Good evening, everyone. Can you hear me? Welcome. Hello, Charles. It's good to see you. So today is officially Malcolm, well, Malcolm, well, Malcolm II, Martin Luther King Day. We can honor Malcolm today as well. But Martin Luther King Day, always I give a talk about who Martin Luther King Jr. really was. So several of you probably heard me talk about him before on this day. And quite a few of you have not. So I always speak on this day about who he really was, not as the sanitized icon, the Santa Clausification of Martin Luther King, as Cornel West says, but who he really was and how his spiritual teaching

[01:06]

remains relevant to us and to our bodhisattva practice now, and especially this year. So I want to give a somewhat shorter version of all of the many, many, many things that I might usually say, because I want to talk about how he's especially relevant to us this year, and hopefully leave time for discussion. So Dr. King is best known for his I Have a Dream speech that he gave in April 1963 in Washington, D.C., currently under lockdown. We can see this I Have a Dream speech as part of the dream of Western Buddhists. We've just chanted, may all beings be happy, may they be joyous and live in safety. Dr. King said, I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of this creed. We hold these

[02:09]

truths to be self-evident, that all men or that all people are created equal. Dr. King not only had a dream, but he was actually rather militant. He opposed militarism and war. He championed the poor. He spoke strongly for economic justice, including equality in health care, relevant today in this pandemic in which Black people and marginalized people are suffering disproportionately. Dr. King was killed while he was organizing a labor union in Memphis for sanitation workers as part of this Poor People's Campaign. So the sanitized version of Dr. King is a small part of who he was. He spoke out strongly against the Vietnam War and the United States government's foreign policy and militarism. Dr. King gave a speech, Time to Break the Silence, about the

[03:09]

Vietnam War on April 4th, 1967 in New York City, exactly one year to the day before he was killed. And I don't believe that was a coincidence. He spoke out strongly against the Vietnam War and against the United States foreign policy. And that was very controversial. It was a great cost to him as a civil rights leader. People in the civil rights movement opposed him speaking out against the war. They said he had no business speaking out against the war. Mainstream media attacked him for doing that. Of course, he wasn't the first Black leader to speak out against the war. Muhammad Ali had done so a couple of years before. But in that speech, Dr. King said, Time comes when silence is betrayal. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And he said, I must speak clearly to the

[04:11]

greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government. So that's pretty strong. And that's not what you'll hear in the mainstream media that celebrates Martin Luther King today. He said, I must speak clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government. He said, the relationship of this ministry, his ministry, to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all people? The good news was his Baptist gospel. But I would say this is parallel to our Buddhist precept of benefiting all beings. This was meant for all people, including people who we have made war against since Vietnam in Central America and in the Mideast. Dr. King said, The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far

[05:16]

deeper malady within the American spirit. We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. He talked in his speech against the Vietnam War about paternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. He said, A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. So here we are in 2021, 53 percent of our federal budget is for military, various military uses, and we have 800 military bases around the world, far more than all the other countries of the world combined. At the same time, Congress says they cannot afford healthcare or education or housing

[06:23]

for much of our population. So maybe we could still say that the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is our own government. Dr. King said, It's not just the bad actions of bad people but the appalling indifference of good people that is the problem. So what Dr. King was saying at that time, in his time, 1967, a long time ago, but I think it's still the public experience, is, we must respond. So on this day when officially it's a national holiday, we must respond.

[07:28]

So Dr. King also spoke of love. So he's, you know, the official sanitized version of Dr. King, Martin Luther King, is that he had a dream that he was non-violent. So it's true that he spoke strongly for non-violence. He spoke of love. So in 1957, he gave a beautiful talk about love and loving your enemies. He said, quote, Some people resign themselves to the state of oppression. They somehow acquiesce to this thing. But that too isn't the way because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. So non-cooperation with evil. And of course, you know, he's using the language of his tradition,

[08:41]

Christian Baptist tradition. But he was also friendly with Thich Nhat Hanh. In his work against the Vietnam War, he had a lot of interaction with Vietnamese Buddhists. So he was ecumenical. He tried to understand. He appreciated many different faith traditions. Anyway, non-cooperation with harmfulness, I would say, is as much a moral obligation as cooperating with good and good works and helpfulness. So our times also are challenging. We must not cooperate with oppression and fear. We must support people in our Sangha and in our city and our society who are being abused and oppressed and speak out against injustice. That's what Dr. King called us to do. He also said, Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,

