Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me now? So for new people, I'm Taigen Leighton, the guiding Dharma teacher at Ancient Dragons Zen Gang. I want to speak today about one of the great teachers in our lineage, in our family style, Hongzhe Zhangshui. So Yesterday afternoon, I gave a three and a half hour seminar about Hongxue and his teachings. Several of you were there. For those of you who were, I'm gonna be speaking about different parts, different material. And I'm focusing on my book, Cultivating the Empty Field, which is translations, introduction and translations of Hongxue. I actually translated it back in 87, 88, 1987, last century. And yeah, Hongxue is an important teacher for us.

[01:07]

So just briefly to introduce him, he lived 1091 to 1157. He founded a large temple on Mount Tiantong, which at one point had 1,200 students. That Mount Tiantong was the same place where Dogen, who brought this tradition from China to Japan, where Dogen met his teacher, Tiantong Rujing. And so, In some ways, there's a direct connection. And in terms of official Dharma lineage, Hongzhe is Dogen's great-great Dharma uncle. So he was by far the most important teacher in the Chinese Soto lineage in the 1100s. In Chinese, Soto is pronounced Sao Dong. C-A-O-D-O-N-G is the way it's transliterated.

[02:12]

Anyway, Dogen refers to him and quotes him many times in his extensive record and sometimes in Shobo Genzo's other writing. So what I want to do today, just by way of introduction, is to read some selections, ones that I didn't get to yesterday, from Cultivating the Empty Field. These are what I call practice instructions. They're actually Hoko Dharma words. That's the formal title of this one of nine sections in Hongzhi's extensive record. So I'm just going to jump in and then we'll have a discussion afterwards. For those of you who have the book and want to follow along, the first one I'm going to read is, let me find it. It's on, no that's not it.

[03:15]

Maybe it is, okay. It's the one that is on page 39 that I titled, I gave the titles to these selections, Buddha Flowers, Leaves, Roots, and Dusts. The way is not what the ancestors transmit. Before the ancestors come, it already pervades the whole environment. Emptiness is inherently without characteristics. Spirituality cannot be imitated. On its own, illumination emerges from causes and conditions. Constantly living apart from surface appearances is called being the ancestors. Simply certify and unite with it. You cannot be handed it. All Buddhas arrive here and regard this as the ultimate. They respond to transformation and disperse their bodies as flowers, leaves, roots and dusts. Wisdom enters the three times and the 10,000 changes do not disturb us.

[04:35]

Wisdom enters the three times and the 10,000 changes do not disturb us. Each dust is not outside us. This marvel is beyond the vast thousands of classical texts. So where could you hold on to the shadowy world? So yesterday and today I'm having the opportunity, which I have not had so often, or at least not in a long time, to actually comment on these teachings. So I want to say some things about this. He talks about the ancestors in this section and in many other sections. So this refers to, well, many things. It refers to the ancestors in our particular lineage, the Dharma ancestors, that in our lineage that goes back to Shakyamuni Buddha, to Bodhidharma, to the Sixth Ancestor, and to Dongshan in China in the 800s, who was considered the founder of the Soto lineage, and other great teachers before him like Shuto or Sekito, whose harmony of difference and sameness and grass-roof hut we

[05:47]

we chant, and later teachers, many teachers before Hongzhe in the 1100s, and then Dogen in the 1200s, and then many, many great Japanese teachers up to Suzuki Roshi, who brought this to California, my teacher's teacher. So the ancestors refers to, you know, our family style, our particular lineage, and particular style of teaching. And there's a kind of consistency to that. I also translated Dongshan from the 800s and commented on him in my book, Just This Is It, Dongshan and the Practice of Successiveness. And so much of what Dongshan says is echoed in the teachings of Hongzhe and Suzuki Roshi and my teacher and Dogen. So there's a kind of consistent family style. But that aside, ancestors has many connotations.

[06:51]

We each have cultural ancestors. Of course, we have genetic ancestors, our great-great-great-great-grandparents. I sometimes watch Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr., and he finds ancestors of notable people, and there are many interesting stories, sometimes going back One person he traced back to Charlemagne. Anyway, so we have many different kinds of ancestors. I see some musicians here, and you can think about your musical ancestors or cultural ancestors. Anyway, at one point, though, in Cultivating the Empty Field, Hongzhe says that all beings are your ancestors. So we're all interconnected and interdependent. We are all the source for each other. But here in this passage, the Hongsha says, the way is not what the ancestors transmit.

[07:55]

Before the ancestors come, it already pervades the whole environment. So this quality of awakeness, what we sometimes call Buddha, or Buddha heart, or Buddha mind, is here from the very beginning. And this is also something that is very much part of the family style of Sao Dong or Soto Zen, and that runs through it. So as he says here, spirituality cannot be imitated. On its own, elimination emerges from causes and conditions. So each of you has various causes and conditions in your life that led you to engage in Zen practice, even if this is your first time here or if you're just starting. There are many causes and conditions which affect who we are and everything we do are causes and conditions for things in the future, the so-called future.

[09:02]

So the practice is not to discover, he talks a lot about returning to the source, the source not being like Shakyamuni or a creator deity, but the source right now. Right now are the ancestors. In the future are the ancestors, as well as in the past. So returning to this, allowing illumination to emerge, as he talks about here. He says in this passage, again, all Buddhas arrive here and regard this as the ultimate. They respond to transformations and dispense their bodies as flowers, leaves, roots and dusts. So the ancestors and the source of our teaching and of awakening is our environment. is the natural world, which we are part of, of course. We are not separate from the natural world, although humans in our epoch tend to think so.

[10:10]

But he says, they disperse their bodies as flowers, leaves, roots, and dusts. So he also says, this marvel is beyond the vast, vastness of classical texts. So where could you hold up, hold onto the shadowy world? So, you know, as I was saying, we tend to think of the environment as something out there separate from us, but we are totally part of this world. We are expressions of grasses and trees and mountains and waters. So, is referenced to the classical texts. Of course, here I'm talking about one of the classical texts. And we do, in our branch of Soto Zen, the Suzuki Roshi lineage, we do study the sutras, the ancient texts, and the koans, and the classical Zen writings. But it's not about discovering something from them or getting some understanding.

[11:13]

The point is just that these texts, and can inspire us, can encourage our practice. So Hongzhi particularly uses nature imagery, uses references to Chinese culture and to Buddhist sources. And his writing is very evocative and poetic. Often, Zen writings are in poetry because it goes beyond our usual subject-verb-object discursive language. So that's a little bit on that section. And at the end, if you have questions, we'll have time for discussion. But I'm just going to go through several of these little passages of Hong Xiu's. So the next one I'm going to talk about is the one right after that on page 40. And the title I gave it was The Backward Step and the Upright Cauldron. So I'll read the whole thing. It's a little bit long.

