We will now begin today's Dharma Talk offered by San Francisco Zen Center, Central Abbot, Rinceau Ed. Sadizam. Please chant the opening verse along with me. The verse should appear on your screen now. An unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect Dharma. is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million kalpas having it to see and listen to to remember and accept i vow to taste the truth of the tathagata's words Good morning.

[05:34]

So nice to have a chance to speak to the Green Gulch Sangha. I'm looking at all your pictures on this wonderful Zoom screen. So many familiar faces and some new ones. I do wish, of course, I was giving this talk when it was scheduled back in February in the actual Green Gulch Zendo. Such a lovely place to give a talk. And of course, then I would get to see your faces in person instead of talking to this computer. But we will make the best of the situation and see what we can do. I want to thank Jiryu and Fu for inviting me to make this talk. These are challenging and painful times.

[06:34]

Living in a world of systemic racism brought so painfully to us by the iPhone recording of the killing of George Floyd, the pandemic with its worldwide sickness, death, and tremendous economic pain and disruption, a country so divided almost every issue, and now the fires ranging in the Bay Area exacerbated by the looming existential threat of climate change. It's a lot to take in. I'm thinking about the fires currently because there are three fires approaching Tassajara, one from the north in Carmel and one from the northeast on the River Road called the River Fire and one from the west, the Dolan Fire. So we evacuated Jamesburg on Tuesday and we've evacuated everybody from Tassara except for two students which remained.

[07:44]

And then we have one student who came in from Green Gulch and we have two professional firefighters there. So right now we have five people at Tassara to defend Tassara or at least prepare to defend it. And we'll take it day by day and hope for the best. It's amazing to me the history of fires at Tassar. I was director of Tassar in the 1977 Marble Cone fire. Then there was the 1999 fire. Then there was the famous 2008 fire, which the book Fire Monks was written about. And then the 2016 Sobranas fire that we closed Tassar for six weeks. In all of these fires, we have defended Tassara successfully, and we hope that that will be the case this time. But it certainly reminds us that things are changing. The fires are much worse than they used to be. They come more frequently, and it's just a product of our times. I wish everyone who is near a fire, evacuating from a fire, or has been caused harm by a fire, well.

[08:53]

Not since I was in college in the 60s and I woke up to what was going on in the world have I felt the urgency for action and the request to meet the moment more than now. Back then, there was the war in Vietnam, the incredible senseless killing. 58,000 Americans lost their lives, probably over a million Vietnamese. the civil rights movement with its encouraging moments of the March on Washington and then the despair with the death of Martin Luther King in 1968, the beginning of the environmental movement, the anti-nuclear movement, feminism, gay liberation. It was all wrapped up into one thing called the counterculture where the entire country seemed to be breaking apart. I didn't know what to do. I had finished all my training to be a math professor and that had been my career path since I was about 10 years old, but it didn't make sense anymore.

[09:56]

So I headed to California in 1970, hoping to find some way to clarify my mind. And one of those great fortunate moments I drove into Tassara, I had heard about it back in New Mexico and managed to practice with Suzuki Roshi. And at the end of that summer, it was clear that that was going to be the way for me to lead my life. And since then, of course, Zen has been a part of my life for the last 50 years. And so today I'm going to talk about the Bodhisattva path because I believe also at this time, Zen and the Bodhisattva way is as relevant for meeting this moment and these times as it was for me back then, 50 years ago. Two weeks ago, we were very fortunate in having Reverend Shohaku Okamura lead a seven-day Genzoe at City Center. Genzoe is kind of a modified sashin where we sit a lot of zazen and Shohaku gives us an hour and a half talk in the morning and an hour and a half talk in the afternoon.

