Good morning, everyone. And happy Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to all of you who are mothers. Happy Mother's Day to all of you who have mothers. Welcome. So I want to talk today about Mother's Day and its origins and Bodhisattva values. Can you hear me okay? So some of you, you know, might likely assume that Mother's Day was invented by Hallmark cards or by chocolate companies or by flower stores. And of course it's, you know, it's very good to give Mother's cards and flowers and chocolates or whatever else on Mother's Day.

[01:03]

But I want to talk about the real origins of Mother's Day in the United States. 150 years ago in 1870, the first Mother's Day proclamation was written by Julia Ward Howe as an appeal for women to unite for peace in the world. Julia Ward Howe is, well, she lived from 1819 to 1910, wherever that's from. She was a poet and author, and she's best known for writing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, which was the anthem for the Union soldiers fighting against slavery. She was inspired to write that after meeting in 1861 with Abraham Lincoln in the White House with her husband, who was also a writer. So she was a lifelong activist. She was an abolitionist against slavery. And Julia Woodhough was also very important in the women's suffrage movement.

[02:09]

Her appeal to womanhood was written as a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. and was, you know, based on her feminist conviction that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at a political level. Of course, oh, actually the first, her first idea of Mother's Day was it would be a council of women from around the world to talk about how to work for peace. Of course, back then there were no women Congress people. There was no woman vice president. Women were not even considered competent enough or civilized enough to be able to vote in the United States until a century ago. But I want to read a little bit of Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day proclamation in 1870.

[03:13]

In this century of light, The ambition of rulers has been allowed to barter the dear interest of domestic life for the bloody exchanges of the battlefield. Thus men have done, thus men will do. But women need no longer be made a party to proceedings which fill the globe with grief and horror. Despite the assumptions of physical force, The mother has a sacred and commanding word to say to the sons who owe their life to her suffering. That word should now be heard and answered to as never before. It continues, our sons should not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience. We women of one country will be too tender

[04:15]

of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth, a voice goes up with our own. It says, disarm, disarm. The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence vindicate possession. So Mother's Day started off in 1870 with Julia Ward's Mother's Day proclamation for peace and against war. In 1872, she asked for a celebration of Mother's Day for peace on June 2nd of every year, but she was unsuccessful. Just to say about Julia Ward how she wrote plays and essays, she helped found and led many women's suffrage organizations. And she spoke at the 1893 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.

[05:19]

So the story of how Mother's Day happened jumps to 1905, and Anna Jarvis. Anna Jarvis campaigned to make Mother's Day a recognized holiday in the United States. 1905 was the year her mother, Anne Reeves Jarvis, died. Jarvis had been a peace activist who cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War. Her daughter, Anna Jarvis, wanted to honor this and to set aside a day to honor all mothers because she believed a mother is the person who has done more for you than anyone else. In 1908, the U.S. Congress rejected a proposal to make Mother's Day an official holiday. They said that if they did that, they would also have to proclaim a mother-in-law's day. Thanks to the efforts by Anna Jarvis, though, by 1911, all the United States states observed the holiday.

[06:24]

In 1914, Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation designating Mother's Day as a national holiday. So Mother's Day started as a holiday to promote peace and oppose war. So I want to talk about how this relates to Bodhisattva values. So in the Bodhisattva tradition, which includes Zen, we have in Soto Zen, we have 16 precepts. There are also 10 paramitas or transcendent practices, And there are many other Bodhisattva teachings about engaging the world from the perspective of meditative calm and discernment, how to express the sense of awakening and calm that we can get some sense of in zazen, how to express that in our activities in the world.

[07:34]

So the first of the 16 Bodhisattva precepts in Soto Zen are to take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And maybe that's enough, just returning home to Buddha, to awakening, to the awakened one, to the awakened one, as we are, as we sit, expressing Buddha in this body, in whatever way we can here now today. And also taking refuge, returning home to Dharma, which is the words of the Buddha, which the Buddha Shakyamuni, when he passed away, said, please follow my words, my teaching, as you would me. And then of course, taking refuge in Sangha, the community. So we can see this as particular communities like ancient dragons and gay, but also the community of people, community of all beings.

