Good morning, everyone, and welcome. So for newcomers, I'm Taigen Leighton, the Guiding Dharma teacher of Ancient Dragon Zen Gate. I'm very pleased to have with me this morning my old friend, Hosan Aon Sanaki, who I'll introduce further in a minute. But we planned, oh, I don't know, a few months ago to have this talk together in the aftermath of the election. And here we are, and it's actually the aftermath of the election in some ways. So, well, first of all, I'll introduce Hosan. Hosan Aon Sanaki and I go back more than 50 years. We're old friends. He's the acting head priest at the Berkeley Zen Center, one of the founding temples in

[01:10]

the Sikhi Roshi lineage. Sikhi Roshi is the founder. And Hosan will also be the new incoming abbot at the Berkeley Zen Center. So Jim Nell, Weizman Roshi, had a stepping down ceremony a week ago. So Hosan is, along with being a fine Zen teacher and priest, a fine musician, a father, a longtime social activist. So we've worked together on social activist issues for a long time. Aon was the executive director of National Buddhist Peace Fellowship. He's also worked with people in South Asia and other places around the world on social awareness. So he has very extensive experience. So just to start, we will each be speaking some and then back and forth, and then hope

[02:20]

to have time for discussion and to hear from Sangha and to talk together about what's happening. And I confess that I feel great relief after yesterday. And there were scenes of dancing in the streets, literally, in many cities around the country. And so I want to speak from, seeking to speak from the perspective of Bodhisattva values and precepts and respect for all and caring for all beings. And what I feel most is the need for healing. President Barack Biden also spoke of this, but I've been feeling this for a while. And on many levels, healing on many levels, healing of the obvious divisions in our country.

[03:22]

There are people who feel highly marginalized on many sides of all these issues that are confronting us. So how can we come together? But also, I feel the need for healing of all the damage from the last four years. So this is all very difficult. Our need for attention to what's happening in our country and our world is not just something that happens during election times. We will need to pay attention and find appropriate response or find how to act together or talk and think and listen together, even when it's not an option. But, you know, I feel particularly well the situation of the children in cages still on the border

[04:36]

and elsewhere and separated from their parents. I feel the difficulties for our environment and for climate chaos. It's obviously happening. Fires in California, the Hosannas, floods in the Gulf and many places around the world. So how do we act to support, encourage healing there? And of course, the issues of systemic racism. So our parents now, all the police killings of non-Black people last year. This is not something that's just a function of the last four years.

[05:38]

And all of these, many of these issues are not about just the last four years. So the recent administration is not the source of a lot of these problems, but a symptom in some ways. The police killings, continuation of the lynching that's been going on. So how do we proceed? That's for me the question. And it's not a question that we can't find one answer for. It's a question to continue to ask. We need to keep paying attention. We need to continue to respond. And of course, our practice is about paying attention to the world that's happening on our seat, on our cushioning, our bodies and minds, and looking within as well.

[06:41]

We are connected to everything that's happening out in the world. But our world is in some crisis. Maybe practitioners have maybe felt that many times throughout the history of our tradition and the world. Anyway, so today after the election was called for President-elect Biden, again, I confess that I feel some relief. But I also feel that as humans, as Americans, and I'm glad to be joined by people from overseas, that we all are called to pay attention and to look at how we can respond. So maybe that's enough for me to start with. Hosan, would you please take it away?

[07:44]

Thank you, Tiger. And good morning, everyone. I want to start with a cosmic concern that came to me just as I was falling asleep last night. I was falling asleep and I kind of jolted up in bed thinking, thinking, oh, God. What's going to happen to the U.S. Space Force? I don't know. It's. It had such a bright future and now the universe is in peril because the Space Force will probably not be put forward. Well, I can see that joke worked very well. The folly of.

[08:51]

The last four years, which is never discontinuous with some of the other great follow follies and depredations throughout our history. In the face of this election, I'm relieved. I did get to hear the speeches by Kamala Harris and Joe Biden last night. And admittedly, I was in tears for a lot of it. Mostly. I think each time they cut away. To show the crowd. And to show the joy and hope on people's faces and just tears were streaming down my face unashamedly.

[09:53]

And. I want to. I was speaking this week with a friend who. Actually now lives in Chicago, I should get her to come by. Well, to come by Zoom to your place. He's an African-American. Teacher and university professor. Her name is Ayo Yutunde. And she has a forthcoming book co-edited with Cheryl Giles called Black and Buddhist. And we were preparing to do something together and she. Brought up in the course of our discussion. The image of a figure, an iconic figure or archetypal figure in Akan.

