Good morning and welcome, everyone, and this is Independence Day weekend, 4th of July weekend, or Interdependence Day. I've long thought of this as a great American Buddhist holiday, so I'm going to talk about that. The American ideal of freedom and liberation has some parallels or resonance with the Buddhist idea of liberation and with Bodhisattva principles of the idea of liberation and just liberty and justice for all and life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has to do with our practice of zazen, our practice of, well, part of what

[01:06]

we do sitting here in various levels is to realize our wholeness, our independence and interdependence. Our independence depends on our interdependence, on our communion and connection with all things, so part of our practice, our ongoing practice, our lifelong practice of sitting upright and facing ourselves is to find freedom within the, a freedom from personal estrangement, but freedom within our personal karma. So what's difficult about this practice is not getting our legs into some funny position, but to sustain a practice of facing ourselves. We face the wall, and that wall is not about keeping certain parts of ourselves or certain people out and away. It's not

[02:12]

about hiding from anything. Of course, it takes time and practice and courage and inner dignity to face our whole life and to acknowledge our deep interconnectedness with everything. So our zazen is the samadhi of all beings. As we sit, we actually are connected with all the people and all the beings in our life, the people that we are close to, the people we know, the people who have influenced us, but also people we don't necessarily know. We're connected through suffering, through joy, through beauty, with all beings in the world, all the

[03:13]

people in the world. So we don't face the wall. We don't build walls to keep out, you know, certain people that we think are dangerous, Muslims or Mexicans or African-Americans. We don't face the wall to hide from certain parts of ourselves that we think are dangerous. We face ourselves. We find a way to be ourselves, to be complete in ourselves. But this samadhi of all beings is a social practice. We realize our communion with all beings in space and time, and how our samadhi, our meditation, our deep communion with all beings supports all beings. So we have guidelines for how to express that when

[04:14]

we get up from our cushion, how to share, as Hongzhe, who we've been studying, says, to graciously share ourselves, how to share this awareness in our everyday life. We have precepts to guide us to benefit all beings, to be helpful rather than harmful, and to support helpfulness rather than harm in the world. Part of this is radical, radical respect for all beings. This is challenging. This is the challenge we are willing to face when we sit down and stop and breathe and face the wall as a way of facing ourselves, as a mirror to see ourselves, and as a window to see all beings, not as a way to shut out certain parts of

[05:14]

ourselves or certain people or beings that we think are dangerous, that we're told are dangerous by political leaders. So the American ideal of freedom is interesting. So I think, again, I think of the Fourth of July as American Independence Day in many ways as resonant with the Bodhisattva ideal of universal liberation, of practicing together with all beings. And so I want to talk about this today. And this is the first time I've given a Fourth of July weekend talk in the age of Trump, so it's interesting to talk about this now. Declaration of Independence, that is the reason we celebrate the Fourth of July, says we hold these truths to be self-evident

[06:18]

that all men, it says, and that's not an accident, are created equal, endowed by, and it says the Creator, we might say just endowed by the creation of all things that's happening through dependent co-arising of everything right now, but endowed with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I was going to end with the question, well, what does that mean, the pursuit of happiness? So that's a koan for us. What is happiness? Anyway, so Thomas Jefferson, who is said to be one of the writers, main writer of the Declaration of Independence, used to be one of my heroes, and now I think of him as a walking koan. He was a slaveholder. He fathered slaves, apparently. He contributed to the theft of lands of many Native American tribes. There are many things about him that I find very

[07:25]

unappealing now. At the same time, he was obviously brilliant, and at least some of his writings are wonderful advocacies for democracy, for liberty, and they've continued to be inspirations for many. And so, you know, some of his sayings are still inspiring. He vowed eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the human mind. That's a great Zen motto. To vow, well, you know, there's a little bit of aggressiveness in there, but maybe, you know, maybe we have, that's part of our practice, to vow constant hostility against every form of tyranny over the human mind. Free your minds. Free our minds together. How do we free our minds? He also said, well, I translate it a little bit as a motto for Zazen. The price of liberation is ongoing vigilance. Buddha going beyond Buddha.

