Good evening. I think we might need a little air at some point soon, but I might. I have a number of things on my mind tonight, and maybe you have some things on your mind as well, on your minds, just to name a few things, failure, guilt, resentment, leadership, intimacy, forms, honey, bees, bees and honey.

[01:28]

Those are just a few of the things that come to mind. And expressing yourself. So maybe that's all. I can go home now. I was telling somebody about this poem. Let's see if this person is here. Yes, this person is here. This was a poem that at Tassajar during the practice period sort of rose up during a lecture. It's a poem that had been very, very important to me when I first started practicing. And it's a poem about relationships or a relationship, but it was my relationship to spiritual practice and ultimately my relationship to my true self or to a part of me that was unknown but could be sensed or something like that. And it's by Yevtushenko.

[02:30]

Maybe some of you know it, called Colors. Do you know this poem? And I used to be able to recite it. Let's see if I can start it anyway. When your face appeared over my crumpled life, at first I knew only the poverty of what I had. And then, then its particular light on woods, on rivers, on the sea became my beginning in the colored world in which I had not yet had my beginning. I am so frightened. I'm so frightened of the unexpected sunrise finishing, of revelations and tears and the excitement finishing. I don't fight it. My love is this fear. I nourish it.

[03:31]

Who can nourish nothing? Love's slipshod watchman. Fear hems me in. I am conscious that these minutes are short and that the colors in my eyes will vanish when your face sets. I think the part that really spoke to me was, when your face appeared over my crumpled life, at first I understood only the poverty of what I have. So this image of this rising of the sun over one's crumpled life. And then, then all of a sudden what's revealed is the poverty of what you have, or the failures, or the not good enough, or something. But at the same time some opening into something different, some new understanding, or some new way of being, which is in here is my beginning in the colored world,

[04:37]

the world in which I had not had my beginning. So I feel that for me, and for many people I think, our spiritual life or our encounter with practice, or Zazen, or a teacher, or Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, is like our beginning in this world that is alive, in a new way perhaps. And this part in the poem where it says, I'm so frightened, I'm so frightened of it all finishing, and that fear hems me in, my sense of that now, after all these years, is that that kind of gives way, this fear of it finishing, and the fear of where the practice actually becomes one, and there is no finishing.

[05:37]

There is just each moment. But I think this anxiety about that it's very fragile, it's very fragile and it's dependent on this person, or this place, or this group of people, and that it's all falling apart constantly, and people are coming, and going, and leaving, and dying. And there is some anxiety that we have there. Oh, I bet I didn't bring Kleenex. There is Kleenex. Never be without Kleenex is one of my mottos. Kleenex. So, there is some failures, and fears, and I've been turning over in the last several weeks

[06:45]

this notion of leadership, what is leadership, and I brought this up recently somewhere, practice committee, or Abbott's Council, I think, that I've been asking various people about what is leadership, because in this vision process that the community is going through, leadership is an issue for people. Wherein lies power, and spiritual leadership, and spiritual power, and I feel like it's up for the community in a certain way, and it's up for me. And being in a situation where someone said, there's no leadership at Zen Center, with me sitting there, and Blanche, and Vicki, and you know, so what do people mean when they say leadership, and that there's no leadership, or do we have a narrow understanding of leadership, what is leadership, so this is something I've been turning. So I asked Reb about it, and he quoted from a particular text,

[07:45]

did I mention this already, on Sunday, no, okay, Precious Forest, I think it's actually a work that I don't have, maybe somebody has it, or the library has it, and in it is admonitions for the abbot, or the abbess, who is the leader of a community or a monastery, and one of the things that says in there that Reb mentioned was, for the abbot or the abbess, that they know the hearts of the community. That's their main job, to know the hearts of the community, the hearts of each person in the community, and what would follow for me, and what was very helpful, is that if you know someone's heart, then your actions of body, speech, and mind follow from that, and someone could say, well, they're leading, but actually, are they leading, or are they following,

[08:47]

or is it really, what is that, when you know the hearts of the community, and I think for each one of us who's working on, in different ways, on crews, leading crews, following on crews, working by ourselves, working with others, to know the hearts of each other, out of that comes leading and following, wave follows wave. And I think comes a kind of happiness, actually. I think where unhappiness comes is when we're trying to push people, or make them believe what we believe, because that's really the truth. That kind of activity, there's a lot of suffering there, and a lot of pain,

