Good morning. In this time, in this great uncertain time, in this deeply challenging time of loss of life, of loss of home, loss of employment, of loss of loved ones, We are unmasked as a nation with our schisms and divides and our isms. In this time, it is so good to be able to see, even in small boxes, our sangha together, share this practice to be able to come together in this way is a great blessing.

[01:07]

I'm grateful for it. So this morning I want to speak about a koan, koan number 54 in the Book of Serenity. So it's Ongan's great compassionate one. And in this koan, there are two Dharma brothers, two monastics of equal rank, so to speak, Ungan and Dogo. So the koan is attention. Ungan asked Dogo, what does the great compassionate Bodhisattva do when she uses her manifold hands and eyes? And Dogo said, it's like a man reaching behind his head at night in search of his pillow. And Ongan said, oh, I understand.

[02:13]

And Dogo said, what do you understand? And Ongan said, all over the body are many hands and eyes. And Dogo said, you really Got that pretty well, you've got about 80% of it. And Ungan said, elder brother, what about you? And Dogo said, all throughout the body are many hands and eyes. So the preface to the assembly goes like this. The eight compass points are clear and bright, the 10 directions unobstructed. Everywhere, bright light shakes the earth. All the time, there is marvelous functioning.

[03:17]

Tell me, how can this occur? So I love this koan. It's multifaceted, but this morning I want to focus on the aspect of functioning of appropriate response. So I'm gonna ask Dogo, what does the great bodhisattva of compassion do when she uses her manifold hands and eyes? And Dogo says, it's like a man reaching behind him in the night in search of his pillow. If you feel into that gesture, it's the most natural, unimpeded possible response in that moment. I'm seeing myself and I really don't want to, is there a way for me to not do that? Can you help me? If you go to the top of your screen, to the right hand side, you'll see a checkerboard.

[04:26]

Do gallery? Yes, try that. Oh, so much better. Okay, so the bodhisattva who's mentioned in this koan is, of course, Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. And he, she is kind of an androgynous being, depending on the culture where she is being, or he is being represented. So for example, in China, this is Quan Yin, who's a very feminine version. and worshipped as the goddess of mercy or compassion. In Japan, it's Kanon or Kanzeon, who is somewhat more androgynously presented. In Tibet, the Dalai Lama is actually considered the latest incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, and there's a great ceremony that's done once a year, which I once attended in Pasadena, along with about 10,000 other people.

[05:36]

It's a great celebration in his honor. So there are many representations of Avalokiteshvara. The one that perhaps you see the most often is a standing bodhisattva in his or her right hand holding a lotus, representing how we, grow through and out of the mud, and in the left hand, a vase with nectar of compassion. Or sometimes that same type of figure is presented seated in what's called the royal ease pose with one hand up under the head. In Tibet, in tradition, you very often will see a many-headed Bodhisattva figure And this is connected to one of the legends of Avalokiteshvara, who was a Bodhisattva who made a vow to save all sentient beings.

[06:39]

May sound a little familiar to us. So a little bit daunted by the task that he had taken on and blown out by the amount of suffering in the world, his head exploded into 11 pieces. Amitabha Buddha took pity on him and collected the 11 pieces and created 11 heads on top of one another with Amitabha Buddha's head on the top and gave Avalokiteshvara a thousand arms, hands, and each hand had an eye in it. So that's the representation. So in our own practice at BCC, Avalokiteshvara is very much mentioned often and very much carried in the tradition. So we chant a Dharani, the Enmei Chukkukanangyo, which is specifically calling on Avalokiteshvara or the energy of the way of being of Avalokiteshvara to respond to, to heal,

[07:52]

the suffering in the world. And also in services, sometimes during the week, we chant a chapter of the Lotus Sutra, universal gateway of the Bodhisattva, perceiver of the world sounds. So our central image that we hold of Avalokiteshvara is he or she who hears the suffering cries of the world and responds. Another characteristic of Avalokiteshvara is that she or he manifests in accordance with the circumstances that exist. So she presents herself in a form that's appropriate to what's going on. So we could say she responds to seeing what is needed and how she can best be of service, so to speak. So in the Lotus Sutra, that is referred to as expedient means.

