Good morning. Good morning. When my friend Alan Snocky was here a few Monday evenings ago, Vice Abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center, he spoke of Ehe Dogen's teaching on the four embracing dharmas or guiding methods of bodhisattvas. Dogen was the 13th century founder of Soto Zen, the branch of Buddhism that we follow here. And these four embracing dharmas, or guiding methods, are generosity, beneficial action, kind speech, and identity action or cooperation. Anyway, Alan said during that talk that maybe it was enough to just talk about the first one, generosity or giving.

[01:01]

So that's what I'm going to do this morning, is just to talk about the practice of generosity or giving. Very basic, important practice in the Bodhisattva kind of Buddhism that we follow here. Bodhisattvas are enlightening beings helping everyone to awaken, helping to relieve suffering. And there are various lists of practices in Bodhisattva Buddhism. And one group of practices is called the paramitas or perfections or transcendent practices in the Bodhisattva way. These are practices that we all do as human beings, but particularly as Bodhisattvas, we take them on doing Bodhisattva practice in a kind of intentional way.

[02:02]

And there's a list of six, and there's a list of 10. But the six, they both start with the practice of generosity. So the list of six are generosity, ethical conduct, patience, effort or enthusiasm or energy, meditation or settling, samadhi, and then prajna, wisdom or intuition, prajnaparamita. The perfection of wisdom is the name of a group of sutras too, very important, including the Heart Sutra we chant here sometimes. By the way, they will not be a test. But I want to talk about this first one. In some ways, it's a circle, and all of them are related. But particularly, generosity or giving is something we all have some relationship to. We all give gifts at various times in various ways. But there is this intentional practice of giving.

[03:06]

There's a chapter on the ten practices in My Faces of Compassion book. Just to start on generosity, the ten interrelated perfections form a circle beginning and culminating with generosity. Generosity is the starting point and develops with the practice of all the other practices. Bodhisattva generosity, or dana in Sanskrit, is perfected when no difference in status and no separation is seen between giver and receiver. Imperfect giving occurs inasmuch as these roles are seen as separate and estranged. Those in helping professions, for example, are particularly vulnerable to feelings of superiority and paternalistic arrogance. Those who receive charity may become prone to dependency and feelings of debilitation. People who are providers and caregivers, either by profession or by temperament, can experience burnout and cease-giving if their energy is depleted by giving to others in a way that is experienced as self-diminishing.

[04:14]

So if we feel like we're giving in a way that we're giving up something and we don't really feel that generosity, that's not true giving and it's not helpful. True generosity is a subtle art requiring sensitivity, judgment, and patience. As you all know, if you think about trying to decide what to give somebody when you want to give somebody something, it's not to give something that someone actually can use or to give something that someone actually would like to receive is sometimes challenging. It's all too easy to give someone what we feel they need or should have, rather than what is actually useful or appropriate. In the long range, it might even be best to give someone what they think they want, even if it seems harmful at the time. So, considering these aspects of giving and generosity is, excuse me, a big part of this practice of generosity, how do we actually give?

[05:21]

And as that passage indicated, there's a kind of mutuality in giving. Our meal chant talks about the oneness of giver, receiver, and gift. So receiving is as subtle an art as giving. How do we receive something? in a gracious way. Maybe it's not what we want. Maybe it is something that would be useful and we don't know it. How do we actually receive what is given to us? And then, you know, the person who's giving might feel like, oh, I'm being very generous, but actually the person receiving is giving us the opportunity to give. And the act of giving is considered very beneficial, very helpful to the giver and the receiver.

[06:25]

So this practice of generosity, again, is very subtle and challenging and worthy of consideration. there's a way in which giving is a kind of circle. And Alan talked about that a little bit, and I'll come back to that in another way. But in terms of all the other practices, giving is supported by ethical conduct and is a way of expressing ethical conduct. Giving is maybe how we can practice patience to give not just to others but to ourselves the space to be patient. So part of meditation is giving too. We sit upright facing ourselves, giving ourselves the space, the time to actually just be present.