[11:03]

It's so wonderful to see Shohaku Okamura again. He's been a regular Genzoe lecturer at Zen Center. And he's just such a marvelous person. Anyway, the subject of the Genza way was Mujo Seppo in sentient beings expounding Dharma. Dogen Zenji's well-known Waka poem expressing the meaning of this is colors of mountain peaks and echoes of valley streams, all as they are, nothing other than my Shakyamuni's voice and image. Colors of the mountain peaks and echoes of valley streams, all as they are, nothing other than my Shakyamuni's voice and image. Don't we feel that whenever we're hiking in the mountains, looking at the mountains, listening to the sound of the stream, something that you feel so

[12:11]

when you're at Tasara that seems like Buddha's tongue and body are speaking to you. Another poem of a similar sentiment given by So Dung Po to the abbot of the Dongling monastery. And this is that version. The sounds of the creeks are the teachings, the broad long tongue of the Buddha. The colors of the mountains are nothing but the pure Dharmakaya, the unconditioned body of Buddha. All night long I hear 84,000 gathas. What can I say about this in the future? Well, don't we feel the planet is teaching us? It's telling us how much harm we are causing it and all living beings that live on it. We need to listen. We need to hear the mountains and rivers expounding the Dharma.

[13:13]

They're teaching us as much as any written document could teach us. Reverend Okamura also shared the use of an image of a bird as a path to describe the bodhisattva way. And I... wrote out about three pages on it because I was fascinated by this idea of the bodhisattva path being a bird flying through the air, leaving no trace. It was called the traceless bird's path. And there were two other roads that were sort of associated with it, which was the hidden path, which is the path of emptiness and also the path of extending our arms to everyone, the bodhisattva path. And I love to actually go into it, but I realized when I actually printed out my document this morning that there was no way I could cover it while I was covering the other stuff that I wanted to talk about.

[14:17]

So I will refer you to this wonderful book if you're really interested, Just This Is It by Taigan Leighton. And in chapter seven, he gives a marvelous talk about the bird's path. So the third aspect of the bird's path, extending the hands to help others. This is really the essential meaning of the bodhisattva path. And like Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion with all those hands and arms to see your suffering and to help you. And how do we take this bodhisattva path? I was thinking about it and I thought if I wanted to get across one aspect of our practice that I thought would be essential and has been meaningful to me all my life, it is this.

[15:20]

It is commitment. Continuous commitment to practice. I was listening to a talk on NPR by Sadie Smith and she said, you are what you commit to. What you commit to is what defines your life. That really struck a chord with me. More important than your talents is what you commit to, what you commit to that will define your life. When I was a young Zen student at a lecture at Tashara that the then abbot Richard Baker gave, he said, what would it be like if you aligned your life with your deepest intentions, if you committed to and acted on your deepest intentions. I thought about that. I thought, well, what are my deepest intentions?

[16:23]

Do I even know what my deepest intentions are? If I ask you that question and you would say, oh, well, of course I know what my deepest intentions are. I don't know. It's an important question to ask ourselves. And if we were to ask ourselves and had some inkling of what our deepest intentions were, how would we act on them? How would we transform our life to align with our deepest intentions? Reverend Okamura in his book talks about the definition of a bodhisattva. So the usual answer to that in Buddhism is our commitments, our deepest intentions are talked about as vow. as our vows you know the usual definition is a solemn promise a pledge or personal commitment but in buddhism it has a much wider meaning part of the definition of a bodhisattva is a person who lives by vow instead of karma uh reverend okamura in his book uh living by vows says ordinary people are those

[17:37]

who live being pulled by their karma. Bodhisattvas are those who live by their vows. You know what karma is. Karma is our conditioning, our personality, our desire, our needs, the values and ideas that drives us, our belief systems from our childhood and culture, much of which causes us suffering. What does it mean to make this shift from karma to vow? It is not abandoning karma. Everything remains. We don't reject karma or abandon it. It can't be done. Karma is like a rushing river flowing through our life. And if I think of vow, vow would be you in that boat, steering the boat through the rushing river with vow as your oar. What is that thing underneath the boat that... heal that keeps it in the right direction.

[18:40]

Yes, that's what we need in our life. We need that vow to keep us in the right direction. I'm just going to repeat for all of you, even though you, I assume, repeat them quite often because we repeat them here at this lecture. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. These are impossible goals. So what does it mean to set an impossible goal? What does it mean to say something that can't be done? It's a kind of contradiction. We vow to do things that are impossible. Reverend Okamura says, there is a fundamental contradiction even in the word bodhisattva.

