I'm not going to have to serve the power of my presence. I'm not going to have to serve anything. I'm not going to have to serve the power of my presence. I'm not going to have to serve the power of my presence. I'm not going to have to serve the power of my presence. I'm not going to have to serve my presence. Oh. Impermanence. Literally in the midst of it. And Stan also feels very permanent. And I'm like... Adapt as best I can. Good to see everyone. It'll be 2024. Let's start out by just setting up each other.

[01:21]

Let me do that. All right. My name is Rehurn G.D. William Schatz. I want to thank the City Center Advice, Marco, and Tonto, Tim, for the invitation to speak today, and of course to thank City Center Advice, Paul Howard, and Central Advice, Dave Zimmerman, for being here. And sorry, this thing is a little hard for me. I'm going to focus now. And of course, I thank Vicky Boston, my teacher, and then also.

[02:23]

Of course, she's here in spirit. In fact, when I was told I was in the city and it was excursions, I thought Paul In Posse, I got blanched, because I'm used to blanching here. And that just happens like very high platform. I feel like in the clear body position, you're not supposed to be in a high bed. And when I was told I was stepping up on here, I just feel like, wow, really a little uncomfortable for me. So sorry, I'm going to be a dust care. in so many ways. All right. I really appreciate being the first one. There's a talk here at the City Center. And I'm going to lay out along.

[03:23]

In some ways, then, it's about, I would say, right or still for leave, which is the first step I have, of course. And I think it's kind of a needier since you to kind of start going, oh, what is that I want this year to be? How do I set my view on how we're going to do this year? Do people study the resolution and thinking about it once? Right? All right. And I am We're going to be talking from my book, which came out in August. Thank you for the invitation to talk about it. It's called Thomas Here, Practicing Anti-Recycling with the Endaged Default Cap. So, I'll start with the introduction here.

[04:25]

I will say, the book starts, and I'll say here also, a content warning. I will be saying some slovers. This is not an invitation to use slovers yourself, even if it's referring to you, because it tends to be activating for people. Power goes with the book, and so I will be saying it in this context. So the introduction, the wholeness of life, location, location, location. Where are you from? No, no, really. Where are you from? Hey, Jake, go home. People like you should live in this neighborhood. I was in your country and saved your people.

[05:28]

Why do you act like a white girl? You're a Twinkie, aren't you? People know I'm a Twinkie. So, yeah, let me explain. Okay, a Twinkie is a derogatory word for someone who is perceived to be Asian or yellow on the outside and white on the inside. A banana is another derogatory term. Buddhism came to America some 40 million or 50 years ago. Don't you know this is the women's rescue? Fucking lesbian. In each moment, we are located by lineage and ancestry, by others, by ourselves, by sight, by perception, by differentiation, by discrimination, by institutions.

[06:32]

by policies, by governmental structures, by systems of oppressions, by homophobia, by sexism, by genderfobia, by white supremacy culture, by racism, by erasure, by invisibilization, by exclusion, by inclusion, by equity, by love, with hatred, with fear, with anxiety, with love, with care, with tenderness, with joy, in isolation, in community, in belonging, in no heart, in time, in space, in emptiness, in homes.

[07:38]

As a Vietnamese American adoptee, 1.5 generation, and of course, cisgender female, and non-conforming, lesbian, sub-design peers, in the late mid-years of chronological life, I'm often located by others, as I don't always present or behave in ways people believe my social location is to be. For instance, I'm often asked as I enter in a washroom, don't you know this is a women's restaurant? Perhaps it could be because of my shaved head to be a priest, but likely it's also because I have been non-performing in the ways I've kept myself for most of my life, in gender, and other socially responsible matters. When I was in Vietnam, in 2002, and traveling with Vietnamese and Vietnamese American crimes, I would often ask you to stay in the van as they went in to negotiate the lodging price.

