and perfect dharma is rarely met with even a hundred thousand million kalpas having it to see and listen to do remember and accept I vow to taste the truth of the Good morning, BZC. I'll do a brief introduction of today's speaker. Please unmute yourself and tell me if you cannot hear me. Today we invite back Zenki Marimosin, L.A. born, went to graduate school at Berkeley, practiced law and then... in a complete brief, fell in love with Zen around 88, spent time at Green Gulch, living at San Francisco Zen Center, was clearly a student of Sojin Roshi's, but also studied with Yvonne, Norman Fisher, Blanche Hartman, Rev Anderson, was Shuso at Tassajara in 98,

[01:33]

and then opened Clearwater Zendo around 2000. She's held practice positions, as all the senior students have, Tenzo, Sheikah, guest manager, manager of the meditation hall. She also teaches, in addition to running Clearwater Zendo, she teaches in the prisons and has done hospice work. Please put your hands together and welcome Mary Moussin. Good morning. Good morning. I'm going to talk about Sojin. I met him in probably April of 1988. I started at Green Gulch with a retreat there, a weekend retreat. and found there was a Berkley Zen Center, but I used to sit just the first 40 minutes.

[02:39]

Those of you who only know the Zoom schedule, it used to be that you sat for an hour, but after 40 minutes there was a clunk on the big bell, and you could change position or you could leave if you needed to, and I did need to, so I left. So I had no idea what was going on behind my back. There's various bells and things. And I never stayed for service for the first few months. And I always wore a particular green cotton sweater. Sort of my uniform, I guess. And what I knew was that Sojin came in to the Zendo. And I had some sense, I guess, that he walked around. And I... Learned to put my hands in Gusho as he passed. And then he left, and I knew that he was co-habit of the San Francisco Zen Center.

[03:42]

So what I thought was that he opened our Zendo, and then he jumped in his car and drove across the bridge and opened San Francisco Zen Center. I had no idea where he went. He went to do Dove Son, I know now, but... But I thought I had this great image of him with a little beret on, with a scarf around his neck, you know, like Snoopy looks like when he's in a car, you know, rushing across the bay. That was my first impression. And then I finally met him when he gave a talk at Green Gulch. I used to go there on Sundays. And. so after after the lecture there'd be a break and tea and stuff and then and then reconvening and in the Wheelwright Center for question and answer discussion and so I I introduced myself he said he recognized the sweater and so that was the first time I met him and

[04:52]

I started going to a drop-in group on, I don't know, I think it was on Monday nights then, I don't remember, but at any rate, it was led by Maylee, and so I got to know Maylee Scott, and she became what I would call my practice leader. And that group became kind of my sangha, because since I left, After 40 minutes, I didn't really know warning people that much. And I only knew, let's see, it was Ronnie and Charlie, and I don't remember exactly, maybe a couple of other people. We all arrived at about the same time and parked on Milvia and walked in together. So that was my saga at that point. wonderful mentor and great introduction to practice, and encouraged me to have a relationship with Sojin.

[06:06]

And so I started seeing him. I also was confused. There was a sign, I don't know if it's still there, but it's not, but there was a sign about Jokson and how to sign up for it, and it referred to him as Mel, and then it referred to him a sentence later as Sojin. So I didn't know that was one person. I thought maybe it was two people. But finally I got up the nerve and I went to see him. And then we started talking. And eventually he became my team. And I don't remember exactly.

[07:08]

At some point, that would have been like in the fall of 88 or something. And my parents died in the... My mother in January and my father in May of 89. So there... decline and deaths became very much my practice, and he was very helpful and supportive. I hadn't meant to talk about my relationship with him somehow. I miss him a lot. And I'm near tears now. What I wanted to talk about was, I did this during the 49 days after he died here in Malago.

[08:26]

I talked about things that were close to him. in his teaching, including the Bendo Wa, which is Jiju Sanai. There are lots of translations of it, self-enjoyment, samadhi, self-fulfilling samadhi, I'm going to say self-realizing samadhi, self-actualizing samadhi, maybe. I think I'm going to do that. And then if you want to know more about my relationship with him or my history or something, I'm quite willing to talk about it. But I feel like on various forums since he died, I've been talking about him and my relationship with him, either with him, to him, or with various groups, including BCC. And I feel like... I've said what I need to say about it.