[08:57]

We might say skillful means, but no matter either way, we're responding to someone in a way that they can best receive it. So for each response, there is a special response. In other words, there's no cookie cutter responding, but a response by heart to what is needed. So every time we help someone across the street or we buy or carry groceries for someone who needs that support, every time we stop to help a motorist change a tire, we are manifesting avalokiteshvara. Dido Lurie says, these characteristics of wisdom and compassion are the characteristics of all beings, all Buddhas.

[10:01]

We all have that potential. It's just a matter of awakening to it. You awaken to it by realizing there's no separation between self and others. When we see the suffering of others and respond to it, we are the hearts and arms and eyes of the Bodhisattva. So we could say appropriate response is the very heart of our practice. In 1994, Roshi Bernie Glassman and his wife, Jishu Angyo Holmes created the Peacemaker Order, which we practice and refer to at the Zen Center often. And its three tenets are not knowing, bearing witness, and appropriate response.

[11:09]

And that not knowing is an interesting idea for us because we place high value There's a culture on knowing, on having the answer, being able to raise our hand in class, whatever class we find ourselves in. And so not knowing doesn't mean we don't know anything, but it means we come with a stance, with an attitude, with a position, so to speak, of openness, of curiosity, of willingness to learn, to see, to hear very humbly and very openly. not to be fixed in our views, in other words. Bearing witness means very simply to be present to and with the suffering of another. It can also mean to be present with our own suffering, but to be fully present, not to fix, not to advise, but to be deeply present with.

[12:19]

The image that I like very much for bearing witness is, I place my heart upon. I rest my heart here with you. And then the third appropriate action is to do the appropriate right thing, whatever that may be. That's a little bit more complex, but nevertheless. Roshi Egyoku-Nakao from the Zen Center in Los Angeles says of the practice of appropriate response, this aspect is not always clear or available to be known. It may be impelled by reasons that are selfish, not serviceable or useful, although we may think they are. It is impossible to predict what the action in any situation will be or the timetable for when it will arise or what might result from it.

[13:28]

The underlying intention is that the action that arises be a caring action, which serves everyone and everything, including yourself in the whole situation. End of quote. So we might describe Right Action as being without self-attachment or without our own personal agendas. Melanie Dumour, whom some of you may have heard of or seen or know, is a former member of the singing group Sweet Honey in the Rock. Wonderful, wonderful group. And Melanie is herself a singer-performer, a composer of music, a teacher of music. I know her through the Threshold Choirs, which she helped to form, singing for people at bedsides at the time of their death.

[14:34]

She is a woman of color, a long-term social activist, and she uses her music as her is her way in, in social action, very powerfully. And she tells this story, which I think really speaks to Bright Action. She was invited to some state in the Midwest, which will go unnamed, and a state that was predominantly white, but had some history of racial unrest at various times. And she was invited to conduct music for a family gathering, sort of a group of about 150 members of a family, starting with babies and going to great, great grandmothers that were getting together at a campground for a weekend to be together. And their medium was that they were going to sing.

[15:36]

And that was Melanie's, of course, her cup of tea. And so she was going to be going to lead them. She made clear to the organizer that she was not a camper. She didn't want to camp. So she asked to be put up in a motel nearby, which happened. And then they provided her with a car so she could drive to and from the campground. And at a certain point, she said to the organizer, You know, I'm really aware I don't feel comfortable as a black woman. I don't feel comfortable driving back and forth at night in an area that I don't know and where there's been racial unrest at different times. And the organizer stopped sort of dead in her tracks and said, oh, I am so sorry. I didn't think of this. And Melanie replied, well, you would not have had to think of it. And the woman paused and then thought around.

[16:40]

She said, would it be useful for you if we, instead of renting the car, if we, a group of us, came to pick you up and drove you to the campground? And at the end of the day, we would all go back with you to your motel? Would that be a better response? And that's, in fact, what happened. I love this story. because it has a lot of lessons in it. The woman was, the expediter was really able to stop to see she had really operated in error with perfectly good intention, but had not considered Melanie's needs sufficiently. And the situation was able to apologize for it and able to restart the engine, so to speak, with a more appropriate response. So it's not that we always get it right the first time, it is that we can also correct when our response is off.

