Penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely met with, even in a hundred thousand million kalpas. Having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's word. So good morning and good day, because the period that we're in, in which almost everything has been put onto the Zoom platform, is one in which our Sangha, our spiritual community, has expanded to include people from

[01:06]

time zones of affinity. And of course, if things are recorded, then they can look at it anytime. So even as during this time of pandemic, if you're like me, our physical circumstances, and I haven't been more than five miles away from my home since mid-March, So that's a really long time because now it's November. Even as our space physically in which we might move has been in many cases constricted radically. Paradoxically, our ability to connect with dharma kin and spiritual friends, And new friends who might not call themselves spiritual all over the world has radically increased for those who have access to the internet and not everyone does.

[02:16]

So thank you for that introduction. And I'll start out by again greeting you friends and relatives of both affinity and non-friends. So I'll take a step backward there and say that my original Zen training was in the Zen Buddhist temple of Ann Arbor, Michigan. And I also spent time at our mother temple, the Zen Buddhist temple of Toronto, Canada, in the early 1980s. And the teacher of that group, Korean Zen master Samu Sinim, used to say things like, Like we're all relatives and there are relatives of affinity and there are relatives of non-affinity. That's something to think about, especially in our polarized political situation here in the United States, of which I am a citizen and a resident.

[03:27]

So friends and relatives of both affinity and non-affinity. The title of this talk I've prepared, and it's really more a way of trying to reach out and connect, connect through the affinity of our practice, through the affinity of the goodness of our hearts with all of you. The title of this talk is First Responders in this Burning World. Bodhisattva vows for now. My name is Mushim, Patricia Ikeda. Mushim is a Korean Dharma name. It's the same as Mushin in the Japanese Zen vocabulary. My pronouns are she, her, and I'm connecting to you. So that's what I'm doing right now. I don't have some like ultimate wisdom to lay on you. What I want to do is connect with you. I'm connecting to you from my home, which is on...

[04:34]

unceded land of the confederated villages of the Lishan, L-I-S-J-A-N, also known as Oakland, California in the United States. So of this moment, this time we're in now, historically, I personally think it's fair to say that we are in not only in crises, plural, but that also we are in the midst of intersecting, interconnected, and cascading crises. A particular confluence of global climate crisis, global pandemic, and the danger of an attempted coup d'etat here in the United States. This is what my friend David Trelevin, author of Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness, has called a high-intensity global activation event.

[05:39]

So I'll repeat that. I think it's worth thinking about. A high-intensity global activation event. Activation means activation of trauma. And the question has risen up for many people and very understandably, I think particularly at the start of when the pandemic hit here in the United States, which was mid-March of this year, 2020. Today is November 21st, almost the end of November, 2020. And of course, it was so understandable that parents who suddenly found that their daily schedules were totally blown up and suddenly they had jobs to perform from home and screaming children and everything about our quote-unquote normal way of life was not only disrupted, it was suddenly disrupted to state the obvious.

[06:51]

So the question did arise, again so understandable, of when will this be over? When can we go back to how things were? When can we go back to normal? So a wonderful statement, I feel, which I've been using steadily in all of the teaching I've been doing since mid-March, is this. And it came out around this time. that time. It's by the activist who is a woman of color, Sonia Renee Taylor, author of the book and the website, The Body is Not an Apology. The Body is Not an Apology. Sonia Renee Taylor said this, we will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona COVID-19 virus, our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate, and lack.

[08:12]

We should not long to return, my friends. We are being given the opportunity to to stitch a new garment, one that fits all of humanity and nature. So I know many of us here today are in the San Francisco Zen Center community, and y'all do a lot of sewing. Korean Buddhists use tailors. However, you folks are great at sewing. So I just saw someone's expression of sewing your own robes and rakasus, which is a beautiful practice. So just for a moment, I'd like to ask you to reflect. What does it mean to you if you agree with this? What is the opportunity to stitch a new garment, one that fits all of humanity and nature? And how will we do this together? Just a moment of mindfulness.

[09:16]

And once again, for the record, and because I do think it's important to situate ourselves in historical time, chronological time, as well as we know as meditation practitioners that there's also deep time that is not calendar time. So in historical time, today is November 21st, 2020. This is historical for me in that it's the first day of of the COVID-19 pandemic-related curfew here in Alameda County in California, where I live. This curfew has also been extended to 40 counties, as I understand it, in California. We have gone from the orange tier of the pandemic crisis in which some restaurants, some gymnasiums and other spaces were allowed to open in a limited way.

[10:48]

And we are now today in the purple tier, the most restrictive, and as I understand it, the highest danger of this virus. So we are in a historical moment, I feel. And at the same time, Whereas this time has been called by so many folks that this is an unprecedented time for us. We might also inquire, is it in fact unprecedented? I was given by one of my many wonderful Dharma relatives, artist Therese Lahaye. over here in the East Bay, where I live. And she is a student of Tibetan Buddhism. And when the pandemic started, my understanding is that her teacher, Zikar Kontrol Rinpoche, so that's D-Z-I-G-A-R-K-O-N-G-T-R-U-L, Rinpoche teacher,

[12:02]

requested that his students take up this practice of chanting or reading aloud a certain prayer six times per day. And it is available for download. And you can print it out, which is really cool. It looks like that. I'll have to switch to my messy room. The background is I have been given permission to use it very generously. It's the Asian Art Museum. Very nice gallery. So I'll show you where I'm actually zooming in from. And sorry, it's really messy because I've just been working all the time. So thus it is. I just saw someone bow. Thank you. I just, you know. I only have so much time.

