're going to be holding a short ceremony in the courtyard in recognition of Zen Center's members, volunteers, and supporters, and also offer a complimentary open lunch with lots of great food, again.

[07:29]

And even if this is your first time visiting Zen Center, I'm curious, how many people this is your first time? Great. Welcome. Welcome. Even so, you were invited to join. the ceremony as well as the lunch because your presence is important and appreciated. Thank you all for being here. Given the occasion, I thought I'd say a few things this morning about the place and value of Sangha in our practice. Before I say more, I'd like to invite you to take a moment to look around the room and see who is present today. And for those of you who are online, if you are willing, maybe you can turn on your cameras for a moment and see who is also in the online Zendo. And if you're comfortable making eye contact with others, please do so. Maybe offering a brief greeting, hello, a smile, something that says, I see you.

[08:38]

I am connected to you. All right. looking around and noticing the many other buddhas here who are creating this buddha field of practice together right and who have supported you in ways maybe known and unknown in the past and perhaps even in the future so just keeping that in mind and there may be someone here today who you haven't met before who will become a very close dharma friend maybe even a teacher for you So thank you all for engaging me in the activity. And this is really an invitation to just notice the Buddha feel in which we are embedded, in which we are a fundamental part. And this is, I think of it as the literal Sangha body. We talk in Zen practice about the body of practice, right? And oftentimes that's referring to this physical body and the five sense gates in which we experience the world.

[09:43]

but just as there's our individual bodies of practice there is a communal body of practice so another name for the communal body of practice is sangha so sangha is one of the three treasures in buddhism along with buddha and dharma and as committed practitioners Buddhism, we vow to take refuge in these three treasures. So we take refuge in the Buddha treasure. This is to take refuge in our essential awake nature or being. And we also vow to take refuge in the Dharma treasure, which is to embrace the teachings that point us to this, our awake nature, this awake being. And then we take refuge in Sangha, the Sangha treasure, which is to rely on those who likewise hold the intention to wake up from suffering and who are also walking the path with us.

[10:57]

And Sangha is a Sanskrit word. And the meaning that it has is association or an assembly or a union of people. So usually when it's translated from Sanskrit, it's translated as community or order. But I think Sangha is just a wonderful word in and of itself. And one source that I read said that Sangha literally means that which is struck together well. That which is struck together well, you know, fabricated together, come together well. So this idea that something that's solid and that doesn't come apart very easily. the concept of Sangha can be parceled in several ways. So originally, in the time of Shakyamuni Buddha, the Sangha was technically just the ordained monks and nuns, so the bhikkhus and bikinis.

[11:59]

And the ordained members of the Sangha, you know, they shared common vows, and they shared a full-time and intensive formal way of practice. along with what was known as the following in the parimoksha, which is 227 or more rules that were governing their way of life. And then later on, the laymen and laywomen followers of the Buddha were included in the framing of the Sangha. And altogether, the ordain and the lay followers are known as the fourfold Sangha. Now, just in a more contemporary context, acknowledgement there was no non-binary category of sangha so maybe today we have a fifth-fold expression of sangha and also historically due to patriarchy it's often been the male monks that have been seen as the primary sangha so fortunately in more contemporary times that's not so much the case at least uh hopefully here in the united states

[13:06]

And however, in the Mayana view, the later Dharma view, we can widen the understanding of Sangha even further to include all living beings. So not just people, but animals, plants, trees, some would say also the waters and the mountains. And so doing so indicates the harmonious interdependence of all of life, of all beings. And so taking refuge in Sangha in this way is about waking up and taking refuge in your interdependent life. Everything makes you in this moment. You're dependent on the entire universe to be here right now in this way that you're showing up. Thich Nhat Hanh, he has a more contemporary and you could say democratic orientation, when he defines Sangha as a community of friends practicing the Dharma together in order to bring about and to maintain awareness.

