Good evening, everyone. Can you hear me? So I want to talk tonight about compassion. So this is a small group so we can have some discussion, but I want to talk first about. Well, this is from a talk that my old friend Roshi Joan Halifax from the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe gave September 22nd to a Soto Zen Buddhist Association teachers conference. So she's talking about compassion. Actually, the first part of this is about I called the talk practical compassion, but the first part of this is about problems and compassion. So I just want to read from, you know, kind of look for my notes, but then talk about this. She talked first about pathological compassion or pathological altruism.

[01:07]

So the first part of this is, again, dangers of compassion. So pathological altruism, one side of that could be disempowering those to whom we are compassionate. You know, like we are, we have all the good stuff to give to somebody else. So this is naturally a problem for people in helping professions or doing helping work to feel better than those we help. The other side of that or one other side of that is pathological altruism that damages oneself. This comes from overwork and neglecting one's own well-being. So we have to take care of ourselves as well as taking care of others. So this is times when at times this is a problem I have of working too much, not and I'm working at now at pacing myself and taking time to take care of myself.

[02:24]

This is, you know, the dynamics of what is real compassion. So Roshi Joan also talked about empathic distress, being empathic with people who are suffering and then becoming distressed oneself. So there's a kind of skill in having one's own balance when one tries to be helpful, when one works that compassion, when one expresses compassion. So one way to talk about this is kind of wholeness or integrity and the opposite of that. So Joan laid out a landscape of moral suffering. So how to not be caught by moral injury.

[03:28]

So we may feel in the face of distress some responsibility, but moral injury comes when we're, well, in various ways, unable to act on some remedy. When we don't know what to do, when we feel like there should be some, even when we feel like we know what the remedy is and we just don't know how to act. Another aspect of this moral injury could be witnessing and participating in some moral transgression or enabling some moral transgressions. So these are all ways in which we can get caught, even when we're trying to be compassionate. Another moral outrage, we can get caught up in anger and disgust and with all of the moral outrages in the world.

[04:33]

So how do we find appropriate balanced action as opposed to being self-righteous, feeling when we feel anger or outrage or distress, it's really easy to become self-righteous. Oh, look at that happening over there and feel like we are better than that. So that self-righteousness, the thinking we know the answers is a big problem. Again, I'm going through some of the obstacles to compassion, the practical obstacles. Another one is moral apathy. So in the face of distress and suffering, one thing that happens is we can sort of check, we can get caught up in not caring. We can feel like there's nothing to do or I don't know what to do or just moral disengagement, not just feeling there's nothing to do or not caring.

[05:53]

Can you hear me okay? I'm getting a signal that my internet is unstable. So all of these moral injuries can leave a kind of a residue of unprocessed moral suffering. How do we pay attention to all of this? How do we see when we get caught up in some of these obstacles? So one way to see this is in terms of respect as opposed to disrespect. So how do we respect ourselves? How do we respect the situation? How to respect the other people who are suffering without, you know, again, making oneself better than being self-righteous? Joan talked about how in the COVID crisis, she said 15 to 20% of nurses have left their job or leave their jobs, maybe even before COVID, but certainly now.

[07:11]

And a lot of that, one cause of that is what she called horizontal disrespect, which is disrespect of our peers. Feeling like we're not appreciated. So there are various kinds of issues there. Overwork is one that I mentioned. Sometimes a toxic workplace where there's a not support, where there's a feeling of not a feeling of being in it together and cooperation. Or another one is lack of efficacy, lack not being able to be helpful. So that's another source of burnout. That's when nurses, for example, feel like they're not, there's nothing they can do and they can't help. So again, these are barriers.

[08:12]

These are the issues in which these are obstacles to compassionate activity. And the response to these involves a kind of attention and balance. How do we find our balance in the context of difficulty with compassion? So those are some of the difficulties. And, you know, the Metastudio talks about may all beings be happy and kind of universal sense of compassion. Not just for one's own family or oneself, but may all beings be happy. So the practical aspect of that kind of universal compassion, another way to talk about that is objectless compassion.