[09:38]

So, we love that teaching of GGU, if you've heard him. I haven't been regularly around BCC for a long time. probably since the early 2000s. And I started to come back when he was ill. And I was going in the afternoons, which was wonderful, to bow out with him. It was precious. And then everything shut down. But I assume, I think it's probably a fair assumption, that he continued to talk about GQU's online. Because after all, it's about Zazen. When I started this place, he told me, just talk about Zazen.

[10:41]

It's all I ever talked about. Talk about Zazen. So I do. So you're probably familiar with this. Yeah. The first paragraph, Bendo-wa, Okamura and Taigen Dan Layton, which some of you may know, whom some of you may know, call it Bendo-wa. They translate it as a talk on wholehearted practice of the way. Wholehearted. All Buddha Tathagatas together have been simply transmitting wondrous dharma, and actualizing Anyutara Samyak Sambodhi. Incomparable awareness is how they translate. Incomparable awareness. For which there is an unsurpassable, unfabricated, wondrous method.

[11:45]

This wondrous method, this wondrous Dharma, which has been transmitted only from Buddha to Buddha without deviation, has as its criterion, Jiju Yuzan Mai. which can be the samadhi of self-receiving or accepting its function, or samadhi of self-enjoyment, or self-fulfillment. Self-fulfillment. So, what is that? Because we're always talking about no-self. And Sojin used to say, you need an ego. in order to manage your life. But it doesn't, now this is the way I talk about it now, and I don't remember if he actually said this part, but he may very well have anyway, that it doesn't, it should not be, it doesn't need to be this big beach ball in front of you.

[12:49]

It needs to be a little cantaloupe or a softball over here. And what we usually do is we put it right in the middle. And We call that our small-s self. And we cause ourselves and others no end of trouble because of having this big event right in front of us. Protecting us, maybe. I just am reminded of an experience I had at Tassajara a long time ago. I just had this image. You know, these things that start, it wasn't with words. It was just like, I don't know, maybe a movie or something. But just those things are just, it's a good, an insight that's physical. Anyway, it was that I had, that I was carrying around a bag of shit.

[13:56]

Maybe another name for the beach ball. And I didn't want to put it down. And it was carrying it right here, protecting my hara, my solar plexus, whatever, my gut. And I realized, I saw that I didn't want to put it down because it was warm. It was protecting me from who knows what. And it was mine. And that even though it smelled and it was heavy, I wanted it. I thought I needed it. And I don't know that I put it down in that experience. But I had a really clear, a real physical sense of wanting to protect myself. And I think the self...

[15:00]

The self that we're talking about in Jiju Sun Hai is not that big capital S self that we talk about sometimes, which is the universal self, all being. Thus, it, whatever. The absolute self, which encompasses all. I think that it's talking here about the Small S self and maybe I rarely say but, but maybe it is but the small self self. But just this one over here, just the little cantaloupe. What would it be like if you put down your bag of shit or if you deflate the beach ball? That might be fun, you know.

[16:06]

It's got a little valve in it and you could open that up and it might fly like a balloon flies. I don't know. Just to let that go. What would it be like if you stopped crying so hard to protect, defend yourself? What if you wholeheartedly and wholesomely simply allowed yourself to express itself without anything extra. One of the important distinctions he taught me was that we tend to use the word vulnerable, and I feel vulnerable, and that the Effort is to be open.

[17:09]

In other words, when you feel vulnerable, it's like you're vulnerable to an attack or something. Something is after you. And you're vulnerable to getting hurt. And when you're open, you're just open. This is the gesture. And what would it be like? What would it be like? A useful question. What would it be like to just be open? To simply respond. To simply sit Zazen and allow the myriad dharmas to come forth and experience themselves. You still need a little ego. You still need the capacity. to participate and to experience those dharmas, sitting at a small, quiet pool in the forest.

[18:21]

And if you go looking for all the deer, you're never going to see them. But if you sit down and are quiet, they will come and drink. And you can experience the dear darkness as they experience themselves. There's great liberation there. There's great joy there. And I think that is the self, fulfilling the self. Can you just be one of the people? in the universe. We so often feel a need to control it and have it come out the way we want or to avoid what we don't want to have.

[19:25]

Here, we've been studying the Heart Sutra, and I studied it with Sojin, my first practice period at Tassahara. And we used the text from the Tiger's Cave, the long article by Abbott Obora. And he talks about having an empty heart. And that... When you're not adding on to it, when you're simply responding, it isn't that you don't have tears if you're sad or laughter. It's that they don't leave a trace. What would it be like? When we're sitting, sometimes there's that experience of just sitting.

