Thank you. this is

[15:40]

through my nose. Thank you.

[17:22]

Good morning and welcome everyone. My name is Toby Green. I'm the acting tanto or head of practice, and I'm delighted to welcome Alan Sanaki to speak with us this morning. Alan is the abbot of Berkeley Zen Center. He's also been a mentor to me when I first arrived in the Bay Area and worked with him. at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Alan is an engaged Buddhist of decades. He's done a lot of work internationally. And he also is an author. His most recent book, Turning Words, Turning Words, conversations with people in his life who have been teachers for him. And he is a musician. also longtime musician, and we will be treated to a taste of his musicianship this morning.

[19:01]

So welcome. Thank you, Tova. Good morning, friends. It's wonderful to be here. Can you hear me okay? It sounds a little thin, but I have no control over that. I'm really happy to be here. As I was collecting myself before coming down, I just felt suffused with emotion. Tomorrow would be the 94th birthday of my late teacher, Sojin Roshi. And Also, coincidentally, Monday, I believe, is the 80th birthday of Tenjin Roshi. I was remembering one time, it was quite a while ago, maybe more than 20 years ago, we all went out to a ballgame together.

[20:13]

I think it was the A's. And Hoitsu Roshi was here. We celebrated. their birthday at the ballpark and it was flashing across the scoreboard at one point, happy birthday, Mel and Rip. And so I was thinking about that, but just also thinking that the subject of my talk is what it means to have a teacher and also what it means to me to have the teacher that I have had and other teachers as well. And so there's a kind of early section in my book, Turning Words, with encounters with Sojin. And I'm going to talk about some of those, but also in a broader way, what it means to have a teacher to

[21:21]

in my life and in my practice and to offer that as encouragement to all of you to find not necessarily a teacher, but to find teachers who can be mirrors for us so that we can see ourselves clearly. But I also think if I'm thinking of Mel, it's like the robe that I'm wearing, this raggedy patch robe monk, patched robe is one of his, which keeps getting patched. It was patched again during Segin last two weeks ago. And I wear it with great pleasure. It's an honor to to wear that. The kotsu that I carry, the teaching stick, I was looking at it really carefully.

[22:29]

This is one that he made and gave to me when we completed Dharma Transmission. And it is really perfect. It's just a beautiful piece of wood, but it's beautifully crafted and shaped. And what I would say is that wood was probably more responsive to him than some of us were. He could get this wood just right, but not so much all of us. And that's something that a teacher lives with. the imperfections of students, and they live with their own imperfections. And we see with Sojin, some of you knew him, he always had a dog.

[23:35]

And he had these, he often had these kind of out there dogs who had some kinds of behavioral difficulties. And he would get rescue dogs and you could, when you watched him with his, with his dog, it's like, you could say, oh, this is really how he would like to work with us. You know, that didn't always work with the dogs and it certainly didn't always work with us, but you could see he was both really kind and to the animals and also really tough with them. And that's actually the way I found him. So I wanted to, I'm not going to read verbatim from my book, but I wanted to give you some context and then perhaps we can talk a bit about this mysterious role of being a teacher, mysterious role of being a student.

[24:48]

In the Zen tradition, we say that the Dharma is transmitted from warm hand to warm hand. With one hand, one receives the essence of Buddha's and ancestor's practice from one's root teacher. Just as Shunryu Suzuki Roshi was Sojin, Mel Weitzman's root teacher, Sojin is my root teacher. It's been surprising to reflect on how traditional My path, my training path was with him. He was my teacher for more than 37 years. I had all of my ordinations with him. And I was around him pretty much on a daily basis when we were both in town. I began working on these stories in this book. Shortly after Sojin Roshi was diagnosed with cancer in the fall of 2019, the cancer advanced so slowly and Sojin tolerated his treatment so well that one could forget the sword hanging above his head.

[26:13]

But it was always there. And in certain light, the sword's shadow was stark and clear. Towards the later months of 2020, cancer was taking its toll. And our dear teacher weakened. He died at home in January of 2021. Even now, as I'm the second abbot of Berkeley Zen Center, our kitchen window looks over the courtyard towards the door of what was his office and is now my office. And I noticed that unconsciously, I'm listening for the car door slamming in the driveway outside our house. I'm listening for the opening and closing of his office door. I look down out of our kitchen window to see if his shades are open.

