Good morning, everyone, and welcome. For new people, I'm Taigen Leighton, the teacher here at Ancient Dragon Zen Gate. This morning, I want to talk about Ehei Dogen, the 13th century founder of Soto Zen, the branch of Buddhism that we practice here. He brought this lineage of practice teaching from China to Japan. So this is in celebration of his birthday, which is usually celebrated on January 21. I'll celebrate it today, since it's later this week. Actually, we don't know exactly. It was the lunar calendar back then. So anyway, there are different versions of which day that was in the current calendar.

[01:02]

Also, this weekend is, tomorrow I guess is Martin Luther King Day, so tomorrow evening I'll talk about Dr. King and who he really was beyond the popular version of him as a nonviolent dreamer and how he was actually a one of the leaders of a resistance movement that fought for, not violently, for peace and social justice and equality and workers' rights, and how that's relevant today. So that's for tomorrow night. Dogen was bringing this lineage of Cao Dong in Chinese or Soto in Japanese Zen teachings from China to Japan. He lived from 1200 to 1253. As a young monk in 1223, he went to China and came back in 1227.

[02:10]

And in some ways, what he was doing was more difficult than our bringing this practice here to Chicago from Japan and Asia and California because they already had Buddhism. So they already thought they knew what Buddhism was. So in some ways it's more difficult here because we don't have a background in what Buddhist teaching is, but maybe in some ways that's an advantage for us. We have more of a beginner's mind. What I want to do today is go over his first major writing, Bendowa, which could be read as wholehearted engagement in the way. He wrote this in 1231, and it talks about the meaning of zazen, this seated meditation which we just did, just engaged in.

[03:15]

And so I want to go through this text and talk about major points in the text. So I've talked, spoken often here, and we've studied a part of this text called the Self-Fulfillment Samadhi, and I'll talk about some of that, but I want to talk about other parts of the text as well. There's actually, the majority of the text is kind of frequently asked questions, question and answers, and so I want to talk about some of those too. He wrote this in 1231. Before he had a temple to actually present the teachings in and the practice in, he founded a temple just south of the capital of Kyoto at the time in 1233, a couple years later, and practiced and taught there, 1233 to 43, and then moved rather abruptly from the capital to way up into the northern mountains of Japan

[04:24]

and founded what's now a Heiji, one of the headquarter temples of what's now called Soto Zen. It's still there. Quite remote mountains. Anyway, but this was really his first major writing. So I'm just going to go through sections of the text and comment on them and talk about what they mean for us. So he starts off by saying all Buddhas together have been simply transmitting this wondrous dharma or teaching or reality and actualizing complete perfect enlightenment for which there is an unsurpassable, unfabricated, wondrous method. And he uses this word method somewhat ironically. It's not exactly a technique, but it's a practice. And it's what we've just been doing. And he says that it has a criteria a criteria in which he says is, the Japanese word is, GGU Zanmai.

[05:24]

So there's a section of this text called the Self-Fulfillment Samadhi, which is in Japanese, GGU Zanmai. The samadhi, or concentration of the self enjoying itself, or fulfilling itself, or fulfilling its function. So Dogen says, for disporting oneself freely in this samadhi, in this meditation, practicing zazen is abundantly inherent in each person. and practicing zazen in an upright posture. I'm sorry, I skipped a line. For disporting oneself freely in the samadhi, practicing zazen in an upright posture is the true gate. So that's what we've been doing. And then he says, although this dharma, this isn't a very important sentence. Although this dharma, this teaching, this reality is abundantly inherent in each person, it is not manifested without practice. It is not attained without realization. So this is one of the key sentences in Dogen's whole teaching. And there are, he was one of the most prolific

[06:26]

Zen teachers in all of history. There's a huge body of writing commenting on Zazen, commenting on many, many, many koans or old teaching stories. But one of the issues was what is the function of practice given that the teaching is that it's all right here already. What brought you here, even for those of you who did zazen here for the first time today, this reality is abundantly inherent in each person. But, he says, it is not manifested without practice. It is not attained without realization. So the point is that we need to actually engage and express this practice. we need to actually realize it. Something is required of us. So this is one of the first sentences. He goes on to talk about his visit to China and his experience there.