[10:53]

African culture in West Africa, Ghana. And the Akan bird or the Sankofa bird. Is this image? And let me see if I can show you. An image of it. There we go. Can you see that? Yes. So it's it's very interesting. First of all, you may notice that that it is. Somewhat in the shape of an Enso. You know, of a Zen circle. Just the way it's the way this particular image is configured in the images of. A bird that's moving forward and looking backward. And depositing an egg.

[11:57]

So the. Let's see here. So the it's moving forward into the present and into the future while looking backward towards what is rich and useful and redeemable from the past. And depositing the egg, which is the. The essence of both those things, it represents. I mean, genetically represents the past. And it also represents generationally the future. And I think that that is a wonderful. Image for our time. And it speaks to the universality of archetypes. I was really struck. I hadn't. Just as I was looking through images, I realized that it was resonant with the Enso for me.

[13:06]

So that's just the image I wanted to see. I wanted to plant in your mind. The question that I want to share with you a set of practices that are how I am addressing the question. Of healing that Tygan raised. I am. So grateful that the election was called yesterday. Yesterday, because I confess that it was very hard for me to. First of all, to. Even dare. To have some hope. Before that. And wondering. If things were still in limbo, what we were going to talk about here. Which is not to say that that you all.

[14:09]

You all may very well have have something to to say or something to think or something to suggest. But I noticed that I was. Really filled with a kind of. Of. Impending despair. And. It was scary. And it's like that that fear doesn't just it doesn't just evaporate for me. I mean, I think that one thing that was revealed by the election. Is. How deeply divided. We are as a nation. And I don't presume that that everyone on this call is on one side of that divide or another.

[15:11]

But just there are divisions. There always have been divisions. Conflict is not necessarily a bad thing. It's it's creative. But the values on which those. Some of the divisions were premised were were so far apart and so. Anti life. And this is. You know, this also, I mean, just the whole question of pro life, anti life, that's that's a division. It certainly is something that we can talk about. But when it turns to. Defending those values with violence, then. That that does lead to despair for me.

[16:16]

So the divisions that I. What I think one of the core values that I take from Buddhism. Is. That. We're taught to turn towards. Rather than turn away. The precepts. And our actions. What what is wholesome is in the realm of connection. And what is unwholesome? Is in the realm of division. And so when I. Hear people on on any side. Fiercely advocating division. I want to take a safe step back from them, not to reject them, but take a safe step back and not get hooked.

[17:23]

On my. Reaction to them. So the set of practices that I want to share with you are something that. I've been working with and thinking about for a long time. They were evolved. They were evolved by. Bernie Glassman and his late wife, Jishu Holmes. In the. In the early 90s. And. Bernie sees them as. Really deriving from Buddhist principles and in a sense deriving from the three treasures. But I don't want to go into an explication of that. It's what he called the three. Tenets. And that's T. N. E. T. S. Not the three tenants. Those people who are. Ensconced in your house and won't leave.

[18:27]

It's three tenants, the three three rules for. For how to practice. And they're very simple. In it to be. They can be stated very simply. They're not so simple to practice. The first one is not knowing. Which means letting go of assumptions. And I think that not knowing is really. Much the same as what Suzuki Roshi called beginner's mind. Where he said. In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities in the expert's mind. There are a few. So not knowing is really. Opening yourself to the. Realm. Of. Possibility. It's it's being. Just. Fully receptive.

[19:28]

Which is actually the mind of Zazen. Right. This is this is our practice. Our practices. Is really to be able to include whatever. Comes up. In body mind in our environments. And so that's the embodiment of not knowing. The second practice is. Bearing witness. So from that that position of not knowing. You watch. You watch what's going on around you. You take it in and your receptivity. Allows you to do that. Again, if you want to to. Analogize this. To a teaching of Suzuki Roshi's. You can think. If you're familiar with the. Chapter that's called control. In Zen mind.

[20:30]

Beginner's mind. He talks about giving your your horse or cow. A wide pasture. And that the best way he says the best way to control people. Is just to watch them. And so it's it's really. The application of your mind. And your attention. On the circumstance that's in front of you. Without. Without the application of some. Theory or dogma or belief that condition that. And the third. The third tenet. Has been revised numerous times over the year. Bernie kept revising it. And I've come to my own version that. That I. I think really fits the bill.

[21:31]

So my third ten is. An appropriate response. So. It's the response that is appropriate. To your open mind. And to what you see. And you give it time. To arise. And then of course you're you're constantly going through. This whole circuit of. Of investigation. You're constantly. Returning to the beginning or returning to the. To the. Bearing witness or you're having a response. Which doesn't necessarily you know an appropriate response doesn't necessarily. Mean the right response. It doesn't guarantee success. It just means. I mean going back to what I said at the beginning. Is it a response that promotes connection. Or is it a response that promotes division.