[13:05]

So you can print it out. And it looks like these traditional Tibetan chanting cards or, you know, sutra or sacred text cards. So it's really cool. It's on three. And this is around 200 years old, as I understand it. A Prayer for Peace and Stability in the World by Jamgon Kongtral Lodro Thay. I don't know how to pronounce that. Sorry. Who lived... from 1813 to 1899 in Tibet. So that's J-A-M-G-O-N-K-O-N-G-T-R-U-L-L-O-D-R-O-T-H-A-Y-E. And as their dana, their generous giving, they have made this available to all. So it has a text in Tibetan, and then Romanized Tibetan, and then an English translation.

[14:10]

And it starts out, of course, with invoking Avalokiteshvara, protector of the world, and Tara, Padmasambhava, and, you know, like, come to our help now, folks, great beings. And then it says, interestingly, Beings of this degenerate age think and act in perverse ways. And disturbances in the elements, both inner and outer, mean that disease and pestilence, unknown in ages past, threaten human beings and animals alike. Oh, thank you so much. Kodo has put that in the chat. So if you want to capture it, now's your time. So disease and pestilence unknown in ages past threaten human beings and animals alike. It goes on to say planetary forces, nagas, galpo, obstructing spirits and elemental forces cause blight, frost and hail, poor harvest, war and conflict, untimely rains and portents, ominous portents for the world.

[15:30]

And there is fear of earthquakes, fire, adversaries, and environmental catastrophe. Doesn't that just sum it up? So when I begin, and I am practicing with this prayer, I find it very helpful. So I think that... It may not be much reassurance. However, I think it's good to recall as we read this 200-year-old prayer for peace and stability in the world from Tibet that as human beings, we have been through this kind of thing before and many times. This isn't unprecedented. And there's also, I think, the fact that though many of us enter into this narrow passage of multiple crises and disease, fewer of us will come out on the other side.

[16:39]

That is true. So I personally feel in my own practice that, as Sonia Renee Taylor says, we do have an opportunity here, one which I had personally had... hoped that I would die before anything like this would happen. I was just going to chicken out. I'm going to turn 67 soon. So I really had hoped I would never deal with this. We're here. So in our practice, I feel that we do have an opportunity. We have an opportunity. And that opportunity is to go big or go home. To be able to expand, to hold All of this with tears and sometimes laughter and in the beginning and the end, the great equanimity. And this opportunity offers an open space for very specific actions for each of us as individuals and as collectives and as communities, both larger and small.

[17:54]

I can't tell you what actions to take. However, I have faith that you will know, not as individuals, as collectives, in compassionate and sometimes difficult dialogue with one another. So when I was asked to do this talk, and thank you for the invite, I... spoke to some members of the San Francisco Zen Center, Cindy Center community, and said, what should I talk about? And they all said, basically, we're in a huge hot mess, and therefore, how should we practice? So since you've asked, and this is just me, really, this is just Mushim, this is just me. because you need to find your own answers. And in connecting to one another, maybe there's one me and there's one you, and the sum of one and one in this case equals three.

[19:06]

So that means that we can come up with something new, folks. We have that opportunity right now. Right now with these people who are here on the Zoom. So this is just me. How do we practice? So I'll just talk about a couple of things. And one is the practice of non-fear. The practice of non-fear. I myself tend to more towards anxiety than to depression. Of course, these days, everything rises up. Anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress. It's all rolling all the time. So how do we do the practice of non-fear? And many of us know here that in the wonderful explosion of art and creativity that has accompanied the tradition of the Bodhisattva in the Mahayana Buddhism, so much creativity that...

[20:15]

And it asks us, you know, I think in what's called, I think at Zen Center, the appropriate response. I think that means creative response, especially now. So most of us know that in Buddhist art and Buddhist figures, that the position of the hands is important. Everything's important. It all symbolizes something. And the importance of the hands, the position of the hands is called mudra, M-U-D-R-A. And these various positions symbolize something. So my understanding is that the mudra of non-fear, of dissolving fear, of that, you know, just that wonderful moment when we're so ridden with anxiety and someone says that kind word. Are we here? a piece of music, or, you know, a child laughs, or our animal companion comes and curls up with us.

[21:23]

Really, it could be almost anything. We see the sunlight as though we've never seen it before. The blessing of the rain. We're still in drought here. Had a little bit of rain. That we can experience perhaps even momentarily when the fear is gone. It's just gone. That's a wonderful moment of safety, of refuge, of non-fear. So how do we extend that to ourselves and to one another? So I hope this is right. I'm not a Buddhist art expert, but I always have this photo printed out of a Buddha figure I think that's a position of non-fear. So in this case, the Buddha's right hand is up like that. Non-fear. So if you like, yeah, okay, yep, some of you are doing it.

[22:25]

Let's embody this, embody practice. Oh, see, I'm seeing those of you with your video on. There are two of you there, yay. Okay. Non-fear, we signify that to one another. And I myself, being Japanese American, also think of it as kind of like Hello Kitty, you know, the Maneki Niko. Good luck. So we'll ask, we might ask ourselves, how does fear feel in my body? How do I experience fear? Oh, Kodo says, When Buddha laid his hand on the trunk of the raging elephant to calm it. I guess that means a raging elephant in front of me. And it's getting ready to run me over. And so its trunk is coming forward. And I'm like, chill out, elephant.

[23:28]

You don't need to murder me today. I didn't know that. Thanks. I'll ask, just ask, go for a moment. If you like, close your eyes, go inward. You can keep your eyes open and just in a safe way for a mindful moment, ask, what does fear feel like in my body? And then, because I know you contain so much wisdom, what are my practices of non-fear? If you like, you might take some deep breaths or not. That can help us with what's called self-regulation. Or really, whatever works for you. Yeah, I see some people practicing self-touch.