[12:14]

With the depths clear, utterly silent, thoroughly illuminate the source, empty and spirited, vast and bright, even though you have lucidly scrutinized your image and no shadow or echo meets it, searching throughout, you see that you still have distinguished between the merits of a hundred undertakings. So this is something we do. We distinguish between, you know, good and bad or worthy or unworthy or true and false. We make these distinctions. And it's not that that's bad, but, um, But when we do that, if we get caught by it, we can divide the world and divide ourselves from the world and divide things in the world from each other. And this can be a problem. So he says after that, After distinguishing the merits of a hundred undertakings, then you must take the backward step and directly reach the middle of the circle from where light issues forth.

[13:19]

So this backward step is a common meditation instruction in our family style. It includes Dogen saying, take the backward step that illuminates the self. And so this is kind of a basic Zazen instruction. We turn within, we face the wall, we face ourselves, and we take this, as it's sometimes called, the backward step, where we, as Dogen says, to study the way is to study yourself. We just observe and pay attention to what's happening. Here, now, this body-mind, thoughts and feelings, sensations, we don't try and escape from those. We don't do anything with them or hang on to them either. So the point is not to be caught by our thoughts and feelings and ideas and so forth. And then to come back to, he talks about this in many places, to reach the middle of the circle, the circle of brightness, the source from where awareness arises.

[14:28]

Continuing in the passage, outstanding and independent, still you must abandon pretexts for merit. So this is important throughout our lineage, not to try and get something from our practice. And of course, that's a natural human tendency. We all like to be appreciated. We're taught to progress, to go from one grade to the other, to get good grades or whatever, to develop our resumes. All of these are pretexts for merit. And it's not that that's necessarily bad if we're not caught by them, but if we believe that that's who we are, there's a problem. So he says to, you must abandon pretext for merit. Carefully discern that naming engenders beings This is part of the eightfold path, or the 12-fold chain of causation, and that these rise and fall with intricacy. When you can share yourself, then you may manage affairs and you have the pure seal that stamps the 10,000 forms.

[15:36]

So along with taking the backward step and studying the self, Hongxue and throughout the lineage, there's an emphasis on sharing our awareness, expressing this sense of the ultimate that is that is there in our zazen and that is part of our lives. So there's an emphasis by Hongshan on response. It's not enough to just turn within. We then emerge and respond. Continuing, traveling the world, meeting conditions, the self joyfully enters Samadhi in all delusions and accepts its function, which is to empty out the self so as not to be full of itself. So this word samadhi, I talked a lot about yesterday, but to say more, it's a technical term in early Buddhism that refers to concentration, the aspect of our meditation, where we focus and concentrate on some particular meditation object.

[16:42]

And there are, in the sutras, there are pages and pages of names of different kinds of samadhi. Dogen refers to some of them. and including the self-fulfillment Samadhi, which has to do with accepting its function, which is right here in this passage. But also Samadhi is, in East Asian Buddhism, just a general term for meditation or Zazen. So it has that technical meaning, but it's also just a reference to meditation in general. And then, you know, so Hongxia says to accept its function. Dogen talks about this in terms of occupying one's dharma position, one's situation. And with that, which is to empty out the self so as to not be full of itself. The empty valley, and then Hongxia talks, has this nature imagery, which is a metaphor, which is,

[17:43]

literal in terms of the world of nature around us, but it's also a metaphor for our for our awareness and unfolding of this Buddha mind. So he says the empty valley receives the clouds, the cold stream cleanses the moon, not departing and not remaining far beyond all the changes. You can give teachings without attainment or expectations. Again, without trying to attain anything, just to be natural, like the empty valley receiving the clouds. I was once camped out in the mountains, in the Rockies in Colorado, caught one that one morning climbed up to the top of one of the peaks near us and looking out As the sun rose, you could see clouds arising from the valleys, mists arising from the valleys and forming clouds. It was beautiful.

[18:45]

So this is something that happens. The empty valley receives the clouds. The cold stream cleanses the moon. So the moon is reflected in the stream. The moon, which is in Zen, the full moon, the round moon, which represents our wholeness, reflected in the stream, but this also might refer to our stream of thoughts and feelings, which also reflect the wholeness of the moon. Not departing, not remaining, far beyond all the changes. You can give teachings without attainments or expectations. As I said, everything everywhere comes back to the olden ground. Not a hair has been shifted, bent, or raised up. Despite a hundred uglinesses or a thousand stupidities, the upright cauldron is naturally beneficent." So this cauldron is an image in Chinese literature.

[19:50]

It's in the I Ching. It's the place where, you know, there's an alchemical aspect of it. As we sit, there's this cauldron of our body-mind. a lot of things are happening there that we don't necessarily observe. This alchemical aspect of our prasadha practice over time. And then he refers to Zhao Zhou or Zhou Shu, a great teacher, the great ancestral teacher of the 800s, not officially in our lineage, but Zhao Zhou is kind of in all Zen lineages. He was so great that his own lineage didn't continue because nobody could surpass him. He had a couple of disciples, but Zhao Zhou's answers, and these are particular koans or teaching stories, wash out your bowl and drink your tea, do not require making arrangements. From the beginning, they have always been perfectly apparent. Thoroughly observing each thing with the whole eye is a patchwork monk's spontaneous conduct.

[20:53]

So Hongzhi talks about patchwork monks because that's he's talking to monks. But you know, for our purposes, we could read patchwork monk as sincere, dedicated practitioners. So this refers that can refer to all may refer to all of us, just to say briefly, these two stories that he refers to, wash out your bowl and drink your tea. I'll tell you the stories. A monk comes to see Zhao Zhou. And Zhao Zhou says, have you had breakfast? And the monk says, yes. And Zhao Zhou says, wash out your bowl. So this is a wonderful teaching about Zazen practice. Have you had breakfast? Okay, wash your bowl. Take care of your awareness. Take care of all the details around you. The other story, and there's a lot more to say about each of these stories, of course, but these are both in the Gateless Barrier Collections, Cohen Collections, and in others, I think, this Book of Serenity, too.

[22:03]

The other quote he has is, drink your tea. And this is another story. One monk comes to see Zhaozhou and Zhaozhou says, have you been here before? And the monk says, no. And Zhaozhou says, please have some tea. Another monk comes and Zhaozhou asks, have you been here before? And the monk says, yes. And he says, please have some tea. So then his attendant, who's standing by, says to him, those monks responded differently, but you still said, just have some tea. And Jahjah said to the attendant, please have some tea. So anyway, these all teaching stories can help us illuminate our own practice body. I wanna read a few more. And then we will have discussion and welcome your comments or questions.

