Good morning and welcome. This morning I'm going to speak about the Flower Ornament Sutra or Avatamsaka Sutra in Sanskrit, in Chinese the Huayen Sutra, in Japanese the Kegon. And maybe I'll have a little bit of time at the end to talk about the Hawaiian school, which is very important in East Asia. But I want to focus on the sutra itself. So famously, Zen is about direct awareness beyond words and letters. And so we emphasize practice. And yet, we also read sutras. Sutras are the The Buddhist scriptures, the words, supposedly the words of the Buddha, but we don't, you know, and it's possible to read sutras and the Chinese teaching stories or koans and to develop some understanding of the teaching.

[01:07]

Basically, in our tradition, we study these things not to reach some particular understanding. It's OK if that happens, but just to encourage our practice. So introducing the Flower Ornament Sutra, it is said to be the first teaching given by Shakyamuni Buddha after his great awakening. And it lasted for some period. We don't really know exactly. And of course, we don't have, we've lost any. recordings or videotapes of his teaching, so we don't really know what Shakyamuni actually taught. But this sutra, 1,600 and some pages in Thomas Cleary's translation, is extensive, and this is actually supposed to be a kind of abridged version of the true Avatamsaka sutra.

[02:17]

And it said that nobody in the Buddha's time could really understand it. And so he went and taught more basic teachings like the Four Noble Truths thereafter. So it's not, it's never been a what should I say, popular, bestseller sutra, but it's very important in our tradition. Not spoken of so directly by Dogen, who founded Soto Zen in the 13th century, but it's underlying actually all of East Asian Buddhism in a lot of ways. So partly I'm doing this introduction because we're going to have a monthly reading group that Dylan, our head Dylan, and our work leader Jason will be starting this next Friday evening.

[03:22]

But I thought it worth just letting you know a little bit about some of the stuff in the Flower Ornament Sutra. So basically it's about the bodhisattva practices, the practices of the enlightening beings who are dedicated to awakening all beings. And it has highly sumptuous, flowery visions, as the name would indicate, offering a sometimes systematic presentation of the stages of development and unfolding of practice activities of bodhisattvas. functioning in the world to promote awakening and suffering. So, as I said, it's over 1,600 pages in Cleary's translation, but it's not a

[04:31]

didactic text. There are some Buddhist sutras and other treatises that are more, in a certain sense, logical and present the teachings in a systemic way. But the Flower Ornament Sutra is more of a Samadhi text. It's designed to inspire luminous visions and exalted experiences of mind and reality. through its use of evocative psychedelic imagery. And I'm using some of an article I did on Huayen Buddhism that Dylan is going to be sending out to people interested. But to say this is not a book to read to gain some intellectual comprehension, but the cumulative impact of all the imagery inspires a heightened state of samadhi, concentrated meditative awareness.

[05:41]

This effect can best be appreciated by bathing in the imagery, as if listening to a symphony, rather than trying to decipher a textbook. and reciting it aloud, as will happen this Friday, by oneself or together with a small circle of friends is a practice, for instance, a traditional approach. So another thing to say about it is that it's a kind of holographic text. And one of the main teachings of it is about, interconnectedness and how each part of our experience and of the world is a total expression of universal truth, of the whole, of totality.

[06:43]

So this holographic quality means that you can read any part of it. You don't have to read it from beginning to end, but just picking out any section of it has the effect of promoting the wholeness of it. So one basic teaching from it, so I'm gonna read a little bit of excerpts from the text itself. So this is one that actually is cited in one of the great Chan or Zen Koan collections, the Book of Serenity. Case 67. So I'll just read from the sutra.

[07:46]

The knowledge of Buddha, infinite and unobstructed, universally able to benefit all, is fully inherent in the bodies of sentient beings. But the ignorant, because of clinging to deluded notions, do not know of it, are not aware of it, and so do not benefit from it. So the Buddha, with unimpeded, pure, clear eye of knowledge, observes all sentient beings in the cosmos and says, how strange. How is it that all these sentient beings have the knowledge of Buddha, but in their folly and confusion do not know it or perceive it? I should teach them the way of sages and cause them forever to shed deluded notions and attachments so they can see in their own bodies the vast knowledge of Buddhas, no different from the Buddhas." So then Buddha teaches them to practice the way of sages so they get rid of deluded notions, after which they realize infinite knowledge and the Buddha mind.