[08:26]

Our Zazen evens gentle Zazen. Ongoing vigilance. Pay attention. He said the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Anyway, pretty good. He also said, I hope we crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country. Well, look what's happening. So, you know, this country was founded on ideals of liberty and justice for all. And these ideals are still celebrated. And they show possibility for change and for realistic hopefulness. And it's really important that we have these ideals in this country. These are bodhisattva ideals. So, you know, this is, Buddhism is

[09:34]

now in America. And it's different in many ways. There's, of course, you know, the feminist aspect of American Buddhism, which is wonderful and important. There's the aspect of Western psychology, which informs and has helped develop American Buddhism. But these ideals of American democracy, they didn't have that, you know, in Asian, for the most part, in Asian Buddhism, historically. It's part of Asian Buddhism today. But there was not, you know, most historical Asian Buddhism in India, China, Japan, Korea, all South Asia were feudal societies with warlords. And, you know, they didn't have the idea even of participatory democracy. So, there's something that we can bring to our

[10:36]

practice, our bodhisattva practice, that is different. We need to face the problems of our society and the sadness of all the difficulties and suffering now. And we still have the means to produce change and support well-being. This is fundamental to Buddhist teaching, that change happens and that we can make a difference. How to do that is a huge challenge. How to do that in our own lives is a huge challenge. So, there's this continuum between what goes on on our own cushions and our own dynamics of our own suffering and what goes on in terms of our own circle of friends and family and the people we know, and then what's going on in our society at large. So, but on the Fourth of July, we have this inspiration

[11:42]

of Independence Day, this ideal of freedom, this American Buddhist holiday of liberation. Abraham Lincoln said, government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. This is a great slogan. Now, we have government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the billionaires. I mean, that's just the reality. So, on the Fourth of July weekend, I feel my responsibility as a clergy person, my responsibility of the precepts of liberation, is to speak about how our country is doing from bodhisattva values, and to speak difficult truths as I see them. So, many American people understand very well that our political and economic business as usual

[12:42]

is, what should I say, a fraud. Many people reject what is happening. Many people voted for Mr. Trump because they understood that. Many people don't know how to respond. So, what I want to try and come to at the end of this talk is to talk about practical responses. And the Trump administration, the whole Trump administration, I think, is very extreme in what it's doing. And I'll come to back to that, but I think the problem goes back much further, and we have to face that, especially on Fourth of July. So, I want to talk about the deep history of the problems we're facing. And I think, in some ways, we've not had a real

[13:47]

democracy in this country, maybe ever. And Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruling that allowed major corporations or individuals to produce, to give, to buy elections, kind of sealed the deal. So, elections are kind of for sale now. We don't have to worry about the Russians hacking our elections, although it's clear they did. The Republicans have been doing it since Gore, Bush in 2000. Now, there's gerrymandering, throwing minorities off the voting rolls massively in many states. So, to learn about some of this, check out Google Harvey Wasserman, W-A-S-S-E-R-M-A-N. He's the guy who documented with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., that John Kerry actually won Ohio over George W. Bush in 2004, and he's been

[14:51]

working on voting rights and how that's being stolen now. So, I say the Republicans are doing this, but the Democrats haven't been doing much to stop this either. So, I'm going to talk about some historical deconstruction. This is being done by modern historians in terms of our Zen ancestors, too. So, I don't want to pretend to purity in any realm. The lineage that we chant of Zen ancestors in India, we know, is not historically accurate. The names there were put together later on in China. We still chant those names because somebody was carrying on this tradition generation after generation. We have, you know, many, we have this wonderful practice, this wonderful teaching tradition and practice tradition, thanks to people going back 2,500 years, maybe

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longer, in many countries. But we don't know the exact history of that. So, you know, modern historians have informed our sense of our Zen tradition, too, and also, especially informed our sense of how there were many women practitioners and teachers all through the history in India, China, and Japan. We're starting to learn about them. So, we now chant women ancestors. It's not a lineage, but we know there were great women practitioners all along, even though the names in our particular lineage or transmission lineage are all male. So, there was patriarchy in Zen, as there was in the history of our founding fathers, as we call them, and as they were. So, just a little bit of history about our founding fathers. This is from an article, if you want to look it up on Consortium News,