[22:32]

So those are the three tenets and that's what. What I applied to the problem of healing. That I can speaking of and that we can speak of. And to be. Quite clear. I feel that I'm at the bearing witness stage. Maybe. At most. I don't. Have an appropriate response. That has not arisen for me. And this is where I look to you. I want to hear what what you think. About what you're seeing and what you see as. Course for us. And I think this is again in the spirit of connection. It's our connection with each other. It's the collective wisdom. Of our communities.

[23:36]

And people that we trust. That. Is going to get us through. And collective action. That we that we've learned certainly learned in this election. The collective action of. Millions of people. Swung this election. And I know that a lot of you were part of it. And we were we were too. So so maybe that's a good place for me to stop. I don't know what healing looks like. I don't know quite what healing looks like. But it doesn't look like triumphalism. And it's very important to be aware. Beware of that. And it doesn't look like. A rejection or reviling. Of people who. Hold even. What we might consider very represent reprehensible views.

[24:40]

About the environment about race. About science. You know all of these things. And I want to see what the healing is that. A new president and a new government. Can do because they said. Biden said all the right thing. And Harris said all the right things last night. It was a very skillful. Speech if you listen to it. You know it's like. Boy somebody was really thinking this through. And that said it quite eloquently. But what are they going to do? What are we going to do? What does healing look like? So that's where I think I will stop. Excuse me for going on a bit. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll just say a little bit and then. I want to say some more and then we'll open this up. Yeah not first not knowing so. Whatever. Viewpoints we have is some some.

[25:41]

Some of us are studying the Eightfold Path. Including right view and right right view. In Buddhist perspective is. About not being dogmatic about. Being listening being open to. Different perspectives about being willing to learn. In his mind. I don't know. Should be a situation to have to go. So. Paying attention is really important. And that includes witnessing. And then. So so yeah we have and not demonizing anyone. We can look at. Actions as reprehensible. Maybe but it's not you know demonizing. Any particular person and people is not. Not helpful. How do we connect? How do we encourage connection? And that's a good way to look at it. I would say helpfulness rather than harm. But I think connection as opposed to division. It's a real good way to frame that.

[26:43]

And then response. So it's not just up to. The president and the vice president. And whatever cabinet they pick to. Save us from whatever you know is false. But. One of the things that's clear. Through this election season and through this pandemic season and through. All the things we are have been going through and are going through is that. People and responsive people makes a difference. People have the power as has been said. So. But then we have to think about it. We have to we have to. One of the things that Alan said that I really like is appropriate responses about not having. It's not about having the right response. It's it's trial and error. It's it's making mistakes. It's it's not being perfect. But how do we try to respond?

[27:46]

Helpfully? How do we try to respond? It supports. Activities that have come from. Sanity from reason from science from. Kindness from caring. We will chat later. May all beings be happy. So how to respect radically respect. Everyone and not even just the human beings. The beings in the environment who were connected. So. I think these three tennis. Coming back to. When a freshman. Show. Very helpful. And these go back. You know. Back to early Buddhism. So nice. So not having the answer, but then also being willing to speak our truth.

[28:48]

As we see it. That's the. Appropriate response, but they're not holding on tight to some truth. Because. Reality is changing. The world is shifting. So how do we pay attention to it? So maybe that's. Say right now. Do you have any further thoughts? One thought occurs to me. Some years ago there was a. Comedian who. A comedian social activist who was connected with. Our Buddhist community by the name of Fran Peavy. Some of you may remember Fran. And. You also some of you who were activists might remember. Kind of the model that we chanted again and again. The people united will never be defeated. Is that familiar to some of you? So what Fran's version was.

[29:53]

The people united will sometimes win and sometimes lose. And. You know. Actually. That's true. And. I'm really grateful that. At least a degree of victory as of four. Group that I the group of the population that I tend to support. There's been some some. Some victory, but the heaviness still. Stays with me. You know, and. You know. Sometimes win and sometimes lose. There can be a simultaneity to that. You know, you're not going to win everything and you're not going to lose everything. And we also recognize that in the seeds in the seeds of our actions.

[30:54]

There are at once. There's everyone's victory. And elements of victory, elements of loss in different proportion. I will say just to say. Part of it, there's a tension there for me. As I look back like the Senkofa bird at at Buddhist teachings. I find a kind of. Idealism or idealization in early Buddhist teachings. Which. Seem to me and my understanding may be incorrect. That. Certain victories are.