[27:18]

Always expecting him to be there. I searched the shifting sands of memory for Sojin's turning words, much the way he constantly shared Suzuki Roshi's words with us. This is how our teachers continue to live across time and space. Like looking for the relics of our teacher that exist in the clouds, and in the sky, and in ourselves, we now carry those teachings. And each of you has the opportunity to do that. So, to tell a couple of stories, I think I'm just going to tell them.

[28:30]

When I first came to Berkeley Zen Center, it was sometime in 19, well, it was the second time I came to Berkeley Zen Center. I came to Berkeley Zen Center in the summer of 1968 and began to sit at Dwight Way that summer. We'd all come out from New York after a season of occupying the university president's office and living in it for a week and getting beaten and arrested, and we wanted to go to the promised land, to California. And we got to California, and what was happening? It was martial law in the streets of Berkeley, and there were teams of cops walking in two or three, and it was like, we need to come to California for this. But that summer, we started, a group of us who had come out together started to practice at Berkeley Zen Center and at Sokoji.

[29:32]

San Francisco Zen Center before it moved here. I wasn't ready to do that, but somehow a seed was planted. And when it came time in 1984, and I'd sort of run out of script for my life, I decided to turn back to practice. And I... I've told this story a lot. I called up the phone number for Berkeley Zen Center. And I said, you know, quite a while ago, I had instruction. I had Zazen instruction. And I'm thinking I want to take up Zen practice again. What should I do? And the person on the other side of the phone, which is not Sojin, said, find a blank wall and sit down and stare at it. And I thought, really, this is what they're telling somebody? It was calling cold over the phone.

[30:34]

I said, this is the place for me. You know, so I went down there the next day. And when I walked in the gates on Russell Street, where we are now, I felt completely at home. And, you know, I asked myself, how did I know that I'm home? And I couldn't answer that question, but I knew it. And it was true. And I've been there ever since. And I've been living there now for 38 years, which is kind of like an indeterminate sentence. But my children have grown up there. My wife is a teacher there, Ori. And now I'm the abbot. But when I got there, Sojin wasn't there. He was in Japan doing Dharma transmission with Uitsuroshi.

[31:38]

And so I felt at home in this community. And it all made sense to me. And it was very horizontal. And then when he showed up, it all made sense to me. Again, this is the missing piece in the mandala. that made the puzzle make sense. It's not that he was the center of everything or that he was egocentric or self-important. It's just you could see that things had constellated around him. And you get a better sense of that. By the way, his book is It's called Seeing One Thing Through is going to be out in November or December. And it's a part memoir and part collection of his talks.

[32:43]

It's quite wonderful. But, you know, his model was just Suzuki Roshi sent him from San Francisco to Berkeley to just start a sitting group and take care of it. And he took care of it and he was ordained there. cover photo of the book is of his ordination in the old Zendo and Dwight way. And bit by bit, he became a teacher. And I think he became a great teacher, a really important teacher in our Zen legacy in the US. So It was clear he was a teacher, but I didn't know what a teacher was. And it took me a while to run through all of the permutations of possibilities of what I might see was a teacher.

[33:49]

You know, it was like, is he my father? No. Is he my psychotherapist? No. Is he my friend? No. I didn't have a box to put him in because I had never had a Zen teacher. And it's something else, something else that was, that had to be discovered and had to be discovered by in the course of my practice. And it also had to be discovered in the course of our, the practice of our relationship together. Mostly he just watched. This is what, if you're familiar with Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, there's this wonderful chapter called Control, which is my favorite chapter in the book. Whoops. And Suzuki Roshi says the best way to control sentient beings, and this also...