[16:53]

called The Deep History of America's Deep State. So, I just want to read a little bit of, just some background about our founding fathers. And again, this is not to denigrate the ideals that we were all brought up with in the United States about liberty and justice for all and democracy and so forth. But anyway, I'm going to read some things. At the Constitutional Convention, Alexander Hamilton, and I love the, if any of you have seen the play Hamilton, it's wonderful and inspiring, and anyway, but here's some history. Alexander Hamilton captured the prevailing sentiment. He said, quote, all communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well-born, the other the mass of the people, turbulent and changing. They seldom judge or determine right. Give, therefore, to the first class a distinct permanent share in the government. Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of

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democracy, unquote, Hamilton said. Hamilton further proposed that both the president and the Senate be appointed, not elected, for life. His vision was but a half-step removed from monarchy. Though not a convention delegate, John Jay, Hamilton's political ally, a slave owner, and the first chief justice of the Supreme Court stated that the purpose of republicanism, he said with brutal brevity, the people who own the country ought to govern it. So we know that's what's happening now, and it goes way back. The founders never once envisioned any such thing as limited government, unless people in the sense that the power of government was to be limited to their own economic class. Self-government by the people was to remain permanently out of the question. We the people, a phrase hypocritically coined by the ultra-aristocrat governor, governor was his name, Morris, would stand forever as an Orwellian hoax. The

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tricky task of the hand-picked delegates was to hammer out a radical new system of government. It would superficially resemble a democratic republic, but function as an oligarchy, according to this article. William Hoagland's excellent book Founding Finance recounts the anti-democratic vehemence expressed at the convention. Quote, on the first day of the meeting that would become known as the United States Constitutional Convention, Edmund Randolph of Virginia kicked off the proceedings by announcing, quote, our chief danger arises from the democratic part of our constitutions. None of the constitutions, he meant those of the state's governments, have provided sufficient checks against the democracy. Unquote. No wonder they nailed the window shut. It should be no surprise that the word democracy does not appear once in the entire U.S. Constitutions or any of its amendments, including the Bill of Rights, which I hadn't realized. I haven't had a chance to check that. Anyway, accordingly, the Constitution does not

[19:57]

once refer to the popular vote, and it did not guarantee a single person or group suffrage until the adoptions of the 15th Amendment in 1870, over 80 years after ratification. The preamble aside, the founders used the phrase the people only a single time. It has been suggested the word democracy had a different meaning then than it has now. It did not. Democracy to the convention delegates meant the same thing as it does today, rule by the people. That's why they detested it, according to this article. The delegates considered themselves the patriarchs of republicanism, the ideology that rejected participation in government by people like their wives, servants, tenants, slaves, and other non-property inferiors. Non-property inferiors. No doubt the delegates passionately disagreed on many things, but the fear and loathing of democracy was not one of them. So that's, you know, one new historical view

[20:58]

about this. Another one is from an historian, Gerald Horn, an African-American historian, and maybe I don't need, shouldn't say that even, it's just he's a historian, and I think he's in Houston, who talks about the American Revolution as a pro-slavery rebellion against British abolitionism. So all the founding fathers, or many of the founding fathers, including Jefferson, were slave owners, but they all depended on slave economies. So this book by Gerald Horn, The Counter-Revolution of 1776, Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America, quote, what helped to prompt July 4th, 1776, was the perception among European settlers on the North American mainland that London was moving rapidly towards abolition of slavery. This perception was prompted by

[21:59]

a case decided in London in June 1772, which seemed to suggest that abolition, which not only was going to be ratified in London itself, was going to cross the Atlantic and basically sweep through the mainland, thereby jeopardizing numerous fortunes, not only based upon slavery but the slave trade. And that actually happened in 1807, that slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire, and the economy of the North as well as the South in colonial and post-colonial times depended on slavery. So, okay, bringing it to present times, with that background showing, you know, so it's tricky because the ideals that are described by Jefferson and others inspired democratic rebellions around the world. They still, you know, Jefferson's writings and a lot of what

[23:00]

he said still inspire us, and these ideals are still important, and we still speak to them, but we also need to look at the reality of our country and the racism now. This isn't new, so what's new is that we have video showing police brutally killing black people, and then we have almost no accountability for that, even when the video is shown in courts. We also have mass incarceration as a continuation of slavery, and then Jim Crow in another form, with the percentages of young black men in prisons amounting to slavery. They're often working in private prisons, working for no wages for private companies, and this is going to increase under the current Attorney General