[08:42]

But actually, according to an old East Asian Buddhist texts I've been studying recently, there are four refuges, not three. And first, before Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, is refuge or faith in suchness, in the nature of ultimate reality. So that's our starting point. this Samadhi of suchness, this presence of things as it is. And from that, after that comes Buddha and Dharma and Sangha, from our experience of that. So later on, we're going to chant the hymn to the perfection of wisdom. And in this sense, perfection of wisdom is a particular Bodhisattva, Prajnaparamita. who is a goddess Bodhisattva and said to be the mother of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

[09:45]

And she represents suchness, prajna wisdom. So just a little bit more about Prajnaparamita Bodhisattva who we will chant to. An early figure we may associate with Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, is Prajnaparamita, depicted as a female deity or Bodhisattva. She is referred to as the mother of all Buddhas. Prajnaparamita Bodhisattva often sits cross-legged on a white lotus, appearing majestic and dignified with a golden yellow body. In her radiance, Prajnaparamita dispels all darkness and distress. She also bestows wisdom upon those who venerate her. So we will chant to her later. So amongst the other 16 precepts, Bodhisattva precepts that we follow are three pure precepts.

[10:58]

And that includes to benefit all beings. This is very important for us now. We don't live or act or work to benefit one country or one race, but actually all beings, not even human beings, all beings, the whole environment. So this is part of our Bodhisattva precepts. We vow to benefit all beings. And also, you know, it's not explicit, but all of the 16 Bodhisattva precepts and all of the other teachings are really about radical respect for self and others. The first of the 10 grave precepts is that a bodhisattva does not kill.

[12:03]

So this goes along with the origins of Mother's Day and Julia Ward Howe's intention to have a Mother's Day to promote peace, to stop killings in war. So, This is not how we usually think of Mother's Day, but this is the origins of Mother's Day in our country. The proclamation to end war and promote peace, to stop the bloodshed of warfare. So I want to talk some about our current application of these principles in our world today. So, you know, the basic thing is that it's not enough to stay or abide in suchness or the samadhi of suchness.

[13:06]

Maybe that's less of a danger in a non, residential community, or even, or in this kind of Zoom zendo. But it's, you know, when you sit on your own, when you sit in a group for long hours, like in a session or in a residential or monastic setting, it's tempting. One can feel great bliss or great satisfaction, or just feel the wholeness of the world, which we can see and feel in our practice. But it's very important not to just hang out there. It's also important to keep returning to that awareness. So we come back to our Zazen-Zi again and again. But in terms of the principles of Mother's Day to create peace we need to go out in the world and apply our awareness.

[14:22]

And that's challenging. How do we express awareness of the Samadhi of Suchness, awareness of Suchness and Buddha, Dharma, Sangha in this world? It's challenging. So in terms of Mother's Day being created to promote peace, we still have a problem with war. More than 50% of the United States budget goes to military uses and enriches weapons profiteers. The United States has 800 military bases around the world, many, many more than all the other countries of the world combined. We have a euphemism for our military in this country that we call it the defense department, but it does not defend us against pandemics.

[15:35]

the 550,000 and counting Americans dead from this COVID virus and many, many, many more all around the world where it's still very dangerous in some countries, less so perhaps here, but still active. Um, the defense department does not defend us against climate breakdown, which is increasing and, um, The ice caps in the Arctic glaciers are melting. And the defense department does not defend us against white supremacist terrorism. The huge budget that goes towards all of this military could be used instead to support healthcare, to support education and housing, to help develop our infrastructure, to pay for childcare, to give teachers a living wage.

[16:49]

I first became involved in anti-war work during the Vietnam War, but our government and policymakers learned the wrong lessons from the Vietnam War. The current militarism of the United States still kills innocent civilians in the Mideast, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in many other places supporting the Saudi genocide against people in Yemen. The lesson that the policy makers learned was that we shouldn't have United States soldiers dying on the ground. Of course, we have had, they're being withdrawn now, but still we have contractors, we have drones and other missiles that kill many civilians. So we're still uh, invading or aggressing against other countries and trying to turn them into, I don't know what, what we call democracy, uh, or trying to, um, get them to support our interests in various places.

