Good evening, everyone. Can you hear me okay? Good. So my talk tonight is called Liberation, Justice, Anger, and Skillful Means. And at least in the first part, I want to respond to the talk yesterday morning by Berkeley Zen Center Abbott, an old friend of ours, Alan Sanaki, who talked about what does liberation look like? So some of you were at that talk and some weren't. For those who weren't, I recommend it. And along with this talk, it'll be up on our website podcast available sometime in the next several days. So I recommend it. So, and I hope there'll be time for discussion. I'm gonna try and keep this brief, although there's some things I wanna say. So Alan, talked about liberation or I could say awakening in terms of three realms, the personal, the social or societal, or we could say interpersonal, interpersonal and the environment.

[01:12]

So to say a little more about each of those, uh, our practice starts with a person. We, uh, do this practice of zazen, sit on a cushion, face the wall, face ourselves, study the self as Dogen says, let go of the self and then it arises again. So working on our own particular combination or karma Greed, hate, delusion, crying, and anger and confusion. And also, you know what I forgot to put the other browser on, excuse me for a minute. In his talk yesterday on what does liberation look like, Berkley Center, Abbott, Allen, Sanok, he talked about these three realms, the personal, the social and the environmental.

[02:17]

He talked about this in the context of Buddhism as a living tradition. So Buddhism as it moved from India, up to Tibet and China, down to South Asia, over to Korea, Japan, and now California and Chicago, Buddhism always adapts to the current situation. So how we approach liberation and awakening shifts in terms of our own needs and context. So again, it starts with the personal. And that's fundamental that we find our own capacity for uprightness and calm and being willing to look at our own personal karma and karmic obstructions. And also to see, as we look into the personal, something deeper, something ultimate. So this is the realm of our meditation.

[03:20]

This is the starting point, this is what we return to. But then Alan also talked about the social, that in our current context, how the world around us is part of our practice. And this has always been the case. How do we see, so, you know, the interpersonal realm, how do we practice, express our personal practice with the people around us, in our society, with family and friends and so forth. So the social is important, the interpersonal, relational. And then the third is the environment. What is the situation of our world? the world around us. So in talking about this, I just want to say that in terms of the social and the environmental, justice is a concern. Justice in those terms isn't, it's not on the list of Buddhist practices from the old days, but it's part of our practice.

[04:24]

Social justice, interpersonal justice, environmental justice. So this is something that we have to reckon with and face. And so I'll just say that in our current situation now, in our society, perhaps the supreme moral issue is racism and the problems of white supremacy, racism in all its forms. And it's something that we all have to face in terms of our own backgrounds, each in our own context, in our own various ways. There are other issues, of course, the environmental degradation, and also interpersonal and personal problems. So what does it mean to be just caring, forgiving to ourselves too? even in that realm. One of the things that Alan mentioned is describing some of the ways in which Shakyamuni Buddha, 2,500 years ago, more or less in what's now northern India, was socially active and engaged in society.

[05:37]

Shakyamuni included in his order people from all castes and classes, including so-called outcastes. He included them equally. And people's situation in the order, the Sangha order, the monastic order, was based on seniority, not based on their class or wealth or particular caste or color or anything like that. Shakyamuni also eventually founded an order of nuns. And in that society, which was extremely patriarchal, and we still have that problem, that was very radical to him. So Shakyamuni Buddha was not only involved in personal meditation. He was also a part of this situation of looking at what is justice. So Alan talked a lot about B.R. Ambedkar.

[06:38]

And I want to give some more background. You may not all know who he was and he's a very interesting figure. He was, leader of the Dalit or outcasts in India, who were rejected and oppressed in Indian society at that time and into modern times. Gandhi also was radical in including the outcasts groups in his community. So, B. R. M. Bedkar was Very well educated. He somehow managed to escape even in spite of being an outcast from the outcast cast himself. He managed to get very good educations in New York and London and he returned to India. and it's an interesting story. He decided to look for what religion would support his people, the Dalit or outcasts, because Hinduism, the native religion of India, had oppressed them.

[07:53]

So he actually did an intellectual investigation into world religions and considered all those religions. And he decided to convert to Buddhism. And when he did that in 1956, I think about 500,000 other Dalit people, outcast people converted together with him. So it was maybe one of the greatest mass conversions in history. Unfortunately, Ambedkar himself died six months after this mass conversion. However, these Dali people have continued as Buddhists in India. So in the second half of the 20th century, there were two main sources for Buddhism returning to India after it had been wiped out. the 1100s by Turkish invaders. The Dalit people have continued as Buddhists.