[08:49]

This was due to the unprofessional but commonly used tiered pricing scheme. Lowest occurred in these nationals. next level for Vietnamese diaspora, and most extensive performance. According to my friends, while my ethnic identity was visually apparent, the way I helped myself was American. They felt that I exuded too much confidence and took up too much space compared to a typical Vietnamese female. For most of my life, I have I have had to be hyper-aware of my social locations wherever I am, especially of locations imputed on me by systems of oppression. By location, I mean a framing for how an individual is designated a physician in specific systems, and with it the assumptions and privileges, for a lack of them, that come with it.

[09:56]

This framing of vocationality allows for an understanding that an identity always comes with embedded social power that can change depending on which system is operating in each one's interaction with another, interpersonally and in structures. For instance, as an able-bodied Vietnamese American, I'm located in a down-power position. or location of less privilege within a system of white supremacy. Yet I am in that power of more privileged location than ableism. Understanding one's location is important because, depending on the embedded lack of privilege or power, one's responsibility changes. I've tried to grasp solidly onto some of these locations at times. trying hard to be American or Vietnamese, for others and for myself.

[11:02]

At other times, I've tried rejecting locations, especially those repeated on me by others and by systems. I've done both in many ways, individually and with others, through academic studies, art, therapy, honorism, activism, and work as a social worker. Then finally, when my suffering couldn't be processed thoroughly through those meetings, I leaned into my Buddhist practice. At first, it was out of utter confusion. After my graduate studies, I went back to Vietnam for the first time after 28 years. I thought I was going home. But after five months, I realized that the home I envisioned was simply that. a vision carried on my past and my childhood. This threw me for a week, and I came back to the United States utterly shaken.

[12:10]

Who am I? Where did I belong? I'd been practicing late Buddhism for almost six years by then. With this gathering of old ideas about myself, I then decided to go to a monastery in Northern California to do some intensive meditation, chanting, and other Buddhist practices. Initially, my aim was a three-month intensive retreat, and I ended up staying there for three and a half years, and was aiming as a priest through the Siddhartha Zen tradition. Fast forward to more than two decades later, and 50 years of practice in being a Buddhist meditation teacher, I've developed more So that's the beginning of the book, and I wanted to really talk about vocation.

[13:15]

I think when I find out from this view, I'm obviously in the literal up-hour position, very up-hour right now, and you all are lovely. Online, maybe you're more directly, I don't know. But I think, yes, right? Depending on how we interact, even on literally Iron and Paul, obviously, being seen by our teaching, Paul has more power in the temple and also in social locations. United Space, right? So how we're located depends not just on our literal space, but who we turn to interact with. Now, yes, I did ask you to say hi to everyone, and that was also on purpose.

[14:17]

So actually close your eyes for a minute. Think back. So when I ask you to say hi to people, think about what was some of the drive, or the motivation, or the impetus for who you turn to, how we address people, what is the energetic sense, the motivations, think about what might have been some unconscious sense. All right, go ahead and open your eyes when you're ready. Anybody want to say, share anything about how you chose to say hi to you or didn't say hi to you?

[15:20]

Sure, tell us your name. Hey, come. I chose to say hi to everybody I could see. Uh-huh. Okay. And when you say, being in a Zen form, in a Zen, no, literally, you didn't get up to go grab it. No, I did not. Yeah, so that's kind of like a, you know, a form here. Most people would think to get up. I almost said, feel free to get up, but then I thought that might be more chaos here. Anyone else want to share? Yes, that was your name. Mishnah. Mishnah, yes. Proximity. Proximity. Okay, now, I think that, who did we decide to sit next to? Where did we want to sit? And by the way, just two, right? But also, perhaps, like, I'm actually a little bit hard of hearing, so I sit close, but then also, as a Vietnamese American, often I might just sit up front. Right?

[16:23]

And so I sit back, even though I have a sense of I need to move forward to be more visible, but I have to fight these kind of conditions. And so we're taught how to locate ourselves all the time, and we're doing it all the time. And certain of us, depending on how much instruction we were given exclusively or implicitly, depending on the various social locations that we've grown up to, have more and more messages about how we should comport ourselves. And that's part of what we're taught, our conditioning. And some of it's perfectly fine. The issue is, are we aware of that? And then from that, How did we want to respond? How much of it is old and unconscious?