[07:29]

as ourselves, beyond our ideas of who we are, to actually feel what it feels like to be this body and mind, just sitting uprightly. We also can give ourselves to Buddha. We can give ourselves to the actual practice and expression of Buddha to ourselves, and we can give Buddha to others, and we can give Buddha to Buddha. All of this is part of our sitting practice, where we give ourselves the space and time to be patient, and we give ourselves the possibility of finding some deeper energy or enthusiasm. And ultimately, maybe skillful giving, or maybe just the open-heartedness of giving, is the heart of the practice of wisdom.

[08:34]

So all of these practices are very much interrelated. One of the manifestations of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Kanon, Kanzeon we chant sometimes too. The Bodhisattva, the enlightening being who hears the sounds of the world and she's depicted over there actually in a drawing that Dogen made and in this image over here, sometimes with many heads, sometimes with many arms, in many different forms. and sometimes with different hands, holding different tools to be used to help different kinds of people, to be generous. But one of them particularly is a challenge in terms of practice of generosity. One of the objects that Kannon and other bodhisattvas sometimes hold is a wish-fulfilling gem.

[09:37]

a jewel that grants, kind of like a genie, grants the wishes of, you know, whatever anybody wants. So, that's kind of provocative. How do we, you know, we tend to think about giving Maybe strategically, if we see a homeless person on the street, we may not be so sure about giving to them. Are they just going to use what we give them for alcohol or drugs or something? And for people who have a great deal of material resources, who are philanthropists in some way, and for foundations and other people whose profession or activity is giving, it's important to think strategically. What am I giving? Who am I giving it to? How will it be used?

[10:40]

How will it be beneficial for the most people? beneficial in some realm of culture or art or society. So there is that kind of giving, where we think about if we want to give someone a gift, what would be something they would really appreciate? And yet, the other side of this is this wish-fulfilling gem. Just give someone whatever they want. That seems pretty radical to us, maybe. But actually, the idea of generosity in and of itself is helpful. So to give somebody what they want, what they think they want, even if we feel pretty sure it's going to be harmful, perhaps, in some cases, maybe that's the most generous thing to do. Just the spirit of giving, just to encourage giving, and giving to others.

[11:42]

the circularity of the gift. So I'm talking about this in a way to challenge all of us to think more, to be present more with our acts of generosity and giving. Of course, the word donna or giving is also used for making donations. It must be that there's a common root for donna and donation how that works entomologically, but we have a bowl in the front for people to make donations for taking care of this space. There are other ways to give, though. We're going to be doing a temple cleaning practice after the talk, so that's a way of giving to this possibility of meeting the practice. But there's this sense of exchange. We give something and we receive something at the same time. We come and receive spiritual teaching or practice and we give something back.

[12:50]

Or just in any exchange. And how do we get out of seeing it as a business transaction too? How do we give just to give? So all of these considerations are part of the actual intentional practice of giving. In the text that Alan was talking about, Dogen talks about giving in some provocative ways. I wanted to read some of that. I want to read a little bit of it. I wanted to read some more of it, though. First, Dogen says about giving as the first of these four helpful methods or guiding methods of bodhisattvas, this giving means not coveting. Not coveting is not being greedy. In worldly terms, it is said not being greedy means not flattering. even if one should rule four continents to provide education and civilization in the correct way. It's just a matter of not being covetous.

[13:51]

So part of giving is to be content with what we have, to not want lots of stuff. If we want lots of stuff, then even if we receive it, can we receive it as a gift or is it just more acquisition? Can we appreciate what we are given in our life, including the difficulties and challenges, without thinking we need more of this or more of that. This idea of giving is very challenging in our culture, where we are encouraged to be good consumers and get everything that's in all the TV commercials, and that will bring us happiness. But just not to be covetous, as Tom Currie translates it, not to want many things, then we can actually appreciate things that are given to us. To be content with this situation and to respond to this situation, not to be content in a passive way, is a part of giving.