[34:59]

Implies by implication. Introspectively. Is to watch. Just watch them. Don't ignore them. And don't try to. Manipulate others. Or yourself. But just watch. And that's what Sojan did. He turned his attention. On me. But not in any. Mechanistic way. So he watched me for a while. I don't know how long. I don't know how long before it was a sort of a turning words encounter. And that encounter was very powerful for me and remains a teaching that I have to work with. It's not like, yes, I can do that. So one day during Dokusan, Out of the blue, he just said, you should let things fall apart.

[36:07]

And it's like, oh, I should let things fall apart. And that came from the observation that out of anxiety, I was trying to pull things together. I wanted people to do forms in a certain way. I wanted people to act in a certain way. And that applied to myself, of course. And he was saying, basically, you can't control these things. Just watch them. Let them fall apart. And then see what happens next. continued this lesson and he applied it to himself.

[37:15]

I remember one day, this is several years before the pandemic, he was giving a Dharma talk one Saturday and he said, you know, everything is going really great. And in a moment he'd just go and everyone kind of But that's what happened. That's what happened to all of us. And I watched him. When it happened, he let it happen. And he took a big step back when the pandemic hit. You know, we were all scrambling to figure out how to continue the practice, how to move to online resources and so forth. He just stepped back. He just stayed home. He was sick at that point. But he stepped back and just watched and waited for things to take a certain form.

[38:23]

And then he found a place to come forward when he was ready. And that was really powerful teaching to me. He was prepared to let things fall apart. And I will say we watched in his last illness, we watched that be the case for his own being, for his own body. And something, you know, these two things were happening simultaneously. The one was he was getting sicker. And. The other was that he was being stripped down to essence. And so in the last six or eight months of his life, Sojin met, I guess it was monthly or every few weeks, he had these

[39:40]

A couple of docusons. Were you there then? Yeah, Heiko was there. And he would engage people, you know, eight or ten people of a night and just take questions. And we have recordings of these videos of them. He was totally alive. And the teaching that he was giving was so stripped down. And human. There was nothing missing. There was nothing diminished. And. So he let. He let things fall away. And also. Continued. So. The title of his. Of the book. Is. Seeing one thing through. And that I took that title. There's an exchange that he. that he quotes.

[40:42]

He had an exchange with Suzuki Roshi, which may very well have happened in this building. He asked Suzuki Roshi, what is nirvana? And Suzuki Roshi said, seeing one thing through to the end. And we were so fortunate that All of our teachers, all of our late teachers, we think about Lange Hartman, we think about Steve Stuckey, we think about Suzuki Roshi and Sojin, and others, formally or informally, our teachers and others to come. There's something about this practice that allows a space for someone to see one thing through. to the end, irrespective of what questions there were.

[41:49]

So I think a week before he died, I went to his house. I visited him one afternoon and Sojin was looking tired after lunch and meeting with another disciple who was wrestling with anticipatory grief. Sojin motioned me towards his easy chair in the front parlor and wheeled his walker over there. Reclaiming his breath and composure, he looked at me intently and said, what's going to happen to all my stuff?

[42:57]

Although it was really out of character for Sojin to explore his feelings openly, I realized that I could take this question on two levels. I thought about all the robes and books and calligraphy tools, artwork, and... ritual objects that filled his office at BCC. I thought about the stuff of his mind and body. What happens when we die? I was moved by the intimacy of this question. Irrespective of its meaning, I had no answer. I don't know what happens when we die, but surely We don't bring any of our stuff with us. Oh, maybe we carry our karma. Sojourn was clear over the years that he didn't know. Buddha's doctrine proposes a lot of complicated theories about karma and rebirth.

[44:05]

When asked about death and rebirth, Sojourn often said, I don't remember. Now he would have another opportunity to find out. But alas, then he would not be likely to tell us about it. Maybe. I'm going to get to that. As for the material residue of 91 years, I said it would be helpful if he told me what he might want left to whom. He had no energy to deal with such things. This was hardly the main thing on his mind. So I said... I'll do my best to make sure anyone who wants something to remember you by will have the opportunity. I thought of all the precious things he had worn and carried or handled and realized there was nothing beyond this conversation, beyond this moment that I wish to have. So to have a teacher,

[45:13]

Is to let. That being. Inhabit you. Somewhere. Somehow. So since Sojin's death. I keep having dreams about him. He appears. Very vivid. And in the kind of. Quasi lucidity. Of dreams. I think. wait, you're not alive. And he gives me a weird look. And often in these dreams, he's pretty critical. Which is exactly how he was with me during his life. He was incredibly kind. I had I had almost 40 years with him, more intimacy than with any other figure other than my wife in my life.