[09:19]

So not having some particular object of our compassion, but just a way of responsibly carrying ourselves. I think Zazen helps us. This sense of, in doing Zazen over time, this sense of just being present, being aware. Beyond all of our ideas and judgments and trying to figure things out, just how do we look at the situation in Zazen, the situation of ourselves and the distress or problems or whatever issues arise in the context of just being ourselves on our cushion. So this universal compassion is this kind of spontaneous, objectless response to a situation of suffering.

[10:19]

And it's not about something else. It's not about someone else. It's just this kind of immediacy of giving. A famous story in our tradition, a koan about two Zen teachers, Yunyan and Daowu. Yunyan is the teacher of Dongshan, who founded our Sao Dong or Soto tradition in China. This story about this kind of spontaneous, open-hearted compassion is something like this. To paraphrase, they were talking about the Bodhisattva of compassion, Kanon or Kanzeon. The Bodhisattva of compassion is depicted in many different ways. And that's appropriate to compassion because, you know, there are different ways to respond in different situations. So part of balanced compassion is just paying attention, just witnessing.

[11:28]

So the Kanzeon, who we chant to sometimes, her name means to regard or listen to or hear the sounds of the world. Sometimes it's translated the cries of the world. So to listen to the suffering, to be able to be willing to hear the suffering. But one of the prominent forms, there are many forms of Kanzeon, but one of the prominent forms has a thousand arms. Sometimes you see it fanned out with many, many arms. And each of the hands holds a different, many of the hands hold different implements that might be helpful. And each hand has an eye in it, in the palm. So to look at the situation from different perspectives, from many perspectives. So the story goes that Da Wu asked Yunyan, why does the Bodhisattva of compassion have so many hands and eyes?

[12:34]

And some of you know this story, but Yunyan responded, it's like reaching back for a pillow in the middle of the night. So there's something, so it's just this kind of reflexive automatic helpfulness or adjustment. So adjusting our pillow in the middle of the night. So in the middle of the night, it's not about seeing different categories of things. It's just, you know, it's kind of automatic response. Now, this is not something to try and cultivate. It's a kind of awareness and responsiveness that grows in the context of sustained Zazen practice. And sometimes when we feel like, you know, we don't have that or whatever, we may make judgments about it. But that's in terms of, as opposed to all the obstacles to compassion, that's the kind of objectless, spontaneous compassion.

[13:38]

It's not about some other, it's about just responsiveness. So Joan had a mnemonic that is how she sees an appropriate way of responding to suffering. And this is from a book of hers called Standing at the Edge. And it's Grace, G-R-A-C-E. So, you know, this is a kind of way of thinking about all this. So G and Grace is about gathering attention. Just gathering our attention, paying attention to what's going on here, what's going on in the situation. Really, compassion requires paying attention.

[14:39]

And it can be a gentle attention, but it's persistent just to look and see what's going on. The second one, R in Grace, is to recall our intention. So this is about vow. So at the end of all our talks, we chant the four bodhisattva vows. But this, you know, after gathering our attention, to recall our intention. What is it, you know, what is it we want to do? How is it that we want to be? And, of course, we forget. But how do we remind ourselves, recall this intention to be helpful, to work together with others, to respond in a way that can help if we can. The third A in Grace is attuning to oneself.

[15:46]

Very important. How do we check ourselves? How do we, you know, as Dogen says, turn the light within to study the self. So this is, in a way, a big part of zazen. How do we attune to ourselves? How do we attune to ourselves and attune ourselves? So sometimes the bodhisattva is talked about as a kind of channel, like a radio channel, that tunes in to Buddha or something. How do we look at our intention and attune ourselves? That means, again, studying the self, seeing how we are, seeing how does it feel? What's going on? And to do this in the context of a regular zazen practice means that we, you know, in the process, in the middle of trying to be helpful, or not even trying to be helpful,

[16:52]

just responding, what's going on? Seeing ourself as part of the process and being helpful. So that's G-R-A-C is considering what is helpful, what serves to address the suffering. And this is in the context of not knowing. It's not about figuring out. It's not calculating. It's considering, oh, what's going on here? And without having some answer, without grabbing onto some answer about what to do in a particular situation, how do we consider what, you know, what might be helpful, what might be useful? And then the last one, E of grace is engaging. When we've done these other four, to actually interact, to try and be helpful,

[17:55]

to interact clearly from that perspective. So this is a kind of, you know, roadmap or a scheme for looking at what are the textures of compassion. Again, all the obstacles to compassion, the ways in which we can get caught in duality and not taking care of ourselves in the process of just not caring or of making judgments, of not respecting all the others involved in the situation. And then as opposed to that, just developing what, without, it's not about calculating. This is kind of subtle. How do we find our way of just responding kind of spontaneously, helpfully?