[09:49]

and we may not even notice that that's what we're doing, because we believe so strongly that what we think is right. So why isn't everybody coming along, and how are we going to make them? And I think that's not necessarily leading. I think it can be more, well, I don't know, all sorts of problems happen there. So knowing the hearts of the community, knowing each other's hearts, and then what comes out of that. And then I also asked Ed Brown, who I had lunch with the other day, about leadership, what he thought leadership was. It was so great to ask these people. They were so helpful. And Ed's suggestion, or what he said was, well, if you really express yourself completely, when you thoroughly and completely and honestly express yourself, then other people feel like they can express themselves too, and then what follows from that, that activity is just appropriate activity.

[10:57]

So is that leading? Is that how we understand leading, to completely express yourself? I don't know, but I found that very helpful, and also I realized I had been leaning into, okay, what's leadership? Rather than leadership is like a byproduct of expressing ourselves completely, honesty with ourselves, and being willing to be open enough to know the hearts, know each other's hearts. So our usual cultural model of leading and, you know, work, working is to identify everything that's going wrong and then figure out protocol and ways to address those things that are wrong,

[12:00]

and remedy the situation, and then we can get everything right, you know, some idea like that. And, of course, life is so much messier than that, that we can't ever get it all just right, either in our relationships with one another, or, you know, it can be right for just a second, but then, you know, your mind wanders and you burn the sunflower seeds. You pushed them around on the pan and they were just about there, you know, and then I remember once, it just occurred to me in the kitchen, burning a pan of sunflower seeds three times. We put them in the oven and then stir them and stir them, and then they get forgotten and burned. And then the next person said, Look, let me do it, I'm going to do it. And they burned, and then the third time, if you can believe it, burned. And we were all, what was going on there, you know, I have no idea.

[13:05]

But this getting things just right, we make this effort, and there's also along with that is, if things go wrong or if there's failure, we didn't try hard enough, you know. Rather than, you know, life is kind of a mess like that. Things are outside of our ability to get it just and have it all stay put. So often what happens is we feel, well, we're not trying hard enough or we're not making enough effort, or they're not, or blaming other people for not making enough effort. If they just tried harder, then they could get it right. And I think there's some, within that, there's a fallacy there. But we over, you know, this is samsara. Samsara looks like that. Well, then I'll just try harder, you know. I'll just improve myself or just... So there's a lot of suffering in that round. And what often happens there is we forget to appreciate the mess, for one,

[14:17]

each other's efforts, learning from the mistakes. There's a quote from Dovian, you know, hitting the mark means 99 times you miss the mark. You know, that's what hitting the mark is, that behind that is failures and trying and learning from it and trying again. This is a kind of effort and vigor and constancy that is necessary in our practice. But we don't like to fail, you know. I looked up failure because I just wanted to see what it was. Failure is the condition or fact of not achieving the desired end. The condition or fact of being insufficient or lacking, of falling short. And I think the feeling, this failure as we don't have what it takes, you know,

[15:25]

we're insufficient somehow, inherently insufficient or that we lack something. And see there I proved it again, you know, because look. And I want to get back to that. There's a kind of guilt and resentment get kind of mixed up in there too. Also a cessation of proper functioning is failure, like a power failure or something. Or we feel like there was a failure in communications, you know. Not performance of what is requested or expected, you know. Somebody, you know, asked us to do something and we weren't able to do it, you know. We failed them. And also decline of strength or weakening, like my health is failing. So I think along with that is feeling like when we fail, whatever failure is,

[16:29]

that we're weak, you know, that we're not manly or not womanly enough. Something very basic to our being, our humanness or something. And it comes from the Latin to deceive or to disappoint. Failure. So these stories that we are fed by or grow up hearing, reading, grow up, meaning in our practice life, of these Zen stories of the enlightenment experiences and insight and all these wonderful things is the hitting the mark. But what's not mentioned usually is, you know, in other biographies it can be mentioned, but often it's not mentioned in the koans. The effort and the hundred, the 99 times, you know, is not really brought into high relief there.

[17:36]

We don't really want to hear about the 99 times of the missing. You know, that may not be so encouraging to us, but I like to hear about it. These failures. So there's this wonderful poem, which I recited before. Where is it? I used to know it by heart. Let me try. Last night I dreamt. Oh, marvelous. Last night as I was sleeping I dreamt. Marvelous error. That there was. Oh, I can't do it. I'm sorry. Last night as I was sleeping I dreamt. Marvelous error. That I had a beehive here inside my heart. And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures.