[17:25]

And are we willing to examine that and then bring more consciousness to? Now, when we also talk about saying hi, maybe, or the exercise of saying hi, is that there's a, for the people in the room, or at least probably now, but there's a teaching about the Papathom Sattva Sutra on the inverse net. So it's described often as the universe is a net, and at each section in which the strands cross, there's a jewel. At the nose, there are jewels. And because of the nature of jewels, the way they're cut, they're faceted, they reflect. And so each yellow is a jewel, and so each jewel reflects all the other jewels. Sounds lovely, right? And it is about our interconnectedness, how we reflect each other and impact each other.

[18:33]

And it's a lovely image. Now, sometimes that's used, I think, to have the sense that, oh, all the jewels could be the same, that equality is that we all should somehow be the same. Wouldn't you say? Maybe it's just me. Now, I want to really bring in that the oneness, when we want to talk about oneness of practice, that is the strands, it's the net itself, is where we need to pay more attention. Not just on the individual tools. The tools are part of the net. So yes, we want to pay attention. to the jewels. And depending on if your part of the net has more torn or has not historically been taking care of the strands so that they're broken or that they're weak, then perhaps more attention needs to be on attending to the jewels in that area.

[19:38]

How can we build the net again? Probably the sixth. You know, when you look at cobwebs, especially those that seem like they are not attended to or sections of it. You know, you see a spider, right? And there's a decisive one to get the bug that they're going to eat. They're repairing the nets. And so one thing about, hmm, where is it that I don't pay enough attention to the net? If we're talking about oneness, am I just... interested in the nets around me, or where I am." And yet, the nets, if we think of, if we turn our view to not just be on the jewels, one way becomes the words of the nets. But the net becomes the thing that is more important. One way to talk about the net is, what is the connection

[20:41]

between us. How are those connections made? So, as I was writing this book, and clearly this book really set out a call from students, I'd like to say this book does not start out as a book, it started out as a response. So, in 2020, the beginning of the pandemic, A lot of Asian-American students called me up and said, hey, my health, all this banalist and violence against Asian-Americans is really distressing. I'm afraid I leave my home. How can you support me? And so I actually have been developing these since 2017. I was at Generation X chief conference that several other people were at. And it was right after we had another round of sexual misconduct in convert centers.

[21:47]

And so the right use of power was brought in as a restoration model. And I hope the right use of power, and we've done it here. And then I thought, well, I've been to a lot of trainings in my priest's career. And some other models have always been brought in, nonviolent communication. And I don't do it all. Really, I did. And yet, there must be something in the teachings themselves. That's where I go when I travel. So I thought about it with the support of the Alvinar Foundation, the Buddhist Foundation. I've been developing the four novel truths to be what I call the engaged version as a restorative model. So in that restorative model, we start out by saying harm and arming has happened, not just that there's suffering. Because to restore anything, we have to acknowledge that there has been brokenness, that the values that we say that we uphold, the view that we say, oh, there's equality, there's equity.

[22:58]

We hold these views and values, and when they're broken, we have to agree on so much of the conflict in the world. A right is that disagreement about what is it that needs attended, or is broken and needs to be fixed, you see? And so it is really important that the beginning of restoration is to acknowledge what is. So, as I was doing these, I would say there are three what I call essential aspects to restoration. One is this acknowledging what is, which, by the way, echoes the first language, right? How many harmonies happen, we have to acknowledge it, and then knowing what shifts are especially needed, and learning how to put those shifts into practice. And then the last of the two of the group. So let's talk about knowing what shifts are especially needed.

[24:03]

So I will go to chapter 1, just a little debrief. In each one of our trips, we are complete and whole. I have no thought, so someone can get me a time check. Time for it. Time for it. Thank you. The rail of the bell signals it is my turn for Dokusong, an interview to discuss my practice with the Soto Zen Master at this 500-year-old chain monastery in Japan. I picked up a small map. and struck the cast iron bell in front of me, one time, letting it break. Then a second time. I rose and hurried down along half the communists, a woven straw flooring in traditional Japanese living spaces, passing through the Itai wall, a narrow room lying on both sides with rows of individual alters for deceased, sambar, and unity members.