[18:56]

There's a kind of training involved in that, which is that we, in the practice of skillful means, which is one of the practices of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, we try and act to help in a situation. But there's no instruction manual for that. It's a matter of paying attention, paying attention to ourselves as well as any others involved. And how do we just respond openheartedly? So I could keep babbling, but maybe that's enough to start. And I'm interested in, you know, any thoughts any of you have? We can just talk informally. This is a, you know, nice little small group here. Any thoughts, comments, responses about these textures of compassion? Please feel free. Amina.

[20:03]

I like the mnemonic. I like the C especially, considering, just because it seems like if you're always considering, then you're staying open, you know, so that you're staying open. You're maybe less likely to go towards self-righteousness or towards a certain thing that you think, you know, something you should be doing that someone or something else needs, you know, you know, that it's this one thing or, you know, like, but just, yeah, I like the openness of consider. That's stuck with me, especially. Thank you. Yeah. So it's not calculating. It's not figuring it out. It's not exactly contemplating either. Just consider what might be helpful here. And without knowing, without, you know, it's very open, as you say. Yeah. It's one of these parts of this process of compassion that is really simple in a way, but maybe we should consider considering.

[21:09]

Anyway, thank you. Other reflections or response. Please. Yes, you. But, uh, talk to get home. Because I'm one of these guys in the helping professions. And it was passionate. We're trying our best like everybody else. But, you know, this in a self pitying sense, but it's kind of rough to bring all that to a, you know, to one's work with a with people, very different kinds of disabilities. They're all together in the same, you know, space, usually a small space. I had a case this morning. It's kind of a continuing problem. I think that like that.

[22:11]

I have a client. Very nice guy, but he's just contrary. Just loves the word. No. I work the morning shift and one of my jobs is to get people their day programming. And these days, our agency, like many others are have a staffing shortage. And so, rather than keeping them at home or keeping them, you know, otherwise employed. What we do is we, we put them in the gym. Sorry, recreation for a couple of three hours until we can find a place to relocate them or reassign them or send them to jobs. And this guy is supposed to be out of the house at 830 and it's always like 939 45 when he has breakfast and comes out of his room and takes a shower and, you know, I finally get him to. And, you know, I've been relating to him.

[23:18]

It's like a drill sergeant because that's what everybody else does. And today I had a chance to or the opportunity or the reason to go to go to the gym, and just look around that's, I guess, what you're gathering intent. Yeah, what's your. And, and I looked around and they were there they're sitting in a circle. They all really really bored. And they're bored but it was like combination shuffleboard and field hockey they have these baby sticks. And I'm thinking, No, I wouldn't want to get up early first thing in the morning and rush to play some lame game, either. I kind of understand, you know, but there's no, there's not enough imagination or resources or whatever the deal is to to assign them properly. But I was I was able to, I was able to see that and your, your talk helped me illumine the struggles that I'm having a lot of us are having.

[24:28]

And it's something to think about and it's something to meditate upon and probably something only to act on it in some manner. So, thank you for that. Thank you for your for telling us about the situation. You know, skillful means how to act, how to actually be helpful, how to actually serve, you know, that in Jones thing that's. Well, that's the one that Amina was talking about considering what actually helps, what is, what is service. But part of what's involved in that in terms of, you know, there's all these, there are lots of different ways to talk about compassion. Lots of different ways to talk about practice. But one of them is the transcendent practices, the paramitas. And in terms of skillful, skillful means is one of them, but it depends very much on the practice of patience, which I talk about a lot. And patience is, again, tricky because you can, you can feel, you can go into this, you know, this kind of uncaringness and just, you know, just hanging out and waiting and not paying attention.