[20:54]

In other words, there's just breath breathing. It's not I'm breathing or I'm sitting or my knee hurts. There's just breath. There's just knee hurting. I know for me, sometimes when I'm settled, thoughts arise, and then it's like a bubble just bursts, and the thought doesn't even complete itself, and I don't care. I'm not invested in it. I'm not grabbing it. I'm not trying to push it away. And it's okay. I want to tell you two stories at once. One is about, I'm going to start with the one about the empty heart. When we were studying that, I worked in the kitchen, the first sashim there, because I'd already sat three, I think.

[21:56]

I started in September, so I'd already sat a bunch. And we were very, very, very shorthanded. It was a practice period of, I think, about 25 people. So I thought, okay, I'll work in the kitchen. I've heard about it. about working in the kitchen and working the whole sashim and having a sashim in the kitchen. And so I'll do that. And I did. Well, it turned out it was just they weren't doing a sashim in the kitchen. They were just taking care of the kitchen. And I was kind of disappointed. And the Tenzo was sitting, and the Kukaten, the assistant, was leading the kitchen. And I don't remember what it was about, but there was some exchange when I was kind of sharp with her. And I felt bad about it. And I spent like the next two days working on kind of getting to an empty heart. And it was hard, you know, letting go of wanting to blame her and wanting to justify myself and getting in touch with.

[23:06]

the ego, which was saying, how dare you insult me, me, me, you know, and being with that, because it hurts. You know, it's also very funny, but it hurts. And I was angry. And I was right. And all that. On and on. And finally, on maybe the last day or... Second to the last day, I don't remember. But finally, I got to the point where I could just say, I'm sorry I was stuck with you. And of course, she didn't even know what I was talking about. I needed to apologize because I didn't like the way I acted. And who was right or wrong or whatever was pretty irrelevant. So come shows on at the end. I don't know if everybody knows, Shosan is at the end of a longer, of a multi-day Sashin.

[24:10]

Each person has the opportunity to ask a Dharma question that's close to their heart of whoever's leading the Sashin. So I figured out a way to ask that didn't identify who the spat had been with. And I just said that it had this And I had worked to get to an empty heart and felt like it cost a lot. It was really hard. And I said, does it get any easier? Because it felt like it cost a lot. And does it get easier? And he looked at me and he said, don't be stingy. I can't hear you laughing, you know. Well. Anyway, so don't be stingy. But this tease you use on my self-enjoying samadhi, you know, once I got there, to that empty heart, it was a joyous thing.

[25:27]

Once I worked through all the ego, Unwholesome stuff. I got to wholeheartedness. I mean, an empty heart is wholehearted. And in my old age, I've forgotten the other thing I was going to, the other story, but maybe I'll remember. Or I'll think of another story. Oh, I didn't. I think I was there for this. And I'm 99.9% sure of that. At any rate, Sojin had lectured, and in the question and answer afterwards, a young man raised his hand and said, I'm relatively new to this. I've only been doing it for a few months. And when I sit tossing... My mind just drives me crazy.

[26:32]

I'm just thinking all the time and thinking and thinking. And I think he said, does it get any easier? And Sojin said, you know the difference between you and me? The young man says no. And Sojin said, I think too, but it doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother me. That's GGU's online. Small mind is there. The self is there. Thinking thoughts. But they don't bother him. Because he's not grasping after them. He's not swatting them over. They're just doing their thing. And his knees and his back and his breath are doing their thing. And he's simply present. I know it's easy to say and not so easy to do.

[27:43]

Uchiyama talks about it in his commentary to the Bendowa. Uchiyama Roshi was a modern Japanese teacher who taught Okamura. And he wrote a commentary on the Ben Doha, which is a book that I was reading. This is a translation of the Ben Doha, but also Uchiyama's commentary. Wonderful. At any rate, Uchiyama talks about it as he's saying that in a way, Knowing that you're deluded and accepting that you're deluded. G.G.U. is online. And stopping insisting on getting somewhere or getting rid of something.

[28:47]

We have a motto, which is trying doesn't work. We are. Even that small self is deluded. We are deluded. We think the default is I think that I am a permanent solid event. Maybe not permanent, you know, if you ask me if I'm going to die, I'd have to say yes, but that I don't go around thinking about it. But I do, and I think that I exist here in this world. And you exist, and I can see a few faces on my screen. There's a little strip with one, two, three, four, five, six faces. And I think you're there. And here's a teaching stick. Here's a cup with water in it that was given to me by...

