I mean, I'm not being at all. I thought I saw that at all. Do I know what you're doing? Do I know what you're doing? Do I know what you're doing? What kind of effort?

[01:21]

Well, I don't know what this is today. It's the truth. I'll talk in some of his words. Well, my name is Laura Burgess and I'm very happy to be here with you today. And I want to thank Zen Center for giving us this time and space to be together.

[15:12]

I'm here today to talk with you about this new book, Wisdom Stories of Tibet. And I'd like to begin by just telling you a little bit about story... talking a little bit about storytelling and about how this book came to be. From the time children understand language, and maybe even before that, they want to be told stories. And they want to hear the same stories over and over again. They want to act out stories at recess. They want to sit around the dinner table with their family and tell their family stories. And these stories are so important. You know, they help children know whether there are stories about what went wrong on the family vacation or grandparents... long gone. It helps them know who they are and where they come from. I was at a family reunion in Kansas City years ago, and it was right before the older generation started passing away.

[16:14]

And we were driving around Kansas City, and my Uncle Ben, to signal somebody else in the family, he beeped a long and two shorts on the car horn. I said, Uncle Ben, that's a signal we use at our house. You know, when I'd go to the movies and my parents would come to pick us up, they'd beep a long and two shorts on the horn. Noise pollution, of course. So I said to Uncle Ben, where did that come from? And he said, well, you know, his father, my dad's father, my grandfather, worked on the Southern Pacific Railway. And when he'd come back into Tucson, he'd have the engineer... hunk along in two shorts on the train, and his five kids would run down to the train station to greet him. Now, I was an adult, and I'd never heard that story, but it told me something about who I am and where I come from, you know? I think this deep longing for stories probably goes back to our ancestors sitting around a fire at night and sharing with one another and with the children stories of their fears, of their bravery,

[17:23]

why we have seasons, where the moon comes from. And in hearing these stories, and this is a universal thing, I think, children learn something about where they are and where they come from and feel embedded in that tribe or that family. Very important. When I first came to Zen Center, I heard these esoteric Zen stories. Some of them were funny. some very pointed, some of them were teaching stories, some of them were incomprehensible, at least to me. But as I practiced and as I lived my life, now and then one of these stories would come to mind and I'd understand. I'd be in a situation and I'd think, is that so? Hawkins, Angie's wonderful story. So these are universal stories and they help us feel that we belong, you know. And when I entered the rooms of recovery in 1985, because alcohol had become a problem for me, what did I hear?

[18:26]

I heard people telling their stories. And we call this sharing our experience, strength, and hope with one another. And we know that it's essential that we remember our stories and that we remember where we came from. Because if we ever forget that, if we ever forget where we came from, and about the nature of addiction, we're much more likely to go back into that dark place of addiction. So we tell our story over and over and over again. And that story helps other people coming into recovery to identify. So tonight is the first night of Passover. And all over the world, Jewish people will gather to retell and reenact the story of how they fled Egypt and walked to freedom. They walked to the Red Sea, the Red Sea parted, and they passed to the other side. And then the Pharaoh and his soldiers rode into that space, and the waves covered them and drowned them.

[19:29]

So tonight, you know, and during a Passover Seder, this story is told again. And it's a way to honor both our ancestors and our descendants with the story of our people. Well, the Tibetan people also had to flee their country. The Chinese invaded Tibet in 1950, and it caused a great deal of turnover and suffering and upheaval. The Dalai Lama and other Tibetans walked over the mountains into India around 1959. And the Dalai Lama lives there in Dharamsala now and practices and teaches there. When I was a teacher of children at the San Francisco school, I would often be invited to tell a story at singing time. And as soon as I said, once upon a time, all the kids would become silent and listen. Josh Kornbluth, maybe some of you have seen him perform. He's been a solo performer and a storyteller for decades.