[08:49]

And this is actually… The basic aspect of our experience of zazen that we, well, we may get glimpses of wholeness of, you know, at times in the period of zazen, you may be calm enough to just enjoy being present with everything as it is, but often when we start sitting, and even if we've been sitting for many years, all of our confusion, our grasping, our anger, our fear, all of our confusion arises. And the patterns, the karmic patterns of that become clear. So part of our practice, maybe the hardest part of our practice, is just to observe and become familiar with all of that. So there are some independent sutras in, well, I was talking about the holographic aspect of this text.

[10:11]

And part of that is that there are Buddhas everywhere. And I'll talk more about that. We can talk about the historical Buddha Shakyamuni, who I mentioned. But in this and many other Mahayana Bodhisattva Sutras, there are many, many, many different Buddhas. There are many world systems, as they say. We can understand that as, I don't know, different solar systems, or galaxies, or different dimensions. But there are many different Buddha figures and many, many, many Bodhisattva figures. The main Buddha of the Flower Ornament Sutra is called Vairocana. He's the reality body Buddha, the Dharmakaya. So this is the quality of Buddha that is the equivalent of the whole phenomenal universe. So there are historical Buddhas, like Shakyamuni, who lived 2,500 years ago, more or less, in northeastern India.

[11:12]

There are what's called Sambhogakaya Buddhas, bliss body Buddhas, like Amida Buddha, who was the object of veneration in Pure Land Buddhism, or the Medicine Buddha, and many other Buddhas. But there's also this Dharmakaya, this ultimate reality body Buddha, Vairochana, And he is the expression of the whole universe as awakened. So just to say that. And then in this long sutra, there are many bodhisattvas. In fact, there are pages and pages and pages at times of names of different bodhisattvas who are hanging out listening to the Buddha. But there are some of the major bodhisattvas that are prevalent in East Asian Mahayana. One of the most important in this sutra is Samantabhadra, the active practice bodhisattva.

[12:16]

mention these figures in our meal chant during sittings. Anyway, there are many Buddhism bodhisattvas and that's part of what one realizes in studying and reading the Flower Ornament Sutra. Again, pages of flowery names of different bodhisattvas. So one of the main teachings, again, going back to the holographic quality of the sutra, is that each piece, each flower, each fish, each bird, each bit of the phenomenal world totally expresses the whole universal reality. And there are various ways this is talked about.

[13:25]

One of the most famous from the Flower Ornaments Sutra is Indra's net. Indra is the creator deity in Indian cosmology. And a respected but somewhat minor figure in Buddhism, this creator deity. One of the assembled gods and goddesses who is around when the Buddha is speaking in these Mahayana Bodhisattva Sutras. But the story of Indra's net is that, it's a kind of metaphor for describing reality and the reality of this world. So the universe is described as this vast network or multidimensional net and at each places where the meshes of the net meets there's a jewel.

[14:32]

And each of those jewels reflects the light reflected in all the jewels around it. And each of those jewels, in turn, reflects the light from all the jewels around them, and so on forever. So in this way, each jewel, each particular entity or event, including each person, ultimately reflects and expresses the radiance of the entire universe. All of totality can be seen by each of its parts. So this is just one of these descriptions of images of this interconnectedness in the sutra. Various different samadhi instructions are given in the sutra, instructions for deep meditation. And they have various images. which are also kind of like Indra's net. One of them, for example, and there are many of these, but the Lion Emergence Samadhi in that every single hair tip, in every single hair tip abides numerous Buddha lands containing a vast array of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and liberating teachings.

[15:57]

Or another way it's expressed is the tip of every blade of grass contains whole Buddha fields. So this is a vision of the whole of reality as filled with Buddhas and awakening beings. is called the Ocean Seal or Ocean Mirror Samadhi. Dogen has a whole essay about this. In this image, awareness is like the ocean surface, reflecting and confirming in detail all phenomena of the entire universe. So this is when You know, in our zazen, maybe it's easier when we're sitting for longer periods or for a whole day, but even in a period, there may be a time when you are settled enough so that it's like a clear, calm body of water and that reflects everything in the universe.