[17:45]

So in our Buddhist tradition, we have a lot of history of speaking truth to power, particularly as Buddhists. So we very often will be found sitting on a sidewalk or on the courthouse steps or with signs or without signs protesting or bearing witness to an announcement of war, protesting various kinds of police actions, protesting capital punishment, speaking against nuclear armaments of various kinds. So we have this, we're also capable in those contexts of sometimes being addressed by people of very different views and being able to hear, being able to respond without animosity to really actually hear and be in dialogue.

[18:51]

So this is both, These actions are both bearing witness actions and appropriate response. They are kind of deeply interconnected. So what are the elements of right response and right action? John Lewis invites us to get into good trouble, which is a phrase I just I think is the best thing I've heard in a very long time. Get into good trouble. It's wonderful. So obviously, we are in situations all the time where we have to respond immediately. We don't get to step back, meditate, think. We have to step in. If somebody's in cardiac arrest or unable to breathe, we're going to have to start artificial resuscitation. Whether we think we know how to do it or not, we're going to have to do our best. If nobody else is there, we're simply going to have to do it.

[19:53]

Even if, as we did it, we might be doing the respiration on somebody who has osteoporosis, we could break their sternum as we're giving them that respiration. We have to do our best with what we've got. So these contexts of appropriate immediate action are obvious and requisite. We also have the response over and over. We see this in the world, and we certainly are seeing it now with these horrific fires and acts of nature that are just reflections of climate change, but quite horrific. And people are responding by sending food, by sending money. First responders go in and help as they can. Therapists go in, specialists in PTSD go in to do counseling. Much is done in an immediate way to really bring support And my feeling about this personally is that this is our natural best nature.

[20:58]

As Dido Lurie said at the beginning, this is actually unimpeded, unhindered. This is simply who we are to respond in this way, like reaching behind our head at night in search of a pillow. It's that natural to respond openheartedly. There was a fire in my house this past February, and I lost pretty much everything in that fire. And I was something of a banana for the first few days. And my daughter stepped forward in multiple ways. But in one way, she started a GoFundMe fund, because people were asking specifically how they could help. And I was quite blown away by the responses of people. Some people brought me first aid bags of towels and deodorant and soap and toothpaste and that, and a change of clothing and underwear.

[22:05]

I mean, I was really kind of down to the basics of basics. Many people donated money, donated clothing, One friend who knew that the transmission on my car had gone out at the same time as the fire said, well, I'll get you another transmission, which was kind of mind-bogglingly generous. Many people on the GoFundMe list donated money In some cases, gifts also came to my house anonymously from people that I didn't know, my daughter didn't know, my daughter-in-law did not know. So it's hard even to talk about it. It was very heart-touching, very heart-opening.

[23:05]

I do think this is our true nature. In the appreciatory verse of the koan, they describe this ease of being. It says, without forms, without self, spring follows the rules. Unstopped, unhindered, the moon traverses the sky. Clear, pure, jeweled eyes and virtuous arms. Hands and eyes before you manifest complete functioning. The great function is everywhere. How could there be any hindrance? So I recently saw a documentary called Poverty, Inc., which if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it to you.

[24:10]

The filmmakers are actually exploring what we in our languaging would call right action and its benefits, and then actions that can appear to be right actions, but have dangerous or detrimental aspects to them. So in the film, they give the example of Haiti, the country of Haiti, which has had over time multiple sufferings of one kind and another. And they particularly name in 2010, there was a seven point earthquake that killed 200,000 people. Just take that number a minute. It's just mind boggling. 200,000 people and basically flattened the country. All the structures are gone. The infrastructure was gone. Many of the crops were destroyed. It was very devastating. And seven years later was Hurricane Matthew, which killed over 1,000 people and once again flattened the newly erected structures and infrastructure.