[25:43]

But true patience as a practice is very dynamic and active. And really what you, you know, attention, as you were saying, really watching the people in the, you know, in the room and what's going on. And, and, and also the discipline not to just act, you know, not to just react. You know, sometimes we have some impulse, I've got to do something. But sometimes patience means just sitting there, just being there, witnessing, watching, really paying attention. And in the middle of that, sometimes we see something that might be actually helping and really serving. But that's difficult. It's, you know, when we see some distress, when we see some problem, you know, there's one impulse to want to rush in and help to fix things. And that often creates more problems. That's where we think we're better than the person we're helping. So it's challenging.

[26:48]

It's a, it's a, this is, this is getting into the nitty gritty of what bodhisattva work is. So anyway, thank you for that show. Good luck with it. It's, you know, there's, it's not, there's not an easy answer. Other comments or reflections or responses? This texture of compassion. I was struck by how many steps you have to do before you connect and engage, right? There's a lot of internal work that has to happen on your end first to be, I don't want to say effective, but to engage.

[27:49]

Which makes sense because otherwise you'll miss something. We've talked about it. And that, you know, not just the other person, but, or situation, but you might miss something like where your approach is or how you're engaging. I thought that was pretty interesting. The vast majority of the work seems to be yourself first. Yeah, that's the attuning part to see. It's not only yourself, it's like really considering the situation in a very open, open way. You know, it's, as you say, it's, there's a, to be ready to act.

[28:51]

Can you hear me? To be ready to act is, can be a slow process. Sometimes, you know, this goes on, you can do this, you know, over and over again in each situation with each person in the room, as Joe was describing. But sometimes it can happen very quickly, going through all those steps. The more you do that, the more you can, you know, gather your attention, check your intention, tune yourself to what's going on in here for yourself, consider what might be helpful. And then engage. That can be a slow, it's not, it's not one, it's not on one timeframe. Sometimes it's very slow. Sometimes it just sort of comes up like reaching back for your pillow in the middle of the night. Anyway, it's, it's, it's interesting. There's, again, there's no instruction manuals, even though Jonah is laying out a process.

[29:57]

But yeah, yeah. So thank you. Other comments or responses? Yes, Ed. Hi. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. For your Monday evening rain, rainy talk. Suddenly we're getting a lot of water in the world. But to partially what Patrick is saying, I mean, I, you know, I have a tradition. I have an ethical tradition that I grew up with, ever grew up in, which I, which was not visible to me and remains largely concealed still, which was to work through to an understanding or to approach and become familiar with an object separate from myself. That is not part of me, because I was born incomplete in some way, which is also part of a large, a lot of spiritual traditions.

[31:05]

And I think that to some degree here, I feel as if possibly I'm participating in a tradition that attempts to leapfrog over that narrative and to consider the possibility of dropping adopted narratives in how I relate to both myself, the world and others. And I have found that I am my most empathic or the most connecting with other people when I'm not operating within a narrative. And in that sense, it is a spontaneous emotional experience when it happens. So exiting narrative is actually sometimes can be very easy. And you say it's a Zazen related potential practice, too. And yes, that makes sense to me. So thank you. Yeah, I think that's very interesting.

[32:07]

Narrative. Gosh. Yes, we can drop our narratives. We can drop our stories about who we are, that we're not helpful or that we're helping everybody. Or, you know, we do have all these stories. And actually, the Zazen tradition is the tradition of teaching stories, right? All these stories of the old ancestors, the koans, to show us something about our own practice. So what you're saying is really interesting. We can drop our stories. Some stories are get in the way. We have all these stories we tell ourselves about ourselves or how I can't do it or how, you know. And sometimes it's helpful to actually look at the limitations and acknowledge them and accept them. So there are stories that trap us, maybe.

[33:09]

You know, it's an interesting thing, interesting question. There are stories that maybe confine us, limit us. And there are other stories that maybe liberate us or like allow us to let go of something. So yeah, how this works with narratives is an interesting question. And I don't think there's one way to do it. Just like there's no one instruction manual. But yeah, thank you, Ed. I'm going to consider that more. So thank you. Other reflections or comments? Yes, Wade. Just to respond to that, Ed, I thought that was a really interesting point. It seems to me like stories are the finger that points at the moon, which is to say it's really helpful if you don't know where the moon is because it's showing where the moon is. But if you get too fixated on the finger, then you're not looking at the moon, right?