[19:46]

Bodhi, which means in Sanskrit, awakening, and sattva meaning sentient being. Sentient being meaning someone who's wandering around, living in karma, making continuous mistakes. How can we be both a sentient beings and an awakened being at the same time? He mused on that. He didn't really give us an answer. He just said it was a kind of inherent contradiction. But what it means if you take on an impossible vow is that it's endless. Since we value continuous ongoing practice, you need an attitude of softness to go along with this dedication. Otherwise, you'll be willing yourself to follow these vows and you'll burn out. It requires a kind of Like a marathon, you know, this is a lifelong pledge. Since it's impossible, it can't be measured.

[20:47]

So I think this vow of sort of as a compass to our life, it's not a bunch of specific goals, particularly, although it is. If you go to Tassar, you set the goal to get up at whatever they're getting up at normally in the morning, 340. And you try to follow the schedule. But more a vow is something that you fall back on. as the direction when you're wondering which way to go. I think it's also humbling to take on an impossible vow. When I was watching Reverend Okamura 10 days ago, I was reminded about what a humble, straightforward person is. And when I think about Suzuki Roshi as... wildly inspiring and uh present as he was he was also one of the humblest people i ever met i was i'm reminded of a a lecture i was in at at tasara i think it was uh

[22:02]

1971, the summer of 71. And apparently Tassara, there was a senior staff meeting with Suzuki Roshi and the senior staff apparently were complaining about, probably they're complaining about the guest students like me or the guests about not knowing how to follow the rules or do what to do. And Suzuki Roshi apparently got quite angry with them. And So he gave a very short talk that night and then said, I'm sure you have some questions. And one of the senior staff members raised his hand and said, Suzuki Roshi, kind of apologetic for how he'd been. I've been studying for five years and I still find it hard to be kind to these people. And Suzuki Roshi said, five years is nothing. You don't know how hard it is to love some people.

[23:04]

You don't know how hard it is to love some people. And in that room, that night, that quiet night at Tassar, there were maybe, I don't know, only maybe 60 or 70 people in the Zendo. That was when the old Zendo was down by the creek. And there was a kind of stillness after he said that, kind of like everybody, and even I had felt like he had loved me. I had not been there that long. I mean, he was just that way, you know. And to take on that, to say, well, my challenge in life is to love everybody I meet or treat them from that place. Well, that is an impossible task. And it's a vow in some sense. And it's the kind of thing, of course. which made me realize that Buddhism, as much as there is this emphasis on wisdom, and certainly wisdom is the other wing of the bird of Buddhism, compassion and love, the other one, that love is really what the whole story is about.

[24:07]

And I was very happy to have learned that lesson early in my Zen career when I was busy sitting long sashims trying to get enlightened. So, There's no use to get discouraged because we're making a commitment that is essentially impossible and we'll be making mistakes continuously. But I think it's the essence of a human being to make such a noble commitment. So I want to go into another aspect of a vow. And that aspect of vow is repentance. Repentance is intimately connected to vow. Vow and repentance are two sides of one practice. Because our vow is endless, our practice is never complete. This awareness of the incompleteness is repentance.

[25:12]

That was a quote from Reverend Okamura, and I really thought it was an interesting way to think about repentance. You know, every morning, At the beginning of service at Zen Center, we chant all my ancient twisted karma. From beginningless greed, hate and delusion, born through body, speech and mind, I now fully avow. I need to do this every morning. I need to repent from the karma of my life. From all my delusion. and all the delusion that I have that causes harm and suffering to other people in many unconscious ways. Even when I try to do something good, I end up causing harm. And of course, I was relieved when I read a lecture Suzuki Roshi gave, one of his last ones at Tashara in 1971, called A Speck of Dust, and he recounted this.

[26:15]

Many Zen students come to Zen Center Is this something meaningful or not? If something good happens, at the same time, something bad will happen. Most likely, if one good thing happens, 12 things or more than 20 bad things will happen. So we should think when we pick up a speck of dust, whether it is a good thing or a bad thing to do. But if you don't do anything, what will happen? or excuse me, but if you don't, nothing will happen. That is also true. What will you do? To pick up a speck of dust, there's a famous koan about this, which I won't go to, but it was really around founding a monastery, but it means to do anything that you commit to. And he's saying, if you commit to doing something, of course, maybe even it's a very good thing to do, many bad things will happen. So do you not try to help people who are suffering?