[14:56]

Then Dogen says, for example, it is like the treasures one relinquishes being given to strangers. Even to give something to strangers is this kind of giving that actually helps our own heart of generosity. And then Awa mentions this passage, to offer flowers from distant mountains to a Buddha, to give away treasures from one's past life to living beings, in terms of teaching as well as in terms of things. In each are inherent virtues involved in giving. If we see, you know, the beauty of Lake Michigan, if we see a beautiful sunset, can we give that, can we have the feeling of giving that to Buddha, giving that to awakeness, giving that to, so actually, we were walking by the lake yesterday, and it was beautiful, and it was a nice day, so I want to give you all that, just that feeling of this beautiful lakeshore that's nearby, and that

[15:59]

we all have the opportunity to walk along and so we should give that to ourselves. So I give you my enjoyment of the lake yesterday. How do we give, you know, I can't give you all of Lake Michigan and yet you all have the opportunity to go see it. How do we give, Not just things, but our own heart feeling. This is part of our sitting practice, too. How do we be generous to ourselves as well as to others? So we have to learn to give to ourselves as well as others. And actually, that helps us to see that we aren't separate, actually. How do we receive from ourselves and from others? This helps the spirit of generosity, which is so much a part of the way of awakening. So Dogen then talks about this effort at generosity and genuine effort, and he says, when one leaves the way to the way, one attains the way.

[17:12]

When attaining the way, the way is necessarily being left to the way. When goods are left to goods, the goods unfailingly become giving. Self gives to self, other gives to other. So giving up our feeling of separateness is also part of this practice of generosity, of just, in some ways, letting go, of appreciating this space, not just being content, but really enjoying the gifts that we have been given, the gifts that we can give to ourselves, the opportunity to just be present as ourselves in our meditation. He gives some examples which are sort of interesting from Buddhist history. There are cases where one person affected the well-being of another by giving his whiskers. I don't know what that's referring to. Someone gained kingship after having presented sand to a Buddha.

[18:13]

They didn't crave the thanks of others, they just did what they could. That's a reference to King Ashoka. Kastanahashi was here a little while ago talking about King Ashoka, the early Indian king, he actually reunited India a couple centuries after the historical Buddha and did that through very violent warfare, but then realized Buddha, realized awakening, realized compassion, and became a great teacher of nonviolence and supported nonviolence and generosity throughout his kingdom. But there's a story that in a past life, he was a little kid and he saw the Buddha, and he didn't have anything to give, but he was so impressed by seeing the Buddha that he wanted to give something, so he gave him some sand or some mud, other versions say, and the Buddha took it very gratefully and took it back to the monastery and put it with the mud that they were using to make walls of the monastery.

[19:16]

And thanks to that gift, it's said, in this past life, he was born to be able to be King Ashoka, Anyway, Doggett says, they didn't crave the thanks of others, they just did what they could. Setting up a ferry or building a bridge is also the transcendent generosity of giving. There are many ways to give, trying to do something that is helpful in the world. All of this is giving. When one learns giving well, being born and dying are both giving. How can we give ourselves to birth and death, and give ourselves to others' birth and death, and appreciate the birth and death of all of us. He says, entrusting flowers to the wind, birds to the season, also must be meritorious acts of giving. So the spirit of giving is not just about material gifts, the spirit of open-heartedness and generosity.

[20:17]

is what this is about. Then it mentions King Ashoka again, the principle testifying to King Ashoka's offering of half a manga to a group of hundreds of monks being great giving should also be studied. And that's a story about King Ashoka later in his life. He made so many donations to Buddhist centers and temples and other, actually was very open-hearted about many other religions. He was very tolerant and supported many different religions in India. Later in his life, his ministers would not allow him to give anything more because they were concerned about him being overly generous and he wanted to take care of the government and the kingdom. So there were some monks who went by and all he had was a mango that was half-eaten, but he gave that to the monks and that was considered a great So I want to bring up some other aspects of giving and then give us all the chance to just talk about this.