[08:59]

And I was going to mention also, as well as the Dalai Lama and all the Tibetan refugees who came to India because of oppression from the Chinese. So there is now Buddhism in India. The Dalit community continues. and it's very, it continues as a very engaged group. Alan Sanaki has, maybe not in the last few couple years, but for many years went every year and worked with young Dalit people, Dalit communities, talking, teaching about Buddhism and about engaged Buddhism, because they're very much active, socially active as well. So I should have mentioned at the beginning, Alan talked about Dr. Ambedkar's main principles, liberty, equality, and fraternity. And, you know, that sounds like it comes from the French Revolution, but he saw that as the essence of Buddhism.

[10:09]

and principles of social action as well. And Allen correlated those liberty, equality, and fraternity, and it's not so hard to see this, as Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, which we're familiar with. So liberty, liberation, that's the Buddha, the awakened one, the liberated one. Equality, is the Dharma, to see the sameness and oneness, the suchness or emptiness of all beings. That's the truth, the Dharma. So Ambedkar talked about that in terms of equality. And then fraternity, of course, is Sangha, community, working together in community. And this is a basic aspect of Buddhist teaching. So again, I wanna say some other things, but I wanted to repeat that from what Alan talked about yesterday.

[11:18]

One of the interesting things about Ambedkar's conversion to Buddhism, though, is the one Buddhist teaching that he rejected, which is the Four Noble Truths, kind of fundamental Buddhist teaching. He rejected that specifically because of the Second Noble Truth, that there is causes of suffering. And I mentioned this yesterday in comments, but for the Dalai people, for his outcast people, there's this idea of karma that was prevalent in Asian Buddhism to make a huge generalization was seen as personal karma. There was a question about rebirths yesterday that Alan talked about. So, um, this idea of personal karma, that whatever, whatever happens to you as a result of your deeds in your past life was used as a tool of oppression.

[12:23]

And Ambedkar felt that very strongly. So he just, he, he adopted, adapted, adopted whatever he brought in Buddhism for it. his community, but without that, without that idea of personal karma, because the way it had been understood is that if you're born as an outcast, for example, or if you have some difficult situation, that's because you did something bad in your past life. And as I mentioned yesterday, I think that's a real misunderstanding of karma. because there is personal karma, of course, things that we have done in our own lifetimes affect who and how we are now. And for people who want to believe whether literally or metaphorically in past lives, things that happened in our past lives, maybe things that we could think of our personal genetic karma, things that happened to our parents or grandparents affects who we are too.

[13:29]

But based on the teaching of non-self, there's also collective karma. And this is very, very relevant for us now. in terms of the issues of justice and social justice and environmental justice. So, you know, there's so many examples that in our country, for example, of course, the history of slavery, racism, lynching, mass incarceration now, That's not our personal karma, but it's the collective karma of our country. And it affects each one of us in various ways. It's part of what's happening in our world. There are other examples, the karma of treating the world, the environment, the world, the mountains and rivers, the forests and so forth as resources that we can exploit because we're human and we don't respect other beings is a kind of Western problem.

[14:35]

Not that there wasn't environmental effects in other parts of the world, but anyway, to see that causes and conditions are not just personal, they're personal and they're collective, societal, systemic. So this is part of the reality we have to face. So I wanted to add, so that's a little bit of a review of, and I'm going to talk about some other things that came up yesterday, but that's some of what Alan Sanaki talked about yesterday. I want to add this issue of anger. So in the, so at Ancient Dragon, we have a Friday morning, uh, discussion group after a morning Zazen that, uh, Dylan Toropov, who's here, leads. And, um, this question of this issue of anger comes up a lot cause people feel really angry. And actually Buddhism is not about never feeling angry.

[15:41]

That's ridiculous. You know, there are, there's a commentary on the precept about anger, which says, if you don't, if you don't feel anger when it's appropriate, that's a violation of the precept. But the question is, what do we do with that, with that energy, with that emotion, with that response of anger? So our personal practice, our practice of seeing our own anger and how it feels can help us not to just react automatically. So much of our society now is in the grip of anger converted into hatred and various combinations of Well, I think a lot of it is white supremacists, but anyway, their hatred of immigrants, hatred of others.

[16:43]

Anyway, this is a whole complicated issue. Where does that anger come from? And often it comes from fear and fear of loss of livelihood and so forth. So many people are oppressed in various different ways. Okay, but anger, what's the constructive, useful, dharmic way to work with anger? So, you know, just pretending it's not there or trying to stuff it or suppress it is not effective because it just builds up. But I would suggest that the helpful response to anger is what is called in Buddhism skillful means. Skillful means is that we look at each situation and try to see an appropriate response, a helpful response.