[18:13]

So this is a dangerous time now. This is not one of the issues that's in the forefront in the news, but, um, there's, uh, still a nuclear arms race and it's increasing. Very dangerous. I would be campaigning against that, but we still have that. Another thing that I mentioned back on Valentine's Day, and now I want to talk about, say something about on Mother's Day, is the current Republican Party, which is not really a legitimate political party anymore. They don't really have any policy programs. They support white supremacy terrorists. They're involved in massive voter suppression around the country to ban people of color from voting, to ban poor people from voting, to make it more and more difficult to vote.

[19:14]

doing now will mean that voting will be more difficult than it was before the voting rights bill that Martin Luther King helped to promote that Lyndon Johnson finally signed. Republican state legislators now in various states are talking about supporting the early principle from the U.S. Constitution that slaves or black people counted in the census as three-fifths of a person. They're actually talking about how that's a good thing. So I don't know if they want to have black votes only count as three-fifths of a vote, but that's the direction. So this is not about politics.

[20:18]

This is about basic morality and decency. I'm not promoting, as I said in Valentine's Day, the Democratic party. I'm an independent, but this current Republican party is just very dangerous. And I would just want to say that as speaking truth in honor of Julia Ward Howe. A good thing that happened this past weekend was that four mothers and their children have finally been reunited after being separated by border police last year, the year before, or a few years ago. This happened thanks to the ACLU and other non-profit organizations, non-governmental organizations, not because of the US government and more than a thousand children are still separated. And in many cases, they don't know where the parents are.

[21:26]

They didn't keep records when they separated the children. Separating families, separating children from their parents is a classic mode of genocide. It was used against Native Americans. It was used in World War II against Jews. It's been used in Africa against Africans by colonial imperialists. So this is something that is part of what our country has done in the last administration particularly, but still it's happening. So, In honor of peace and of Julia Ward Howe, how do we respond to all this? Ehei Doken, our founder in the 13th century in Japan, talks about grandmother mind.

[22:29]

So there's, you know, Mother's Day, motherly mind, but also grandmother mind. This is just great kindness, caring for children and for all beings. From that place of grandmother mind and from our samadhi of suchness, from our experience of calm and connection to interconnectedness, interdependence, we can find appropriate response to suffering. So in our song, some of us are talking about how to do that together, or how to offer possibilities for that. But there's not one right way to respond. We each have our own particular way of

[23:34]

responding, being helpful, caregiving, taking care of people who are suffering or in need, or systems changing, trying to work to change the systems of suffering and white supremacy and inequality or injustice. And these are all very challenging, right? They're not easy answers to what is an appropriate response. But the point is that as Bodhisattva practitioners, we keep returning to upright, settled awareness to our sitting practice. And then we keep getting up and looking around and saying, Oh, what can I do to be helpful? And how can we work together as Sangha members?

[24:36]

Not that everybody has to be involved in the same project, but how can we find things to do together that will be helpful? So, That's a lot of material, but I really want you to enjoy Mother's Day and enjoy Mother's Day as a day for promoting peace. This is what Julia Ward Howe envisioned. So this also means, you know, again, we come back to our sitting and how do we find our own inner peace even amidst our own personal suffering and personal frustrations? How do we just sit upright and join together in ourself to find calm and caring, to oppose

[25:50]

aggression and including our own inner aggression. So some of you have told me that there, that you have parts of yourself you don't like. This may be common, but how do you find peace there too? How do you witness to your own greed and anger and confusion and not try and push it around or destroy it, not go to war with your own fear or anger. Just, okay, how do you accept peacefully the suchness of this person and this situation and the beings we are connected with? And then By doing that, how does that help us to find appropriate responses when we're out in the world and when we're looking at these systems of suffering that are very much part of our society now?

[26:59]

So, um, Maybe that's all that I wanted to say now. I think a few of you, I've talked about Mother's Day as a day of peace and its origins several years ago, I think two or three of you might've been there, but anyway, happy Mother's Day. So comments, questions, responses, please feel free. And Xinyi, would you help me spot people? And if you're not visible, you can go to the participants window on the bottom and there's a function to raise your hand at the bottom. So you can do that or just raise your hand visually. Did all of you know that Mother's Day started as a anti-war holiday?