[31:56]

Irreversible. That one's liberation. One person's liberation is irreversible and. I will say to you. I don't think I've met that person yet. But still, we hold that as an ideal just as we hold the bodhisattva vows, which are. You know, impossible conundrums. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them all. Delusions are exhaustible, inexhaustible. I vowed to end them like. In the language itself. There is a challenge. And a. Seeming contradiction, so. We do the best we can and. Hold to this principle of connecting and not rejecting. Thank you, Ellen.

[33:00]

And yeah, just bringing up individual or personal liberation. There's. So much connection. Of that. Subtle. Connection. Not. With. Our ideal of personal liberation. Again, as an ideal. And. What is it for liberation? The ideal of our society. Freedom. Justice, liberty for all. Which is also. And. Never been really realized, of course, but. It's important. Ideal. There's a lot more to say about all of this. I want to hear from all of you. I know a lot of you have. Things to say. So we'll have some discussion now. Some of you. I'll call on people. David. Maybe you can help me. So you can raise your hand or if you go to the. Some of you, I can't see if you go to the participants box on the bottom and click on that.

[34:04]

At the. At the bottom. There's an icon to raise hands. I'll start with Deborah. Who has her hand raised there. Oh, thank you. Again. Thank you. Hold on for your wonderful comments this morning. As I was listening to you both speak. I was hearing your words, but I was also watching your faces and I really sensed. Kind of a grieving or sadness, some uncertainty. And it reminded me of just being a human that we have suffering. If we connect to our suffering, you may also connect to the suffering of others. So that's been my pathway. It can be called empathy or compassion. And as I've been working with this, one of the simple ways I've been trying to. Navigate. The past four years, actually. Is using a practice of deep listening.

[35:07]

I listen to myself and then I try to listen to others and I feel going forward. I will bring that to the divisiveness in our country. So I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We went Democrat, but if I leave 10 minutes from my house, it's all red. And I am an outdoor person. I hike a lot and I go out in this wilderness area and it's all red. I go down roads that are one lane and it was all red. And I deeply felt the divisiveness. I saw it in my face in bright colors. In homes that have nothing, are very humble, but will have a huge Trump sign. I'm sure cost a lot of money. So I felt the divisiveness where I live and I'm just working with this in a deep way. Empathy for myself, perhaps compassion. Empathy for others. And I'm practicing deep listening. An addendum to this is I'm actually exploring something called listening circles. It's actually a formal practice coming out of the first people traditions.

[36:10]

And it's the use of the talking stick. And I'm involved with the group that's exploring this, perhaps as a prototype, to use in our communities. So I'm just trying to support that as you two spoke and I connected to your feelings, that maybe we can all allow us to let ourselves connect to our own feelings. This is a very big time of transition. It's not simple, but I think this listening idea, or whatever that may mean for someone, just connecting to our bodies and what's going on. So I'm going to leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you, Deborah. Deborah, can I just say, so thank you for that. We have been using, you can call them listening circles. They're also called counsel practice. And that has been, it's something that I really learned from,

[37:12]

first of all, from Egyoku Nakao, who is the abbess of, or former abbess, and she stepped down from Los Angeles Zen Center, CCLA. And we've been using, we use it extensively in the Upaya chaplaincy training. It's one of the things that we train people in how to do and how to lead. And we've been using it in Berkeley for both an open exploration of what people are thinking or feeling. And sometimes for a, more intentionally as a tool for addressing issues that we want to come to some common idea of. But it's really good. It's a very, it's a clear methodology.

[38:17]

And you guys could do it if so inclined. Maybe you're learning it in a way that you can teach it. And that's great. It's a horizontal process that allows for no verticality. You know, there's no, it really tries to horizontalize power. And everybody in that dimension is equal. Whereas in other situations, we have people in positions of authority and so forth. But in the council, it's horizontal. So thank you. Alan, have you found a way to use that on Zoom? Yeah, it's not hard. Okay, well, let's talk about that afterwards. And maybe we can introduce that here. I would love to do that. The way we Zoom makes it easier, because it enforces a kind of structure on us. But yeah, it can easily be done.

[39:19]

Great, great. And Debra, thank you for the report from Pittsburgh, my hometown. So I think Asian was next. There's a number of people who have things to say. Thank you. Okay. Can you hear me now? Maybe I'll get closer to my modem. Thank you for talking to me. You're breaking up. Asian, you're breaking up a little bit. Maybe if you take the video off temporarily, it'll be clearer. I don't know. That's bad. Can I not speak? Is that better? Maybe, go ahead. Okay. Now, you know,

[40:21]

I want to talk about and we're having trouble hearing you. Sorry. Okay. Phone to me. Yeah. Come back and we'll call it. I'll call on you again. I think here. Yeah. Dylan was next. How's my audio? Good? I think so. Okay. On healing, I do think it's a good time for healing. And I believe that some of the most fundamental work that we can do on healing is really studying racism and whiteness.