[29:57]

A woman named Cone, I think. It's been a long time now. And we're picking and choosing all the time. We're living in this relative deluded world all the time. We have to. Otherwise, you couldn't hear me. So in order to function, we live in a deluded world that treats things as permanent and solid. And it really will hurt your toe if you kick a table. So that needs to be okay. You can't live and function as you. and relate to me, you can't do that in the absolute.

[31:03]

That's why they call it the hazy moon of enlightenment, because it has to include accepting things as it is, another sojournism. He said the Suzuki Roshi used that phrase, and according to Sojin, he was questioned, like, what do you mean, things as they are? And he said, no, things as it is. And Sojin loved that, as you probably know. It's important for Jijuizamai to let the self be the self. Enjoy it. What would that be like? There's a great joy. in wholehearted acceptance of things as it is. There's a great joy in letting go of all the extra. And Zazen is where we practice it and express it

[32:28]

He once said, maybe more than once, I don't know, he said something, somebody asked him something about Sazen. He said, you know, just sit. Like it, don't like it, doesn't matter at all. Just sit. Sometimes we don't like it, so sit anyway. He also said, this is somewhat of an aside, but I think it's useful to remember, he said, every time I sit, When I sit down, I give myself Zazen instruction. You know, I check if I'm sitting up straight. Notice where my chin is. And are my ears in line with my shoulders and my nose in line with my knees? And one thing that really stuck with me over the years is that he said, push up with your breastbone. Not out, not like the Marines, just up. And then your shoulders naturally open and fall open.

[33:36]

That's GGU's on my simply wholeheartedly assuming and wholeheartedly letting go of thoughts. wholeheartedly noticing what's going on in your body when you're irritated or when you don't want to sit and you're sitting there grumbling. In other words, not pushing it away or not saying to yourself, I should be enjoying this. They said it's self-enjoyment. Why are you enjoying it? What's wrong with me? I must be doing it wrong. Probably not. Well, you are because you're doing all that extra on top of not wanting. It's the not wanting to not want that's the problem. So the next paragraph I love.

[34:55]

I don't remember him talking about this in these terms so much, but I particularly like this translation. For disporting oneself freely in this samadhi, GGU is online. Practicing zazen in upright posture is the true gate. Although this dharma is abundantly inherent in each person, it is not manifested without practice. It is not attained without realization. When you let go, the dharma fills your hands. It is not within the boundary of one or many. When you try to speak, it fills your mouth. It is not limited to vertical or horizontal. When you let go, the Dharma fills your hands. When you let go, the beach ball deflates.

[35:57]

When you try to speak, it fills your mouth. you could interpret two opposite ways, and I think that's fine. I don't know that I said the Benda Wai is by Dogen, the 13th century founder of our school. Anyway, it fills your mouth. You can think of it as when you speak, the Dharma comes forth. You can also think of it as It silences you. I don't know if you've had the experience. I hope you have sometimes. Especially in session. You just fall. There's just silence and it's hard to talk. And you don't have the impulse to talk and sometimes people will come. Or doves on.

[36:59]

And. They just have nothing to say. I was Keisha for Norman Fisher at Green Gulch for a while, and he had a practice that when people were sitting there for a sashim, he would call them in. He would wait for them to sign up. He would just call them to check with them. So I would go and get them for him. And there were, I don't know, it was a practice period, and there were maybe six or eight people in that category. And they would be in there for like two minutes, and they'd be out, and I'd get another one. And during a break, I asked him about it, and he said they didn't want to talk. I think that was pretty nice. That image of when you let go, it fills your hands.

[38:25]

You've heard all kinds of variations about that. You hold the bird too tight and you kill it and let it go. And maybe it'll come back. Someone you love, let them go. And then if they come back of their own accord, then you know. There is a great joy in letting go. It's not always easy. This phrase, we're disporting oneself freely in this samadhi. Zazen is the true gate. Disporting oneself freely. What a wonderful image. I think of dolphins. You never see them that good. They're sometimes around the Golden Gate or something. You see them from Baker Beach.

[39:27]

You can see them, and they're just swimming and jumping. And that seems to me a wonderful image of just sporting freely. And when we are not stingy, when we're willing to pay the price of getting to an empty heart. When we're willing to practice this GGU Sun Mai, this letting the small self be without inflating it. And also without pummeling it, you know? Don't try to make it into a golf ball. Stop trying and stop thinking of my notes.

