Good morning, everyone. Good morning. This feels so much more formal than the rest of what we've been doing this summer. So I'd like to first thank Paul and Greg for inviting me to give this talk. And Goya for letting me be here long enough to give this talk. I wasn't expecting to be hearing the song. And thank you, Ina-san, for setting up the room. I just want to start with a disclaimer or a confession. I was a little nervous to give this talk. which is why Catherine announced I was getting to talk, and Greg and I at the same time said, no, no, not.

[01:08]

And I think it was partly because we had a lot going on in my professional role as a program doctor, but more so than that, I was feeling just kind of raw emotionally with what's going on in our country. in my personal life as far as my mother being stuck by herself in Florida while the virus is raging all around her, feeling a little hopeless and disempowered. And then just also feeling... I think the initial prompt for this talk was something I wrote in my journal, which was, how do I melt the anger in my heart? And I guess I was feeling that just a lot of waves of anger and sadness rushing through me for the last while.

[02:12]

And I wasn't sure I'd, I was having just difficulty finding the words and phrases to express what was going on for me. But a few people asked me, really a couple people asked me why I decided not to do it. They wanted to make sure that I wasn't being silenced. which I appreciate. And that made some joke, like, well, if I'm really being silenced, of course I'd do it. So I appreciate the people who asked me about it. I found that encouraging. So I also want to say that if anything I say here harms anybody, I apologize in advance. That's not my intention. And I take full responsibility for the impact. and I would welcome your feedback and the opportunity to have a conversation. So, in 1984, it was my senior year of high school, and me and a few of my friends decided to go celebrate our friend Rhonda's being accepted at the Harvard University.

[03:30]

She was the She graduated third in our class of 500 people, and she was the only person in our graduating class who was attending Harvard. The person who graduated first, the valedictorian, was going to MIT, and the person who graduated second was going to the University of Virginia. Somehow Harvard stood out for us as a brass ring. So we jumped into my friend Tracy's car, there was four of us, and we drove to this village of Bronxville, which is about 7,000 or 8,000 people who live there. It's about two miles north of where we grew up in Mount Vernon, New York. And there was this Javi Daz there on the main strip, which I believe is still there. And me and my friends, we had frequent, so we had gone to Bronxville many times. And it always was kind of a difficult place for us because like you couldn't skateboard on the sidewalks.

[04:32]

Like they had all these rules against kids is what it seemed like to me. So we would walk there and go to the movies and stuff, but that was one thing that stood out for me is that we weren't able to skateboard. So after getting our ice cream, we sat down in the booth and we started talking excitedly about Ronda's going to Harvard and how excited it was going to be. Yeah, it was just a fun time. And at some point we noticed that behind us in the booth were a few other girls, teenage girls like ourselves. And at some point we noticed that they were making fun of us. They were snickering and sneering and laughing in a direct sort of manner toward us. We probably did the same, you know, as soon as we felt that they were doing this to us, probably started making comments as well, who knows about what. But they continued, and at some point, Ranga got so riled up, and she fished into her purse, pulled out her Harvard student ID card, shoved it into their space.

[05:47]

She turned around. She was sitting with her back to them and said, Harvard University. Read it and weep. And we were just like, yeah, awesome. It's like a touchdown. It was just this amazing blow. And we were just so excited. It was just incredible. Her delivery, everything was perfect. And they were silenced, of course, by her gesture, her statement, her declaration. And they left at some point. And we decided to follow them. I don't remember all the details, but they got to their car. And I remember getting into Harkar and following them. I don't remember if we actually did follow them. But we ended up on this very wide street. It was on one side had a park with lots of trees. And then across was these beautiful palatial houses, very well lit and manicured. And I remember it was October because Rhonda was accepted early admissions, which means she would find out in fall.