[28:13]

And you probably knew that. It is one of our history buffs. Oh, Debra has her hand up. Yeah. Thank you so much for the talk today. I really appreciated your scope of connection, historically, as well as into our practice. And I just wanted to share a reflection. It really came up for me while you were speaking. I'm a mother and a grandmother. And one of the books I've been reading as I explore racial injustice is a book by Mesma Menaken. And the book starts with him massaging his grandmother's hands in some Southern state. And her hands would just ache. as he massaged them, he noticed they were very deformed. And he kept massaging them.

[29:19]

And yes, you know, he kind of got an awareness about that. And he asked her kind of learned that her hands were deformed because she had spent most of her life kicking cotton. And the bristles of the cotton plant are so harsh that over many years calluses develop and deformities in the fingers. And I always, since I read that image, read about that image or her story, I always carry that because I feel for some reason it rose in me as a way to approach the issues you were bringing up. We may be hurt or damaged by some of the issues we face. We may even get affected by them physically, emotionally, spiritually, but there's still this wonderful warmth He's still connected to his grandmother's warmth, her deep love. And as he massaged those hands, he was giving her comfort as well as she was giving comfort to him. So I just wanted to share that.

[30:19]

It may not mean anything to anyone here, but for me, it's an embodiment of deep kind of compassion and this connection that is hard to put a name to. So I just wanted to share that reflection. Thank you. Thank you for that story. Yeah, so that's a story about grandmother mind and grandchildren mind also. So in societies where it's possible to have a number of generations together, traditions and history is passed down. We understand things that went before. That's very important. losing a lot of our history now or forgetting about, for example, the many, many, many, many genocides that have happened before in the world and in our country. Our country depended on taking the land of native peoples, many of whom were wiped out.

[31:27]

But as an antidote, yeah, that Connection with grandmothers and grandchildren is really important. So thank you. I see Eve Pinsker has her hand up. Hi, Eve. Yes, so thank you, Deborah, for that story. And it made me think in connection with what you were saying, Taigan, about the history of the Three-Fifths Compromise. And I guess I just read that that came up because of the debate over a banning critical race theory in this. And so Bernie Glassman talked about bearing witness and held the vigils at Auschwitz every year as a way of bearing witness. And I guess I was wondering if,

[32:30]

if you could say something about the act of bearing witness as activism and what is it? Because I guess one of the things about the critical race theory thing, they said that, you know, the opponents of it were saying that they thought the purpose was to make white people feel ashamed or white children, you know, for the sins of their, ancestors. And it seems to me the idea of bearing witness is something different than that. That it doesn't mean shame, but it means, you know, recognizing what's happened and using that knowledge to go forward differently. But anyway, I wondered what your thoughts were about that. Thank you very much to you.

[33:36]

This thing is important, but what he sought for practice and Bernie talked, you know, really exemplified that a lot, Bernie Glassman. But yeah, so. You know, I'm, I'm talking about all this just as a way of witnessing to these realities and sharing them. Um, and, um, a lot of nonviolent social action has to do with just showing up, sitting in vigil or standing in vigil, just being a witness to, uh, things that are happening that we would like to have stopped. It's not about shaming, although, you know, maybe white people in this country might feel shame for how people of color are treated, but it's not personal. It's, it's about accountability really. So witnessing is to hold accountable people or

[34:44]

governments or corporations in particular situations. So, you know, in the case of George Floyd's murder and Eric Chauvin being found guilty. It's a matter of accountability. It's not a matter of even necessarily punishment, but we have to know what happened. If we don't know history, if we don't know what's happening now, we repeat it in various ways, not exactly the same, but it's so learn, actually witnessing to our history and to what happened and to what's happening now that we want to say no to is a positive act of education, of sharing, of awareness. So nonviolent civil disobedience, one of Dr. King's main practices was a very strong practice of

[35:48]

witnessing. So thank you for that. This is one of the things we can do and there are various ways to do it. So thank you. I think Dylan was next. There's a couple of people with their hands up. I wanted to respond to Debra's story. I was thinking about my grandmother who died this year, died in 2020. or no, she died this year, she died in March, I think. The last time I saw her, I went to, she invited me onto her porch and she asked me, why wouldn't somebody feel welcome in Chicago? Like why, why would that happen?

[36:52]

And I tried to come up with an answer for her. I think I probably said something about, you know, segregation and poverty. And she basically told me that it was, I should help figure that out or else I should be there taking care of her. Cause she knew she was dying. So just an example of a grandmotherly mind. So that sticks with me. Thank you, Dylan. Thank you. I'm sorry for your loss and for sharing that and witnessing to that connection and to her wisdom and kindness. Good morning, Taigan.