[17:52]

So I would suggest that skillful means is a synonym for compassion. We've been talking about compassion a lot at Ancient Dragon Senke. Skillful means is to look at the particular situation of each person, of each person in front of us, of each situation in the world. And then how can we each in our own way respond helpfully? What is an appropriate response? So skillful means is not like a formula or an instruction manual. It's trial and error. It's making mistakes. It's paying attention to what's going on. Sometimes skillful means is to not respond, to just be patient, actively patient and wait to see when we see some potential skillful appropriate response. So how do we respond skillfully, appropriately, to the situations which allow us anger?

[19:07]

So many of us now are very angry, whatever our ethnicity, about the repeated police murder of Black people that's happening over and over and over and over and over and over again. Just in the last week, Daunte Wright in Minneapolis, shot point blank by a police woman who said she thought she was firing a taser. And then in Chicago, Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old Hispanic kid whose hands were up and empty when he was shot point blank by the police. And of course, the jury is now deliberating about the George Floyd murder trial. This happens over and over again. And, you know, I don't think this is new.

[20:09]

Lynching has been going on, well, since slavery and before that during slavery, there was horrors and torture and so forth. What's new is that we are aware of it. maybe because of cell phones, because of body cams, police. So there's an opportunity now to really look at what is an appropriate response to this huge problem that is, you know, a basic fundamental problem for our country. And it's not, it's not just black people and Hispanic people and now Asian Americans. And of course the indigenous people, Native Americans who, Thankfully, some have survived, but anyway, the European peoples, whatever you want to call them, us, the United States, took over indigenous peoples' lands.

[21:14]

Okay, so it's appropriate to feel upset and angry about all of this. just to lash out is not helpful. How do we respond skillfully and appropriately? This is a huge question and I think there's not one right response. For each one of us and for different people, there may be different appropriate responses. Alan emphasized that this is not only about talk. This is about action and taking action. Of course, sometimes discussion can be a form of action. So this is different for different people. I'm not trying to say that all participants in Ancient Dragons Zen Gate have to go out and take part in activist programs.

[22:14]

It's each of us has our own appropriate response. So sometimes for some people, maybe spending more time on the personal is appropriate, at least for a while. At some point though, we look around and say, okay, what's happening to the people around us? And we respond. what's happening to the world and the environment around us. And we look for responses. And this again is where skillful means comes in. Skillful means is the practice of the bodhisattva of compassion, Kanzeon or Avalokiteshvara. Aishan's been talking about this bodhisattva, the bodhisattva who listens to the suffering and the sounds of the world and tries to respond. Sometimes there's a thousand hands, Each hand has an eye for to see from a different perspective. Kansai Ono also listens. So we have to listen to each other. We have to listen to people who we think might think of as other. And this is a huge problem because our country is really divided now.

[23:22]

There's a significant party of white supremacists So what do we do about this? How do we respond appropriately? How do we find skillful means to respond? So I want to give some examples. Part of this is about interfaith work too, listening to other perspectives. So Alan, talked about that yesterday, cooperating with other groups, with groups who are doing helpful activities. So this is a big part of this social action is cooperation with others, listening to others, meeting others, so-called others. I'm going to give some current examples of things that are happening, and then I want to have some time for discussion. But on Tuesday, May 4th, I'm announcing some things, not in announcements, but as part of this talk, because they're relevant.

[24:27]

Tuesday, May 4th, 6 p.m. Chicago time, there's a program called May We Gather. initiated by Duncan Ryuken Williams, who's a Japanese-American Soto Zen priest and also a very fine academic scholar. He wrote a book called American Sutra about uh the internment camps the Japanese people were put in in World War II. This ceremony May We Gather on May 4th this is Sarah it'll be it's online you can join in I've I've signed up personally as a supporter and Ancient Dragon Zen Gate has formally the board approved us formally being an ally sangha but go to maywegather on word.org and you'll see more about it. This is a ceremony for honoring are Asian American ancestors. So Buddhism came to this country through Suzuki Roshi in our lineage from Japan, but also for many other Asian Americans.