[46:25]

But it was not always fun. And he wasn't always right. And he wasn't always seeing things in what I felt was an accurate way. But what I did feel by having a teacher was he was kind of tough with me. And he was pretty critical. And he could say hard things to me. And I understood that love was there at the same time, even though I may have felt his words might have seemed unfair to me. But my vow and I encourage you in this. Sometimes I had to take a step back when receiving a criticism.

[47:31]

And I just either implicitly or explicitly, I would say, I really need to think about this. But when I would leave his room, My vow was. My understanding was. There's something. There's something he's getting at. That I need to. Have a better understanding about. There's some teaching in this encounter for me. That. Right now. Because it hurts. I'm not feeling. But I'm going to take this step back and contemplate this. And when I figure it out, when I would figure it out, I would always go back to him.

[48:35]

And I would say, I might say, that hurt. But I would also say, this is what I understood. Is this what you were getting at? And in that sense, we had a very honest relationship. The other principle that I held to, he wasn't one for making up, for articulating rules or process. He was a bad process person. If any of you have been in meetings with him. I'm sure many of you have been in meetings with him here at Zen Center. Process was not his strong suit. But for me, the principle that I would share with you as you're exploring a relationship with a teacher

[49:46]

or anyone actually, is a principle of mutual accountability. I did feel accountable to him. And I also felt that he was accountable to me. And sometimes that got us into tangles. But I have stayed with that. And that is, that's what I articulate people who want to be in relationship with me. That we have a relationship of mutual accountability, not a one way, not a power relationship that flows from the teacher to the student in one direction. But it actually has to be, there has to be some very strong dynamic of mutuality because that mutuality is what puts us on the horizontal human plane.

[50:55]

That mutuality is the principle of equality. The equality that exists to me inherently among each human being and maybe between and among species as well. And so we have to be very careful that we don't just assume or adopt a relationship that seeds power or authority to one person, what we call them the teacher, or we call them the president, or we call them the general. You know, but to think about in Dogen's Bodhisattva Shishobo, the Bodhisattvas for Embracing Dharmas, in the last section, which is called identity action, which you could also translate as cooperation.

[52:06]

He talks about the relationship of the ruler and the people, which is a Confucian model. And says the people don't always understand that the ruler is there because the people allow him or her to be. That they create each other. So that's that principle of mutuality. There it is articulated by Dogen. and the 13th century. So there's so much more I could say about Sojin and maybe some of this will come out in the Q&A, but I think that I'd like to sing you a song to close this portion and then we'll have time for a Q&A if that's okay.

[53:09]

No. sure what voice I have after talking. This is a song that was written by Bernice Reagan Johnson of Sweet Honey and the Rock. and some of you know of her. I think about Sojin. I think about Blanche. I think about Steve, Suzuki Roshi, and so many others.

[54:21]

No. They are falling all around me. They are falling all around me. They are falling all around me. The strongest leaves on my tree. Every letter brings the new. Every letter brings a new stat. Every letter brings a new stat.

[55:22]

The teachers of my life are moving on. Death comes and rests so happy. Death comes and rests so heavy. Death comes and rests so heavy. Your face I'll never see. No more. But you're not really going to leave me. You're not really going to leave me. You're not really going to leave me. It is your path I walk. It is your song I sing.

[56:25]

It is your load I take on. It is your air I breathe. It's the record you set that makes me go on. it's your strength that helps me stand no you're not really going to leave me i have tried to sing your song right i have tried to sing your song right I will try to sing my song right. Be sure to let me hear from you. Let's take a couple of breaths, maybe stand up and stretch.