[09:45]

adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that. So how to respond to the obvious problems and divisions and hatefulness that is obvious in our world, in our country now, is for us a great koan. So there are no easy answers, but there is this question. But Dr. King was very subtle in talking about love and different kinds of love. He said all embracing unconditional love for all mankind is important. It's an absolute necessity

[10:50]

for human survival, this total love. But this is not about sentimentality or a weak response. So it's not talking about sentimental love. This is about a belief of ultimate reality and the fierce urgency of now, and a love that includes strong action. And of course, not just Dr. King. We think of him, you know, we think of the civil rights movement in terms of Dr. King, but there were many, many, many, many, many people who stood up strongly to water cannons and police dogs and brutality during the civil rights movement in the early 60s in the South.

[11:54]

And now we see what's going on today. Okay, so I want to bring this all into this current year. And in past years, I've read many, many more powerful passages from Dr. King's writings. But this year, well, this past year, 2020, and now the beginning of 2021, well, we've seen many unarmed Black people killed by police. The list is very long, but George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor killed in her bed by police breaking into her apartment, the wrong apartment. Jacob Blake, not killed but paralyzed by being shot in the back seven times, point blank rage by a policeman, all unarmed.

[12:58]

So this year, we've had a reckoning with racism, as they say. None of this is new. We have a 400-year history in our country. We have an economy founded on slavery and racism. And of course, a theft of the land of the Native American indigenous people. So this is a deep, deep karma that we're confronting. And I've talked about this many times. And I try not to talk about it too many times because it's painful. This is difficult. We have to face it, and our society is facing it now in many ways. But part of our work, part of our bodhisattva work is to face it. And on Martin Luther King Day, we need to talk about this.

[14:02]

There's good news too. The good news of this past year were the masses of people in the streets demonstrating for Black Lives Matter, for an end to police brutality, demonstrating peacefully, almost completely peacefully. And with multiracial demonstrations, many, many white people, as well as Black people, people of all races, demonstrating peacefully for an end to police killings of Black people. This is good news. This has caused a national conversation, and we need to talk more about it. And then there's the amazing phenomenon that the pastor at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s church in Atlanta, it was actually the church of his father, Dr. Martin Luther King Sr.,

[15:08]

Reverend Raphael Warnock is now a senator, a United States senator. Well, he'll be sworn in in the next couple of days, I guess. So in Georgia, Raphael Warnock was elected senator along with John Ossoff, a Jewish son of immigrants. Remarkable. And Raphael Warnock has said that even while he is serving as senator, he pledged to return back to Atlanta on Sundays to preach in the church where Dr. King preached. So there's good news. There is there is a waking up to this 400-year-old legacy of slavery and racism. And Dr. King's example is

[16:18]

especially important after the assault on the Capitol of the United States on January 6th by a mob of white supremacist fascist terrorists. Those are appropriate terms for what was happening. So this is what we're facing currently. And I want to say that this is not necessarily about all people who voted for Mr. Trump, but certainly the Republican national leadership, most, not all, but most, of the Republican members of Congress voted to overturn the election. Basically, they were voting to overturn

[17:26]

black voting rights that Dr. King fought and died for. They were denying the election results and calling it a fraud. They were saying that the election was a fraud. They were saying that Mr. Trump won because they were denying the votes of black people in Detroit, in Milwaukee, in Philadelphia, and Atlanta. They were saying this election was a fraud because those black people had no right to vote. This country belongs to white people, period. That's what the national leadership of the Republican Party is strongly asserting, and that's what the terrorists, white supremacists, who took over the Capitol were saying. And what has been made evident since that attack

[18:27]

in news footage and in testimony is that the Republican, not all, certainly not all, but many Republican Congresspeople were complicit in this attack, not only by voting to overturn an election that had been certified as proper by many courts and by local Republican officials, but also there needs to be more investigation. But there is evidence that some of the Republican Congresspeople assisted the terrorists actively. There are Democratic Congresspeople and Senators who are afraid of their colleagues for their lives. And what's clear now about that attack is that

[19:38]

it came very, very, very close to having some Congresspeople and Senators murdered. Or taken or kidnapped or held hostage. So this is what we're facing, and there are fears about what might happen, what these terrorists were still out there. Some have been arrested, many have not. What they might do in the next days and weeks and months. So we are a society that is torn apart by the racism that Dr. King was trying to address. We need healing. And many people on our Sangha have talked about healing, and the President-elect has talked about healing. But we can't have healing without accountability.