[34:10]

It's not the thing itself, but they can be helpful. But also distracting maybe is a word, you know, a form of delusion. If we forget that they're pointing us towards the thing itself and are not, in fact, the thing themselves. Yeah. Yeah, stories are interesting. There's a lot to that. I think we think in terms of stories. I mean, our sentence structure, subject, verb, object, that's already a story. We're already going out as subjects and verbing objects. There's a whole narrative there in a way. So I'm, you know, this may be too simplistic. I'm tempted to think of what's a helpful story and what's a distracting, as you said, Wayne, story or an obstructive story. But then sometimes the story that was distracting or obstructive at one point suddenly becomes helpful.

[35:16]

You know, that's one of the values of these old teaching stories, you know, that we can get caught up in, you know, studying. Does a dog have Buddha nature in all kinds of ways? And at some point it might be just this obstacle like moo, and sometimes it just opens up. But I think we can drop some stories. And actually, part of Zazen is getting to know our own stories. You know, Dogen says to study the ways to study the self. When we really become intimate and familiar with our own stories about how things is, we cannot be caught by them. Yes, Ed? And because it is a small group, I would like to rejoin that too a little bit. It's just because I'm reading this guy who's out of his mind, he's mad. And he talks about poetic agency, which can only spring internally, independent of story.

[36:24]

And it takes, if there's a practice involved, it's a practice simply of listening. And that the narrative in all cases is almost always imposed externally, and therefore separate. And it can serve as maybe Wade was implying, as a barrier. Not exclusively. On the path to agency, of course, narratives are very, very, very helpful. But actual agency itself is often independent of story, maybe. And the exercise of compassion is an exercise of recognition of the self and other, with others. And when I say other, I mean the self, right? When I'm standing at the Burger King counter and the woman behind the counter is frustrated because the register, she can't find the right button on the register. And I really don't want to walk her in the first place. And then, you know, my sense of being with her is helpful, I find.

[37:29]

Sometimes I see enormous human power in those moments. Yes. Which is always miraculous. Yeah. The agency is another interesting thing. So Alex next, but I also want to then call on Amina because she's a wonderful writer and a teller of stories. So she may have something to say about this. But Alex first. Go ahead. Well, I'm just thinking of a Dharma talk from a couple weeks back about writing as deconstructing self. And, you know, I think that the narratives that are most harmful for me when I'm trying to engage in helping and, you know, I teach English to immigrant students. And that is narratives that are sort of heroic self narratives, you know, where I, you know, put myself in the center of whatever suffering that the person is experiencing.

[38:48]

And, you know, offer help and grow frustrated when they don't avail themselves of it or don't follow through and in a certain way. And it's also just sort of this problem solving. Maybe before the without enough attunement to use your one of the letters from your acronym. That, yeah, that's very harmful in my relationship with my partner, too, particularly when often I think people want you to be present with their suffering more than than insert yourself as a heroic solution. So thanks for the thought. Yeah. And part of the root of the idea of the bodhisattva is kind of the heroic warrior, the person who's working for working to awaken all beings.

[39:59]

But that can be kind of inflation. And, you know, that was the first the first aspect of pathological compassion that that Roshi John talked about is disempowering some other because we know we have the we have the goods. We know the answer. So, yeah, there's the terrain of all this is complex and we go over it. And, you know, I mean, I think we all know all this stuff. But to really kind of get into it and be present with it anyway. So, Amina, I said I was going to call on you. Amina writes wonderful stories and novels and short stories. What do you think about narrative in term in relationship to compassion? Well, something that I just started thinking about. I wrote something recently in which I was wondering about why I've never been someone who can really stick to a diary, like who hasn't, you know, like I'm a writer who doesn't really keep a diary.

