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 evening. My name is Kay Du Linshut. Excuse me for a minute. Allergies here. Excuse me. Hello to the people online, I think. Yes. Are they online today or not? Yes. Okay. So, as many of you know, we're in the midst of a six-week practice period, which ends next week already with a three-day sasheen. So this talk, we move to wise effort and engagement with the world. So we've been doing wise effort first in meditation, then in relationship, work, and now engagement with the world.

[01:08]

So actually when we were discussing the topic, I had suggested this framing of what we're calling the four realms of applying wise effort. And I realized in preparing for this talk that... I was wrong. And that, in fact, our practice begins with the world, not with meditation. You know, we chant, and in fact, we had the full moon ceremony yesterday, and our bodhisattva vows is beings are numberless. I vow to save them. That's where we start. So... In some ways, it still also makes sense because wise effort is part of the samadhi part of the Eightfold Path. So wrong and right, good or bad, that's where we are.

[02:11]

And tonight I wanted to address this question that we prompted in the beginning when we were, you know, you could say promoting the practice period. And we talked about how do we know when it is to get off our cushion? and go into the world. Often as a practice leader, for both people outside the temple a lot, and now in the temple, I hear a lot, when do I know when I should make practice the priority of my life? And when do I get off the cushion? So in either framing, there's a sense of personhood. That's attached. When do I get on the cushion? Or when do I get off the cushion? And that's not a problem. Because probably most of us have asked that question in one way or another.

[03:16]

So tonight I'd like to explore, you know, I like to say again in Zen that we like to hold the question more than find the answer. So meeting and holding these questions as harmonizing the who and the how. Notice that they have the same letters. W-H-O and H-O-W. There's a W in there and it moves from the beginning to the end. So, And in fact, the beginning of an answer lies in the question themselves. When do I know when I should stay on the cushion longer or when should I get up? We're asking to know. However, a misstep that I, maybe we often make in looking for the answer is just that.

[04:20]

Again, the what and the when. What should I do? When is it the right time? And when we're asking for these questions, we're asking for discernment. We're asking for guidance. We're looking for wisdom. In fact, you know, Ria Mon, which I like to bring her into the room because it's her fault. I'm in Zen. because I actually used to do Vipassana and used to meet here in this room once a month with the Buddhists of color. And Rihamon was kind of peripheral of that. And then she started the people of color group here with Blanche's blessing. And we used to meet in room 10. And it was because of me when she said, how would you like the people of color? Would you like it once a week or once a month or what? Because the Buddhist color we met once a month. And I said... once a week, because I'm looking for a place to go once a week.

[05:23]

So it was once a week, and sometimes it was just her and I in room 10. And you know, I had gone back to Vietnam after 28 years. After I got my grad degree, the last minute I decided to move back to go home again. And after five months, of traveling and then living there, really thinking I'd be there forever, I really realized that I couldn't go home. It wasn't my home anymore. So I came back and I was really devastated. I had no idea who I was anymore. And I went on a Goenka retreat because I was doing Vipassana then. And the Goenka retreat is 10 days. And it was great. I said, They'll say people should go to it. And then after that, I was sitting for an hour in the morning and an hour at night. And I really wanted to sit for a long period of time, but I had gotten a grad degree.

[06:28]

I had gotten debt. I had gone back to become a social worker to help the world, right? And so I was really torn. Is it the right time? So I actually, even though we met here, I had no idea about this practice discussion thing, so I'd heard it, so that's why I finally asked her for one. And again, room 10, sitting up there, I was going on and on about, should I do this or should I do that, you know, my dad, what should I do? And I'm going on and on, and finally she says, do you want to know? And I was like, well, of course. She said, well, you've been thinking about it. all this time, so this is what you're gonna do. You're gonna go home, and for five days, you're gonna pick one of the answers, and you're just gonna bring it up, unlike your own koan, right?

[07:29]

However you wanna frame it, like I'm gonna sit, I'm gonna sit, I'm gonna sit, right? And then, the other five days, you're just going to say the opposite, or whatever it is for you. I'm gonna go get a job, become a social worker full time. And I said, okay, I'll do that. And in that moment, I'll tell you, it was really interesting. This part of me and this part of me went and met in the middle. And there was a quietness. And I went, I did the 10 days because I'm a good follower of instruction. So I did to 10 days, but in that moment, I knew exactly what I would do. Because what happened was the mind quieted, and the heart said, sit, sit, sit. And I went back to talk to her, and she told me about the guest season at Tassajara, and I had just left my birth sister for five months.