[24:05]

Jeff Sessions, who has proposed to enhance privatized for-profit prisons and increase the war on drugs, even though there had been a bipartisan move to decrease that. So, the gun violence and gang violence here in Chicago and elsewhere is a symptom of the lack of equal opportunities for minorities, for people of color, lack of opportunities in education and employment and housing and voting. So, the current situation under Mr. Trump has become more extreme, but it's not new. It's a continuation of something. The health care, the new Republican health care bill is extreme. It's a huge tax giveaway to billionaires and eliminates health care for 22 million people and will cut benefits for a great many more. The damage to the climate, I have lots

[25:08]

and lots of notes. I'm not going to read all of them. The science about the damage to the climate is very clear. I have some comments from Bill McKibben, who leads 350.org, who's been one of the great fighters for climate justice. He says that, you know, well, we know that President Trump has said that we're not, that we would, the United States is withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, which was fairly moderate because of the Republicans in the Senate who were not going to ratify anything significant. Bill McKibben says we have to stop all new fossil fuel infrastructure if we're serious about dealing with a climate. We have to commit to 100% renewables, not merely more solar panels, but to powering cities and states with sun and wind and soon, and that's

[26:08]

happening. Cities like Atlanta and Salt Lake City and San Diego have already made this pledge. California State Senate has already passed a bill for 100% renewables. We have to recognize that natural gas from fracking is as bad as an enemy as coal or oil. That has to stop. In addition to the things that are happening in the Environmental Protection Agency, these are just from some of the headlines from last Thursday, June 29th. The new Environmental Protection Agency chief met with the Dow Chemical CEO ahead of pesticide approval, met privately with the EPA chief, had met privately with Dow Chemical CEO ahead of this EPA decision to allow the use of pesticides, of a pesticide that is sick in farmworkers and is known to cause brain damage in children. They met for about half an hour in Houston on March 9th. 20 days

[27:12]

later, EPA chief Pruitt's agency unexpectedly revised, reversed course and approved use of the pesticide. In addition, the EPA rolled back drinking water safeguards and protection for waterways. The new EPA water safety official used to work as a fossil fuel lobbyist, so that's a little bit about the environment and the climate. Then something that has not been addressed by any of the politicians, well some, but it's not been addressed by Republicans or Democrats, is we have this endless warfare now. Mr. Trump's world travels, his first trip was to Saudi Arabia, he promised 110 billion dollars in new weapons. We have this new Muslim ban that the Supreme Court partially approved. ISIS has called the Trump Muslim ban, quote, the blessed ban, because

[28:16]

it's a wonderful recruitment tool for them. It seems like Trump's foreign policy is based on selling as much American weaponry as possible around the world, as well as promoting his Trump Tower hotels. And sanity would seem to indicate having massive cutbacks on wasteful military spending. You know, we have such things as funding submarines to fight ISIS in the desert. It's just, you know, it's insanity. Okay, enough of all of the horrible news. I want to start talking about what do we do. So I want to quote from Naomi Klein, who's written about the shock doctrine and written about climate change, and is one of the voices about what to do. And she has a new book out about this that, I forget the exact title, but it's saying no is

[29:22]

not enough. It's not enough to just say no to Mr. Trump. We have to actually make a change. And she has a five-point plan of how to respond. And I want to go beyond that to talk about what we are doing and how positive change can happen. So I want to come back to significance of Interdependence Day in terms of all of this. So I'm going to quote a little bit from Naomi Klein and what she said about her five steps. She talks about her book, The Shock Doctrine, in which she investigated ways in which after, well she talks about Pinochet's US-backed coup in 1970s in Chile, and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, this brutal unrecurring tactic by right-wing governments after shocking events, wars,