[27:19]

Or do you try to help people who are suffering? And of course, the answer from Suzuki Roshi is, of course, you try to help people who are suffering. Of course, you build a tasahara and hope it's going to turn out to be the best it can. But you accept the fact because you're a limited, deluded human being, even a very good Zen master, much harm will happen and many bad things will happen. So we repent. We repent our mistakes. and apologize. And also we shouldn't be too surprised when something we tried to do that was wonderful turned out to have shadow consequences. It's kind of like, you know, when you have an impossible vow, it's like trying to empty an ocean with a teaspoon. Now, how hard do you try? You'll never get there. So this endless practice, and I don't know, I'm 75 now, I'm not sure.

[28:25]

Maybe my practice was best when I was 32, I think actually, I was probably peak then. But anyway, we keep trying, we keep making an effort to help. And we shouldn't try to compare ourselves to other people because if you've got an infinite goal and you're at zero, You can be confident that everybody else is at zero, too, compared to that infinite goal. So we're all in the same boat together, trying to make an effort, trying to help. I'm reminded, you know, when we do our precept ceremony, our three pure precepts, I vow not to harm. I vow to do all good. I vow to live and be lived for the benefit of all beings. Isn't this what we want to do, not to do harm? Isn't that our deepest intention, really, to help other people, to be kind, to make a difference?

[29:27]

I think so. So I'm going to share this case. Guishan was the Tenzo, the chief cook. in the monastery where he practiced with his teacher, Bai Zhang. One day, Guishan was standing near Bai Zhang's room and Bai Zhang asked Guishan, who is it? Guishan replied, it is Guishan. Guishan, excuse me, it is Guishan. Bai Zhang said, would you dig in the fireplace and see if there's an ember Any fire or not?" So Guishan took the poker out, checked in the fireplace and said, there's no fire. And Baijan got up, came over, dug deep into the ashes and found a tiny ember.

[30:34]

He showed it to Guishan and said, what is this? Isn't this a fire? and Guishan was enlightened. Of course, we always love these stories when someone's immediately enlightened by their teacher showing them their Buddha nature. Of course, the fire in this story is Guishan's Buddha nature, which he wasn't feeling. He didn't feel that energy inside us that motivates our practice. that Buddha nature that we have always with us, the fire of the life force that enables us to aspire to be a better person, no matter what the difficulties. To be helpful, to live a productive life and practice the way. Having a faith in our Buddha nature, having some sense of it, knowing that ember is inside us.

[31:43]

Well, I think it's difficult to be aware of that ember, that fire, that Buddha nature in us. We forget. We forget a lot. But I think if we practice more, after a while, we'll forget less often. We'll remember more often that we have the fire of our Buddha nature to help us. because we must have it. It is there. It helps us wake up to the reality of the life. It inspires us to live a life of wisdom and compassion. So I think our deepest intention is to wake up to the reality of our life. And when our self-concern causes us to deviate from that, we return to the reality of our life.

[32:46]

Or to put it another way, when our self-concern blinds us to what is going on, then our vow returns us to the reality of our life. This returning is our vow. It is the dynamic activity bringing us back to our actual life. So after Guishan had completed his training with Bajan, he went off and founded a monastery up in a famous mountain. And for many years, he just practiced by himself, living off the mountain fruits and roots and stuff, kind of famous for sincere, solitary, solo practice. But eventually, This vow he had to practice was fulfilled in that hundreds of monks started showing up and they built an enormous training temple.

[33:55]

At one point it was said 1,500 people trained with him and he had 45 transmitted disciples. And that's when vow turned from being a solitary thing you do, but sangha vow, the practice of sangha. the power of a sangha that vows together. And he was a great example of that, producing that. Suzuki Roshi used to say, group practice is a shortcut to awakening. You know, it's one of those things, group practice. Zen Center has, for the last 50 years, sort of made residential practice cornerstone of our training. And, you know, residential practice is difficult. People irritate you. People you don't like end up being your roommates and people you like end up leaving for various reasons.

[34:55]

It's difficult practice. And yet it's the practice that actually wakes you up, keeps you awake and really brings out that desire to be a bodhisattva. There's a, you know, I think sometimes we say, well, I really don't have, I'm not sure I have any Buddha nature. I'm not sure I have what you're talking about. There's a term in Buddhism called self-secret. It means there aren't actually any secrets. It's all completely open to us right now. The problem is we create the secret through our attachments, through our inability to see through things, our hesitation to open up. So practically speaking, The Dharma appears to be a secret. Our Buddha nature appears to be a secret, but it's not that way because it's really, but it's not that way because it's really secret.