[24:32]

Perhaps a hand on the heart. Just a gesture of self-care. Thank you for your practice. I think the practice of non-fear is also the practice of what can be called bold, capital B, compassion, capital C. And I'm just going to lean aside. You probably can't see it, but I'm pointing. I live in one room. So in the back of my head is the door of my closet. And at the top of it, which I'm pointing to, is this sign, big sign printed out in black and red. And that was a present to me from one of my students after I gave a talk on bold compassion.

[25:37]

And so Carmen, I don't know, got access to a commercial printer or something and printed out this heck of big paper banner. It's really nice. It says bold compassion twice, once in red and one in black. And I just found it. So I thought, oh, I'll put it up to remind myself. So I know that during your fall practice period at San Francisco Zen Center City Center that you've been studying Bodhisattva archetypes. I also am exploring the path of the Bodhisattva with my home temple, East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland this fall. And it came to me as I was leading these classes that from what I know of, and I'm thinking about bold compassion, that in Tibetan Buddhism, what I know of the green Tara bodhisattva archetype, so that's, again, one of the embodiments of compassion, that their characteristics are

[26:51]

As I understand that boldly, swiftly, like boldness, swiftness, not dithering around. Boldly, swiftly, decisively, and compassionately, compassionately arriving to help us. To relieve us of our fear. To help us be clear-sighted in what we can do in this moment. And I believe that Green Tara has many forms. And what came to me is that this form of compassion, bold, swift, wise, that these forms of compassion are first responders. So there's been so much appreciation and love for our first responders in the medical professions during this global pandemic and all the medical personnel.

[28:10]

So if you like, send a burst of metta or unconditional loving kindness and appreciation. And some of you may be first responders. for which I deeply thank you. So I do think these times require all of us to become first responders. So to recap, how is it that we practice now? So number one, I invite you to practice non-fear. and investigate what that means for you. To practice non-fear, we do need to look into what we're afraid of and do the Hello Kitty thing. Hi there. And we have many wonderful spiritual practices. Some of us have wonderful therapists.

[29:17]

They're healers in many modalities. in the many communities and backgrounds from which we come. We do come from different backgrounds. We are diverse. Our ancestors, our people, our indigenous and traditional ways of healing may be available to us. Let us bring together whatever tools we have at this time in culturally appropriate, not appropriating ways. So number two, I'll have two suggestions. First is non-fear. The second is be a goose in flight. Many of you may be familiar with Adrienne Marie Brown's just really radically transformative, I feel book, which came out a number of years ago, Emergent Strategy. Emergent Strategy.

[30:19]

And Brown talks about the ways in which we can overcome and dissolve the ills of individualism as it manifests in our society in afflictive ways. in our organizations, adopting the metaphor of flying geese. So if many of you know, when geese fly, when they're migrating or when they're just going from one place to another, they're members of a flock and they travel in this wonderful V formation. I love to see Canada geese flying and hearing them because they always usually honk.

[31:23]

So they're really noisy. They're large and they're noisy. They're very large birds. And they're very coordinated. So as they're flying along through the sky, you see this wonderful wavering V. And there's one goose at the top that has the most wind resistance. So that's the toughest flying. And then there are the ones behind. And they always seem to know where they're going. And they do. So... Once again, embodiment is very, very important. As we know, people who do a lot of stationary meditation in the seated or lying down posture, if there's spinal injury or chronic fatigue, and other practices as well. Our practices are not transcending our body. I mean, do... 100 prostrations or something. And it's just no joking matter. It's very, very physical. And all those hours that many of you folks have done in the Zendo, very, very physical.

[32:28]

So some organizations, and I would invite you to do this, you might try it, just be playful if you haven't done it already, is when you gather together in your staff meetings, in your whatever little groups you have, where you might be together in person, So I know in city center that you've quarantined pretty well and you are together in person. If you haven't done it, do the geese flying thing. And you can arrange yourselves like you could do it in your dining hall or some appropriate place or in the courtyard. And just make yourself into a V formation with the various people. And then you flap your wings. And you go honk, [...] honk. And you flap your wings and you're flying. You don't have to actually move because that's kind of dangerous. So you're flying. And then here's the thing. The goose at the front is not an elected leader. It just happens to be there or for whatever reason.

[33:30]

That's the point goose. When the goose in front gets tired, so just goose in front, get tired, drop back. And then someone else moves to the point. And keep doing that until you cycle through all of the people on your team. I first saw this some years ago here in Oakland at an open house for the SELC. You might want to put that in the chat, the Sustainable Economies Law Center. They practice shared leadership, which means a flattening of the hierarchy of the organization, while at the same time maintaining separation of roles. and distribution of labor. And we are practicing shared leadership at East Bay Meditation Center. We're evolving a model. And as I've done some thinking about it, and I'm going to do some writing about it, really what's come to me as a Buddhist practitioner and just as a person is that shared leadership is based on becoming less conflict avoidant.

[34:36]

We were told that by a consultant. So that's not for me. And for me, what I thought is, that means that we have to, if we practice shared leadership as an answer to this burning dumpster of the times we're in, that we're able to realize more and more the ideal of non-fear. So it has been said, hierarchy in and of itself is not an evil thing. It's a way of organizing things. However, for people of what might be called a lower position in the hierarchy to be afraid of the people in the higher position, for me, that is sowing the seeds of destruction. So we can ask, I mean, how afraid are we of one another? So I think it's profound.

[35:44]

It's profound to be a goose and to be geese in flight because this is using all of our senses, our navigational instincts that we may not even know we have as we head into the unknowable future. I believe this is... a manifestation of non-self, what's called non-self in Buddhism, and collective action in the face of emergency. And emergency also means emergent realities, realities that are emerging. We can't see all of them. We just kind of see these like, I don't know, tendrils and tentacles. Every once in a while, there's a giant blow up and then it's Godzilla. And we're like, oh, my God, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? You know, geese know what to do. They're just going to start flying and they know how to navigate. So just three or maybe a couple of examples of what I'm talking about, collective selfless action and how we can develop that.

