Good morning, everyone. I hope the air is not too bad where you are. I'm trying to put something in the chat here a second. Let's see if I can. Well, I'll have to figure this out later. This morning, or this afternoon, Berkeley Zen Center is co-hosting the Berkeley Buddhist Walk Against Hunger, which is being sponsored by Buddhist Global Relief, an organization that was founded by Bhikkhu Bodhi. And we've been participating for a number of years. There are these walks in various

[01:05]

parts of the country, and we're happy to be a co-sponsor of the Berkeley Walk. I just tried to put the link in the chat, and somehow it failed to paste. I'm going to have to come back to that, I think, at the end. So, just to check, can you hear me okay? Yes? Good. So, I'll circle back to the work of Buddhist Global Relief and of the Hunger Walk. But I want to begin by sharing a teaching from our late teacher, Maha Gosananda of Cambodia. Let me see if I can get you a picture of him. Ah, well, if this works, it works. Let's see.

[02:22]

Okay. Can you see that? So, you can see this kind of wonderful visage. I'm a little embarrassed to say I couldn't find the original photograph, but in the original photograph, he's walking hand-in-hand with Sojan Roshi. This was at an event for Buddhist teachers about 15 years ago, and Maha Gosananda was the honored guest teacher, along with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. So, Maha Gosananda's name means Great Joyful Proclaimer, and anyone who encountered him

[03:23]

felt the essence of this name so clearly. His spirit and his determination was like steel. Ah, but his being, I've never met anyone who you could say, you know, you hear people described as floating a few inches off the ground. Well, it really seemed like he was floating a few inches off the ground, and everyone who met him sort of caught this spirit of joy that he had. And he seemed like a very substantial person, but once he had to deliver something, and it was deep in his robes, and he started, it was like peeling off the layers of an onion. You know, by the time he got down to the layer that had the money tucked into it, there was almost nothing there. He was just a little skinny guy. He served as the Cambodian Theravada Sangha Raja, the head of the Sangha

[04:30]

in Cambodia, during the time of the Khmer Rouge and the post-communist transition to a so-called democracy. He had been in exile during the war, and shortly after, and was, this was a time when essentially the whole Cambodian Sangha had been murdered. And, you know, as many of you know, millions of people in Cambodia were murdered by the Khmer Rouge. And millions or hundreds of thousands more were in refugee camps on the Thai side of the Cambodian border. So in 1978, he returned from studies in meditation and in scholastic endeavors, and he just appeared in these refugee camps in Thailand, and everyone was incredibly

[05:33]

encouraged to see him. And at that time, he just decided he was going to walk across Cambodia, which was a very dangerous thing to do. But he just decided he was going to do it. That's the deal side, right? So, about the time that I encountered him in 1992, through an international network of engaged Buddhists meeting, the Cambodians were repatriating from the refugee camps. And Maha Goswamana organized a dharma walk, which is called a dharma yatra. And really, what we're doing this afternoon, what we're doing a virtual dharma yatra. In years past, people on the Buddhist walk against hunger, walk from temple to temple

[06:37]

around Berkeley and visited and received donations. And that was it. It was a dharma walk, which is quite wonderful. And for Maha Goswamana, this was his attempt to bring love and compassion to a traumatized nation. And he did this as he titled one of his books, Step by Step. And each year since then, the monks and lay people in Cambodia have done this dharma yatra in the spring, in order to convey this message of peace. So I could talk about Maha Goswamana for quite a while. He was on the Buddhist Peace Fellowship Board of Advisors. But I want to return to what is my subject at large. And what I'm remembering is the first encounter that I had with Maha Goswamana that many of us had was at a

[07:43]

International Network of Engaged Buddhists meeting in Chiang Mai at a temple called Wat Umang. I think this was 1992. And Maha Goswamana was the opening speaker. And he got up. And he said to the audience, which was a mixture of lay and ordained people, there were quite a number of monks and nuns who were drawn by his presence, Thai, Burmese, Cambodian, and then other lay people like, effectively, like myself and others from all over Asia and some of the West. And he began by saying, you know, this archetypal Buddhist question or Zen question, he said, what's the most important thing? And he took responses for about a half an hour.