[14:16]

The essence of Sangha, he says, is awareness, understanding, acceptance, harmony, and love. Again, the essence of Sangha is awareness, understanding acceptance harmony and love so thai's definition draws from the concept of kalyana mitra and kalyana mitra is another sanskrit word which means spiritual friend right so this is a someone who is good true, virtuous, who's upright, who's beneficial, who cares for your spiritual practice and well-being and liberation just as much as they care for their own. And so I think of it another way to describe Sangha is as a collective of Kalyanamitras. Sangha, collective of Kalyanamitras.

[15:20]

Now, Thay's emphasis on Dharma friendship as the heart of what binds Sangha together actually echoes the Buddha's own view. The Buddha emphasized what he called admirable people. And he said admirable people were essential to our success in practice. And basically he defined admirable people as wise practitioners who are firm in their conviction that spiritual practice is important. And they're also strong in their practice of virtue, generosity and discernment. And there is this famous passage in the Pali Upada Sutta, in which the Buddhist attendant, Venerable Nanda, says the following to the Buddha. This is half of the holy life, Buddha. Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie.

[16:22]

However, the Buddha corrected him, saying, Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life. When a monk or a practitioner has admirable people as friends, companions, and comrades, the Buddha continued, they can be expected to develop and pursue the Noble Eightfold Path. So what you see is that the Buddha skillfully removed Ananda's idea that the Sangha, and the Dharma are separate. One is not half of the other. And the Sangha is not merely helpful in realizing the path. The Sangha is the path. Spiritual friendship is the path. That's how vital it is in our practice together. So then from the get-go, you see that Sangha and Dharma friendship have been considered essential.

[17:25]

and nourishing and sustaining a strong and vital practice. Sangha deepens practice. Practice deepens Sangha. Now, unless you're an unusually self-disciplined person, of which I'm not, practicing alone can be very difficult. How many people have experienced practicing alone as being difficult? Yeah. Yeah, it's challenging. I think particularly during COVID, many of us experience that where we could have come together physically with others. And so I think most of us find that it's much easier to do a challenging practice such as Zen or to change particular habit patterns when you have the support of others. And it's especially true when you find that you're... your spiritual aspirations begin to wane in some way right you said at the beginning you're oh i'm going to do meditation every day and then at some point you find that's not happening so much and you're kind of wondering what's going on here or maybe you're encountering some kind of difficulties or challenging circumstances in your life that are undercutting your commitment to practice

[18:46]

So it's at times like these where it's very helpful to have others around you, a community of practitioners around you who share the same intentions, the same values, and can kind of serve as Dharma cheerleaders, right? Encouraging you in your practice, encouraging each other to kind of refrain from unwholesome habit patterns and to take up wholesome patterns. And I find this is particularly true when we're trying to take up practices or even values that kind of go against what are the predominant kind of values of a culture, behaviors of a culture, right? So there's all these kind of prevailing winds that we kind of find ourselves like practitioners perhaps kind of going into, such as consumerism, right? There's power hoarding or ambition or some kind of cultural insensitivity, right?

[19:53]

So it's really helpful to have others support us when we're trying to go against those strong currents and voices around us. The Zen teacher, Domio Burke, has written that one of the benefits of Sangha is that it provides what she calls positive peer pressure. Positive peer pressure, right? So... So the presence and the positive support of other like-minded people are what help us actually to fulfill our wholesome aspirations, right? And even at times, help us to form those aspirations to begin with. I had my first tapes of sangha when I was six years old. Due to unfortunate family circumstances, my brother and I, my brothers... 10 months older than me, were placed into a Mennonite children's home. This was in Minnesota, Pennsylvania. And overall, I found the Mennonite staff who take care of us children in the home to be kind and compassionate, dedicated, and generous.