[36:51]

And you have all the fundamentals, really, from your practice together, which is collective, usually in Zen. of meditating together and working together and eating together and, you know, all those sessions when you're doing everything together. And for myself, I believe we really need to think of, in a certain way, how to take that out into the world. Sometimes the phrase is used into the marketplace. I don't even really like to talk about it that way myself because... Yeah, I think it's just being willing to be an ordinary person and not label oneself zen or separate oneself from other people. It's kind of my mommy self-talking. I've been with a lot of kids and believe me, they really don't care about whether we say the practice or something like that. They want their snack.

[37:54]

So how do we use all of our... senses, ones that we don't even know we have and bring forth our best in this time. So I remember in, again, in the early days of my training in the early 80s in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the Zen temple, that we were in this old two-story house. It was a pretty big house in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And the foundation was good. So that was good. Everything else needed a lot of help. And there were a lot of cockroaches too. And so we knocked off the roof and made a dormer above the second floor. There was like a kind of an attic. There was attics. Yeah. So we made it into a dormer. And we were on the first floor in the meditation hall, sitting silently in meditation one Saturday morning.

[38:56]

And it had rained the night before, but it was a sunny morning. And the roofless attic had been covered tightly with some giant blue tarps by our carpenter monks. The teacher used to say, if the Zen student is not a carpenter when they come to me, they will be when they leave me. So we all did construction labor. And... So anyway, we were sitting and it was all serene and quiet and everything. And suddenly there was this really bad sound. Drip, drip, drip. And it was rain water that had, the tarp had blown off in the night. The attic was completely submerged in like a foot of water. And it had come down through the second floor and into the first floor. It was coming through our ceiling, the first floor. of our zendo, our, we didn't call it that, our meditation hall. And you know what? No one said anything. No one said anything.

[39:58]

And we were all trained, like, you just don't move. When the bell rings, you do not move. Without saying a word, it was just like an explosion. Everyone just literally jumped up. No words. We ran upstairs to the attic. We looked at it again. It almost seemed like it was like Star Trek or something that people didn't even go up and down the stairs. They just there was just this materializing. Suddenly people were there with bowls and anything they could grab from the kitchen and started bailing the water out and over. the side of the building. And we were like, God, all these people were bailing the water out and the carpenters were going up and refastening the tarp. And as I recall, not a word was said. No one gave orders, nothing. We knew what to do. We knew what to do. And we acted in a leaderless fashion as one body in order to preserve

[41:04]

I have seen these sudden wordless explosions of collective and very directed, very clear, very effective action in other situations I've been in, in the Zen practice world, as well as with parents of young children and other groups and other people. We are not doomed to fall apart from quibbling, from partisanship, from all of the many differences that can manifest in a positive way as the richness and abundance of diversity. And in a negative way, as warfare and as rivalry and as competition.

[42:09]

So we are not doomed to resign ourselves to the worst of what we are because we do contain collectively the best of what we are. I know this. I've seen this. I've seen the first responder, the compassionate first responder bodhisattva action happen without words. without planning. So for each of you, I do invite and request you to take up this action challenge to become a first responder of compassion in whatever your situation is, wherever you are, without using the formal vocabulary and the formal accoutrements of the practice. to go out and meet all of our relatives of affinity and non-affinity and see what we can do together.

[43:17]

I must add in the few minutes that are remaining to me that I am not talking in a naive way about embracing or condoning our abusers and our oppressors. I am not talking about that. I am urging us to consider how our spiritual communities, our sanghas, can take action in the greater world, perhaps without dressing in a special way or talking in a special way and joining with others where they are, just as we need to join with children where they are in order to realize And to realize, really, I think what is the greatest happiness of our bodhisattva vows to say that all beings are one body.

[44:19]

So in ending, thank you. And I'm going to invite if one of our tech bodhisattvas is here to share with you a two-minute video that is up on YouTube. that was solicited from me along with other Buddhist teachers and leaders when Biden was declared to be the winner of this presidential election. It is contested, as we know. So we've got a ways to go. And Lion's Roar, the North American Buddhist media, invited a number of Buddhist teachers and leaders to respond. And I really thought about it. And this is what I had to say. So I'll ask you to please share this video. And then we will, this Dharma talk will close. And my understanding is that we'll have an ending chant and that the Eno, I've requested to give the first invitation for questions or comments to BIPOC, Black Indigenous People of Color.

[45:35]

and then an open invitation to all. So if you could please play the video, I would love to share it with you if you haven't seen it. Today, November 6th, 2020. The United States, my home, is a nation divided against itself, with all sides striving to win. This is the karma of white supremacy and colonization manifesting in the midst of a global pandemic and climate crisis. I live in California, a state which is literally on fire. The Buddha said this, winning gives birth to hostility. Losing, one lies down in pain. The calmed lie down with ease, having set winning and losing aside.

[46:37]

Winning gives birth to hostility. Another translator, more colloquially, put it this way. The winner sows hatred because the loser suffers. I believe in strategic political action and liberatory movement building. I have cast my vote. And these are my bodhisattva vows as I move with you into the coming months and years. What actions can I take to lessen hostility and extreme reactivity and to encourage civil discourse and respectful democratic process? May we all complete the great journey of awakening together. Now, before moving into Q&A, the closing chant.

[47:50]

May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of God's way. Beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them. The does way is unsurpassable. I vow to become. And as Mushim already mentioned, she's requested that the first invitation for questions go to self-identified black, indigenous, people of color. And you can do so by raising your blue hand. And I've been asked to call on folks.