[20:46]

Dr. King said there's no peace without justice. So what can we do? Well, this is a huge problem. This is a problem that goes back centuries. What can we do? We are a mostly white Sangha, not completely. What can we do about this? Well, one thing we can do is to talk about race. Not to hide from the problem. And of course, this doesn't mean obsess about it and talk only about

[21:52]

it. So part of our work as a Sangha is to enjoy our practice tradition of zazen, dharma, and settling and finding the calm and joy of our meditative tradition. That helps us to find the calm and stability to face the difficulties of our world. We need that too. And we will continue to practice and to share dharma as well. But we also need to talk about race sometimes. This is what is in our face in our society. And we need to discuss and expose white supremacy. And again, there's been this very skillful campaign of misinformation.

[23:03]

And so talking with, and many people in our Sangha have friends or relatives who voted for Trump, and I do as well. And I am going to try and talk with my cousin about this. It's difficult, it's painful. And this isn't about arguing or trying to win a debate, it's about talking as friends, as finding common ground, but to gradually expose the disinformation. It's not about converting people. It's about sharing awareness. I don't know. I don't know. I don't have the answers. I want to have some discussion about this. As part of this, first of all, on Friday mornings, Adel Antoropov has been doing

[24:11]

this since, has been organizing this, and a number of people here are part of this group that have attended Friday morning after morning Zazen at eight o'clock at 8.30. We've been having discussions about anti-racism. So you're all welcome to attend that eight o'clock Zazen at 8.30 discussion. They've been very informative discussions. So that's open to everyone. Also, starting this next Sunday, we're having a number of Black women's speakers this next Sunday. Sarah Valentine, who some of you will remember, was an active participant in Ancient Dragon when she was teaching at Northwestern. She is an author and she wrote a book called When I Was White. She was raised in a middle-class white suburb.

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She had inklings of this before. She was somewhat darker-skinned than her siblings, but she found out when she was 27 that she had a Black father. So she talks about the issues of self identity and race. So anyway, she'll be talking this Sunday. On February 21st, Brisha Wade, who also used to practice here at Ancient Dragon, now lives in Los Angeles, wrote a brilliant book about Black grief. She now works as a chaplain in Los Angeles. She'll be here February 21st. I will be able to share some samples of that book with members of the Sangha. These are all in the schedule. March 14th, Pamela Ayo-Yatunde, who's a college professor and has connections with a couple of Sanghas, will be speaking.

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And March 28th, Zenju Erthlin-Manuel, who is a Dharma successor of Blanche Hartman in our lineage, will be speaking. So anyway, just to mention that as resources. But along with everything else, this may help us to think about how to talk about race. So that's what I wanted to say. But I wanted to hear any comments, discussion. If you have reflections on Dr. King or on the current events in the Capitol or around the country, or varied opinions from what I've said, that's fine. So please feel free. So if you're not visible, you can raise your hand if you're visible. If not, you can go to the

[27:21]

participants window. And there's a raise hand function at the bottom of that. And Wade, maybe you can help me call on people if you see somebody stand. So please feel free to share the discussion. Thank you. And this is difficult to talk about. But Dr. Martin Luther King's Day, he's calling to us. Wade?

[28:26]

Sometimes it feels difficult to know what concrete actions to take. Talking is good and an action. But where does the rubber hit the road? If we're doing anti-racist work, what does that look like other than talking about it? And I don't imagine that you're going to have an answer. It's kind of open speculation then. I have a couple of responses, but I'm interested in other people having responses. David Weiner. You're still muted, David. One thing that I've been doing since January 6th has been almost daily