[17:05]

And of course, Waves arise, thoughts, feelings, the waves of phenomena. Neighbors running around upstairs. All of phenomena, various waves, arise on the surface of the ocean, distorting its ability to plainly mirror reality. But when the waves subside and the water calms and clears again, the ocean mirror reflects everything clearly. So the sutra is expressing that our individual minds are like this, often disturbed by turbulence, but also capable of settling serenely to reflect clear awareness. So there are many other different samadhis that are described in the sutra there that are ways of expressing how the whole is in each of the parts. This may seem like very exalted, and it is, but there's also very practical parts of the sutra.

[18:11]

So for example, yeah, things fall, things rise. Everything happens. Phenomena appears and settles. This is part of our reality. Well, just to say more generally that beyond the deeper connection with wholeness, the teachings also offer guidance for more complete balance in practice. The emphasis on integration of glimpses into the ultimate with the particular problems and challenges of our everyday situation helps us to not get caught up in blissful absorption and awareness of ultimate reality. So that's not the point. The point isn't to just have some, you know, kind of permanent blissful samadhi where we see everything as beautiful.

[19:23]

It's good to see that. But then also, That attachment to the ultimate is considered the most dangerous attachment. But also, we can apply our sense of that to the particular problems and situations, the particular phenomena in our life and in our world. The sutra offers instructions how to use this awakened awareness as reminders in all kinds of everyday situations. So there's a particular chapter called Purifying Practice. And I'll read some examples. And there are many practical examples in that chapter. And many of them are in the form of these little verses for how to bring experience of the ultimate into particular situations.

[20:30]

So just, I'll read a number of examples. When attaining desires, they should, people, enlightening beings, practitioners, should wish that all beings pull out the arrow of lust and realize ultimate peace. On festive occasions, they should wish that all beings enjoy themselves with truth and realize amusements not real. If in palace rooms, they should wish that all beings enter the sanctified state forever rid of defiled craving. When putting on adornments, they should wish that all beings give up phony decoration and reach the abode of truth. A few more of these. pages of these little verses, but just again to give examples. When entering a hall, they should wish that all beings ascend to the unexcelled sanctuary and rest there secure, unshakable.

[21:31]

When setting out a seat, they should wish that all beings cause good principles to bloom and see their true character. Sitting up straight, they should wish that all beings sit on the seat of enlightenment, their minds without attachment. Sitting cross-legged, they should wish that all beings have firm and strong roots of goodness and attain the state of immovability. And again, there's pages of these, some more. Sitting out on a road, Practitioners should wish that all beings go where the Buddha goes, into the realm of non-reliance. When on the road, they should wish that all beings tread the pure realm of reality, their minds without obstruction. Seeing a road uphill, they should wish that all beings forever leave the world, their minds free from weakness. Seeing a road downhill, they should wish that all beings be humble in mind and develop enlightened bases of virtue.

[22:36]

Seeing a winding road, they should wish that all beings abandon false paths and forever purge wrong views. Just a few more examples, because there's a whole range of these. Seeing a group of people, they should wish that all beings expound the most profound teaching, that all be harmoniously united. If they see a big tree, they should wish that all beings divorce egotistic contentiousness, and be free of anger and resentment. If they see a grove, they should wish that all beings be worthy of the respect of celestial spirits and humans. If they see high mountains, they should wish that all beings' roots of goodness stand out, their peak beyond anyone's reach. If they see thorny trees, they should wish that all beings may quickly cut away the thorns of the three poisons." So again, there are pages and pages and pages of these examples of how to be in different situations.

[23:41]

And some of these are used. So some of them are when brushing your teeth, when going to the lavatory, in all kinds of situations. And some of these are used traditionally in monastic settings as gathas, for example, before bathing or when brushing teeth. So there's a practical side that is also included in this sutra. A couple of the, there's a, How many chapters? Many chapters in this sutra. I think 139. And there's a few different versions of this sutra around. Anyway, a couple of these chapters are independent sutras. So there's the Dasabhumika, or 10 grounds, or 10 stages sutra. which shows the development of bodhisattvas. And there's the Gandavyuha Sutra, which is, clearly translates that, there used to be a separate volume, I don't know if it's still available, but as the entry into the realm of reality.

[24:49]

That's a very interesting, it's the longest chapter and it's very interesting. It starts with a particular pilgrim, Indian pilgrim named Sudhana. And I think it's Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, who's on our altar below the Buddha, sends him off on a mission to ask about bodhisattva teachings, enlightening teachings. So he goes to visit 53 different bodhisattvas. And each one gives this really amazing, fantastic a description of their realm of practice and then says, but actually I don't really understand so much. You should go see so and so. So he goes from one to the next. different kinds of bodhisattvas, men and women, priests and lay people, wealthy people, beggars, merchants, goddesses.

