This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for coming to Green Gulch and welcome. My name is Sarah and I live and work here at Green Gulch and the director here now, which means I try and take care of everybody and make sure everything is working. And I have a lot of friends and a lot of help doing this job. And I live here with my family. I have two boys. This is Frank. And I realized this morning that his half birthday is tomorrow.

[01:04]

He'll be five and a half. And Dusty is over there. He's 15 months old. And they might go out and play with all of you after this part of the talk for the kids. So I know last night Frank and Dusty and their papa did something really special. And I'm wondering if any of you kids did something special last night? Yeah? What did you do? What was it? I was trick-or-treating. Trick-or-treating. Did you go trick-or-treating too? Yeah. Wow. So it was Halloween last night, right? And Did you get any treats when you went trick-or-treating? Candy. Was it delicious? Did your parents let you eat any of it last night?

[02:06]

Wow. And you probably ate a good dinner before you ate your treats, right? Yeah. Vegetables. Yeah. Frank, too. So I'm wondering if any of you can tell me, because I bet some of the other kids went trick-or-treating too. You want to sit up here? Can any of you tell me what it felt like to knock on somebody's door and have them open the door, and they probably said something about how they loved your costume, and then they gave you a treat? How did that feel? It felt exciting. Mm-hmm. You felt good. You felt good about yourself. Somebody complimented your costume, which makes you feel good, and then they give you a present, which makes you feel really good.

[03:14]

Yeah. I think that's true of a lot of people. That when somebody does something nice for you or gives you a treat, you feel really good. So tonight at Green Gulch, we're going to do a special ceremony that's kind of like Halloween, and it's called Sajiki. Except instead of putting on costumes and getting treats from people, we're gonna put on costumes, and they're gonna look a little bit like this one, that one. We're gonna put on costumes, and we're gonna give treats. So I wanted to talk a little bit about giving treats and getting treats and how that makes us feel. And then I thought we could all do something special, which is give a special kind of treat that we'd really like to give at Green Gulch. And we can give it to somebody we love. So I'll tell you about that later, how you can do that.

[04:14]

So we talked about how we feel good when someone gives us a treat. You know, when I get a treat, I feel it in my heart. It feels kind of warm. Where do you guys feel it when you feel good or when someone gives you a compliment or a present? Where in your body do you feel it? Can you remember? Yeah. You feel happy. Do you feel happy all over your whole body? Yeah. Yeah. In your heart? Yeah. That's kind of a common thing, people, when they feel good. When I feel good and happy in my heart, It makes me feel connected to other people. I notice I feel connected to the person who gave me the treat and to kind of to everybody all at once. And then on the other side, do you ever feel sad or scared or maybe really mad? Do any of your kids ever get really mad?

[05:17]

No. Frank sometimes gets really mad. You ever feel that way sometimes? Yeah, sometimes. So sometimes we feel these things because we're not sure what's going on or maybe we're not getting what we want. And the thing people do when they have those kinds of feelings sometimes is they do things like playing tricks on other people. They kind of do something to surprise or confuse other people or maybe to express these feelings. And usually what happens, have you guys noticed this, that when you feel mad and you maybe do something a little tricky, the other people around you might feel a little mad too. When somebody around you is mad, then maybe you feel kind of yucky on the inside. Yeah, that's also kind of a usual way that happens.

[06:18]

And not only this does not just happen to little people, it happens to all kinds of people, everybody really. Yeah, so you can think about what happens when you feel sad or mad or when you want your parents' attention and they're doing something really important, they can't give it to you. Maybe you give her a yell or throw your toys or push your little brother or sister. Maybe. So when we don't feel so good inside, so you get away. Sometimes we feel far away from people, like we're way over here and the other people are way over here. We feel really far away and separate when we don't feel good on the inside. And this usually doesn't feel so good if you start noticing what it feels like in your body. So I just want to say it's hard work for everyone to take care of these feelings.

[07:21]

You know, it's hard work to feel that way and then to reconnect. so that we feel good. And we remember our connection with everyone, and they feel good, too. So when we feel happy, usually we feel warm, we feel connected. And we have to take care of that feeling. We have to do kind of some hard work to bring the circles back together and take care of each other. And that's what the Buddha taught, actually. He taught, really, we're all connected to each other. all the time, even when we don't feel good. And because we're all connected to each other all the time, it's really good to act that way and to take care of that connection and take care of each other. So a really good way to reconnect with someone is to, when you're calm enough to remember in your heart that you really want them to be happy, you can do something to show them that you're connected.