[25:29]

So we are doing this practice and this teaching tradition that was given to us by Asian Americans. And this ceremony is going to be in part remembering all of these ancestors, but also remembering the Japanese Americans who were put in concentration camps, interred in camps throughout the West mostly, rounded up, especially all Buddhist priests were rounded up and put in these camps. So that's one thing that we can all participate in Tuesday, May 4th at 6 p.m. Chicago time. I also want to mention, following up on that, next Sunday, Shensheng Han will be here speaking. Howard Gowan will be helping interview one of our members from Hyde Park, one of the organizers of Hyde Park. Shensheng actually was a student of mine at the Institute of Buddhist Studies, one of my classes there, which is the Jodo Shinshu, Japanese-American Buddhist

[26:40]

Seminary, and she's written this book, I don't know if you can see it, Be the Refuge, stories about Asian American Buddhists. And the truth is that most American Buddhists, the majority of American Buddhists still are Asian Americans. And we also know that there have been many hate crimes recently against Asian Americans. The temple in Los Angeles where this event will be broadcast from, this Zoom event May 4th, is the Higashi Hongonji Pure Land Temple in Los Angeles, which was vandalized and set fire to. a hate crime recently. And there have been so many of these, the attack in Atlanta, this recent thing in Indianapolis where four of the eight people killed were Sikhs from India.

[27:42]

So white supremacy is So just to mention one other possible activity, Ayo Yetunde, who's a Black Buddhist woman who spoke here in March at Ancient Dragon, has talked about an African image called Sankofa, which is a bird whose head is turned backwards. looking back and actually one eye is looking forward. But anyway, there's a particular African image. I think she said from Ghana, anyway. What's now Ghana? It's an ancient African image. And so Alan talked about that image as a way of looking back and bringing, reintegrating our past, our karma.

[28:45]

This is part of African culture. Eve Pinsker suggested an event because there is now in Burnham Natural Preserve, which is on South 47th Street, maybe some of you know it, there is a statue of Sankofa there. Eve suggested we might do some events which might include sitting and chanting and discussion. Gyoshin also knows that area very well and knows the people involved in that. So that may be one activity that we do. There are many options for Sangha active practice. Again, it's okay. for some people just to focus on the personal practice, but really as that develops, we see the interpersonal, we see the relational, we see the social societal aspect, we see the environmental aspect, but we're all in different places and we all maybe have different particular appropriate responses.

[30:01]

And oh, part of the Sankofa activity down in Burnham Natural Preserve, and this is something Alan talked about, is to meet with local people. And Laurel might be able to help with this. And the people who live near there and whatever action we might do as a sangha or in combination to to collaborate with the people who use that space at other times. Anyway, so I want to report that at the board meeting yesterday, we now have a new position at Ancient Dragon Zen Gate. This is the coordinator for social justice interfaith activities. Maybe we can come up with a slightly different name, but I think that says it. And Dylan Toropoff, who's a board member in our ENO and does the Friday morning, organizes and leads the Friday morning discussion of race after

[31:08]

Zazen has agreed to take on that position as coordinator for social justice and interfaith activities. But this will also be a board committee. So anybody interested can email info at ancientdragon.org if you're interested in helping out with that. Again, this doesn't mean that all of you have to become social activists or that you have to take part in some particular kind of activist activity, social activity. There's a lot going on now. In response to the Adam Toledo murder, there are many demonstrations around the city. So at any rate, the people on the committee may include, there are people, there's a Buddhist Peace Fellowship Chicago group that meets the third Thursday. There's an organizing meeting the third Thursday of the month. There's several ancient dragon people who've been part of that.

[32:13]

Some of them might be on this committee. There's also the people from the Friday morning race discussion that Dylan leads him. But the point of this is not to get everybody to do some particular social action, just to coordinate and make available for people who are interested to know. So Dylan will coordinate letting people know when some members of the Sangha want to get involved in some project or some action. For example, a meeting at the Sankofa Burnham Natural Preserve. So, okay, that's what I want to say. This is, something that is part of the idea of bodhisattva practice. Bodhisattvas are people who are supporting the awakening, the liberation of all beings.

[33:14]

But that means that we're also caught in the suffering of all beings. So I want to find out Anyway, your responses or comments to any of this. So I'll stop and maybe Wade, you can help me call on people, but you can just raise your hand. Thank you. Comments, responses, questions, feel free. Yes, Ken, hi. Yeah, I would just like to thank you for your talk because it did address some very recent feelings that I was experiencing, that I've been experiencing related to anger.

[34:17]

But it comes from kind of an unexpected quarter because And I think partly as a result of my practice, I find myself empathetic in an unusual direction. Well, actually, let me back up. There's a group that I do a Zoom conference with. It's a bi-weekly discussion of political events with a group of older African-Americans like myself. We call ourselves the Graybeards. And particularly in reaction to the most recent shooting up in Minnesota, I found myself feeling more empathy and identification with the police officer.

[35:30]

And I tried to explain that from my perspective, putting myself in her shoes, and been with the department for 26 years, that I could not imagine deciding that with the George Floyd trial taking place right down the street and the issue of police brutality being front and center in the news, that I could not imagine deciding that that was a good day to kill a black man. And as I, in trying to convey that perspective to my friends, they couldn't get it. They did not, I mean, I didn't get any sense that anyone else saw things that way.