[21:19]

One of them has to do with my favorite American Buddhist holiday, which is called Thanksgiving. And I like the way that's not I don't like it so much for the history of the pilgrims and the Native Americans who were generous to them and then got wiped out and so forth, but the idea of gratitude and generosity, of thanksgiving, they fit together in this way that's very important. We give as an expression of our gratitude. We give as an expression of appreciation. when we feel grateful, when we feel grateful to someone we want to give something back, when we feel grateful to, just this feeling of gratitude, of appreciation, inspires us to want to give.

[22:25]

One example, just a passage that just talks about that, this book that Alan also mentioned, The Gift by Lewis Hyde, who I know, he went to my high school, a very wonderful book that I recommend also. Alan mentioned it, The Gift, Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. It's a wonderful book. Lewis Hyde, H-Y-D-E. So he talks, amongst many other things, he talks about gratitude and generosity. And he also talks about the way that gifts have to circulate. I'll come back to that. He talks about in transformative giving, for transformative gifts, if the teaching begins to take, the recipient feels gratitude. I would like to speak of gratitude as a labor undertaken by the soul to affect the transformation after a gift has been received. So we don't think of gratitude as a kind of labor or effort.

[23:32]

Between the time a gift comes to us and the time we pass it along, we suffer gratitude. Moreover, with gifts that are agents of change, it is only when the gift has worked in us, only when we have come up to its level, as it were, that we can give it away again. Passing the gift along is the act of gratitude that finishes the labor." So, he says labor, which is very interesting in some ways, we could say it. as obligation, but there's some work, there's some effort in receiving the gift, in allowing it to transform us. The transformation is not accomplished, he continues, until we have the power to give the gift on our own terms. Therefore, the end of the labor of gratitude is similarity with the gift or with its donor. Once this similarity has been achieved, we may feel a lingering and generalized gratitude, but we won't feel it with the urgency of true indebtedness. So again, there is a part of this process of generosity that is a kind of transaction.

[24:38]

But part of how Lewis Hyde talks about this is, and Alan talked about it, is passing along the gift. So when we receive something, how do we give it to others? Lewis Hyde gives an example. There are many examples in indigenous cultures of this kind of passing along the gift in a way that's very ritualized and formalized. He talks about the Kula Ring. This is a archipelago, large archipelago in the South Sea islands near the eastern tip of New Guinea. And there's actually a ring of islands. And over some period of years, person from one island will give something to somebody in the next island, maybe the chiefs, but anyone. And then there's some kind of tribal obligation to, at some point, pass that object along to the next island.

[25:44]

And it goes around in a ring until it finally comes around. So this is a kind of ritualized indigenous practice of what goes around, comes around, of acknowledging karma, of seeing the circularity of gift. So the gifts never stop. It seems almost incredible at first, but is the fact, nevertheless, that no one ever keeps any of the Kula valuables for any length of time. Ownership, therefore, in Kula is quite a special economic relationship. A man who is in the Kula never keeps any article for longer than, say, a year or two. So these islanders passed this along. There are other examples in the American Northwest, the potlatch of someone celebrating some wonderful event by giving away maybe almost all of their possessions as a kind of ritual ceremonial celebration.

[26:49]

And this has passed along. So this idea of giving and receiving and the mutuality of that and the circularity of that, that we receive something and we naturally want to give it. When we're grateful for a gift, it's not necessarily that we give the same object to someone else, but this spirit of generosity is contagious. It's catching. When we feel others being generous, when we can be generous to ourselves, then we can be generous to others. So this includes giving of yourself and giving to yourself. As I said before, giving yourself, our practice in part, this Zazen practice, meditation, this formal practice, is giving ourselves the opportunity to just be present as ourselves, and then giving ourselves the opportunity to feel that generosity in the rest of our lives. So we also emphasize not just the formal meditation practice, but how that

[27:55]

inner sense extends into the rest of our activity, how our creative activities in our everyday life, even very simple everyday activities of washing the dishes, or taking out the garbage, or walking the dog, or whatever we do of generosity supports our meditation practice and vice versa, as well as other more obviously creative activities. How do we give ourselves to ourselves? How do we give ourselves to others? How do we allow others to give to us? This is, in some ways, something we take for granted, and actually it's worthy of really considering and appreciating. So, Part of this, so we have a precept, the Bodhisattva precepts that we follow. There's one that says, the earlier versions of it say not to steal, but we say do not take what is not given.