[23:08]

This one is on page 48. And I gave it the name of plowshare on the shining field. From the outset, patra monks, or sincere practitioners, have this field that is a clean, spacious, broad plain. So he talks about the empty field that we are in the center of, that is all things. Gazing ahead beyond any precipitous barriers, Hongxue continues, within the field, they plow the clouds and sow the moon. This is a wonderful expression. Clouds is also a reference to monks who are called unsui, clouds and waters in Japanese. But it's also, you know, we can see all of these as literally nature images, plowing the clouds, sowing the moon. Again, the moon also refers, is the moon itself, but it also refers to wholeness and awakening.

[24:15]

Suzuki Roshi, my teacher's teacher, had a writing above his door that said cloud driver. So again, to plow the clouds, to fertilize the practitioners, to sow the moon, to share awakening with everyone is implied here. With clear, bright understanding, vast and expansive, the true self accepts its function. Again, accepting its function refers to the self-fulfillment samadhi, or occupying one's dharma position. Whether emerging or disintegrating, whether in a position of receiving or releasing, directly perform the same workings as earth and heaven. which is yin and yang, the receptive and the active aspects of reality in ourselves, arising and dispersing along with the 10,000 forms, lofty and majestic.

[25:20]

Where do they come from? Still in solitude, where do they go? So we are told that the empty sky cannot encompass it, The grass earth cannot uphold it. So ultimate reality is vast beyond the sky, beyond earth. Subtly existing beyond shapes, perfectly empty beyond names, the merit of being and non-being is exhausted. The paths of the worldly and the sages are transcended. So he also talks about the complementarity or the oneness of the worldly people and the sages, and that cultivated people, awakened people, don't abandon worldly people, but are right there amid worldly people.

[26:23]

In another passage, he talks about right amidst the worldly is the place of nirvana. And he continues, then you have the opportunity to go home. Just then, what do you know? For 150,000 acres, you can see the cold, pure, shining snow. Observing this well, one can be a strong plowman plowing the clouds. So this, brief sentence says then you have the opportunity to go home. So we take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. This is a basic practice in most Buddhist lineages. We take refuge, which could be read as returning home. We return home to Buddha. to Dharma, the teachings of reality, and to Sangha, which is the community, our communion with each other and all beings.

[27:27]

So, to take refuge is to return home. He says in the passage I read before that awareness cannot, awakening cannot be dispensed. I cannot tell any of you how to be Buddha. Each of you, in your own way, completely expresses Buddha. You may not realize it, and you may get caught up by all of your karmic afflictions, your grasping, your anger, your confusion. And yet, somehow Buddha, awakeness is there. And how we unfold that or express that each of us in our own particular situation differs. It's particular. We each have our own way of being whole. And it's not static either. It's dynamic and alive and shifting.

[28:28]

So Buddha, when he became the Buddha, did not stop practicing and he did not stop awakening. Every day he practiced and awakened again. So, yeah, I'm gonna read another one. Actually, it's the very next one, again, on page 49. And this is particularly relevant to us since we, this is ancient dragons and gate, and sometimes we refer to each other as dragons. And this is dragon meditation. Except, well, he talks about it in terms of the Nagas. He doesn't use the Chinese character here for dragon. There is a character, Yu. But here he uses a transliteration for Nagas. So this is kind of background. Nagas is the Indian form of dragons. Maybe there was a slightly different species of dragon in China.

[29:33]

And then, of course, the dragons that were around in Europe are seen as malevolent. You know, King George had to, Saint George had to kill a dragon or whatever. But in a Buddhist context, in India and in China and Japan, dragons are seen as protectors of the Dharma. They hold a jewel, a dharma jewel sometimes in their, under their throat or in their mouths. And Nagas, so one of our great, Ancestors in our lineage, and actually he's in almost all Buddha lineages, is Nagarjuna, who was a great Indian philosopher. And his name is based on Naga, or these Indian dragons. And the Nagas were also said to have... Nagas lived in water, under the water. So some species of dragons apparently live in caves.

[30:35]

Some of them fly, some of them live under the water. And the Dragon Gate, which our name refers to, originally was in a deep river in China and fish that swam through it would become dragons. So I like to think that maybe there's a Dragon Gate in Lake Michigan. Anyway. So, but also Nagas guarded, in India, guarded great ancient teachings that had been lost and that Nagarjuna and others retrieved from the Nagas. Okay, so anyway, that's the background for this section called Naga Meditation. He says, being withered and cold in body and mind cleanses and sharpens the field. The dusts are jumbled and then distilled, leaving each realm vacant and bright." So being withered and cold in body and mind, you know, feels to me like a reference to intensive meditation retreats.

[31:40]

Some of you have done sessions where you sit for a day or numbers of days, something happens. You may feel withered and cold in body and mind. So he says, The dust, the afflictions, our delusions are jumbled and then distilled, leaving each realm vacant and bright. The moon in the water reflects the light in the clearing sky. The clouds embrace the mountain. with its autumn colors. Whether jet black or lush green, the profound depths have great spirit. The inherently illuminated original root is not constrained by the branches and leaves. So in terms of talking about lineages, we also talk about the various roots and then the branches and leaves. And there's a group called Branching Streams, which is about the affiliated sanghas for San Francisco Zen Center.

[32:47]

So there are branching streams, but here he says, The inherently illuminated original root, the source, is not constrained by branches and leaves. This is the time and place to leap beyond the 10,000 emotional entanglements of innumerable ages. One contemplation of 10,000 years finally goes beyond all the transitory and you emerge with spontaneity. The clouds traveling in the vacant valley are free, whether moving or tranquil, agreeably enter every sense dust while constantly staying in Samadhi, concentrated, settled. Therefore, we have been told that Nagas are always in meditation, never apart from this sublime state. So one passage here I wanna focus on This is the time and place to leap beyond the 10,000 emotional entanglements of innumerable ages.

[33:48]

So we talk about all our ancient twisted karma that we fully avow for body, speech, and mind. So we all have 10,000 entanglements, whether you believe in our legacy of 10,000 ages or not, even from just all of the months and years we have been alive, we have lots of emotional entanglements. And here he says, this is the time and place to leap beyond these 10,000 emotional entanglements. It doesn't mean to get rid of them or crush them. It just means not get caught by them, leap beyond. One contemplation of 10,000 years finally goes beyond all the transitory and you emerge with spontaneity. So he talks about this in a few places, to contemplate the 10,000 years. So Hongxia is talking about space and how we awaken space, but also time. So this is a particular benefit of Zen teaching and practice.

