Good morning, everyone. Good morning. A couple of Sundays ago, I talked about marginalized beings and how our precepts include all beings, benefiting all beings, and also speaking truth about it. So a couple of Mondays ago, Professor Charles Strang talked about The Bodhisattva and the Prophet, based on his book, focusing on Thich Nhat Hanh as a model of Bodhisattva and Dan Berrigan as a model of the prophetic. So I think the prophetic is part of what we need to include in modern Buddhism. This calls forth our precept about speaking truth.

[01:01]

So I spoke a couple Sundays ago about various groups of beings marginalized in our current society, Muslims being stigmatized and stereotyped, immigrants of all kinds, people who speak Spanish as well as Arabic. African Americans, certainly, being murdered while unarmed by police regularly. And also, you know, Thomas Merton, another Catholic monk, other than Dan Berrigan, who talks about monks as marginalized beings, intentionally marginalized beings, being on the being willing to cross the margins and go into the margins between birth and death, between different kinds of beings, like Jizo being in all spaces.

[02:09]

And I think in some ways that applies to all of us as committed bodhisattva practitioners. So I want to talk today from this book, The Hidden Lamp, edited by Françoise Capon and Susan Moon, both of whom have spoken here at Ancient Dragon, about women. So, amongst others marginalized in our society, very much so are women and LGBT people. Women still have unequal pay for the same work. Women's health care is under attack in various ways. Women only were allowed to vote less than 100 years ago in our society, and some political funders are saying this vote should be taken away even now.

[03:15]

But this book, The Hidden Land, talks about our tradition of Zen and Buddhism. and many women who were important in it, and many stories about women. And so I'm going to talk about one of them today, and maybe a couple more in the next couple of weeks. And just like the karma of our society in terms of slavery and racism, we need to really look at the way African-Americans are mistreated. I think we have to acknowledge the karma of our Buddhist tradition and the way women have been marginalized. Well, of course, in almost all spiritual traditions. But anyway, the excerpt I want to focus on today has a response by my old friend Catherine Dennis.

[04:20]

And it talks about Dogen's writing about... It's called Dogen Sets the Record Straight. It's the title that Florence chose. And there's a writing from Dogen, Ehe Dogen, the 13th century founder of our tradition in Japan, that is, as far as I know, the strongest statement in all of Asian Buddhism of the spiritual equality of women. It's very powerful. and Catherine's reflection on it is very interesting in terms of some. So, this is, she's talking about an essay in Shobo Genzo called Raihai Tokuzui, which means making prostrations and realizing the marrow. Or she translates it as getting the marrow by doing prostrations. And it's a radical celebration of, as Catherine says, a radical celebration of women's strengths and equality as practitioners and teachers, and a condemnation of the misogynist views of Dogen's contemporaries.

[05:31]

There were other statements supporting women's equality in the sutras before Dogen, the Goddess in the Vimalakirti Sutra, and the Dragon King's Daughter in the Lotus Sutra. But anyway, here's the way it's presented in the book. Master A. H. Dogen said to his monks, there are foolish monks who make a vow never to look at a woman. Is this vow based on the teachings of the Buddhas, or on the teachings of the non-Buddhists, or on the teachings of Mara, the spirit of temptation and falsehood? Dogen says, what are the inherent faults of women, and what are the inherent virtues of men? There are unwholesome men and there are unwholesome women. Hoping to hear the Dharma and leave the household does not depend on being female or male." So, in terms of leaving home and embracing the Dharma. Before becoming free from delusion, men and women are equally not free from delusion.

[06:35]

At the time of being free from delusion and realizing the truth, there's no difference between men and women. If you go to look at a woman as some monk's monastics did. Must you then abandon women when you chant, beings are anomalous, I've got to save them? If you do so, you are not a bodhisattva. How can you call it the Buddha's compassion? So that's the excerpt from Dogen's writing that is quoted, is cited in the book. I wanted to say a little more from that essay by Dogen. It's just very powerful. In that time in Japan, and of course in Buddhism previously, all nuns were subordinate to monks. The most senior nun was considered below the most junior monk. We just have to face this as part of this tradition we come from, that we are transforming.