[29:03]

But all of these precepts, so there's a precept to not kill, but this also means to support life, to support vitality, to support energy, to support peace. this precept about not taking what is not given, also means to accept what we are given. How do we receive, again, receiving gifts, the practice in monastic Buddhism in Asia, the practice to learn generosity is going around with a begging bowl and receiving. All that the people in the monastery eat, in some cases, comes from going around and just holding out our bowl and offering people the opportunity and make people want to give because they realize there's this energy of giving, this merit, it's sometimes called in Buddhism, that comes from giving. So how do we accept what we are given? This means tangible or even spiritual gifts, but also In a deeper way, how do we accept our dharma position, as Dogen calls it?

[30:13]

How do we accept what we've been given in this life? This is maybe the most challenging aspect of generosity. Each of us in this room is given certain talents, certain abilities, certain interests, certain experiences, some we may not like or regret. But how do we, in a dynamic, not passive way, accept what we've been given? This is the opposite of not taking what's not given. How do we receive this precious opportunity of human life? How do we accept it and then use it? Again, pass the gift along. How do we use the opportunities we have in this life for the spirit of generosity? not necessarily in some fancy way, just in terms of, you know, maybe smiling at a homeless person is, with a homeless person, is even more generous than making some donation of money or just to anyone.

[31:25]

How can we smile at the clerk, at the cashier in the grocery store and be friendly rather than, you know, being brusque? How do we I've heard many stories of bus drivers who were bodhisattvas, who were just very generous in terms of being helpful to people coming on the bus. So how do we give ourselves to ourselves? How do we give ourselves to others? Part of that is, so just throwing in various aspects of this is, giving ourselves what's gone before, or forgiving? How do we forgive ourselves for being human beings with all of the difficulties, the greed, hate, and delusion that come from being born as a human being, and all of the experiences we've had in our life up to now?

[32:28]

How do we forgive ourselves and forgive others for being who we are? How do we give each other the opportunity the gift of being ourselves. So, forgiving is a part of giving. And then, maybe the last one I'll talk about, the last aspect of giving of ourselves is, in some sense, giving up. And, of course, sometimes we have to take hold of things and take responsibility and take on things, but part of that taking on is also letting go. So some idea of ourselves, some idea of how things should be, sometimes we have to give that up. Sometimes we have to, in order to allow some new opportunity, we have to give up the limitations of what we think the world is, and who we think we are, and who we think the other person is, to allow something more, to receive some new gift.

[33:32]

How do we let go of holding on to that which is blocking us from giving and receiving. And again, there's a time when we have to take on and take responsibility, take up some obligation to give further. But part of that is studying this process of letting go and taking up. So there are many complicated aspects of generosity as a practice, as an intentional act, as a way of seeing our activity and life in the world. What does it mean to be generous? And if we have some idea of, you know, this is how I should give, that can get in the way of true giving too. How to be open to receiving something new, receiving some new gift. find the way to pass that along when it's time. So this is sometimes called giving a Dharma talk.

[34:41]

But Dogen says that Buddhas sit or stand up in the front and give a Dharma talk, but also Buddhas receive a Dharma talk. So all of you, in the way that you are receiving my giving of the Dharma talk are giving me the opportunity to do that and are giving each other the opportunity to just feel this field of generosity. But now it's your turn to give back. And so if you have any comments or questions or other reflections about giving or generosity or, you know, again, all of the different subtle and challenging aspects of this, please feel free to respond, comment, question. Douglas? Well, I think that a lot of what we do is to learn to appreciate the opening when we wake up to the fact that we're right here with other people and not in an intellectual way.

[35:48]

We're right here and we're aware of that. When you do that, I find that you find that it's not a you and me. It's more of an us or a we. That doesn't mean that you become a saint automatically, but it demands a kind of engagement with the other person. And those awakening moments at the same time sort of throw into fairly vivid relief other feelings and motivations that we have in our relationships with other people. So, I think that's a large part of what helps us to be more generous. We've got this perspective now of how things are and yet how self-centered we can be. And that's a challenge for us. we wake up and suddenly we're saints, but we have a perspective that requires a response.