[36:35]

And that made me angry. It made me angry because in Increasingly, I have started to notice that in many respects, the folks on my side of many of the political issues that I care about are not that different than people on the other side. Just as a police officer in viewing a black suspect may only be capable of seeing an other That's what I saw in my friends, that they could only see this white police officer as an other and not be able to put themselves in her shoes. And so it is a curious phenomenon to have one's compassion lead to anger, but that's what I experienced.

[37:37]

And what I've been experiencing, increasingly. And I'm trying to make sense of it. I'm struggling to make sense of it. That's why I'm so grateful for this particular talk. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. So the relationship between compassion, empathy, anger, part of skillful means is to see the other and relate to the other. And they're, you know, in our current political world, not just the police, but the, you know, the Washington, D.C. Congress people who are virulently white supremacists, in my opinion, how to see them as human beings, that's there's also accountability, you know, it doesn't mean we can have compassion for somebody.

[38:41]

So I can understand, you know, I hear you that, you know, it's very likely that this policewoman did not intend to go out and kill a black man that day. And she said she confused her gun with her taser, which actually they look and feel different. But anyway, I can imagine it might have been a mistake. It doesn't mean she shouldn't be held accountable, in my opinion. But I think healing comes from empathy for the other. And that's really hard now, because this country is so divided. But yeah, it's interesting. The way you talked about compassion, giving rise to anger, You know, how do you then see the other people in your group who couldn't see her as a human being? And not, you know, how do you see that anger? So anger's really available these days. And I'll call on you in a second, Yazan, but yeah, how do we turn the energy?

[39:47]

There's tremendous energy in anger. How do we turn that towards skillful response, appropriate response? It's a real challenging question. Yes, go ahead. You're still muted. Another year of Zoom, I'll be into this. I really appreciated your comments, Ken. I have a lot of difficulties actually with the way we are framing a lot of this stuff a lot of the time, and also have become often, have come to feel somewhat exasperated by the way, you know, my people, i.e. the people, progressive peoples on the left and stuff, frame these things, and sort of a lack of imagining

[40:53]

being able to imagine oneself into certain situations and empathize, that because of the way we frame it, I think a lot of the action in response to some of these things is very unskillful and very unhelpful. And I find that frustrating. Hi, again, when you were speaking, you know, we've had, you spoke in response to Ken and talked about the importance of clear seeing. It sounded earlier as if you were framing it as there are options with anger. You know, you said, well, no, anger can be okay, we have to act on it, and so on. no problem with that. And you said, you know, the way you put it was that the the alternative, apparently, you know, words you use, we or we can stuff it, we can repress it, that kind of thing.

[41:57]

But I, I honestly, in my understanding of Buddhism, Yes, we're going to experience anger, but I think the ability to respond to our own anger skillfully and respond to the things that we're angry about skillfully is really more based in clear seeing than in the anger itself. And I just feel like we're in the situation where we're running away with this anger and not realizing that, yeah, if you're, The police women that Ken mentioned, I mean. It's a terrible thing. And yes, there's got to be accountability, but it doesn't, you know, I have a hard time putting it in the same realm as, for example, the George Floyd incident, but all these things just get sort of mashed up together.

[43:02]

And we get very sort of self-congratulatory about our own anger, which, you know, I think Ken was pointing out, you know, so that we, we wind up be kind of, kind of becoming kind of a mirror image of that which we wish to get past together. And we become, I think, particularly white progressives become incredibly self almost congratulatory about their willingness to say, yeah, I'm on the right side, I'm on the right side. I just find it really sad. I'm going on a long time, I'd just like to make one more comment. Racism, white supremacy, massively, huge problems that need to be addressed. But in many situations, I think, a problem, you know, certainly a problem that goes along with that. And maybe in some ways is more important in these terrible, terrible outcomes is that this country is awash in angry people who have guns.

[44:10]

And if something could be done about that, it wouldn't happen. I mean, it is, it's a fact too, that yes, black people and other, other sort of nonwhite people are, you know, disproportionately the victims of these kinds of things, but they're not the exclusive victims of this kind of thing. So you ask, well, why is it that all these people, you know, that so many more young black men get killed than others? And what I rarely hear talked about is that, you know, maybe the problem is poverty to a large degree. And it's people who are poor, who get themselves into situations where there are going to be these violent confrontations with the police, whether they're white or black. And unfortunately, the way our society is constructed, that poverty is not evenly distributed.