[40:30]

Charlie Ware once gave me a pin, which I still have. And Mel told me, yeah, please wear it. I used to wear it on the inside of my robe, Tassajara. And I Every so often I come across it and I think I should put that back on. We should all have it. Anyway, the button says, stop thinking and let things happen. And I'm grateful for it. So I think our job, if you choose to accept it, is to make this effort to see clearly as possible where we're holding on where we're pushing away where we're adding extra and to do the homework if you will necessary to let go of all the extra and then this wonderful lightness

[41:42]

this joy arises, not the joy necessarily of yippee, or somebody said, my Zen key is total joy, and somebody, I was contrasting it with another kind of joy, and somebody said, so yours is the joy of sex and chocolate? I think, yes, but I'm not talking about the joy of sex and chocolate so much as a A deeper kind of self-fulfilling. Let go of that longing for an essential self. So I wanted to leave time for discussion or questions or comments or whatever. So thank you. Hi, Mary.

[42:51]

Hi. Thank you for your talk and thank you for being with us today. It's nice to have you here. And I appreciated your talk. And I just stumbled over one thing you said or one word you used, which is a word I often stumble over, actually. And it was when you were talking about your sort of harsh words in the Tassajara kitchen. And then you talked about having to work on getting to an open heart. And you used the word work a couple of times, and I always sort of stumble over that word. Like, if what we're doing is letting go or not trying, you know, working seems, I don't know, it's not a word that I can really relate to. So that's my question. Don't be stingy. Yeah, but, I mean, is that work?

[43:54]

Yes. Well, it's my experience of my needing to or wanting to arrive at an empty heart. My wanting to find myself without the aversion or clinging. My need to get to wholeheartedness. And it's funny, wholehearted and an empty heart may be the same thing. But it is work. What's the work? I have to sit still for unpleasantness. Because I have to touch that part that's hurting or that part that's resentful. That part that says, well, what about me? I'm a preacher of Jungian analysis, so it goes to ancient twisted family karma.

[45:06]

And I have to allow that, and I have to feel the hurt. And get underneath the anger. And I have to allow myself to do that. And set aside the chatter on top. But not with denying it, but just seeing it for what it is. And then what's underneath this? What's underneath this? And it's usually some kind of hurt. But I don't want to feel it. And so that's... It is work. For me, it is. And it's work that I do with joy and with a lot more ease now than I did then. It does get easier. But I still think of that. You know, don't be stingy. Do it. And don't be stingy with your own effort.

[46:17]

So it's something like that. But it's a lot for me, as you know, it's a lot of its body. You know, it's not so much about the story, but the body. But it does feel like work. But it isn't work in order to get something. Right. So that's the difference. It's not in order to. So it's not a grasping. It doesn't work to insist on succeeding. And I haven't always succeeded. Sometimes it's taken a long time. I mean, that only took a couple of days. It was only a five-day session. I understand what you're saying, and it's clear to me. It's not the word I would use, but it is clear to me. Okay. You come up with another one. Mary, somebody asks in the chat, when you are meditating and you don't worry about having monkey mind, How do you know you're not just being lazy?

[47:22]

Oh, I think lazy. Lazy pursues the thoughts. Lazy gets on. I mean, I like to say don't get on the train of thought. Or Suzuki Roshi said, you know, don't invite them in for tea. So lazy is just sitting there thinking. I'm not talking about sitting there thinking. I'm talking about sitting there and letting thoughts be thoughts, just like let the deer come to the pool. Let the thoughts be thoughts. They have their own life. Don't get entangled with them. Don't get pulled around by them. That's what Sojin used to say, especially about views, talking about emotions. I don't know who asked it and help us. I invite Ben to unmute yourself and ask a question. Hi, Mary.

[48:33]

Thank you so much for your talk. Thank you. I don't mean to be rude to you, Ben, but I would appreciate it if people didn't keep saying thank you for your talk. Because, I mean, it did sound very much to me like you meant it, and that's fine, but sometimes I think people just sound like they're being polite, and it's one of my many pet peeves. Okay. Sorry, Alan went too fast, and so I didn't get a chance to say it. No, I understand. Okay, thank you. So my question for you, earlier in your talk you talked about how Sojin helped you you found Sojin helpful as you were practicing with the decline of your parents and then the loss of them. I don't know if you have anything more to say or share about that, in what way Sojin was helpful, in what way your practice unfolded during that, and if you prefer not to say anything, that's okay, too.