[57:34]

So we have some time for questions, comments. You can sit down. Okay, you're going to pass the microphone around? Yeah, I'll bring it around. Feel free to raise your hand. So please, I'd like to hear from you. There's a hand over here. Thank you, Alan, for that very beautiful talk and song. I want to share a story about Sojin, and I don't know if you know this. There was a time when you were quite ill and in the hospital, and I was very concerned about you, and I didn't know what to do. I thought if I visited you, it might be intrusive, and you might not want to visit, and

[59:04]

I talked to Sojin about it, and he said, go. Not many other words, just go. And it was so helpful to me that he was so clear. And I remember going and just giving you some chips of ice and being with you. There wasn't much conversation. But it was an important moment for me that I could be with you at that time. And I'm also so grateful that you recovered and that you have had so many years to practice and teach since then. Thank you so much. So many people visited me. I had sepsis. And it came about a week after my Dharma sister, Maylee Scott, had died.

[60:10]

And I was in the hospital for about two weeks or so, and it was touch and go. What I learned in that time was just to keep the door open and also to notice, I really noticed, There were some people who had the capacity to just come in the room and be there with whatever was happening. And perhaps to set their anxiety outside the threshold. And I remember you. I remember Paul Haller came and visited. There were a lot of people who visited. And there were some people who I hardly knew who came and visited, and yet there was something about their presence that was just completely settled.

[61:19]

Whereas other people that maybe family members and others who I was closer with, there was a pull to, I felt I should take care of them, which is like I had no energy for that. So this is a real teaching that I applied to any kind of accompaniment or chaplaincy that I've done since. And it's what it applies. There's another principle that I speak of in the book about Sojin. Somebody asked him in a talk, what's the most important thing for a teacher to keep in mind? And he said, never want anything for yourself from your student. So to just go in a room and be willing to be present. So you were able to do that. And that's healing energy. Thank you.

[62:23]

the quiet bunch. Hi. Thank you for the very wonderful talk and sharing some... What's your name? I'm Sherwin. What? Sherwin. Sherwin, hi. Yeah, thank you for the wonderful talk and sharing some of these very intimate stories. One thing I was wondering about, I don't know if this is like a formal part of Zen tradition, but I think I read about it in Reb's book where he talks about a time where you must eventually break free from your teacher or separate or surpass different variations of that. And he shares a story when he talks with Suzuki Roshi about that. Can you speak to that part in your experience? Yeah. I mean, I think it's very much

[63:38]

like the maturation process that a child does with a parent or that somebody does with their therapist, they're parallel. You have to find your own way and your way. So all of, if you look at all of Suzuki Roshi's heirs, they're each their own person and they're not in superficial ways like Suzuki Roshi. There's not like, the Suzuki Roshi stamp that out of which they were all kind of embossed. And the same thing was true with Sojin, who has something like 30 Dharma heirs. We're all really different. So there's a process of individuation that has to happen. And that is not always easy. And I'll tell you, it's really not easy if you're also still living with your teacher.

[64:40]

In other circumstances, I think once I was transmitted, and I was transmitted in 1998, I would have left and gone someplace and taught someplace. But my family was there. Berkeley. I didn't want to move them. And also I felt responsible, not just to sojourn, but to the community. And so I stayed, which was not always easy. So how do we individuate in that context was challenging, but it had to be done. And I'm grateful for the opportunity to have worked through that. but you have to be yourself.

[65:44]

Suzuki Roshi often talked about this, you have to stand on your own two feet. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Jenny. Thank you so much for the talk this morning and the beautiful song. I'd like to say that as well. You mentioned the equanimity or the leveling of student and teacher being somewhat on the same plane in some way. And I'm curious, what is the role of the student then to the teacher? What are they asking of the teacher? And what is the teacher beholden to them? What are they asking of the teacher?

[66:47]

Okay, first of all, I would say it's not equanimity, it's equality. Sojin had much more equanimity than I will ever have. It's not actually a strong feature of my personality. me, I'm looking what I looked for in Sochin was somebody that I could be honest with, that I could admit my own shortcomings to, and that I could get a reflection from on what he was seeing. And while that reflection may have been accurate or not entirely accurate, I was pretty convinced that it was not, whatever it was, it was not colored by self-interest on his part.

