I want to continue the discussion that several of you were here for yesterday, talking about things that came up last Thursday. I was part of what was billed as the first U.S.-Buddhist Leaders Conference at the White House. So Thursday I was in Washington, D.C., and in the morning we met nearby at George Washington University, and then we went to the White House. As a delegation, there were about 120, 130 Buddhists from a very wide, diverse context. Probably the strong majority of Asian-American communities, but a pretty diverse group. And we were there to express a number of things from a Buddhist perspective.

[01:09]

So we had some wonderful presentations in the morning, and then in the afternoon I heard briefings from a number of administration officials, and then there was some question and answer. But I want to, as I did yesterday, just briefly today, frame this in the context of the stories of suchness from our 9th century Chinese founder, Dongshan, and he talked about, well, there's a story about a monk asking Dongshan how to escape from hot and cold, and Dongshan said, go where there's neither hot nor cold. And the monk said, where's that? And Dongshan said, when it's cold, freeze to death. When it's hot, burn to death. So there's a whole range of contexts that that might bring up.

[02:13]

Suzuki Roshi, when he came to California, spoke about the success, just hot Buddha, cold Buddha. Or that we only know hot in comparison to cold, and vice versa. But also, hot and cold, and the extremes of hot and cold. The story brings up the issue of climate, and in terms of the relevance of the story for us, of course, the situation of climate change and climate damage is producing all kinds of extremes of weather all around the world, and lots of effects of that. And this was a major part of what we were doing at the White House in Washington. So I want to talk about that a little bit, and then have some discussion. One thing I'll say, it was just a pretty neat event. One of the things that happened was the first Vesak ceremony in the White House, which is

[03:15]

a traditional, mostly South Asian ceremony. This happens in May for honoring Buddha's birthday, his enlightened day. So that happened in the White House. And part of what we were there for is to be recognized as an American Buddhist community, an American religious community, in comparison to other religious entities that express themselves in the public sphere. So there was some discussion of that and the context of that. Well, let me start with the morning program. And I won't go into all of the details, but there were a number of presentations. One by Duncan Williams, who's an academic from USC, but also a Japanese Shinto shukri. He's talked about the history of Buddhist engagement in this country, and he was focusing

[04:17]

on the Japanese-American situation and Soto priests involved in labor situations in Hawaii where the first Asian-Americans came. And there's also the history of the Chinese-American and many of them Buddhists who were involved in building the railroads. But he was focusing on the Japanese context and also the concentration camps in the United States during World War II where Japanese-Americans were interred. So Duncan's working on a book about that, and there's a lot to say about that. But there was a kind of response by Buddhist priests to try and express perspectives to the government, including labor strikes in the 20s in Hawaii. One of the highlights to me of the event was a presentation in the morning by Biku Bodhi,

[05:26]

who is a wonderful Theravada monk, an American from New Jersey, one of the main translators of the old Pali Theravada texts. And he's also very active in terms of talking about climate and other issues. So I read in detail yesterday his Buddhist diagnosis in terms of the Four Noble Truths of the situation of the climate crisis. I'm not going to go over that whole thing today. He has also a simple and practical version of that, which I will go over. And a bunch of this is going to be posted on our website. So this was an issue that came up in the afternoon, too. But I'll just say a little bit about Biku Bodhi's short version. He says he talked about, and he puts it all in Buddhist context.

[06:26]

So the first hack in this simpler version is to abstain from all evil. So he said, one, rescind subsidies to fossil fuel corporations. Two, impose a carbon tax to ensure costs of fossil fuel extraction and pollution so that they are built into the market price of carbon, because the fossil fuels now are not truly engaged in terms of their effects on the economy. Three, reject trade agreements that allow corporations to prevail over sovereign governments, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership that many people are trying to enact now. Four, reject Keystone XL Pipeline and other mega-oil pipelines. Five, prohibit oil trains or train bombs, a danger to communities along the routes. And there are many of these around Chicago now. Trains with large quantities of oil, and we've seen train derailments recently.