[08:36]

I didn't want to go across the country to IMS, so I At the time, you could only do a whole summer. You couldn't do partials for partial practice periods, right, or for one. So I say the whole summer, meaning to do one practice period only. Not to be a Zenner, just to have a three-month time, right? You know the rest. So that worked for me. But really, Grimond didn't tell me the answer. And that's the rub. You know, we go and we ask the question, and it's great to go ask the question, but nobody can give you the answer. Not even the teachings can give you the answer. However, what the teachings do give us is guidance on the quality of how to hold the questions and how can you proceed from there. The teachings can help us to clarify

[09:40]

on what are the qualities that are asking to be known and to be honored right here and right now. So, in the Eightfold Path, remember that wise effort is in the Samadhi section. And in the Wisdom section, there's wise view or wise understanding, which is basically the Four Noble Truths. And then there's wise intention. Sama Sankapa. Again, Sama means right, wise, appropriate, complete. In this case, I like appropriate and I like true or in alignment with. And Sankapa means intention, aspiration, purpose, motivation, and commitment. Gil Fransdott does say that literally Sankapa means thinking or thought. Now, Bhikkhu Bodhi says that

[10:41]

The term is sometimes translated as right thought, refers specifically to the purposive or cognitive aspect of mental activity. The cognitive aspect being covered by the first factor, right view. It would be artificial, however, to insist too strongly on the division between these two functions. From the Buddhist perspective, the cognitive and purposive Sides of the mind do not remain isolated in separate compartments but intertwine and interact in close correlation. Emotional predilections influence views and views determine predilections. Thus, a penetrating view of the nature of existence gained through deep reflection and validated through investigation brings with it a restructuring of values, which sets the mind moving towards goals, commensurate with the new vision.

[11:45]

Commensurate. The application of mind needed to achieve those goals is what is meant by right intention. So again, the new vision here, of course, is right view, or wise view, which is understanding of the Four Noble Truths. So wise intention is the application of wise understanding, knowing how our heart-mind are and can be manifested, can manifest the teachings about suffering and the end of suffering. Now, in the middle-length discourses, the Buddha noticed that two categories of his thoughts when he observed. One category is desire or lust, ill will, and harmfulness, right, or violence, even some translation. The other quality, grouping equality of thoughts, he noticed, is that renunciation, goodwill, and harmlessness.

[12:50]

So in the discourse, the Buddha said to dispel the former set and to strengthen the second set. So in modern speak, I'd say we could say we want to be aware Notice it's similar to beware, of the tendency of our thoughts in the realms of desire or lust, ill will, and harmfulness or violence. We want to pay attention to that and see what happens. And then we want to cultivate renunciation, goodwill, and harmlessness and see what happens. So these are qualities of the heart and mind. how we can care for the conditions within our hard mind that best strengthen and cultivate renunciation, goodwill, and harmlessness. Now, the intention of renunciation and relinquishment, in the Pali, that word is ekema. And this is according to Gil.

[13:54]

The etymology means to go out or to go forth. So to renunciate or to relinquish is to go out. And in the commentary, Gill says that they talk about it's like you're in a dusty cabin and then you go out into the fresh air. So you're like have cabin fever and then you're free in nature into open spaces. And again, Bhikkhu Bodhi says, to develop the intention of renunciation, we have to contemplate the suffering tied up with a quest for worldly enjoyment. Now, Gyo again says that lust here is about sensual pleasure, but it's really more the obsessive quality, greed, you could say. And in particular in the teaching, it's on the eight worldly gains. Excuse me, eight worldly dharmas or conditions or concerns.

[14:57]

Gain and loss, pleasure and pain, praise and blame, fame and disrepute or status or disgrace. Because they're inconstant and impermanent. Now again, in these sets, there's a sense of self, right? Who is it that gains and loses, has pleasure and pain, right? So our obsessive thinking about our status, our sense of self. So our erroneous perception of self and who we are. So it's a really good place to observe how we suffer and how hard it is to renounce the sense of self that we solidify. So in the sangha or in the world, in any environment, especially when it's new and uncomfortable, how are you carrying and bringing forth your heart-mind? Is it from desire, ill will, and harmfulness and violence, or with renunciation,

[16:02]

goodwill, and harmlessness. I also want to bring Blanche into the room, and I know many of you know this story, and still I like to tell it. This is from her book, Seeds for a Boundless Life. It's the most transformative moment. During the Vietnam War, I was a political activist. I fought for peace. There was some contradiction. There wasn't any peace in me. I hated the people who disagreed with me. That was a kind of war within me. In 1968, I was just beginning to look at the way in which I was vigorously clinging to my opinions about things and denigrating others who had different opinions. When there was a strike at San Francisco State University, the police came with their masks and clubs, started poking people, and without thinking... I ducked under the hands of people to get between the police and the students.