[68:01]

It was unselfinterested. And that's, I think it's really important. That's something that I've, that I learned and that I really try to put into action for myself. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is David. Hi. It sounds like when you came to Berkeley Zen Center, you were, can I say, fortunate enough to have falling into a kind of a resonance with the place and with Mel, your teacher. Is that true? And I wouldn't, I guess, reflect on my own situation, I feel a strong pull and desire to practice and the practice itself, but have not found, let's say, a resonance

[69:16]

with or towards a teacher. And so I'm wondering if you might comment on that, like, should I, I don't know if I'm really asking for advice, but your reflection, I guess my own question is, do I just sort of wait, stay open to the situation, or in a lovely one you're with sort of situation, who's there and stay with that? I'm hearing two things and I want to be clear about them. One is you're speaking about finding a teacher, settling on the teacher, but the other you said resonance. That's, I feel like from often the stories of practitioners and their teachers involve these resonance stories and magical situations. Yeah. I don't hear the other stories if there are ones. Okay, there's lots of them.

[70:17]

And that's, you know, so Berkeley Zen Center, one of the things that's unique about Berkeley Zen Center is that that was not the model. There was always a small residence there. But the idea that Sojin had was, and it was really unique, was to create a fairly vigorous practice schedule for people who had lives, people who had families, jobs, bodies. And so what you had at that time when this, so we're talking about 1967, 68, you had centers. But you had very few temples. You had large residential places. But actually, Sakoji originally was not a residence.

[71:22]

It wasn't until they got here that they created a residence. And I think Sojin's model was based on this experience at Sakoji where you came for Zazen every day. And then you went back into your lives and your work. And that's the model that that we've had at Berkeley Zen Center for 53, 54 years. There is a residence there. It's a wonderful way to live, but it's not the only, it's not a resident. You still have to go out and work. And so you don't have to do this in a residential context. So just say there's what he was looking at was a model of lay practice. And so I wanted to say that as far as teacher, I think both things that you said seem to me resonant. One is keep your eyes open and keep your mind open.

[72:23]

And when really notice, as I noticed when I came to Berkeley Zen Center and felt I was home, notice when you feel at home. Notice when you feel some energy with a person who is a teacher and pursue it. You know, just, and explore it and check them out. Are they reliable? Are they morally upright? And so forth. The other thing is to look around your environment and see, are those people already here? And you're maybe missing it. You know, so so do both but what's the expression trust and verify yeah i think that's right there's time for one more

[73:24]

Good morning. Thanks for your talk. People call me Francis. I'll try and be concise. I suspect that as a teacher and a student are relating to one another, like it makes sense to me, I don't know how you articulated the guidance, but that the teacher not want anything, try to get anything from the student because I suspect that each is mostly or exclusively relating to themselves, an image or a projection of themselves. And I wonder if there is or where that sweet spot of some authentic or actual meeting or connection occurs between two organic entities that are, like right now I'm speaking mostly to a mental construct, Alan Sanaki, that is actually over there, but I'm experiencing a mental construct and I suspect you're relating to an assembly member speaking into a microphone.

[74:47]

Is there more than that or is it more like a ritual performance for us to relate to our own projections? Yes. The sixth ancestor of Zen, Wineng, his first bodhisattva vow is sentient beings of my mind are numberless. I vow to save them all. Which is a little bit different than what we're going to chant here in a moment, right? But it's not. It is and it isn't. So in this conversation, we are meeting. Are we here together at all? Yes.

[75:49]

But we are also, whoever you think I am is a construction of your mind. And whoever I think you are is a construction of my mind. And the sweet spot really depends on us. Weaving together a relationship that depends on interaction. And that's what we do. And once you do that, there's a fabric that exists between us. So even by having this exchange, there's something here that you and I are going to recognize the next time we encounter each other, probably. And there may be some residue in your question that lingers with me or that what I say lingers with you. And so we're constantly, to save the sentient beings of our mind, yes, there are all these beings of my own mind, my feelings, my perceptions of, you know, whatever my state of mind might be at any given moment.