[25:17]

They silently witnessed the squishing of thought as my gall, black crease groves rub back and forth around my ankles with each quick step. At the end of the hall, three steps rose up. I stop at the bottom and perform a short dash-up, rally with palms touching and elbows out. Then, in one swift motion, I grab the end of my zogu, or pre-spelling clock, laid it down on his tummy and folded it into a square. I dropped down and started my full crustaceans as quickly as possible, body crouched in child's clothes, both hands upstretched and palms placed on the floor. Then, with symmetrical precision, hands raised past the ears and down again before rising to stay. I did this three times quickly, as is the custom.

[26:21]

After which, I refolded and split the Zabu back over my last years. One hour picked up the shuttle, and then I headed up those three stairs to my dokuson Sake Harada Roshi, the abbot of Koshiki monster in Obama, Japan. I entered the room ready to ask the big, essential question of mine. I come to Japan after leaving an adultly white perverse to the Zen Buddhist monastery in central California, where I thought I would spend the rest of my life. When I was asked to be ordained after more than eight years of meditative Buddhist practice, I felt the deep calling to live as a Buddhist minister. But this did not continue. I left the California monastery after three and a half years there, heartbroken and confused about the racism I had experienced on both a personal and structural level.

[27:29]

The persistent white supremacy culture of the monastery made it unsafe and did not support me as a Vietnamese-American practitioner. This was true for many other people of color staying there as well. The experience was a strange thought to my understanding of wisdom, race practice, and my sense of place and all. As I nagged my answer with that California moment study, I figured out how to practice as a newly ordained priest. I was contacted by someone who studied under something of a diversion in Japan. They urged me to study with him, as he was acknowledged as an enlightened Zen rescue. I only practiced the Zen in predominantly white comfort settings in the United States, and I felt gone to the practice in Japan, the birthplace of this fact, Buddha. I'd been in Hoshinji for three weeks, trying to process my despair from having to leave California.

[28:34]

There was another American at the monastery, a white one. Instead of being someone I could connect with, she had asked me, saying things like, You're good for nothing. You're trash." And the way I thought about it, and I didn't put it to my father, she also said, you should die. And his whispers, as we moved about the various ceremonies and tasks at the temple, I couldn't get away from her either. You were housed in the same nuns' quarter together. We had come to Huxinji around the same time, so we had similar strenuority. and we were the same night, so we were often there together for ceremonies. Our hateful whispers seemed to follow me all over the temple. The race of the life I experienced in California had followed me on the way to Japan. Entered my room for dōka-san, with sape-kara-do.

[29:39]

I barely sat down before blurting out the quintessential question of my existence up to that moment. Why does patriot seem to follow me wherever I go? I asked. Sakehara didn't hesitate. No patriot completely. K-N-O-M-I. No patriot completely, he answered. Then he grabbed the handrail, disliked and rang it vigorously, signaling the end of my envy. I sprangled out what we were doing, a frustration that that was in reverse order. My mind raised to make meaning of what had just happened. Nothing came. My mind had stopped. A koan in Zen practice is a story assigned by a teacher for you to work with.

[30:44]

Various traditions have different ways of practicing their problems, but giving an answer to the teacher as part of the process is a commonality across that. Now, how the teacher accepts or rejects the answer is part of the mythology of this practice. Well done, Pauline. At this very moment, what is the original face before your parents were born? Many people think koans are paradoxes, but really, they're stories to stop your mind, to bump off this loop of incessant and well-born patterns of thinking, planning, and processing. Koans open us to an understanding that's beyond official thinking. Life also gives us koans. For me, Racism has been a poem I've turned over and over.

[31:48]

Studying race theory was one of my answers to this poem. Other answers from my life have included activism. My various work as a social worker focused on addressing the harmful results of racism. All these were good answers. And then you want to say, The question is more important than the answer. Why? Because questions often come up at uncomfortable moments. Deep questions arise when we're faced with circumstances in which our coping mechanisms aren't working anymore. At such moments, transformation as a pain is possible, as we stay open to all answers. especially unexpected ones. The system of white supremacy centers whiteness, fragmenting us all into the delusion of separateness.