[45:15]

And so it winds up distorting how we see things, I think. Anyway, I've rambled, but I've had these things on my mind for a long time. I hope he doesn't mind, but Ken's comment gave me a sort of occasion to say something. So thank you for listening. Thank you, Nyo-San. I do need to respond, though. I did not say that we have to act on our anger. We need to transform our anger. So we need to recognize our anger rather than suppress it, and then patiently with active patients, look at how to transform it into some helpful response, use that energy. It's not about acting on anger, it's the opposite of that. Let me just finish, because you said a bunch of things. Yeah, there's so much anger, and I agree with you about the underlying causes.

[46:21]

This 13-year-old kid, Adam Toledo, who was shot dead. It sounds like he was had been carrying a gun. I, you know, anyway, you're right that that And this goes back to liberty, equality, fraternity, that we need to look at the social conditions behind all of this, the inequality of education and housing and jobs, all of that is behind this, as well as the, as well as guns being so available. But anyway, the point about anger, really important. It's not that we act on anger. It's that we, that we recognize it. And then how do it's, this is subtle, but how do we transform it? How do we use that energy to look at what would be helpful in a particular situation?

[47:24]

So just in response, I don't know if anybody else has something you want to say, Ken, go ahead. Yeah. I just, I just wanted to, um, uh, pick up one piece that Neil's Neil's on, uh, uh, addressed to further explain where, what, where my anger is coming from. Um, and the way I would explain it, I consume a good deal of conservative media and, um, and what I've noticed for a long time. Because in any situation like these that we're confronting, dealing with police misconduct, they're going to find a way to be on the policeman's side. They can only see it from the policeman's side. And what frustrated, angered, and drove me to despair was the realization that folks on my side are the same way.

[48:28]

that we look at situations that are multi-dimensional. I mean, you speak to the, you mentioned the issue of weapons, the proliferation of guns. Well, the kid that these officers stopped in Minnesota, he was wanted on a warrant for possession of an unlawful weapon. That weapon happens to be the cause of death of more black youth in the city of Chicago, way more black youth in the city of Chicago. And I say it, just say that these are multidimensional things that everybody, I mean, it seems to be the, perhaps it's the human condition that we choose up our sides. And that's the lens that we look at these things. And so, I experienced anger at my side for being no better than the other guys. And at the same time, despair that if folks on my side are that way and folks on the other side of that, then that means that's the way we are.

[49:34]

And that's sad. So. I want to let other people have a chance to speak, but just to say that's why our practice, the personal side of just sitting and stopping and being present and facing our body and mind and seeing all this stuff come up is so important. Anyway, thank you. Dylan, did you have something? No, not yet. Maybe later. Matt, comment? Yeah, I'll make it quick. Um, what I'm really hearing from Tygan and Ken and the other son here is I'm not so much anger. I mean, that's in there, but Ken, you're really speaking to like big mind here and not having narrow views. Both sides get very narrow. I do the same thing. I love getting on foxnews.com just to see like, what is the other side doing to spin all this stuff?

[50:37]

And my dad is a Trump supporter and talking to him and trying to find some common ground where it's like, we can agree that even if Derek Chauvin had his knee on George Floyd's back and not his neck, it still doesn't justify what he did. You know, it's like my dad's using these arguments straight out of Fox News and it doesn't, it's such a narrow view. And yes, of course, what Kim Potter did is totally different than what Derek Chauvin did, but I, you can take a step back from that and say, why? Do we like the one debate I really like with this Dante Wright idea is why do we have to escalate everything to the point where there are bound to be mistakes? You know, I think Kim Potter made a mistake, but why did we get to that point where, you know, Dante Wright felt like he needed to get in the car and get out of there like that? He felt like that was what was safest for him in that moment. You know, as a white person, I would listen to the cops, but Dante Wright did not feel that way. He felt like he needed to escape.

[51:38]

And it just makes you think, like, why do we have these systems in place where 20-year-old kids feel like they have to run from the cops to be safe? And yeah, he had a gun charge, and that was from, I think, a protest in the summer. And it's all interconnected. I really heard, like, if we keep a bigger mind, a pasture, like Suzuki Roshi would say, of holding all this stuff, poverty, gun violence, racism, all this stuff, so that when it goes away from the news, because it will, there will be another news story that comes along that will get our attention, that we can still hold racism and poverty and gun violence in our mind as well, even if it's not in the news, even if our friends aren't talking about it. So I really heard from all of you so far, really talking about big minds. So I appreciate that. Deborah. Yeah, what's coming up for me in listening to this conversation and how I often approach these complicated, complicated, complicated, painful situations is I try to respond with empathy.