[08:24]

So you can give someone a treat. like you got when you were trick-or-treating. It could be a picture or make some cookies or something like that. Those are all great treats. And words can also be really good treat. I love you is always a good, yummy treat that everybody likes to get. And sometimes I'm sorry is just the right flavor of treat. So a special kind of treat that we give in Zen is a delicious smell that is made by burning a thing called incense. And there's different kinds. There's the long sticks, maybe you've seen that. And there's this kind of, it's not really powder. It's called chip incense, little chips of incense. And it gives off a smoke that smells like perfume. And it's something that we give as a treat. Everything in the whole universe all at once.

[09:26]

Because we are all connected. Would you guys like to give some incense today? The kids? Does that sound good? So I'm going to show you how you guys can do this. I'm going to tell you how to do it. And tell you what you can do with your heart and your mind while you're doing it. And then you can all, all the little people can have a chance on your way out to the kids program. So I have a couple helpers who maybe are going to come up now. This is Lori. And she's a very special person at Greenwald. She's called the Shoes So. So if you need any help, you can ask Lori. And this is Courtney. She lives here at Green Colch, too. So I thought maybe we'd just go backwards. You want to pull the table out a little bit? Towards the kids, yeah. So they're going to show you how you can offer the incense.

[10:27]

So what you do is you take a little pinch from the side with the brown chippy stuff, and you pick it up, and you put it to your forehead. And you see you can hold your other hand the way they are. And then you put it down on the other side, which is the charcoal, so the little black and gray thing that's sticking up. And be careful, it's hot. So don't touch it with your fingers. So that's how you offer the incense, and you can see the delicious smoke comes. So when you come up and offer the incense, you can think of someone you love and that you want to feel connected to or you do feel connected to. And you can give them the smell of the incense, okay? You can just do that in your very own mind. They don't even have to be close by. Maybe they're in this room. Maybe they're your mom or your dad or whoever brought you to Green Gulch today. But they could be far, far away, and you can still give them this treat.

[11:31]

And maybe you want to give the treat to everyone in the whole world. That's a good thing to do, too. So it's up to you. And you might notice how it feels in your body when you're giving this treat. Because maybe later, you might be able to remember it. And it might help you. It might help you with whatever feelings you have. So if the parents who are going to go to the kids program want to get up with your kids, but will just have the kids offer the incense, and then you can exit out that way and meet up, Now is the time to do it. So come on up. And any kids who don't want to offer incense, that's okay too. You can go out now. No, that was my story. That was it. I'm just going to talk. I don't have a story except that one. Do you want to go up and offer incense? No. Okay. Well then, it's time for you to go out with Papa.

[12:33]

If you don't want to offer incense. Okay. Thanks for coming, sweetie. So as the kids are offering the incense, maybe the rest of us can also bring to mind somebody we love, somebody you want to connect with in this moment, somebody you want to send love to and good feelings. you can sit quietly and offer the incense that the kids are burning to this person or these people. So as I mentioned to the kids, this evening at Green Gulch, we will have a Sejiki ceremony.

[14:00]

And it's at 4 o'clock, and you are all invited, if you would like to stay or come back. In the Sejiki ceremony, we make many offerings. Some of them we make Daily, when we do service, we offer light and flowers and incense and our voices chanting. And tonight we will chant the Daishindorani, the Khan Ramon, and the Gate of Sweet Dew. And we will also chant the names of all the people who we held memorial services for here at Green Gulch in the past year, as well as... a number of other names of friends and family and sangha members that have died, not necessarily in the past year, but who we've decided to include in the ceremony.

[15:02]

People have added to the ceremony. And particularly, we will make special offerings of food, of rice and tea and, what did you call it, delicious vegetables? Delectable vegetables. Vegetable delectables and beautiful towers of fruit, so food and drink as part of the ceremony. So this ceremony is said to be based on one that the Buddha did for one of his disciples whose mother had passed away and whose mother was apparently in suffering even after her death. She had a difficult... and it continued after death. And so the Buddha did a ceremony to resolve that and ostensibly to resolve also the suffering. Perhaps it was causing her son, who had asked the Buddha to do the ceremony.