[07:27]

Six, shift away from model of industrial agriculture, including intensive livestock breeding, which is responsible for 32% of global carbon emissions. So that's the first hack, to abstain from all evil, which is one of our main precepts. And then two, to cultivate the good. Which is also one of our main precepts. One, provide subsidies and low interest loans to clean renewable energy projects. Two, finance refurbishing of old buildings to make them energy efficient. Three, promote mass production of electric and hybrid cars. Four, develop better, more efficient means of public transportation to replace the private automobile. Five, promote agro-ecological models to replace industrial agriculture. So, oh, three, to purify one's own mind. Develop contentment, the basis for a steady state economy based on the principle of sufficiency

[08:32]

dedicated to qualitative growth, rather than endless production and consumption. Two, utilize wisdom to understand the long-range and long-term consequences of our action, rooted in the subtle interconnections of diverse chains of causality. So that was one of the things that came up in the afternoon with the administration spokespeople talking about Buddhist values and values from a long-time perspective. Three, arouse a heart of compassion, extending loving concern to all people everywhere on Earth, based on deep inner identification and respect for human dignity. So, we just chanted the Metta Sutra, may all beings be happy. This is the basic principle in all of Buddhism. This caring for and seeing interconnectedness of all beings, not just those who control the fuel systems and control the government and media.

[09:35]

Four, advocate for justice to establish the necessary social, economic, and political institutions, laws, and modes of governance that offer everyone the conditions needed to unfold their potentials and realize their best aspirations. So, obviously, this is a kind of set of ideals of how a sane sense of production would be, that would alleviate climate crisis. The climate crisis is very severe, I think we all know. So, there were two statements that were offered by, it was voluntary, but I think many of the Buddhist participants signed them. One was a Buddhist statement on racial justice, and another was a Buddhist declaration on climate change. Let me actually read that, but I want to first say some more about what happened. One of the things was that in the morning was a presentation of various groups,

[10:45]

Buddhist groups who are doing various activities to help. And so in our discussion yesterday, we talked about what we might do more actively here, and so that's something that a number of us are thinking about. But I'll just mention a few of the groups. The Tzu Chi Foundation is based in China, in Taiwan, and does a lot of relief work around the world. Soka Gakkai, which comes from the Lotus Sutra schools in Japan, actually the organizer of the whole thing, the main organizer was a fellow named Bill Aiken, who works in Washington on the Soka Gakkai project, and their main project is nuclear disarmament, which doesn't get talked about so much anymore, but actually it's very important, the number of nuclear weapons that are in the world. So they're working towards actual nuclear disarmament.

[11:46]

The Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and we have a chapter that meets here monthly from Chicago, is kind of getting renewal nationally, and one of the things that, well, they talked about direct actions that they're organizing in the West Coast and other places to just sit in front of places where the causes of climate change are happening, and in some cases to actually block the entrance and make an impact and call attention to this. One of the things that happened is that afterwards, after the main conference, the BPF people had made these big banners that we held outside the White House afterwards. Some of us, things like, The Karma of Slavery is Heavy, I'm Bound to Work for Racial Justice. The pictures of those will be on our website and Facebook. So there was a variety of discussion that happened in the morning.

[12:56]

Then in the afternoon, we went to the White House, to the Executive Office Building, which is part of the White House, and this large group met there. We had this ceremony, and we had briefings by a number of administration officials. A couple of them were very impressive. There was a fellow from the State Department who works with religious conflict around the world. People brought up issues, like in Burma, where Buddhists, there's one area in Burma there, Buddhists who are actually persecuting, in a very horrible way, a Muslim minority. We talked about that some. This is his area. Actually, before he became a member of the Obama administration, he was a religion professor. His relatively small part of the State Department works with religious conflicts in various places.

[14:05]

One of the participants is from the Chittagong Hills area of Bangladesh, talked about the way Buddhists are being persecuted there. He responded in terms of talking about the limitations of what they can do. They work a lot in the Middle East, too. So, the whole idea of going as a religious group to lobby the governmental leaders is something that I think American Buddhists haven't done so much, but they were really welcomed, our presence there. There was also a woman who's part of the U.S. Institute of Peace, and they work on nonviolent resolution. She's actually also a religious scholar, and she's doing a dissertation on Buddhism, but she's also a minister in the United Church of Christ, I think. Anyway, very impressive people.