[52:46]

I connect to myself. I go, wow, how does this feel in yourself, in your body? And I try to come up with my own response which is often an empathetic response. I feel sad for the victim and I still feel sad for the perpetrator. Both are traumatized. We have a very, as you pointed out earlier, Taigan, we have a multi-century state of colonialism and separation and othering. And so I don't feel this is a simple problem that's happening in 2021. It's a historical human problem. So my response is often that. And I may even cry for a bit, but I know you, you know, maybe my response, cause I'm a woman, it's different than you guys, I don't know. But I wanted to bring that up that my response is often just to have empathy for both and not to separation. And I hear a lot of naming, like, I don't even like that people say this racist stuff. You know, you're a white racist, you're a supremacist. I feel that's also a very much of an othering and it doesn't really deal with the fact that what's going on for those people to have come to that viewpoint.

[53:50]

So I wanted to raise just that view, and I'm going to be quiet. So thank you for listening to me. Thank you. Other any other comments? Yes. Yeah, I'm sorry. This is kind of just a note on your introductory remarks about Ambedkar. Just to note that he was actually a top-notch constitutional lawyer and actually is the person primarily responsible for the drafting of the very secular Indian constitution that is now being so dramatically undermined by the Who the hell are they? BJP and Modi and those folks, the Hindu nationalists.

[54:52]

And I also wanted to note, you know, you were mentioning the sort of differences have been, you know, the environmental you know, what the consequences have been of this sort of Western Judeo-Christian attitude of having dominion of nature. And I'd like to bring to people's attention Gary Snyder's last book, The Great Claude, I think last in both senses, most recent and probably his final book, which is one that he worked on for decades, where he wanted to try to make the case that You know, the West had, you know, out of that tradition, had sort of despoiled the world. And he wanted to contrast with, you know, because of this ideology, he wanted to contrast it with the ideology, particularly of Japan and China, and what they say about nature, and show that it had different consequences. And the reason it took him decades to write, it's a very sad book, because he said, you know, that's not true.

[55:57]

You know, yeah, there are tea gardens and stuff in Japan. But look at the country, you know. Yeah, they talked about this stuff in China, but then an emperor cut down all the trees in China, you know. So, yeah, we seem to have these issues more as humans than as any particular kind of human in many ways. Thank you. Yeah. So, you know, this, I think when Ken was talking about his despair, it was sort of similar, you know, this quality of othering, as was said. And yet, again, as each of these situations arise, Dylan's new position is to try and support constructive, cooperative actions.

[57:06]

A lot of the positive actions that we can do are in collaboration and cooperation with other groups who are doing constructive things. And, you know, maybe there's no such thing as purity There's always, you know, human grasping that gets involved. Still, if we just, you know, kind of turn away and don't try and respond helpfully, that doesn't help anything either. Any other comments before it is getting late? Debra. I was just going to make one more simple comment. So one of the things I try to do with my understanding today about these issues is I make a personal response.

[58:09]

For example, if I see another person different than me, I really say hello to them and I talk to them and I wave to them and I ask them how they are and I ask their name if I can, if I meet them in a situation where that's possible. So I try to make a very personal response. And I'm a nurse, and I'm able to work in a health clinic, and I deal with a diverse cultural base. And also in that way, I make a personal response. And I just want to support that each of our personal response is as important as the social response. So if you're walking down the street, or you're on an L, or you're in a little store, just look at someone in the face and recognize them. I just wanted to not minimize. To me, that's an important action. I just wanted to say that. Thank you. Yes, yes, yes. And, um, when I was talking about the personal and the social, uh, what you described as the social interpersonal relationship. And so when I was talking about the personal, that's like focusing on one's own, um, greed, hate, delusion, but yes, yes.

[59:19]

Personal individual, as well as collective responses, um, skillful responses are very important. Thank you so much. Ken. But for us, for we progressives, the others are Trump people. I mean, you know, I, [...] I'm wondering, is that, is that what you're talking about? And because, you know, uh, they, I'm coming to appreciate that the other may be different than what we normally think of. Each one of us have a different set of them, but the others that we normally think of don't necessarily include all those that we perhaps should include. And I just want to emphasize that if we are progressives, others are people who are

[60:23]

gun-loving, perhaps racist, and it's hard. It's just, it just seems like the world got that much more complex for me recently, and so I've talked too much. No, you haven't. That's, I appreciate your sharing with us uh your perspective and yeah healing not another way to talk about compassion and skillful means an appropriate response is healing and it's going to take a lot of healing to heal this you know 400 year old situation Dylan maybe I'll give you the last word we're it's getting late Jason also had his hand up a while ago. I don't know if he's still on. Yeah. OK, so Jason and Dylan.