[20:58]

And what was palpable was the way in which their Christian faith deeply informed their way of being and engaging with others. It deeply informed their work ethic and also the approach that they took to structuring our communal life together. So we said our prayers at our meals. We got together and went to church regularly. We kind of reflected on the teachings of Jesus and so on. So I think this early experience of spiritual community planted in me my own bodhisattva vow, right? And the wish to take up a life of service. And in hindsight, I realized that it also made it easier for me when I first came to Zen Center to feel at home. Actually, the children's home was a stately brick building, basically like this, right? So I was like, hey, this is familiar.

[22:01]

What is this, right? And even later, when I became a resident, I was like, I know this. I know how to do this, right? So anyone who's been practicing with the Sangha for a period of time, Pali recognizes the value and benefits of Sangha and how they are multifold. For example, Sangha provides modeling, right? It's an opportunity to learn by observing others. I mean, you have come into the room for the first time and just kind of see, what is everyone else doing when you come into this room? Huh, everyone's silent together. Everyone seems to be in some state of meditation, you know, and walking with kind of awareness of their body and their presence and how they engage with others. That's a form of modeling, right? And so particularly when we're observing others who maybe have been practitioners for a longer time, who seem to be, if you will, mature practitioners, how it is that they embody and express and uphold the practice, uphold the Zen forms and the teachings of the Dharma.

[23:13]

And then being in Sangha, then we can observe how everyone partakes of the forms, of our daily life, you know, our meditation, how we work together, how we chant together, how we eat together, the ways that we relate together. Even when we're engaging in disagreements or conflict, how do we do that in a way that is respectful, kind, considerate? Also, what we learn when we watch others is the way in which They express the Dharma of values, ethics, and teachings of Buddhism in everyday life. And it can also give us confidence in the transformative power of practice, right? Because you see over time how people change through practice. It's really quite amazing when new people first come to Zen Center and they start engaging in practice. You see somehow that their character changes in subtle and beautiful ways, right?

[24:20]

and ways that we ourselves might even notice and i had people when i first started practice who said you know who brought that to my awareness and at least i was like no i haven't changed i'm the same person i was and realized later it's like oh i have changed right and um and i also think we can learn more from others uh how they model model practice and we can actually learn from reading books And so many of us, we may have started engaging with Dharma practice by reading lots of books. It's inspiring and so on. But until you actually come into the company of others and see how they express and manifest the teachings of Dharma, a lot of what's in the books doesn't have the same palpable, tangible kind of sense of understanding and knowing to it. Of course, that said, the truth is sometimes you learn as much about how not to practice or behave by watching other Sangha members than you do about how to practice.

[25:26]

This is something maybe you realized when you were growing up and you watched your parents and you said, when I'm their age, I'm not going to be like that, right? Which is fine. We see what works and doesn't work. And then we decide, I'm going to choose a different way because I see that that way of being isn't so skillful and helpful. Sangha also offers us a practice mirror. Other people help us to see our own behaviors, our opinions, our habitual tendencies, and our limitations, you know, the way that we express ourselves through our words and actions, right? And also we get our sense of self, how we perceive our own sense of self gets better. reflected back to us by others, including the positive aspects of how we perceive ourselves, as well as the negative aspects of how we perceive ourselves. And of course, we may not always like what we see in the Sangha mirror, right? You know, I know sometimes I've been kind of annoyed when people have pointed out to me I wasn't this kind, considerate, you know, generous person that I had imagined myself to be, right?

[26:40]

And that was a moment to kind of check in and go, wait a second. If others aren't experiencing that way, me in that way, what am I doing or not doing to manifest that if that's something that I really feel is important? And of course, it's also true that sometimes the reflections others provide us can be a bit distorted by their own karmic overlays. So you have to take feedback with a bit of discretion, discernment. But usually there's something in what they have to offer that's worth for us to consider and say, is there some way that I can refine my behavior in a way that is going to help me to be a more supportive Dharma friend? Another benefit that Sangha offers is that it provides us a way to test our Dharma understanding and actualization. So we might have all these ideas about practice and about the dharma that we maybe read in a book, right?