[41:24]

Both of those things. In our connections Is the audio dropping? Yeah. Rather than talking I'll type it out and send it over to the host and someone with a better connection can read it. Okay, thank you. Aishan, are you back? I think I'm back. Yes, and the audio is much better. Go ahead. Okay, great. Thanks. So I just wanted to also comment on my awareness that we are quite a divided country now. Really, almost half of Americans voted a different way. And I know this group tends to swing very, very liberal. I did hear our president-elect talk about the importance of compromise.

[42:29]

And I want to go one step further than compromise. It seems like we see our country bounce back and forth like a pendulum from this way of doing it to that way of doing it, liberal and conservative. And what I want to highlight is I think that we need to go a step further than compromise and to maybe actually appreciate that maybe each side has something to offer the other side. When I talk with my liberal friends, they feel that the conservatives are just operating out of unchecked greed and selfishness. And when I talk with my conservative friends, they feel that the liberals are giving away the store. And I think that we maybe each have something to contribute to a discussion to how we move forward. So it's maybe compromise on the one hand, but also allowing, having enough humility on both sides to allow ourselves to be informed

[43:32]

by maybe some of what the other side has to say, to recognize that we don't have all the ideas. We don't have always an appropriate response. And maybe an appropriate response can't be unless it includes voices of people who are very different from ourselves. So thank you. Hosan, do you have any response to that? Well, I wonder if what we have to offer each other is fundamental humanity aside from any views or ideas. And I think that that's been the I think that's been the pivotal principle in most kind of open religious or spiritual efforts to

[44:35]

bridge differences, that recognizing that all beings are Buddha, or all beings are have within them the image of Christ, or all beings are a manifestation of Allah, that if you value if you value the fundamental humanness of each person, that's a starting place. And that the, you know, that our views are like shells or husks that we wear to protect ourselves. And that it's true that all of what from either side, the effort is to protect and to protect life, except that

[45:39]

when you get to the edges of these views on any side, you come to the place where you're seeing some beings as human and some as not. And so dehumanization is really the disease. Thank you. Yeah, we have to be open to listen to everyone, I think. There's a bunch more hands. I think Sandra Lyons, who's joining us from Indiana, is next. Go ahead, Sandra. Sandra, I think you're muted. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. So I'm a little confused about how I would come in contact. I don't have connections, honestly,

[46:40]

with people who don't share my values. It's because I think generally I choose to go places and be with people who do share my values. And both professionally and socially. So there's that. I don't think I would actually have any direct opportunities to encounter many people who have very strong opposite values from myself, except maybe just very casually I might encounter people. But that doesn't seem like an appropriate place to bring up connections on those issues. And there was a second thing. The second thing is besides opportunity is

[47:43]

I don't know how to deal with disagreements with people who flat out reject that and don't seem to be very open to listening outside. So I feel like this is a little bit of a one-sided you can offer an olive branch, but if it's flat out rejected, I'm not sure where to go with that. So that's what I have for now. Thanks. Thank you. Well, I wonder if some of you want to respond to that. I just want to say one thing, which is that in a context where one side is trying to convert the other or persuade the other and not willing to listen,

[48:47]

sometimes dialogue is not appropriate or is not helpful. We can listen to others, but if they refuse to listen to us, then there has to be a mutuality about it. And one way maybe is to find what is common ground. What are the values that we do agree on? Humanity, common humanity, as I was talking about, and interface dialogue. Joanne mentioned in the chat box, trust and respect and self and empathy. But it's sometimes sometimes it's hard, sometimes trying to talk to someone who doesn't, won't listen and just wants to persuade, you know, impose may not be helpful. And yet, to the extent that we can to listen to others

[49:51]

is helpful. It's very difficult. And I think a number of people in our Sangha have this problem with friends, family members. I have that myself. Sometimes dialogue is not possible. But if we can find places from which we can find dialogue, that's helpful. I know others, if you have responses to this, there's a bunch of hands up. I have Dylan's comment now. Okay. You go first with that. And then I have four other people. So go ahead. So Dylan says, healing for us in Chicago, I believe, starts with studying racism and whiteness. For example, many people have a habit of saying in America that folks of color are quote-unquote minorities. However, people of color are the global majority. The harm of racism won't be solved