[29:40]

messages to my congressperson. And I think that's something that I think is necessary. It may feel futile in some ways, but you just have to let people know how you feel. People who represent us in government. I haven't done it to the newspapers yet, but that would be another thing is to write a letter to the editor. And those are expressions to the public, but I think it's also important in our daily life. What do I do as a person? How am I acting as a person? I think that's important. And that's my take on it. Those three things are very important. I do want to go off on a little bit of a tangent and say to everybody, if you have not ever seen it, you can find it on the web. Dr. King gave to me what is one of the most phenomenal sermons back in April of 1962

[30:52]

called The Levels of Love. And if you could find it on the internet, I most heartily recommend it. And it really represents our Mahayana precept of caring for every being. If you have a chance to read it, please do. Thank you, David. Dr. King's talks and writings are very powerful and resonate quite a bit with Bodhisattva perspectives, I think. Thank you, David. Emily has her hand up. Emily, hi. Well, I did read the book White Fragility over the summer, which was a great book.

[32:02]

But one thing that really struck me reading that is, like, again, you mentioned we are primarily a sangha of white people. And as a white person, I felt like one thing we can do is to try to be really cognizant and not engage in white solidarity and conversations with other white people. And that can look really subtle, but even just like how you talk about other neighborhoods, city, or how you describe events or people or, you know, like that. There's a lot of subtlety there that can easily go unnoticed because we're so deeply socialized in it. So that's something I've been thinking about.

[33:04]

Thank you. Yes, the book that Dylan's been reading at the beginning of the Friday morning discussions is Ibram X. Kendi's How to Be an Anti-Racist. And that's also very helpful, interesting in terms of defining terms involved in this. Pamela Ayo-Yatunde, who I mentioned, will be here in March. She's a powerful speaker. She spoke at the last Soto Zen Buddhist Association Teachers Conference, and she recommended to us that we go to a Black church meetings and go in our Buddhist garb and just become friends with the people and go regularly, not just once. And become friends with people there. That's harder during COVID. I may try and do that

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when I have time, even this way on Zoom, but I'll definitely try and do that when the pandemic is over. But trying to find ways to interact. But also, even talking together as white people, how do we become more sensitive to how we take our white privilege for granted, and what the differences are. Anyway, yeah, thank you, Emily. Hey, Paul. I think this question of what is to be done as a Buddhist is a very important question, and I think Dr. King expresses that love, but for a Buddhist it means non-discrimination.

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We see others as we see ourselves, and we treat everyone with the same level of understanding and compassion in the sense that we are all suffering beings, whether you're someone of a different ethnicity than yourself, or even someone with a different political persuasion, whether you're a Trumper or what it is. We have to not see people as different. We have to see that love has to extend to everything and everybody. And then we have to be careful not to fall into the trap of accepting the candy from the nice stranger that wants us to get in his car and go off with him. It's so easy to get that candy and get attached to that candy, and then we're trapped into a spiral that we can't—it's often very difficult to get out of. So, I think you

[36:15]

all know when that temptation comes up, especially, of course, with white privilege, the candy's even bigger and shinier and better. But I think as Buddhists, we have to do both those things, both keep ourselves positioned as an everyman and to feel one with everyman, and to let people that you meet know that you feel that way about them just by the way that you talk to them, the way that you address them, the way that you look at them, just to project that feeling of equanimity. Anyway, and of course, the main thing is that you have to bring it back and you have to love yourself that way, too. Otherwise, you can't do it to others. So, I think as a Buddhist, that's our main rule, is not to make two, not to make self and other, not to make good and bad, not to make right and wrong. Thank you, Paul. Very, very well said, very helpful. I just add that one of the things

[37:27]

that as a white person that, you know, this year teaches, can teach us is that for a Black, I'll say a Black man going out on the street, if one's stopped by a policeman, it's very different than if I'm stopped by a policeman as a white man. And that's just a reality. And so I feel the pain of that for Black people. And, but what you said about how we see ourselves and how we treat everyone, it's important. Anyway, thank you. Other comments, responses, reflections? Hey, Ben. Yeah, so again, I've been thinking a lot lately about the types of privilege that I'm afforded

[38:32]

as a white cisgendered man that I don't even, I'm not even necessarily asking for. And I'm trying, I've been trying lately to think about it in terms of the voice of a precept, especially the precept of not taking what is not given. And I'm trying to think of it as like not accepting what you don't want. Like, so for instance, I mean, of course, if I'm walking down the street, a police officer is going to treat me differently than he would treat a Black man. But if I walk into a classroom for the first time, my students are going to look at me and afford me a different kind of attention and respect than they would afford a BIPOC person, a gender nonconforming person. They're giving me something that I didn't necessarily ask for. They're giving me something that I'm not sure that I necessarily earned in any way. And I don't know, I don't know what to