[17:03]

I met this riot squad policeman face-to-face with his mask on and everything. He was close enough to touch. I met this policeman's eyes straight on, and I had this overwhelming experience of identification, of shared identity. This was the most transformative moment of my life, having this experience of shared identity with a ride squad policeman. It was a gift. Nothing had prepared me for it. I didn't have any conceptual basis for understanding it. The total experience was real and incontrovertible. And that's when she went looking for someone who could understand her and met Suzuki Roshi. So Blanche was protesting the Vietnam War, right? And in this experience, she let go of the sense of self, as in a solid, right, a selfing, I like to say, right?

[18:10]

And she could identify with the cop. She didn't have to agree with him, but that sense of separation dropped away. So in effect, she relinquished or let go of the solidifying of herself and also of the cop, right? The selfing is not just about me, but it's about you, who I think you are as a solid, continuous being. So the quality of how we interact, what we need to do arises with ease when we can let go. So when Blanche stopped fighting for peace, her actions didn't change. In fact, the way I met Blanche was, in fact, right out here at the top of the hill. So again, I was in that Buddhist of color group. I was a caretaker. I was doing Vipassana. We met here. So Jessica Tan, who lived here at the time, got us the room. And we were marching in the Martin Luther King Day march.

[19:11]

And it used to go up this hill to the Third Street Baptist Church down the street. And I was marching with Jessica. And then she said, oh, do you want to meet the abbess? And I was like, sure. And Blanche had just gone up and was waiting at the top. And I met Blanche. In here, she said she stopped being an activist, but that's not true. She was still marching. She was marching for many. She used to lead the gay pride march. She had a floating Zendo. So, it isn't that her actions changed, but the quality of how she did it changed. She still showed up for the picket lines, the protest war, and other injustices. But it changed her action and her behavior from aversion and hatred to acting with love and kindness. Now we can also see this in a larger sense and perhaps maybe a more difficult way to relinquish our sense of self in isolation.

[20:18]

It's me, myself, and I as separate from others in a larger sense. So this is from... Jasmine Sedula from Radical Dharma. This is from a chapter called Radicalizing Dharma Dreams. And in the section called Any Given Someday. He says, it's not enough to know we want freedom. We have to practice it. We have to be able to live it out. Remind each other how messy practice can be, but rally each other to keep going for it. It might not make sense. It might not appear reasonable. Knowing we want freedom is a practice in presence, not fortune-telling, not storytelling. There are no guarantees, no ghost stars for having arrived on the other side perfectly unscathed.

[21:25]

No chance of anyone nailing a perfect landing anyhow. The skillfulness required to steal all forms of policing, punishment, and separation we typically bring to our practice as a liberation is not a matter of mastery. In the beginning, she talks about how when she sat down, She was on picket line, but when she really sat down to meditate, she realized that she was policing herself. We police ourselves in our mind. So this sense of policing ourselves, punishing ourselves, and the sense of separation from ourselves. So it's not a matter of mastery. Our individual attempts to brace ourselves from the presence of each other are messy, angry, and hurtful. We throw up borders of separation to keep ourselves safe and somehow manage to find ourselves more miserable.

[22:27]

So often the way I hear folk talk about practice and represent its value are wrapped up in the idea of freedom as a means to an end, especially within the U.S. context. Given our particular historical relationship to freedom being legally and morally bound up, in discourses of property, entitlement, mastery, exchange, dispossession, and exclusion. What if freedom is not a means to an end full of comfort, excuse me, full of more comforts than this moment, right now? We may yet be further inconvenienced along the way. The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war, this way of selling differences is not just.

[23:34]

Singing together, we shall overcome. This is doing an MLK day at Brooklyn Zen Center. Singing together, we shall overcome, gave me great hope. because it was clear that here in this space, we were claiming the dream of liberation as something other than a good intention or romantic destination. The navel-gazing attention on the self I had come to expect to be fractured was being very explicitly redirected to a call for wholeness and an end to injustice. a call that we need to stop checking out, checking in and work together to try to do things in a way we might not yet know how to do. It's more important than knowing the right thing to do. She says, the greatest threat to crowd control is our individual yearning for something better.