[06:50]

And there was also all these pumpkins, these jack-o'-lanterns on people's stoops. So Tracy stayed in the car. She was our getaway driver. We jumped out and we just smashed the hell out of those pumpkins. It was just orange pumpkin flesh, fibers and membrane everywhere all over the stoops and the sidewalk. Boy, did that feel really good. And then we just jumped into the car and drove off. So I never would have... really unpacked this scenario back then the way I am now, because I was just a teenager then. But I was curious, you know, what were the markers that signified to them that we were other, that gave them permission to other us? And of course, the first was skin color, right? As it is today, skin color is still one of the major markers that somebody is different

[07:55]

And my friend Rhonda was black, and Tracy was biracial. Her mother was from Japan, and her father was Spanish. Tracy, Anna, and I were both white, and so it probably would have passed, if they hadn't been with us, it probably would have passed for white because of our skin color. But maybe the markers of class would have shown through our skin anyway. Maybe because of our accents. You know, her father was Italian. And her mother was Austrian, which meant she spoke fluent Italian and German. And my grandparents were from Italy and from Ireland, Scotland. And perhaps maybe our clothes weren't the right clothes. You know, in the 80s, it was the United Colors with Benetton and Aizan. And people wore top-siders, the kind of preppy look. So we did not belong. to their white, wealthy, pedigree culture.

[08:56]

And of course, when we're teenagers and young adults, we don't always know that we're swimming in some culture. It's just the ocean that we've been born into, and we just swim along in it, not knowing. So coming of age in the 80s, in the ecosystem of my family, school, and my neighborhood, I wouldn't have used the word racist or classist to describe those girls. I would have called them snows. That would have been the word I would have used. Because I was self-conscious about being working class, I don't think it even registered for me that they were being racist. Also because I was white, so I wouldn't have taken that on in that moment. But perhaps I imagine that Tracy and Rhonda took their comments as racist, although none of us ever talked about it. Just in those moments in our bodies, we knew. We knew we were being othered. Nobody had to really say anything to us. We knew that. we had stepped inside someone else's circle. And had you driven by while we were smashing the pumpkins, maybe you would have called the schudlums, maybe you would have called the police because you had not witnessed how we were shamed just moments before.

[10:11]

You might have had less empathy because you had less information. You just saw the results but not the cause. Had you known about our personal struggles on a daily basis with racism and classism and sexism, maybe you would have had more empathy. And had you been practicing Buddhist at the time, instead of judging us, perhaps you would have taken the backward step and shown the light on your own past behaviors, the times when you were enraged, the times when you acted out, the times when you were not able to stay open, present, and calm with what was arising for you in the moment. Maybe you had never smashed pumpkins in your life, or maybe you drank too much, or maybe you worked too much, or maybe you were having an affair. Those are definitely more acceptable coping mechanisms in our capitalist society. So when we were smashing the pumpkins, what were we really smashing? We were raging against those snobby girls' voices telling us that we didn't belong, that we weren't good enough, that we need to stay in our place.

[11:16]

And we were also smashing our own internalized voices that were telling us the same thing. Dr. Martin Luther King calls this the internal violence of the spirit. And I first heard this phrase in this book that I've been reading by Kazuma Haga called Healing Resistance. He uses the phrase internalized oppression. He defines it this way. It's when the messages from oppressive systems and worldviews about our inferiority take root inside our own minds until we start believing in our inferiority. So what were some of the negative beliefs I had learned by the time I was 17? I mean, now that I'm almost 53, it seems like 17, there really wouldn't have been much I could have learned in those years, but could have believed negative, you know, taking in those negative beliefs. But a few of them that I've identified is that I believe that I was inferior, because neither of my parents had gone to college and my two older brothers had dropped out of high school.

[12:20]

And they were actually pretty much just truants, my brothers, after getting out of grammar school. And I believe I wasn't as valuable as my two older brothers because I was raised in a family in a neighborhood that had internalized patriarchy. It was handed down to my father and his father and the whole extended family and, of course, women internalizing patriarchy as well. And also having been sexually abused as a child, I also believe that men were not trustworthy and would dominate and mistreat me. You know, these beliefs are part of my internal culture, right, my karmic conditioning, and they are reinforced and amplified as I grew into adulthood. And had we as teenagers been taught to pause, reflect, and remain calm when the snobby girls mocked us, then maybe we would have wondered Why are they acting out? What negative beliefs had they internalized? How had their sense of entitlement and superiority caused them harm?