[48:58]

Mushin can respond. See me again. Good morning, Mushin. Thank you very, very much for your talk. I found it very timely. It really touched me. I took a generous amount of notes. And I think one thing that stuck, two things that stuck with me is the notion of practicing non-fear, practicing non-fear. Which, for me, easier said than done, and sometimes easier not said than said at all. Which is kind of funny. I'm a six foot three big guy, and I used to live most of my life in abhorrent terror. But confronting these things, I always fall into the trap of kind of like that Stockholm syndrome of... like what you mentioned earlier, of kind of excusing the perpetrators of the harm in an attempt to just move on beyond it.

[50:06]

And it just seems very, very easy to get hung up either on letting it go in that ignorant dump the baby out with the bathwater way or holding it in like I'm trying to kill the person with my own self-loathing. So... Bold compassion is showing up like that for somebody. But how do you show up with that same kind of bold compassion in a non-selfish way for yourself, if that word salad made any sense at all? Thank you, Miguel. I don't know if I'm understanding you. However, I will work it out. So what I heard you say was... that we need to be mindful of excusing perpetrators of harm. You know, that isn't peacemaking to say, oh, well, yes, I have compassion for those who are harming and therefore I'm not going to do anything speaking for myself.

[51:16]

So I think that's a very wise statement that you've just made, a point of mindfulness. We don't want to excuse the perpetrators of harm. And then what I heard you say is that it's as though we can try to kill the other person with our self-loathing, with our own self-loathing. That's a very strong statement. I think there's a lot in there that's really good to look at. And the ways in which we may be... in effect killing ourselves off with our own self-loathing. So I do hear, especially at East Bay Meditation Center, because we serve, our mission is to serve underserved communities. So we're founded on our BIPOC, our People of Color Sangha, our Alphabet Sangha, which is members of the LGBTQIA two-spirit communities.

[52:19]

as well as people with chronic illness, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, disabilities and limitations of any sort. That's what our mission is. And a perpetual theme of what is asked of our teachers is, how do I learn to love myself? Which is another thing is practicing non-self-loathing. So I really don't know the answer for you that it can contain so many different elements of of probably maybe even a lifelong process. However, I got this from my Dharma friend, Nelson Foster, who was one of my friend, Aitken Roshi's chief Dharma heirs. And I got the chance to visit him up at Ring of Bones Endo outside of Nevada City in the fall of 2019. And it was so nice. We sat outside of the zendo, which was built by Gary Snyder and his friends back in the day.

[53:25]

And it was so nice. And we had barley tea. And we sat. And so Nelson Miguel told us a story about how his partner, Masa Uehara, was formerly Gary Snyder's wife, and another member of the sangha, were out at Ring of Bones Endo and they've got these outhouses and they were cleaning the outhouse and they may have heard something or they saw something and they looked down this like, you know, outhouse pit and there was a baby skunk down there. So again, collective selfless action. These two women figured out they could get these long rakes and holding it in perfect unison and breathing in unison They extended the rakes down and they cradled the baby skunk and they literally pulled it up out of the shit and got it out. And then they cleaned it up and Nelson said that the whole sangha just fell in love with this baby skunk.

[54:30]

And they took care of the skunk and it died. It's too far gone. And so this is what I recall that really changed me or brought it to the fore for me, Miguel, is that is that Nelson said, he said, this was so wonderful for our sangha. He said, in learning to love one of the 10,000 things, we learned how to love. So if it's hard for us to love ourself, you know, find one thing and love it and help it die, if that's its journey. And then everything else will open up. I just have no doubt about that. Thank you. That was powerful and heavy. Thank you. And it's so possible, you know. It's so possible. Yeah.

[55:35]

Thank you. there near me yeah i'm trying to find you oh i see you okay i see you hi thank you for your passionate um and compassionate talk um when you asked the question uh when you asked us to explore how we can um sew a garment that fits everyone? Was that the, yeah. The first answer that came to me was start with yourself, kind of. And it's interesting because I noticed that there's this fear in me that in any work I do outwardly, that it might be... tainted by my illusions and the ego that I still struggle with and my greed.

[56:43]

And so I almost have this notion that I need to have worked a lot on myself before I dare to take action. And... I'm just wondering how you practice with that and how you practice with identifying the ego when you're working collectively and, and this feeling of like, you know, kind of hindering yourself until you feel complete. That is such a good point. Yeah, and once again, the quote is from Sonia Renee Taylor. Maybe you can put that in the chat if it isn't already there. S-O-N-Y-A-R-E-N-E-E-T-A-Y-L-O-R. The body is not an apology. A lot of good, great stuff there. So I'm trying to locate you again.

[57:48]

This Zoom is just driving me crazy. Where did you go? I don't know. OK, you just your tile switch places. It's so aggravating. OK. You know, I've done a lot of thinking for myself, Fatima, and and I'm doing some writing and I like to talk about the practice of imperfection. So I just referred to my old friend, Robert Aitken Roshi. He was such a wonderful friend to our family. He even babysat my kid when my child was a baby. He loved children, and he'd put the kid on his back in his backpack and walk around with him. In fact, the kid once smeared the heart of a fruit Danish all over the front of Roshi's immaculate white dress shirt. I'd almost die. And Roshi said, quite all right, quite all right.

[58:48]

So Aitken Roshi wrote a wonderful book, I thought called, I think it's called The Practice of Perfection. I think it's on Zen ethics or something like that, which we do need. And so I've done a lot of thinking about the practice of imperfection. And There is, again, a point of discernment there, Fatima, that is for each of us to make, which is, and I would say, really kind of the blanket thing is to just say, okay, it's really probably never going to be what I'm positing as perfect. And certainly, if there is a flickering moment, it will be gone soon. So let's just start out with the assumption that things are extremely imperfect. And we ourselves are imperfect. At least I am. I'll just speak for myself. I'm imperfect. I kind of embrace the Jodo Shinshu teaching about how we're all foolish beings.