[24:47]

Crock and Joy is in when you go out to protest. Maybe it is in the clouds, but it is definitely in company with each other. We are not hungry for the brains of the living. We have our own. Thank you very much. We are yearning to connect with others, to be engaged in collective action. The greatest source of our self-defense against the mob mentality of law and order politics is each other. This is not a romantic notion of connection. It's not about connecting a couple, excuse me, connecting as couples or nice, neat households. Not because we are friends or lovers or because we share a common social network, but because we know and share a common knowledge that the personal is political, but the impersonal is powerful. Our greatest liability is thinking we have to go it alone.

[25:51]

Thich Nhat Hanh says, we are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness. So next, in terms of wise intention, is the intention of non-aversion. or loving kindness. These days I like to say goodwill. And again, bhikkhu bodhi. To develop the intention of goodwill, we have to consider how all beings desire happiness and causes thoughts of goodwill to arise, a loving wish that they be well, happy, and peaceful. Here, to go back to the who and the how, how do we settle the who? And settling the who, our own personal identity and our sense of our presence in the world, when we settle that, we manifest the how. So it's true that we're not separate from the world.

[27:02]

And if I don't have a sense of settledness with myself, then I can more easily make the mistake of reacting. which is often framed as I'm doing it for the world as opposed to the world asking me to respond. So here's from Charlotte Jokobak and Nothing Special. It's from the chapter. This is on your reading for the class and the practice period. The talk nobody wants to hear. If we're honest, we have to admit that what we really want from practice, especially at the beginning, but always to some degree, is greater comfort in our lives. We hope that with sufficient practice, what bothers us now will not bother us anymore.

[28:03]

Includes who bothers us now will not bother us anymore, maybe. There are really two viewpoints from which we can approach practice, which need to be spelled out. The first viewpoint is what most of us think practice is, whether we admit it or not. And the second is what practice actually is. As we practice over time, we gradually shift from one viewpoint toward the other, though we never completely abandon the first. We're all somewhere on this continuum. Operating from the first viewpoint, our basic attitude is that we will undertake this demanding and difficult practice because we hope to get certain personal benefit from it. From practice, we demand that we become secure and increasingly achieve what we want. If not money and fame, at least something close, maybe a few eight inches.

[29:06]

Though we might not want to knit it, We demand that someone take care of us and that the people close to us function for our benefit. We expect to be able to create life conditions that are pleasing to us, such as the right relationship, the right job, or the best course of study. For those with whom we identify, we want to be able to fix up their lives. There's nothing wrong with with wanting any of these things. But if we think that achieving them is what practice is about, then we still don't understand practice. The demands are all about what we want. We want to be enlightened. We want peace. We want serenity. We want help. We want control over things. We want everything to be wonderful. Who here doesn't want that? I want that. The second viewpoint,

[30:08]

It's quite different. More and more, we want to be able to create harmony and growth for everyone. We are included in this growth, but we are not the center of it. We are just part of the picture. As the second viewpoint strengthens in us, we begin to enjoy serving others and are less interested in whether serving others interferes with our own personal welfare. We begin to search for life conditions, such as a job, health, a partner, that are more fruitful for such service. They may not always be pleasing for us. What is more important to us is that they teach us to serve life well. A difficult relationship can be extremely fruitful, for example. Practice is about moving from the first to the second viewpoint. The real point of practice is to serve life as fully and fruitfully as we can.

[31:15]

Practice is always a battle between what we want and what life wants. And then she has this, further along, she has this exchange with a student. A student says, on the question of helping others, I think that we see increasingly well our feelings, our tendencies to manipulate a situation. To that extent, we're going to be acting more in harmony or at least creating less havoc. So we don't have to go far to help people. Simply seeing what we're doing as we interact tend to help people naturally without even really trying. Joko Beck says, yes, in contrast, if we view someone outside ourselves as being someone to help, we can be sure we've got a problem. As we just sit over time with our confusions and limitations without trying to do anything, we do something.