[32:55]

Aware of this dynamic and its harm to people of color, I had to be careful not to simply search outside of myself for answers. Like many Asian Americans and other people of color, At some point, I could learn to value myself, reclaiming the validity of my own experience in any moment and in any condition. Buddhist practice over many years has supported me to return to knowing and trusting my hopes. No hatred completely. That moment, with Roshis, it stopped my mind. from its official looping to try to understand racism. All my intellectual theories and years of anti-racist work didn't address my suffering in a useful way at this crucial point of my life. That moment stopped my frantic search to find some weird reason why ancient kept following me.

[34:05]

We already know, right? Systems of oppression I can begin from all my ways to read and study. What I needed was to let tend to the hurt and harm from being a target of a person. The reason we practiced to be able to find saddenedness and clarity that's not dependent on the conditions of the world. To find such saddenedness and clarity, we have to attend to our suffering and by heart and mind. The corner racing room is not just something I wanted to understand. What I really want, even now, is to heal from the hurt and pain I give. So the reason that I really developed the

[35:08]

engage 4-0 Jews. And then we don't talk about the 4-0 Jews, and I don't have to say implicit and obvious teaching, but we don't specifically talk about it. And technically, the Eightfold Path is considered a Ben-Ban teaching on how to be an honor path, right? The person who is enlightened develops the Eightfold Path. And then we focus much more And so that's partly why we don't hear the specificity. However, can we get the eightfold path to support the born of the kid? By the way, understanding the second is how do we fully understand the causes and conditions for the rising of And it's sort of similar to the classic psychology.

[36:11]

However, we focus much more on the system. We're still doing personal work to overcome racialization, but we focus on how we're not just, it's not just something, you know, it's not only for me to overcome what are the impacts of racism or other versions of it. They still understand that whole systems are responsible for how I can envision. And therefore, systems need to shift so that the healing is not just an individual healing, but a societal healing. And those are important. And then the third is, all I could say, the good news of Buddhism, is that there's agency. Where's the possibility to, now that we have agency, in the midst of early harm, Possibly, of course, it's the alleviation of the end of suffering. And then the last is the Eightfold Path.

[37:13]

Now, no more shifts, I think. But really, I think, elegateness of the Eightfold Path is that it really lays out for us what it is that we can work on And so, as I said, I'd like it out as acknowledging what it is, which is to, I suppose it's laid out in these three ways. The first part is seeing the world as it is. So how can we have a view of the world? And then also, how concentration practice, the meditative practice of concentration really helps us inside. The Eightfold Path, well, there are eight of them broken into three sections. One is called the wisdom section, which is skillful view, which is to understand affordable treatment karma. Recently, I was thinking karma.

[38:16]

Karma, of course, broadly, is complicated and very complicated, all now. But one big thing about karma is that it's habitual tendency, or habitual motivation, or unconscious energy, the way in which things are... we are conditioned, and we act in certain ways, and we behave in certain ways, and we speak in certain ways. We are conditioned. And normal conditioning is bad, by the way. Right? So I'll take a form in that zenbho, you know, you think it's just, like, battling to the sea and in the alternate. Right? And it's... we're conditioned. But it's in a way to help us all move together as one body. And then you don't want somebody, and then you have to say, oh, sorry, sorry. And then you break the silence of this end down. Right? So you break everyone else's responsibility. So just because things are conditional or thought forms doesn't take it back.

[39:23]

The idea is, are we conscious of how we're conditioned? And are they useful now? In fact, in racism, so many of our parents taught us ways of dealing with the impact of racism. You've heard about how, in particular, black children, black young children, really are set down by their parents to talk about how they have to be very careful, how they hold themselves, how they talk to some people, especially cops, In certain areas, there's just simply, of course, white people. You know, when I was in Vietnam, my mother would teach me how to move out of the way when a GI is coming out of me. So we're taught these things, and the idea is that it's for our safety. Our hands often promise things for our safety. And of course, it can go the other way around, you know, if you're taught that certain people of color are unsafe, and so you shouldn't interact with them.