[50:53]

when Biden and Harris are sworn in when January turns around. There are many of us in Chicago here. How many of us have friends that we visit regularly to Breeding Green or Bronzeville or on 95th Street? If not, why not? Why is that? The divisions in Chicago go back much before 2016. How do we start healing here at home in our own city and set an example for the country? That's Dylan. Tygan, can I say something to that? Yes, please. To pick up on one thing that you were saying, and it ties into this, sometimes words are not the medium for connection. For a lot of people, words are not a medium for connection. I can tell you because I've been living in one community for 36 years now, and there are some people who have been here

[51:57]

for a very long time, and we do not agree on things. It's not so much on politics, but it can actually be on our interpretation of what Suzuki Roshi's way is, something that gets very granular. I've realized we're not going to be able to talk this out. In that respect, what makes connection is when we're washing dishes together, or when we're cooking together, or when we're working in the garden together. What I would say about making those connections across difference, first of all, where you live, look for projects that people are participating in, feeding the homeless, doing some kind of shared volunteer or service work.

[53:00]

That's where we manifest our fundamental humanity. That's one suggestion. I think that Ayo, who I spoke of earlier, she was a keynote speaker at this year's Soto Zen Buddhist Association meeting. She had this brilliant suggestion, which I confess I have not been able to do yet, but I have figured out how to do it. She said, we Buddhists should find a black church, almost all of which are really open, and you can particularly do it now, during Zoom, and go to Bible study. Go to a Bible study and see how it's done, and just learn,

[54:07]

not just learn about the Bible, but learn about how people connect with each other in ways that might be outside our cultural norms. It was very interesting. People were saying, well, are we going to be accepted? Blah, blah, blah. She said, that's exactly the point. You will be accepted. People will welcome you. They're not going to question that. Even if you say you're a Buddhist, they're like, what are you doing here? In the very inverse of what they might experience if they came to a white church. I think this is a brilliant idea for building bridges, and for learning. It's something that I found a place that has Bible study on Wednesday afternoon,

[55:09]

and that's what I'm planning to do. That's an idea. It's another idea for bridge building. Thank you. Thank you, Alan. Yeah, I actually, yeah, I heard Aya speak, and I also went to a class that she was teaching on world religions and was the Buddhist representative. I'm intending to invite her to come and speak at Ancient Dragon early next year. Some of these things are difficult during the pandemic in terms of working together, but yeah, you're encouraging me to think about how to do this on Zoom. So thank you for that very much. Again, we have a few people. I think Eileen from New York City is next. Hi, how are you? I love both of those ideas of things are not going to be resolved through words,

[56:12]

and I found that myself. When you just like to experience and when you're working side by side, same thing on how to get to that. There's another question that I think when I find myself living in a, allow myself to live in a less reactive way, not by shutting down, but as if we're sitting, then sort of magical things appear in my path that allow me to connect with others. So it just sort of, you know, I guess like attracts like, things just come. I was sitting in the cafe today and there was some people sitting next to me and there was a dog and they had rescued it from Thailand, this wonderful little dog, and we talked for a while. And I have this funny little meme that I kind of wanted to show them about Trump. This is the West Village in New York City. There were celebrations everywhere. And I said, well, I don't know where you land on the election.

[57:17]

I didn't assume. I don't know if I should show this to you. And they were not happy with the election, but they were slightly open. And so I made some comments. I said, yeah, well, you know, maybe going forward, we had somebody who was a fighter and now we've got somebody who wants to reconcile. And they were worried about the left wing, because this is the media problem too, what we hear, this problem with words. Oh, the left wing are the people who are dividing us. And I said, well, just, you know, watch the language and see what happens. I hope things will work out in a way that you like. And they were open to it. And I wasn't lecturing quite that much, but I invited them in as opposed to saying, oh, you don't know what you're talking about. The other thing that happened was I have this, the only social media I participate in is something called Next Door, which is a neighborhood app. And you're not supposed to have any political opinions on it, you know, respectfulness and all that. And of course, there were some leaks today.

[58:19]

And there was a woman, actually back before the election, there was a woman who said, are there any pro-Trump people out there? Can we start a meetup? And I actually thought she was being funny because this is the West Village. So I gave her a little ha ha ha. And it turns out she's quite serious. And then when other people found out she was serious, they started attacking her. What are you, crazy? This is the West Village. And, right, exactly. And I did my best to kind of diffuse that a little bit. But, you know, she has a right to speak. She has a right to speak. That's the key right there, I think, is how to not be reactive, to be respectful, to listen to whatever that person's saying from the root of where they're saying it, and not engage in these nasty ping pong games that are, you know, they're made of darts and explosives, these little ping pong games. They're horrible. And this is how things perpetuate. So just stop perpetuating. I'd like to find a positive rather than stop perpetuating.