[34:50]

this contemplation of the 10,000 years to see this wider sense of time. Of course, there's the fierce urgency of now, as Dr. King talked about, but he also talked about the long arc of history, moving towards justice. One contemplation of the 10,000 years. So I've been talking about the ancestors when we see our connection to ancient and recent ancestors, from Shakyamuni to Suzuki Roshi, and also cultural ancestors, from Mozart to Coltrane, if you're a musician. Anyway, one contemplation of 10,000 years, he says, finally goes beyond all the transitory. We can emerge with spontaneity. When we have this wide sense of space and time, can settle and enjoy our inhale and exhale. And that actually helps us to be able to respond more effectively to the situations in our life and our world.

[35:57]

So there's a lot here. I think I'll do one more of these and then we'll have some discussion. Which one? Okay, I'll... These are all I think these are all ones that I didn't get to in three and a half hours yesterday. This is on page 56. It's the next to the last one. It's called the genuine field. And this is also kind of long. So I'll comment as I go through it. The primal mind transcends conditioning. The primal Dharma does not speak. But all Buddhas and all ancestors are not detained here. In the second gate of meaning, that of phenomena and of speech, they engage in dialogue and energy gets aroused, which is instantly extracted and dispensed both to the first class practitioner and the dull person.

[37:01]

So maybe we're all dull persons, but anyway. This is about these two gates. This is important. There's in early Buddhist teaching, Mahayana teaching, there's the teaching of two truths. There's the ultimate, and then there is, what does he say here? The second gate of meaning, which includes phenomena and speech. So even though ultimately, you know, the ultimate teaching is silence, We sometimes talk a lot and read a lot of texts and all of that encourages us to return to silence. So the first truth is this ultimate universal awareness, which we get a glimpse of when we settle into Zazen. Sometimes we don't notice it, but we kind of soak in it. Sometimes we get a big jolt of it. That can happen.

[38:02]

That happens sometimes. But As Suzuki Roshi said, when he lived in San Francisco, walking through Golden Gate Park in the mist, my robes gradually get wet. So this, what's important is just to continue, Sazen, to sustain a regular practice, because how this works happens over time. So here he says, so this is talking about the second gate of meaning. So there's the ultimate truth, which I was just speaking of. And then there's the conventional truth, the conventional reality that we honor. When the light turns red, we stop. When the light turns green, we can go. We don't ignore or deny this conventional reality. So this conventional truth. So he's talking about that here. So we do. So I do sit up here and babble sometimes. But, you know, there are stories about teachers just going up to give a talk and then just sitting there silently.

[39:06]

Vimalakirti is like that. Great bodhisattva who supposedly lived in Buddha's time. So this is the second gate, phenomena and speech. They engage in dialogue and energy is aroused, which is instantly extracted and dispensed. Therefore, Deshan, another great ancestor, not in our lineage, says that our school has no language and also has not a single dharma for anyone. Numbers of great Zen teachers have said this. There's nothing to teach. There's no dharma. And yet, we take refuge, we return home to the dharma as well as Buddha and Sangha. Hongshuo continues, originally the people arrived in the truth themselves and affirmed it themselves. Then they began to discuss it only in order to straighten up and clean out forthrightly obsessive thinking and distraction. So we are all caught by obsessive thinking at times.

[40:10]

How do we straighten it out, not get caught by it? If such contamination is purified, then vast radiance without barriers has no middle or edge circling and spreading out. The light is glistening white. It's illumination pervading the 10 directions. Then he says, sit in meditation and entirely cut off causes and conditioning and language of the three times. Reaching this, you cannot attach to a single dust mote, a single affliction, a single distraction. Only in this silent serenity is the self known, full spirited in its own glory, no stranger to sages, not diminished with worldly people. From the beginning, only this is the single affair of the old home.

[41:14]

of our teaching tradition. How can you possibly attain anything outside yourself? So he's talking about, of course we can be inspired by ancestors and teachers, but basically nothing is outside ourselves. Maybe I could add, there's nothing inside ourselves either. It's just all right here. This is called the genuine field where awakened people immediately can respond to the 10,000 changes and enter every realm. Wondrous function and spiritual penetration naturally occur without any obstruction at all. So this is an important sentence, spiritual penetration, great insight, turning within seeing wholeness and reality, and the fullness of awakening is not, is not obstructed or does not obstruct and is not obstructed by wondrous function, by our, what he starts the activity of

[42:22]

supporting and relieving the suffering of all the beings. This is, we all know this is hard work and we are in difficult times, but there is this wondrous function. We can't necessarily figure it out, but when we settle into this deeper awareness, Somehow, we can express that. So, that's maybe enough. Maybe it's too much to give you on a Sunday morning. If anyone has questions or comments on any of the particular passages or on just this whole process, please feel free. David Ray, I can't see all the people because of my limited iPad screen. So if you would please call on people. You can raise your hand or you can go to the participant window and raise hands there. I see that Jan's hand is raised. Jan, hi. Hi, Tagan. I'm wondering if we could hear from Laurel before she leaves, if she wants to say something.

[43:30]

Thank you for your talk, Togan. I don't really have anything to say at this point. I'm sorry, Laurel. I thought maybe you wouldn't. Well, then let me say what I was thinking of. I went to the orchid show. And there was a fringed orchid there, but it was not, I don't think it was a wild orchid. But at the orchid show, the thing I learned the most was that the way orchids propagate is an orchid seed is like a speck of dust. It doesn't have any endosperm. And as an orchid will produce 3 million seeds in a pod, these get carried away in the air. And they go to every place on earth because they are just like little moats of dust. And when they get to a certain place where there is the ability or there is the conditions for them to grow and thrive, the conditions have to be in the place where they land.

[44:49]

They don't bring it with them. And as a result, orchids are found everywhere on earth. And it was really a wonderful show. And there were three little cups of seeds showing that orchid seeds are just specks of dust. Anyway, this reminded me so much of Tygons when he first started talking about the here and the now. And you grow in you grow where you land or something like that. Anyway, I was really inspired by the orchid show and I recommend it for everybody. It's up at the Botanic Garden now. And then I wanted to say one other thing. I live on the lakefront and one day when it was

[45:50]

It had started to freeze, the lake had started to freeze. And I looked out and I saw the lake glittering. And I thought, oh, there's little ice crystals forming on the lake. And they catch the sun and then a little wave comes by and their orientation changes and they disappear. But they're still there, but they do send out a little ray of light. So I picked up my binoculars and looked out at the lake, and there were millions of them that I couldn't see without the binoculars. It was just such a nice experience. And that's what I want to say today, so far. Thank you for sharing that. And I appreciate what you said about orchids. I love orchids. Hongxue talks about orchids and cultivating the empty field. This is a passage I read yesterday, but I'll read it again now, or part of it. It's on page 53 for those who are following the talk.