[13:26]

If they were scorning us, who had belittled them? If they truly loved themselves, if their internal culture was one of peace and integration, then they wouldn't have to puff themselves up by putting us down. And had we not smashed the pumpkins, would that have meant the absence of racism and classism? No. Had those girls not mocked us, would that indicate the absence of conflict? No. Both scenarios would just reflect a negative piece, the absence of tension that comes at the expense of justice. This is the definition that is in Cosmo's book. This is a new phrase for me as well, and he defines negative peace He says it's created and maintained by ubiquitous, which means all-pervading, unspoken understanding that surfacing conflict is not welcome. Another phrase for negative peace, which I think I like even better, is a tyranny of civility.

[14:29]

A tyranny of civility. That's another phrase that a nonviolent educator used. So in my observation, this negative piece is one of the main signifiers of spaces that are dominated by white-bodied people. I've had several teachers at San Francisco Zen Center tell me the same story about an organizational consultant who told them that the dominant culture at San Francisco Zen Center was one of conflict of whites. I call this a false harmony. This creates an air of oppression. I feel that cloaks are white privilege. and stifles the voices of people who do not measure up to the standards of white-bodied supremacy. And I had some really painful experiences of being a white-bodied person when I graduated from journalism school in Washington, D.C., and I moved down to the middle of nowhere, rural Florida.

[15:31]

It was like a, I think there was media, 20,000-30,000 people in the entire county and I lived in the lowest little town. And it was an extreme culture shock for me. I was a newspaper reporter for the Tampa Tribune. And yeah, the overt racism in that town was very difficult for me to witness. The white southerners, because my skin is white, saw me as an ally. They didn't even say racist things to me because I look like them. And what made matters worse for me was that the black people also saw me as racist because of the color of my skin. And now I understand what racist means as having a white body means I'm just inherently racist, if you will, within our society.

[16:33]

Back then I would have said that I wasn't prejudiced and I wasn't a bigot. Because there were a couple of instances where my heart was just torn out. yeah, there was this, within a week of my showing up into this middle of nowhere town, these three black kids murdered an elderly black man on a black side.

[17:40]

as the white people would call it. And I went to the arraignment for their hearing. And I saw them sitting in these old, old, big, I don't know, they are just these ginormous chairs, wooden chairs, and their feet were nowhere near touching the floor. And I didn't see any relatives of theirs there. And I sat down on the bench with these three black teenagers, and they instinctively slid away from me. And I said, hey, I said I showered today. And they started laughing, and the kid closest to me smiled and said, he said, no, you're straight, you're straight. And then we just sat there together on this bench. Of course, I didn't talk with them about how they felt about what was going on.

[18:42]

I just felt the relief that I made a connection with him, that we exchanged smiles and I was able to deal with him. And then another point, I was the only person reported for the temperature view in this small town. And I was sent to talk to this pastor at a church about some local issue. And I just walked, I mean there was no cell phones back then, I just walked in and announced and I saw him walking through the sanctuary of the church and I introduced myself and he was a black man and I told him that I was here to talk with him about this issue and what I wanted to find out what he thought. And he said, oh, I'm not talking to you. I'm not going to get a fair shake. And I tried to persuade him that I really wanted to hear what he had to say.

[19:46]

And I was going to be fair. And he was not budging all of his defenses well. And as I turned to walk away, I just looked back and I said, really kind of out of desperation, I didn't even know I was going to say this. I said, if you don't judge me for being white, I won't judge you for being black. And then we just sat down and started talking. Somehow this naming, I don't know, again, it was just an instinct. I didn't plan on saying anything like that. But just somehow naming it just seemed to, at least for that moment, allay some of his mistrust of me as a white person in his space. And... This... So in this situation, I zipped down there for two years. I felt what it felt like to be othered. Again, you know, stepping inside their circle, walking with this weapon of my white skin through their community, causing harm

[21:03]

reminding them of this institutionalized racism, which to me sounds a little too abstract. It just reminds them of hatred and not belonging. And I remember once I walked into the community center, I become friendly with this man named Victor. And even though I was afraid, because I was white and I was in a predominantly, I was in an all-black side of town, And I remember walking into the community center down this little path, and there were people on either side of me. And I just felt the dagger of those stairs as I walked. I didn't really have any vocabulary for any of that. I just knew, I just felt pain.

[22:08]

I felt just so much suffering about this legacy of hatred. The unspoken, unspokenness of what happened in our country and in our hearts. And yeah, it was, Very difficult two years for me to be there, and in many ways very wonderful and eye-opening. Fast forwarding from there to coming to Tassajara in 2008, I never would have then described the culture of the Salih as white body, or I didn't even know. I never even heard of white body supremacy. I wasn't even in my vocabulary. At that time, in 2008, I was just fleeing the misery of my own personal life.