[30:25]

coups, terrorist attacks, market crashes, or natural disasters to exploit public's disorientation, suspend democracy, push through radical policies that enrich the one percent at the expense of the poor and middle class. This has been going on for a while. And she says that's exactly what Trump has been trying to do. Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, repealing health care, more wars. And what Naomi Klein says, in all likelihood the worst is yet to come and we better be ready. So I felt like I should talk about this on this weekend. The administration is creating chaos daily. Some savvy people around Trump are using the daily shocks as cover to advance wildly pro-corporate policies that bear little resemblance to what Trump pledged on the campaign trail. Any one such crisis would redraw the political map overnight and it will give Trump and his crew free reign to ram through the most extreme ideas. These

[31:31]

tactics can be resisted. I've tried to boil it down to a five-step plan, Naomi Klein says. So I'll try and give a summary of these. Step one, know what's coming. What would happen if a horror like the one in Manchester took place in the United States? Based on Trump's obvious fondness for authoritarianism, we can expect him to oppose some sort of state of emergency. Usual rules of democracy would no longer apply. Protests and strikes that block roads and airports like the ones that sprung up to resist the Muslim travel ban would likely be declared a threat to national security. Protest organizers would be targeted and so forth. The truly toxic to-do list would quickly bubble up, bringing the feds to pacify the streets like he threatened to do to end the chaos. What did he call it? The carnage in Chicago. He would increase the carnage. Muslim investigative journalism. Okay, step two, after know what's coming,

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step two, get out of your home and defy the bans. When governments tell people to stay in their homes or show their patriotism by going shopping, they inevitably claim it's for public safety that protests and rallies could become targets for more attacks. What we know from other countries is that there's only one way to respond, disobey en masse. She gives examples of how that happened successfully. What in Argentina in 2001, when the country, with the country in economic freefall, the president declared a state of siege and suspended the Constitution. People took to the streets and the president resigned over that night. Three years later in Madrid, there was a series of coordinated attacks on trains. The prime minister falsely pointed to the finger at Basque separatists. His rhetoric was classic shock doctrine. Spaniards responded with mass demonstrations and his government fell. And she gives more examples like that. So step two, when the government tells you to

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stay home in response to these things, get out of your home and defy the bans. Step three, Naomi Klein says, know your history. Throughout the U.S. history, national crises have been used to suspend constitutional protections and attack basic rights. She gives a number of examples. After the Civil War, with the nation in crisis, the promise of 40 acres and a mule to free slaves was promptly betrayed. In the midst of the Great Depression, as many as two million people of Mexican descent were expelled from the United States. That's not so well known. After Pearl Harbor, 120,000 Japanese Americans were jailed and interned in camps. If an attack on the U.S. soil were perpetrated by people who were not white and Christian, we can be sure that racists would have a field day. And she points to what people in Manchester recently showed as a response

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to that in terms of solidarity with Muslims. So step three, know your history. Step four, always follow the money. While everyone is focused on security and civil liberties, Trump's cabinet of billionaires will try to quietly push through even more extreme measures to enrich themselves and their class, like dismantling Social Security or auctioning off major pieces of government for profit. They're already doing that. Step five, advance a bold counter-plan. She says, at their best, all the previous steps can only slow down attempts to exploit crisis. If we actually want to defeat this tactic, opponents of the shock doctrine need to move quickly to put forward a credible alternative plan. It needs to get at the root of why these sort of crises are hitting at us with ever greater frequency. We have to talk about militarism, climate change, and deregulated markets. I mentioned the first two. The other thing they did

[35:49]

is to deregulate the markets recently. More than that, we need to advance and fight for different models, one grounded in racial, economic, and gender justice. We have to talk about tangible promises of better and fairer life, a safer planet for all of us in the long term. We have to have a different vision. It needs to be bold. Saying no to the shock doctrine is vitally important. Okay, she talks about the climate shocks that are going to come. Okay, so I want to bring this back to our Bodhisattva practice. So Naomi Klein is talking about a counter plan, partly in terms of

[36:54]

responding to the particular issues, but part of what she's talking about is very much what we are about doing this practice, which is a positive vision of how human beings can be. How this works on a societal basis is complex, but there's already, you know, the parts of this are already happening. Doing this practice of sitting upright and facing the wall, not as a way of blocking out the problems of our life or the world, but as a way of seeing ourselves, of facing ourselves, of finding the inner dignity to be willing to be present as the people, the beings we are, in communion with all beings. This takes time and courage and a willingness to just be present and upright and relax