[37:59]

Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, you can. So you were talking about, you know, the Defense Department, and I was thinking about how in Zazen, part of what we do is we let go of our defenses. And I'm wondering how that would translate into you know, our presence as a country. I think of, you know, like the situation of Tibet, which I've always thought of as a country that has, you know, let down its defenses. And while they, I think, are you know, still considered a threat to China, which is why China tries to suppress them. I guess I just, I wonder how, you know, lowering our defenses in Zazen translates to our life off the cushion. That is a wonderful, wonderful, important question.

[39:03]

Go ahead. I'm sorry. Oh, I was just going to say, or our life as a country. Yeah. Well, I think what Julia Ward Howe wanted to promote for her Mother's Day of Peace Council was for countries to talk together. So, you know, we don't have to have, you know, to have 800 military bases around the world to enforce our will on all those countries. And, you know, we have, we, have, we surround with military bases Russia and China, not that I'm, you know, I mean Russia and China may have their problems too with aggression, but we think we can control the world. That's what the American history and American government is about in a lot of ways. So, you know, going back to being on the cushion, when we let down our defenses, this is part of what happens in Saucen over time.

[40:12]

We start to see how we are defending ourselves against fear, against and our anger, others or our own anger, against our confusion. How do we defend our greed in a way that would be harmful? So this means to be vulnerable. And that's difficult. How do we allow ourselves to be present and to not be in control? to not be perfect and to not be correct in everything, to not control. So, you know, for governments not to control all the resources of, you know, South America or the Congo or whatever. How we get there from here is a huge question.

[41:14]

I don't know, but it's still a question that is good to be asking. How do we live in peace together with different peoples in the world? So maybe some of what you're talking about is actually the need to help others to practice with their greed, hate, and delusion, which is hard to do without imposing our will on others. Yeah. Well, the whole idea of having control. is I think one of the main obstacles here. To think we can, you know, to think we can control, you know, other people or other countries, to think we can control ourselves even, you know, self-control, it may be fine, but it's self-awareness is really what that's about. So, you know, of course there are things that we each control in our life, you know,

[42:19]

in our families, in our world, you know. But if we think we can control everybody and everything, that's where we, you know, have empires and wars. And so how do we let go of that? How do we be, so it also has to do with being willing to listen to others. How do we accept feedback? That's difficult. I invite each of you who's here to give me feedback about, you know, ancient dragons and gate or any of my teachings or, you know, this is something that that's part of my job as guiding Dharma teacher. But this is difficult for us to do with each other. Generally, we have defenses, right? We don't want to talk about certain things. We don't, you know, and that's okay. We don't have to share everything. but how do we be honest about our, you know, and be vulnerable about our own lack of ability to control everything in the world.

[43:29]

And so for countries how to actually listen to the, you know, what the people of Iraq or the people of Syria or the people of Afghanistan actually want, rather than trying to tell them how they should be. This, you know, we're very, we seem to be far from this, but it happens. It does happen sometimes, even between countries. People witness and accept their history. People hold themselves accountable. It doesn't happen all the time for everybody, but, you know, an example is, Germany and Germany has problems now, I think, but also for a while. And still, in front of houses and streets and cities in Germany, there are the names of the Jewish people who used to live in that house, who were taken to the camps.

[44:40]

As a reminder, that's a kind of accountability. Unfortunately, in this country, we do not have plaques where black people were lynched. Well, we have the mural for George Floyd where he was in effect lynched, but we haven't accounted. We haven't acknowledged. We haven't been accountable for what our country has done. So that's one place to start. And this takes time. just like we have lineages of Zen ancestors, people who kept alive the practice and teaching of Buddha generation after generation, we have lineages of people who spoke out for peace and for justice. Julia Ward Howe, for example, in our country.

[45:44]

So how do we acknowledge that? How do we, and how do we not acknowledge what is happening today? but learning about history is important because instead of erasing history, which is what some of the politicians are trying to do, how do we acknowledge what happened? How do we express accountability for that? So this is not something that happens right away, but after lots and lots of work over many years, sometimes something happens suddenly. Apartheid ended in South Africa after lots and lots of work. The Emancipation Proclamation and the end of formal slavery happened after many, many generations of abolitionists in the early 19th century. Of course, we still have, then we had Jim Crow and now mass incarceration. But, you know, the Berlin Wall coming down. which would have been, which experts on Germany at the time would have thought impossible just a month or so before.