[23:17]

I was so focused on my own suffering when I got here, I really don't think I noticed much else. You know, a Tassahara is a specific white-bodied space. Most of us are college educated. Many of us, not all of us, come from upper to middle class society. And we've had enough privilege in our life to actually have heard the word Zen and have so many sources or are desperate enough or committed enough to become residents to drop out of capitalist society for a while and practice the way here in this valley. So it really wasn't until I returned to Tassajara in September 2015, after living in Brooklyn for two years and working at the Brooklyn Zen Center, that I realized what a monoculture Tassajara was. You know, I had forgotten what it was like to live in a multicultural world like New York City and to have friends like Rhonda and Tracy and Anna.

[24:27]

And since I had lived and worked in white dominated spaces for 26 years, I did the calculations The further I moved away from New York City, New Jersey, that area, the wider and wider my world became. And what saddens me and enrages me is that for all those years, I was complacent and complicit in this institutionalized racism. You know, I noticed that most of my colleagues and neighbors, and when I started practicing at the Austin Zeta Center, that most of the people there were white, like myself. I never asked why. I never asked myself, how can I change this? And because my skin is white, I had the privilege to not ask those questions because my life and the lives of my loved ones were not at risk. However, ignorance is not an excuse. Ignoring is the opposite of intimacy, and it's the absence of presence.

[25:30]

So even though I identify as white and am given all the privileges afforded white-bodied people in our racist world, I often feel like a misfit in this white Anglo space and I usually gravitate to people of color or people who come from like a more working class environment. I often feel that I have to use my white voice to communicate with people because if I use my working class Italian-American accent, people are going to dismiss me. They're going to think I'm not smart or they're not going to take me seriously because I sound like working-class Italian-American from New York. And I've had that experience at least once, at least once here and a number of times out there. So one of the examples of that was a few years ago I had mentioned to somebody higher up than me in our San Francisco Zen Center hierarchy

[26:35]

And I said, oh, I thought it would be fun to be the Sheikah. And this person said that I still had some rough edges that I needed to smooth out before I could take on that role. And I feel like that might be true in some ways. I mean, who doesn't have rough edges? But after a few days, I started to feel the impact of that person's comment. And I went back to this person and I said, here's how I took that statement. That I'm not white enough and I'm not wealthy enough to interact with our privileged white guests. I'm too Italian. I'm too working class. And this person was shocked. I think shocked that I said something because we don't speak about conflict. We just dance around it. And that person never thought about class in that way. And this person apologized to me and thanked me for...

[27:36]

hoping to show where some blind spots might be around class. And again, I don't dismiss that I have rough edges. I just want to know what you think those rough edges are and what are the lenses to which you're measuring my edges. So had I not spoken my truth, this person's blind spots around class would not have been illuminated. They would have had no idea what the impact of their statement, what their comment was to me. There would have been this negative peace. Instead, our relationship became stronger because the conflict was surfaced, disgusted and healed. When we avoid conflict, the means of delusion grow in the shade of our blind spots. I find this culture at odds with our study and practice of Zen, where we are exhorted by Dogen to study the self by taking the backward step to illuminate what's happening in our internal world. In my years at Tassajara, I have seen or heard about many instances of racism, sexism, classism, ageism, and ableism.

[28:43]

But the ism that is universal and the most insidious is our own internal schism, the alienation from our original face, our true self. Other words to describe schism are fracture and disunion, which to me speak to our own internalized oppression. The unexamined beliefs and unresolved internal conflicts that we externalize and that become the culture of an institution, organization, or religion. If we are unable or unwilling to bear witness to our own internal culture of oppression, how can we possibly engage in generative, nonviolent, and healing, and perhaps messy dialogue about the harm perpetuated by institutionalized business? Another way you can look at me and my friends smashing those pumpkins is that we were disturbing the peace. But Kazu says that it's impossible to disturb what does not exist, which is what's going on right now.