[20:33]

And I think maybe his first story was Red Diaper Baby, when he talked about growing up with communist parents in New York City. And Josh became the artist-in-residence at the Memory and Aging Clinic at UC Med Center. And he's also been a volunteer at the Zen Hospice. He asked the neurologist at the Memory and Aging Clinic, why do people tell stories? What's the point of storytelling? And they told him, it's a way that we cultivate empathy for one another. When we tell our story and someone else hears it, neural pathways are being laid down in both of our brains that connect us. Now, Josh thought this was really good news for a professional storyteller. And I love that there's a scientific basis, you know, for telling stories. So telling our stories, hearing other people's stories, is essential to being human, I think. And at this fractured time in our history, and in our country in particular,

[21:39]

where we've been separated from one another by a pandemic, and we've been riven apart from one another in families and friendships, just by differences of opinion. What could be more healing and more affirming than sharing our stories with one another? So, Wisdom Stories of Tibet, beautifully illustrated by Wen Su. This is my latest book. I was so... moved by Wen Su's illustrations of these stories. I want to tell you a bit about how it came to be. And after the talk, I'll be in the welcoming center to, if you'd like to purchase some books, I'll be happy to sign them for you. And I want to thank Lorenzo for making that happen. Thank you so much. As I said, I came to Zen Center in 1975 and While I was there during the few years that I lived there, there was a year when we invited families to come to Tassajara and bring their children with them.

[22:41]

And I was very surprised and pleased to be asked to be the teacher of the elementary school age children in a one-room schoolhouse at Tassajara. And we had a little preschool for the younger kids as well. I didn't have a clue what I was doing, by the way, but we had a lot of fun and When it snowed, we ran out into the snow, and we made a relief map of the Tassara Valley. And I did have a teacher in Mill Valley that I consulted with. And later, when I was living across the street here, practicing here at Zen Center, living across the street with my daughter, Nova, I was looking for a school for her, and I was standing in the hallways of New Traditions Elementary, where she started kindergarten. And I was standing in the hallway, and I could hear the kids laughing and talking and saw the kids' artwork up on the wall. And I had this calling. I had this moment of clarity. And I thought of those times in that one-room schoolhouse, and I thought, I could teach kids for the rest of my life and never get to the bottom of it and never master it.

[23:46]

And that's what happened. I taught elementary school for 35 years and retired in 2020. And I loved almost every minute of my teaching years. I remember there was a boy in my class named Paul, and one day I uttered that cliché, great minds think alike. And Paul said, no they don't, that's what makes them great. So my third graders were my teachers, for sure. Now, when I retired around this time, Ivan Berkholz of Shambhala called Zen Center, and asked David Zimmerman, our abbot, do you happen to know anybody who's practiced Zen for a long time and has taught kids and knows how to write? And he said, yeah, Laura Burgess. That's Burgess with one S, by the way. And I'm eternally grateful to David for thinking of me and opening this pathway for me. My first book was Buddhist Stories for Kids. I read about 100 Jataka tales and chose 10 of them

[24:51]

that I felt would be appropriate and accessible to children and rewrote them for today's readers. A lot of those Jataka tales, by the way, are really violent and not really appropriate for kids. Unless you think it's a really good bedtime story to tell an eight-year-old, you know, if you're bad, you're going to get trampled to death by elephants. I didn't think that was a great message for kids. So I found... I really loved writing these 10 stories, beautifully illustrated by Sonali Zora, a Bangladeshi artist who illustrated those stories. These are all in a bookstore, by the way. My next book was Zen for Kids. Again, folktales that I thought had a Zen spirit, and about 50 activities of things that I did with my third graders, including writing haiku. and one of my third graders wrote some haiku for that book. He also informed me that the plural of haiku is haiku, and the plural of zafu is zafu.

[25:52]

So again, learning from my third graders, he liked to study Japanese. And then I wanted to collect some of the Dharma talks that I've given linking Buddhism and recovery, because I found that the principles of recovery were essential for me, but paired with the teachings of Buddhism, made a wonderful net for so many people to practice Buddhism within recovery and have both of those paths support them. So that book is called The Zen Way of Recovery. And then a couple of years ago, Shambhala asked me if I'd like to write a series of wisdom books, wisdom stories of Tibet, and then next year will be wisdom stories of India, followed by wisdom stories of Japan. And so this is the first book in this series. I was so lucky that Shambhala paired me for this book with a lovely collaborator, Lama Chonam, who left Tibet as a young man and now lives in the United States.

[26:54]

And we had a lot of fun together. Not to brag, but I might be the only person you know who had a Tibetan Lama teach me how to use WhatsApp. So... Let's see, what else do I want to say about that? So Lama Chonam told me stories he'd loved as a child, and he also told me the precious stories of his people. You know, Tibet, of course, was an oral tradition. The first story in here is about King Gesar, and people can tell stories about him for days at a time. And these stories were told out loud until they were finally written down. Lama Chanam was very generous with me. He'd tell me a story, and I would take notes and write an outline of it, and then rewrite it, thinking of today's kids. And so most of these stories have male characters. I wanted to emphasize strong women from Tibetan history, like Yeshe Chogyul, who's known as the mother of Tibet.