[07:33]

He says that he returned home in what we call 1227. to spread this practice, this reality, and to free living beings became my vow. I felt as if a heavy burden had been placed on my shoulders. So the whole point of this practice is not to become adept at some meditative technique, but to free all living beings, to relieve suffering, to free beings, to awaken all beings. And this is the function of the point of all this practice. And he said, I felt as if a heavy burden had been placed on my shoulders. So he had received transmission and authorization to teach this and that meant to carry it on and to share it and to carry on and transmit the teaching and the tradition to others. He says, in spite of that burden, I set aside my vow to propagate this in order to wait for conditions under which it could flourish.

[08:45]

For now, I will live alone, moving from place to place like a cloud or duckweed and follow the way of the ancient sages. However, there might be some sincere practitioners who on their own do not seek after fame or profit and who give priority to the mind that seeks the way. So this is this idea of the mind that seeks the way. is very important. It's what brought you here. In Sanskrit it's called bodhicitta. This thought of the way, the Tao, really we could say just caring about the world, caring about the quality of your own life. what is nourished and nurtured through our practice and through the teachings. So, he goes into a little bit of the history of the tradition, and then he starts this section that we sometimes chant called the Self-Fulfillment Samadhi.

[09:46]

So, I've talked about this a lot. I'm going to just hit some of the high points. He says, for all ancestors and Buddhas who have been dwelling in and maintaining Buddhadharma, Practicing upright sitting in this self-fulfillment samadhi is the true path for opening up enlightenment, both in India and China. Those who have attained enlightenment have followed this way." So here he is bringing it to China, bringing it to Japan from China, even though there had been for, at that point since five or six hundred, there had been Buddhism in Japan. Here he is in the early twelve hundreds. And then he says this sentence, which has caused a lot of questioning. He says, from the time you begin practicing with a teacher, the practice of incense, offering, bowing, nembutsu, or chanting Buddha's name, repentance, and reading sutras are not at all essential. Just sit, dropping off body and mind.

[10:48]

So some people have read that as you don't need to do all those things. In fact, Dogen did them, we still do them, it's part of the tradition. But the point is that those practices, which we do, we study sutras, we recite the names of Buddha, we do bowing, I just offered incense, are not done as means to something else. They are expressions of dropping off body and mind, or just sitting. So this phrase, just sitting, is sometimes considered the main practice in our tradition. But really, he doesn't use that phrase so often. Dogen often talks about dropping body and mind. And this doesn't mean not taking care of body and mind, or ignoring your body and mind. It means letting go of our usual descriptions or usual attachments to body and mind.

[11:55]

It means letting go of our personal idea of body and mind to realize that we are sitting here together with all beings. Our practice is not about just getting some personal gain. reaching some personal exotic experience or mental state or spiritual exaltation, we are doing this together with everything and everybody in the whole environment. That's the reality that he's going to go on to describe how that works. He says in this sentence that I've I enjoyed playing with for many, many years now. When one displays the Buddha mudra, the Buddha position, with one's whole body and mind sitting upright in this samadhi, this meditation, even for a short time, everything in the whole phenomenal world becomes Buddha mudra. Buddha just means the one who's awake.

[12:57]

And all space in the universe completely becomes enlightenment. So what does it mean for space, for the whole environment, for the whole world to awaken? This is what he says is the meaning of this practice. And it's really impossible for us to get our head around that. What does that mean that the whole environment awakens as we awaken? But really, and he goes on to talk about how our individual practice is connected deeply, intimately with we could say the practice of the environment. So he says, so skipping a little ahead, at that time, all things together awaken to supreme enlightenment and utilize the Buddha body, immediately go beyond the culmination of awakening and sit upright under the Bodhi tree like the Buddha did. There is a path through which the perfect enlightenment of all things returns to the person in Zazen, and that person and the enlightenment of all things intimately and imperceptibly assist each other.

[14:07]

So this is not just some passive idea. There's a dynamic, inter... active quality, Dogen is saying here in the early 1200s, about our sitting and what's going on on the lake shore, up the street here, and what's going on, you know, how the trees and the birds and the concrete and the cars and everything in the world around us is functioning, has to do with how we are functioning as we engage in paying attention. All things and our engagement in this intimately and imperceptibly assist each other. The Zazen person without fail drops off body and mind, cuts away previous tainted views and thoughts, awakens genuine Buddha dharma, universally helps the Buddha work in each place as numerous as atoms where the Buddhas teach and practice, and widely influences practitioners going beyond Buddha.