[46:54]

People of the way, that's all of us, journey through the world responding to conditions, carefree and without restraint. Like clouds finally raining, like moonlight following the current, like orchids growing in shade, like spring arising and everything, they act without mind, they respond with certainty. This is how developed people behave. I like that image of orchids growing in shade and spring arising and everything. Here in February, at least in Chicago, it's pretty cold, but we're looking forward to spring. And when spring happens, it's arising in everything. We go outside and we see grass growing, we see flowering trees, we see leaves on the trees, but we also feel it in ourselves, the spring arising in everything. So yeah, the natural world is, we are the natural world.

[47:55]

Remember that song, June is Busting Out All Over? Yeah, exactly. That's right. That's it. So thank you, Jane. Other questions, comments, responses, David? Jane's hand is up. Oh, hi, Jane. We have a couple of Janes. This is the Jane in Pittsburgh where I grew up. Right. Yeah. Thanks so much for this continuing discussion. I didn't quite know what to expect today, but I thought, well, I would show up and see. And so, you know, it's just wonderful to get through these. I've been at it for almost a year. I've been studying this in Pittsburgh. And to have you inform the conversation the way you do is just, it just adds a whole nother dimension for me personally. Anyway, thanks so much, and thanks everyone for practicing today.

[49:00]

It's been a while since I've sat on a Sunday morning with a group, so it's really great. Here's my percolation for the morning. There's a number of words that come up throughout this book, and They relate for me in a kind of curious way, but let me just say them, and then we can talk about them. Spontaneity, wisdom, functioning, and bringing that into the world, so to speak, or I forget what I said, or whatever the expression is, of functioning, I guess, as we turn around, shall I say, from our sitting on the cushion and be, you know, post-meditation kind of thing.

[50:02]

People talk about this in different ways, and of course, so does Hong Xiu. Anyway, I'm curious about this business about, it is a spontaneous arising of sorts. And I'm curious about the word wisdom, though it comes up, we don't talk about it a whole lot or haven't. And is wisdom enlightenment? I mean, is that the expression of the source? And if so, when I turn around and bring myself and functioning into the world, and it's in a spontaneous manner, I'm kind of troubling or struggling with how this all kind of works. And if they are interrelated, and that it's not related to our intellect so much.

[51:11]

Thank you. Yes. I do want to speak about each of those four words you mentioned, or maybe there were more, but they're four I wrote down. But first I have to ask you, do you, I know a couple of teachers and teachers in Pittsburgh, do you practice with, have you practiced with any teacher? Oh, well, yeah. Catherine, Catherine's definitely on the list and she's, you know, it's a pretty informal little sangha. And since COVID, it's just been difficult. And we have had this time, but this is where we're having our, it's like a Monday evening discussion group. And it's about this book. Yeah, one of our regular sangha members is from Pittsburgh also. And yeah, I know Catherine, she's my younger Dharma sister. She was ordained by my teacher. Yeah. And if you could stay afterwards, I'm curious where in Pittsburgh you are, you know, I don't get a chance to talk about Pittsburgh so much.

[52:20]

But let me go back to the words you were asking about. spontaneity that does have to do with what you were saying about it's not just intellectual, it's not something that we figure out, it's something that emerges. as we settle, as we look. So wisdom is related. Wisdom Prajna can also be translated as insight. Wisdom is not the same as knowledge. Wisdom is not something that comes from reading lots of books or going to lots of dharma talks. Wisdom is insight to see what's, to see suchness, to see what's happening right in front of us, to have insight into the immediacy of this, just this. So in terms of the transcendent practices, one is wisdom, prashna paramita, another one is jnana paramita, knowledge, and they're separate, they're different.

[53:24]

They're related, of course. But wisdom is about just seeing what is, just seeing the suchness of right now. and responding from that. So the other words you used, function, yeah, the point isn't to get some understanding or some fancy experience. Some branches of Zen seem to emphasize, you know, you have to have some special experience or reach some special mental state or awareness. And, you know, as Hongshu says, and Dogen says, it's not about, and Shuto says, it's not about, you know, stupid or bright people. It's right here in each of us. So this wisdom can develop over time. So again, just to continue to show up in Zazen helps unfold this. But it's not that there's some essential thing that you get and then you have it. It's this insight that is a function that is always right here, right now.

[54:29]

And as we settle in our meditation practice. So the Sixth Ancestor, one of my favorite parts of that sutra about him, which has some, anyway, is that Samadhi and Prajna are one. So settling, Samadhi, meditation, concentration, and Prajna, insight, emerge together. This is an experience that many people who have specific creative activities are aware of. I know that when I'm in the middle of a writing project, sometimes when I'm sitting, a sentence or a paragraph will show up. So this is about this insight of something that emerges in our settling. Or if you're working with some teaching story or some particular problem in your life, when we settle and continue to settle, sometimes we have some glimpse of something that is helpful.

[55:37]

So wisdom and function are totally together. And expression is about this functioning. But one of the things I mentioned yesterday is that there's a definite continuity between Hongxia's meditation practice and Dogen's. In some ways, a lot of scholars will try and analyze some difference between them, which I think is silly. if I had to say anything, it would be that Dogen's meditation teaching and his teaching in general, a little bit more than Hongxue emphasizes expression. But it's there in Hongxue as well, of course, as you just said. So I hope that helps. Yes. Thank you. So other questions or comments? We still have a bit of time. Yes, Mark's hand is up. Hey, Mark. Good morning. Thank you for allowing me to join you. You just answered the question.

[56:41]

Well, hold on a second, Mark. I just want to say to you and to Jane and to anybody else who's new, please come again. You're welcome to practice in our Zoom world. We're going to be starting in-person sitting soon. I'll mention that in announcements, but we will also continue to have Zoom online events, and there are people here from all kinds of places. So anyway, go ahead, Mark. Wonderful. Thank you. You just answered the question, I think, sort of when you referred to Dogen, I was going to say that I saw a lot of fukanzenji and bendoa and uji, and even reading a sutra, and maybe even ancient mirror in a lot of the sections that you just read this morning. I'm sorry I missed yesterday. That sounds like it would have been wonderful. Anything you might want to say about that? Thank you so much. Yeah, well, you know, there's a there's a through line, a connection throughout our family style throughout the ancestors.