[32:21]

So ironically, when we're more aware of our intentions, the selfish ones and the altruistic ones, and we're able to be honest about them, And when the shift to the second viewpoint arises, naturally, when we can see that if we're always trying to control things to our own benefit, we're going to cause more harm. So in ceasing to over-effort to hide or fix ourselves or our sangha mates or our world mates, and having the ability gained from practice of being able to act with choice, non-effort arises. I'll say that again. In ceasing to over-effort to hide and fix ourselves and having the ability gained from practice, being able to act with choice, non-effort arises.

[33:27]

That's my experience. What do you think? So settling this who, which means to accept how we got here and how we exhibit ourselves. Like kind of the wisdom to help us to get here and to be able to then have choice on how to respond versus react. And knowing that, it helps us to see what then is the appropriate how. So intention of friendliness and goodwill is to be present for myself and my needs. and the awareness of my habit energy as it affects others. So the personal intention and the impact it has. So when we practice metta, we strengthen the quality of kindness in a heart-mind. And so it more easily or spontaneously arises when we need it.

[34:31]

This is skillful efforting. So again, when Blanche let go of fighting for peace, she acted from kindness. Motivation and conviction is great. It gives us fuel. But is the usage of the fuel for annihilation or to bring forth change, renewal, rebirth, or perhaps reconfiguration? Perhaps for justice, for compassion. which leads us to the third one. Bhikkhu Bodhi says, the intention of non-injury or harmlessness is to consider how all beings wish to be free from suffering. The intention of harmlessness is thought guided by compassion. So again, here's from Charlotte, she'll go back. She defines compassion as a life that goes against nothing and fulfills everything.

[35:46]

This is from the chapter called Justice. A life that goes against nothing and fulfills everything. She also defines it as joy, which is injustice and forgiveness, those chapters. And she relates it to the transformation of anger to forgiveness. And just as she says, as we become increasingly sensitive to ourselves and to the transitory experience of our lives, our thoughts, emotions, sensations, it becomes obvious to us that the underlying stratum of our lives is anger. When someone insists, I am never angry, I am incredulous. Since anger and its subsets, depression, resentment, jealousy, backbiting, gossip, and so on, dominates our life, we need to investigate the whole problem of anger with care.

[36:53]

For the psychologically mature person, the ills and injustices of life are handled by counter-aggression, in which one makes an effort to eliminate the injustices and create justice. Often, such efforts are dictatorial, full of anger and self-righteousness. In spiritual maturity, the opposite of injustice is not justice, but compassion. Not me against you, not me straightening out the present ill, fighting to gain a just result for myself and others, but compassion, a life that goes against nothing and fulfills everything. The best answer to injustice is not justice, but compassion or love. So, we're always looking for wisdom. Who here doesn't go to a retreat or sashim looking for insight?

[38:00]

Those moments of aha. We want that. And we think that these insights will make miraculous shifts in our lives. And sometimes they do. They can. And I want to propose to you, it isn't the insights themselves, right? Those releases of solidifying thoughts and emotions. So they feel really good. It's really that our sense of how we go about it is the shift in our life, right? It isn't the insight. That isn't the thing that makes the shift. It's our willingness and our having the ability to enact those insights, right? It's in the insights themselves. What are you going to do about it? You have a sense of opening and a sense of boundary dropping, but when you leave Sashin and you say fuck you to somebody just because they step in front of you, I don't know.

[39:04]

So it isn't the insights. How are we going to take that forth? So this is why it's useful to have skillful means, right? To be able to train our minds, set the conditions of mind to renunciation, to goodwill and compassion. Wisdom is a choice, I like to say to my students. Wisdom isn't knowledge. Wisdom isn't what you get. Wisdom is what are you going to do about it. Better yet, To remember to choose and to act or to live our lives with wisdom perhaps is the key. So in the midst of this practice period, in the midst of your life, are you choosing to live by or with wisdom? Are you choosing to apply wise intention, aspirations, purpose, motivation, commitment?

[40:12]

What are the qualities of your thoughts and how you live, especially in relation to others and to the world? In Buddhism, it's not so much who is doing this practice, but how is practice being done. Our intentions and their impact are not separate in our individual or our collective lives. So what if the W in who and how stands for the world? So I would say I'm very visual. So when I did think about the who and the how, I literally saw the W moving. So what if the W needs to move? In who, it's in the beginning. But when we move it to the end, it becomes how. So what if the sense of the world Your sense of the world needs to change.