[16:08]

And the ceremony was, of course, influenced by many cultures as it passed through Southeast Asia, China, and Japan, and even coming to the to this country today. In Japan, the ceremony, and China, they're still performed. In Japan, it's performed as a part of Obon festivals, which includes a lot of offerings to one's ancestors. And here, we're influenced also by European traditions, and so the San Francisco Zen Center celebrates the Seji... Sajiki ceremony at the time of Halloween, the time, kind of our time of ghosts, you know, the fall. So the idea of the ceremony, going back for thousands of years, is to invite the spirits of those who have died, particularly those who have, who experienced a lot of suffering either in their life or kind of in their, had difficult deaths.

[17:15]

We invite them to come so we can release them from any lingering difficulty or suffering. So we do this by making all of the offerings that I mentioned, and particularly the food and drink to nourish and satisfy these spirits. So I'm pretty sure that I don't understand this ceremony the way a man in India at the time of the Buddha would have understood it, and I probably don't. even understand it the way a Chinese or Japanese person would understand it today. So here's one way that I understand this ceremony. As many of you know, a good friend of mine and a good friend of many people and a longtime resident of Green Gulch Daigon Luke died earlier this season, in the spring, here at Green Gulch.

[18:28]

You know, Daigon, I didn't meet him until he was in his 70s, and of course he had a lifetime of karma, much of which, when I met him, he seemed to have come into some kind of settled relationship with. you know, during his decades of practice. You know, in his final weeks of life, when he was, you know, having physical difficulty, he wasn't able to get out of bed and at a certain point wasn't able to speak clearly and finally not at all. There was difficulty, you know, it was difficult. It was difficult for me, certainly, and I can imagine it was difficult, and as well, not to be able to connect, and that way we connect with words to express what we need or what's happening for us.

[19:32]

And I realized after he died, the first person that I wanted to talk to it about, kind of have like a debrief about the whole thing, was him. I just want to sit down and say, what happened? How was that for you? Did I get it right? Did we miss something? Was that hard? Where did you go? Just all of those questions. Whether he, as I understood him as Daigon, which wasn't really there anymore, accessible to me, but whether he was okay and at peace. So was there something left unresolved or unsaid in his lifetime? In some moments, I think no. Some moments, I feel pretty settled. And in some moments, I think I don't know. I don't know. So the idea of inviting him back or inviting some part of him and that experience back

[20:43]

the part that's still alive in me to be nourished and offered peace is of great comfort and benefit to me. And perhaps to him, perhaps to whatever the continuing karmic being of Daigon is, if it's different than me. So for those of you who have lost a loved one, a loved one, perhaps this not knowing, resonates. Or perhaps it was clear that there was unresolved suffering for the person, either during their life or during their death. I also think of my grandmother, Pat Mammon. She died just a few weeks ago. She was 95. My mother had seen her earlier in the day and said to me, she seemed pretty peaceful. They did a number of things to try and keep her but she was mostly sleeping and didn't seem to be having too much trouble with the transition from life.

[21:54]

But during her life, when I knew her, she had a lot of difficulties. She was very unhappy about many things that I also wish for her sake and the sake of those who loved her to be resolved. So this is what I'm inviting. This is what I'm inviting to this Sajiki ceremony tonight. These ones that were close to me that I know. And then, of course, all of the ones I don't. All of the beings I don't know. So I appreciate this as an opportunity to express my wish for all beings known and unknown to be free from suffering. The ceremony is also quite emotionally powerful because it is so rich metaphorically and offers us many images through which to examine our own life and practice and really meet ourselves, you know, in others or our own life.

[23:12]

So as I mentioned, the ceremony is to invite deceased spirits to come into this world and actually into this zendo. And we set up a special altar for them. It will be actually this one behind me, not the main altar. We actually turn our backs on the main altar. Sometimes it's even covered with a cloth. And often in zendos, there isn't another altar behind the main altar. So you make a special one. so that we don't scare away the spirits. They aren't intimidated by the Buddha or the Dharma. So it takes some effort and safety to really be able to connect to these difficult feelings and to our suffering. It takes some real care. We make special noises for the spirits, special noises that, you know,

[24:18]

We might, as the living people, might feel kind of, they're kind of eerie, but we think these are sounds that will comfort the spirits that we call here. And we invite them to be fed and freed. And traditionally, some of these spirits are understood to be or depicted as hungry ghosts. So the image of the hungry ghost is a particularly graphic depiction of suffering. Hungry ghosts are human-like. They were once humans. And they have huge bellies, you know, really big, round, giant bellies, and then tiny little necks, like a tiny straw or something. And the belly is hungry. But the hungry ghost can never get enough food or nourishment to fill that hunger.