[26:01]

There's a whole range of these different beings that Sudhana visits. At the end, so I'm giving away, this is a spoiler, I'm giving away the end of this whole sutra. At the end of this long journey, each one of these teachers is really fantastic, actually, very exalted, but at the end of this long journey, Sudhana, this pilgrim comes to the, and he's looking for, you know, he's looking for the bodhis, true bodhisattva practice. So he comes to the palace of Maitreya. Maitreya is the next future Buddha in, in Buddhism. And, um, so I'm going to read you some sections from what happens to Sudhana when he gets to the palace of Maitreya, because they have some of the flavor of, some of the language of the whole sutra.

[27:04]

And you'll get that just by coming Friday and starting seeing the beginning of the sutra, where there's this assemblage of wonderful bodhisattvas. So this is Maitreya talking to Sudhana. Maitreya is sometimes depicted as a Buddha, sometimes as a bodhisattva sitting in the meditation heaven waiting to become a Buddha. So this myth, we could say this mythology, this cosmology of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, you know, is part of the background tradition of our simple practice of just sitting facing the wall, being present and aware of thoughts and feelings and sensations and just being upright and present. But I wanted you to get a taste of this kind of

[28:07]

aspect of the background of our practice. So Maitreya says to Sudhana, after he has arrived at Maitreya's palace, you ask how, and there's actually a much longer passage leading up to this, talking about various aspects of Bodhisattva practice, but towards the end he says, you ask how an enlightening being is to learn and carry out the practice of enlightening beings. Go into this great tower containing the adornment of Vairocana Buddha and look. Then you will know how to learn the practice of enlightening beings and what kind of virtues are perfected in those who learn this. So this is this huge tower, bigger than the sky, that is the palace of Maitreya. And so Sudhana respectfully circumambulates the enlightening being Maitreya and says, please open the door of the tower and I will enter. Then Maitreya went up to the door of the tower containing the adornments of Airochana and with his right hand snapped his fingers.

[29:16]

The door of the tower opened and Maitreya bade Sudhana to enter. Then Sudhana, in greatest wonder, went into the tower. As soon as he had entered, the door shut. He saw the tower immensely vast and wide, hundreds of thousands of leagues wide, as measureless as the sky, as vast as all of space. Adorned with countless attributes, countless canopies, banners, pennants, jewels, garlands of pearls and gems, moons and half moons, multicolored streamers, jewel nets, gold nets, strings of jewels, jewels on golden threads, sweetly ringing bells and nets of chimes, flowers showering down, celestial garlands and streamers, Sensors giving off fragrant fumes, showers of gold dust, networks of upper chambers, round windows, arches, turrets, mirrors, jewel figurines.

[30:21]

jeweled chips, pillars, clouds of precious cloths, jeweled trees, jeweled railings, jeweled pathways, jeweled awnings, various arrays of the floor, chambers of jewels, jeweled promenades. It goes on like that for half a page. It's just a tiny sample. The moment he bowed, by the power of Maitreya, Sudhana perceived himself in all of those towers. Okay, I skipped something. Sudhana seeing this miraculous manifestation of the inconceivable realm of the great tower containing the adornments of Arjuna Buddha was flooded with joy and bliss. His mind was cleared of all conceptions and freed from all obstructions, stripped of all delusion. He became clairvoyant without distortion and could hear all sounds with unimpeded mindfulness and so on.

[31:24]

So then he bowed in all directions with his whole body. And the moment he bowed, by the power of Maitreya, Sudhana perceived himself in all of these towers, and in all those towers he saw various diverse, inconceivable, miraculous scenes. So in this tower, there are other towers just like it, each of which is immense, as the tower of Maitreya. And Sudhana enters into all of them. So this goes on for a ways like that. But then, so I'm going to go a little, well, actually, yeah. I'll read a little bit further from that. In one tower he saw where the enlightening being Maitreya first aspired to supreme perfect enlightenment. What his family was, what his basic goodness was, how he was inspired, how he was encouraged by spiritual friends, how long he lived, what age he lived to, what Buddhas he met.