[46:54]

So things happen suddenly after lots and lots and lots of work. So we don't know, you know, the effects of our helpful actions of our work to promote peace or social justice or climate or climate sanity. Uh, we don't see, you know, that that's, that's actually a good example because now, um, after lots and lots of work, well, there's still, uh, fossil fuel companies trying to suppress knowledge of climate or trying to promote continuation of fossil fuels, but more and more people around the world are depending on, uh, alternative renewable energy sources. And they're becoming more, actually less expensive practically than fossil fuels. So that's the change that's starting to happen.

[47:57]

There are possibilities for that. So, you know, it takes people of goodwill, people who are willing to, know, do Bodhisattva practice, maybe in some other name, to care about the world. And after a long period of time, things happen. So other comments, responses? Yes, Deborah. So thank you again for your broad view and broadening our understanding of these issues. I personally have been struggling with a personal response to the complex issues in our in our world and I just wanted to share that for me. I'm a nurse, and I was able to be involved with a lot of diversity as I was working with the COVID vaccine effort. And one of my roles was to be with the people during the 15-minute time of post-vaccine.

[49:00]

And I tried to bring my Zazen practice to that. And I would just sit with someone. I would sit with them for the 15 minutes or 10 minutes, and I would just talk with them. had this practice of just listening and being present. And I know it's different than what you're talking about, Taigan, but I am struggling. Maybe other people are like, how do we respond personally? And I just found it like such a, I don't know, it was very rich. I would just listen and I wouldn't even say much. I was just giving I was just present with them. And I just wanted to share that for some reason in your talk that came up for me as a practice, or as an exploration, because it's been a con for me it's how to deal with these complex issues of racism of otherness of of severe politicalization. I actually ran into a Trump guy and all he did for the 15 minutes was do his communications on his understanding of the Trump policies. He said, you didn't vote for him.

[50:02]

And I said, no, I didn't. I just let the man talk. And it was an interesting practice. And I'm just providing it as my response to a personal response to these challenges. And I found that that's one of my practices now. So I just wanted to share that with the group. So thank you. Thank you. I think that's a very fine example of what I'm talking about. Just witnessing. And it doesn't matter if they are a Trump supporter or not or whomever. It doesn't matter if they're white or black or Asian. How do we just be present with others? That's without trying to control them or convert them to some point of perspective that we have. So one of the principles of right view, which is in the Eightfold Path, is not to impose our view on others. So I'm not, I don't, my intention in giving this talk is not to tell you all, you know, what to think.

[51:03]

I'm just saying how I see it and sharing that. And then you each have your own, and that's the way it should be. But just to listen, as you said, and to be present with people after the vaccine, that's a wonderful example, I think, of the kind of thing that we can do to actually share our practice with others. So there's not one right way to do this. But thank you for that example. I appreciate it a lot. Any other comments or responses? questions. We have some time if anyone does have some response. Xinyu? Thank you for your talk and I have been seeing the connection between Mother's Day and the topic of peace so thanks for bringing it up and

[52:13]

The conversation just now really just brings up some thoughts about current, like my thoughts about current world situation and things like that. And I mean, there's like, I mean, I'm a Chinese citizen and there's increasing tension between China and the United States. And I mean, like the tension is around like technology or a lot about defense system, military. So it's just kind of interesting how, yeah, it's such a novel idea to like to say,

[53:16]

we can invite peace or vulnerability in a diplomatic situation. I think that's sort of, in history, that feels quite unheard of, but that also sounds quite applicable, at least in interpersonal relationships. And I've been pondering about whether there are like particular historical situations where vulnerable conversations have been particularly helpful. Because it seems to me that the tradition of big countries or big civilizations interaction has been that of defense and of invasion. And so, yeah, not so much of a question, but just some of the thoughts I had during the conversation happened just now.