[25:15]

So as you would imagine, all over the world, responses came from people sending money, sending food. first responders came to the country to help people to set up tents, to have healthcare be somewhat available for emergencies, to bring water in, et cetera. Wonderful response, very organic, natural, Avalokiteshvara-esque response. And then what the filmmakers begin to describe is when it moved into chronic help, as opposed to immediate and necessary help. So the chronic help, for example, is when a number of non-government organizations, UN organizations, for-profit and non-for-profit groups come into the country to help people live there. They live well in the country. They are salaried and their job is to fix, to support the country.

[26:18]

without necessarily consulting with the Haitians about what the Haitians think might be helpful or necessary. So there were two examples I'll give just because I think they illustrate action that has a right intention but a very different impact. They speak of a young Haitian man who in his garage manages to create a prototype for solar street lamps. And he is able to start to manufacture them. He gets loans from someplace and starts to manufacture them and eventually creates a business where he has eight employees. So he's able to support the families of those eight employees and his own family. And it's a growing business that will serve the country. And at the same time, a European solar manufacturer donates several million dollars worth of solar equipment, which basically wipes this man's operation out.

[27:26]

And it's not quite made clear in the film, but the innuendo is that there was not even an awareness that there were people in the country creating solutions, solar solutions. So there's not a, doesn't appear to be a full conversation. So his business is wiped out. The other example they give is of Haiti is a rice growing country and their crops of course got decimated. And so they were in the process of replanting the rice, et cetera. So the immediate need was for food at the beginning, but over time as rice then began to be grown, there was not that need as much need for the food. But the American government was subsidizing American farmers to grow rice to send to Haiti for free.

[28:26]

Again, you have this place where the the growth that's arising again in Haiti is being suppressed or wiped out by goodwill, by good actions, but without consultation, apparently not sufficient consultation with Haitians about what they understand they need, what they want, what's the support that they need. So, yeah, there's this old adage about giving fish as opposed to teaching people how to fish. I think there should be a third part of that adage, which is the Haitians already know how to fish. It's not like they need fishing instruction. They may need some support with certain supplies. They may have certain needs that they have that they can certainly ask for, but it can't be assumed that

[29:27]

people from the outside know what the people of Haiti need. And that's what the film is really about. When is the impact of action negative, even if the intention is positive, so to speak. And sometimes there's a sheer profit motive, if we can also say that. So how do we evaluate what is the right response? How do we actually, how can we know this? And I think for me, inherent in the question is we can't always know what is the right response when we take action. So we have to really be willing, I think, to, if we're taking an action to hear when we're on the wrong track, to get feedback from the people that we're trying to respond to, to even see if our response is useful, to keep checking that. to not hold on to our old forms and ways as the way to do something or the way other people should be doing it, but rather to hear what people who are in the, quote, the receiving end feel is needed.

[30:39]

So when we are talking about right speech, we have these sort of guidelines for right speech of time, place, person, amount. To whom am I speaking? When am I speaking? Is this the right time? Is this the right amount? Is this the right person to whom I'm speaking? Am I the right person to be speaking? Those are some of the guidelines that we use when we think about right speech that can also be applied to, I think, right action. Is this the right time? Is this the right place? How do we do this? Those questions are very useful, as well as what I would call guiding questions, which take it larger. Who, what is not being seen and heard?

[31:42]

If I take it personally, what am I not seeing or hearing in this situation? Which sounds like an oxymoron, because if I were seeing it or hearing it, that would change my behavior. But it's very useful to ask the question, what am I, for me, what am I not seeing or hearing? And then to be quiet, to see if I can allow some kind of knowing to arise in its own time. Who's being left out of the picture? Who am I leaving out in this consideration? What's actually wanted here? And another question might be, from whom do we need information or history or information about previous experiences in this situation? What is being called for? And then I think a really important question, which is probably the hardest one, is what do I, or we, what do I need to examine in myself here?