[27:48]

And then we encounter the teachers, we encounter peers and other people who have been practicing longer than we have perhaps or more intensely. And then sometimes in dharma discussions or classes or maybe even while just having tea with a friend in the courtyard, we realize that our understanding is maybe not quite correct, right? And so we find out ways that our understanding is incomplete or actually often what I find is we're provided a whole nother way of looking at something or understanding something that gives it a more fuller expression. And we also might discover where it is in our practice that we need to develop further skills. and competencies, for example, where we need to be more patient or understanding or less judgmental and rigid. Sangha also serves as a field in which we encounter our own karmic conditioning in relationship to others, right?

[28:54]

And we can explore the ways to work through that conditioning, to be able to move beyond it and to heal. So in other words, Sangha can serve as a safe place to experiment with new ways of being, where you can kind of try on different ways of speaking, of moving, or being in your body, you know, or behaving. These are often probably ways that have maybe run counter to how it is that you learned to be growing up, right? So maybe we learned in our family system of origin, that it was not okay to express ourselves or that it wasn't okay to express our needs or even to have needs. Maybe it wasn't okay to show certain emotions such as anger or sadness or to be vulnerable, right? And so Sangha offers us a supportive field in which we can explore

[29:57]

a different way of being that are counter to that conditioning. So we can explore what it is to speak our truth, right? What it is to feel what we're feeling, to experiment with letting our defenses down and being kind of relaxing our insecurities. And the truth is that our healing at a deeper level requires vulnerability. Even if we've been hurt once before by people in the past or even by Sangha members, vulnerability invites us to cultivate the capacity to open our hearts again as a means to come back into harmonious relationship with others, which is something that's essential to how it is that we're together in Sangha. To my way of thinking, zen is fundamentally about relationship it's about how to be in relationship with our experience with other beings and with the world in ways that lessen our suffering right and tap into a fundamental feeling of aliveness and interconnectedness

[31:20]

So as social animals, of course, we need other people for our survival. It's just built into us as beings. And we also get to know ourselves through our relationship to others. So it's very important that we be with others. And I think many of the ways that we might come to practice and begin to join with the sangha is that at some deep level, all of us are looking to for a sense of belonging, a sense of feeling connected to something greater than ourselves in which our presence and our participation matter. So a sense of belonging isn't so easy to pin down on words. You feel it. You know it just by the felt sense of it. But I think it includes the experience of being seen, of being understood, and being valued.

[32:27]

That others around us care for our well-being and our happiness, and that they generally accept us, even all of our faults and our quirks. Their hearts are big enough in spaciousness to embrace us as we are. And we may or may not look to sangha for this to fulfill the sense of longing in some way to address it. But sangha can certainly be a way to experience it. And sadly, it's not uncommon for people in sanghas to wonder whether or not they belong. I've had that question too at times. Do I belong here? Is this really my sangha? Is this really my tribe? particularly if they don't see others who reflect their own experiences. For example, who look like them, who have a shared cultural background or shared cultural values. So that's understandable.

[33:31]

And this is why it's important for Sangha to strive to be as inclusive and welcoming as possible so that everyone who comes into Sangha has a chance to really sincerely explore and engage in Zen practice to the degree that they really want to take up Zen practice. Now, while being in Sangha could bring lots of benefits and joys, it can also have some challenges and problems. Anyone have some challenges and problems in Sangha? I was going to say, no one's raising their hand, but they're very kind of like, oh, yeah, okay. So, okay, so no Sangha is perfect, of course, right? And I don't think actually a Sangha would be beneficial to our practice if it was perfect. I would say if you found the perfect Sangha, get out of there, right?