[32:30]

what land he adorned, what assembly he was in, and what kind of special vows he undertook. He also perceived the length of life of the beings and the Buddha of that time and saw himself in the presence of that Buddha and saw all of his works. And then it goes on to various different towers and how Maitreya inhabits them. And this goes on for a while, seeing all the wonders of these different towers. And then, Sudhana saw these and other inconceivable projections and magnificent scenes from each of the towers and each object in the towers by the power of unwavering mindfulness, by all-encompassing purity of vision, by unobstructed knowledge of observational skill, by attainment of control over the basis of knowledge of enlightening beings, standing on the ground of knowledge issuing from the perceptions of enlightening beings, he saw this whole endless manifestation of marvelous scenes.

[33:38]

It was like someone asleep seeing various things in a dream. And anyway, it goes on. And he sees all these adornments and all these different towers. Just as all the adornments of the cities of celestial musicians are visible in the sky without constituting a barrier to anyone, just as human abodes within human abodes within demonic abodes, each distinct within the demonic abodes, are visible according to the purity of the objects of desire, just as reflections of the worlds of the universe are seen as the ocean, just as a magician sees all forms and activities by the power of spells and drugs. In the same way, Sudhana, by the inconceivable direction of the magic of the enlightening mystic knowledge of Maitreya, saw all those miraculous displays by bringing forth the power of magic of knowledge of truth by the power of mystic knowledge mastered by the enlightening being.

[35:00]

Then the enlightening being Maitreya, entering the tower and relaxing his magical force, snapped his fingers. and said to Sudhana, arise. This is the nature of things. Characterized by non-fixity, all things are stabilized by the knowledge of enlightening beings. Thus they are inherently unreal and are like illusion, demons, dreams, reflections. Then at a finger snap, Sudhana emerged from that trance, that samadhi, and Maitreya said to him, Did you see the miraculous display of the magical power of enlightening beings? Did you see the results of the power of enlightening beings, preparations for enlightenment? Did you see the creation of the vows and knowledge of enlightening beings? Did you see the practices and attainments of these enlightening being bodhisattvas? Did you hear the enlightening beings' ways of emancipation?

[36:01]

Did you see the infinity of adornments of Buddha lands? Did you see the excellence of the vows and expertise of Buddhas? Did you realize the inconceivability of the liberation of enlightening beings? Did you experience enlightening beings bliss of absorption? Sudhana said, I saw a noble one by the empowerment and spiritual force of the benefactor. What is this liberation called? Maitreya said, this liberation is called the sanctum of imperial manifestation of unconfused recollection, entering into knowledge of all objects of past, present, and future, and an enlightening being assured of enlightenment in one lifetime attains untold liberations like this. Sudhana said, where has that magnificent display gone? Maitreya said, where it came from. Sudhana said, where did it come from? Aitreya said, it came from the effectuation of the magical power of knowledge of enlightening beings, and it resides in that very magical power.

[37:08]

It goes on after that. But that gives you a sense of this text. And so this may seem not even relevant or practical to our actual, you know, personal everyday lives. And yet, there is this kind of teaching in the background of our tradition. And just reading through some of the descriptions of these wonderful awarenesses and experiences and visions, in itself provides a kind of sense of something quite wonderful. So that's a little bit about the Flower Ornament Sutra. And again, there's 1,600 pages of it.

[38:09]

So Dylan, I hope you can, together with the people reading monthly, get through the whole sutra. in this or some other lifetime and enjoy just these visions of awakening and flowers and beauty and the possibilities that are actually present in this world. So we all know that we live in difficult times in a difficult world and yet there is this level of reality that is also here. And it can help us to respond to the difficulties in the world. So I just want to say a little bit about the schools of Buddhism that developed in East Asia based on this flowery sutra.

[39:10]

So in China, the Huayen school, Huayen is the Chinese translation of a Tamsaka. in Sanskrit, and in Japan, the Kegon school, Kegon is the translation. This Huayen school was never a very popular or a major force institutionally in East Asian Buddhism, but it provided a background philosophically for all of East Asian Buddhism. The major Huayen commentators were active in China from around the 6th to the 9th century. And the kind of teachings that they gave are different in flavor from the sutra itself. They gave very dense and challenging writings that described the interconnectedness of all things and gave various formulations of how to see that.