[41:04]

And this what came to me was that I write to see what's inside my mind and that that to me feels far healthier than recording what I know is already there. And so I think I mean, I guess that just kind of goes back to this idea of openness or maybe like a little bit of like bringing the subconscious into the equation where. Narrative comes from where narrative can come from, come from openness and not, you know, like I I write fiction, but I should say that I'm not very much of a plot driven fiction writer. And so and I do read things with plot in them and I can enjoy them, but it's not it's not kind of what drives me when I'm writing. And so in terms of narrative and compassion, I mean, I think I have a negative association in some ways with the word narrative, not when it comes to writing fiction, but in terms of one's life, you know, because you think about like the narratives that you're always revisiting again and again about yourself or maybe even someone else.

[42:22]

And I've heard myself spin the same narrative over and over again to different people that sometimes it's like a kind of complaint, you know, in my life, you know, or some. So I think I I think narrative. Yeah, I have some some negative association with it. You know, when I'm writing fiction, I see it as a place of possibility that doesn't have to be nailed down to like a certain kind of plot to that, like Freytag triangle, you know, where it's like rising action, you know, like I just I think I kind of rambled and said a lot of different things. But that's that's what's there for me, thinking about it. Yeah, thank you. The part about narrative as being a mode of exploration, you know, not knowing where the narrative is or where it's going is, you know, anyway, one of the part of what you were saying. So, yeah, interesting. Other comments, responses? We have a little bit more time. Anyone has any reflections? Yes, Wade.

[43:32]

Well, I had a incident recently, a few weeks ago with a friend of mine who I'm getting to know where he was. He was responding very poorly to something that I said and responding in a very passive, what I felt was a very passive aggressive sort of tone, which is something I do not respond to very well. No one does. But I think perhaps me especially. And so I think it's easy in those instances to come up with all the things that you think are wrong with that person. Right. To make a narrative about about that person and like all the horrible things that, you know, oh, well, if they think this, they might think X, Y and Z other thing, you know, which is not based in an observation of reality. And I did that in my head. And then I realized I was doing that in my head. And so I stopped. And then I tried to use narrative, I guess, to do the opposite of that, to say, OK, what is he what is he actually feeling?

[44:46]

Like, why is he responding this way to what I said? He's he's clearly not responding this way because he's happy. He's he's suffering. Right. To cause him to to be this nasty. How can I be how can I be compassionate to that? And so I decided to use I tried at least to use that that approach. So that's I mean, that's a narrative. Both of those are just narratives in my head about someone else. Right. One is helpful. One is not so helpful. So anyway, I took my I took a long time composing response and the response ended up not going over well either. But sometimes that's the way it goes. I guess that's the hard part of compassion or upaya generally is knowing, well, what is the appropriate response? I know I'm supposed to come up with one.

[45:47]

I know I'm supposed to, you know, reflect on what I'm feeling, reflect on the other person, pay attention, do all of these things. But then when the rubber hits the road, sometimes it's like, oh, what I what I wrote him, I thought was an appropriate response. And it ended up not working. Yeah, sometimes doing nothing is the best response. I don't know. There's no easy answers. Thinking thinking what you were just talking about waiting, thinking about what Amina said in your stories. I mean, yes, it's not plot driven. It's about it's often about character to put it that way. They're interesting people and one sees the inner dynamics and gets to know them in a different context in the works of years that I've read. So that's a different mode of like looking at. And that's kind of what you were talking about, Wade, like looking at this person. Why are they doing that? And how can I help? And maybe there's nothing to do. But trying something, you know, you thought it would help. And so maybe that, you know, maybe later that will be helpful in some other context. I don't know.

[47:05]

I did my level best, but perhaps perhaps it was the best thing to do. And all of the other options were worse. You can't you can't always win. Sometimes you can just lose less. And not knowing is important, too. Yes, yes, yes. And no narrative act is ever complete. But I was just thinking, Wade, like when you said that people are such mysteries, right, because you've got one narrative in which that you might feel like a negative narrative, you've got another that might be more compassionate. But then I just felt like, why not just ask the person what's going on? You know, like, I don't know how that fits into all of this. But I think about, for instance, like maybe like falling outs I've had with people. And, you know, like me and another friend, like a mutual friend, we might like sort of ponder for like hours what's going on with this other person or what they were thinking or why they did this. And I'm always just kind of like, can't we just like talk to the person directly and find out, you know, like what they were feeling? But I guess human relationships aren't that easy. It's not that easy always just to like cut to the chase and like ask, like, how are you feeling in that moment? You know, I don't know.