[27:58]

And also, there's a story called The Mouse King. Well, I changed it to The Mouse Queen. made her the hero, and of course, Lama Chonam was fine with that. In other cases, Lama Chonam didn't think it would be a great idea if I changed gender. For example, this story about King Gessar, I called it the magical child, because there's wonderful stories about him being a really mischievous, magical being from the time he was born. And it's a story about a boy named Joru... And when he's born, there was a prophecy that someone would be born in Tibet who would become king. And so this evil minister who wanted his own son to be king manipulated things so that Joru and his mother were exiled to this dark, dark place far away. Well, there came a time when the warlords, they still knew about Joru and his wisdom, and they wanted to seek his advice. So they went...

[29:00]

They sought him out in exile. Now, in the story that I wrote, I had him greet them with hot tea. And Lama Chona said, well, it wouldn't have been tea. It would have been wine. And I said, well, I don't drink alcohol myself, and I don't really want to have alcohol in a children's story. He said, how about juice boxes? So we had a lot of fun. Now... This boy, this little boy, when he grew up, in order for him to become king, he had to win a horse race. And so he went up to the higher mountains from where he lived, and a mare came trotting over to him. And I said to Lama Chonin, let's make that mare be the horse that he rides in the horse race. He said, no, no, no, no, no. Any Tibetan reading this story would be really taken aback for a king to ride a mare. So I could see that. He needed a stallion, right? And so the mare trots up with her son.

[30:03]

She says, choose my son to be your horse in the race. My son can talk. He can fly. He'll help you win for sure. So in writing the story, I made the horse blue. And so when I read the story to Lama Chonam, because in reading these stories to him, he was making sure that they were true to the spirit of Tibet. And so I said, you know, I described this horse that could talk and could fly, and I made the horse blue just for fun. He said, wait a minute, the horse wasn't blue. It wasn't blue. I said, okay, so the horse can fly. The horse can talk, but the horse isn't blue. He said, no, not blue. So I want to tell a story for you today called, I've called it The Treasure. because I think it encourages us to cultivate both wisdom and compassion. Tibetan Buddhism and Zen Buddhism are both part of Mahayana Buddhism, which emphasizes helping others in the bodhisattva path.

[31:10]

And wisdom or prajna is represented by Avalokiteshvara in India, a male figure, and in Japan and China, Kuan Yin and... in China and Kanon in Japan. And then wisdom or karuna, wisdom or prajna is the archetype of Manjushri, who cuts through delusion with his sword. Now, wisdom or compassion sees things as they are. And this kind of discernment is very important for us as we go through the world. Compassion, as embodied by Kuan Yin with her thousand eyes and arms to help others, she's characterized by compassion or opening our heart to one another. So we need both discernment and this ability to open our hearts to other people. And wisdom without compassion can be rather cold, Manjushri's sword.

[32:13]

But compassion, without the benefit of wisdom, can be kind of squishy and naive, you know. So... And compassion, by the way, rather than pitying others, feeling what we might call sympathy for them, we feel empathy. This element that the neurologist said, storytelling opens up for us, empathy, you know. we feel other people's pain. Compassion literally means to feel with. So we feel other people's pain because we're human and we've experienced what they've experienced, you know. The Buddha invited us to joyfully participate in the sorrows of the world. And I wish I could tell you I read that in the sutras, but it's something that Tony Soprano's girlfriend... said to him when they were walking through the Bronx Zoo.

[33:16]

Still a good idea. So, I think the story teaches us about wisdom and compassion. The treasure. Or once upon a time. One day, a father and his young son were flying kites in the foothills of the mountains where they lived. The boy's mother had died when he was a baby, and so the father and son had only one another. They loved each other dearly and were very close. In fact, the boy's father called him Norbu, which means treasure. As the kites bobbed against the bright blue sky, tails swirling and dancing in the breeze, Norbu and his father pulled on their kite strings. Norbu's father said, I've raised you to have a loving and trusting heart, but my boy, and at this his eyes twinkled, always keep one eye open.