[08:44]

He's, you know, taking refuge in the three treasures, keeping the precepts, honoring your teachers, knowing that all beings are Buddha, recognizing that there is no fixed self, and so on. And with every one of these responses, he just said, Nope, that's not it. And, you know, these are some very educated people there. And some very devoted practitioners and monks and scholars. And nope, didn't get it. Finally, he said, I will tell you the answer. The most important thing is eating. The most important thing is eating. And then he gave a talk, and I'm going to just edit a little from his talk.

[09:47]

The fly eats the flower. The frog eats the fly. The snake eats the frog. The bird eats the snake. The tiger eats the bird. The hunter kills the tiger. The tiger's body becomes swollen. Flies come and eat the tiger's corpse. The flies lay eggs in the corpse. The eggs become more flies. The flies eat the flowers. The frogs eat the flies, and so on. This is a friend of mine wrote a song, which I'll sing sometime. It's called Working on a Food Chain. And the punchline to the song is, when you're working on the food chain, the food chain's working on you. And so, the Buddha said, I teach only two things, suffering, and the end of

[10:53]

suffering. Maha Goswami said, suffering, eating, and feeling are the same. And then he expanded on the notion of eating. He said, what eats us? Time. What is time? Time is living in the past or living in the future. Time is feeding on the emotions. Beings who can say they have been mentally healthy for even one minute are rare in the world. Most of us suffer from clinging to pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feelings, and from hunger and thirst. Most living beings have to eat and drink every second through their eyes, ears, nose,

[12:02]

tongue, skin, and nerves. We eat 24 hours a day without stopping. We crave food for the body, food for feeling, food for volitional action, and food for rebirth. We are what we eat. We are the world, and we eat the world. And I would add, and the world eats us. It's important to remember that. We're seeing that now. So to go back to the head of what he says, what eats us? Time. He expands. Time is an eater. In traditional Cambodian stories, there's often a giant with many mouths who eats everything.

[13:04]

The giant is time. If you eat time, you gain nirvana. You can eat time by living in the moment. When you live just in this moment, time cannot eat you. So in the Zen tradition, this is really consonant with what we find in the Zen tradition. In the Zen tradition, there is a koan about the old master Joshu, who is one of our great teachers. He, Joshu, articulated the koan of Mu, and he didn't begin teaching until he was 80. So I'm lucky I have some years to go, as most of us do. But of course,

[14:08]

Sogen is well into his teaching career now, at 91. Joshu's disciple asked him, how do I use the 24 hours? And Joshu said, you are used by the 24 hours. I use the 24 hours. You are eaten by time. I use time. This is the challenge for all of us to use the time that we have in our life on the planet. So to go on with some of Mahakosananda's talk, he says, everything is causational. There is no you, only causes and conditions. Therefore, you cannot see or hear.

[15:12]

When sound and ear comes together, there is hearing. When form and eye meet, there is sitting. A man once asked the Buddha, who feels? The Buddha answered, this is not a real question. No one feels. Feeling feels. There is no I, my, or me. There's only the dharma. You are not sitting. I would say, you are not sitting, Sogen. I am not sitting, Sogen. Zazen is sitting, Zazen. When that's what we're doing, there is just Zazen. When one goes to the garden to work, you are not gardening. There's just gardening. And so forth.

[16:15]

Feelings, back to Mahakosananda, feelings and sensation cause us to suffer, because we fail to realize that they are impermanent. When we do not control our feelings, we are controlled by them. So if our feelings use us, we are controlled by our feelings. When the 24 hours use us, we are controlled by them. If we live in the moment, we can see things just as they are. Doing so, we can put an end to desire, break out of our bondage and realize peace. This is very easy to put in a sentence and not so easy to do. This is what we're trying to do all the time. The world is created by mind. That's one of the first teachings in the Dhammapada.

[17:21]

And if we can control feelings, then we can control our mind. And if we can control our mind, we can rule the world. This doesn't mean rule the world as a dictator. It means to be in harmony with what is unfolding in the world. And I would say it's to be empowered by the Bodhisattva vow to save all beings. In meditation, back to Mahakosananda, we relax our body, but we sit up straight. And by following our breathing, we stop being pushed around by our feelings. Thinking creates feelings. And feeling creates thinking. To be free from clinging to thinking and feeling is nirvana, the highest supreme happiness.