[15:16]

thereby vigorously exalting the Dharma that goes beyond Buddha. So the practice is not about reaching Buddhahood. It's not about reaching some perfect state. It's about Buddha going beyond. Buddha, the historical Buddha, 2,500 years ago, more or less, in what's now northeast India, didn't stop practicing when he reached complete awakening, when he became the Buddha. He continued practicing and awakening every day the rest of his life. So this going beyond is the quality of Buddha, as Dogen describes this. So we've talked about this and studied this here over the last years. So I'm going over it really quickly. intense kind of teaching. He says, at this time, because earth, grasses and trees, fences and walls, tiles and pebbles, all things in the whole phenomenal realm in the 10 directions, carry out the Buddha work.

[16:30]

Therefore, everyone receives the benefit of the moving, flowing of the wind and water caused by this function and all are imperceptibly helped by the wondrous and incomprehensible influence of Buddha to actualize the enlightenment at hand." These sentences, Dogen speaks in this way that is dense and elusive and yet his language is dense, but he's speaking very carefully. He's saying something that is hard for us to hear, hard to speak about. But he's talking about this quality of environmental interactivity, how our effort at being awake, at being kind, at being helpful in the world, is met by, he says, grasses and trees, but also fences and walls, things we think of usually as inanimate.

[17:36]

He's talking about a quality of awakeness that is beyond how we usually think about reality. He's not talking about the world as dead objects. He's talking about the world as alive and the environment as alive and our responsibility to it and its responsibility to us. This is what he says is actually happening in Zazen. So, when one first hears this, it seems weird and far out, and it's maybe not something that you believe, but this is what he says this zazen is about. He says, all who live and talk with people who are doing this practice also share and universally unfold the boundless Buddha virtue and circulate the inexhaustible, ceaseless, incomprehensible and immeasurable Buddha Dharma within and without the whole Dharma world. However, these various influences do not mix into the perceptions of the person sitting.

[18:42]

We don't actually see or understand this. They take place, this takes place within stillness without any fabrication. And this is enlightenment itself. If practice and enlightenment were separate, as people commonly believe, it would be possible for them to perceive each other. But that which is associated with perceptions cannot be the standard of enlightenment, because diluted human sentiment cannot reach the standard of enlightenment. So a lot of Zen teachings and a lot of Dogen is about exactly about this, the limitations of our human perceptions and our human intellectual capacity, our limited human spiritual capacity to understand how powerful and deep is our practice and the interactive practice and the mutual assistance, the inconceivable guidance of the world and ourselves.

[19:52]

This seems like weird and far out, but I would suggest that it's helpful and very important to hear now in the age of climate damage and so forth. and that there's something about this that we can actually, in some sense, appreciate. He says, so this happens, he says, in this self-receiving and self-employing, this word self, I've talked about a lot, GGU, means the self, self-enjoyment or self-receiving or self-fulfilling, and it also means etymologically the self accepting its function. That as we take on our situation, individually and collectively, as we take on, Dogen also says elsewhere, take on our Dharma position, our situation, and are willing to express that and respond

[21:05]

So this is not a passive thing. This is about a responsive practice in our sitting and in our expression of that in the world, that something happens. So this is about not just environmental stewardship. It's about some mutual activity with the world, the world of the systems of institutions as well as the world of nature. He says, the grass, trees, and earth affected by this functioning radiate great brilliance together and endlessly expound this deep wondrous dharma. Grasses and trees, fences and walls demonstrate and exalt it for the sake of living beings, both ordinary and sage. And in turn, living beings, both ordinary and sage, express and unfold it for the sake of grasses and trees, fences and walls. Therefore, if even only one person sits for a short time, because this zazen is one with all existence and completely permeates all time, it performs everlasting Buddha guidance within the inexhaustible phenomenal world or dharma world of the past, present, and future."

[22:24]

So this is from this section of this text. talk on expressing, on wholehearted following of the way that we sometimes chant here, and it's pretty far out. It's not how we usually think. And, you know, you can hear it, and this is what Dogen is saying is happening in Zazen. And this was his first major writing. He had one version of his, Fukan Zazengi, his instructions for Zazen, maybe he had written before this. And, you know, I would say that all of his writing after this is sort of commentary on this. And, Whether you believe this or not, this is what he says is going on in our practice. And I'm sure you have questions about this, or you would question this.