[36:00]

It's a secret because we make it a secret. So we say self secret. This is a very interesting turn of phrase. It's a very accurate term to describe what's going on in Guishan, not seeing his Buddha nature. I've been informed by a friend who had children, I didn't have any myself, that children of a certain age play a game where they put something over their heads and think they're invisible. They put a bag on their head and say, you can't see me, you can't see me. Well, actually, of course, we can see them. It's just they can't see us. A self-secret is something like that. We walk around with a bag on our head and we think there's some secret we have to discover. that we can see. Sometimes we're in desperate to find out that secret. What is the meaning of my life? Where is my Buddha nature? And all that's required is to take the bag off our head.

[37:02]

And we realize we can see perfectly well. We just had a bag on our head. This is the case for your Buddha nature. It's right there. And it's important to remember this. There is work to be done and that work is deeply meaningful. I'm thinking about Zen Center at this strange time with all its temples physically closed and our teaching coming over Zoom. What will Zen Center look like? We're going through a lot of self-reflection now. We're examining how we can be more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible. We're thinking about our teaching and training programs and if they can be or should be modified to adjust to a future that's different than what the past was.

[38:06]

And of course, all of this has to be sustained in some financial way, some way to sustain all our teachers and students. What will our country look like and what will the world look like as this pandemic recedes? And what will Zen Center look like? I am hopeful. John Lewis was so inspiring in his op-ed piece in the New York Times where he said, though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life, I've done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring. And I do feel that way. I look to the younger generation, the younger people in Zen Center and the younger people in this country and the world, because I think they have a calling and a chance to make a real difference at this moment.

[39:17]

I want to thank you all for your support at this time. I realize in one of my rare moments, I could have gone over the bird's path in the time I had, but I think I won't and I will open it up for questions if anybody, but like any, I think Jenny is gonna take us to the next segment of our event this morning. Yes, I think we will close together and I'm gonna share my screen with the closing chant that we can do together. You should see it now. May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Beings are numberless I vow to save them.

[40:23]

Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Before we open the floor to questions, I'd like to thank everyone for coming. Please know that we do rely on your donations now more than ever. If you feel supported by the Dharma offerings of our temples, please consider supporting San Francisco Zen Center with a donation at this time. Any size is gratefully appreciated. A link should show up in the chat window now. To offer comments and questions for Ed, please click on your Participants button in your Zoom control bar at the bottom of your Zoom window.

[41:33]

If you don't see the control bar, point your cursor over the Zoom window and it will appear. After opening your Participants window, click the blue Raise Hand button at the bottom of that window. And you can also send your comments or questions through the chat to me directly as well if you would like me to pose a question for you. And if you're on a mobile device, there's a more button on the bottom control bar and then from there you can click the raise hand button. So I see Frederick has his hands raised. Frederick, do you have a question or a comment? You're muted still. Hello, Ed. I loved your presentation this morning. I am so happy you finished with the comments from our dear, beloved John Lewis. A couple of days ago, I had a conversation with a dear friend who said, she said, I cannot participate in the political world because it is so confrontational.

[42:48]

And she asked me, she said, isn't that contrary to our path as practicing people that practice mindfulness and Zen? And I think your presentation about the wing of the bird, having compassion and love for all may be a very poignant place for me to consider having a different tone over the next several weeks. as I try to have a place to play in winning our state here. And that may be to have much more of a loving kindness approach to people supposedly on the other side, which feels very confrontational. It feels very challenging to me to try to be in that place that is accepting of my neighbor who has the QAnon sign. I've thought about actually going to that door.

[43:50]

I've actually thought about going to that door and asking if we could have a discussion, maybe. Well, that would just be opening myself up to this possibility to have a different approach. I'd like to have your thoughts through your many years of practicing the path and how you would recommend I further approach this. Well, thank you. That's an excellent question and not an easy question to answer. I'm humbled by the scale of the question you've posed. I think, yes, we do have to engage and I would encourage every person to vote and engage in whatever way we can. This is an important moment in our history. But I think we also have to sort of choose our moments, you know, when to intervene, you know, when to go directly. I think there's many opportunities, you know, sometimes even relatives.