[77:01]

But also, anyone that I'm talking with, we are mutually sentient beings of each other's mind. To me, that's a wonderful mystery. It doesn't close any doors. It opens all the doors. Does that help? You don't look convinced. How would you know if I was convinced? That's good. That's good. So we've closed with a moment of Dharma exchange there. Thank you. So thank you very much and be well. I think there's some copies of my book in the bookstore and Sojin's book will be out in the fall. So thank you, please have a good day and take care and I'll see you soon. any people decide this and

[80:22]

My name is Kay. I'm the Eno, or head of the meditation hall. I'd like to share a few announcements. We have regular morning and evening meditations at 540 in the morning, 540 in the afternoon. And you all are fully welcome to come and join us for that. If you are new to meditation, we offer Zazen instruction most Saturdays at 8.40 in this room. And you can check the website to see if we're actually having one of those on a given Saturday. And then after the Dhamma talk, there's a Zendo forms instruction. That's kind of an introduction to the Zendo where we all sit, which is in the basement, and some of the forms for entering and exiting and things like that, how to navigate that space.

[81:30]

So that will be happening today right after this talk. You can meet Roger in the hallway. Roger's standing up in the back and check that out. Next Saturday, is that? No, next, a week from tomorrow, July 16th, we have a half-day beginner sitting. This is from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. It's kind of a deeper dive into introduction to meditation, and you can still register for that. Some upcoming Dharma talks. On Wednesday, our central abbot, Tenzin David Zimmerman, will be giving the talk. And then next Saturday, Shosan Victoria Austin will be offering... words from the Dharma seat. And I also want to share an announcement about our renovations that are happening in this building and some of the events that we're holding that are leading up to that.

[82:38]

So the Beginner's Mind Temple Renewal Campaign is an informational and fundraising campaign for the 2024 renovation project to preserve and update this temple, a Julia Morgan treasure. Those on Zoom, all the information has been posted in the chat, and for those here in the Buddha Hall, there's information on the cork board in the hallway going to the bookstore. We have a number of events that are part of this, and those are listed on the event board. There's an event today, this afternoon, Marsha Lieberman is leading a workshop called Sacred Spaces, the Home Altar. This is sold out for today. And next week, Shosan Victoria Austin will be offering a session called Meditative Ease, and you can still sign up for that.

[83:45]

And then there are three more events continuing this summer and likely more in the fall. So stay tuned for that. And also please consider making a donation to support the renewal campaign. Today we have our monthly public lunch. So you all are welcome to stay. Join us for lunch. It'll be at noon. It's by donation. And that'll be in the kitchen at the end of the hallway here. And in the meantime, there's tea and cookies available just outside in the courtyard. You're welcome to stay for that. And as we depart, if we could keep the chairs that are in this row in this room, but the other chairs can, if you feel able to move a chair, this can go back to the dining room. So thank you all once again for being here. And before I forget, some words from our...

[84:49]

Saturday Sangha slash Urban Gate group. Thank you, Kai. So Saturday Sangha is okay. I mentioned that there's a regular 540 p.m. and 540 a.m. Monday through Friday. There's also a Saturday 925 and also that is produced and SUPPORTED BY A GROUP OF NON-RESIDENT VOLUNTEERS WHO DO THE DIFFERENT CEREMONIAL ROLES. AND WE ALSO DO THE ROLES HERE DURING THE DARMA TALK AND SET UP. SO THE TOPIC OF RESIDENT VERSUS NON-RESIDENT WAS ACTUALLY INTERESTINGLY BROUGHT UP BY THE ABBOTT OF BERKELEY ZEN CENTER. WE COULD BE AS COOL AS BERKELEY AND HAVE THE PRACTICE OF LEARNING THE DOE ON RIO JOBS WITHOUT getting the training as a resident, we can get the training as a volunteer who comes and joins us. And you can join us in a circle, 8.50 Saturday mornings when we meet, or there's also going to be some No Unreal training events next Saturday, July 15th afternoon, 2 to 4, or the following Monday, July 17th in the evening, 7.30 to 8.30 p.m.

[86:08]

Thanks. Thank you, Benjamin. And thank you all for being here. Thank you.

[86:44]

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