[29:48]

You say these protesters are disturbing the peace. Well, there really isn't any peace. They're just giving voice, putting action to this rift that already exists in our hearts and minds and externalized into society. In the book, Kazem references a sermon by Martin Luther King where Dr. King speaks of a peace boiled down to stagnant complacency and deadening passivity. I think the name of the sermon is When Peace Becomes Obnoxious. I thought that was a great title. So for me, I feel this is how I was living my life for many, many years. Practicing Zazen, living at Tassahara, and studying with my teachers and Dharma sisters and brothers helped wake me up to this stagnation. It was why I left the comfort of my middle class 9-to-5 life. Although I wouldn't have said it in that way, but the misery of that unfulfilled life propelled me out of there.

[30:58]

Kazu calls this awakening disturbing the complacency And I really, really love this phrase. I know that we're not supposed to have goals in Zen. However, for me, the goal of being a Zen practitioner is disturbing the complacency of my internal culture. What are the skims in my heart-mind that cause me to harm myself and others? How can I disturb the complacency of my white body privilege, of my college-educated mind? of being a Zen priest, living in this beautifully serene valley, while the twin viruses of catred and COVID tear our country apart. We can lay the injustices of society in the sunlight of ultimate reality, but they will not magically transform unless we do the hard, messy work of investigating and healing our inherited karmic condition. Buddha nature is the wisdom that runs through all things.

[32:02]

It does not differentiate depending on our skin color, our country of origin, the clothes we wear, or whether we roll along sidewalks or walk on them. However, until we acknowledge and celebrate our differences, until we heal our internal schisms, until we name our conflicts, we will continue to experience the suffering of separation, of the false isms that we have become identified with. We cannot do this work alone. At least I know that I cannot do it alone. I need everyone in this room to illuminate my blind spots and help me heal the schisms in my heart and mind. If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a sangha to liberate all beings. The armor around our hearts will not melt until the walls of our minds collapse. When I was in college, I had the good fortune of becoming familiar with the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.

[33:02]

And one of my favorite quotes is, peace between countries must rest on the solid foundation of love between individuals. And I'd like to take that just a little further and add, love between individuals must rest on the solid foundation of peace within ourselves. If there are any questions or comments or feedback,

[34:10]

Thank you very much for your talk. It really struck home for me. Apart from the practice of upright sitting, what do you recommend as skillful means for healing the schism in my heart. Surrounding yourself with people who love you enough, know you well enough to shed light on those schisms. And I think reading books can be helpful, right?

[35:24]

The wisdom, not only of Buddhist teachings, but other people's teachings around integrating our psycho-emotional karmic beings. And I think, like for me, going to someplace different, someplace where you're not in the dominant culture, It's helpful to see what ocean you've been swimming in when we step outside of our circle. It's a little harder to ignore, although human beings have a great ability to be in denial. It can still be helpful to shake up our conditioning by putting ourselves in places where we don't feel comfortable. The comfort and convenience are overrated when it comes to Thank you very much. Thank you.

[36:24]

I have a follow-up question. Will you please set the light on those things that you were talking about right there when you see them in me? Haven't I already been? Just checking. As you have for me as well. Just checking. Thank you. Same goes for me. their honesty and vulnerability and for bringing these really important things forward for me particularly talking about the identity nature of silence we talk about silence I mean there's like a stillness that runs through all things

[37:26]

And there's also a silence of complicitness. And I've found that to be the most harmful aspect of being in Sangha. We see a Sangha member mistreating another Sangha member We witness witnessing all kinds of injustices and then being afraid to say something. I really feel strongly that we can take up these issues in this business which is, of course, really important to understand and identify these dynamics.

[38:33]

And like you said, if we can't call out, if we can't say with love and dignity and compassion, what you're doing is harming another person, you need to see that. We can't create more diversity. We can't create more equity. If we can't even just see each other as human beings and hold each other accountable, Thank you for putting that back. Thank you for your courage and your clear excitedness and your willingness to just be human, be authentic. I think Sangha, sometimes it's difficult for me to be intimate with people here because I see you all the time and Vulnerability sometimes is very difficult. And how to maintain a real harmony with people.