[37:59]

into that. Find our inner calm and dignity. So, you know, I was just, as I was sitting here during Zazen, I was looking around the room a little bit and seeing the strength of all of you in Zazen and also seeing the tension, you know, we all have some tension in our shoulders. So I wanted to say that one of our chants says, let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. This has to do with this history I've been talking about. And we each have our own personal, you know, karma as well as this social karma, this common communal karma of racism and ignoring our environment and exploiting our environment rather than protecting it. How do we, you know, see our own personal karma, the generations

[39:02]

of family dynamics and difficulties and, you know, how do we relax completely into just being where we are now? So I mentioned Naomi Klein. I also want to mention Joanna Macy, who was here several years ago, and I haven't had a chance to talk with her since Trump got elected or since he was inaugurated. She talks about the Great Turning and has a model of the positive change that she says is already happening, and I think it still is already happening, even under Trump. It faces, you know, greater obstacles, but she mentions, you know, three parts, holding actions, which is the resistance, the resistance to all, all the different aspects of the resistance, and alternative structures, which are still there, you know, people trying to find

[40:06]

alternative ways of building social structures, organic farms, farmers markets, micro banks. But then the third is an alternative vision. This is what Naomi Klein is also talking about. Other ways of seeing, you know, human beings don't have to live in warfare. It seems like that, you know. Western human history, maybe in Asia too, there's warfare, and our country's been at war for, I don't know, I don't know why we're still at war in Afghanistan, in the Mideast, other than just that after 9-11, George W. Bush decided we have to invade someone, and we just keep throwing more bombs in there, and creating more jihadi terrorists, and we, and supporting our weapons merchants, and anyway, our

[41:11]

practice, bless you, bless you, bless you, sitting upright, being present, facing ourselves, trying to be kind, practice of Sangha, cooperating, you know, we, we are creating a vision within each of us, and together, of how to be human beings, what is the human potential for being in a cooperative way. This has been the work of Sangha since the Buddha created the order of monks and nuns, and it's evolved in different contexts, and now it's evolving, how do we meet the challenge of America, with all of its contradictions, how do we face the koan of Thomas Jefferson and Donald Trump, how do we see liberty and justice for all, and the

[42:16]

ideal of equal justice under the law, which certainly doesn't exist now, you know, there's one kind of justice for billionaires, another kind of justice for the rest of us, and a horrible other kind of justice for African-American and other minority people. And yet, we can, we can envision something that is in accord with the Bodhisattva ideals, generosity of ethical conduct of patience. This is not, obviously not going to be changed overnight, although change happens very suddenly, after a lot of work. What, and again, what does, you know, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness actually mean? This word happiness, I'm not sure if that's a Bodhisattva value, but what would it

[43:20]

mean as a Bodhisattva value? Our practice teaches us to be, not to have lots of desires. We don't need to have, you know, the billionaires seem to think they need to have more and more and more and more. A billion isn't enough. Ten billion isn't enough. It's crazy. How can we be content with how we are, who we are, with the, with what it is to be the person on your seat? So, I had a lot of things I wanted to say, and, but I actually do want to hear your comments or responses. We have a little bit of time. So, comments, questions, responses, please feel free. Marian. Well, I had a unique experience this past week which made me reflect on the idea of freedom and liberty.

[44:23]

I was coming home on the bus with my husband and friend about the body we're talking about today. And the bus was for three or four of the young people, the people who had been And the exterior class had a few, 400 people, including one African-American gentleman, quietly listening to his high-fives. And all of a sudden, into the class, first is Edison. Edison had been with it, temporarily, from when I was coming. It was a long-term mental health problem. He himself was African-American. And he jumped in and was so, so intense, great at African-Americans. And you couldn't believe the power of it. I don't know if I can evaluate too much, but if I had to look, I'm sure she was terrified.

[45:28]

My husband was terrified. But I was thinking, how would I have gone without him? I think the body's off. Anyhow, what I reflected on was, here we have freedom. He has freedom. Of course, he's been able to fight his mental health issue. But how about the freedom for everybody to carry a gun, which is something I'm not very supportive of. If anybody in that class had a gun, what Congress would have asked to it? If you want a gun, don't. I mean, we were just lucky that we got a gun. We thought it would be a serious, except for a hell of a crime, serious. It must have been a very crushing scene. You know, the African-American man was gentle and pious, and the bomb went off. But what is it? It's nice to be free, but it's one person's freedom, I think, sometimes. It's the same thing in England.