[23:36]

And the rest of the long essay, probably about two-thirds of it, there's about 18 questions. There's a teacher now who calls them frequently asked questions. But they may come from one of his disciples who asked questions. And I'm just going to read little bits of some of his responses to some of these questions. And then you can ask questions. So again, this is in the context of 13th century Japanese Buddhism, which was already well-established. And there were quite I would say, articulate and wise schools of Buddhist philosophy that were established in Japan. But Dogen had been unsatisfied, and he helped introduce this Zen tradition. So maybe just to say a little bit about what that was in China, there was also in China these really profound philosophical Chinese Buddhist traditions that had developed from Indian Buddhism in China that were Chinese and kind of informed by Chinese culture and Chinese Taoism and the context of appreciation of nature that's part of Chinese culture.

[25:03]

But this practice, this Chan, or Zen, Chan is the Chinese word for Zen, tradition in China had been about really putting this into practice. not just as a philosophy, but actually engaging it in practice. So it used a lot of poetic metaphor and nature metaphor and colloquial language and lots of teaching stories and stories of what are called koans, stories of dialogues between teachers and students. So Dogen was importing all of that to Japan. That had just started to come into Japan in Dogen's time. So there are various questions here. And Dogen's response is, I'm just going to read a little bit of that. So one of the questions is, well, this whole thing about correctly transmitting this wondrous dharma and so forth is beyond our ordinary thinking. Right. But reading sutras or chanting Buddha's name can become a cause for awakening experiences.

[26:15]

How can just sitting vainly without doing anything be a means for attaining enlightenment is the question. And Dogen says that you now consider the samadhi, this meditation of the Buddha as the unsurpassed great dharma as vainly sitting doing nothing is slandering the Bodhisattva teachings. This is a very deep delusion. So in these passages, Dogen speaks very strongly. He says, on the whole, the Buddha realm is incomprehensible, unreachable through discrimination, much less can it be known with no faith and inferior insight. Only people of great capacity and true faith are able to enter. So the point about that is that it takes some not faith in the Western sense of belief in some doctrine or believing what Dogen says or taking it on faith in that way, but some conviction, some caring, I would use that word. And I would also add, as also being an academic as well as a Dharma teacher, that it's incomprehensible in our usual way, but it's not that it's incomprehensible, it's unreachable through discriminative thinking.

[27:30]

But also, it's possible to intelligently talk about what this teaching is about. Some of the Chinese Buddhist schools are helpful in terms of that. So Dogen says at the end of this long answer, so I'm just skimming through and picking out what I consider highlights. He says, immediately, just cease your skepticism. Practice the way of Zazen under the guidance of a true teacher, and fully actualize this self-fulfillment samadhi, this practice of taking on this deeper self of the Buddhas. Next question talks about the Tendai or Lotus Sutra teachings and the Kegon or Avatamsaka Sutra teachings, which have been transmitted now to Japan and are very sublime teachings of the Mahayana.

[28:33]

And I would say they are, and also the Shingon teachings, the esoteric teachings and so forth, and the teachings of mind itself as Buddha. And so the questioner is saying, well, aren't those wonderful teachings? And these are the pinnacle of Buddha Dharma. And I would agree with the questioner about that, but I also agree with Dogen's response. Buddhist practitioners should know not to argue about the superiority or inferiority of teachings, Dogen says, and not to discriminate between superficial or profound Dharma, but should only know whether the practice is genuine or false. So the point of all these teachings, the point of studying Dogen, the point of digging into these koans or teaching stories and dialogues is to help support authentic practice, to help nourish our own practice, our own personal engagement with the practice of all beings.

[29:43]

That's the point. That's what Dogon is saying. And so, these teachings can be helpful to support our practice. But the point is, is the practice genuine or false? Are the teachings supporting the practice? If it's just philosophy and it's not put into practice, then it's not really helpful. He says, you should also know that we unquestionably lack nothing of unsurpassed awakening. But although we receive and use it endlessly, because we cannot fully accept it, we mindlessly make our arising views habitual and think of this Buddhadharma as an object, thus vainly stumbling on the great way. So again, just some key points in this. One of the questions is about meditation and meditation is one of the six paramitas or transcendent practices.