[34:30]

The boy thought about this for a moment, confused. Father, what do you mean? His father turned to him. Even the kindness... Kindest and most honest person can stumble onto the wrong path if they are tempted. So be careful, my son, for I know that your hard work will lead you to great wealth. You must protect it. Just then, Norbu's best friend, Dedan, came running up the hill with his kite. Norbu and his father helped him launch it on the wind. Norbu grew up proud and strong. Schooled by his father in the wisdom of Guru Rinpoche, he learned to be strong, upright, and sincere. The years went by, and as the old man lay dying, he said, "'Remember what I told you long ago. Be kind and generous, but always keep one eye open.' And with that, he closed his eyes and left this world."

[35:35]

Norbo was a man now, honest and proud, trading in copper, salt, and brightly woven rugs. Missing his father, he worked so hard that he never seemed to have time to find a wife and raise a family of his own. All his effort went into his business, and in this way he amassed the wealth that his father had predicted. One day, when Norbu was about to embark on a long journey, he thought of his father's words and of his best friend, Dedan. Surely I can trust my best friend with my treasure, he thought to himself. So he took two bags of gold nuggets to Dedan, saying, I will be away for a month, and I don't want to leave this gold in my house where robbers might find it. Will you take care of it for me until I come back? Why, of course, my friend. We've known each other since we were boys rolling hoops in the dirt. You can trust me completely.

[36:38]

But Norbu didn't notice the gleam in Dedan's eyes as he took the bags of gold. A month went by and Norbu returned from his travels. He went to Dedan's house where Dedan's daughter Tsering and his son Jampa were playing hide and seek in the bushes. Dedan sat on the front steps drinking a cup of tea. When he saw Norbu coming, he jumped up spilling his tea on the ground. Norbu greeted Dedan and said, my friend, I've come for my bags of gold. I hope you've taken good care of them. Dedan's shoulders slumped and he turned a sad face toward Norbu. I did my best, but a very strange thing happened. Something very strange indeed. I hid the gold in a box in the ground, but when I went to check on it, the gold had turned into sand. That's strange, said Norbu. Can I see? So Dedan took him inside where the two cloth bags that had once held gold now held sand.

[37:44]

Dedan waited for his old friend to get angry. But to his surprise, Norbu just said, Don't worry, my friend. I'm sure you did your best. Let's have a cup of tea. As the two sat on the steps of Dedan's house, sipping their tea and watching the children play, Norbu said, you are so lucky to have such wonderful children. What a gift. I wish I had made time in my life to have a family like yours. Your wife and children are indeed jewels. Dedan felt sorry for his old friend. Maybe Norbu was lonely living all by himself. How would you like the children to come stay with you for a week? My wife and I had been wanting to go to the... monastery on the other side of the lake, and if you would take care of our children, Tsering and Jampo, that would be a big help. I would be delighted, answered Norbu. The children were happy to go with Norbu because he'd always been like a favorite uncle to them. When they arrived at his house, Norbu cooked up a fine pot of thukpa, a delicious noodle soup.

[38:48]

The next day, he went to the marketplace and bought two monkeys. He taught the older male monkey to come when he called Jampa, and he taught the younger female monkey to come when he called Serin, rewarding them with handfuls of walnuts. The monkeys were bright little things they learned quickly, and the children loved playing with them. One early morning a week later, the children were still asleep upstairs when Dedan came along the path. I've come for the children, he called, seeing Norbu sitting on the steps of his house. Norbu's shoulders slumped, and he turned a sad face toward Dedan. Oh, my friend, something very strange has happened. Something very strange indeed. I did my best to take care of your children, but while you were gone, they turned into monkeys. Dedan couldn't believe his ears.

[39:50]

That's impossible. Frantic, he called Jampa, Tsering. And the two monkeys, hearing their names, skittered down from the trees and danced around Dedan, chattering with excitement. Looking down at them, Dedan's eyes filled with tears. This is terrible. What will my wife say? Norbu, what can we do? Norbu stroked his chin and thought for a moment. Well, We're going to need a lot of gold if we're going to remove this curse. How much gold? asked Dedan. Oh, about two bags ought to do it. Don't worry, Narbu. I know where I can get it. I'll be right back. Dedan rushed back home, emptied the sand out of the bags, and replaced it with the gold nuggets that he had hidden in the box in the ground. Dedan returned with the gold and handed the two bags to his old friend. Norbu took the monkeys inside and led them upstairs, gave them some walnuts, and left them there to play. Then he gently woke the children and brought them outside into the sunshine.