[59:54]

I know I am. And that's okay. That's where we're starting from. It's not where we want to necessarily end up. We want to go as tick nuts. Hans says, in the direction of more wisdom, in the direction of more clarity, in the direction of more compassion. It's always this journey where these geese, we're always going to fly in the direction of and without necessarily arriving at perfection. And so there's a point of discernment at which we gain confidence and we say, OK, I'm not the greatest in the world. I'm also not the worst. And therefore, you know, there are This is a time to step up. This is a time to speak truth to power. And this is a time to also see what happens. That's karma, you know, cause and effect. So say I speak truth to power, but not in a skillful way. And I get some pushback. People say that was harmful. And, you know, those words you used, we saw your intention was good.

[60:55]

really, we don't like to be gendered in that way, or you did not accurately refer to our community, or you need to do more of your own work. And then what I want to do is to have the resilience to take that in and say, thank you so much. I'm going to study more. I'm going to learn. I'm going to, if you are so kind, I'll ask you more questions. So to have that kind of dialectical understanding forward movement, where we move forward, we do our best, we get the response, we evaluate it, we learn from it. If our feelings are hurt, we say, okay, my feelings are hurt. And this is not about me. It's about all of us moving together forward. So then we're going to bring that new learning in and then we move forward again. Does that help make sense? It's a very natural process of growth. Yeah, that's helpful. It sounds like you're talking also about courage in a way. Definitely. Yeah.

[61:57]

I'll work on it. Do the sign. Do the sign. Thank you. I believe in your courage. I know it's within you. Thank you. Thank you, Mishim, so much for your talk and for speaking to us with such warmth and realness. There's a couple of things I really delighted in. One, you know, there's not too many Zen teachers out there who even show up with a single wrinkle in their robes, never mind, you know, saying, it's all right, I'm in my messy room, and I'm going to give a Dharma talk, and that's totally okay, and I really delighted in that. Thank you. And another thing that I was really moved by, I think actually my question, you addressed a lot of it in answering Fatima's question, but my question stemmed from the image of that flock of geese, that really beautiful image, and also, and your encouragement to SFCC, you know, gather in the courtyard and do this exercise.

[63:18]

And I really, I have to say, I'm really delighted in imagining say like the Tonto and the Tenzo and some residents at city center getting together in the courtyard and flapping their arms and moving around in this triangle formation. I have to say it's kind of hard to imagine at the same time. And thinking about kind of the, and I think I was reflecting on, I think, we think of the traditional diligence and discipline of Zen and maybe as you know both Japanese Americans kind of that that kind of internal repression in Japanese culture and how that's infiltrated a lot of Zen practices and communities and how that becomes a hindrance to what you're calling this you know appropriate or creative response and And I'm wondering, you know, how do we bridge the gap?

[64:19]

You know, I wonder, I'm going to think about it for myself as an individual and think about it as, you know, being part of Zen communities. How do we get from that place of, you know, knowing exactly how we come into the Zendo in perfect form and sit down on our cushions to be able to be kind of messy and creative and let go a little bit? Maybe you could talk about what are some, especially, and I think I would like to speak to you on a collective basis in Sangha. How do we get there? What are maybe some of the obstacles and how do we get there? Thank you so much, Nobuko. That I think has a lot of profound elements in it, just speaking for myself from my own experience. And so I am a third generation Japanese American. Sansei, that means all four of my grandparents immigrated from Japan. My parents were both born in the United States, and I myself was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and spent the first part of my life in the Midwest.

[65:23]

So as an apple, I'm pretty far from the tree. I don't know Japanese. And in fact, my original lineage is Korean. That was just the karma. where I was when I started practicing. There weren't any Japanese Zen groups. It was this Korean group. And, you know, I'll just tell you, frankly, I understand, I think, what you mean about Japanese American internal repression and all of that, how that can manifest. I mean, the upside of it is collective harmony. and sort of collectiveness, you know, which I think is good. And then there's a really downside of it, which can be this just stuffing down of anger or of grief, or I've seen all of those things and I've been part of those structures.

[66:25]

And so I gave a talk just recently, this sermon, in fact, last Sunday to the first sermon Unitarian Universalist Church in Los Angeles invited me. And I think it was for that talk that I talked about how I actually got this, I think, from the Buddhist artist Mayumi Oda, who's very beloved by San Francisco Zen Center. And you have her artwork. And so when she's an old friend of mine, she gave my son his middle name. And I think she said that traditionally in Japan, that there was a saying about Koreans. And that this saying was, if you shove or throw a Korean down, they will rise up with five edible plants in their hand. So I think that for

[67:28]

each of us individually and also collectively, could we open some conversations with one another? Could we open some safe enough facilitated conversations with one another in our communities, in our work teams, in whatever little collective groups that we're in or larger to ask ourselves, what is it if anything, that we're repressing on an individual and on a collective scale. Because in my experience in Zen communities, something that shoved down is gonna explode at some point of stress and then it becomes an emergency. So can we be proactive in dismantling that explosion and instead open it up to one another in order to create communities in which we're quiet and we're silent because that is restful, because that is conducive to inner reflection, contemplation, and mindfulness, not because we're afraid or not because we're...

[68:54]

feel we're forbidden to explore our feelings. And most of Olnobuco, what I would say is this is most easily accomplished in the most healing manner by learning how to play with one another in safe and responsible ways. It doesn't take but five or 10 minutes to do the geese flying thing. I've done it with all of my students at East Bay Meditation Center. in our secular mindfulness for social justice training actions. You would all look fabulous if you wear your robes because you've got the wing thing going. And it's a way of, through play, actually embodying and understanding the feeling that we are all important and we're all replaceable. And for me, that is traditionally Zen. because I know that usually Zen training involves people rotating through various leadership positions of responsibility.