[07:35]

So just a couple of other excerpts from this. Nowadays there are some extremely stupid men who think women are nothing but sexual objects and providers of food. They neglect to consider that this kind of thinking results from wrong views. The Buddha's children should not be like this. If you detest women because they are objects of desire, shouldn't you also detest all men? Of course, you can also be objects of desire. When impure conditions occur, men become objects of desire, women become objects of desire, and those who are neither men nor women become objects of desire. things and dreams and mirages become objects of desire. He also says in this essay, and part of the context in Japan at his time is that there were great monastic centers, like Koyasan, the Shingon Center, where women were not allowed, period. So he talks about that in this essay, too, and how stupid that is. There are foolish monks in China, Dogen continues, who vow, I shall not look at a woman for countless lives to come.

[08:43]

This is, I think, the selection that's in the Hidden Land book. What dharma is this vow based on? Is it the dharma of ordinary society? Is it the Buddha dharma or non-Buddhist dharma? The dharma of celestial beings or demons? What demerit is there in femaleness? What merit is there in maleness? There are bad men and good women. If you wish to hear the Dharma and put an end to pain and turmoil, forget about such things as male and female. As long as delusions have not yet been eliminated, neither men nor women have eliminated them. When they are all eliminated and true reality is experienced, there is no distinction of male and female." So that's a different translation of this question in Hidden Land. So, yes, this states it very strongly, and it's very clear, and it should be clear to us as modern Western, or in Asia, Buddhists, that there's equality.

[09:54]

There's equality in spiritual capacity. One of the wonderful things about modern Buddhism, many wonderful things about the way it's transforming in modern society, incorporating some of the virtues of the West, is that now there are many women teachers, many great women. There have always been great women teachers and practitioners, but they weren't recognized. A few of them were. There are some who were. There are stories from, it says, 25 centuries of awakened women. And they're also commentary by modern women teachers. And I think in Zen, in America now, there are probably as many or maybe more women teachers than men. Our official lineage

[10:59]

is all men because of the way the history was written, but actually one of my teachers, one of my important teachers, Blanche Hartman, my Shiseo teacher, of course was a woman, and so there are many women in our lineage now. This book is remarkable in showing all, because each of the stories has a commentary by a contemporary woman teacher or practitioner, and so we can see how Really, this is an age of great women teachers. It's really something to celebrate. Catherine's reflection on this is really interesting, and partly I wanted to talk about this in celebration of Catherine. Catherine Thanes, she passed away two or three years ago. She was the teacher at the Santa Cruz Zen Center, and we were all friends. She was one of the a priest at Tassajara Bakery in the early 80s when I practiced there. So an old friend, really interesting person.

[12:03]

She'd been an artist and she could be very kind of, not strict, but just kind of this sense of purity. But also she had a light kind of a girlish side, even a fun side, even in her later years. Anyway, her reflections on this, on Dogen's very strong statement of the equality of women are really interesting. She says, as I was considering this passage, I found a line from Rumi. There's man and woman, and a third thing, too, in us. Rumi says, maybe that sums up my exploration of this koan about men and women and their prospects for liberation in this life. Some years ago, she continues, a student transgendered in our sangha. When she told me about her decision to do this, I did not know what was entailed, but I found resistance inside myself as she started, though.

[13:12]

hormonal changes that make possible their transformation into a man's body. What does it mean to be a woman, a man? Is it an inner or outer thing? I felt grief when my student initially told me about her plans and realized how deeply I had bonded with her as a woman. Although she told me she wasn't going away, I didn't know what might be the outcome of this profound change. Maybe she didn't know either. She educated me with written material, and she told me that not infrequently doctors decide which gender to assign to a newborn infant when the genitalia were unclear. This was interesting information at the theoretical level, but I still found myself using her instead of him, she instead of he. This felt unintentional But looking back, I wonder if inside I wanted to continue to relate to the woman I had known and the man she was turning into.

[14:18]

Oh, partly, I started to say, beginning, I wanted to talk about Catherine because in her, even though she passed away a few years ago, just this week, two of her Dharma successors gave transmission to each of them, to one of their Dharma successors. So her lineage has flourished. She continues, as time passed, she took her place as male in our community and began to express himself straightforwardly in a clear voice instead of remaining mostly quiet as she had been before. Even though I found that his essence remained the same, regardless of his outer form, the question of gender continued to feel immutable for me, an essential characteristic. I saw how important the distinction between male and female was for me. And I acknowledge that I engage with male and female students differently. I have different expectations of myself with each, and different expectations of them, as some of the members.