[57:45]

So all of the translations and commentaries and the 10 books I've done are all about how when I first had Zazen instruction, I had this, just personally, I had this sense of wholeness. And I knew this is it. And I've continued doing everyday practice. But also my teacher at the time, who was a Japanese Sojo priest in New York City, talked about Dogen together with Zazen instruction. And there were only some really bad translations of Dogen. around then. Actually, I was going to say something else about translation, so I will, but all of the things I've done have been trying to understand where Dogen comes from. So, you know, Dogen was influenced by Japanese poetic traditions. Dogen is certainly influenced by the sutras. Dogen is totally influenced by the the koan lexicon, all the different teaching stories.

[58:50]

There were different, or many, many, many different koan collections that were available to Dogen, and he was a master of them. He introduced the koans to Japan. But, you know, going back to Shuto or Sekito and Dongshan, the founders in China, there's definitely this through line of teaching and practice throughout, you know, coming up to Suzuki Roshi and now beyond. So yeah, that's why I did this. This was the first book I did, and I was inspired by just a tiny passage in one of Thomas Cleary's books, Time of Spring. And I talked yesterday about some of the other material that's now available about Hongxia. So I was going to do this in the announcements, but I'll say it now. The long three and a half hour seminar yesterday was available by registration.

[59:53]

It was partly a fundraiser for Ancient Dragon. But if any of you are interested in getting the recording for that, you can go to Ancient Dragon and sign up and please make some donation. We suggested $50, but in sliding scale, $10 is fine. But if you write info at Ancient Dragon, info at ancient dragon.org. No, wait, is it? Yeah, I guess that's it. Email that and make some donation and we can send you the link to the three and a half hours of my babbling and some comments by others about Hongshou from yesterday. So just to say that to those of you who were not there yesterday. So thank you, Mark. Yeah, definitely a connection between Hongsha and Dogen. We have time for one or two or so more comments or questions. David Ray, is there anybody? I believe Dylan has a question.

[60:55]

Good. Hi, Dylan. Hi, can you hear me okay? Yes, I can. Okay, great. Uh, so these, yeah, these, um, Hangu translations are such a huge inspiration to me. Um, this morning, I think the section that was really popping out was, uh, that there's, there's, uh, no single Dharma to teach, uh, or not a single Dharma for anyone. And it made me think of, um, uh, Suzuki Roshi talking about the precepts coming before Buddha, if I remember right. And I don't know, I don't understand like why, could you, are those connected at all? Or can you, can you say anything about that? Does that, why is one reminding me of the other? Well, what Hongzhi is talking about, what Dogen talks about, what Suzuki Roshi talks about in terms of the precepts, I am I, is, that this is the reality from the beginning.

[61:57]

Of course, it's really helpful to have a sangha and a teacher to help because it's very easy if you're just practicing on your own to get off, to go off balance, to get off center. There are various ways we can get distracted or obsessed or whatever. That said, the fundamental, the source, this ultimate reality is always present. And the precepts are part of that ultimate reality. In Japanese Soto and in our traditions in America, based on that, we have a formulation of 16 precepts that were put together by Dogen, but they're all from earlier sources. So the sense of, and this is important, it has to do with the function that Hongxue talks about, or the expression, or the response. So it's not enough to turn the light within and realize the originals and connect with the ultimate source.

[63:06]

The ultimate source is here from the very beginning, it's always here. Yet, how do we express it? How do we respond to the aches in our body as we're sitting, or to the difficulties of our friends and family, or to all of the troubles of the world and the suffering in the world? So this is about, so this function of this fundamental, circle of brightness, as Aung San Suu Kyi talks about it, is about how we respond. And that changes, given causes and conditions, given our own Dharma position. So, you know, Buddhism shifted in different cultures when it moved from India to China and Tibet. and it moved from China to Korea and Japan, as it has moved in the last half century or century, depending on, you know, what you want to look at in the West, in America.

[64:08]

And so our American Zen is already, you know, based on here, I'm talking about all these old stories from China, You know, we can look at, we have all these funny Japanese words like zazen and doan, you know, but we already our way of practicing, because we're not Japanese. I mean, excuse me, some of you may be Japanese, but of ancestry, but we are Westerners. So we're conditioned by you know, Western psychology, Western religion. So I was going to talk about translation, maybe that's relevant here. I said yesterday that I told the story about how cultivating empty field was originally my master's thesis at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, and I thought I had finished it, and I had help with a Chinese professor there, Yi Wu, this wonderful scholar of philosophy.

[65:14]

But I took it to my thesis advisor, and I thought I'd translate it, these practice instructions, and I went to see him to see what he had to say, and he said to me, this is no good, start over. So I told this story yesterday. And that was very helpful because I had to look at the meaning, not the words. So translation, especially, well, I would say translation of any poetry, translation of Zen material is a kind of art. To put it into English or whatever language you're translating into. Some of my books have been translated into Dutch or German now, I don't know, anyway. Spanish, somebody's doing, anyway. It's not enough to make a literal word-by-word translation. One has to find how to express the meaning in the new language. And yet, there's literal translation, there's faithful translation,

[66:22]

So I've done translation with a few different people now, native speakers, and I've looked at different translations. And there are some really bad translations at Dogen, and there are many good translations. But some of them are very different because it involves interpretation. But particularly when I was doing translations with Shohaku Okubora, I translated a couple of different Dogen works when I was living in Japan and going to his temple. And then in San Francisco, we translated Dogen's extensive record, He Koroku, which is the other major work of Dogen's besides Shobo Genzo. It's an interesting process, because we would look at, I would look at the Chinese characters and I could, you know, work from that. Although I'm not fluent in Chinese or Japanese at all, but I can, you know, work with the characters. And sometimes, and what the process was that Shōhaku would look at a passage and say what he thought it said, what it meant.

[67:26]

And I would look at the Chinese characters and ask questions about it. But sometimes, He said, he would be stuck. He would say, I don't understand this. And he would just sit there. And then I would try, you know, look at the characters and make guesses at, well, doesn't this mean this or that? And he would sometimes say, no, it couldn't mean that because of this particular, you know, context from Buddhism or Japanese or whatever. And sometimes we'd spend hours literally just sitting there with working over one passage. But then this happened numbers of times. We would go back and look at it very literally and suddenly it made sense. And the meaning was clear. So, um, particularly with Dogen, whose writing is, you know, his original writing is difficult for Japanese people, too. He was writing in, you know, an old form of Japanese.