[40:29]

And so the issue is, how can we examine how we've been conditioned and really useful for us anymore? Is there safety issues in the loneliness that we have to be attended? At times, it certainly is true. My first one goes, we are more than others. So it's not in itself about me. But the key is, is it useful now? Is it true in this moment, in each moment that you are? We want to work on that. And then the second is, when we shift to learning what shifts are needed, we want to go to what the world means now, or to this book. Social motivation, which is actually thinking, social thinking. And learning some thinking is not passive. This is why the more popular

[41:33]

translation is not about these phases. The intention, I like motivation. And motivation, because to me, motivation does give you the sense that you think it, and then you're motivated to move, to do, to speak. And so it goes actually into the second third, which is what's usually called the ethical conduct section. I like to call it the compassionate conduct section, which is skillful speech, skillful action, and skillful life. This is the interactive part, right? How we speak. Skillful action is essentially the life precepts, and then skillful life. How would we use the energy about life? Not just about life, but it is about work and teachings. What kind of jobs are more wholesome than others? Then we bring in the meditative factors of skillful efforts, and skillful mindfulness into that.

[42:37]

And then, realizing the wholeness of the world. This is where we get to learning how to put the shifts of the practice, which is really part 3. So we want to realize the wholeness of the world by the precepts, skillful action, which I have reframed as skillful enactment. Because to me, enactment gives us a sense that it's not just precepts, I have to normalize and, you know, decide that I'm doing it right, good or bad, or other people. But it really is, to me, echoes a sense of that. I'm vowing to enact what I hold true. The values that I hold. The precepts. How do I bring those into my mind? How do I act on those? You know, recently, I had a I just finished a whole series of precept studies for eight months. And someone I talked to in practice discussion said to me, you know, just finished.

[43:43]

So they get to write their own, again, version, so that's in their own words. By the way, I got it from Vicky Elspin, my teacher, so I passed it on to my students. And then I knew, well, It's my hole here. I'm just working it out. I print it out for them, or I lay it out, and then I send it to them these days, of course. And so, you know, I say, other people put them up. So you can look at the precepts all the time. And so this person said they were so bad about something. So, so bad. And then they looked at that precept, and they're working with us under everything. Like, I vow that when I'm angry, to really examine my anger and find where is their compassion. And so when they looked at that, they just thought, okay, where can I have compassion here for myself and for the person who can? And they said, that made everything.

[44:44]

They gave them a moment. It's not like stopping them on. It's another version of stopping them on. For myself, it showed with the Whose fault is it? Why am I not getting what I need? Whatever your thing is that makes you angry. It stops you, and then it says, oh, re-centers. This is my value here. This is where my enactment is. I'm going to enact this by promising, thinking it through, and recalibrate how I want to be in a world like this another. And they said, wow. That was amazing, and I didn't think that it would be something. I think, right? Here we go. So, I'm a little frustrated here, but that's okay. All right. So, and then still fully, what is the energy you want to put behind it?

[45:50]

All right, I am... way behind on my stuff, so I'm just doing it then. Here we go. I'm going to end, actually, with a chapter with the version there. Let me take some questions. The day after that wine scholarly meeting in Japan, Sakeyarada Muroshi offered me another chance for Doko-san. My brain went down, did my tabs, and went to the practice discussion room, ready to share my insights about how this answer had affected me. Before I could open my mouth, Roshi launched into a lengthy story of Shakyamuni Buddha's life and enlightenment

[46:52]

along with the histories of other early Buddhist ancestors. Thirty minutes. Then, once again, he'd write me out of the room. We never spoke about my question again. This event impacted me deeply, and I continued to turn it over for many years back to work. I wonder if you have one of my dokka songs with Sakigakara, don't you? This last part has always puzzled me. I have been wondering, what was this point of it all? In writing this now, I have an understanding of what it was teaching me. The Buddha's ancestors were searching for the same things as you and me. The end is suffering. I think Roshi, was saying that there can't be spiritual bypass.