[40:55]

When Jampa and Sering saw their father, they ran to him, hugging him. Norbu said, That did the trick, Dedan. The gold turned the monkeys back into your children. My treasures, Dedan. cried as he held his children in his arms. Dedan stood, and he and Norbu looked into one another's eyes. Dedan was embarrassed that he had been tempted and had done wrong. All at once he understood that Norbu had tricked him into getting his gold back. In that moment, their many years of friendship were there with them. And in his heart, Norbu forgave Dedan. Suddenly, the friends burst out laughing. Let's have a cup of tea, said Norbu. Family and friends are more precious than gold and keep one eye open. So that's the story, the treasure. And the way that story ended was with Norbu bringing the monkeys back to Dedan.

[42:03]

That was the end of the story. I found this story through my research. But I wanted children to know that, you know, if you have a really good friend, you can forgive and forget even a betrayal. And so I wanted to add this on, that this important thing in my lifelong friendships with people, in that moment, their many years of friendship were there with them. You know, that did not just evaporate because of this change in their friendship. And they both learned something from that, to have wisdom and compassion. So that's the story of the treasure. And of course, what's the real treasure in that story? Those children, right? So I want to thank you for listening and we have some time for some comments or questions or whatever you might like to bring up if the story rang a bell for you or you have any questions about the writing process.

[43:08]

The floor is open, yes. Why did you use the once upon a time? Why was that important for you? Because it was children or you wanted to bring people into the narrative quickly? You know, I read a lot of folk tales before I started writing children's stories. And I didn't use Once Upon a Time in the stories that I wrote. But in Buddhist stories for kids, I wanted there to be a passageway into the stories. So in that book, in each case, I said, long ago, long ago, you know, long ago. And each story begins with long ago, so that the children have a way to enter that story. Now, once upon a time, I'm sure most of us grew up with, I hope you grew up with stories that began once upon a time.

[44:09]

And that once upon a time, when I would, in the singing time at my school, when I would tell a fairy tale, and I wouldn't read the stories. I'd read them many times beforehand and then tell the story. But that phrase, once upon a time, had a wonderful... sedating effect on the kids, you know, they would immediately settle down. And we learn in Buddhism, you know, when we chant the same thing over and over again, an unsurpassed, penetrating and perfect, you know, these words lead us into that space of a kind of sacred space, I would say. So I wanted to honor children with some of these talismans to help them enter the story. Does that answer your question? Thank you. Did you grow up with stories? Sure. Yeah, yeah. My mom was a storyteller in public schools in Vileo, and she was really shocked that some of those kids had never been told a story.

[45:14]

And so we want children to hear stories of all kinds. Now, as I said, some of the stories I came across in the Tibetan stories were too violent for children. And so I would ameliorate that violence by softening it. I found ways to soften it. I'll give you an example of that. In one of the Indian stories that I rewrote, Princess Durga kills the buffalo demon. She chops off his head, and all this blood gushes out onto the ground, and all the blood drops turn into other little monsters that are running around. Again, not a great bedtime story. That's the traditional story. And the children, you know, when they grow up, they can read that story when they get older. But I just said, Princess Durga defeated the buffalo demon, and he broke into a thousand pieces and flew off in the wind. So he still gets destroyed with her weapons, but not in quite that violent a way.

[46:16]

So that's a little bit about how I needed to transform these stories to make them more teaching stories for children. Diane, hi. Thank you, Laura. I especially liked hearing your last story. That was really great. But I was just curious. Because of your long... participation in Zen Buddhism and working with a Tibetan on these stories and editing them together. Don't you think it's a combination of kind of Zen, Tibetan? Well, I think there is a flavor of both in there. And I'll tell you that Lama Chonam feels we knew each other in a previous lifetime. Okay. Now, I'm not sure I believe in reincarnation, but I did in a previous lifetime. Good one, good one.

[47:18]

I like that. So of course that meant something to me when he said that. And we had such a wonderful collaboration. He would sometimes say, I read his mind. So it was a meeting of two Buddhists talking to one another. He brought his Tibetan consciousness. And I didn't know that much about Tibetan culture, but the wonderful, colorful stories and magical happenings. the boy that becomes King Gesar is born, he springs out of a bubble above his mother's head, and he can immediately walk and talk and laugh. So these Tibetan stories are full of magic and mystery and wonder, and at the core of them are the Buddhist teachings. And I would say the same of Zen seems to me, you might say, is more austere, a different aesthetic, and yet we had so much in common that we could come together and... write these stories, you know. Now, in the Indian stories that are coming up next year, my collaborator, Prachi Mararka, had a great idea that we offer stories from many different religious traditions in India.