[36:54]

Yes. Good, yes. Generosity is about how we learn viscerally, as you said, about how we are connected to each other. But also, we have to give ourselves a break and forgive ourselves for being, you know, creatures of greed or covetousness of anger and frustration of confusion. This is part of how we got here. So it's not about giving ourselves some special lofty realm. It's about giving ourselves this chance to be together. Thank you. Yes, Nathan. So my name, Nathan, means, in Hebrew, it means gift. out that had my name on it and a Hebrew character and the definition in English. So I've always felt kind of responsibility to live up to my name. So it's like that's my full potential.

[37:58]

What are some examples of things that, how you have seen this, how that has changed? It's generosity. Just learning more ways to give as I grow older, broadening my idea of what giving is and what it means to be a gift. To be a gift, yes. So in some ways, yes, even if we aren't named Nathan or Gift, we are all gifts to each other, to the world in various ways. Thank you. Yes, Brendan. we understand that there's nothing to hold on to, nothing to grasp on to, that wholeheartedly we can be able to give generous to.

[39:22]

Good, yes, emptiness, I hadn't never heard it said that way, but yes, emptiness is generosity, or emptiness supports and allows generosity. Emptiness isn't nothingness, it's seeing how we're part of a web of intergivingness. Thank you. Yes, I guess it's on. So you've been talking a lot about human-to-human generosity. I was thinking about generosity, like I feel like I receive a lot from inanimate and inanimate beings, necessarily, probably humans are heterogeneous too. Yes, the part of seeing... I forget now, the root of the word ecology has to do with, I remember Gary Schneider writing about that, household and seeing how the house is held together and so we are supported by the generosity of the wood that's in the floor of this room and of course so many other things and how we receive the generosity of the world is a guide for us to how to be generous to our environment and part of

[41:04]

A big part of Zen practice is taking care of things carefully. How to, you know, in tea practice, for example, and in Japan, you know, how do we take care of the, we're gonna do a temple cleaning after this talk for those who can stay. How do we take care of this space and the things in it? How do we take care of Lake Michigan? How do we take care of our city? All of this is part of the mutuality of generosity. Thank you. Yes, it's an important part of it. Or maybe that's all. I've read some books about Dishin Buddhism. Thay Luen or Alfred Bloom and Jeff Wilson wrote one recently. And what you were talking about, Hoetsu, seems like a huge part of how much of what we are and what we have is a gift that we've received through no merit of our own.

[42:14]

And I find that a very moving view of things and very true. It's not something that we hear about in Zen as much as the Shin people tend to talk about it, but it seems really profound and true. I totally agree with you. And just for people who don't know, what Doug was talking about, Shin Buddhism is one of the main branch in Japan of Pure Land Buddhism. They very much believe in other power rather than self-power. And so the gratitude and generosity has to do with their whole practice is receiving the grace from Amida Buddha, a particular Buddha who said that he would not become a Buddha unless anyone who called his name would enter the Pure Land. So that, yeah, I think that, and Shinran, the founder of Jodo Shinshu was contemporary of Dogen.

[43:17]

And I actually worked for the Jodo Shinshu Seminary in Berkeley. And so I have a long connection with them. And maybe I should do some talks on Shinran and Shin Buddhism. But yes, in the spirit of, I don't think what we do is self-power, but some branches of Zen feel like that, where if I make this great effort, I will get enlightened. If I sit really still, if I do some rigorous practice, that will then result in some awakening. I don't know that anybody actually feels that way exactly, but Shin Buddhists emphasize that rather than relying on self, one must rely on other, and we can see that as the interconnectedness of all things. Jodo Shinshu particularly sees it as the gift, the grace of Amida Buddha, this cosmic Buddha who they rely on as this other power.