[47:53]

We realized, and after that initial exchange, I too realized, that I was looking for a way to explain a way that hurt and pain by wanting to discuss it. Discussion isn't wrong. Theory isn't wrong. Activism isn't wrong. But we can't use these things for spiritual bodies . We can't use Buddhist practice or any methods, such as race theory or activism or dogmen, as a way to speak over the human condition inherent in the First Noble Truth, experiencing the hurts and pains of our lives. Trying to get away from it via any method is to try to skip over or bypass fully experiencing our life that's the best. Our practice is to get closer and closer to knowing completely.

[49:00]

Because in doing so, we can actually then have more clarity on how we can heal. In Pali, the first recorded language of Buddhism, the term never so want us to call right, is usually translated as wise attention. It can also be translated as attention that takes the whole into account. This is what Segei Hagura Roshi was pointing out to her. The practice of investigating duka, we seize it in context, in brutality, in the whole match by young people, and not just the hurt and pain Then, the rest of the engaged formula of use offers us descriptions and practices of how we connect or reconnect to the wholeness of love, that our existence is seen, relevant, doable, and valued.

[50:07]

When we learn and access the context that validate us and support us to thrive, not to survive, but to thrive, Additionally, we need to remember that all beings want the same thing, to be free from suffering in the colors of suffering. This is what connects us all. Denying that systems of oppression exist is to deny reality as it is. Learning to negotiate these systems with self and collective-determined agency is a practice of engaged liberation. In practicing collective liberation, this is what I wish for us. That we may come home to a sense of wholeness, grounded and wanted safe and of value to all. May we then aspire to start that out, to work together to strengthen safety and care for each other.

[51:11]

This is the work. Thank you for your attention. We're having some audio problems, so if... Liet, actually your microphone is the only one that's working right now. So when people ask questions, if you could repeat them so the online folks. Sure. No microphone. Does anybody have a question? Yes. How do you, what are you, it's an observation. It's an observation. I like the way our farmers get done.

[52:14]

And what I find, especially currently in the sacred world, and social conversations, is there's almost a competition of harm. So what's the Buddhist approach? Yeah. You know, it's fairly young. Thank you for your question. I can hear that's a big question for you. So just if you can correct me if I'm wrong. One is I appreciate the framing of the first number two, and then how to address the arm in the world, especially right now in Palestine.

[53:21]

So the first one was saying that it takes courage to practice Buddhism. I mean, most of us, completed a practice, at least in the, I know how to be raised in that area, right, in the United States of U.S. culture, and we'll start. And certainly I started meditation intensively when I moved here, but we completed for the calmness of concentration, the results of concentration, while I believe in calmness of life. And yet the harder work is actually all of the other parts. of that foreign relationship, right? The practice instruction of the first rule of truth is to investigate . And this is why that there's a sense, and part of , is that it seems like a certain term for the area is an impressive term.

[54:36]

for what's happening in Palestine, between Israel, is that there seems to be a fight about Russia. Whose heart is bigger? And so what is that? So one aspect will say, as long as you frame everything in duality, then there's always opposition. There's right and there's wrong. much harm than comparison. If we keep on comparison, then why would you usually set up as compared? Or not as one big expert. And so, if you keep doing that, then it just keeps escalating and becomes a fight. It's like a re-pop artist, where you fight with someone being a member of your therapist. Maybe I don't want to teach them and say, oh, are you trying to be right? Or are you trying to connect? Maybe that's so similar, right?

[55:37]

If you keep thinking, fighting for who's right, then chances of resolution doesn't happen. I'm a child better. What is it doing now? And what is key here? And I think what is different about the courses that this book was written for, the Dharma being had to erase this and notice rising from the mind, is that from framing it, as not, you know, so much of training on race and racism, which, you know, on nationalism, is about how to understand other people, right? And I think that's useful, to talk about that. However, what really is needed is having room for other voices to tell us what is the hurt and harm, and to take that in and give it as much value as we've been not hurt now.