[25:21]

Maybe you've had this feeling, this kind of suffering in your life. No way to satisfy this feeling. And there are several variations on the theme of the hungry ghost. So some of the hungry ghosts can eat a little bit, but find it very difficult to find anything to eat or drink. Others can find food and drink but find it difficult to swallow. Others find the food that they eat or drink seems to burst into flames as they swallow it. And others see something edible or drinkable and desire it, but it withers up or dries up right before their eyes. So as a result of all of these different situations, the hungry ghosts are always hungry. And then, if that weren't bad enough, in addition to the hunger, they suffer from extreme or moderate heat and cold.

[26:27]

So in the summer, the moon, the kind of cold, white, pale moon, right, scorches them. It burns them. In the winter, when everything is cold, the sun freezes them. You know, the warm sun freezes them. So you might have a sense that these descriptions of hungry ghosts apply to particular karmic patterns that we ourselves may have or those that we lost. it's easier to see them than somebody else. But if you start looking, you might recognize some of them that you've experienced even while we're alive, even while we live. Kind of different flavors of suffering we can create for ourselves based on our karmic tendencies.

[27:31]

So for example, the hungry ghost that can eat a little but finds it very difficult to find food or drink. can't find food or drink. It's like nothing is quite right. Maybe we have very high standards and nothing fits. We have a particular idea of what we're looking for and therefore we can't find it anywhere. And in this way we go through our lives missing what is actually happening because we're preoccupied with our ideas of how it should be. You can take in a little, but it's never quite right. You can't really find what you need. Others can find food and drink, but find it very difficult to swallow. So this is the experience of being surrounded by abundance that you can't let in.

[28:37]

It's really hard. to really let in the experience of being alive. You know, a lot of it is very painful, actually. Sickness, old age, and death. Surely for those, for ourselves and those we love. You know, trying to protect ourselves from disappointment and difficulty and pain. One also has difficulty taking in the rich texture of joy and connection, which is often the other side of the same coin. Life is complex and can be very overwhelming. And one thing we as human beings do is try and protect ourselves by just letting a little bit of it in at a time.

[29:37]

But when we do this, The other side is we don't ever feel completely filled up. We don't ever feel completely alive. So others find that the food they eat seems to burst into flames as they swallow it. What a terrible thing. It's kind of, yeah, it's very kind of... surprising image, right? I think of somebody reaching out. You've got that perfectly roasted marshmallow and pop it in your mouth and poof, you know, back on fire. You know, really surprising. So this is like you think you're open to what's happening. You think you're really up for whatever's coming your way. It looks good enough to swallow. And then as soon as it goes in your mouth, As soon as it's actually happening to you, you can't take it.

[30:44]

You know? It hurts. It's overwhelming. You know? Yeah. So... This happens, I was reflecting, this happens sometimes at Green Gulch. Maybe it's even happened to you at Green Gulch. It looks, Green Gulch looks like a really wonderful place. And actually, it is a wonderful place. People are often attracted to the idea of practicing in community. This may be why you come here. There's a lot of like-minded people. There's people who are committed to practicing together, and we share common goals, common intention. And then there's always the rub of being human. Intimacy is very difficult.

[31:46]

People are very difficult. And sometimes it can feel like eating fire. We have an idea that intimacy should be tasty and easily digestible. And then it turns out your fellow Sangha member does not live up to your idea of what enlightenment looks like. And pop, the whole thing goes up in flames. So often we don't notice we have ideas or expectations until you find something that is not it. We're only maybe vaguely aware that there is an it until we meet something that is not it. And then we know, so this could be you are not a practitioner, you know, or this is not kindness, or, you know, you fill in the blank, this is not success, right?

[32:51]

Well, what is success? What did you think success was going to look like, right? These are these unexamined ideas and assumptions we carry around all the time that maybe we don't recognize. and that prevent us from being nourished by our life. So others see edible or drinkable things and desire them only to have them wither or dry up right before their eyes. So, right, here we are. It says it's going to rain tonight, but here we are at the tail end of four years of drought. Well, tail end. Anyway, I'm hoping it'll rain this winter. So... dry, long, dry season, years and years. So this image of withering, withering food. Like, I don't know if you've ever walked through the field on a sunny day after it's been foggy at Gringolch and seen all the kale kind of falling over, drooping, kind of.