[18:42]

It's Antonio Machado. Last night as I was sleeping I dreamt. Oh, marvelous error. That I had a beehive here inside my heart. And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures. Oh, marvelous. That is really one. That's a keeper, right? To be able to draw upon. My daughter was in Nicaragua for the past five months or so. And one of the things she did was she had a practice of a poem a week. And she was in Spanish. She was learning poems by heart and also English poems. And I thought that would be wonderful to do a poem a week. And each year 52 poems to draw on. For just such occasions as this. Failure. Whatever failure is.

[19:46]

But the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures. And I feel really that that's my effort to understand the failures. My failures. Whatever those are. Like that. That this is just food for the bees. To make sweetness and food. Is it honeycomb food? Or just living places? It contains the food. So making food and shelter. The beeswax, isn't it? So shelter. Environments of calm and golden beauty. From our failures. I think this is very hard. Turning this is very hard. I think it's very hard for me. And it's very hard. I've noticed we get kind of caught in the failures.

[20:49]

We have visiting us this week is James Flaherty. I'm very glad to see him. And I was just looking at his book. Do you all know James Flaherty? His book on coaching. And I just happened to open it. Because I knew you were going to be here. And I opened to this page about guilt and resentment. They're right next to each other. So. Well maybe I'll start with resentment. This is from your book. James. Resentment. Is something unfair. This is how we think. Something unfair has been done to me by somebody else. And I have no power to do anything about it. And the characteristic of the resentment. According to this book. Is this judgment of being powerless. Then the resentment begins to grow.

[21:50]

And part of the characteristic is that you distance yourself. From the object of your resentment. And then you get back at them. In all different ways. But it's not like an out and out confrontation. Or this was unfair. Or I didn't appreciate. It's not that. You distance yourself. A kind of cold politeness it says. But this is very familiar. Isn't it? A kind of brittle and cold politeness. And distancing. And then you get back at the person in different ways. And in the workplace it can be things like. I just misplaced those files. And I just could not figure out where they are. Or not returning a phone call. Or slowing work. Or negative gossip. That's a big one. You know just being sure to mention. This is all part of this resentment. Kind of picture. Does that sound familiar?

[22:52]

Are you familiar with that? It's very. I think it's a kind of poisonous. Can be very poisonous for community life. Resentment. And how it gets played out. And another difficult part about resentment. Which I found very helpful. That was pointed out in the book. Was that. This emotional distancing. Means that when the person. Tries to kind of find out what's going on here. Then there's no interest in. Making that kind of contact. Or getting to the bottom of it. Or bridging. You know. You keep it. Keep it separate. Which perpetuates more. So the person. Finds no way to kind of. Get at it. It's very. Kind of poisonous I think. Falling into a poisonous sea. And the other.

[23:55]

Thing I happen to open to. Which is the next paper is about guilt. And. James says it's the great American mood. It's under the section about moods. And guilt. As a false. Feeling guilty. Feeling bad. About anything you know. I know somebody. You probably know them too. Who if it's raining out. They say oh I'm so sorry. You know I mean. Whatever is going on. Oh you know. The bus is late. Or. Whether they had much to do. It's just apologizing all the time. For this that and the other. You know. So there's apologizing. And then. Kind of working very hard. To. Make up for things. And. But one of the. Thing about. Guilt. In this thing that I just read. Which was so helpful for me was.

[24:59]

That the person who's guilty all the time. Has a false sense of agency. That seemed very key to me. And I've read about guilt before. And that in Buddhism. In fact one of the first things that really. Was interesting for me about Buddhism was that. There wasn't a guilt thing. Sin and guilt were not really operative. Objects of study. Partially because. There was no divine being that you could sin against. And then have guilt about that. It was. It was all kind of. It wasn't germane. The guilt in terms of. Divine being that you're sinning against. So I found that very refreshing. But this thing about. Having a false sense of agency. Feeling badly. As if you could have had anything. You could have made the difference. You could have. So it comes back to. You know. Had I tried harder. You know. Back to this. Then something could have. You know. And then part of that is. Well all these other people.