[56:37]

And the irony of that, though, is that you have to heal your own arm. This is why this book is mostly for people of color. It's actually for everyone. And it is affected by white supremacy culture or nationalism. And, or, of course, nationalism. So we have to heal from that. Because when they can attend to our children who are in pain, then they have the space to really look up and see other people who are in pain to do it as much value. If there's a culture in which my pain needs to be seen, my pain needs to be seen, and it's continually pushed down, then it makes it hard for a kid. Then it becomes that, like, this part is bigger than this part. This is why, so to the ceasefire group, it's about, we're for peace here. How we all, if we all want peace, not about both groups, and usually anyone, both groups have an equal amount of historical, extreme amounts of historical denigration, oppression,

[57:59]

And so, if you think of it as continually upbeat each other, then actually the fight continues. That's not. Chihuahua will say that, you know, the learned art practice, right? They've written this book called The Two Wings of Reason. One is the wisdom, and one is compassion. Do I see this? You've seen this already. So there are two ways. One is wisdom, and one is compassion. Now, for a bird to fly, most legs are not straight. However, if we depend too much on wisdom, what happens? We just fly and circle this way. If we depend too much on Compassion, what happens?

[59:00]

We cry too much in a circle this way. However, we do need to have strength in both and the wisdom of discernment to now wish by means a little bit more effort to direct us in the direction we want to go. So at times, we over-protect one or the other. We don't give ourselves to one another. as much creates. I don't love to know when I'm fighting with somebody or have a disagreement. I perseverate on the facts. I know right now there's a lot of stuff about what the facts are, and the facts are an important one, especially when you don't let this be safe. It doesn't mean the way that it wants things. It just means part of our practice is to realize when I'm falling too much on the one side of the other, our practice is to find the equanimity, to have a sense that nothing will go well, by either one or the other.

[60:02]

Where's the middle way of any duality? Or any sense? When duality is set up? Does that answer your question? Is that true, please? OK, thank you. All right, any other? Do we have time for one more or not? One more short. One more short. All right, I'll just pause if you can see two people talked before, so I said, anyone who hasn't spoken would like to speak. Thank you, Bill, for your wisdom gauge. I invite anyone who usually hesitates to move forward. All right, ready? Justin, what do you want to get in this professional? Your partner? Yeah. Or when you've been harmed by one person, and it might be related to structural things, but that person isn't going to get an axe or whatever.

[61:12]

Yeah. So this is why—oh, sorry. The question is, what do you do when an arm is being done to you by an individual, even though there's structural stuff behind it, and that person isn't going to Fix it. Give it in anyway. I think I need amends as well. Oh, give it in amends. Yeah, this is the hard part about restoration. It's that we want amends and we don't want to come. Because the problem is for someone to amend, they have to agree on what the issue is. To acknowledge what is the harm. And many of us, you know, even though So two things I have to say. One is that hopefully the structure

[62:28]

will then move up, right? And if you have gone such a structure and they refuse to do anything, the other thing is, you know, part of discernment and wisdom is to know when the environment that you're in is possible. And so it's not going to be the restoration you need. They might later, hopefully they will later, but I am at some point have to decide this is more hurt and harm is happening, especially from denial of the hurt. And a tip is to find others being supported, so that you don't feel isolated. Part of any oppressive genocidalism that we're now, oppressive system is that they fragment us. They stigman us. They create conditions in which it feels unsafe to speak their truths.

[63:35]

And that falls on the people who have the power of any organization or system to really understand, right? Many of you have been always bringing someone in to help with anti-racist working. organization. The person that, we'll start out by talking to everyone in the Samba about how we see this. And they're at the restaurant and say, what are you going to do? What's your methodology? And they're like, no, we talk to everyone first. Because from there, we figure out what needs to happen. Many of us want host systems to come in and fix everything. It helps to have a curriculum, to have some layout. But what has to happen is that everyone must be willing to do the work. And if the people in power are willing to do the work, or create an environment in which this kind of work is valued and important, then it's never going to change.

[64:52]

So that toxic environment You know, you have to say, oh, that's a perfect home right there. I mean, it's that better than that. I can't do it myself. So how do I get support and then calculate, perhaps, three weeks to adapt to it? Thank you. All right, I'll give respect all the time with you. ... [...] Thank you.

[66:12]

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