[44:56]

Do I talk to my relative or, you know, and what? So I think there's gradations of who you take on. I'm not sure your neighbor would be my first choice in terms of someone I would experiment with being kind of two. I would... Try, you know, different levels and maybe in a month you might work up to him. I don't know or her or whoever it is. So I think, you know, one needs to be wise. And that's, of course, the other side of compassion is wisdom. You know, compassion in order to know how to help somebody, you have to have a certain amount of wisdom. You have to know when the right time to intervene and when's the moment. to make a suggestion or do something, because not all suggestions are heard. They're usually defended against or shut down. So I'm not discouraging you for trying. I think we should all try to make a difference. But I am... Sigurashi was, although he was very kind, he could also be quite strict.

[46:03]

I mean, sometimes he... You know, he would straighten you out if you were young Zen students and weren't grateful enough for the life you were leading, you know, and being kind of sassy. So he could be tough, too. Perhaps it's most important for me in hearing your responses to give up, begin to give up the judgmental mind and really try to come from that place, like you said, of compassion and love. Yeah. Yeah. That was the hidden path of the bird's path is the emptiness path, the non-judgmental mind. Can we give up our discriminating mind and at some point really stand in emptiness before we go out to try to help people? It's a useful place to be. Let's see, do we have any other questions this morning? I see Timothy Wicks.

[47:11]

Hi, Tim, where are you? I can't hear. Oh, there you are. I see you, Tim. Hi, thank you. Thank you so much. You mentioned that the way of the Bodhisattva is impossible, and you said that there needs to be a softness. We need to have a softness about it, otherwise we'll burn out. Can you say a little bit more about that? Because I think sometimes that is seen and I think there's some validity to this argument as an inability to change or an inability to address very difficult and painful things like racism. So can you say a little bit more about that softness that we need in this impossible? So in that case, I was talking about softness to ourselves. And of course, I agree with you. Sometimes when the world roars at us that we're completely ignorant and stupid and not hearing what's going on, we need to be tough on ourselves.

[48:21]

We need to wake up. You know, it's like putting a bucket of cold water on us. So I'm not saying that, you know, As I was saying to a group of students I was having a conversation with the other day, Zen is not easy. Zen practice is challenging because you confront parts of yourself that are difficult and you need to have the courage to confront those parts. But what I was sort of, you know, in everything, there's always two sides. So in my lecture, I was emphasizing the side that, you know, if you're going to make this effort over a lifetime, to continually try to face the reality of your life and the reality of the people's lives you're meeting with honesty, integrity, and love, you got to recognize that you got to have some self care in there. You have to, you have to be kind to yourself and you have to sort of recognize that you can't be driving yourself all the time or too critical.

[49:25]

So I think that's the side I was emphasizing. I was not emphasizing the side that you, hide from what you need to face. First of all, you can't hide from what you need to face. If you need to face something inside yourself, it will show up and you'll have to meet it. And our practice is to meet that and to continuously make that effort to meet that. So that's a good point to make, Tim. We have another question from Pamela. I will unmute her. Pamela, I don't see you anywhere here. Oh, there you are, Pamela. Hi. Hi. Thank you for your talk. I am grappling with the more present fear of fire right now. I live not very far from Green Gulch, and you didn't speak very much about that. And I guess I personally am just, I'm dealing with the fear of

[50:31]

you know, losing my house and how do I protect my children at this time from the possibility of evacuation and an air quality at this time. And I guess I'm just wondering what, you know, I know everybody at Green Gulch is probably dealing with the same thing and I'm, as a single mom, that doesn't have that beautiful community. I'm so grateful for this. And I guess I'm just wondering, like, how do we work with that fear and stay grounded at this time? Yeah, thank you. That's a very good question. I, of course, I live in Mill Valley over the hill from Green Gulch. And, of course, I have a big forest behind my house. So I think on one hand, one gets very practical. You know, we here in Homestead Valley have a Homestead Valley community group, and they have continuous meetings where they tell us how to pack our to-go bags and all the things that you need to do to prepare.