[26:01]

You know. At least I feel bad about it. But they were also part of it. And they don't even feel bad about it. So anyway. That whole little. Cluster of things. I think also is. In terms of community life. And working together. Living together. Is something to study. Something for me to study about myself. And that I. It's not my mind. And this failures. And guilt about failures. Or resentment. This is very different from. Using each thing that comes into our life. As. One more opportunity to practice. One more opportunity to. Study what's going on. I think we get caught in a kind of eddy. I get caught in an eddy.

[27:02]

And that the whole practice. Notion kind of flies out the window. As I'm. If there's resentment and guilt. Failure. You know. This is. So. How do we turn this. And I think bringing it into consciousness. Is a way of turning it. And how do we help each other. To turn this. And. And actually see. Failures. And even resentment and guilt. As. How do we. Allow the bees of our. See how can I do this particular image. That just came to mind. Allow. This beehive in our heart. To work on these things. In. To use them. As food. As nourishment. To work. To practice harder. And this. Harder. Meaning. You know. This endless.

[28:07]

Endlessness of our practice. Recently someone just told me. How they've been practicing. They've started sitting. And they've been. Going with the flow. They use that term. Going with the flow. And kind of balancing their life in there. And then they had to go to the dentist. And have wisdom tooth pulled. And because of their karmic. This is what I pointed out to them. They had had a lot of work done. When they were a kid. And they. It triggered a whole thing. They were. Had so much anxiety. And they couldn't meditate. Waiting in the waiting room. And they were so. They had to have nitrous oxide. They didn't think they were going to need that. And they thought this practice. It all went out the window. Their whole practice. They don't know how to practice. You know. It was like this big failure. So. So this endless. Okay. So here was the dentist office. This was. This was a big. This triggered a lot of stuff. That nothing. Those conditions. Causes and conditions. Nothing else will trigger it. Quite like that.

[29:08]

And. For that person. It's. The dentist office. For somebody else. It's something else. For each one of us. We get triggered. And caught. And maybe during that. We. We have a lot of trouble practicing. But afterwards. And we say. Oh we failed. He failed in his practice. Because he got so. Full of anxiety. But how. Afterwards. Can that be an encouragement. To make money. You know. To. Practice harder. To. Confess. This is an area I need to work. And no guilt. You know. I should have been able to. I'm a terrible Zen student. That's a kind of backwater of. To me. It. If we get caught. In that. We.

[30:12]

We. We kind of short circuit. Our practice. We. We get caught. In that kind of habitual thing. So. Let's see. I do want to hear. What. You all. Might want to bring up. I had one other. Point. Which maybe. Maybe I'll just say. But maybe I'll just say a little bit about it. Which is. Forms. And. One might think. Well what does forms have to do with it. But. My. When I say. Our practice mind goes out the window. Are. The forms of our practice. Allow us. This is my.

[31:13]

Sense of things. These days. To. Pour ourselves. In. To our life. We have to. We have to show up. This thing about showing up. Or ninety nine times. You know. To hit the mark. It means we have to show up. We have to be there. Present. In order to find our practice. Legs. And body. Body mind. So our forms help us to show up. Help us to arrive. And. It's very particular. You know. And it's about expressing ourselves. Which I brought up at the beginning of the talk. Thoroughly expressing ourselves honestly. The forms are a way that have been conveyed.

[32:15]

By our ancestors. Of a way. To. Completely express ourselves in this. It's. It seems like a limited kind of thing. Shashu. Or a gassho. Or. Service. Or zazen. Or cross legged sitting. Or any of the forms that we have. But. When we have. All the options in the world. To express ourselves. I think we diffuse. And don't know. Kind of how to do it. Exactly. So our forms help us to. Completely. Okay. It's. It's. Looks like a limited way. But within that. Is. Complete. Limitless. Heart. To completely arrive. Within the form with our full body and mind. There is a kind of limitless quality to that. So the limits of it. And the limitlessness of it. Are. Not to. Not one.

[33:16]

Right there. And we can express ourselves completely. In social situations there are forms. And also it's a different situation. Not just zendo forms. Monastic life forms. But social forms as well. Like shaking hands. You know. Meeting someone. Extending your hand. Or saying. How do you do? Or. My name is. You know. And. I. Can recall very vividly. A time. When it was extremely difficult. For me to just. Say hello. My name. I mean that sounds like some. Convention you're at. I'm. Linda Tuts. What's. How are you? Or just to come forward like that. It just was. I could barely stand it. First of all. I thought my name was really weird. Tuts. You know. Nobody has a name. Tuts. It was all like. My relatives. You know. So. I should say. My name. Was like.