[39:35]

make of that. I mean, and that's something that like, that's coming at me. It's like the obverse, right? Fanon talked about, Frantz Fanon talked about how the fact of Blackness preceded him, right? That Blackness was already shaping people's reactions to him before he stepped into a room. And the privilege that adheres to white male cisgender subjectivity, like is already there before I'm there. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. I think maybe I'm just, maybe it's just to become more aware of that. And maybe it's a sort of like, figure out ways of interrogating people. Why are you giving me this gift? Why are you assuming that I am deserving of this gift? Can I say something? Please. It's inevitable that that's going to happen, and it depends on a lot of different things,

[40:40]

but you don't have to grab it and take it to the bank and cash in on it. You would just let it roll over you. Life is not fair. There's lots of things, for karmic reasons, there's lots of things that are unfair, but you don't have to believe in them and say, oh, wow, I have this privilege of being special, so I can take it to the bank and cash in on it, or I can do this, or I can do that. Don't get caught by it. That's the main thing. But you can't fight it. You have to accept that that's who you are. You are that, but you don't have to parlay it into something bigger. David Ray has his hand up. Go ahead. Thanks. Ben, I love what you're saying about white privilege. There's a famous article by about white privilege and all the ways that I go through my day and being white means I don't have

[41:45]

to deal with all kinds of problems, and so, yeah, what to do with that? So I feel like there's no way I can interrogate that away, but the thing that I can do is there are subtle ways that I can leverage it as a professor, as an academic, as somebody who is looked at as an authority. So every year I teach an extension course in our graduate extension program, and this year I have the word race in the title. I mean, it's a literature course, but I'm reading Derrick Walcott, which is a Nobel Prize winning poem by a man of color, and I would hold it up against John Milton or another great English language reception of classical antiquity, and I think that matters. On the issue of gender, being cisgender, I put my pronouns on a syllabus now. I want to be called David, and my pronouns are he, him, his, and a lot of people on the right are super angry about that, and they understand that means a different relationship to gender.

[42:52]

That means I'm saying I'm male now. That's one way of being clear. It's not the default value. White is not the default value. Male is not the default value. Straight is not. I mean, it is, but I don't want to take a step back from my privilege because I can't, but I can use my authority where I can to promote openness and to cultivate excellence from people who are not white and not male. I think Alex has had his hand up also. Thank you. I just wanted to add on to this thread of the conversation because I think it's really important and really great, but yeah, I mean, I think for me, when I think about all of the privilege that I have, I try and think about

[43:52]

how I can use that for good. You see, if you're a white person and you see a person of color getting pulled over by the cops, you can use your privilege as a white person to take out your camera and record them. They're not going to do anything to you because you're white. I think that comes from, we just need to be clear on this question of privilege, and maybe I should use I statements. I'm clear when I think about privilege. It's not that I want to get rid of my privilege. It's that I want everyone to have my privileges. Is there a hand up? Ed? Can you hear me? Yes. You know, I'm always a little alarmed. I'm always, I don't know what privilege is. I'm not sure what it is. I think there's different varieties

[44:55]

of privilege. I think there's a social privilege attached to certain ethnicities, but there's many personal. Being acquainted with truth is also a kind of privilege, and I think certain times social privileges will deny us access to truth. I mean, I think of the writings of Flannery O'Connor back in Savannah, back in the 30s or the 40s or the 50s or the 60s, and I think of James Baldwin's comment on Toni Morrison's Beloved as being an allegory on truth, primarily an allegory on truth. And I also want to mention, since Tigard mentioned a speakers, Claire Pearson is speaking on Toni Morrison's notion of haunting and possession this February 5th, and she's a scholar. She's done great work in ethics, and so I would encourage anybody who's interested on that subject to consider joining that Zoom lecture.