[33:54]

It's very sad. Very sad. So these are our dashed hopes. You know, this is things didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. You know, it looked like everything was going great in my life, but then, you know, it didn't turn out the way I thought it would. So we get caught up in our fantasy about how our life should go, and when it doesn't match up with our lived experience, often we're unable to realign our expectations, you know, and then things can look like a withering disappointment. So then there's this piece about the hungry ghosts suffering from the extremes, right, the heat and cold. They suffer from, you know, they find even the moon scorches them in the summer, while the sun, you know, which usually feels so good on your cheek, you know, on a cold winter day, and you stand out in the sun.

[35:02]

Like at Tassajara, it's a very narrow valley, for those of you who haven't been there. It's very narrow, and the sun only kind of comes above the peaks of the hills to actually touch the valley floor for a few hours in the afternoon. So you find everybody lined up in a strip, just feeling the sun on your face. So usually this is such a wonderful feeling. And for these poor, hungry ghosts, even the sun in winter freezes them. So this is an illustration of how deeply we can be led around by our ideas and how we can hold on to them and create suffering pretty much in any situation. And often we can go to very extreme lengths. You know, Frank, who was here earlier, my five-and-a-half-year-old, the other day, he wanted to do some FIMO.

[36:04]

It's like a... sculpting clay he wanted to make some things out of this female and i forget why we couldn't do it at that time so there was something to do or anyway and he totally lost it it was like this was the only thing we could do and we had to do it right now and like he was going to die if we could not do the female it was like Nothing else could possibly happen. And he believed it. It's so obvious when it's about something so trivial and it's a small child that he's just working himself up. But I realize I do that all the time about all sorts of things that may or may not be trivial. So in these ways, we might understand how we ourselves experience the hungry ghost realm. So to be a human being is to have a limited understanding of reality.

[37:09]

By virtue of being a human being with our particular human sense faculties, the world appears to us to be filled with autonomous, self-powered, separate selves and objects. The self... myself is in here and yourselves are in there and everything's, you know, either in here or out there. So this is, maybe this sounds familiar. This was, um, pretty much happened to me all morning since I woke up. So all sorts of different ideas about what I wanted to do or what I was doing and how, you know, I was being aided or obstructed by external things or people, particularly my children. Um, So it didn't appear to me that everything in the entire universe and really throughout all of space and time was supporting me to appear moment after moment as Sarah, as this person we call Sarah.

[38:21]

Didn't appear to me, and I probably wasn't acting in accord with that. So to some degree, we don't have... control over this. Part of having a human body and a human mind is that we experience the world in a particular way. Of course there's variation within human beings, but generally we experience the world in a particular human way that's different from fish or trees or things like this. So you've probably heard there's now a wealth of scientific knowledge and experiments we're able to do now that show how our sense organs are kind of constantly taking in just a huge, huge amount of information about the world. And the vast majority of it is shut out by our brain.

[39:22]

Right? Our brain narrows our perception of reality down and And then sometimes fills in, or really all the time fills in details after it shuts most of them out to make a coherent, graspable picture of the world and allow us to get up in the morning and brush our teeth and come to a Dharma talk. So as human beings, in some sense, our mind is the skinny little neck. of the hungry ghost. And the thing that can nourish a hungry ghost and the thing that can liberate us from the skinny little neck of our mind, even as human beings, is the Dharma. Suzuki Roshi's teaching that Zen practice is accepting things as it is.

[40:36]

You know, this encapsulates the two truths. The first truth that everything, that things are an it, are a whole. Things as it is. Everything is completely dependent on everything else and not separate. life includes everything and is an ongoing, dynamic relationship that includes everything. And the other truth is the truth we see as human beings, which is there's a relative world. This is the picture our mind gives us. So there's a relative world, and we are human beings, and we function within this human field. So this teaching of accepting things as it is, that we as human beings can settle down and be devoted to the truth that everything in the whole universe throughout space and time is completely supporting our life,

[41:58]

moment after moment. This is true nourishment. And this is why the real offering in the Sajiki ceremony is not the sweet water, the tea, the rice, the fruit, the vegetable delectables. The real offering is the Dharma. I just wanted to say, going back to the two truths, I really appreciate this image that Reb, Tenshin Roshi, often shares with us about the river and the road. If any of you remember this. So the first truth, the dynamic, flowing, interconnected, ever-changing nature of reality is the river.