[68:28]

It's like our reading English Chaucer or Beowulf or something. That the meaning is that it's possible to get the meaning correctly and also be very faithful to the original language. But also good translations of Dogen, but people like Norman Waddell or Tom Cleary or Sho Haku or Kazutani Hashi, you might look at two translations of the same material and see something that looks really different. But both are part of what's being said. So that's a long way of talking about the difficulty of, I forget what you said that inspired this, but, you know, words like faith, the English word faith. Faith is very important to Dogen and to Soto Zen practice, but it doesn't mean what we in the West often mean by faith, which is belief in some doctrine or belief in some deity.

[69:29]

Faith is more like something that comes from within, this trust or confidence. So anyway, that's a long-winded response. Thank you, Sagan. Sure. Time for one more comment or response or question. David Ray. I don't see a hand, but I have a question. Okay, you're up. Great. So I have a question about a kind of poetic figure that recurs in both of the guideposts by Hongzhe, and it's also in the Jewel Mirror Samadhi. And it's a series of images of one white thing against another white thing, right? So in the Jewel Mirror Samadhi, it's the silver bowl covered with snow and the moon concealing the heron, because white is against white. And then in the guideposts, it's the snow-covered pine and the mist. And so it seems like these poems are intently trying to say, there's something in this image.

[70:37]

of white objects against white objects. And I was thinking of it when Jan was talking about the dharma dust of orchid seeds and the light sparkling on the lake. But I mean, I can think of some things that it could mean. It could be like mind and dharma, consciousness and dharma, phenomenal and absolute. And maybe you'll say it's all the above and sit with it. But I'm wondering, does the tradition say something about what these images are getting at? Yes. So one way to look at that is in terms of Sankhita's harmony of difference and sameness. But also it's in the Jala Mara Samadhi you referenced a passage. Well, excuse me, the white heron in the moon or the snow in a silver bowl is a reference to a particular story about Nagarjuna and his successor Kanadeva. I could go into that story, but the point is, The same but different, both.

[71:41]

Oneness and many. In Gedjo Koan, the first part talks about leaping beyond the many and the one. So this goes back to this basic dialectic. maybe an appropriate word, that's fundamental in all of Soto Zen. And it's expressed in the five degrees, or sometimes called the five ranks. So there's a chapter about that in my book on Dongshan and the practice of suchness. And this goes back to the two truths that I was talking about before. So the ultimate universal insight, as it were, ultimate truth, universal truth, is one side, and then there's the phenomenal world, the world of particulars. And when Dogen came back from China to Japan, he said, I haven't brought anything except eyes horizontal, nose vertical.

[72:45]

So we're all the same in that way, but each one of you I can see now is very different in some ways. Only Douglas has a white mustache, for example. So, but all of you, eyes horizontal, nose vertical. So, to see the, and in terms of the Heron Hidden in the Moon, there's a, and I talked about this yesterday or in a talk recently about the, I think it was a talk last Monday about the, seeing the full moon against, with the heron or a bird in front, or through a gauze screen or through ivy. Often, you know, the paintings, Sumire paintings in Japan, there's a moon, but there's something in front of it. So this has to do with the,

[73:49]

particular in the ultimate and vice versa, and this fivefold integration. So as I've been saying, the point of our practice is not just to reach some ultimate state, but to have a sense of that and then bring it back into the particulars of our phenomenal world and all its difficulties. So that process of integration, Dongshan or whomever, also was involved in the Jomar Samadhi and the Five Degrees teaching, put that together to see that there was a five-fold pattern of how they integrate. There's also a version of this in the Huayen, or Flower Ornament, teaching in China, the four-fold Jomar Dantun. Anyway, the point is that that image that you were referring to has to do with that polarity and that, so sameness and difference. And I can say a lot more, but maybe that's enough for now. Thank you. So, next in our program is, we're going to do the 440 Sattva Vows and Announcements.

[75:02]

Yes, yes. So I will share the screen. If you're not muted, please do mute so that we can chant together. It's kind of paradoxical. 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.

[76:03]

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. Thank you, David. So we will have a regular service with a chant from one of Hongxia's verses after announcements. But just to do announcements, and there's a number of them, so I'll try and keep it brief. But again, just as I mentioned, if any of you

[77:05]

want to receive the whole three-and-a-half-hour recording of yesterday's seminar. If you weren't there, you could just write to email info at ancientdragon.org. Other announcements? Well, tomorrow night, Howard Yuan, who's one of our practitioners from Hyde Park and one of our chaplains, will be talking next Sunday. Very exciting. There will be some of us, some people returning to Ebenezer Lutheran Church, where we practiced for a month or so last year. And so we'll be doing Sunday morning and not next Monday, but pretty soon Mondays also. at Ebenezer Lutheran Church, so look at the website for more information. But the good news about this, for those of you who've been there, is that we have now one room where we're going to be doing both Sunday morning and Monday evening. It's up on the third floor, but we can leave it set up and push it out through the week, so we won't have to be trying to

[78:15]

put out cushions and do all of that every time. So that's starting next Sunday. The following Sunday, March 6th, instead of Sunday morning Dharma talk, we will have a Sangha meeting to talk about all the transitions happening now and how we can support each other in Sangha. Yeah, two other announcements. March 20th. This is not definite yet. Look at the website, but hopefully we will have an all-day sitting at Ebenezer Church. And again, all the sittings at Ebenezer, Sundays, mornings, and Monday evenings, also will be on Zoom. And I'm not going to be there myself, probably for the first month. But the people can still come from Cleveland, where Coe is, or wherever you are. of Pittsburgh, where Jane is. So we'll have both in-person and online events, Sunday morning and Monday evening, and continuing all of our other online programs.

[79:18]

But March 20th, Oginski will hopefully leave, and I'll be sitting at Ebenezer, which will also be available online. And then the last announcement is that the last Sunday in March, March 27th, we'll have a guest teacher, Ray-Ren Gumbel, who is the teacher at Milwaukee's Ed Center, who is the successor of my dharma sister Fu, abbess at Greenbelt Farm. So that's a bunch of announcements. Does anybody else have any announcements? Douglas. And Dylan. Oh, go ahead, Dylan. Just an invitation for anyone who's in Chicago that if you're excited about getting back to in-person practice and want to help out at Ebenezer, please feel welcome. And we'd love to practice together and set up our practice there. So if you email info at ancientdragon.org, someone will get in touch with you and we'll make it happen together.

[80:20]

And just to add to that, Dylan is our ENO and organizing all the dons and all the people who help out. And we will need people to help out at Ebenezer. So if you are interested in doing that, mention that too. Douglas. Good morning everyone. I just wanted to remind people that aside from practicing Zazen, two of the important aspects of Zen practice are practicing with other people and especially working with a teacher. It's important to do that and helpful to do that. And we have an unusual opportunity for people to have practice discussions with seven different people. You can do that by sending an email to info at ancient dragon dot org and asking to speak to a specific person. The people are listed on our website under the in the leadership section.