[18:27]

I would point out that, you know, nominally, this is a Theravada teaching, but it's exactly the same as a teaching that all of us have been receiving for years. It's really no difference. There's no partition by school. It's just the Dharma, which is good in the beginning, good in the middle, good in the end. So I want to return to this question of physical hunger and today's Buddhist walk against hunger. If it's true that the most important thing is eating, it behooves us to pay attention to hunger. And what occurred to me is that while Mahakosananda focuses on time here,

[19:41]

and it's true that time eats us, I think it's also true that time, for some, is a luxury. When we think about, you know, the Buddha articulated four requisites for for both laypeople and for ordained monks and nuns. Those four requisites are food, clothing, lodging, and medicine, and that they all have to be treated properly and in the right time. So it seems to me that time is the framework. It's the requisite of all the requisites.

[20:44]

And it's true that if our belly is plagued by hunger, we cannot attend to other forms of hunger. We can't attend to our thoughts. It's very hard to attend to our thoughts, our feelings, our aging, illness, or even a sense of time itself, if we are beset by the fierce pains of hunger. Hunger and thirst are the most basic physical needs, and they provide a model for all kinds of suffering. Dhammapada, in verse 20 of the Dhammapada, says hunger is the worst kind of illness.

[21:51]

And we see that the gift of food is the essential transaction that happens within the fourfold sangha, the sangha of ordained and laypeople. The symbolic, and actually it's not symbolic, it's the actual transaction every day, is that people, that monks and nuns line up and people feed them. And today, we also see, speaking with Venerable Dhammananda of Thailand, who runs a nunnery, when she saw that the people in her village were hungry, she set up a line of nuns, and they fed the people. And we've seen this all over Asia. So,

[22:58]

generally, laypeople feed the monks, but in hard times, the monks and nuns turn around and feed them. So, a few statistics, even though this may be preaching to the choir. So, according to the World Health Organization, there are more than 800 million people who were chronically suffering from hunger and malnutrition in 2019. There were hundreds of millions more who were close to that boundary. Most of these are in the developing nations of Asia and Africa, but 40 million,

[23:59]

40 million hungry people live here in the United States. Around the world, there are roughly 25,000 deaths from hunger every day, and 10,000 of those are children. So, I think when we look at the conditions of hunger, when we look at the conditions of the world, and also when we consider time, we have some real concerns. And I think the question for us is, how does a sense of responsibility emerge from our practice? Shortly after he had started

[25:11]

Buddhist Global Relief, when he had returned to the United States from Sri Lanka, Bhikkhu Bodhi did an interview. And he said, we're living at a transformative moment of history when humanity is faced with a critical choice. Whether we continue to flow with the currents of greed and ignorance, and risk devastating the earth, or we adopt a scheme of values that gives pride a place to compassion, care, and social justice. So, he went on in this interview, and I think this is really a compelling perspective, so I want to share it with you. Buddhism already gives pride of place to such values as compassion, kindness, and generosity. So, stressing these values would not be teaching Buddhists

[26:13]

something they are not already familiar with. However, traditionally, these qualities are esteemed as personal values, conducive to one's own spiritual growth, and beneficial to those in one's immediate sphere of influence. So, what Bhikkhu Bodhi is pointing to is that the message, certainly in early Buddhism, and I think this shifts later with the Mahayana and with the Bodhisattva archetype, the message is that we have to attend to these values as part of the project of liberating ourselves, which is not inaccurate, it's just not necessarily what deeply motivates us. So, Bhikkhu Bodhi, and this is radical for a really respected

[27:21]

Theravada monk, says, today, however, aggressive and destructive forces relentlessly bent on profit and domination have put in jeopardy the very survival of human civilization as we know it. Thus, compassion and kindness as purely personal values are not adequate to the demands of the era that we live in. What I would say is that those values, the values of compassion and kindness are part of the social network that we live in, and in that social network, no one is truly individual. Just as we go back to Maha Gosananda saying, you know, who is feeling? Feeling is feeling.

[28:25]

Society is being society. I am not in myself society, so if my effort is to liberate myself individually, that's harboring a delusion about the nature, the interconnected nature of the universe. So, Bhikkhu Bodhi goes on and says, I believe we must elevate the sacred values of love and compassion to the position of guiding principles that can drive the choices we make on matters of social, political, and economic policy. Um, I think one of the things that we see in history is that everywhere Buddhism goes,

[29:28]

it is shaped by and it reshapes the culture that it moves to. Uh, it absorbs some of those values and perspectives, and, um, Buddhism itself is transformed and the societies are transformed by them. We've seen this, we've seen it in China, we've seen it in Japan, we've seen it in all the Buddhist countries, and we see it here. So, I think that in the West, we're so deeply shaped by a variety of forces. Certainly, we're deeply shaped, you know, we can see how our world is distorted by forces of consumption and greed. Uh, that's one side. Uh,