[59:24]

I'd like to hear a positive linguistic turn on that. But I do find it works. I do find it works. But it's not a magic bullet, of course. It's just a day-to-day way of trying to work with what we encounter. That's all I have. Thank you for that. I have a list of, on my list, I have Fushin and Paul and Brian and maybe others. And I know there's an active chat going on on the side. It's hard to follow all of it. But Fushin, I think you were next. I don't really have anything more to say other than what was said, except that refraining from speech is frequently a very effective way of connecting, and we need to remember that.

[60:24]

Thank you. Thank you. Paul Disko? I think we've gotten caught up in this current age and current moment, and being bought and sold or accepting the idea that there's two sides, that there's a division, and actually there is no division. From a Buddhist point of view, if there is no division, we're just one large group of suffering human beings. We're all deluded and we're all suffering. And in the United States, we have an added disadvantage in that we've been taught to believe in progress and to believe that things are going to get better. And so your delusions are keeping my delusions from happening, so we start beating up on each other,

[61:26]

because where's that progress that we thought we were going to get? It's just like this. It's the same as our individual self. We have to settle on ourself, see who we are, look inward, as Alan was saying, and figure out what is the appropriate response. But just like the society has to look inward and see what it needs to do and what the appropriate response is, not try to think that somebody's delusion is better than the other person's delusion. We have to accept that we are all suffering human beings. Thank you. Yes. Osan, do you have comments? No. Paul's right. Yes, usually, yes. Yes, we're all suffering on all sides, and it's not just two sides.

[62:27]

It's many sides, or it's each one of us is a side. Well, okay, Brian, you're up next. This has been a wonderful discussion, and I think this, let me get back to a couple of things that have been said recently by Paul and others, and that is that I think sometimes, well, a lot of times we're moving too quickly towards our preferred solutions, and one way of finding commonality in humanity and compassion and all these, you know, respect and all these things we say we want to do is not necessarily looking for commonality in our preferred solutions, but looking for commonality in our experience of difficult times. I think most people in this country are disturbed by a time of great change. There's a whole lot going on, and whether you're talking about the environment or the effects of capitalism, the relations between races, addiction that's going on,

[63:29]

the difficulties in the healthcare system, gun violence, the effects of mass communication and the internet. I mean, this is affecting everybody, and there's some suffering going on where people are really disturbed and they want to try to see a way forward, and that's where we part companies sometimes, and we believe one party or the other, it's that dualism that Paul was talking about that separates us, but maybe we can return when we're with people, return to the suffering itself first and just talk about what it's like for us as individuals or as groups. What is it like for us to experience some of these difficult things before we start talking about solutions? David Ray. There's an idea in the classical and European and Western tradition that this

[64:40]

conversation is reminding me of. It's just a simple idea that civic, that shared civic affiliation is a kind of friendship, and that in that sense I don't have to find a connection with someone else when I'm a fellow citizen. We're already fellow citizens. Aristotle says that people who are together on a ship have already of necessity a kind of friendship, and we say that, that we are all in the same boat, and I'm grateful for this conversation for reminding me of that, that there's nothing that I need. There's nothing I need to figure out in order to feel my connection with the people who are my fellow citizens, so I'm grateful for that. Well said. I'm not sure I may have missed hands up, David Ray, if there are others who have things to offer to this very fine conversation. Eve has raised her hand. Eve, go ahead. Yeah,

[65:43]

I put some stuff in the chat box. There's, you know, there's a lot of activity that's been going on around trying to find ways of communication across difference, and I think part of the challenge is to be able to come together and be able to share what's worked and what hasn't, and I totally agree with the points about sharing stories, and, you know, and I find in council practice does help support that too, and there's other ways of doing it, but I wanted to comment because so just to tag on to the last comment about creating a shared civic and civil space. So Eric Liu, who was Clinton's speechwriter, who's a very articulate person, he's in Seattle, so he started the Citizens University,

[66:44]

and he's developed this format of a kind of civic church where there's a talk, he calls it a civic sermon, and there's poetry and there's music, and then people can split up for group discussion, and so he started in 2016 is when he started that in Seattle, and then right now it's gone virtual, and we're doing one on Saturday in Chicago. My friend Daniel Wolk went to Eric Liu's training on that, and so I can send you guys the link if you want to come to the one on Saturday. I just wanted to say in response to what David was mentioning, you know,

[67:44]

one of my source inspirations over the last 10 years has been Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in India, and he was a politician, he was a civil rights activist, if you will, and he was a deeply spiritual person who led a Buddhist conversion movement in India that is alive and growing today, and in his writing, particularly as it evolved in the late 40s and 50s before he died, he found no gap between the manifestation of civil responsibility and ethics and spirituality.