[46:01]

Where is she speaking? She used to participate in Ancient of Dragons. Maybe you could put that in the chat or... Yes, I'll do that now. Okay, thank you. All right. I'd like to hear it. It'd be good. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Jilkai has his hand up. Hi, good evening. I was wondering if you could speak on how Martin Luther King was able to have compassion and love his enemies, even those who did him harm, who have, you know, in the Black community, how was he able to overcome those? Sort of, yeah. Well, one of his main practices was civil disobedience, and that was a very, it's a very strong practice.

[47:09]

It's been a while since I've done it myself, but to get to it, but it was a mass practice during the early 60s, civil rights movement, people sitting in lunch counters, famously John Lewis and many others walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, just to be in the face of, I mean, and it went back to Gandhi in India, and anyway, it's just to say no to, and more recently, in the environmental movement in this country, climate movement, to just, and during the Vietnam War, just to sit down and block business as usual. But that's, it's a way of not acting violently,

[48:19]

but just saying, please stop preventing us from using your buses, preventing us from sitting at your lunch counter, or without being aggressive, but showing the aggression of others. That's just one example. I think he, you know, I think he saw, he talked about, there's a famous letter from the Birmingham jail, where he was imprisoned, and he talked about the other pastors who were criticizing him for being in jail. And he said, why aren't you in jail? You know, that to speak, I talked a couple weeks ago, a couple nights before the terrorist assault on the Capitol about the problem of

[49:24]

the Congress and speaking truth to power. So that was one way that, that it was actually an expression of love, you know, that he wasn't, it was the opposite of what happened on January 6, where this group of terrorists broke into the Capitol, and they were destroying things. They were clearly out to cause damage and to cause physical harm to Congress people. It's just, it's actually very lucky that they didn't. Some of the Capitol police managed to prevent that. It almost happened. But just to say no to harm. So I think we have to now find how do we not hate the terrorists, the people who are the, you know, the,

[50:41]

the, I don't know what to call, I don't know what words to call them. I can use strong words to call and to call them various names, fascists and terrorists. And I think those are true words to describe the people who broke into the Capitol. But also, it's not about hating them. It's about they've been misguided, and I hope that they are held accountable. But it's not about personally hating them. It's about how do we, and especially for the people who still support Mr. Trump and that whole cult, it's not about enemies. This is really hard. But how do we actually try and help them to see that actually, this was a fair election. Mr. Biden won the

[51:49]

election. That we have had in this country, something of the rule of law for, you know, since the late 1700s. People who are causing harm, we don't have to hate them. We can try and hold them accountable and stop them. This, so this was, I think this is the spirit of what Dr. King was talking about. I don't know if that responds well to your question, but that's what I'm wrestling with now. Maybe somebody else has a comment. Yeah, Ben had his hand up, and I also saw Ko's hand up. Yeah. The one phrase, I mean, the term that's been coming up for me is reparations. And I, often it's a monetary thing, we think of it being because of the economic inequalities

[53:00]

that have been perpetuated. And I think that that's an aspect of it. But I really, I was delighted when I realized that the term repair is in reparations. It's trying to heal and to repair the harm that has been done. And one of the things that came out of the assault on the Capitol, that was very moving to me, was the congressperson from New Jersey, who was cleaning up. And people told him, oh, there are maintenance people to do that. You don't have to do that. But he felt called to be part of those who would clean up what was precious to him, which was the Capitol. And I think about, you know, being the people who pick up trash in a neighborhood that's trashed, and to do those sorts of things that are in our path to do to repair. So, thank you.

[54:03]

Thank you, Ko. I think of cases of people who've been seriously wronged, who don't want money, but they just want an apology. Ben. Yeah, I was just going to say on the question of, you know, how to deal with people who we don't agree with, it seems like there's this basic Buddhist insight, right? That there is no me, there is no I. I'm a conjunction of causes and effects. I have no substantial I-ness. So, there's also no they, right? There's no them for me to hate, because there's no me and there's no them. There are actions that people do. Those actions can have negative effects, can have positive effects, can have neutral effects. There are things that people

[55:07]

can say that can have negative effects. They're also caused by other effects. So, it seems that we're called to critique actions when those actions have negative effects, without imagining that there is sort of a they that is permanent for us to dislike. And I know that sounds at once really simple and almost impossible to do in practice. Thank you. David, right? Another response to your question, Jokai, about forgiving enemies is a really impressive example and teachings of Jesus. And I say this as a former Christian,