[32:50]

That's a hard one because inevitably we have some agendas and we have some self-servingnesses in some of our responses. We're just human and we have those, but it's important to ask the question of ourselves so we can release some of those attachments as we go. This really requires a good dose of, for me, a good dose of humility. and going back again to not knowing. So in this time of the growing awareness and activism around issues of systemic racism, One of the important lessons that I think has come out in this time, and I think it's a hugely valuable distinction to be made, is that between our intention and the impact of our actions, it's hugely useful.

[34:02]

Starting in the playground, children at about age four will say if there's an accident and they push somebody off the swing by accident or maybe sometimes not by accident, but let's just say by accident, children will say immediately, I didn't mean to, it's not my fault. Or if they've hurt somebody with words, they'll say, it was just a game. But the response is always, I didn't mean to, and therefore, that erases or justifies whatever it is that happened. So we learn this defensive behavior very, very early and we enact it in adult and more sophisticated forms as we grow up. So if we do something that we think is kindly or good or useful, we can be very taken by surprise when we hear that the impact of what we've done is not bad at all.

[35:12]

It has a whole other impact, it's landed in a different way. We all have, I keep trying to avoid this, we all have this functioning of our reptile brain. And our reptile brain is our evolutionary savior in one way, because it's kept us alive and functioning with lions and tigers, oh my, for many, many eons. So it's, at one level, very functional. We learn to defend by fleeing, by freezing, or by defending, by fighting. And that rises up in us any time we sense any kind of danger. It rises up in everybody. It's part of our nature, and you can meditate till the cows come home, and that will still be our first instantaneous response to danger.

[36:12]

So when we are confronted by people who are saying, the impact of what you just did was really painful, our first defense, our first response is, well, I didn't mean to, that's not what I meant at all. Oh, no, no, no, I didn't mean that at all. And it's very hard for us to do that second step. Thank goodness we have practice because we do have practice. And sitting Zazen over years really gives us this gift of being able to feel the animal response, the reptilian defended response, and to learn to actually be able to name or see or feel our heart beating faster, our stomach muscles getting tighter, our jaw firming up, our hands stiffening up. or however each of us does that in our bodies to be able to notice that and not enact it, but simply to notice it and be with it.

[37:22]

And even the very process that we always do of returning to the breath for two or three breaths buys us a whole shift of position and stance. So we're somewhat better able to hear or to see or to not to put our fists, our metaphorical fists down in order to make space for a more compassionate response. So that's the good news of our, one of the good news is of our practice, I think. Some, I'm gonna try to speed this up a little bit. I wanted to speak of group response. Let me go to that and skip something else I was gonna talk about. I was in a group at the Zen Center in Los Angeles called the Many Hands and Eyes. And due to a number of events that had happened in the sangha, we wanted to explore together as a group collective wisdom and right action.

[38:35]

And so we brought into that into that training group and it went on and on. It was a very long process. We brought in two teachers, two leaders from the outside to help us explore right response within sangha as a collective. And they spoke about and talked about what they called the scallop principle, which was a brand new one for me. So I'll do my best to illustrate it. There are different, subspecies, I guess, of scallops, but there are some scallops that have, this is a scallop, that have a hundred eyes in each of their scallopy places. They have iridescent blue eyes. If one of their eyes gets hurt or wounded or destroyed, they can eventually regenerate the eye. But if you see here,

[39:37]

Each eye has a different perspective out into the ocean. No two have the same perspective, just like us. And so the scallop's perspective, he has three things, he or she has three things in mind. The first one is enemies. Where is the danger here? And what do I need to do to protect, to close up, to clam up, so to speak, so I'm protected. That's the first one. The second one is, where's the food? And the third one is, where's my honey? You know, where's my mate? And it's in that order, defense, food, mate. So if one of these eyes is dysfunctional, that perspective to the ocean is lost temporarily. So in effect, in the scallop principle, The idea is that every single eye or every single voice is necessary to the best well-being function and wisdom of the collective, of the sangha.