[81:26]

There are three teachers you can have dokusan with. You could meet with Taigen, or Aisha Nancy Easton, or Nyoza and Eric Shutt. Or you could speak with one of the practice leaders listed on the website, me, or Gyoshin Laurel Ross, who was here a little bit and had to leave early, or Hogetsu Lori Belzer, or Shudo Paulo Lazares. It's not... I mean, it can be whatever you want the discussion to be. Practical questions about, I'm having pain in my legs, or what are alternative ways to sit, or I'm having a problem with my sitting, what is going on here? Anything, and it does not have to be some incredibly profound or very zany kind of conversation, but I urge you to do it, and do it as regularly as you can to help you with your practice. Thank you. Any other announcements?

[82:34]

Well, now we'll have our closing service that David Ray will lead with a chant from Hongzhe and with our well-being list. So thank you, David. Yes. Thank you, Taigen. Please, again, do make sure you're muted, and I'll share the screen first for the repentance verse, which we'll chant three times, and then the Hongzhe guidepost, and then the well-being list. All my ancient twisted karma From beginningless greed, hate, and delusion Born through body, speech, and mind I now fully avow All my ancient twisted karma From beginningless greed, hate, and delusion Born through body, speech, and mind I now fully avow

[83:43]

All my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born through body, speech, and mind, I now fully allow. Guidepost for the hall of pure bliss. By seeking appearances and sounds, one cannot truly find the way. The deep source of realization comes with constancy, bliss, self, and purity. Its purity is constant, its bliss is myself. The two are mutually dependent like firewood and fire. The self's bliss is not exhausted. Constant purity has no end. Deep existence is beyond forms. Wisdom illuminates the inside of the circle. Inside the circle, the self vanishes, neither existent nor non-existent.

[84:50]

Intimately conveying spiritual energy, it subtly turns the mysterious pivot. When the mysterious pivot finds opportunity to turn, the original light auspiciously appears. When the mind's conditioning has not yet sprouted, how can words and images be distinguished? Who is it that can distinguish them? Clearly understand and know by yourself. Whole and inclusive with inherent insight. It is not concerned with discriminative thought. When discriminating thought is not involved, it is like white reed flowers shining in the snow. The gleam of light's gleam permeates the vastness. The gleam permeates through all directions from the beginning, not covered or concealed. Catching the opportunity to emerge amid transformations, it flourishes. Following appropriately amid transformations, the pure bliss is unchanged.

[85:51]

The sky encompasses it. The ocean seals it. Every moment without deficiency. In the achievement without deficiency, inside and outside are interfused. All dharmas transcend their limits. All gates are wide open. Through the open gates are the byways of playful wandering. Dropping off senses and sense objects is like the flowers of our gazing and listening falling away. Gazing and listening are only distant conditions of thousands of hands and eyes. The others die from being too busy, but I maintain continuity. In the wonder of continuity are no traces of subtle identifications. Within purity is bliss, within silence is illumination. The house of silent illumination is the hall of pure bliss. Dwelling in peace and forgetting hardship, let go of adornments and become genuine.

[86:52]

The motto for becoming genuine, nothing is gained by speaking. The goodness of Vimala Kirti enters the gate of non-duality. May all awakened beings extend with true compassion their luminous mirror wisdom. With full awareness we have chanted the guidepost for the hall of true bliss. We dedicate this merit to our original ancestor in India, great teacher Shakyamuni Buddha. Our first woman ancestor, great teacher, Maha Prajapati. Our first ancestor in China, great teacher, Bodhidharma. Our first ancestor in Japan, great teacher, Ehei Dogen. Our first ancestor in America, great teacher, Shogaku Shunryu. The perfect wisdom, Bodhisattva Manjushri. To the complete recovery from illness of Robin Faulk-Gones, Carissa Holin-Reyes, Vivian Garrett, Bob Finn, David Martz, Susan Hawkinson, Elske Lennox, Allison Snow Wesley, and Fred Wesley, the Mercers in Virginia, Judith Burrows, Catherine Floyd, Michael Weisbrod, Jerry Lazars, Joseph Welch,

[88:20]

Stephen Kane, Betsy De La Hunt, Anna and Albrecht, Charlotte Iannone, Jacob Blake, Julian Assange, Bill Noels, Jeff Shepard, Mary Shepard, Susan and Albert Easton, Sophia Wilansky, Susanna Taylor, Bill Olinger, Jeremy Hammond, Jackie Floyd, Rebecca and Cole Lindberg, Avery Miller, Matt West, Alex Hagen, Marla Weiner, Tom Kell, Jodi Kretzmann, Joey Wizorek, Lise Farrakian, Leonard Pelletier, Kerry Greenspawn, Kinji Kawasaki, Joan Sophie, Herb Cutchins, Joel Orlov, Steve Haloff, Bess Joiner, Kyle D. Wade, Virginia Van Curen, Chris Summers, Dennis Olson, Jim Abrams, Lynn Easton,

[89:21]

Jean Annaporte, Barbara Matarese, Kate Lamothe, Paul Baker, Jenny Obst, Matt Wolfe, Fred Mecklenburg, Ed Bossler, Riel Ho, Iris Bestow, Carla Randall, Robert French, Shauna Ellis, Gil Yong Suh, Jimmy Carter, Mary Mandarino, Rachel Stein, Norman Hughes, Bart Kolopi, Lin Shan Zhang, Zoe Nyssa, Brenda Gross, Kathy Fleming, Howard Pollack, Pat Pollack, Faustino Dionisio Jr., Frank Ostaseski, Jeff Bridges, Shoshan Vicky Austin, Peter Overton, Zenshin Florence Kaplo, Kazuaki Tanahashi, Kando Nakajima Roshi, Jarvis Masters and all residents of San Quentin Prison, Victims of gun violence, people under drone attack, all in the fracking zones, all facing fire and drought in California, all those threatened by the coronavirus throughout the world, the Mapuche indigenous people of Chubut, Patagonia,

[90:36]

Endangered from mega mining corporations, Amazonian and other indigenous peoples, threatened by corporate invasion, the people of Colombia and Palestine suffering from institutional violence, Lake Michigan and the Chicago River, peoples of the Mideast, and to all those who are lacking shelter, food, or safety, are suffering from physical or emotional distress or are exposed to violence of any kind. And to the fulfillment of practice of all Sanghas throughout the world, gratefully we offer this virtue to all beings. All Buddhas throughout space and time, all honored ones, bodhisattvas, mahasattvas, Wisdom beyond wisdom Maha Prajna Paramita

[91:47]

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