[15:22]

So this is really interesting as part of our human legacy. Of course, gender is very important. look at someone and you can define them in terms of male or female. We get that stuck in our head. And I think we have to acknowledge the karmic legacy of Buddhism in that there's some pattern or tendency, as she's going to go on to say, about entitling males more than females. And of course, that's so much a part of our society now, too. So this is a reflection of our society, but a reflection of kind of patriarchal societies in most cultures in the world for the last, I don't know, as I understand it, 3,000 years. Anyway, Catherine continues, I see how completely Dogen identified the mind of discrimination and exclusion when it comes to Buddhist practice in this essay.

[16:26]

In this essay, he made clear that women are equal to men in their capacity for religion, period. Perhaps surprisingly, that wasn't an issue for me in my early years at San Francisco Zen Center, especially since Judy Dixon, one of Suzuki Roshi's first disciples, was deeply recognized by him, and the legacy of her practice in San Francisco was well established. one of the women who is in our list of women ancestors. Kyosho, if you look in our list, we have her listed by a Japanese name, one of the last ones, Baiho... I forget the second name. Baiho Sesshinen. Yes, Baiho Sesshinen. Yeah, that's Tsukiroshi's dominant name for Trudy Dixon. She was a close student of Suzuki Roshi.

[17:32]

She's the one who edited all of the talks that became Zen Mind Beginner's Lunch. She's responsible for that book, which is the classic of Americans, and those were talks that, actually, Suzuki Roshi gave down in the peninsula to a group of women when he met them each week, and truly put those together as Zen Mind Beginner's Lunch. So she's important in our, So, Catherine says, the legacy of her practice in San Francisco was well established by the time I arrived at Bush Street. About half of Suzuki-Roshi's students were women, and Tuti died young from cancer, unfortunately. Catherine continues, for years after Suzuki-Roshi's death, the teachers at San Francisco Zen Center were all men. As I think back over my own experiences there, I begin to remember

[18:33]

What it was like to study and practice under only male teachers. I wanted to please my teachers and found myself acting with caution around them. Working with women felt freer, less bound by need for approval. It surprises me how persistent this conditioning has been. So, I can't know this as a male, but I've heard from women in our Sangha that there's this tension around relating to male teachers for women still. And intentionally, we have, well, a woman, Tenzo, a woman, Ino, Aishin and Gyoshin, and the greeter, Jisha today, Jane and Paula, and in Tsukiroshi's lineage. Now, there are many women teachers. I don't know what the percentage is, but there's at least as many women teachers. And still, how we relate to each other is different.

[19:38]

So Catherine goes on, I have learned a great deal from my transgender student. He experienced the process as one continuous transition, discovering how changes in his body and energy brought changes in his relationship with himself as well as with men and women. His masculine and feminine sensibilities merged smoothly, and I began to understand that, quote unquote, in transition, was in itself the most meaningful, enduring condition for him. As we are experimenting with gender roles in the 21st century, we are finding that opposites include each other. Yes includes no, no includes yes. Males and females include each other, psychologically, emotionally, sometimes physically as well. I am learning that The single term male or female is inadequate to express the complexity of our physical, emotional, and behavioral characteristics. As long as we are alive, we are all in transition.

[20:42]

Several women have told me how grateful they are to Dogan for his openness to women's practice in his time. My own gratitude is for the depth and subtlety of his explorations into our unexamined mind and for his warm encouragement. So this is interesting and important for us. Of course, the way our mind works is in terms of dichotomies. Male-female is the obvious one. Old-young, laypeople-priests, Buddhists, non-Buddhists, I don't know. We always do this. I think it's biological because we have left and right in front and back. We see in terms of duality. It's not always so, as Cynthia used to say. So, to see this, I've never known anyone, I've had transgendered students, I've known people who were transgendered, but I've never known them before the transition, so I've never seen that process, as Catherine witnessed.

[21:50]

You know, yin and yang sometimes identified as female and male, but I think more deeply it's kind of receptive and active. And my sense is that all of us have a kind of, some combination, some, you could say male and female side, active side, receptive side, how do we see, not get caught by the definitions? And again, not to speak to the truth of how women are. Maybe as a man I can't really say this or know this, but women are in lots of ways, maybe persecuted as too strong, but maybe it's not in this society. Again, women have unequal pay for the same, less pay for the same work and so forth.

[22:59]

But all of us have some qualities of active and receptive. So, you know, I think it's great that LGBT movement in this country is informing many of us about not being caught by our definitions. And all of Buddhist practice is really to see the emptiness of all these definitions, to not be caught by our traditional or even standard biological ways of thinking, to see deeper realities that go beyond facile dualities. So to divide everything into male and female is, you know, a misunderstanding. You know, race is also like this.