[48:30]

So in that book, there are Jain stories, Sufi stories, Muslim stories, Buddhist stories, Hindu stories. A lot of people think of India mainly as Hindu, which is true, but there are many, many other paths there as well. So this is a coming together with me and the collaborators that Chambhala paired me with to bring this kind of multicultural consciousness. And, you know, of course what I want is for children to be aware of stories all over the world. And I'm not Jewish, but when I go to a Jewish Seder, you know, a Passover Seder, I participate in that storytelling. And I feel like this is a way for us all to be citizens of the world, you know. And when it comes right down to it, I just listened on disc to the book. The novel, Lessons in Chemistry, a wonderful novel. And there's a phrase in there that,

[49:32]

we're all 99.9% like one another. And that's something we could all do well to remember these days, when we focus so much on our differences from one another. And you know, I'll just say about the Buddha, the reason I love the Buddha story and hearing that story over and over again, and the story of Shakyamuni appears in the Indian stories that I'm writing. Buddha's story is our story. We all have to leave home, find our own way, experiment. This is certainly what I did. I had a kind of wild time when I was younger, and then I wanted to focus in and have a more disciplined way of life. And that's when I found Zen practice. So Buddha's story is our story as well. And I think that's why we can all resonate so beautifully with one another. You have a question. Is that Terry? Hi, Terry. Now this is Terry Baum, a magnificent storyteller.

[50:34]

Oh, Laura, that's so sweet of you, yes. I am a storyteller, that's true. So I just wanted to say about, for me personally, the story of Passover, I felt, was my education in... in an ethical vision of the world. And I'm not sure how it landed with my other relatives. But for me, hearing this story every year was very important. And one very important part of it is that, for me, was that because others had to die, for the Jews to be free, we cannot completely celebrate. And so for each of the plagues that are brought by God to decimate, you know, flatten out the Egyptians, so they allow the Israelites to leave, you pour water.

[51:44]

You put your finger into your glass of wine or grape juice or whatever it is, and you put one drop on your plate. So there's 10 plagues. For each plague that is recited, you dip your finger in the wine and put a drop on your plate. And I think perhaps that was the most meaningful part for me, that we still had to grieve that... even though we were totally oppressed by the Egyptians, we were slaves, we still had to grieve that they died. Thank you so much for that, Terry. That's a very beautiful reminder. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Can you talk a little bit about the one open eye in the story and what that meant for you or what that means for you?

[52:53]

Yeah. Well, this is a teaching that's very close to my heart because I want to think how I can phrase this. Of course, we want our hearts to be open to others. And... We want to dispel certain fears that we grew up with that are no longer necessary. I think in our families of origin, sometimes we inherit a kind of armor. Especially if we grew up in a family where there was violence or mental illness or alcoholism or racism, misogyny, homophobia. Some of us have had to armor ourselves. And so part of practice in recovery is letting go of that armor. But at the same time, Fear is a very valuable tool, you know. And it's been found that we actually have neurons in our gut. A gut feeling is very important to pay attention to. So while we want to be compassionate towards others, there are people with whom we need to be on guard.

[53:58]

And we want to be generous and open, but we also don't want to be taken advantage of or tricked or violated or abused. I think some people think Buddhism is a kind of passive path, but it's not about being a doormat. Buddhism is about the truth and speaking the truth and living the truth. And, of course, many of us went to Civic Center last Saturday to protest what's going on. We stand up for what we believe in. So keeping that one eye open, I think it means, even with the people we love and trust, you know, just to be... our own advocate, to be our own best friend is a way I might put it. You know, I often feel like we can go through the world and have within us a kind of loving inner witness that has compassion for all, but also protects us. I've been in contact with some quite dangerous people in my life from whom I needed to separate myself.