[41:15]

What if the W is the world when it's us, then that's the small W, the small world. When it's about me, it's a small world. Who am I? Who should I be caring for now? With practice, we learn to become more flexible with the W, both in location and in size, from the beginning to the end. with the small W to the large W. When our perspective and our understanding that this world, my world, is now the bigger needs of the world, the larger W, what if the large W is asking of us and informs us? And better yet, what if they're not separate? Again, I'm very visual, right? So I was thinking that, and then I remember As many of you know from our way-seeking effort talk, I'm from Vietnam.

[42:17]

And so when I was first adopted and went to school, I was taught how to print. Do they still do that? I was only eight. But when you're eight in America, you learn how to print. I already knew how to do cursive, because that's what you're taught how to write in Vietnam, is to write cursive. So it was really a struggle to print. But I can still remember, and they used to have the letters across, you know how they have the paper with the blue lines, the solid blue line and then the dotted blue line, and the W, the big W, all the letters have the capital and then the small one, right? Lined across around the room. So the W has a big one and a little one. Now, they don't look any different, do they? It's the same But in context, there's a big one and there's a little one.

[43:18]

And sometimes it's appropriate to use the capital W and sometimes it's appropriate to use a small W. So it isn't so much that I should let go of myself and go for the bigger world. It isn't about getting rid of some sense of self. It's knowing when it's appropriate to use the big W, the world as big, or the small W, this world, and the needs of this one, and the needs of the larger world. Context is what's important. When we're able to rest in our own location, and they shift all the time. Sometimes you're from privilege, and sometimes you're not. with awareness and subtleness, it's much easier to look up, to look out, and be able to see our surroundings.

[44:20]

When my world, the small w, our lives make sense and are cared for, then it's much easier to be able to see the big world, the big w. But the world is asking of us, showing us, revealing itself to us, and how it can or needs to be cared for. In this practice period, we have an online component. So David and I and Allison have small groups. And we had a plenary call of all the participants last week. And someone, her name's Nina, And she and her husband, John, live in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, and they had a tornado a few weeks ago. So she wasn't sure that she could get on and have this call with us. And then she did get on by phone, right?

[45:24]

She finally had, she had sent actually an email to Kodo and said she didn't think she could be part of that call. But then when we were there, she showed up on her phone, right? And It was amazing the thing she talked about, right? She said, it was neat to see how things fall into place, like power lines and water lines coming back up. Without power, everything took effort. Yet looking back, I see how we just did what was needed, the ordinariness of life. to be able to get to places I needed to go, simple things became so important. She continued, I marveled at the cooperation of everyone, everything really. She talked about how there were all these fallen trees, of course, and so to negotiate through, it was difficult.

[46:29]

So people would just bring off saws and say, where do you need, where do you need to get to? I'll cut it down for you. And then she talked so much about gratitude and appreciation and the joy of the cooperation, how her neighbors, you know, her house, they had no power, and she had a health concern, so she needed a machine at night, and her neighbors took them in. And then she also was so amazed at the Sangha, even though she hadn't been able to get on all this time. She knew we were here, and it meant so much to her. And her phone line just came on, and she came on, right? Like, it worked, and she came on. So when I wrote her at the meeting, I said, oh, this is all amazing, fantastic. I might use it in the talk, right? So I emailed her to double-check. Not really sure whether she would get it. And so then she wrote me. This is two days ago. She was at a neighbor's house using their Internet.

[47:32]

She said... Being able to connect with the Sangha was special. I've had few opportunities for learning about the Zen experience and meditation as it is daily done. So this practice period is a different experience for me. Today I will download what I can from the internet of session you and David and all have been doing. Most of my experience comes from years of reading and maybe nine years of Zazen. So as many people I heard say in the first and only meeting she attended, this one last Friday, I don't know if I'm doing it right, but I try. She's doing it right. She says her health issues are worsening. This weather stuff and being incommoded has been fatiguing. Yet I have enjoyed having to find other ways of being and doing and getting things done. for all that.

[48:34]

But the miracle of the natural world has been the outstanding things I have felt and sensed throughout, and nature keeps its word. My dad and I built a telescope when I was in high school, so astronomy and universal cosmos has been a source of joy and wonder for me. I am now 72 years old. The sense of awe only grows. And to think that we are each and every one of us together at this time on this planet's journey. So it seems to me that when the condition of the world as it is called to Nina and her husband John and all their neighbors responded with the qualities of renunciation, goodwill, and compassion.

[49:36]

And for any benefit this talk and our practice tonight brings, I dedicate it to all of them and all people in need. Thank you for your kind attention. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[50:17]

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