[40:50]

And without that, to that degree, there is loss and limitation. So I've had the experience many times of sitting in council meetings and finding this wisdom that arises always in a surprising way from different corners of the room, sometimes from voices that outside the council are rarely heard, but great wisdom emerges in its own way when there is a place for that deep listening. It always thrills me actually and surprises me. So I think the same principles apply whether we're talking about individuals or the functioning of a sangha in terms of appropriate response to suffering and needs. So let me stop here and I want to make time for your questions and your reflections and I would most particularly love to hear from people who are new

[42:03]

or people who don't often speak in the group. With your questions and responses, let me end with this end of the koan, the appreciatory verse. Hands and eyes before you manifest complete functioning. The great function is everywhere. How could there be any hindrance? Thank you. So we invite you to raise your virtual hand, the blue hand, which can be found if you open the participants column there. Thank you, Heather. And you can also type a question and please put the word question and then type the question that will draw my attention to it. So I invite Heather to unmute yourself and ask a question.

[43:07]

Good morning, Penelope. Good morning, Heather. I can't find you yet, but I know you're there. Thank you so much for your talk. This was beautiful. The question of intent versus impact is such a live topic for me, and especially, I mean, in any part of life, but especially in social change. And I think this is so complicated and complex. And I often feel like we talk, in the conversations I'm in, we get to the naming of the dynamic between intent and impact, but then we don't get to the part where we talk about what do you do with the impact? And I'm wondering, sometimes there can be big surprises in the impact, that I've had or I've seen other people have. And it can be really easy to retract after that because you don't know how to make sense of something you've done, which wasn't your intent.

[44:13]

So I wonder if you can offer any insight into forgiveness of self or re-engagement after that impact or how to stay present when we know that we've done harm that we did not intend to do. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I think this is, that's why, partly why I shared the story about Melanie D'Amour and the woman who responded, because for me, that response goes into what you're addressing. She got that she had done inadvertently, had an impact that was hard for, in this case, for Melanie. She was willing to hear it. And what was interesting for me, at least in Melanie's telling of this story, the woman did not go into, oh, you know, fragility or I made a terrible mistake, oh, I better not risk anything.

[45:14]

She didn't do that. She stayed in, which I think is one piece of this is instead putting your tail between your legs and slinking away in shame that we stay in to say, please, yeah, I feel I made an error here. I'm so sorry. And to really hear what the impact was, to be willing to hear. And even if it's bad, it's never as bad as our fantasy and our self-shaming processes are, I think. So I don't have a full answer for it. I do believe our practice helps a lot because we can notice shaming, we can notice self-shaming, we can notice self-critiquing, we can notice our own projecting of what other people may be thinking. We can notice it without attaching it in the same way over time. And that allows us space to self-forgive as we go along.

[46:17]

We have to know, any social situation in marriages, in relationships. There's just no way out of making mistakes and having negative impacts. Sometimes there's no escape. So that's my partial beginning answer into it. Yeah. How about you? What do you think? I think sometimes stepping back to look at my own intentions or my own ignorance is important. And the place where it's been hard is when people, something happens and someone gets hurt and then they don't want to engage after. And knowing what to do with that energy. and knowing that it has something to do with what I did, and it also has something to do with the way they move through the world, and knowing how to engage in that spectrum is a lifelong practice for me.

[47:25]

It's a lifelong practice, but I think the issue has to do with willingness, ultimately with willingness. I will stay here I will stay here. I won't go away, even if I feel like I might die of discomfort here in this moment. Yeah, that's a first step. Thank you. Thank you. virtual blue, Susan Moon, please unmute yourself and ask a question. I thank you for that wonderful, helpful talk Penelope. You asked for new people and I wasn't raising my hand, but then there was no other hand. So I thought I'd make a mention of thought that came to me, which is something, a difficulty I've noticed in myself that relates to your talk, which is that sometimes when I have

[48:30]

done something that unintentionally hurt somebody and they were upset. Instead of what can happen that isn't at all wholesome is that I can get very caught up in, just as you say, trying to explain that it wasn't my intention and I didn't mean to. And instead of adapting my response and doing what's appropriate What I'm really trying to do is to get the person to tell me that they forgive me for doing that. And all of a sudden, the person has the additional job of taking care of me and saying, no, I still love you, even if you did that, which is something that I sort of hate to notice in myself, but that happens sometimes. That's kind of born of this terrible desire to have everybody like you all the time. And so it's important to be able to put that aside too. Thank you.