[40:30]

So they're more, I would say, philosophical maybe. One of them, just to give one of these teachings that's very important in our tradition, as a background for our tradition, just one of the Huayen philosophical teachings is called the Fourfold Dharmadhatu. Dharmadhatu means the realm of things, really, the realm of dharmas. So it's a way of seeing reality, you know, in a way like Indra's net, but it breaks it down more philosophically. So there are four aspects in this teaching. So first is the, the first two are the universal and the particular. are the ultimate and the phenomenal, so this ultimate reality that is described through all these flowery visions.

[41:35]

And then the practical reality, our everyday reality, the phenomenal world. So these are the first two of these fourfold. The third is the… called the mutual non-obstructing interpenetration of the universal and particular. So this is a way of talking about how in each particular thing, each particular flower, each particular floorboard, each particular blade of grass, each particular person sitting here now is totally a expression of the ultimate. And the ultimate doesn't exist anywhere else except in the particular phenomenal world. There's no place somewhere up in the sky or down under the earth where the ultimate exists. It exists in the phenomenal world. So this mutual interpenetration of the universal and particular is very important.

[42:40]

I'll come back to it. The fourth one is the mutual non-obstructing interpenetration of the particulars with other particulars so that there's a way in which each particular being and situation totally integrates, can integrate, without obstruction with every other situation. So these are, the implications of these are very practical. So that each particular situation has within it the context for the universal truth. And this is, as a philosophical background, this Huayen East Asian philosophy is, many people would say, the ultimate philosophical expression of Mahayana Buddhism. Rook Sapoor, and he'll be here tomorrow, may have other things to say based on the Chianti school.

[43:42]

But anyway, this fourfold Dharmadhatu is a background for, well, you know, we chant the harmony of difference and sameness, the Sandokai sometimes. And the integration of the ultimate and the particular is the point. So our practice is not about just having some great vision of ultimate reality. There are lots of spiritual traditions where that's the point, reaching the Godhead or something like that, seeing the universal ultimate truth. But our practice is about seeing it and then bringing it back and integrating it with the particular situation and problems of our life, our personal life, our communal life, the society around us. So how do we respond calmly and clearly to the problems in our life and in the world from this place of some sense of this ultimate. So this is what the third one is about, and the fourth is about how things can work together.

[44:43]

So, and then the Zao Dong or Soto Zen five-degree teaching that expresses that even further. So this is to say that this Huayen school, while never as popular as a lot of other schools, had a very important is a very important philosophical background. So I've gone over usual time, but trying to distill 1,600 pages anyway. Comments, questions, responses, anyone, please feel free. And for those of you who were here for the first time and who maybe had your first Sazen instruction, this is not the way we always talk about practice and reality. But this is one of the backgrounds, this kind of lofty way of seeing the possibilities of our world. So questions, responses, comments?

[45:46]

Yes, Paula. I don't know if we know. But the sutra was around. So all of these Mahayana scriptures are supposedly the teachings of the Buddha. But from the point of view of scholars, historically, we know that this sutra was constructed over maybe a couple centuries or so. And there are different components of it. So it's all said to be from the original teaching of Shakyamuni that was forgotten and then brought back anyway. But the earliest parts of the sutra, like the Dasabhumika 10-stage sutra, might be like 200 BC, 100 BC. But then maybe till it was translated into Chinese.

[46:54]

in around 300 and 400. So we don't really know. And then how it was practiced. I imagine reading it aloud. So reciting aloud sutras was a traditional practice for all sutras. So I would think that that went back into its origins. Other comments? Yes, Douglas. One, that reciting the sutra, if you know it, you have to be pretty good at reciting the sutra. Itself, you need to have a sense of what reciting the sutra is. One of the practices, which in and of itself is the fact that we didn't, at Hex, as early as we started reciting the sutra, there was already this established practice of reciting the sutra. Other comments or responses or questions?

[47:57]

Oh, yes. So we talked about what it's like to be trapped by the ultimate. So what is it like to be trapped by a particular event? Like what you read about on the front page of the newspaper. like the way in which greed and anger and so forth take over people and societies, to not have any sense of underlying ultimate reality is to just be caught by grasping and greed and billionaires who think they don't have enough and they need to have more and more and more, for example. So just to be in the world of the ordinary world without any sense of helping other beings. But there are many, many different traditions in which one can

[49:10]

see something of the beauty and sacredness of the phenomenal world. Well, thank you all very much. Unless there's any other comments. David, did you want to say something? Yeah, I'll make announcements now.

[49:50]

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