[54:28]

Thank you. I wish I could think of examples of where, you know, that kind of perhaps vulnerable discussion is what we sometimes call diplomacy. So how to, you know, how countries can talk to each other in a way that acknowledges and witnesses the other person's, the other country's perspective to put ourselves in the other person's context. So I'm trying to think of, historical situations where that happened, and I'm sure there are, but nothing's coming to mind off the top. I know that In the history of this country, Native peoples tried to make peace with white peoples that were willing to go and be vulnerable to them and were massacred, almost without exception. So that's our karmic legacy as a country.

[55:37]

But I think I'm trying to think of Well, you know, there have been peace treaties, at least tenuous, at least for some time. There was a peace treaty that was worked out between Ireland and England at some point, after lots and lots of real aggression and horrible things happening. Anyway, I offer, ask historians for other examples. Dylan? Yeah, JFK and Khrushchev would kind of do it like inching tanks away from each other, like one inch at a time at the heights of the Cold War, as an example, maybe. Yes, thank you. That is a good example. And I've actually written about that. And there's a wonderful book called JFK and the Unspeakable by James Douglas, with two S's at the end, that talks about how they weren't really successful.

[56:39]

But after the Cuban Missile Crisis, when we came very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very close to nuclear war, Both Kennedy, who had been a Cold Warrior, and Khrushchev were freaked out, to put it that way, and they actually worked together for some time. to try to end the Cold War. They were actually communicating secretly, secretly from their own militaries who, you know, some of the people in the Joint Chiefs of Staff were really angry at Kennedy because he wouldn't let them drop nuclear weapons on Cuba and on Russia. So they worked together. They were talking about a joint manned space mission to the moon. You know, that didn't happen. It didn't happen because Kennedy was murdered. And that's not irrelevant, but that's an example where Kennedy and Khrushchev tried to work together to create peace. And I think there have been other examples, examples in the Mideast and other places.

[57:44]

So it's a long project to work on for humanity, but we can witness to good efforts and we can speak to accountability for Aggression. Any other comments, questions, examples? Dylan? Yeah, one other really good one is the Good Friday Agreement in Ireland, 1998. After like decades of the troubles in Belfast and Northern Ireland, that they had that treaty and basically ended the troubles. Sorry, Ed's hand is raised. Yeah, Ed. You know, thank you. You know, I, I just want to, it seems in many ways that, um, I've learned to listen as I'm not a good listener, but I mean, I think we learned a lesson through, through our mothers. We learned to listen both to others and to ourselves. Primarily it's a feminine instinct, not a male instinct.

[58:49]

And, um, and that leads into no ability as well, because we only even experienced accountability through listening. And I have to mention Ida B. Wells, the great Chicago author, and her pamphlet on 1893 World's Fair, which is just a wonderful read on why there were no colored people represented in the fair. And of course, we got Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. And in fact, she's quoted as saying, in response to T.S. Eliot, of course, another fantastic American writer, T.S. Eliot is very focused on the ancestry of ideas and writers prior to the act of writing. You know, Woolf is quoted as saying that if we are women, we must think back through our mothers. And I think that that's a very precise truth to contemplate.

[59:57]

Thank you. Yeah. I think amongst indigenous and native peoples, there were matrilineal societies where the women, you know, rather than patriarchy, the women were kind of looked up to and I think in some of those societies, they found ways to create peace with each other. So anyway, this is a big topic. I really appreciate your listening. Happy Mother's Day. Any last comments or? responses. To add to Ed's, I just want to pull up the thread of the piece that you read at the very beginning about we won't let society undo what we have taught our sons. I think that that's really important. that I don't necessarily know that these are male instincts, but they're what we culturally gender into males, that they don't listen well, that they don't do these things.

[61:07]

But I've known, you know, little boys have that capacity as well. So just wanted to hold that up. Thank you. Yes. And, you know, partly Zazen encourages us to listen, to listen to ourselves, to listen to our aches and pains as we sit, to listen to all the thoughts and feelings, to not try and, you know, jump up and run out of the zendo or, you know, act out. impulses that are harmful anyway. This is a huge topic, but I really wanted to just provide the history of Mother's Day as a holiday that started out in this way, as a way to support peace. So, Let's do our chanting now, Sinyu.

[62:14]

We're going to do the hymn to the Perfection of Wisdom and the Metta Sutta. So thank you all for being here. And happy Mother's Day.

[62:23]

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