[39:38]

We know what shoes people wear because we see them outside the bathhouse and we see them outside the Zendo. We can sit in concentrated states, know who's walking past us in the Zendo. Maybe sometimes we even, if you sit one up next to somebody, you know, their breathing pattern. There's a certain type of intimacy. I think that's maybe more of a heightened sense of our senses, right? We're not so distracted with other things, not so caught in our heads. And yet, sometimes there's, that isn't really intimacy. It's just better listening, more cheap listening. And the intimacy of bearing our hearts and willingness to be vulnerable with all the messiness inside.

[40:40]

And I think if we're sometimes in an environment where everybody's not doing that, it's kind of hard to do that. And how are we going to be judged for crying while getting a Dharma talk, for crying while asking a question, for getting angry, for expressing resentment, for just refusing to be He said, science. And I don't have all, I don't really have all the answers. I just keep asking the questions and doing my best to take responsibility when I screw up, when that anger, which I seem to have inherited from my ancestry and my childhood, when it filters how I see things, when it infects how I see things.

[41:42]

So I think for me that's one of the, excuse me for me, or unhealed, like I said at the beginning, how does that anger at my heart heal? I hope it does. in hoping that it does, yeah. It saddens me to hear a story you told me to be discriminated against the spirit of Zen Center because I know I come here as a place of refuge.

[42:53]

I think many of us expect Zen Center would be the most enlightened place to get us a refuge. thing about what you said or what you put, that King saying about the obnoxiousness of peace. And I just had this thought. I don't think there's many people who wake up in the morning and turn to some author of pure evil on their own and they're not learning to. You know, like, today I'll commit great evil. He's a evil. I'm not so sure these days, but yes. They don't have an altar to evil in their room. I very much live in cultures of obnoxious peace and toxic silence.

[44:02]

I guess I'm just thinking what is the... It seems so innocent to be you know, you think you're in like this peaceful little town and everybody's white, everybody's middle class, you think like, what's wrong with people? Our community is safe forever. But of course, like there is like something missing there and it gets subtle. I guess I'm just wondering what is that, what is that practice? or is it that we might be missing? I guess the word that just popped into my mind with the image of Adam and Eve for some reason is just knowledge. Like I don't feel I really had the knowledge as a teenager or as a young adult

[45:12]

I wasn't exposed to many, I mean, I was exposed to some ideas that were different from mine. I think knowledge is, like I was saying, when you're swimming in that ocean, you don't know there's a different ocean. You don't know you're in that ocean. You recognize all the fish. They all look like you. It's happy and peppy. We just don't know. So it is really an ignorance at a basic level, not in a disparaging way. You're ignorant. It's just like, Yes, we all have our ignorances. I don't know what that spark is to where people leave their hometown. I don't know what that's individual for many people. I mean, we all are here from all over the country, from some people from different continents. And we're here because this spark has brought us here, some way in which... Our ocean wasn't working for us.

[46:16]

Our ocean was causing us to suffer. Somehow we realized that we were suffering. But maybe we had to leave the ocean first before we realized we were suffering and meet other people who were suffering or the people who weren't suffering and saying, hey, I want to be like that non-suffering person. That's what happened for me when I met my teacher in Austin. I want to be like her. I want to emulate that person. So I don't know. I don't know. how that happens for people maybe it's just karma obviously we could get to long philosophical conversations which I probably will lose to talk about if we talk about volition and karma and is there really free will my mind doesn't really work that way these days but so I'm not really sure I just think that it's like we need a mentor we go travel somewhere we leave our state we leave our city and we get to meet people who are different from ourselves and I think that's a huge blessing and I'm very grateful for that in my life growing up with all these people from so many different places in the world and I never would have thought back then that that would have really helped me growing you know going through the world that I knew people from all these

[47:39]

countries, you know, the West Indies and Jamaica and Argentina and Portugal and Colombia and Japan and the Dominican Republic. I didn't even know where those places were. I just knew that my friends were from there. So it was just luck, it was fortune, good fortune that I was there and got to experience people's hearts and friendship. That's universal. So it may be part of what we do after we leave here is we, you know, we all ripple out and affect people, right? We ripple out and we affect people in our eyes, sometimes in a negative way, but hopefully in a positive way. We ripple out and raise people's consciousness and have our consciousness raised at the same time. Just like reading Kazoo's book, he says in his preface, that none of this is his wisdom.