[24:04]

In some ways race is a construct. There's a wonderful book that I highly recommend for anybody who thinks they're white by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Ta-Nehisi Coates, a young writer now, is famed as a letter to his 15-year-old son called Between the World and Me. He talks about what it means to be African American in this society, but he also talks about race as a construct, just as we assume that male and female are two totally separate things. The way our country defined people in time of slavery was anybody who had a little bit of African-American blood. Even the very, very light-skinned children of slave owners who had raped or had sex with African-American slaves were considered African-American and sold off as slaves often. So what does it mean to be white?

[25:08]

What does it mean to be African-American? Obviously, there's a gradation. And when we say white, you know, well, is anybody here part Native American? Well, so we're all immigrants, another marginalized group now. And, you know, we come from different parts of, our ancestors come from different parts of the world. And so to say white as if it was one thing is, you know, a mistaken idea. On the other hand, of course, there's the reality of how visibly African-American men and women are treated in our society now, as opposed to the privilege we have walking around as apparently white people, but it's a construct in a way. So with gender, again, there's this complexity. One of the things that I have observed over many years of doing Zen practice is that men tend to become somewhat more sensitive and gentle.

[26:24]

women tend to become, in practice, to find more of their assertive side. These qualities are not locked in. On the other hand, we should acknowledge gender and acknowledge sexuality. Sexuality can be a wonderful thing, if it's not misused, so our precept is not to misuse sexuality. How do we acknowledge the reality of male and female at the same time as we see that it's not necessarily a sharp line? So, how we practice with this is, I think, first of all, just to acknowledge it. Catherine talked about the early years at San Francisco Zen Center when I was there too, or a little bit after her, but not that long after her.

[27:28]

And there was, you know, partly inherited from Japanese Zen traditions, the side of macho Zen, you know. I characterize it or caricature it as whoever sits the longest The hardest position without moving is the most enlightened. There was this Macho Zen feeling. I don't carry a Kyosaku. Some places still do, with the stick. But actually, if it's used properly, it's like a massage. It relaxes your neck and muscles in long sittings. But the sound is more powerful than the actual physical feeling of getting hit. But I don't think that's... appropriate for us. And Zen in America, in the San Francisco Zen Center, has changed. And, you know, even though Rev is my teacher, and Baker Oshua is my teacher, I also frequently consulted Linda Ruth, who's now at the Central Abyss, and Leslie James, she's now the practice leader at Tassajara.

[28:45]

They were very important as teachers for being blanched later, as much as so teaching. So, you know, Dogen talks about also about twining vines or tangled vines. How all of this works is not, you know, it's not straightforward. How we find our own way to be Buddha is not defined by male or female, it is not defined And how do we acknowledge this and see the way in which we are conditioned to marginalize, all of us as Americans are conditioned to see this difference between white and African American, as a sharp thing. And we all have prejudices to some extent based on that. And I think with male and female too. practice is to become aware of that, to see through that and not be caught by that, by those prejudices, to call it that.

[29:54]

So it's, Duncan's essay about this is really remarkable. It's just such a strong statement. of how stupid it is to be prejudiced against women. And how much that's a problem in his own, what was a problem in his own time in Buddhism, in his time and in his society. So I'm happy to be in that tradition that recognizes this. We spoke about that actively, strongly in one essay, but he never, He never changed from that. Anyway, so there's a lot to think about and say and respond to about this issue of gender and the ways we're caught by it. So I'll stop and welcome comments by any of you, men or women, or anything else.

[31:12]

This is such a great topic, thanks for bringing it up. I wonder... I think women imagine things differently. Women create things differently. And I wonder, going forward, in Western Buddhism, or contemporary Buddhism, or whatever you want to call it, Forms will change because female is like an authoritarian role. I had this interesting opportunity the last 10 years to work in a very academic situation with almost all women. Women had the most authority within a much bigger thing that was all run by men. And our group operated differently.

[32:16]

We just made different rules for ourselves that worked for ourself better. We worked much more in working groups rather than bosses. And we got a lot done that way. I'm not saying it was better, but it worked for us better. And I'm wondering if we'd been then with all these wonderful teachers like Joan Halifax and everyone else. hundreds of them, I think, if some of these things will be transformed. I think these things will be transformed, but they look around and just wonder. Things will just be different than what they've been for so long. I think it's transformational to have women be seriously I'm sorry, Mark, in the position of actually having a role in how that will change or not change, because things are changing.