[48:21]

Yeah, I think that can be a difficult thing to ask. And I also think that people don't always respond super well to that. I mean, that ended up being approximately my approach to this, to say like, I understand that you're feeling these things, but here's what I'm feeling. And hopefully we can come to some sort of, you know, middle ground or at least a mutual understanding. And because I think you're right. I think people generally, and myself very much included, just, yeah, come up with these stories, either positive or negative, and don't corroborate them with the person that they're about. And I do wish it were simpler. Yeah, but sometimes it's just tricky. Yes, Patrick. Maybe chaplaincy or hospice. And I know there's lots of folks involved with that here. But like approach, approaching like compassion is like being a bowl. Like the useful part of the bowl is empty.

[50:00]

And so if we're, if I'm coming into a situation with a bunch of narratives or assumptions, my bowl is already full. And then when I engage with someone else, what they're saying or, or what they're providing in the context of our engagement has nowhere to go. And so that early on, the acronym for grace, all that stuff, I was equating it to like emptying my bowl before engaging with someone. And I'm not, I'm not good at that. My bowl is probably 90% full most of the time, if not more full, depending on the time of day, it might be even overflowing. But I like this, I like, it's just something I'm sort of like playing with this idea of like bringing narratives in.

[51:10]

And while yes, there's good examples I might be able to provide in a situation if someone's grieving the loss of someone or something. My experience, even though it might be similar, isn't the same. And so that idea of like, well, let me fill my bowl with what you're providing. And we work through that rather than trying to bring myself into the conversation. Yes, Alex. Yeah, I like the image of the bowl, Patrick. And it kind of reminds me of a sentiment that Taigan said earlier, this idea of compassion kind of coming from intimacy. And that when someone is having difficulty or is angry, you know, I've just,

[52:20]

I think of the Diamond Sutra that says, you know, a bodhisattva does not, if a bodhisattva thinks that he or she delivers living beings, they cannot be called a true bodhisattva. And that, yeah, I guess, maybe it's been called sort of bearing witness or just being with someone. And from that, like, maybe that true seeing that helps us engage comes. This has been a great discussion. I mean, just thank you, everyone. And just looking at the textures of this. Joan Halifax ended her talk with a really interesting image. She talked about wounded Buddhas. So we're all kind of expressing that in some way, wounded Buddha.

[53:25]

She talked about it in connection with, you know, the past couple of years. Well, maybe we could say the past several hundred years, but whatever, you know, the pandemic and, you know, 700,000 people lost. Just in this country, what does that mean even? But, you know, that we're all kind of wounded Buddhas sitting in a charnel ground, considering, well, literally death, but just considering, you know, all the problems that everybody's brought up here. How do we respond to someone who we think is being passive aggressive? How do we let go of all of our stories that are getting in the way? Or how do we find helpful stories? Anyway, there's something about that that really, to me, hits some aspect of compassion.

[54:30]

To not be the Buddha who knows all the answers, but just we're all wounded Buddhas. And then how do we respond from that? So we could just close with the four bodhisattva vows, but if somebody else, if somebody has something else you want to say. I apologize because I talk too much, but it's because I'm isolated. Wounded Buddha. But, you know, I'm reading this ridiculous. Well, it's a fantastic essay called An Apology for Poetry. And apparently passion, the word passion in the Greek and the English refers to it. You go back to the Greek and it means suffering. And of course, compassion is with suffering. And so it's a recognition of the state of suffering. And the state of suffering is so permeates all human emotion, including love and glory and joy, because it's always in the face of fear in some level.

[55:42]

And so certainly when you mentioned the woundedness of the experience of compassion, that seems very central to it. And in human consciousness through the centuries, certainly. That's the first noble truth. The truth of suffering. But it's a noble truth because we can face it. We can sit with it. We can be willing to hang out here in the middle of knowing what to do with all the all the challenges. You know, that's our practice. So I don't know that any of this was helpful to anybody, but I hope so. And, you know, it just gives us more grist for the mill. You know, how do we how do we live our lives? How do we respond? It's challenging, but it's it's nice to be able to kind of consider this together. This has been a great discussion.

[56:44]

Thank you. Each one of you.

[56:45]

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