[46:31]

The freedom for those builders to not be restricted by any kind of safety concerns. What about the freedom for people to live in a house? That's relatively free from this terrible catastrophe that occurred. So, you know, that's not like a big news. But this week, I was sort of, wow, how are you inclined to say, let's look at these feelings? Yes. Yes, yes, the whole gun issue is so difficult. But the whole mental health issue now is that they've cut back on mental health facilities. People who need mental health help end up in jail often. That's the mental health facilities. Because they're cutting back on social welfare, so they have more money to give tax breaks to the very, very wealthy. That's where we're living. Thank you for the anecdote. Thank you.

[47:35]

Other comments, responses? Yes, Sid. Let me start by saying that I agree with the agenda of protecting the non-human environment and greater respect for all humans as well. It's difficult for me to see things like 5.5 as a political path. I'll be really honest. I feel really kind of disenchanted with efforts that people have taken in the Trump era to resist. While I agree with compassionate resistance, I think that the focus of a path is located in an understanding, an understanding of one's relationship to all reality. And it seems that this understanding is nowhere in these land, is nowhere in these agendas.

[48:36]

And it seems, I've encountered several of these iterations, and nowhere in there is an inviter or public entertainer. Nowhere is get to know a liberal why this person hurts what this person wants. We don't know why the other person is hurt. And it seems that we're trying to offer something we don't have. In the words of these leaders, or who would be leaders, I don't feel peace. Thich Nhat Hanh says in his book, Men and Peace, that the reason that Gandhians haven't had the same impact as Gandhians is because they don't have the spiritual fortitude. And I'm pining for someone who says, let's understand each other. Let's wait before acting. We need to act, yes. But can we please take a few minutes to listen?

[49:42]

And I would love suggestions for how to find that. Because it just seems absent. And we can't have any peace based on solely action. It's a creature. So, that was very straightforward. And I ask for your coherence as a person. Thank you very much for that. I appreciate very much that response. And I don't disagree at all. I don't, any of those things I said, I don't offer as... I don't, yeah. I don't speak in the sense of hating or hating Mr. Trump or any of the people, you know, personally involved.

[50:53]

In fact, it's very important that we radically respect everyone involved. And yet, I see harm. And so, I think trying to look at how do we respond to that seems relevant to me. But I hear you. How do we both look at how do we respond to the systemic causes for incredible harm? And at the same time, recognize the humanity of everyone involved. It's not that anyone is the enemy. So, I appreciate your words. But others may have some responses. David. Going back to the incident of the bus, guns, and everything, and also what you said,

[51:58]

I think there's a deep, from my own perspective, there's a deep systemic problem that we see each other, which is separate from each other, which is the whole basis of our practices. And we co-arise, but somehow it becomes so isolated. And what you said about having dinner with the Republican, in that sense, it's just so needed. We're two sides shouting at each other, unfortunately. And it's just a matter of, from my point of view as a person, it's trying to get a better understanding of other people, and of myself, and see the connections that connect us. That's really hard. I want to say, you know, we're right. I'm a good person.

[53:02]

But it's really, there needs to be, it's like the guns. We have to fight each other against somebody who's the outside. The outside is everybody. Come in and take us over, so we have to have our guns. How can we change the system, the thinking that allows us to go on? How can we think about ways that we work together to share this one planet that we have? And that's the hard part. And I think practice is part of that for us as individuals. How that plays out for your society, I'm not sure. But I totally concur with Sid. We have to listen to each other, and respect each other, rather than just, you know, do it on the sides. Any other comments?