[55:02]

And I can separate myself from those people and wish them well from a distance. but I don't need to be in their presence. And that takes discernment. I have to make sure I'm not just making excuses because I don't like somebody. I have to have that open eye. So this is something we teach children. We don't want children to be afraid of everybody, but we tell children to be wary of a stranger. We teach them how to take care of their own body and protect it from... harm and abuse. But we try to do it in a way so that they don't have a kind of blanket fear of other people. I hope that's helpful. Thank you. We can do one more question and then Laura will go to the bookstore across the hall. I wanted to hear your question.

[56:05]

Thank you so much. And my question is, how do you explain the wisdom that resides in children? Oh, my goodness. You know, when I was a teacher, I would greet my kids at the door before school started to shake their hands. And I would try to see each of them as a luminous being, you know, because kids can also be rather annoying. Yeah. So I wanted to start the day seeing them as a luminous being. And I'd shake their hands and I'd ask them a question about home. And of course, one day I shook a little girl's hand. I said, how's it going today? She looked up at me and said, my life is a barren wasteland. Eight years old. Lest you think that childhood is a cloudy wonderland. I think children have a rare kind of... They have discernment. They have wisdom. But they also have a kind of rare, raw, aliveness that we should all partake in.

[57:11]

I loved teaching kids at Tassajara because those kids running around Tassajara helped us take ourselves a little less seriously. And I've gotten so much wisdom from children over the years, partly their wisdom of being able to forgive and forget. children can really let go of stuff and be in the present moment in a way that we could all learn from that. So that's certainly a kind of wisdom, being in the present moment. You know, they did a study of how to get kids to be friends with each other. And they told kids that had some social awkwardness, just go up to somebody and say, will you be my friend? That's not the way kids make friends. They found out this was a complete dud. And when they really watched children, what children do is... On the playground, one child is playing, another kid just comes up and starts playing right next to them. That's how they make friends, you know? My daughter, the preschool teacher, is nodding her head. Wouldn't you agree with that, Nova? A hundred percent, yeah.

[58:16]

And by the way, my partner David is here, and he just printed out a feminist version of the Haggadah. So isn't it wonderful, Terry, that there's different versions, too, of those stories, and different emphasis, you know? When we have a Passover Seder, we can emphasize different things. Kevin, could we just have one more question right here? Okay, one more question. One more question. Is it Vin? Okay, no more questions. Gosh, thank you very much for yours. It's very inspiring. As you're telling about this Durga story, I remember, I have great fortune, my grandmother was very good, totally story trailer. But nowadays, we don't have that, children doesn't have. And when I was teaching the kids, one of the things which I come, which you mentioned about this violence, you know, the stories are having the violent thing. But I wanted to know about your thought, because I feel generally that children

[59:17]

exposed to more violence, then we are trying to sensitize them. Because I talk with the children and they are known more violence, but just knowing the violence and going to that path, because I feel that children have more empathy and because of their living and forgiving and being in movement, we are over sensitizing because of our conditioning. I just wanted to know what you think about it. Thank you. I'm not quite sure. Do you feel like it's important to expose kids to violence or to protect them from violence? I don't think that they are already exposed to violence. That's the reality. But one of the things I think that shadowing them, or we are being more sensitive than they are already, We are not connecting with the kids somewhere. I always feel that there is something that kids try to hide from you.

[60:20]

That side of their character, this type, and that was I feel that I'm not connecting with them. Because when you talk about this, the empathy or the goodness kids doesn't go away, but they can speak more. When I started, when I used to teach kids, when I started in that terms, like some of we think that it is not sensitive. But when we talk them, they are more open because that's the language they are picking up from around. So that's what I wanted to know about. Well, you know, Lama Chonam is so pleased that this book is available for Tibetan children in America. He said there just aren't these stories that are translated into English for children. And one thing about children today is they're exposed to all kinds of things we don't even know about because they're in their room with the door closed with their computer or their phone. And it's so important for us to open that door. You know, when you read a book to a child rather than being isolated with their phone in their room, you can talk about the things that come up.

[61:24]

You know, I read to Nova the book, Where the Red Fern Grows. I had read it previously, but when I read it aloud to her, I thought... oh my God, this boy goes and chops down the biggest tree in the forest because he wants to get the raccoon that's in there. Well, that's not a reason to ban that book. It's a reason to say, in the 1930s, maybe this happened, but we can do it differently today. And the best teachers of children are their parents and their community. So we have to keep the door open between us and our children and keep talking to them and never turn away from them. And I... Think keeping that communication going. And it's so much more important what we actually do than what we say to them, what we lecture them about. They see us how we behave, and that's how they learn. So I'm appalled at what kids are exposed to today in terms of pornography and violence. And we have to not just keep that door closed. I hope that's helpful.