[15:07]

But again, she was talking a lot about the limitations of their budget and what they can do. Someone asked her about responding to religious conflict in various ways here in the United States and brought up Baltimore and the racial situation. That institution, the U.S. Institute of Peace, is funded by Congress, and not so well, not nearly as much as one fighter jet. So, they were talking about the limitations of what they could do, but they actually welcomed us there, and one thing that was said suggested that, and this isn't something that I thought of, but that Buddhists who contact, in order for Buddhists to be heard as a voice by governmental leaders, that Buddhists who contact Congress people or the president or other government officials,

[16:12]

as I know some of you do, might actually say that you're speaking from Buddhist values, and that way they would hear that there is concern. So, we talked about how to express those values in the context of all of the difficulties. So, there are many aspects to the whole event. I have to say that one of the people who spoke was an official from the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and she was talking about how wonderful the Obama climate plan was. I questioned her specifically about, in the previous week, allowing oil drilling in the Arctic, which is really terrible for the climate, and fracking and how dangerous that is, and that's something that's been, gas promotion has been promoted some by the administration,

[17:15]

and also nuclear power, and given that our lineage comes from Japan, given Fukushima, how uneconomic that is and how dangerous that is, and then also the Trans-Pacific Partnership. So, I mentioned those, and other people mentioned things too, but she basically avoided, as people recently questioned. She's a skillful little baby. To me, part of the point of doing this is to get our voices heard, and maybe have some influence on the people in the government who make policy, but it's also for us. There'll be a picture of the whole group of Buddhist attendees on our website. It was quite diverse, and everybody there was concerned about various public issues, and issues of justice, and issues of religious freedom,

[18:17]

and so there were these two statements that were signed by many of the participants. I'm just going to read this Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change, and then I want to just open this up for discussion and comments and responses. The time to act is now, with this Declaration on Climate Change, May 14, 2015. Today we live in a time of great crisis, confronted by the greatest challenge that humanity has ever faced, the ecological consequences of our own collective karma. The scientific consensus is overwhelming. Human activity is triggering environmental breakdown on a planetary scale. Global warming in particular is happening much faster than previously predicted. Most obviously in the North Pole, for hundreds of thousands of years, the Arctic Ocean has been covered by an area of sea ice as large as Australia,

[19:19]

but now this is melting rapidly. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecast that the Arctic might be free of summer sea ice by 2100. It is now apparent that this could occur within a decade or two. Greenland's vast ice sheet is also melting more quickly than expected. The rise in sea level this century will be at least one meter, enough to flood many coastal cities and vital rice-growing areas, such as the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. Glaciers all over the world are receding quickly if current economic policies continue, and the use of fossil fuels will ease them. The glaciers of the Tibetan Plateau, source of the great rivers that provide water for billions of people in Asia, are likely to disappear by mid-century. Severe drought and crop failures are already affecting Australia and northern China. Major reports from the IPCC, the International Panel on Climate Change,

[20:22]

from the United Nations, from the European Union, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature all agree that without a collective change of direction, dwindling supplies of water, food, and other resources could create famine conditions, resource battles, and mass migrations by mid-century, perhaps by 2030, according to the UK's chief scientific advisor. Global warming plays a major role in other ecological crises, including the loss of many plant and animal species that share the Earth with us. Oceanographers report that half the carbon released by burning fossil fuel has been absorbed by the oceans, increasing their acidity by about 30%. Acidification is disrupting calcification of shells and coral reefs, as well as threatening plankton growth, the source of the food chain for most life in the sea. Eminent biologists and UN reports concur that business as usual will drive half of all species on Earth to extinction within this century.

[21:25]

Collectively, we are violating the first precept, do not harm living beings, on the largest possible scale, and we cannot foresee the biological consequences for human life when so many species that invisibly contribute to our own well-being vanish from the planet. Many scientists have concluded that the survival of human civilization is at stake. We have reached a critical juncture in our biological and social evolution. There has never been a more important time in history to bring the resources of Buddhism to bear on behalf of all living beings. The Four Noble Truths provide a framework for diagnosing our current situation and formulating appropriate guidelines, because the threats and disasters we face ultimately stem from the human mind and therefore require profound changes within our minds. If personal suffering stems from craving and ignorance, from the three poisons of greed, ill-will, and delusion, the same applies to the suffering that affects us on a collective scale.