[61:26]

I'll keep it very short because it is getting late now. I was just going to just say how appreciative I am of everybody's comments. Anger is something that I work with and have dealt with a lot. It was like the main focus and jukai for me. to to try to it's always been difficult to think about how to transform it into something positive because it's such an overwhelming experience i can't get beyond the heat that floods my body um so i've never really been able to understand like transform it and use it like in a judo sense that just experientially feels like malarkey. But then to hear this clear mind, and then Matt also bringing up the Suzuki Roshi of a wide pasture that just all of a sudden, let in the patients that Taigen was talking about.

[62:35]

Well, I don't need to do anything with my anger besides just feel it for a second. So just thank you all. Just a brief response to that. Yes, yes, anger is powerful and can be very powerful. And it's not that we should act on it. And it's not that, and transforming it might mean just paying attention patiently and not doing anything, but just really looking at it, really feeling it. How does it feel? And doing that, over some time, then possibly other transformed possibilities may arise, but you have to actually face it. So thank you, Jason. Dylan. Yeah, so I think the two things I wanna say is one that I also, I like the vocabulary of healing when we talk about

[63:45]

these challenges and healing is a huge challenge, you know, like it's really, it's often easy to think of, you know, let's all come together in a very positive light, you know, that it feels, it's a feel good thing. Let's all come together, you know, and like that's, and that, and it feels good to say, but it's a, it's very challenging. Like when we think of alternatives to, the way justice, you know, or what we, what the justice system looks like in America. You know, I think there's a lot of potential in restorative justice, but restorative justice is also asking a lot. It's not, it's not easy. It's not, it's not like the easy thing is to say, you did this wrong. You're in prison for X amount of years, you know, here that you're that's locked up and that's over and done with and all the bad people are over here, quote unquote.

[64:50]

But to have the solution of I think of as an example that Angela Davis gave in one of her talks where I forget where this is from, but she was talking about restorative justice. And the example she gave was that this, her this woman's son was murdered. And the arrangement that the restorative justice arrangement that this mother agreed to was that the murderer lived in her house and basically helped her around the house, you know, and that he like became, that they basically had to get through like they had a relationship, not like a intimate relationship, but they had to figure out how to coexist and work through all of that over time.

[65:52]

And that eventually that she began to care about this guy and that they became friends, you know? And that's, you know, that's a huge mountain to climb, you know? So that may be an extreme example, but I use it as an example of like, These alternatives to prison or police murders, it asks a lot of courage of us for us to be able to deal with our karma and work it out together. So it's not easy. But it doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do, in my opinion. It just means it doesn't make things easy. And then the other point I wanted to make was about Yeah, from my experience with protesting, one of the things that I'm trying to take forward or learn from is how much activism has been sort of, in my experience, this sort of a flash of response, you know, that this event X happens, people are upset,

[67:08]

we go out in the street, we demonstrate our anger, and then things kind of trickle down until event Y happens, people are upset, people get into the street, and then it trickles down into this kind of cyclical process. But this is why I'm kind of interested in interfaith work and collaboration, that if things are gonna change, you know, and you look at the examples of folks like, you know, the Malcolms and the Martins and those folks, you have to get organized. It can't be, you know, like I'm upset right now because this horrible thing just happened. So we're going to go out on the street tomorrow. It doesn't mean we shouldn't do that, but, you know, the government are professionals, you know, that's their day in day out job. You know, I'm not saying that all government officials are oppressive, but like, there has to be, for sustainable changes, like it takes a long, sustainable, often non-flashy enterprise.

[68:17]

You know, there's spreadsheets and meals to make and meetings to go to and voting to have, you know, and to Niozon's point, you know, a lot of progressives I know it's very attractive to be the person with the bullhorn and that's kind of what it's about. So that's just what I'm thinking about tonight. Thank you. And as in your new position, part of what needs to happen is long-term organizing and finding options where we can work together. And yeah, so it's, and it's not only just working together locally in Chicago, because Debra's here from Pittsburgh and Matt's here from Minneapolis. we have this opportunity to talk together anyway. Healing is really difficult and yes, it's not flashy. It's long-term organizing. So thank you for taking on your new position, Dylan.

[69:19]

Thank you everybody for this discussion. This is difficult stuff. It's difficult stuff, but to look at, so just look at our anger and then how can we, respond helpfully in a healing way. It's huge challenges, people have said. Anyway, I'll shut up. Wade, could you lead us in the Four Bodhisattva Vows? Sure, let me just mute people real quick. I don't think this group needs the words. Beings are numberless. I vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them.

[70:22]

Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to realize it. Human beings are numberless. I vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to realize it. Beings are numberless, I vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to realize it.

[71:27]

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