[43:00]

So once there was a river, and then we built a road on the river. So we can walk. So we can be human beings. We built a road on the river. The river is still flowing. The river is not obstructed by the road. And because the road was originally a river, it is always hungry. So we have to offer it nourishment. We have to offer it the Dharma. We have to take care of it. So in the Sajiki ceremony, We chant the Khan Ramon and the Gate of Sweet Dew. In the Khan Ramon, we chant a number of Dharanis.

[44:03]

So it's kind of a chant that's a sound more than like a word. And the power comes in chanting it. So one Dharani is for summoning the deceased spirits, the hungry ghosts and demons to the Great Assembly, which is us, which is all of us who will be here at the ceremony at 4 o'clock, one for blessing the food, and one for flavoring the dharma, covering it with sweet dew so that it appears like something, so it tastes sweet and delicious, and all the hungry ghosts will want to come eat the dharma. And we chant a dharani for arousing Bodhi mind. So this is the mind of awakening. And we chant a dharani for the Samaya precepts of ethical discipline. which is how we can support the mind of awakening in the human realm, ethical discipline. And in the gate of sweet dew, we make it clear that we don't just wish for the hungry ghosts to be free of their torment.

[45:11]

We wish them to become Buddhas and to liberate other beings. So we chant with deep sympathy. We offer food to all of you. sincerely hoping that you will each accept this food and turn it over, making offerings to Buddhas, sages, and all sentient beings. So we're offering them, and of course we're offering ourselves as we're participating in the ceremony, the opportunity to make offerings, to practice generosity, to enact our true connection with all beings. And we chant, may you arouse awakened mind, practicing the awakened way, and in the future become a Buddha without regressing. So we wish them enlightenment. We wish these suffering beings enlightenment. And then...

[46:13]

Whatever virtue and merit this produces, we completely transfer and dedicate to the unsurpassed awakening with total clarity and wisdom that all may speedily attain Buddhahood. So in this ceremony, we're not just trying to get out of our own suffering or free our loved ones from their own suffering by keeping the merit and virtue of the ceremony to ourselves. we're doing is acknowledging the truth of our interdependence. And that for us to wake up, it means the whole world wakes up. It happens together. You can't do it alone. And by performing this ceremony, with our bodies, our voices, through these acts of generosity and acknowledgement and enactment of right view, of our understanding of interconnectedness, we nourish ourselves with the Dharma and we manifest the Dharma realm, the river, in a way we can recognize, you know, on the road.

[47:43]

Here we are as human beings, bringing to mind, manifesting our connection through our body, speech, and mind, which is an act of liberation. It's an enactment of liberation. Our limited view and the limitlessness of the true Buddha body are not two. Our necks may be narrow, but our bellies are actually already full. which is why we are able to open to the Dharma, to arouse bodhicitta, the mind of awakening in our own lives. So this is an important point. When we hear about hungry ghosts and we reflect on our own kind of hungry ghost nature, of course we want to widen our throats. We want to take more of life in. We want to stop restricting our experience and let ourselves be nourished by the reality around us.

[48:49]

So this is an important aspect of our practice. But in a way, even to think that, right, even to go around thinking, I need a wider neck. I've got to get a wider neck. Somebody help, right? This is really more hungry ghosting. This is having some idea that we want and missing who we are and what it is to be human. So as Dogen might say, a hungry ghost, as a hungry ghost, is a Buddha. A hungry ghost who is really a hungry ghost is a Buddha. A hungry ghost clear about who they are. is in some sense free of being a hungry ghost. So understanding and appreciating that the road and the river are never apart, that hungry ghosts and Buddhas, you know, that me and you and Buddha are not two or three.

[50:02]

So this is freedom. This is Suzuki Roshi talking about accepting things as it is. We are already whole. The truth is that just as we are, we are nourished by reality. So we don't need to struggle so much to become something else. We can just be ourselves. remembering this, being devoted to this and making offerings to this fundamental truth about reality, which we will never be able to fully grasp with our human minds, is the path of freedom for all beings.

[51:04]

May we all attain it. Thank you very much. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[51:38]

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