[30:35]

the other side, to me, the deeper side of, uh, the Western spiritual tradition is that it is deeply, it's deeply expressive of values of social justice. You find this in, in all of the religious traditions of the West, in, uh, in Judaism, in Christianity, in Islam, and they're very well and clearly articulated. And so, it's, to me, what Bhikkhu Bodhi is, is saying, the way I interpret it, is that, um, as Buddhism comes to the West, it has the potentiality for absorbing, uh, it, it's always hungry. And so, it has the

[31:42]

potentiality for absorbing what is the best and truest and most human values that are inherent in the, uh, in the spiritual traditions of our wider culture, if you will. So, Bhikkhu Bodhi speaks to that when he says, quite independently of Buddhist scriptures, I feel it is necessary for contemporary Buddhism to incorporate principles of social and economic justice into our thinkings and programs of social action. The commitment to social and economic justice is something Buddhists can learn from the West, especially from the movements of the 1960s. I think it can learn it from the West,

[32:42]

from the, from the spiritual traditions that, that go back more, that go back as far as Buddhism. And that what happened in the 60s or what's happened at any point in history is a way of bringing forth those really deep values. And what I think is a project for us as Buddhists is, is constantly working, figuring out how do we, how do we integrate the really wise and wonderful values that we grew up with, with the wonderful values that are being presented to us, uh, in the practice of Buddhism and by our teachers. You know, and I think that, uh, our hunger incorporates

[33:55]

all of that. We have a big hunger and a big appetite. And right now, I think a very large challenge. So when we think about, we can think about hunger in our country. We can recognize that our country is also intimately connected with other peoples around the world. We can see that hunger is a factor on our Southern border, not so far from here. There's an organization that, uh, Berkeley Zen Center has been modestly supporting and Clearview Project has been supporting. Uh, you know, I think some of you know that

[35:00]

in the, in the face of hunger that for, gee, more than probably 25 years, uh, some volunteers from BCC have been cooking meals at the homeless shelter in downtown Berkeley. I think a lot of you have done this. It's really wonderful work. And BCC has been, uh, supporting that, paying for that, uh, twice a month for 25 years, I think. One of the people who started, who inspired us to do that, uh, who was a friend of Meili Scott's, uh, this woman named Shura Wallen, who was part of the, uh, Berkeley Catholic Workers Group. And she moved away. She moved down to the,

[36:04]

the Arizona Mexican border near the Sonoran desert. And in the face of hunger, what she's been doing, and she and a group of people called the Green, uh, Green Valley Samaritans, uh, I, I'm going to send out all these as links because it's, it's too distracting for me to try to paste it in the, in the chat right now. Uh, but Green Valley Samaritans has been, they go out into the desert where people are making their way from Central America, uh, over the border into Arizona. And they strategically place caches of food and water. So they are directly addressing the hunger and they are recognizing that

[37:09]

the people who are crossing the desert in both the scorching heat and the freezing cold do not have the luxury of time. And so they are using their time and their resources uh, as a spiritual practice, perhaps at a, uh, you could say an ecumenical, or you could say a generic spiritual practice. Not, it's not necessarily Buddhism. It's not necessarily Christianity or anything else, but they are going out there as spiritual people to save sentient beings, to save men and women and children who are making their way across the desert. So this to me is, you know, they're the Green Valley Samaritans echoing the, the, uh, fable of the Good Samaritan who saved a starving being by the side of the road.

[38:18]

So that's what I wanted to say today. I hope that you will, uh, be able to join. Uh, if you look at Buddhist Global Relief, uh, you'll find the link to the, to the Berkeley Walk. And you can join us. You can make a donation. Uh, but I think that in the larger sense, we're engaged in this process of, uh, has Bodhisattvas or as humans simply addressing the needs of all sentient beings. So I, I think I'll, I'll stop there and, uh, go back to Tom who will explain how to, uh, ask questions and make comments. Thank you. Thank you, Hasan. So it's now time for Q&A. And as you probably recall, there's two ways you can

[39:37]

ask questions. You can raise your virtual hand by clicking on the participants button at the top of your virtual hand. You can also enter a question in the chat box and maybe say questions so I know what you're writing about and I'll pass along to Hasan. And you can try raising your real hand, but I might not see you. Um, so it's best to do the first two. And please keep yourself muted until you ask a question and unmute yourself when you're finished. Um, thank you. Okay. It looks like we have a question from Heiko. Thank you. Good morning. And thank you for, Hasan, for your talk and getting to, uh,