[49:32]

Yes, absolutely. So we keep discovering in these Interchange is just, we're just human. We're just gonna be doing our best here. So that rises up too. I made a mistake and I immediately want the other to erase it and say, oh, I know you didn't mean to. Oh, you're such a sweetheart and you're a wonderful person and so generous. We have this, it's just part of us. So my best shot is to be able to see it. And to be very loving with myself, to laugh with myself, not at myself, but to say, oh, there you go again, Finafia, okay. You know, like that, rather than to have my finger up in self-chastisement, which is hard. Hard to do, yeah. Thank you, Susan. Peter Overton, I invite you to unmute yourself and ask a question. Hi Penelope, thank you very much for this very interesting and complex talk.

[50:43]

I just want to go back for a second to, you know, usually I think of something a little oversimplified, but I want to go back to the koan you raised at the beginning to ask about the bodhisattva of compassion and what happens when the reptilian brain emerges strong for the bodhisattvas' compassion. That would be us. That would be what you're asking about, right? I mean, according to Daido, Luria and I couldn't agree more. We all are this. We all have this. This is our nature, to be bodhisattvas of compassion. And I don't know about the original bodhisattvas in time, but I know for this bodhisattva and all these bodhisattvas, I imagine, That rises up. This part of us that's defensive or wants to be seen in a certain light or is self-protective in some way, as I said, I don't think we get rid of it.

[51:48]

I think the compassionate action has to do with being able to notice it and keep it company without enacting it. I can't find you, Peter. I know you're there. I'm here. OK. Is it that having a thousand hands and eyes allows one to hold compassion for all the different people in the room? Including oneself. Including oneself. Am I actually beginning with oneself almost? I think so. I do think so. We tend to talk about, when we think about compassion, we tend to think about putting it out. But I think it necessarily starts in... inside yeah i can't see you i did that address what you were yes thank you i'm bowing to you now okay jake van akron uh please uh unmute yourself and ask a question hi penelope hi jake uh

[52:58]

Just a marvelous talk. One thing that really moved me was your story of Melanie going to the family reunion back in the heartland and what courage she had to speak up. She could have just let it slide. So, you know, as a former school teacher, fifth and sixth graders, I always was taken by students who would raise their hand and disagree and say, but you're not looking at this to the rest of us. Yes. I want to just say to you, I remember back in an election sachine of a couple of years ago, you called me on something. And I think my immediate response was, well, I didn't mean to, but we took it, to the next level, and that has certainly deepened our relationship, and I feel much closer to you for your doing that.

[54:10]

And so my question is, how can we, in our group, our sangha, encourage people to say, but wait a minute, as Melanie did in that group? Thanks. Yeah, well, big question. It's a muscle that maybe we elaborate over time, but the story that rises up is, and this is told in so many different community settings, but of the person in the sangha or in the collective who's a total pain in the neck and is always being provocative and asking something that nobody else sees and just waving their hand in the air. And finally, they feel so much the censure of the community that they're about to leave, and they're just at the gate, and the abbot or the teacher or whoever it is races after them to say, no, no, please don't leave. We need you.

[55:12]

And I think that's the scallop. That perspective is requisite, and we suffer when we don't have it, even when it's a pain in the neck. I remember when I was being trained as a chaplain, I, at the beginning, kept having this impulse to fix, to get people all tucked in and okay, and that actually is not the job. The job is being present and bearing witness and listening, and sometimes listening to things that were really hard to hear. I guess I'm sustained personally by the notion that I really do have a personal belief that we all are inherently Avalokiteshvara.

[56:13]

I really have that. I think we have this capacity for Manjushri and Avalokiteshvara both. And we have to practice it as a sangha to do it. I would wish in our sangha we had more councils I love council as a form. It allows the sangha to speak in transparent ways without correction, without any form of hierarchy. And it really allows for wisdom to emerge from very surprising places. So that's one of the ways I think we can invite wisdoms that may be uncomfortable for us to hear. I just lost you, Jake, but is that, oh, there you are. Does that come? Yes. Thank you for your wisdom. Nice to see you. Thank you. Okay, well, we seem to be coming to the end. And there's one more on my screen is Hickok.