[22:31]

Our ecological emergency is a larger version of the perennial human predicament. Both as individuals and as a species, we suffer from a sense of self that feels disconnected not only from other people but from the Earth itself. As Thich Nhat Hanh has said, we are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness. We need to wake up and realize that the Earth is our mother as well as our home, and in this case the umbilical cord binding us to her cannot be severed. When the Earth becomes sick, we become sick, because we're part of her. Our present economic and technological relationships with the rest of the biosphere are unsustainable. To survive the rough transition ahead, our lifestyles and expectations must change. This involves new habits as well as new values. The Buddhist teaching that the overall health of the individual and society depends upon inner well-being and not merely upon economic indicators

[23:33]

helps us determine the personal and social change we must make. Individually, we must adopt behaviors that increase everyday ecological awareness and reduce our carbon footprint. Those of us in the advanced economies need to retrofit and insulate our homes and workplaces for energy efficiency, lower thermostats in winter and raise them in summer, use high-efficiency light-bolted appliances, turn off unused electrical appliances, drive the most fuel-efficient cars possible, and reduce most consumption of meat to keep us in favor of a healthy, environmentally friendly plant-based diet. But these personal activities will not by themselves be sufficient to avert future calamity. We must also make institutional change, both technological and economic. We must decarbonize our energy systems as quickly as feasible by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources that are limitless, benign, and harmonious with nature. We especially need to halt the construction of new coal plants

[24:36]

since coal is by far the most polluting and most dangerous source of atmospheric carbon. Wisely utilized wind power, solar power, tidal power, and geothermal power can provide all the electricity that we require without damaging the biosphere. This is true. We have the resources that we need. Since up to a quarter of world carbon emissions result from deforestation, we must reverse the destruction of forests, especially the vital rainforest belt where most species of plants and animals live. It has recently become quite obvious that significant changes are also needed in the way our economic system is structured. Global warming is intimately related to the gargantuan quantities of energy that our industries devour to provide the levels of consumption that many of us have learned to expect. From a Buddhist perspective, a sane and sustainable economy

[25:37]

would be governed by the principle of sufficiency. The key to happiness is contentment rather than ever-increasing abundance of goods. This is fundamental to Buddhism, to limit desires and to limit consumption and to appreciate and feel grateful for what we are and have is basic contentment. The compulsion to consume more and more is an expression of craving, the very thing that Buddha pinpointed as the root cause of suffering. Instead of an economy that emphasizes profit and requires perpetual growth to avoid collapse, we need to move together towards an economy that provides a satisfactory standard of living for everyone, while allowing us to develop our full, including spiritual, potential in harmony with the biosphere that sustains and nurtures all beings, including future generations. If political leaders are unable to recognize the urgency of our global crisis

[26:38]

or unwilling to put the long-term good of humankind above the short-term benefit of fossil fuel corporations, we may need to challenge them with sustained campaigns of citizen action. So this is a Buddhist call for action. Dr. James Hansen of NASA and other climatologists have recently defined the precise targets needed to prevent global warming from reaching catastrophic tipping points for human civilization to be attainable, sustainable. The safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now more than 350 parts per million. This target has been endorsed by the Dalai Lama along with other Nobel laureates and distinguished scientists. Our current situation is particularly worrisome in that the present level is already 387, that would be 50 parts per million of carbon, and has been rising at 2 parts per million per year. We are challenged not only to reduce carbon emissions, but also to remove large quantities of carbon gas already present in the atmosphere.

[27:42]

As signatories to this statement of Buddhist principles, we acknowledge the urgent challenge of climate change. We join with the Dalai Lama in endorsing the 350 parts per million target. In accordance with Buddhist teachings, we accept our individual and collective responsibility to do whatever we can to meet this target, including, but not limited to, the personal and social responses outlined above. We have a brief window of opportunity to take action, to preserve humanity from imminent disaster, and to assist the survival of the many diverse and beautiful forms of life on Earth. Future generations and the other species that share the biosphere with us have no voice to ask for our compassion, wisdom and leadership. We must listen to their silence. We must be their voice to enact on their behalf. So, I did want to read that whole thing, just because I think it puts it very well, and many of you already know about all of this.

[28:46]

And, you know, how we get to the possibilities that are here from where we're at now is very unclear. I don't think we can... So the point of going to the White House was, you know, not that we're going to get them to change everything so that they will fix it. This is something we all have to do. One of the things I liked about this conference was that there was the explicit sense that this was not a one-time thing. It will go back next year, next year to the Capitol and lobby Congress. So, I think it's... You know, our Buddhist practice, our Zazen practice is about, in part, turning the light within and seeing ourself and seeing our own personal patterns of grasping and anger and aversion and confusion and getting to know that and loosening up our attachments

[29:47]

and becoming more settled and more flexible in our own lives. But with this situation that we're in now, we have to see that all of that is connected to what's happening in the world. And part of that... So the fellow who was here at the end of last year, G.U. Woodbury, and he's talking about planetary hospice and eco-psychology, is now framing that as climate grief. It's important that we feel the sadness and difficulty of the whole situation, but then also that we respond. And it's not clear how change will come, but there are things we can do to act and respond, and partly just talking about it and acknowledging it.