[70:01]

The person who has a high responsibility of running the kitchen will not be there forever, most likely. The person who is the abbot will not be there forever, most likely. And I hope not forever. The person who is in charge of the Zendo will not be there forever. These are training positions. And in... going from one to another and were better at some and not so good at others. I myself was immediately made the bookkeeper when I took the vow of poverty and moved into the Zen temple in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Math is my worst subject. What a nightmare. I couldn't believe it. So had to do my best with it. So as we rotate through these positions, for me, it's exactly the comparison to the geese flying. the geese flying. So once again, people who are in the Zendo official positions and all of your positions of responsibility, thank you, thank you, thank you. We know you're doing your best and we know you will not be there forever and then there will be another person in that position and another person in that position.

[71:10]

And as we move forward and as we drop back as one body, then I think that we don't, that's how we really lose that kind of squashed down quality because flying is almost probably universally is a metaphor for freedom, for liberation and for movement. Does that help? I'm seeing some flying. Nancy, I see you. Oh, there we go. All right. Yes. There's some wing action there. Lucian, speaking of holding particular roles in the Zen temple, it's my responsibility to say that in about two and a half minutes, we'll come to our formal ending time. And I notice we still have some hands raised. So I'd like to ask how you would like to proceed.

[72:12]

Really, it's up to you, Kodo. You're in charge of this. I mean, I'm available. I'm here. I'm here to serve you. So what do you want to do? Well, why don't we move into the next question? And I see Etir is next on the list, and I see Dr. Hashemi with a hand raise. So let's go to Etir, and then we can move on from there. Thank you. too we can't seem to hear you or I can't is that true for everyone yep okay since we're short on oh those work can you hear me now okay let me try this thank you so much Mushim I really appreciated your talk and um

[73:16]

the call for both compassion and practice of non-fear. They're very helpful at this moment. And I also really appreciated the image of the geese and everyone practicing together. That's really beautiful. And I think you already sort of answered what I'm going to ask, but I thought I'd ask anyway. And it kind of ties in with Nobuko's question too. I'm just curious if you have any thoughts on how Zen Center could integrate and share leadership with BIPOC and, you know, given the hierarchies and how to balance, you know, the practice hierarchies and the way things are and integrate in a speedy, more speedy manner, BIPOC to positions of leadership. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on that. I do. I do. I have a thought. And in fact, we're prepared. our tech bodhisattvas have a resource that, Iteer, I'm going to refer you to.

[74:20]

It is a free resource that is now available in the internet, and it's called the Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Benchmarks, the G-D-E-I-B. So is it in the chat? There we go. Centerforglobalinclusion.org, C-E-N-T-R-E. Since we're global, we don't use the American spelling of center. And this ETIR is a global project. It's the only global project I've ever had the honor to be involved with. And it is a publication that has been put out in several editions. We're getting ready to put out a new one. So I'm so pleased to announce it will come out in 2021. You can download the last one, which is 2016. I am one of 99 what are called expert panelists who put together that edition.

[75:22]

I'm one of over 100 expert panelists who have been working on the next edition. And this is a very sophisticated, it's not diversity 101. It's sophisticated and it's kind of difficult, yet I think worthwhile. benchmark project, which we hope can be adapted and used by small and large for-profit and non-profit organizations worldwide. It has now been translated into several languages. We're working on getting it translated into more. And if you go and take a look at it, you will see that it has benchmarks which can clearly help any organization or business any large corporation to, in a way, assess and diagnose where they are in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusivity or inclusion. So these are benchmarks which say the organization has a certain percentage or significant number of, it could be BIPOC, it could be members of the alphabet community.

[76:34]

There are many different... dimensions of diversity. And this clearly lays out where the organization is. You can identify where you are in terms of these benchmarks. And once you identify where you are, then you can see the next benchmark you want to hit and then the next benchmark you want to hit and strategize with the leadership and the input of the entire community in order to say, OK, this is not so easy. And we want to do this. We want to get to the next benchmark community. How do we do this? And draw on that collective wisdom. And then the leaders need to be innovative, be creative. Because again, this is not easy work. However, there is a path. And that is one of them is a GDEIB. Could you please take a look at it? And I'd love for you to get back to me. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

[77:36]

Yeah, I will definitely take a look at it. I'm curious whether Abbott, David, or someone from the leadership would be willing to tell us where we are specifically on that because I was volunteering with the Cultural Awareness and Inclusivity Committee for the past three years. And I first heard about these benchmarks a few years ago that we were working on this. but I don't know any further information. I'm curious whether there's indication of where we are and any specific, any specific next steps that anyone would be willing to share with the Sangha. So Itir, I'm seeing in the chat from, I think Abbott David says, thanks to Mushim's recommendation a number of years ago. I recommended this several years ago. This index is one of a number of resources Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center has been working with in our diversity, equity, inclusion, and access endeavors.

[78:46]

So, David, what I'm hearing at here requesting is saying it's an ongoing process. I'm seeing Tova Green. We've updated the DEI page of the website, and you will see some of the specific actions we are planning to take. Oh, great. Thank you, Tova. So, Iteer, if you like, take a look at that, knowing that the GDEIB is one tool that Zen Center has been using. And once again, I invite you, if you like, to contact me through my website. And we can discuss this further if you like. Thank you. Yes. And I have looked at the DEIA website. I still, you know, I still have the same question, but yeah, I'd be happy to contact you offline. Thank you so much. And your question is good because the benchmarks are made to be that not like, hey, we've got this tool. It can also be, here we are. This is where we rate on the benchmarks. All right. Thank you so much.