[33:26]

I want to just say one other thing. I have a very good friend whose granddaughter, in a fairly traditional Catholic family, has said that she's transgender And oh my goodness, what a family intense experience. And I imagine that's happening all over the country now, or all over the world now. Yes. That's going to be it. So my friend said, well, we all sort of thought she was probably gay. And you know, it's easy to be gay now, but she wasn't. That's not what that is. Very long ago. 20 years, that's probably not such a big deal. But anyway, it's interesting to watch that. And so I think our culture is going to also be making some big shifts.

[34:31]

So anyway, thank you for bringing that up. It's important to think about tomorrow. Yes, thank you. Thank you for all you said. And just a little response. Yes, of course, I hope and believe that our law tradition, this, you know, Sojozen tradition that came from Japan, when it came from Japan, had this hierarchical macho feel, has already changed. And I want to encourage that, and I know it will. It's challenging because there are forms and there is spiritual authority, but One example, I'm sitting here on the same level as Paula, and actually James is in the chair higher than me. I don't know of any other, maybe there are, but most Zen centers I know of, the teacher sits higher and separate, and I just didn't want to do that. I'm just, you know, part of you all, and vice versa. So that's just one little thing that we're doing here that's different.

[35:34]

So how do we, honor the differences. One thing you said that I wanted to come back to is that women create and imagine things differently. So there are differences. And I'll say, leave a lot of difference, even though the differences are much more complex than we think. But there are ways of organizing and thinking about and creating things that men respond to differently from women. So it's not that there's no differences. But how do we not get fooled and think that they're black and white? So anyway, thank you, Dushan. Other comments? Yes, Aisha. I wanted to thank you for your talk, but also to add something that I've been thinking about. Based on several weeks ago, maybe more than several, you were talking about the koan. I can't remember who the questioner is, but about the that doesn't fall into any category, or the Dharma that doesn't fall into any category, and what would that be like?

[36:41]

And I've been thinking about that, and I've been thinking about how it's not, it's really the mind that categorizes that we need to kind of work with. And so I've been thinking about how our culture is, actually even more obsessed with categorizing than maybe back when it was just men, women, black, white. We want categories for everything, but we don't ever seem to really... It's like we want to pigeonhole everybody, but we never get any closer to anybody. We just get better at defining them and distancing them, and so I've been thinking about why we do that, and maybe it comes from you know, our ancient twisted karma of fear and, you know, needing to know in any person that you meet, are you like me? Are you different from me? In what ways are you maybe like me? And, you know, as you, I think, you know, very correctly pointed out, there's much more difference within any particular category than there even is, you know, across categories.

[37:50]

And so, What can we as Buddhists or Zen practitioners bring to that conversation? And I don't think it's about just ignoring categories. I don't think we can just say, I don't see color or I don't see gender, but finding ways to just reach out to people and try to connect with people and not be so concerned about what category. maybe they're in it, but I don't mean to imply that we don't want to respect that category, that everybody defines themselves in particular ways and everybody feels like they have particular characteristics that have been given to them from some part of their life. But how can we maybe move beyond fear into just connecting with people? Yes, thank you, wonderful, wonderfully said. Yeah, Dongshan, founder of our school in China, was asked by a monk which body of Buddha doesn't fall into any category.

[38:57]

And I didn't think of it in terms of male and female bodies of Buddha. I was thinking about it in terms of the three bodies and all that. But yeah, that's right. It will always be categorized as long as we want to categorize. Right, but how do we not fall into categories and make them so surreal that we want to build walls to keep out of the country, of our country, people who speak Arabic, people who are Muslim, people who speak Spanish. I've been talking about facing the wall as facing ourselves, too. The wall's a window into ourselves. And to see, we do have qualities, we do have characteristics. It's not about pretending that everything is just vanilla or whatever. But how do we respect, rather than, you know, politicians now, you know, fear mongering and, you know, all of our problems are because of Islamic people, you know, and we just have to keep them all out or bomb them all. You know, presidential candidates arguing about who will kill the most children and innocent civilians as a qualification anyway.

[40:06]

I mean, that's what's going on in our society. And the point is, How do we see differences and appreciate differences? We can learn from differences within our category and between other categories. As a teacher of comparative religion at times, I've learned about who I am as a Soto Zen practitioner from from studying and practicing even other traditions, other spiritual traditions. So it's not getting rid of all categories, but not being fooled by them. So yeah, thank you for what you said. Deborah, did you have a comment? I have a couple of comments. Thank you so much for the talk, Tiger. I think it's really important. I know as transgender people become more visible and begin to speak out about the rights that hate crimes have risen to. Yeah. And especially hate crimes against male to female African Americans.