[30:48]

It's not illegal in this state to talk about climate change. And maybe direct action won't be needed in Washington or in Chicago to call attention to this more. Anyway, maybe that's enough for me to say now. We have a little bit more time if anyone has comments, questions, or responses. Please feel free. Yes. I just wanted to add three quick points. First, it's over 400 parts per million now. Second, the concept of positive feedback cycles, the idea that after one degree Celsius temperature increase, the climate becomes unstable, and there's a runaway effect whereby it's increasingly uncontrollable. MIT says that we have until 2035. After 2035, the entire industrial might of the whole world, if devoted solely to climate change, will not be enough to solve the problem. And third, I believe that cannabis and psilocybin mushrooms in particular

[31:54]

might provide a kind of agricultural substitution for many of the industrial practices that we have developed over the last century. And I think that we should either directly lobby the White House or Mayor Emanuel because he's the person who can push legislation through Congress. Well, I agree that our current drug laws are very harmful and that we have to scrap a huge rate of incarceration, which is very unjust and racist. But I'm not sure that psilocybin is the solution to all of this. I think Zazen and settling and, you know, with all due respect to psilocybin. I just don't mean that people should trip more.

[32:56]

I don't mean that at all. Psilocybin actually has a regenerative effect on soil that many people don't get. Okay, well, there are many other things. Yeah, so I don't want to get into a whole bunch of drugs. Yeah, there are. That is one. There are other plants that help regenerate the soil and help with carbon. So anyway, but partly, you know, our Zazen is part of what needs to happen. Not that everybody in the world is ever going to sit Zazen, or maybe, but that becoming more aware, becoming more settled, becoming more flexible and open is part of how we can respond more effectively. Other comments, questions, responses, or, you know, there have been people who have been objected to going to the White House for all kinds of reasons, but feel free to do that, too, if you want. Claire. I just wanted to ask you if this particular piece that you read tonight is up on the website,

[33:57]

or if you will put it up. It's in the process of getting up on the website, along with other documents, and these statements and pictures of the events. So I was wondering about that today. Yes, Jen. I've been reading about this, and I discovered what somebody else discovered. That is that this man named Rudiman, who does ice core investigations, they have found that increased carbon in the atmosphere actually began 8,000 years ago, and the huge burden of carbon dioxide that's in the air now stems from that beginning, when human beings first began to cut forests, and then 6,000 years ago they began to burn forests. And so the buildup didn't start 200 years ago we got the logarithmic buildup,

[35:07]

but before that time, for the previous 8,000 years, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been building up, and it's a tremendous burden that has been placed on our generation, because up to a certain point, the major part of the carbon burden came from ancient man. And then another really interesting thing is that the son of Charles Keating, and Charles Keating was truly a pioneer in understanding the buildup of carbon in the atmosphere, now his son has gone on, and in the year 1988 he got a PhD at Harvard, because he invented the contractions that would measure the loss of oxygen. And it turns out that there's been a prediction of the amount of the loss of oxygen in the atmosphere,

[36:09]

and the predictions were off by a factor of 10. And it seems like it's not that much to worry about, because carbon dioxide is 0.4% of the atmosphere, and oxygen is 21%. So, well, it's gone down to 19. And those are just things that are so interesting to me that I wanted to bring them up. They're not particularly spiritual or Buddhist, but I just wanted to bring them up. Thank you. Bill? I thought you were raising your hand. You said that the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and Soka Gakkai were represented as organizations, were there other organizations? Yeah, the Tsuchi Foundation, there were about six organizations who were doing specific programs,