[54:11]

Yes, Mike. Yeah, I'm going to go on this train a bit. I don't want to go on this train and depend on the topic of both sides listening to each other, because I think that little does each side know that each side desperately needs the other side. I recently heard a podcast about Sebastian Younger, who was the author of the book Tribe. And he kind of touched on that issue, is that if this country was all liberal, it would be very open-minded, very open for other people to come into this country, but there would be a lack of boundaries between our country and the other country. Sometimes we need to engage in conflict. And if this country was all liberal, we would do that. However, if this country was all conservative, we would engage in conflict,

[55:17]

but we'd be also pretty close-minded towards other new ideas. I think that if both sides come together, listen to each other, and work together, and try to find a balance between certain ideas until they reach a point where they say, you know, I can live with this. I think that we would come up with a more effective and efficient solution to most of our problems. And how we're dealing with it right now, I think, is very unhealthy for the country. You know, having one side saying, no, I'm right, this is how it is. And one finger is accusing the other side of all the issues that come about. Thank you. Yeah, I agree, it's complex, and we need to talk to each other.

[56:19]

But I also hear the suffering of African-American people now who are being, who are afraid to walk in the street because of what police might do. That's just, that's another reality. Yes. I'm a lot closer to your idea, but later in this go on, over the summer, this is the next opportunity to come to this one. And to a truth, you know, with all the groups I've been to, you know that I never seem to stick with the law. And I really appreciate the fact, because it's one of my major concerns is, you know, you can't just say it's the law. And if the law, you know, is hurting you, it's hurting the world.

[57:25]

So I really appreciate, I mean, even with the group I'm, you know, mainly with in the winter, it's, you know, someone got elected, and it's like it didn't happen. You know, and I was one of the few people who actually then spoke out and said, you know, hey, you know, there's a lot of black people who are afraid now. You know, so I, I really, I, this thought needs to be talked about. You know, I think it's really helpful that you bring up a lot of things, some of which I didn't know. And I do know, my husband is a historian, and I never got into American history, so I don't think I know what he says. But I do know that our founding fathers were two kings. And the reason that, you know, they had more freedom, you know, was, you know, more freedom than it was this Republican thing,

[58:28]

is that that was one king that they just talked about together. So it's not that our founding fathers were all bad, it's that they couldn't agree on things. But I also see what, you know, what you're saying, too. It's, it's, you know, half of my family is very Republican, and we have a heck of a, we have a heck of a time, you know. And, you know, so we just, I mean, because of the fact that my husband, I mean, that my father, you know, really, really, really, you know, we came, you know, we came that far at all. And, and so it's, you know, it's difficult. But I bought something at Whole Foods, and I wish I could remember the exact words that it said. It said something like, it's actually from a quote from a Buddha.

[59:30]

Okay, so it's kind of interesting that I found it at Whole Foods, and John found it in a Buddhist, a Buddhist place. So it says something like, if you want to change the world, you have to speak both the truth and the lie. And, and now I have it up on my refrigerator. It's a magnet, so I have it up on my refrigerator. And sometimes, like, you know, I get angry, and I just want to lash out at someone, and they see that, and they say, oh, okay, you know, you have to speak the truth. And I think that's what you're doing, is you're speaking the truth. But you also have to do it in a different way. Thank you for that. Yeah, this is difficult to talk about. And yet, I feel like to pretend that none of this is happening, is not what Buddhist practice is about. Buddhist practice is about awareness and paying attention. And there's tremendous suffering around all of this.

[60:32]

And yeah, I, you know, how to do that, how to speak about this in a way that's not about name-calling or blame, or taking sides. At the same time, when there is harm happening, to try and talk about how to respond to it feels to me like part of, and you can disagree with me about my view about it. Please, don't feel like you have to agree with everything I say. That's why we have discussions about it. And I wish we could keep, you know, obviously, this is something we could have, you know, we're running late. But there are not, it's difficult to talk about this, you know, like in a family, you know, in an extended family meal or, you know, in other contexts. And we need to be talking about this, how to respond.

[61:37]

And, you know, to me, this part about looking at the history and the background is, you know, some of this stuff was, was new to me and interesting. And we have this really long karma in this history of difficulty. And it's not black and white. And the things I read are maybe presenting one side of the story. But anyway, history, karma, how things happen, the causes and conditions of things are complicated. And how to talk about this and how to talk about, how to respond to this in a helpful way, and to do that respectfully is really challenging. So anyway, happy Independence Day and Interdependence Day, everyone.

[62:41]

We have a lot of work to do. Thank you all.

[62:44]

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