[48:41]

Everything he's saying has already been said before. I appreciated his humility. That's how I feel too. I think our lives unfold and we don't really know how they're going to fall. I never thought I'd be a Zen priest. I never even heard of Zen until I was in my 30s. that you saw an answer for you but that comes up for me and I'm glad that you're here thank you for being here is there something that Tassiphar is silent about right now that you wish it would talk about vulnerability with ourselves and each other makes us stronger how the profound wordless connection is our true nature and it's also what doesn't cause the harm so

[50:31]

I think being silent about just how we just make mistakes and hurt each other, and just being open about it without conflict being a big deal. I'm not saying I'm always able to talk to people about things, but just to, I don't know, just be like, hey, I screwed up. I think because it's not so... You know, my family, everything was always weird. There's a lot of volatility in my family, so I don't think that's the way we're always shouting at each other. There's got to be a middle way between... I'm exaggerating. My family was always shouting. We were often laughing. There was a lot of joy and camaraderie and anger. So maybe there's a middle way between that and toxic silence. To say, hey, toxic silence, or just naming it. I think just... just realizing that we're all here because we want to be free from all the karmic conditioning and study how the karmic conditioning has harmed us.

[51:35]

And in this book, you know, the other thing that really pains me that I get angry with myself about is that I often don't feel compassion toward people who are harming others out of the ignorance of those isms. And I think that's what makes me feel... I don't want to be that way anymore you know and how can I develop compassion for my own ignorance what blocks me from just loving those people when my heart is defended I'm not able to love everybody so just I think too what was hard for me about writing this talk was I wanted to if there's a lot of weight I put onto it and I wanted to be just so And maybe because we don't voice conflict enough, we feel like we have to say it just so. It has to be so perfect and you have to use the right words and have the right voice and you have to, at least in Northern California, you have to preface it with lots of preamples.

[52:41]

And maybe, you know, and I think, you know, in Robin D'Angelo's book, White Fragility, she talks a little bit about that. Like, why is it so difficult just to say, I'm really upset or I feel angry right now or I feel hurt? or I want to punch the tree, or whatever it is. There's a way that silence is oppressive. So if we can just say, hey, silence is oppressive, we just get messy, understand how we get messy, how do we not trust each other? I feel like some ways we don't trust each other. To still be okay with somebody being upset, still seeing their humanity, maybe because we don't embrace our own humanity, which includes all of it. Nothing's excluded, as Pema Chodin said to me once. It's all included. And I think for many of us in our society, we weren't allowed to be who we were as children. Something had to be let go of.

[53:44]

And I think that that's where a lot of my learning is right now, is how... Like there's that saying about the prison guard is also in prison. You know, how are people who are at the top of the systems, the oppressive systems, how are they being harmed by those oppressive systems, right? Those snobby girls in the Haagen-Dazs in Bronxville, how are they being harmed by what they're taught? So that's where I feel like my... my edges sometimes you know I don't feel that I don't always feel compassion toward toward that so I just think when there's conflict maybe we could just say hey I don't know maybe we could use some safe word right there's some safe phrase we could use that people you know I wish I had a bowl of strawberries or something I don't know just some you know some phrase that would maybe lighten it up a little bit maybe we can

[54:52]

do our best to maybe do some humor if we're able to, or I don't know. But I think just naming it like I did with that pastor, just saying, hey, I understand there's something here we're not talking about, and I'm sorry. Because his judging me really, really hurt me. And even though I didn't think I was judging him, he felt like I was judging him, and maybe there's some way my demeanor I was judging him. I don't know. So I just think... having conversations about what's difficult and I find sometimes you know our circles where one person says something and then the next person says something and there's no actual conversation I also find that sometimes difficult because it's like we're almost just afraid to just talk to each other and understand people feel judged some people offer advice and then you feel like that's not what I was trying to say but Just talking and naming it and using our skills as Zen practitioners not to take it personally.

[56:04]

How do we use form an emptiness? How do we use our teachings to slowly, gently undercut our identity views, our beliefs that cause us to suffer and harm others? that answers your questions about what I feel like is being silent. But let me ask you, what do you feel like is silence that we should talk about? Well, I agree about that there's some silence about being silent. But I think there needs to be a very real conversation about Zen Center's response to these issues and having a criterion about what responses are actually effective and what responses are just perpetuating various privilege. I also think there needs to be a conversation about our explicit participation in capitalist and tyrannical systems, particularly through the things that we choose to eat and choose to buy.