[34:18]

It was excruciating. And over the years. And watching different people. Come forward. In a social situation. There is a form. You know. There are forms of interaction. That are beautiful. And each culture has their own forms of course. But. And the Bodhisattva. Speaks first. That's one of the. Things of a Bodhisattva. So actually. To extend yourself. Or to say at the dinner table. When there's a stranger. Or a guest. A guest student. Or in a social situation. Extending yourself to say. And. Over and over and over. Bringing your full body and mind. To that form. Is. There's a kind of freedom. And joy. And happiness. Actually. That's what happens. There's happiness there. In expressing ourselves fully. There's a kind of happiness. That arises. So. Now I'm going to stop. Talking. I had other things to talk about.

[35:20]

But I'd like. Would anyone else. Like to. Bring something up. Add to what I've. Said. Or comment. Or. Question. Or. When you. Asked what leadership. Was. I had this idea. I'd like to say it. And then I'd like to hear. Comments about. What this. What it means to other people. Because. I'm kind of. It's a pretty strong idea I have. And I'm not quite sure. Whether I trust it. But I. To me. Any. Leadership has to do with. Being willing to make difficult decisions. And. Being loving. But not necessarily caring. About whether or not. One is loved. And so. It has a. Feeling of courage to it. Courage. So.

[36:22]

I think of the example. When. Norman. Wanted. To invite. Richard Baker. To be part. Of the. Money. Series. And brought it. To various people. And got feedback. A lot of which was. Against that idea. But. For some reason. He stayed with. His initial. Decision. To do it. And. Invited him anyway. Even though. When you were saying earlier. You know. You need to know the hearts. Of everyone. But it didn't seem to. Necessarily. Mean. To go along with. What the hearts. Of everyone. Were saying at that moment. Because maybe the hearts. Were scared. Or I don't know why. But. I found that really. An interesting. Decision. And I. I respected his. Willingness. To not be. Like. By everyone. And to stick with. And maybe it's a. I don't know. A creative instinct.

[37:25]

That. Sort of came up in him. That he couldn't. Even explain. But he felt like. He needed to stay with. I don't know. Yes. Did I disturb that? Yes. I'd be interested. In what other people. Have to say. I have something. That arose for me. Does anyone. Want to add to that. Well. Yeah. What came up. The whole. For me. Was. To say yes. To what. Susan offered. And I don't know. That situation. I just hear. It's clear. But. That also. There would be. A wisdom. Involved. In. Knowing. When to. Follow. The hearts. Of the community. And when. To follow. The heart. That differs. With the heart. Of the community. Because it wouldn't be. To always be. In a place. Of courage. Would also be. A kind of defiance. And not necessarily. Leadership. Either. So it would. If there's a wisdom.

[38:25]

Like a power player. Yeah. A few years ago. I read the autobiography. Of Nelson Mandela. And when he was a young boy. His uncle was a. I forget. Some kind of regional. King or. Anyway he was. He governed. Many provinces. In Africa. And when. When they would all. Meet together. He would listen. He sat in as a boy. And. His uncle would. With him. Start at. Sunrise. And go to. Sunset. This uncle. Who was the ruler. Wouldn't say anything. All day. He'd listen. To everybody else. And at the end. Of the day. He'd make. He'd make. His decision. But it was. It was based. On what he'd been hearing. From everybody else. All day. And I imagine. That. You know. There might have been. A lot of. Hearts. In different. Places. But somehow. He. He came up. With a soup. And cooked up. All those things.

[39:26]

Yeah. It's interesting to me. In your example. Of Norman. Um. That he. Took the pains. To talk with. With maybe a lot of people. I don't know how many people. He talked to. But that he didn't. Set himself apart. And say. This is what we're going to do. But he actually had a conversation. So. It would be interesting. To find out. Just to know. What they were like. Well. About that particular instance. Sorry Norman. That we're all. Talking about your. Decision making. But. What I felt was. Just from what you said Susan. There was. The hearts. And then. Maybe. What is the true heart. You know. Because. I've. You know. In his efforts. For reconciliation. And. What we're going to do. Whatever it was. I. Trusted that he felt.