[44:19]

But I think what you say is very important, I appreciate it. And I recommend to everyone who's interested in reading Buddhism to also read Shinran and Taitetsu Uno's book, what is it, The River, what's that called? Yeah, there's a parable that it comes from. Anyway, I think that form of Japanese Buddhism is actually, there have been Zen people who have seen them as not so separate. D.T. Suzuki kind of followed both at different times. but this sense of not that Shinran, who was, again, a contemporary of Dogen and founded this branch, saw that he couldn't do anything by himself. He had this extreme radical humility that he totally had to depend on Buddha. And I think some of that spirit is what this generosity is about, to see our interconnectedness,

[45:20]

to not think that by study or rigorous meditation or some use of my skill that I can give some great gift to the world. It's actually, again, this circulating the gift, giving and receiving, this mutuality of giving and receiving. So thank you, yes, I think we should talk more about that. Yes, Kathy? I've been thinking about people who've given to allow our Sangha to be where it is now. You know, so it's people here, part of the Sangha, it's also people who are not part of our Sangha, but who make donations. And there's something about that, the realization of that, that I think has shifted me more. You know, I think in the beginning I was thinking about meditation for my own calm, peace of mind, whatever, my own growth. But there's something about the receiving that really shifts the practice to be one where you're about a larger picture than just yourself.

[46:34]

So I'm very aware of how other people's giving has very much impacted my practice, which I'm grateful for. So feeling that gratitude is generosity, to be grateful to the people who've supported us to be here. Thank you, Nancy, for giving your time. Any last comments before we stop? Yes, two last comments. Go ahead. currently enrolled in a Buddhist experience class. And I was actually wondering how, in an urban setting such as Chicago, how this religion, Buddhism, how it thrives here, and how this place and your practice in particular, how it affects the community here.

[47:41]

Well, first, may it thrive. May we affect the community. I think this Soto Zen practice tradition comes out of a monastic tradition and some of us have actually spent time in a kind of very focused residential kind of practice up in the mountains or in some more scenic space learning about the practice of meditation. But actually, in terms of what this is about, in the spirit of generosity, I feel wonderful about where we are. Being a storefront in North Central Chicago, being out on the streets, so to speak. The point of our practice, at least from how I've been talking about it today, is to learn generosity and to extend that. So we're here to make available to give people the opportunity to learn and study this practice in whatever way that works for them.

[48:44]

So there's a schedule and people can come. And so I think the actual spirit of generosity is to be where people are and to allow people to come and go in the way that works for them. So how we affect the community, I don't think is something we can figure out exactly. That's part of the idea of the gift of moving around, that we don't know the ways in which all the people who've sat in this room, we've only been here since mid-January, but all the people who've sat in this room and then gone out into their lives have whole worlds of communities that they are involved with. And so part of what Kathy was talking about, finding our own kind of calm and steadiness and peacefulness is an important part of what we give to the wider community and it can't necessarily be tracked or traced in some demographic way or something.

[49:47]

We are trying to have various other programs and I'm going to announce one of them in a little bit. We're having various events to kind of extend the sense of This culture of generosity coming out of this tradition is awesome. So that's a short answer. Orion, do you want to add something? I wanted to say how grateful I am to be here and to be receiving the Stern Talk and the discussion. It's wonderful to be back. I do struggle with the issue of receiving the gifts that have been given. And so part of what I heard was that by being respectful and caring for those things well, and then also the practice of passing them on, which I've been in the process of as I've been moving gradually, having to divest myself of so many things, but seeing that as a gift and seeing that as a natural process is helpful to me.

[50:48]

The other comment I just want to make is there's an optometrist who's relocating right next door here, and I saw him the other day, He believes he's going to get wonderful benefits. He said, yes, I'm right next door to Buddhists, and I think it will bring peace. It was really a nice interaction. So at least it's good to be here. Thank you. It's good to have you visiting. Yes, so this generosity is about vision and how we can see better how deeply connected we are. So I'm very happy to hear that we have an optometrist with me next time. He's happy because he knows we're not going to be out there. He knows we're not going to be out there drinking as a group. We'll go to bars. I'll get some. Also, one of the things we do during group training is actually to speak tangible effect on the community.

[52:01]

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