[40:42]

the needs of our community and how we can connect to them. One of the things that, uh, worries me about the idea of the Western religions, the colonial Arabs, the colonial Christians, the missionaries with their solutions, uh, pre-packaged and delivered and if not received, uh, often murder was a response, not necessarily by missionaries, but by their social structure. Um, I do support the idea that within our response field, we should be addressing all hunger and we should be consuming all things in the manner I think very beautifully put that we are always eating. Uh, and we should also digest and put out the product of our immediate response field. Uh, but the missionary thing and the Arabs religion and that the Buddhists didn't have that. And I'd like you to maybe address or clarify that for me. Thank you. Um, I'm sorry to say they did. Well, I'm not surprised to hear that. Uh, you know, I mean,

[41:48]

we just to be careful. We've imbibed a, I'm partly, I think in response or reaction to the very real depredations that you're pointing out in those religions, which are not, uh, which are the artifacts of organized religion, uh, which is not to say there aren't contradictions in, in all of the holy books. Uh, because we've, some of us have come to Buddhism in kind of, uh, in response to our rejection of other religions, uh, and some also are born into Buddhism. Uh, we idealize it and, uh, you know, we don't have time and I don't think it's useful now just to go into the, uh,

[42:53]

the oppressive, the system, systematic and oppressive, uh, effects of Buddhism in, in certain parts of Asia during just the 20th century. Uh, and just if you want to research, you know, look at Japan in the first half of the 20th century, look at Sri Lanka, look at Burma now. So I think what, what I advise is let's really settle into what we feel are the true values of, of our practice. And we would encourage Christians, Jews, and Muslims to do, to, to discern that for themselves about their own religions, uh, and not ignore the fact that

[43:59]

unfortunately it seems like any religion, anything that says, my group, my tribe is good, we are the people, and they are the non-people, uh, terrible things are going to be done. And that, that's all. Just, I guess my, my caution is to keep an open mind to what is really good, hold to what's good in a spirit tradition. Thank you. The, uh, missteps that they have made, uh, are, are, are, are inheritance as well. So it is an ongoing question. Yeah. And that's been a, just to say that there's been a real debate. It's, it's not so live right now in, uh, in the Zen tradition, but, but 20 years ago, it was really a live question about basically about, uh, Zen complicity. And it was real, very real Zen complicity

[45:10]

for atrocities during World War II. Uh, and so that's one thing. And people are asking every day, you know, what do we do about Burma? Uh, what do we do about the, the oppression of the Rohingyas? And that's, that's a good question. Anyway, thank you for that. Okay. It looks like we have a question from Heather now. Thank you. Good morning, Hasan for your talk. So I have so many questions. Um, I was, uh, I had convinced myself that we would, um, somehow touch on the news cycle this morning. And I just want to offer that it was a teaching for me, for you to stay the course with the talk that you had presented. And so, um, as people who do social change work, um, there is this

[46:15]

ongoing question of where do you put your attention and your intention and, um, your work today around hunger very much addresses individual suffering. And then of course, other work you've done and other work many people on this call have done probably address systemic change. And there's a sort of a, a need to go through the whole spectrum, systemic change, individual assistance. And I wonder if you can just reflect a little bit on your discernment process at different times about where you put your attention and your intention and just what that means for your practice in your life. Right. Well, thank you. Um, I think the overall principle I, I draw it, I get, I get a lot of, I draw my teachings from the titles of books, I think. Um, you know, so, uh, and this book

[47:18]

actually got retitled, but I really liked the title of this book that came out that David Chadwick put together, uh, from Suzuki Roshi, a very short teachings called to shine one corner of the world. And that's what I think any of us can do now, how wide are and how strong that beam of light is, is different for each of us. Um, and I made, so to look at my discernment process today, I mean, one of the things about the new cycle is that I find it toxic. You know, I find it's not that I don't pay attention to it. It, I find that if I get caught by it, then I'm sucked into this vortex. And I haven't found that very helpful. Whereas what I think about to me, Buddhist global relief is not about individual action.