[40:28]

He was acting from. And. Speaking to. The true hearts. You know. Of people. What people really want. Which is harmony. Or whatever. That's what I felt. The decision was based on. And it's true. There was. There was not. What's the word. Unity. There was not unity. And there was strong feelings. Very strong feelings. And he. You know. It was. I did it. My heart. Very much. He said. I'm the abbot. This is my decision. And. So. To. Somebody else might say. Well that's just entitlement. Or that's just dominance. Or that. But. For me. I trust Norman. To know that he felt. This was the right thing to do. And the right thing. In the deepest way. For this community. And. Whether we agreed with him or not. He couldn't help it. That's what he felt was right. So. I think. So there's. True hearts. I mean. To know the true hearts.

[41:30]

And to come from there. I think. And this thing. About expressing yourself. Honestly. To me. It's not about approval. And. I suppose if you can express. I want approval. You know. Then you're out front with that too. But yes. I think it's. It's not about. Getting. Approval. And. Positive. Stuff. As the main thing. That's. That's going on. That. And. I think. Everyone. Who's. Been in leadership. But you know what it's like. To make a difficult decision. And. That people aren't happy with it. Sometimes. Unity. Is very important. To actually. It takes a long time. For unity. True unity. When we did this.

[42:30]

Workshop. With the. American Friends Service. With the. Quaker. Group. They worked. With the board. At a board retreat. And. Unity. When unity. Actually arrives. It's. The energy in the room. And the delight. And the. Almost euphoria. When the group. When a group. Comes to unity. Is just. That's what unity is. Consensus. Compromise. And okay. Well. All right. I'll give in. And there may be resentment. And all sorts of other stuff. To deal with later. Especially if there's resentment. Because. Then. The decision. Somehow. Gets sabotaged. You know. Later on. Somehow. So. They were. Talking about beyond consensus. Which is unity. And unity is. And I think we all know. What that's like. When. After working. And slogging. And listening. And everybody speaking. When you finally. Get to it. It's. It's. Wonderful. It's happiness. So.

[43:33]

Yes. I just feel. A little mean to say. A word about consensus. My experience. With consensus. Is that the process. Of moving. Towards. consensus. Based on the assumption. Every dissenter. Has something important. For the whole group. Is that that process. Is a way. Of reaching unity. And consensus is frequently. Not understood. That way. But. That's my understanding of it. Which is. Shared by. A bunch of other folks. Mostly Quakers. Yeah. Yes. I think that's part of this. Getting to unity. Is you actually hear. Nobody's voice. Is left out. Take care of. And then. Yes. Definitely. I think. You work consensus. And finally. But often. Consensus gets short. Changed.

[44:37]

It gets short circuited. I think. Into. Well. Where you're not listening. You just say. We've got to make a decision. Yeah. Thank you. I was wondering about. When you were talking about. Tension in the. Place. And resentment. And arising. Sometimes. One. Wants to deal with it. Head on. You think. I'll talk to the person. And it doesn't work. You talk to them. And it doesn't really help. And I'm wondering. How. We can do that. With ourselves. If you have any advice. About. Like as a practice. Do you talk to them again. Or do you take it. Into just the individual realm. I don't know. If I have any advice. But. I think. Sometimes. That one of the regular forms. Is. To try again. With maybe a friend.

[45:38]

You know. With a support person. Who can help. Maybe facilitate. Especially if it's pretty hot. Between two people. It's very useful. To have somebody. Who both people feel good about. And who's neutral. And basically can help you. Hear each other. So. I. My sense is. Try again. You know. Try one to one. And if that doesn't work. Get a helper. If that doesn't work. Try two helpers. You know. But there is a grievance process. I mean we have. But going into that. Is like. After you've really exhausted. All the local. Ways. With the people right around. That are friends. And. Yeah. I would say try again. Myself. Do you think that's the best way. Is just through self expression. With the person. Is there. I guess that's what I'm asking. Like is that. Well there's also. Definitely there's turning the light in. And looking at what's going on. What am I bringing to this. What are my. Needs. I mean if we're.

[46:39]

Bringing up. Nonviolent communication. Looking at. My feelings. Yeah. Yeah. Is. That comes. That's together. So. But often if we're not. Honest enough. With what's going on. With ourselves. And our own. Tendencies and dispositions. And habit mind. If it's all out there. It gets. It's pretty hard. So yes. Do the inner work. And then try it. Try it. And talk about what's going on. Maybe one on one. With somebody else. And then. Try it out. Try it out. Including. What you found out about. What's going on with you. Let me just. We've got about. We go to 830. Okay. Kathy. Yeah. Leadership. To me anyway. The quality. That I. That to me is.