[41:09]

Yes. So I think it's important, the educational aspect and becoming more familiar and knowledgeable about what this is like is really important. There have been some writings by people who've transitioned about their experience of power. So men who transition to women have commented on not being heard, being ignored, being interrupted, loss of income. And the opposite is also true, an increase in power for females to become male. We've noticed that in the culture. So that's happening. Or signing of gender to work. Yes. And I just had one of the kind of, our book club has been reading a book by Charles Johnson called Taming the Ox. He's a black Zen teacher. And he quotes James Baldwin in there, and I found it to be quite a colon. Baldwin said, I am only black because you think you are white.

[42:13]

Yes, yes, yes. And as you're talking, I'm wondering, am I only female because you think you are male? How might that apply in other categories? I don't have an answer for that, I just find it interesting and fun. Thank you, thank you. That's interesting that you mention James Baldwin. Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose book I've mentioned, Between the World and Me, is considered a kind of successor to James Baldwin and talks about the realities of what African Americans face just walking down the street now. with all the brutality and murder and police killings, but also how it is a construct. He lives in Paris now, and how different it is in different cultures, the way he's treated, and how it is a construct. And speaking of useful books and in terms of gender, Rebecca Solnit, who will be here in early April,

[43:14]

has written this book that I would, women can read it too, but I think all men should read, Men Explain Things to Me, that Rebecca Solman, she's written many wonderful books, and she is a Zen practitioner, student of one of my teachers, Blanche, actually. But she tells the story, I've mentioned it here before, about as a woman, being at this cocktail party, and the host somehow afterwards takes her and her friend, starts telling them about this book he's read and how fascinating it is, this book about conservation in California or something like that. And after a while the friend says to him, you know, she wrote that book. And he goes on explaining it to her. And it turns out that he didn't even read it, he just read a review of it, but he has to explain it to her. How men treat women, and maybe how women treat men, and how we see each other, and how we see ourselves, are so conditioned by all these distinctions. It's not that there's no distinctions, but how do we see through our constructs?

[44:19]

Thank you, Deborah. Joan? Your talk reminded me that back in around 1971 when I got into the women's movement and I read something about behavioral differences, how you stand, how you move, facial functions, and so I decided I was going to experiment. So instead of just walking down the side Didn't do the automatic smile. It was really interesting because it enabled me. It was like playing with it and enabled me to notice how it felt when I did different things, whether I walked down the center or the side, whether I smiled in a typically female way or not. And it brought to mind the professor from Lincoln College who decided to wear a hijab.

[45:22]

But I also think it would feel different if you walk around wearing the hijab. You would feel different in yourself and you would be treated differently by the people that you meet. It's a way, again, of playing with these categories. What if I embrace it by doing something? Since there's no model in Islam for males wearing hijab, I guess I'd have to transgender first before I did that experiment. But yeah, I'm happy that our sangha is becoming more and more diverse, so we have people on all sides of all these. Thank you. Any last I live way on the south side of Frankfort, where it's 95% white.

[46:30]

And I have more of an uncomfortable feeling being there than somewhere where it's diverse. When I go in the stores, in a food store, Older gentlemen like me would assume that I'm as racist as him, would make a remark about all these and, you know, they're doing this and that, they're getting free this and that. So what I thought I'd do is just say, well, I'm sorry, but I'm married to an African American. And then you see the blood just, you know. And the same experience I had when I was canvassing for Obama in 2008 in Indiana. And some boards you go to, people wanted to vote for him. They didn't mind. But the ones that did mind that he was African American, they would hide behind some lame excuse and not have the courage to say what they really felt.

[47:32]

And I thought that was a little And it goes along the gender. I was in some group therapy, and I felt much more connected and open talking level with the women than I did with the men. The women seemed like they were very open. You heard it from their heart. The men seemed to have barriers, you know, where they couldn't walk, come out of the barriers because of the men. So I appreciated that. You know, maybe this is precious on my part, but I think it's very clear that women are more spiritually advanced than men. Excuse me, guys. Well, for that, I'm going to have to tell you the joke that my stepdaughter told last night, which is a woman is on death row, and a guy comes in to ask her what she wants for her last meal, and she says, So I don't know if that's more spiritually advanced.

[48:52]

Well, we all have a particular situation. We've got an ancient boost of karma. Stuff to work through. Thank you all very much. Good discussion.

[49:01]

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