[48:24]

It's, and if you look at, if you look at their website and you see what they're doing to me, it's very much akin to, I mean, it's, it's exactly the mission that I believe in. In other words, it's working very locally, but it's looking at what systematic problems are. Hunger is a systematic problem, is a systemic problem. Uh, and it's working with organizations in particular areas to build their capacities and their resilience in those areas. So that small groups of people on a grassroots level can effectuate change that affects a whole society. And I really believe in that model. And I think we have to work in both ways. So some of us are working on the election. We have to change things at the top of the system, but the way we're changing things at the top of the system is by engaging as individuals at the bottom of the system and using the power that we have. And so, you know, I just felt very strongly

[49:33]

that if BCC is a co-sponsor of this walk against hunger, then, um, I ought to support it, you know, and I want to let people know, because I think it's, I think it's a really promising effort. And what it does, if you want to think about systems, what it's doing is creating, is creating a system, a network, a web of people who identify as Buddhists who are working together in a fresh way. And that is, to me, that's grassroots organizing. And I believe in it. So does that answer your question? It does. Thank you. Good. Thank you. I mean, I know that you think about this a lot. I think about it a lot. There's lots of people here who think about this. And one of the things that's really unique about engaged Buddhism, and I think this is a Western, it's a Western thing, but it's certainly,

[50:38]

you find it in Asia. One of the things is that we are looking at the manifestation of systemic systems of oppression, recognizing that they manifest, they really impact individuals. But that also individuals impact the system. And we have to use our agency, we have to go back and forth. We have to see things, we have to shift our focus. Thank you. Susan Moon has a question. Thanks so much, Alan, for that really wonderful, inspiring talk, especially for reminding us about Maha Gosananda. Such a great hero of mine. And I love the way you kind of started with Maha

[51:41]

Gosananda's peace walk in Cambodia and ended with Shorawal in the Sonoran Desert. It's so similar, such a perfect arc from one to the other doing the same work, really. And my question is, from the beginning of your talk, and not so much about engaged Buddhism, it's a personal question, how, when you talked about Maha Gosananda's saying that if we can control our emotions, or control our feelings, then we can control our thoughts. If we can control our thoughts, we can control our feelings. If we can control our thoughts and feelings, we can find nirvana or let go. And that the word control is the one that's giving me difficulty and seems kind of un-Zen. And I wonder if you wanted to say something about that, because I haven't really been thinking of my practice as learning to control my thoughts and feelings.

[52:44]

Okay, just all you need to do is go back to the control chapter of Zen Mind Beginner's Mind. Oh, okay. It's a chapter called control. And, you know, what he says, which is really wonderful. It's a really pivotal chapter for me. The way we control our horse or our cow is to give it a wide pasture and to watch it. Okay. That's our method. You know, it's not, you know, it's like, so even when Suzuki Roshi says, you be the boss of you, right? That's an expression of his. He doesn't mean boss it around, you know, it's like, and this is exactly what Joshu was saying. You are used by the 24 hours, I use the 24 hours. But it begins with watching. That's the function. And I think that what he's

[53:52]

talking about there is mindfulness. That is mindfulness. Mindfulness begins in watching. And then if you look at the, it'd be great to, I mean, I just gave a class not so long ago, the four foundations of mindfulness go from watching your body, your mind, to actually the application of Dharma systems to your thoughts. So it goes to the fourth foundation of mindfulness is mindfulness of the Dharmas, which means I mean, we, a lot of people don't understand this, it means looking at the Four Noble Truths, applying the Four Noble Truths, applying the, the hindrances, applying the factors of enlightenment, it's applying, it's then it's the application of these Dharma tools to our thoughts and feelings. And so that is where

[54:55]

control makes a turn. But it, but it begins in watching. I really recommend to everybody, just read that Control Shavari, it is the greatest. And I would say, I would say, I think this is what many of us have learned from being around Sojin for so long. Mm hmm. That I think that's, this is consciously and kind of in a completely digested way, is his method. It's kind of like the ox herding pictures, too. Yes, totally. Yeah. Okay, well, thank you for that reminder. Thank you. Yeah, Hozon, a question for you. It's about 10 after 11. We have three more questions. What would you like to do? Let's take three more questions and end. Okay, so next question.

[55:57]

Just the people, just those who are in the queue. Okay, so looks like our next question is from Daniel. So Daniel, we have time for your question. If you could unmute yourself. Hey, thank you. Hi, Daniel. Hi. I was thinking about the, well, the Good Samaritan story. Just about, it was just kind of just walking, not really necessarily like, with like an idea that there is something to happen, but it was just like, like, as like walking along whatever path they're walking along, it was just like there, and then they're just like, so I'm wondering about the difference between just like walking out, walking along and all and like seeking out, like to try to like, help or save. It depends on your attitude when you're walking.