[30:52]

It's also one of the, you know, it's in various categories of the three studies like meditation and the precepts and wisdom. And Dogen says you're getting confused because People in China saw Bodhidharma sitting a lot of meditation and called this the Zen school, the Zazen school. And Dogen himself said this wasn't the Zen school. He wouldn't use that word. He said, this is just Buddhism. Nowadays, we talk about this as Zen. We talk about this as Soto Zen, just because that's the lineage that Dogen just to identify what we're doing. Dogen himself wouldn't use those words, so, you know, we're doing this in the context of modern religious pluralism, but in a way, this is just Buddhism. So, then there's a question, an important question about whether

[31:58]

whether Zazen is actually a way to attain enlightenment. And this is a question that is an issue in American Zen or has been. I think people come to, maybe it's less so now, but people come to meditation practice wanting to get some result. That's part of our consumerist society maybe. Dogen says, thinking that practice and enlightenment are not one. It's no more than a view that is outside the way. It's diluted. In true Buddha Dharma, in true Buddha's teaching, practice and enlightenment are one and the same. Because it is the practice of enlightenment, a beginner's wholehearted practice of the way, is exactly the totality of the original enlightenment. So we talk about beginner's mind. Just to take on caring about fully practicing

[33:00]

is all of awakening. Now awakening, we continue practicing, and awakening can deepen, it can open, it can flower, we can become more skillful at expressing it, but The very first time of practicing, I felt that. My first Zazen instruction from my teacher many years ago, my first teacher, I just felt, oh, there's this wholeness, this openness, there's this possibility that everything's okay, in spite of everything, in spite of all the mess that the world is. I felt that. Because it is the practice of enlightenment, Dogen said, a beginner's wholehearted practice of the way is exactly the totality of the original or fundamental enlightenment. For this reason, in conveying the essential attitude for practice, it is taught not to wait for enlightenment outside practice.

[34:03]

Since it is already the enlightenment of practice, enlightenment is endless. Since it is the practice of enlightenment, the practice is beginningless. Already there is practice not separate from enlightenment, and fortunately for us, this wholehearted engaging the way with beginner's mind, which transmits the undivided wondrous practice, is exactly attaining undivided original enlightenment in the ground of non-fabrication. In order to not to allow the defilement of enlightenment inseparable from practice, the Buddha ancestors vigorously teach us not to slacken practice. But the point is that our practice is not about getting something in the future. It's just fully enjoying this breath, this uprightness, this experience here. How do we give ourselves to just being present here, now?

[35:07]

That includes everything. everyone you've ever known. So I said that we sit together with all beings. All beings in all times are present here now. But just to give ourselves to that is complete and full. So I want to give time for your questions, but He spent some time talking about the idea that somebody brings up that there's a separate body and mind and that your mind will continue after your body. We have a version of that, that some part of you will go to heaven or something. Anyway, he talks about that, for Dogen, this is nonsense and that there's no separation of body and mind. Life and death is exactly nirvana. He also talks about the possibility of everybody practicing this, lay people, women, and men, that anyone can practice this.

[36:17]

The questioner asks, well, don't monks have more chance of practicing this because they give themselves to a time of practicing? And one of Dogen's responses to that, he says, needless to say, people who think secular duties interfere with Buddha Dharma only know there is no Buddha Dharma in the secular realm, and do not yet realize that there is nothing secular in the realm of Buddha. So for Buddhas, there's nothing secular. All of the stuff of the world is part of Buddha, is part of the, opportunity for Buddha to express herself. So there's more, but maybe that's enough. He also talks about The questioners talk about, well, people in Japan are dumb and can't understand it, and people in China and India are so much greater.

[37:27]

And we might feel that, well, Americans are so corrupt. caught up in, you know, consumerism and so forth. Dogen says, if people genuinely practice with right conviction, they all attain the way equally without distinction between the dull and the sharp-witted. Our country may not be a land of benevolence and wisdom, and people's understanding may be foolish, but do not think they cannot realize the Buddha Dharma. Without question, all people are abundantly endowed with the true seeds of insight, only they rarely accept it and have not yet received and used it." So this is some highlights from Dogen's first writing in honor of his birthday that we commemorate this week. Questions, comments, reflections, responses. especially from people who may be here for the first time or here recently, but anybody else too.

[38:35]

Yeah. So he only studied for four years in China? That's right. Yes, he was, he had been a monk ordained like when he was 11 or 12 and he was, you know, a prodigy. He had read all of the Buddhist canon by the time he was like 12 or something like that, not to mention Chinese classics. No, no, he was very well read as well known. Yeah. Yeah, and he was from an aristocratic background, so he had advantages. But yeah, but also he had this brilliance to say something like that.