[57:17]

Do we have time for that or no? We can, but first I'd like to, if we do have time, go on. Ed Herzog had a question. We were back and forthing. That's the word. If you please ask a question, Ed. Sure. Thank you, Penelope, so much for your talk. You're welcome. I often, I work with family members whose loved ones hear voices and have other extreme experiences. And one of the hardest things for them to do is to just be with their own response instead of acting out out of fear and anxiety, which I did many years ago. And making those decisions can have really devastating consequences instead of so often is what I do talk to them about being with their own experience and just listening from a place of curiosity.

[58:32]

And I didn't realize I was acting out of what you had just been talking much. Thank you for your testimony. Yeah, wonderful. Thanks. And finally, I'd like to invite Heiko to unmute yourself and ask a question. Thank you for a wonderful talk, Penelope. Luminous heart. My question is actually based on, I guess, kind of a misinterpretation of this koan that I took from the very beginning, which was, Calling on Avalokiteshvara is like reaching for our pillow. We know we will find it. Now I understand from what you've just said that's completely backwards and I'm that guy who's always doing that. So just the same. I'm very enriched by, and it sort of plugs into all that you've been talking about, how we have the capacity if we reach for Avalokiteshvara to generate our response.

[59:38]

That is to say, knowing not-self, and yet reaching for an answer that is not contained in us. This is a special kind of reaching that I think you were going for, but it is not... My take has always been, I don't have an answer, so I'm going to reach. The idea that we can always reach or that all the hands of Avalokiteshvara have an answer for us isn't so much of the attraction or the solution that I came to again backwards, as we can empty our mind and stand before a call for response and give it. And it's more brave than risking ego. putting up something you know, it's more brave than that because you're saying something you don't even maybe understand.

[60:47]

This is speaking from not self in my own sort of confused way. So the question I have is when we reach for the pillow, going to the koan, is it that we're reaching ourselves for a way to help? Or can you look at it that way? Or is it that we are always going to find help? How would you say? I think I hear that gesture as a portrayal of what's being spoken of throughout the Koan as natural functioning. When we're in bed at night and our head shifts or whatever it is, we organically reach behind us to find our pillow. It's an organic, natural response. And so when we are unimpeded

[61:49]

My take on this is that when we are unimpeded by our ego, by our fear, by our whatever else is possibly in the way, we organically are manifesting avalokiteshvara. We're organic in a very small, that's a small example of a larger thing. We're organically responding appropriately. It's appropriate function. I'm not quite sure I got at what you're, I'm not quite sure of your question. That sounds like what I'm saying. I think having come to it from such an odd place, I wasn't sure that it, but it sounds exactly like what I mean. Can we do Deb before we go? Deb's self? Deb's self. I invite you to unmute yourself and ask a question. Maybe this can be the last one. Luminous Heart, thank you. And I'm sorry, I only have a name on my box because my camera is broken.

[62:51]

Oh, okay. Thank you for the talk. One thought that just came to me was that reaching out and helping others may be as easeful as reaching out and caring for our own next needs. But that's not what I was going to say. The scallop Uh, metaphor is so, um, helpful and provocative to me, uh, in leading this new nonprofit where I am, where we are working so hard on diversity and, uh, more, uh, inclusive community service. And, um, I, I have a new, uh, diversity manager who challenged me, um, this week is always saying, but how do we figure out how to serve better the 14,000 students of color who are all white, mostly white organization is tasked with serving?

[63:54]

And how do we set up our evaluation and questions about how we can do this better? And she simply said, well, we have to be more diverse before we can even know. And I realized it's kind of like having all 400 eyes of the scallop in one scallop groove. And we're in this ecosystem with all the many beings all around the scallop. And it's just not really possible to engage in that ecosystem functionally without an eye in every scallop groove. So, thank you. You're very welcome. Still, the challenge is an invitation. It's not that solutions are immediate, but the invitation is present. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks.

[64:49]

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