[62:25]

Thank you. So we're going to dedicate the merit, but first I'd like to sing a song with you. So I'm going to sing a line and then I'd like you to repeat it, okay? This is something I would sing with my kids, my school kids. Let your little light shine, shine, shine. Let your little light shine, shine, shine. Let your little light shine. Shine, shine, let your little light shine, shine, shine. There might be someone down in the valley trying to get home, trying to get home. There might be someone down in the valley trying to get home, trying to get home. There might be two, there might be three. It might be you, it might be me there might be two there might be three it might be you it might be me there might be someone down in the valley trying to get home trying to get home there might be someone down in the valley trying to get home trying to get home

[63:48]

A.R. in fashion and a man, he believed his spell. He believed he believed he believed that [...] he Thank you. We're very glad that you come to join us on Saturday for the Dharma Talks.

[65:46]

You're also welcome to come. We love having you here for all the things that we do. Morning and evening zazen, Wednesday evening Dharma Talks, Saturday morning Dharma Talks, classes, special events, everything. Your presence is very important to us and these doors are always open for you. We are in the middle of Zenithon. Zenithon is our spring fundraiser, and here to tell you more about Zenithon is our CFO, Kogetsu. Thank you, Kevin. Yes, if you're new to Zenithon, it's a campaign as something for people to... love and appreciate Zen Center and help raise funds, and this is by reaching out to friends and family and other communities. If you want to participate, you can go to our website at sfzc.org, and you'll see the Zenathon landing page, and there are 14 pages, which you can...

[66:49]

be a part of or join. There's Green Gulch Farm, Tassajara, City Center, and the Maha Sangha, which is the larger Sangha, including communities such as the online Zendo, other affinity groups like Meditation Recovery and Yaz. So if you have any questions about that, I'll be outside. And otherwise, please visit our website to get involved. There's also a donation box in the lobby, and the donation box has a QR code on the front of it to make it simple to donate to Zen Center. We have Zendo forms today with Michael. Michael, where would you like to meet? So at 1120 in the lobby, you can meet Michael. He'll be your guide through everything you need to know about the Zendo, how to enter, where to sit, how to bow, what the sounds mean, what everything in the zendo means. So Michael is a very professional zendo form guide.

[67:55]

You'll be in very good hands. So 1120 in the lobby there. The next Dharma talk will be on Wednesday with Shundo David Hay, 730 here in the Buddha Hall. Two weeks from today. We have a special event. Our friend Japanese monk Yogetsu Akasaka returns from Japan to here at Zen Center. Last year he performed in the Zendo and had an audience of about 100 people in the Zendo. And this year he'll be performing in the dining hall, which is right across the courtyard. If you don't know about Yogetsu, he's a Zen monk, also a street musician. He started off as a musician. became a Zen monk along the way. He does beatboxing. He plays handpan. If you haven't heard him do the Heart Sutra to beatbox, it's on YouTube. It's great. He's a really fun person to be around. So he'll be here on the 26th, two weeks from today before the concert. The following Saturday, May 3rd, he'll be doing a sound meditation workshop here.

[69:04]

And then he'll also be doing the Dharma talk that day. W. Getsu on May 3rd. He has, I think, 150,000 followers on YouTube, maybe more. So we have information on our website, and you can get tickets on the website too. Urban Gate Sangha helps us with our Saturday morning program, the 925 Zazen and the 10 a.m. Dharma Talk. They help with the bells and the ha and all the sounds that you hear. If the people from Urban Gate can raise their hands, So all these great helpers. If you have a question about Urban Gate, if you're interested in joining Urban Gate, it's not a weekly commitment. You can come when it's comfortable for you. It gets you more intimately involved with the Zazen and the Dharma talks, and we could always use more help with it. So please talk to any of them at Tea and Cookies, and they'll be glad to tell you more about Urban Gate. So we do have tea and cookies will be available in the lobby.

[70:08]

Michael's in the lobby for Zendo Forms, and Laura Burgess is in the bookstore across the hallway to answer questions or to sign her book. So thank you so much for coming today. Have a wonderful weekend. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[71:11]

Thank you. ... [...] Do you remember? Yeah, I hear you.

[72:27]

We have split people.

[72:34]

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