[56:08]

as somebody who no longer is defined by affiliation with that tradition. And I tend to have a lot of negative thoughts and attitudes about that religion, which happens to be the dominant religion in this culture. And that's one thing that Martin Luther King reminds me of, the liberatory power of Christianity. And I think that when I allow myself to feel contempt or aversion toward Christianity, I'm kind of the problem. I'm kind of being a stereotypical, you know, hyper woke, liberal person. And the other thing, I think this is related. I recently heard a quote from a speech that Hillary gave in 2016 saying, you know, Donald Trump is taking crazy fringe individuals and he is retweeting them to 11 million people

[57:14]

and he is radicalizing people who would not otherwise be radicalized. And I think that it's so crucial for us to spend the next four years making life better and making a place for respect for people who are laborers who feel beleaguered and who are susceptible to being radicalized. I believe that's the origin of the soaring of the Capitol. It's a combination of feeling economically stressed, feeling, you know, not having a place at the table, and then being radicalized by this crazy stuff that our president has been inseminating. David Weiner? Yeah. Just, you know, hearing things and it's taken me two weeks to come to this point. I'm

[58:18]

finally getting back to the sixth and seventh precepts that I do not find fault in others. I do not dwell on the faults of others. And I do not praise myself at the expense of others. And I think there's a certain trap that we can feel going to David's point, David Ray's point, that these people are evil and we write them off. And that's something that politically we shouldn't do, but also as Buddhists, it's not in our precept to dwell on the faults of others. Beings are numberless. I vow to free them. And our approach to an extent is saying not that these people are, quote, evil. You know, their actions are not acceptable. You know, I will not accept the actions. But the people aren't evil. The people are, in a sense, living in a world of delusion.

[59:25]

And how can I, as an individual, reach out to them in equanimity to say, you're hurting. I hear you're hurting. How can I be with you? How can I help you? How can I get rid of the hurt? And that's what it takes. I came trained at the, I'm forgetting the name of it now, the folk school in Tennessee, forget the first name, Highlander Folk School. And there, the ethos was, you can never agree to disagree. That concept was not allowed. What you had to do was find where you had mutual agreement and bring out the best in each other. And that's what the beloved community is and what King called for the beloved community. Find out where we agree and bring out the best in each

[60:31]

other, rather than pointing fingers and deriding each other. And I think that's an important concept we have to do. And believe me, I've been wrestling with that for the last 10 days. Very difficult. And finally, this morning, in my chanting the Yamichuku Kan'an Gyo and doing my well-being list, I was able to say again, I feel for Donald Trump and for those people who support him, that they have such pain in their hearts that they do such despicable acts. If they had joy in their hearts, they wouldn't be doing despicable acts. They have pain in their heart. And so the question is, how can I, as a person, find a way when I run into somebody like that, or I know somebody like that, how can I be there for them in their pain, so that they can let go of their pain? And I think that's an important thing for us as Buddhists to do, and as people

[61:32]

politically to do. Thank you, David. I want to make a distinction there. I don't disagree with you, but part of what I was trying to say is that in terms of holding people accountable socially, without hatred, but there's a huge difference to me between the people, the Trump voters, and I think you're right, that he appealed to many working people who've been marginalized, who feel discarded and abandoned, who our society and economy has abandoned, and we're vulnerable to his manipulations. And on the one hand, who I sympathize with very much, and the people who actually did the manipulation, which is some of the Congress people

[62:36]

who were enabling and supporting the terrorist actors, who should be, and Mr. Trump himself, I guess, who I believe should be held accountable, and that we can never get past this and actually heal until there's accountability for them. So I was, in what I said, I was trying to make that distinction, and you just helped me clarify that. So thank you. We are getting close to time. This is a discussion that is, you know, this discussion of this problem of race that goes back 400 years, and these people who were involved in backing our capital, and who threatened to do it again, and to do more, or other versions of it, you know, are trying to enforce a white society, basically. And this is going to be an ongoing

[63:43]

danger, and we have to face it. And I think continuing to look at this problem is something that is part of our, is required of us as citizens, and as Buddhists, too, how do we look at it from the point of view of our practice? So we'll have opportunities to talk about this more. I really appreciate all the comments that have been made, and maybe that's enough for tonight.

[64:12]

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