[47:42]

Leadership is. Trusting practice. That's. That's. That's leadership. I mean. That's. What I think. Why people. Coalesced around. Suzuki. Roshi. I'm not sure. Which one of. Which book it was. I read it. But I read somewhere that. Some person. Saw a category. Roshi. On a motorcycle. And because of that. He started. Then practice. Because he saw. Category. Roshi's back. It was the straightest back. That he ever saw. Because of that. You know. Like. It's like category. Roshi's back. Led this person. Into practice. And like. To me. That's like. Everything's going to fall apart anyway. Everything's a mess anyway. So. It's not like. It's not like. You know. We. We complain. So we're always complaining. So. I mean. Things have to be somewhat harmonious. But they're going to continue to be. Kind of messy. It seems. So it seems to me. The most important thing is. Trusting practice.

[48:46]

That that's really. The most important thing. I thought you were going to say. Sit up straight. A story about Suzuki Roshi. In a line. In a grocery line. And the person behind him. Suzuki Roshi. Was behind this person. Who was in a grocery line. And they felt so. Sort of cared for. By this stranger. This person. Whenever. You know. Standing there. Moving forward. That they start to practice. Yes. The effect that we have on people. Un. It's. Inconceivable. Those of you. Who answer the phone. Your tone of voice. Your friendliness. Whether you're. Whether you're friendly or not. Or just how you listen. And. Help. All the contact. That we have with. Every. All those. Live with you. And speak with you. You know. We have. It's. We never know.

[49:46]

Really. It's. It's inconceivable. How. How. We affect people. And then. And then we have these stories. That. You know. Show us. Yeah. Thank you. And how Suzuki Roshi. You know. All the people left. The. The. The. When he was made. Abbott of Rinzowin. I think it was. I'm not sure. I don't remember. It was Rinzowin. When he was made Abbott. So many families left. And he just. Didn't. Yeah. He asked them to give me three years. You know. Do you know this story with Suzuki Roshi? He was very young to take on the Abbott ship over in Rinzowin. And. Just like in. Any community folks. When there's a new. Changing of the guard. People. The. The laity. And the families who are involved. Or the students. Whatever. You know. They don't like it. And when I went to Tassara. To lead the practice period. Someone came to Doksan. To say. I miss my teacher. Sort of like. What are you doing here? You know. That's.

[50:47]

You know. That's. That's part of it. So. We think. Suzuki. Even they had Suzuki Roshi as their Abbott. And there. They left. Same with Shakyamuni Buddha. You know. People in the assembly left. I thought that's. A great story. Here's. Shakyamuni Buddha. Giving a Dharma talk. And they got something else to do. Take care of their shop. Or something. I don't know. But. That's true. I think. Any teacher. Doesn't matter how wonderful. Some people will. Have affinity. And others. Won't. So. If that's what gets you down. Like. If you're looking. They don't love me. You know. I can't do my job. People are leaving. I think. The. Trusting practice. Standing on your own. Your own two feet. With your back straight. You know. And. And. Living your life. You know. And. Accepting who you are.

[51:48]

And. Honestly. Expressing who you are. May I. You had your hand up earlier. It's gone. Oh me. I want to know what it is. Okay. How about one more. James. I had my two cents about resentment. Which was. I think the real pain in resentment. Is that people. Aren't feeling like they. Are hurt. Like they don't count. And until they get. That they count with us. They're going to resent us. I think that's the real. The heart of it. So. It's not the powerlessness. As much as. What they did something to me. And I have no power to change it. That's part of it. But. They didn't. They didn't see me. I don't count. I don't count. And until. They count with us. They're going to resent. Yeah. I think. Thank you. I think that's really. Really helpful. In terms of how we. Listen to each other. How we are for each other.

[52:49]

In all our. Untold myriad. Ways that we interact. Live together. Work together. Sit together. Okay. Last night. As I was sleeping. I dreamt. Marvelous error. That I had a beehive. Here. Inside my heart. And the golden bees. Were making. White combs. And sweet honey. From my. Old failures. I think there's. A Spanish. Class. That was. A Spanish class. A Spanish class. Can you recite it? In Spanish? You want to hear that? I do. Thank you very much.

[53:49]

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