[37:15]

and there are many, many more, but there are many Buddhist organizations who are doing specific things, One Earth Sangha is another one that maybe there's some way for us to connect with, that is kind of collecting information about various Buddhist initiatives, Buddhist-involved initiatives. And was there good press coverage while you were there? I haven't seen it yet, but I heard that the Washington Post had a very good article about the event the day before it happened, so I've had a chance to look for last Wednesday's Washington Post. Since then, there's been some coverage within the Buddhist media, so I don't know, really, I don't know if anybody else has seen anything about it. I'm just thinking, I'm sorry, I'm just thinking in terms of perhaps the public perception of what happened is maybe more important than the lobbying aspect of it,

[38:17]

and so if there's any coordinating group that can publicize this whole thing, I think that could be a good thing. Yeah, I think the people who were organizing it, there was an organizing group of six, including Sally King, who's a very good scholar, and Duncan Williams and Bipu Bodhi as well as, but anyway, I think they're working on that. But, you know, part of it is just that people in the administration heard that there's a large, active, interested, engaged community of Buddhists in this country. There are more Buddhists in this country than Hindus, more Buddhists than Muslims, but yet Buddhists have not been heard in terms of lobbying efforts. Yes, Ben. I greatly appreciated in the statement the emphasis of the necessary contentment

[39:23]

that will have to come to recognize the truth of the matter in whatever catastrophes fall from those truths that we're doing. And I was wondering if there was wider discussion about modern examples of catastrophes and Buddhist responses to catastrophes. Yeah, well, the Tzu Chi Foundation was one of the groups that spoke, and they specialize in doing relief work, and they've fallen out, but they've been engaged in sending relief to places in need pretty widely. So, you know, there's so many levels of responses that are needed. And, you know, one thing is that there's not one right response, there's not one right strategy or tactic. People sometimes get self-righteous about, hopefully not Buddhist,

[40:24]

but about particular approaches or strategies or tactics. We don't know what's going to make the change. But, yeah, there are Buddhist groups working on specifically relief efforts. And, actually, we had on our Facebook a number of those that are very helpful now in Nepal. And so please look at that on Facebook if you want to make a donation. We did collect some and send some to some of those groups. So there's so many different issues and so much that's needed. And one of the most important things is not feeling helpless and despair and overwhelmed by all that. The positive side of that is that there's a lot that we can do. And whatever we do will make a difference. Yes. I was just going to dovetail off of what you just said. There's been a lot of research on the sort of apocalyptic message that you often hear about climate change,

[41:32]

with the evils that are occurring in Nepal. The response, at least the American population, has an apocalyptic message. It's very fatalistic. And it is not one that motivates action. It might be one that preaches to the choir but does not preach beyond. And it's essential that we preach beyond. And what research does suggest is going to reach the choir, or preach beyond the choir, excuse me, is to start talking about a more positive vision of what a carbon-free economy and future could look like. So, I don't know who said this, but the analogy is Martin Luther King did not give a speech about, I have a nightmare. He gave a speech about, I have a dream. And so what we really need is a rhetoric.

[42:33]

This is the dream of the future, of the carbon-less future. And it needs to be really positive and motivating. And so it needs to be a really strong energy to change that message from this apocalyptic doom and gloom, as much as it's true, to one of, but here's what we could be, and sort of invite people into this reality. And I think Buddhists have a lot to say about the really contentment and joy that is here for us. So, thank you. Thank you very much. And maybe we'll close with that. This is a long-term discussion. I'm going to finish this discussion tonight, and it's a little past time. But I think what you're bringing up is maybe the most important contribution that Buddhism and our tradition can make to the change that's needed. There are many, many sources within Buddhist sutras, within the idea of the Pure Land,

[43:39]

various ideas of interconnectedness, visions of possibility for human beings and for life on Earth that are positive, that involve cooperation and collaboration and interconnectedness rather than competition and getting as much as I can for me. And so part of what, one of the great contributions that we can make, that each of you is already making, just by working on your seat, on your situation, is to see wholeness and to see possibilities and to have a positive outlook, as you say. I don't, you know, we don't know how, what's going to happen as a result of climate change. We know it's going to really change the way we live now and the way our culture is built.

[44:43]

And, you know, our shazam can give us the flexibility to adapt to that together. And Sangha is also important in that, that we have a space, a community where we can talk together about this and think about things that we might do together. And so we're thinking about that. So this is not a call for gloom and doom. This is a call for, you know, acting in a way that actually is, can be joyful, to be making a contribution to not, you know, something that is sustainable, that is, that is appreciated, is content with our situation. So anyway, there's so much more to say, but we'll close for now. Thank you.

[45:39]

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