[68:45]

His choice of spirituality was Buddhism, but he looked for by choice because he was born untouchable, but he found the same kinds of principles. He certainly found it in Islam and Christianity and in some of the other religious movements, and he was very critical of Hindu nationalism, and of course, what we're seeing in line with what's been going on in the world is a rise in nationalism and a rise in religious nationalism throughout the world, but he did not exclude anyone from the circle of existence. As Paul was saying, it's one being,

[69:46]

and that was a perspective that he had from his study of Buddhism, and that was for him in line with deeply democratic and equalitarian values that he put forward in society, and so I'd be happy to talk with any of you to give you some guidance towards what's relevant in his work, where to look, but I found that very inspiring. When I read him for the first time, I thought, oh, here is the clear articulation of engaged Buddhism, of a Buddhist ethics that was cognizant of the fact that we were all functioning in one system,

[70:48]

not in separate systems or little worlds or sets of narrow interests. Thank you for that. This has been a very rich conversation. Randy has his hand up. Hi. Thanks for your talk and dialogue. I've been studying, Tiger, I've been studying your book, Faces of Compassion, quite intensely for the last few weeks, and your question came up as far as an appropriate response. It seems that there were books, oh, 10, 20, 30 years ago, and the Christian tradition was, what would Jesus do? I remember there being one, what would Buddha do? And now I'm asking myself, in the situation of appropriate response,

[71:51]

and the 70 million folks that voted in a way that I didn't, and I'm sure most of us didn't, what would Jizo do? What would Samantabhadra do? Maitreya. You know, I think that those archetypes kind of can fit in the various situations we're in, and maybe it's helpful to maybe just think about that a little bit, go back and kind of read from your book or elsewhere, remind ourselves who the exemplars of those people, of those bodhisattvas have been, and maybe there are ways we can kind of look for those energies within ourselves, as far as our response. Thank you for that, Randy. There's a lot of subtlety to the bodhisattva tradition, but just off the top, if I may, for Jizo witnessing, you know, which we've talked about,

[72:51]

just paying attention to what's happening and where everybody's at, and not demonizing anyone, but we're all, we're all in our various solutions. We're all in this together. The world is changing. So how do we pay attention to that and care about everyone? Maitreya, loving kindness. May all beings be happy. How do we pay attention? How do we extend that wish for everyone? Everyone is suffering in some way. This is the first noble truth, and it's a noble truth because we can actually sit with it, pay attention to it, be upright in the middle of it, see each other in this world of suffering, and in the end of suffering, but mostly we're in the world of suffering. And then Samantabhadra, just to mention the three that you mentioned, just this, and this is also part of what Alan was talking about,

[73:54]

witnessing and paying attention, and the long-term work, you know, this, I appreciated what Zengi Paul said about progress. We have this idea of progress. There's also, you know, I heard a commentator yesterday talking about Dr. King's talk about the moral arc of the universe bending towards justice. Well, maybe so at the same time. I don't know. I don't know if that gets conflated into, you know, modern ideas of progress, but Samantabhadra, that aspect of our bodhisattva reality is just to keep working at our bodhisattva vows, looking at it, paying attention, this kind of deliberate long-term need to pay attention,

[74:58]

to witness, to look at, to not know all the answers, to not, you know, espouse some ideology, but just to witness, and then to be willing to respond when we see something where we can help. Alan made some very good suggestions. So thank you for that, Linda. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, this idea that the moral arc of the universe bends toward freedom is beautiful and encouraging language, and I think it's a bit misleading. We bend it. If we don't bend it, it ain't going to bend. Yeah. You know, and so the essential question, is we study this stuff. We study these bodhisattva archetypes and so forth and study these practices so that we know, so we can figure out what will I do?

[76:00]

And what I strongly suggest is that this is not a passive or intellectual thing. You will do what you are trained to do. Where the heft of training comes down in your life, that's what you're likely to do. So this is why we need to retrain ourselves. All of Buddhist practice is about retraining ourselves and freeing our minds from narrow self conceptions to see the oneness of all beings. And there's training that you can do. Like council training is training to perceive oneness. Nonviolence training is training to perceive oneness. There are many other approaches and things we can do, but if we don't do them,

[77:03]

we're going to fall back on our habitual training, which is often mired in delusion. You know, all of our trainers, all of our teachers, I've been training with my teacher Sojong Roshi for close to 40 years. And I see even with his declining health, as he approaches the end of his life, his training is getting clearer and clearer to us. So we have to bend that moral law. Yes. Thank you. This is an active physical practice. That's a good ending note. But if anybody has anything you would like to add. Thank you.

[78:00]

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