[57:03]

You know, if you're, if you're walking, this is actually, this is totally the attitude of Zazen. That the attitude of Zazen is receptive and attentive and open. In other words, you're not looking for something. You are just responding to whatever crosses your field of perception. And you have to decide in Zazen, the idea is not to be caught on anything. But what we're doing in Zazen also is cultivating this capacity for being open and being receptive.

[58:07]

And in our daily life, it's not that we just have a perception as we're taking a walk and we walk right by. It's like, there's a homeless man sitting on the corner. You know, do I ignore him? Or seeing him, do I stop a moment and have some contact or give him a small amount of money? Uh, so I think that the attentive reception of Zazen allows us, it develops the capacity to tune into what's going on around us. And then our activity, which is essential, coming out of that Zazen, we determine what it is that's appropriate by way of response.

[59:12]

And I think that's what the Good Samaritan did. Everybody else just walked by. Okay. Thank you. Our second to last question will be from Ben. Hi, Hosan. Yes. Thank you for your talk. Thank you. Um, my question goes back to the interview with Bhikkhu Bodhi that you shared. Okay. His, um, his initial comments, if I remember them correctly, they don't need to be exact, I don't think, is something like the systems of greed and domination that drive society, which I find to be true. Uh, and I know Buddhist understanding is that one way of seeing the world,

[60:13]

and the one that maybe seems top of mind for me a lot is it's driven by greed, hate, and delusion. It's centered on that. So many beings respond from that place, including myself all the time. So in a sense, like we've heard, you know, I hesitate to bring up it like a repeated Sojan comment, but I guess I will. It's always been this way, right? He said he saw this many times. So how does what you're talking about fit into what I might say is the inevitability that the world functions on greed, hate, and delusion, and that systems of domination and harm are inevitable in any place or time? Well,

[61:14]

you got to take the long view. Maybe the multi-kalpa view. Just because it's always been this way doesn't mean it's always going to be this way. And it's confronting the conundrum of the bodhisattva vows, which we are about to chant, right? That, uh, uh, that beings are endless, beings are numberless, I vow to save them, and so forth. That each one of those vows has a built-in impossibility in its vastness. And, uh, you know, if you look at the Mahayana teachings, they are vast.

[62:25]

And they're not, uh, they're not dissuaded by the scope of the problem. And we are encouraged to be that way. That's, that's all I can say. It's, um, even though it's daunting, uh, and seems impossible, this is what we're, we're being asked to undertake something that's impossible. Thank you. Thank you. By the way, I successfully just posted the link to Buddhist Global Relief. So one more? Yeah, thank you, Hosan. Our next and final question will be from Kika. Hi, um, uh, Hosan, thank you so much for your talk. Everybody forgive me for not having camera on. I'm having a little Zoom, uh, exhaustion, let's call it. And it's, your, your talk was so

[63:34]

helpful for me today. I've been kind of breaking off into tears. Uh, so I feel, um, supported by the sangha and by your teaching. Thank you. That is a difficult time for me just right now. Yeah, really take care of yourself. But I did have a, just wanted to say that I appreciated, um, the distinction you drew between, you know, the subtle, um, um, definition of control as Susan Moon was, uh, asking about. I appreciated your pointing that out to us and pointing us to that chapter in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. And then also you started to riff on the four foundations of mindfulness. And I thought, I'm going to ask him, will you teach a class on the four foundations of mindfulness? I really was getting into what you were, what you started to, to, to get into there. Yeah, thank you. I think I just, I think I did, you know, for me, I, I can't keep track of, uh,

[64:35]

my center time, but, you know, so what I think I may have just done might've actually been 10 years ago. Um, but I'll, I'll take a, I'll take a look. Uh, it's wonderful. I'm going to, I'm, and I'm happy to study it with you there. Uh, they're really useful. And I think that there's a, there's a mistaken way that people understand mindfulness, but I don't want to get into a critique of that right now. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah. I'm bowing here and bowing. Thank you. Well, thank you all. And, uh, as I said, I've just, I successfully managed to post the link to Buddhist Global Relief and, uh, thank you. Enjoy the day and be careful about the air and, uh, about our nation.

[65:26]

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