[49:35]

I'm happy to talk about it. I mean, 89 is a long time ago. And I have to tell you that it's... Well, he gave me... He gave me the koan, Case 55 of the Blue Cliff Record, which is famous. It's the alive or dead one where the teacher and the young monk go to visit a family that's just lost somebody, and there's a coffin in the... main room, and the family, they're there with the body, and the family's not in the room, I presume, anyway. The young monk hits the coffin, and he says, teacher, tell me, alive or dead, I have to know. And the teacher says, I won't say, I won't say. And the kid may do it again, I don't remember, but at any rate, then

[50:39]

They're heading back to the monastery, and all of a sudden, the young monk stops and says, teacher, I have to know, alive or dead, if you don't tell me, I'll get you. And the teacher says, hit me if you need to, and I won't say. And the kid does hit him. And the teacher says, you know, you've given me a bloody nose, and you better... Eve now, because if you go back with me to the monastery, you're going to be in deep, deep trouble. And so the young man goes off. Later he comes back and he awakens. But that I won't say, I won't say, is tremendously useful to me. And I had to chew on it. He didn't explain it to me at all. They just said, you might want to take a look at case 55 of the book with record.

[51:40]

He didn't lie on me. And so I did, and I first thought, my first response was how mean and rude that teacher was, because he didn't say, I can't say. He was saying, I won't say. And what's that? And I just kept reading it, because I kept saying to him, I figured he wouldn't give, Sojourn would not give it to me, For no reason. So I just kept reading it over and over again. And at one point I was sitting under a hairdryer. And I had hair. And I was reading it. I was kind of in the back of a salon and by myself. And I was reading it. And... I was just struck. But like, you know, like getting socked in the solar plexus, you know, not a thought.

[52:45]

It initially wasn't a thought. It was just boom. And then I had the impulse, which I did not do being in a public place. I want to just throw the book. And after the insight, then the words came and it was something about there's nothing to say. You just have to accept it. And there were other things. I mean, I kept working on it. And he and I talked about death and dying, and I'll tell you one experience that I had that I'm sure arose out of the work with the koan. And that was that I was sitting zazen, and I had this image that death, classic Greek, came into the Zendo and tapped me on the shoulder, took me outside to the porch and pointed towards that grassy area in front of Ellen's office.

[53:52]

And what I saw was sort of shadowy outlines of adults falling down and then melting into the ground. And where each adult fell, a little Chinese poster baby sprang up. You know, they looked like with those real pink cheeks and always wonderful smiles on their faces. And I said to death, then why do we cry? And death said, because it's important. And I told Sojin about that. And I said, and death said, because it's important. And he said, what did death mean? And I hadn't even thought about it. I mean, I don't know that I could have said much, because I understand it intuitively, but I hadn't thought about that. And he brought me up short, and I don't think that I had an answer.

[54:53]

I mean, now I could give you a whole Dharma talk, but that's... At any rate, that's how... I mean, he was tremendously helpful. Because he kept... You know, he kept, he was supporting me to do the, forgive me, Ellen, to do the homework around it. So, you know, if you want to talk about it sometime, that's, I don't want to take up forever. I'd love to talk about it sometime. Thank you, Mary. Mary, this is a very quick question. You might be able to address it in a word. I'm thinking of you earlier this morning because I was in the Berkeley Bowl at the beginning of the pandemic. And I think we were just being mandated to wear masks when you went into the bowl. It was senior hour. And you were one of the few other people in the store. And I was so happy to see you.

[55:53]

You were out of place for me, Vallejo. Now you're in Berkeley. and you were wearing a mask. I, for a moment, didn't recognize you, and then it snapped into place, and I stepped towards you, and you backed off. And in that moment, I realized, oh, we're in the middle of a pandemic. She's taking care of herself. Now, that's what was going on in my mind, Mary. You were... properly defending yourself, what was in your mind at that moment? And you might not remember at all. I mean, it's like I don't remember and I believe you because I do that, and I don't think of it as defending myself so much as taking care of myself and maybe taking care of the other person. Yeah. Because I do. If people come, now I'm completely vaccinated, but

[56:57]

But I'm still trying to be careful about stuff like that. So if people come closer than six feet, then I tend to move back. So I don't know that I had much of anything in my mind except, oh, oh, this person's too close. And I don't know if I recognized you right away. Patrick, I don't know. The short answer is I don't know. It was nothing personal. Oh, well, I took it personally for about 30 seconds, and then I realized, oh, we're in the middle of a pandemic. Thank you, Mary. Yeah. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. I've posted the vows in the chat. Please unmute yourself. The dawn will clunk the bell, and we'll follow Mary. in going through one time. Beans are numberless.

[58:07]

I bow to end them. I am dying, I am bound to enter them. Judas' way is unsurpassable, I am bound to become it.

[58:48]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_92.13