[39:42]

And especially what he says about the practitioners' interactive engagement with the environment is really profound and I think modern science and philosophy is just catching up with Dogen. Yeah. Is there a way to verify that the practice we see is authentic? That the practice we... To encounter another being in the act of zazen. Yeah. Dogen recommends working with a teacher, and I think on some level, though, you have to trust yourself and feel that, yeah, this is... This works, this makes sense.

[40:43]

So... And so, you know, it was common then. It was common in China. It was common later in Japan. It seems to be common here. in America for people to go around and, you know, check out different teachers. One of the things I love about this Ancient Dragons' End Gate Sangha is that many of the people, not everyone, but many of the people here have studied with other teachers or in other traditions, and I think that gives us a kind of richness. So I can see you, you know, Baraksi from somewhere. But you're welcome to practice here. Yeah.

[41:44]

We engage the teaching and the practice together with teachers and with each other and in Sangha. But we also have to trust ourselves, I would say. I don't know if that... It takes... We see it in our lives, and other people tell us. People around us, family, friends, recognize it. We may not recognize it ourselves. What's your name? Yes, Brian. But you know, you accept humans as beings, and then you accept plants perhaps, and then maybe...

[43:06]

Yes. To see reality as not just a matter of dead objects. I mean, we do that. Our way of thinking, our language, which turns things into nouns and subjects and objects. We think of things and even people as objects out there, right? We objectify. We have politicians. We have a president-elect who wants to have a Muslim registry and build walls to keep out Muslims and Hispanics and whatever. But we do that, but what Dogen's talking about, and this goes back to a whole history of Chinese Buddhist thought that started, at first there was the idea of Buddha nature, only some people have it.

[44:34]

That was part of Buddhist thought in India, and even in early China, and then they started to see that all people, and then all living beings, and at first they thought that only included animals, And in Tibet, they still don't include plants. And there's a conversation now amongst botanists about plant intelligence, which is really interesting. But then also, what about so-called inanimate things? So do we see the world as alive So the implications of what Dogen talks about to environmental thinking is really profound. Well, it's OK if we have preferences. We do.

[45:34]

I mean, that's natural and human to have. There's some rocks that may strike us as beautiful. That's OK. That doesn't mean that we should pulverize all the other rocks. But yeah, how do we relate to the world as alive? And how do we relate respectfully to all beings and all of the, the whole of the environment? I don't know if others have thoughts about this. Yes, Chris. This comment reminds me of, I read, well, I sort of attempted to read the Diamond Sutra a couple of months ago, and it's one of those things where at first I didn't get it at all, and I got it a little bit at the end. and was very concerned about the world completely deteriorating.

[46:38]

And then I thought about looking at the snow on the street, that humans are something like 80% water. So in some ways we're more snow than we are chimpanzee. And in psychology they taught us that humans have more DNA in common with certain vegetables like cabbages and broccoli. They were teaching us about, you know, evolutionary psychology has this tendency to have a hierarchy of what constitutes a sentient being, that humans and great apes are better than rodents and flies and stuff like that. And so the teacher was trying to tell us that that's an incorrect way of viewing things, because in reality we have more DNA in common with a cabbage than we do with a certain I don't know, it's just other things like trees, you know.

[47:40]

If there's no trees, then we can't breathe. If there's no sun, then we freeze to death. So I... So, any last, time for one more comment. Yeah. I'm just trying to think how would you or Al, just one, conceive of this idea of everything being embedded with each other, entangled, you know, we're all a part of the world, the world is kind of a part of us, this fear change, right?

[48:44]

And when there are things that seem so wrong, so obviously wrong, you know, sorry, in a healthy manner without opposing it in a resentful or angry way. If you're a part of it, it's almost like you're Well, I've spent a lot of time trying to talk about that here, and you can listen to some of the dharma talks on our website, and I'm going to be talking about this tomorrow night in terms of Dr. King's teachings, and I'll have some announcements about about demonstrations and things coming up. And my response, real briefly, is that Bodhisattva is trying to take care of all beings, and that's implied in some of what Dogen says.

[49:51]

And so in the current context, how to try and protect beings who are endangered and resist oppression, but not from anger, but from a place of calm and respectfulness to the whole process. And I think of human beings as being in our adolescence and if we can survive this and given how serious climate damage is and the serious threats of nuclear war and nuclear waste and so forth, if we can survive, and I hope and believe we will, you know, we have great potential.

[50:42]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