[79:47]

Thank you. And I think one more, if we can squeeze it in. Thanks. Dr. Sonja, you had your hand up for a bit. You're on mute, Dr. Sonja. Oh, yes, I'm on mute. Thank you, Shero. And I really appreciate your talk, especially you introduced the model of the goose. And so we know about the Qigong, Diane Qigong. So I've been studying Zen for over 40 years, and Zen introduced me to Dayan Qigong. And when doctors told me that I have only three months to leave due to the cancer, so it's 25 years ago. So I have been practicing in the Zen Center also.

[80:48]

I have taught these classes, and also all over the world. So we are doing the children right now, the program for prevention on a different component that I brought the life of the birds, especially from Rumi. And Rumi's master, Atar, with the seven habits of the conference of the birds, as well as... as well as Simorgh, if you know about bringing the giant bird. That's all mystic, the mystic with the birds and bringing to our life to get, you know, with the empowering inner self. So I'm very, very pleased to hear that you are doing such a work with the fears and bringing to the peace. So we are doing this program

[81:48]

right now for the children around the world. I'm very delighted to connect with you as we are training also the health coaches in the same way. Thank you. Thank you so much for Dayan Qigong is a medical Qigong and Chinese medicine has been a lot of Chinese medicine in like acupressure, acupuncture has been based on this in this model. And the monks have been studied over 1,700 years before to form these 64 forms. 1,700 years, the wisdom is behind this form. And I think, so right now they are using in the... in the leadership for the corporations. I worked with Apple and also, as you know, Steve Jobs was practicing also in the Zen Center.

[82:54]

I have introduced to the companies and that's the best way we can have this bringing this the lifestyle of the birds for bringing the peace and health and prevention to our life. Thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Sonia. Let's be wild geese. Let's be wild geese. Thank you. I see that we have one more hand raised. I want to acknowledge we're a bit over time. So I know if people need to go, then please feel invited to do so. I just wonder if you're willing to address one more question or should we call it a day? I'm happy to do so. And yeah, I do see some people needing to leave because there are many things to do. However, I'm here for you. What's the question? Great. Loretta, please. Hello, motion.

[83:56]

Hi, Loretta. Hi, thank you so much for your talk and I've appreciated some of your other talks as well. My question is related somewhat to Nobuko's question. I'm speaking as a half black, half Japanese person who had practiced at the San Francisco Zen Center in the early 1980s, returned to stay in the guest accommodations over the last few years and participated in morning practice. And I just wanted to speak to the forms, the actual forms, the Zendo forms, Zazen, the teaching forms. And I, maybe in contrast to some, I found those forms deeply liberating, not repressive, suppressive, but actually sort of containers through which I could have my experience, see my mind. And so my broad question to you is, do you have any thoughts about teaching forms and their continuation, the continuation, evolution of formal practice forms?

[85:12]

And how do you see those as a vehicle for liberation? Thank you so much, Loretta. So, yeah, my... comment on that is that just as you're saying, just exactly as you're saying, that the forms in Zen practice, which tends to be pretty formal, are the reason they're still around after all this time and have, you know, come from Asia and been translated in North America, in the United States in the way that they have. And then they've lasted without people just rioting and saying, you know, we hate this bullshit. We've got to stop it. And people like, oh, yeah, OK, let's let's do it this way. It isn't all because people are just like buckling under. It is because so many of us have found these forms exactly as he said.

[86:16]

I wrote down. I think you said containers through which I can see my own experience. And I think you said sort of clarify my mind. Did I hear you correctly? See my mind. Containers through which I can see my mind. Well, exactly. And so that's the positive aspect of the forms. And obviously, again, many, you are not alone. So many people have experienced it. I think that what I'm pointing towards is, can there be ways in which we can, again, go big, expand in response to the very severe stressors of the time that we're in, the things that are happening in our society, which are not new. They're more manifest now, I think, such as the racial divide in the United States. That Can we have a both and in which those who benefit from the forms are exploring the forms in liberatory ways with non-fear?

[87:26]

And can there also be an expansion into new containers and new forms and new ways of... expressing what is so wonderful and so beautiful and so liberatory in our traditions, which, again, my filter is always, is it going to fly with a group of children? And I've worked a lot with kids. I am a mother. And once again, there's so much there about how when we're with children, we have to use, I think, what works and absolutely instantly drop what is not working. And in order to meet the needs of people where they are. And I think it's a certain kind of creativity. I've talked a lot about creativity and art. I myself have started writing poetry again. That was my original field before I got sucked off into Zen.

[88:29]

And so, and I know that Zen has so many connections to the arts. So my own invitation is can people who self-identify as Zen practitioners kind of go back to Zen in a very almost primal way, I would say, and go back into that creative state and say, so the formal Zen do as it is, is super good. And what is kind of the new zendo? What is the new wall-less zendo? What is the new playful zendo? What is the place where what is best in our tradition can flower forth in creative and unexpected ways that has yet to be created? And if you are interested in this, I'd be happy to do this work with you. Thank you so much.

[89:32]

Thank you. Thank you, Kodo. Wow. Thank you so much. From my position, as you know, I want to say thank you for staying with us for some extra time. Thank you to the assembly. I feel like I just witnessed complete meeting over and over again. And I'll make it possible so that everyone can unmute now and say goodbye, if you wish. Thank you so much. Thank you, Kodo. I'm seeing all your wonderful faces now. Thank you, Moshim. Thank you, Moshim. Thank you, everyone. Thank you very much. Have a good day. So good to hear you, Moshim. Bye, Loretta. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye. Thank you, Saga. Thank you, family.

[90:33]

Thank you so much, Mushim. Thank you. Thank you, Mushim. Thank you, Shannon. Off we go. Good day. All right. Thank you so much. Be well. Be safe. Thank you. Goodbye.

[91:05]

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