[34:33]

Because you need something to really work with. Even in the Buddhist time, the Sangha wasn't perfect. You know, those... 227 guidelines that I mentioned previously for contact in the monasteries in Buddhist time, right, that the monks were expected to observe, were essentially because every time, whenever there was a particular problem in the Sangha, and one of, you know, the monastics went to the Buddha complaining, so I was doing this, right, the way the Buddha addressed it was to come up with a guideline, right, to, you know, be able to help people to be more mindful and to observe and support harmony in the community again. And even at City Center, we have what we call the Shingi, which are guidelines for conduct, with the same idea how this particular community might organize itself to be mindful and considerate and supportive of each other as a way to create a harmonious practice field together.

[35:39]

as much as possible right and of course the reality is we often need difficulties in sangha as a means to grow and deepen right so those of us who are committed to the bodhisattva path of supporting the liberation of all beings need to fully enter into the mud of human relationships and karmic entanglements right it's only in the muddy waters of sangha that the lotus of our practice can grow and fully bloom. So you are all right now in muddy waters and you're all a bunch of lotuses that are blooming, popping up. So notice that as you sit here with each other. Of course, some of the challenges we might experience in community may include feeling of social anxiety, particularly when we first enter into a sangha.

[36:41]

There also might be the fear of making mistakes, especially in Zen with all its forms and ceremonies. Everyone have the experience ever being afraid you're going to make a mistake here? Yep. I still have those thoughts sometimes. I'm like, oh, no, I'm going to make a mistake. Every time I give a Dharma talk, I'm like, oh, no, I'm going to make a mistake. I'm opening my mouth. We might have the fear of being rejected. or worse yet, being seen, right? Warts and all, right? Can't hide in Sangha. Oftentimes it seems that no matter how hard we've tried to get away from our family of origin, there's always someone in the Sangha who knows exactly how to push our buttons, right? Just like our siblings did, right? The way they talk, the way they kind of look at us and so on. We just have all this kind of like, oh no, it's my parents or my brother again. Then there's the possibility of being hurt or being disillusioned by others, including by our own teachers, who frankly are just themselves messy human beings who are working through their karma, right?

[37:53]

So we have this idea that our teachers are going to be perfect. They're not. They're human just like us. So we learned when we are hurt, disillusioned by others in the Sangha member, you know, others in the Sangha, how to work with that and to work through our karmic conditioning. You might also experience frustration with how a Sangha is run or organized, or you might be disappointed that a particular Sangha doesn't have a demographic that reflects your identities or intersectionalities. You might even find yourself angry when you think your Sangha isn't giving enough attention to a particular social or political or cultural or environmental issue that really matters to you. Or you get annoyed when teachers bring up social justice issues in a Dharma talk when all you really want them to do is expound on the brilliance of Dogan. So this is all to say that

[38:55]

Engaging in Sangha offers us what Zenies call practice opportunities, many practice opportunities, endless practice opportunities to work with all the myriad ways that being in Sangha challenges or triggers us. Sooner or later in Zen, you're going to come across the analogy that Sangha practice is potato practice, and we are all like potatoes. all potatoes in a big pot that need to be cleaned, scrubbed free of our karmic dirt. And my understanding is many traditional cultures, one of the quickest ways to clean potatoes was to put them all together in a big pot and then stir them with a long stick. And in this way, all the potatoes would rub against each other and rubbing, in the process, rubbing all the dirt off of them at the same time. So another familiar analogy for Sangha practice is that of a rock tumbler.

[40:00]

You may have heard this one, in which we kind of polish and smooth each other's blind spots and rough edges as we go inevitably bumping into each other in Sangha. In time, you know, in these rock tumblers, the Sangha jewel becomes more polished. and kind of begins to shine more with a certain sense of harmony because those rough edges have been lessened. And so this potato washing and this rock tumbler analogies illustrate the efficiency of power of sangha, what we might call togetherness practice. So sangha is a togetherness practice. The thing is when we encounter various forms of difficulties and challenges and we work through them along with others in Sangha, then the rewards and the benefits can be significant and actually truly transformative.