[57:17]

There's something I would like to say talk about. Specism. capitalism and the consequences to it. One of which is speciesism. Similar to that, I also feel that in some ways for me being in this hierarchical structure in this Japanese tradition has been really liberating. I remember once having a conversation with Paul about it's just really bothers me that I can't manipulate anything. And it's just so wonderful that I can't manipulate anything. It was just the way that there was some ego falling away there that I couldn't... And it was very subtle. And somehow the hierarchy I found to be transformative. And I also know the hierarchy could be oppressive. And can we talk about that? What is hierarchy helpful? And what is it oppressive?

[58:18]

You know, I mean, it's... There's a shadow side to our tradition. Our tradition seems to attract a certain type of person. And how is our tradition, our lineage? I have no idea. I'm just asking questions. How does it erect barriers for people to practice with us? I don't know, necessarily. I mean, there's economic barriers, there's geographical barriers, there's lots of barriers. But what parts of the tradition are wholesome and liberating and what parts are harmful? We don't have to just throw it all away because certainly my life has been transformed by practicing Zen with San Francisco Zen Center teachers and with everybody that shows up here. So I think this is helpful. And I know myself, sometimes when we're feeling harmed or threatened,

[59:19]

We could just be so rigid in our views and there's no room for other people's points of view, which is mainly our, you know, why we're so polarized, I think, in our society. So I try, I want to avoid that polarization because I think I can fall easily into it, you know. It's like us versus them instead of, oh, us is them and them is us, you know. So I think that's one of my, it's not a blind spot, obviously, because I'm mentioning it, but it's, can be kind of ingrained in there and hard for me to dig out. So help me out. One more. Is it OK? Yes. Thank you. So again, I apologize this is not a question. It's a comment to add to the conversation. I mean, part of the conversation has come up around eliminating our blind spots.

[60:23]

There is this request of, oh, please let me know if I'm doing something, which is yes, we need to have that. And I'm saying this, Greg, we were looking at each other, so I'm saying it to you and I'm saying it to everybody, especially if you hold it in a position of power. The onus is on you. to look at how you're impacting other people, to take that backward step. Because what by default happens in that ask is that women and people of color are asked, I mean, the ask is of the whole sangha, but who experiences the most harm, the most oppression, internalized otherwise, women and people of color in this very patriarchal, Integralized work system is not good.

[61:23]

And so it puts that onus on us to tell you and to tell other people what the blind spots are. And then it reverses. Then it's asking, oh, my practice energy is going towards telling you how there's harm being done. And then it's like... If that's the expectation, and I'm not saying, and I'm not, I'm speaking to you, and I'm putting it out towards more of just you. How are we supposed to be nourished in practice here? If I'm going to do Kusara and try and speaking up about things that are not well in the Sangha, when am I receiving the teaching? Me or anybody else. It is speaking from a position of privilege to say, I need you to tell me.

[62:29]

And that needs to be true, that yes, you need to say that in order to invite that feedback. So there has to be a position of feedback. So I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. And again, I'm speaking to more than just you, Greg. And I'm saying that the honest has to be on the people who have the most power and privilege in the summit to take up that much more space and responsibility around looking at its own impact. Thank you for answering that. Thank you for voicing that. Yeah, I think that's a place where I still have a lot of ignorance. You know, how to continue to take responsibility, to continue to know what my impact is if people aren't telling me.

[63:35]

And that shift of putting the responsibility on someone else It's 150% in the power-up position. We take responsibility. We are 150% responsible for our actions and our speech. I just want to also say before we go... I just feel a lot of gratitude and love for everybody here trying to undo our harmful patterns individually and collectively I think this is a very radical practice dropping out and going against the grain of what society expects of us and there's still more paddling upstream for us to do

[64:53]

thank you for all of your collective efforts and I will just make a blanket apology if anything I've said or done has harmed somebody not only in this talk but just in my being here you're welcome to let me know and if you've Don't want to let me know. You're welcome to leave me an anonymous note in my shoe or something. I don't mind. If you don't put any into it, it's okay with me. So thank you very much for your attention and your practice. I hope that we all continue to wake up together. Yeah. that should be graced and bruised and revealed.

[66:01]

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