[51:36]

And how old are your children, Pamela? 13. They're twins. Oh, my goodness. So you have a much bigger responsibility. You have to... prepare not only to evacuate yourself if that's the case but to take what's important stuff for them and and of course they say these things should be packed in advance because if the knock comes in the middle of the night you don't have much time to evacuate one of the fires that happened i guess was last year one of my wife's very close friends just wasn't prepared and when the knock came on the door she just left and and with nothing all of her credit cards and everything, and it made her life much more difficult. So there's practical things we do. And are you in Muir Beach? Is that where you are? I'm in Homestead Valley, actually. You're in Homestead with us. Well, then you have all those resources of the community, which I find very helpful. So I think connecting with other people that can be a support for us in this situation is good.

[52:43]

So fear has one practical thing. It makes us do the things that are necessary to do and make sure we do those things. And the other side of fear is a kind of, has paranoia, which is not related to what the real future will be. You know, most of the fears, you know, there's that famous Tom Sawyer thing, you know, what I, you know, the fears I've had, the worst things that have happened to me and things that never happened to me, I just imagined them. So I think we do have to have some relationship with our fear, which is to be able to sort out the difference between useful fear that helps us act and fear that is just actually driving us crazy and causing us suffering and interfering with our ability to act. The Fire Monk's book, which I haven't looked at for a long time, but... the five monks that stayed down in 2008 and fought the fire, there's fear there.

[53:46]

Fear is an important part of being a firefighter because you have to protect your life. But at the same time, you have to have enough sort of presence to be able to meet the fire, as they would say, in the right way. So I think it's... Fear is a very, in some ways, it's good you're in touch with your fears. So it's not just anxiety. At least you've gotten to the foundation issue that you're going through. I'm a little too in touch with it. Well, I would say, do you sit zazen? I find that zazen can be helpful in moderating my, giving me some kind of composure in the midst of the craziness my mind goes through sometimes. I would recommend that among all the other practices that we have in our toolbox, the paramitas and things like that. Thank you for your question. And let's hope it doesn't get to Homestead Valley.

[54:50]

I'm hoping that that big mountain will stop it. Although that's what maybe fire is like, is they like mountains. I don't know. I've got my to-go bag packed. Thank you. Not seeing any other hands up at the moment. Does anybody else have any other questions, Fred? Well, Ed, if you're okay, I think we can close. Oh, we have one question from Tammy. Yes, Tammy. Hi, I'm here. So I just started a class at City College on theories of personality and I just want to say it's really interesting how you were talking about karma and all the things that go into our karma you know our growing up are all the baggage we bring and how we're kind of stuck with our karma but the whole point is to still make vows to move beyond it and that to me is almost like behavioral you know kind of behavioral therapies and cognitive behavioral therapy and how you we move we're kind of stuck with our personalities to some extent but it's that

[56:09]

of trying to do something different for a better outcome. And I don't know too much about, I'm just sort of a newbie in Zen, but so I just, that really struck me that it's exactly kind of what I was reading and what we're talking about in class. So I just wanted to make that note, so thanks. Thank you very much. And I think there is a great truth to everything you've said about vow, and that's a role vow plays. We also sometimes say vow is zazen. And when we sit Zazen, we don't know the ways we're changing ourselves. We're not changing ourselves in conscious ways because we're reconfiguring our entire body. We're reconfiguring the way we're breathing. And there's things that happen by living with that kind of silence and stillness as part of our life every day. And so in addition to vow or vow as expressed through Zazen, that also is transformative in ways that one can hardly barely even talk about.

[57:11]

Thank you very much, Tammy. Well, it's been a great pleasure spending some time with you this morning. And I look forward to the day when we can find ourselves in that beautiful Zendo at Green Gulch. And so thank you very much for attending. And I hope to see you in a soon enough time. Yes, and if anybody would like to turn your cameras on, and I've enabled them to meet themselves and say goodbye. Bye, Ed. Bye, Rev. Good to see you. Bye, Phil. Good to see you. Bye, everyone. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye, Ed. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Thank you, Ed. That's a friend.

[58:15]

He's got hair. Thank you, everybody, for coming. Thank you, everybody. Bye-bye. Thanks, Ed. Bye-bye to you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your questions, Fred. Fred, bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye, Shindo.

[58:34]

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