[41:02]

We, for example, we might learn to trust more, not just others, but ourselves. We learn to maybe trust our Buddha nature more. We might also develop the confidence and the capacity to navigate life's uncertainties and problems and conflicts with greater ease. I've noticed myself over the years of practice, when things go wrong, I'm a little less kind of agitated and concerned about it. It's like, okay, I think we can serve this. We can work with it, do our best. We also discover and make deeper connections with others. And this is connections that are actually based on authenticity and a genuine love rather than our trying to kind of mold ourselves to feel some kind of societal expectation or obligation. We also, meeting our fears and discomforts, we're able to cultivate courage and inner strength.

[42:09]

And when we're around others who challenge and irritate us, we're able to explore the power of unconditional acceptance. And when we're hurt or disillusioned by others in the Sangha, then we are given the opportunity to practice compassion and forgiveness. When else are you going to practice compassion and forgiveness, if not with others around you? We also learn to let go of, or you could say hold more lightly, our preferences and our expectations. our likes and our dislikes. And in doing so, we begin to be able to meet people and circumstances with more of what we know as beginner's mind, a flexible, open mind. And then when we feel somewhat alone and vulnerable, we also learn the power of reaching out to others and connecting, sharing

[43:11]

what's going on for us, rather than getting enclosed in our own self-absorption. So, of course, a harmonious, supportive sangha doesn't stay that way with some care and attention. And the truth is, again, you don't need a perfect sangha. A family or community doesn't have to be perfect in order to be helpful. We take refuge in Sangha because there are enough people who have the compassion and the groundedness and the insight to embrace others who maybe do not yet have these particular capacities, right? And in doing so, encourage them in developing that. Just as a farmer needs to ensure that the soil environment in which they or crops is conducive to a successful yield, so too are we each responsible for fostering a healthy enough Sangha environment, and one in which our practice and the practice of others can successfully take root and grow.

[44:31]

So if you want to experience a world which is loving, supportive, and conducive to realizing liberation and the alleviation of suffering, then we, each of us, has to contribute to creating the conditions for that world to manifest and do so through our own actions and behaviors. In other words, we need to make an investment of time and effort, not only in practice, but also in Sangha. just as you would with a one-on-one relationship. So if you have a partner, you know, it's as expected. You're going to spend a lot of time and energy nourishing that relationship. Sangha is a relationship that you equally need to give time and attention and energy to if you want it to be a healthy relationship, right? So our...

[45:33]

Collective efforts are what help to create the energy and the vitality of Sangha, each of our individual contributions to that field of practice. So our presence here, particularly when it's a mindful presence, contributes to that energy. And when we're absent, that energy is lessened. I have many of you who have... been in sushin or lived in residential practice, when you notice certain people missing from the zendo, it really affects you. You can feel that the container has shifted in some way. Maybe it doesn't feel as supportive. And so your presence matters. It's important what you bring just by showing up. And to be part of a community means actively being part of a community. reciprocal exchange of giving and receiving. Again, this is dana paramita, right? The circle of generosity.

[46:36]

So our contributions, by the way, of our active presence, whether it's in meditation, in dharma programs, in dharma talks like this, practice groups, other sangha activities, right? As well as our contributions of time, labor, finances, and so forth. But what actually sustain the practice field on which we depend right so it's for our benefit also and of course each of us is going to participate to the degree that we're able to at any particular time so there's not a judgment in there that practice and your contribution to a song that should look a certain way you have to discern for yourself where can i invest my time and energy given the circumstances in my life and then make your best effort to show up in that way. And I do have this kind of thought that in many ways we get from Sangha what we're able to put into it, right? So this reciprocal experience of being in Sangha.

[47:40]

So thank you again for all the ways in which you have cared for and polished and cherished the Sangha jewel that is San Francisco Zen Center. Thich Nhat Hanh once predicted that the next Buddha the future Buddha, Maitreya, will be a Sangha. So it just won't be one Buddha. It will be a collective of Kalyama Mitras, Dharma friends. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[48:35]

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