Good morning, everyone. I want to talk today about practicing with anger. And we had a talk last month by Mike Evans, Artenzo, a very fine talk about this, very different from the talk that I'm going to give this morning, but Mike talks very personally about his issues and process with anger and talked a lot about it in terms of fear and relationship of fear to anger. So unfortunately, that talk was not recorded. Oh, are we recording this? Yeah, we are. Good. Anyway, and also some of you may be here expecting Aisha Nafsi Easton, who was originally scheduled to give a talk this morning about Zen and Zendo forms.

[01:07]

Aisha's dad passed away this week, so she's back east with her family. So, I'm here, and for those of you who don't know, I'm Tai Yang Leighton, the card-dragging teacher of Ancient Dragon Zen Gate. And again, I want to talk about anger, practicing with anger, and how that works. But I want to start with the five skandhas, sometimes translated as aggregates. So, we talk about, we chant the five skandhas in the Harak Sutra, which we often chant. And these are said to be all of the components of our experience. Everything is made up of these five skandhas. And they are forms, sensations, perceptions, formations, and consciousness. The second one, what I want to talk about today, sensations, sometimes translated as

[02:15]

feelings, forms, feelings, perceptions, impulses or formations, and consciousness. So, this second skandha is not about feelings as in emotions, although emotions are part of our practice, too. And so, I want to talk about all of this in relationship to zazen, and how our zazen experience and practicing zazen sitting over some period develops intimacy. Actually, I would say with all of the five skandhas, particularly I want to talk about the second one. So, this is not feelings or sensations in the sense of emotions. This is as early Buddhist psychology and Abhidharma says that there is always, when we have consciousness, when anyone has consciousness, there is always some object of consciousness, something that

[03:22]

we are attending to. And so, in this sense, the second skandha, sensations, the first two are responses. So, whatever the object is, we either have positive, negative or neutral responses. So, I want to talk about the negative responses today, because these three aspects of our awareness, of our awareness whenever, can become problematic. They become, when, in the extreme, three poisons, greed, hate and delusion. So, our practice is about not holding on to anger. So, our precept, in our 16 precepts, our precept about anger is, is not harbored in our will.

[04:24]

So, it's just natural, it's part of the nature of consciousness. Then we do have positive, negative or neutral responses. But these negative responses, which often take the form, take the form of anger, aversion at least, things we don't like, we wish to push away. This is, can be anger. But our precept, our guidance for how to practice this, is to not harbor ill will. To not hold on to anger. To not turn anger into hatred or grudge or resentment. As, this is difficult. So, one of the, one of the gifts of plaza practice, of any gifts, is that we become

[05:31]

intimate with our own responses. Positive, negative and neutral. So, positive, positive responses can be turned into greed or lust or, you know, trying to grasp things, which is not helpful. So, we, this is about how we recognize this self. The Buddha says, to study the way of studying yourself. How we recognize our own responses. And how do we not react to these situations. And our ancient twisted karma is that we do have habits and patterns of reacting. And in various ways, each of us, in our own way, have, when we see, when we have some negative reaction, there's something we don't like.

[06:34]

We might have some reactive habit, some habit pattern of turning that into anger. So, our practice is to be familiar, to be intimate with our own patterns of reaction. And then, how can we turn that into a positive response? An aware response, based on the gift of Zazen, of some space around our reactions. Some space, where we can, and again, when we become familiar and intimate with our own patterns of reaction, our own habits of reaction. We can see what it's like when we get angry. We can feel that. We can start to know, oh yeah, I'm angry about that. And that, you know, sometimes it takes a long time.

[07:38]

We have habits from childhood, maybe from even before childhood, from past lives, or from our family patterns of reacting negatively and getting angry, or trying to respond to positive things, to agree. So, our practice is about getting to know that, getting to know you, getting to know ourselves, and not reacting. So, arguing ill will is when we have some angry response, negative response, and we're turning that into grudge or resentment or hatred. This is a huge problem in the world. Kino. Nobs and not harboring or will. How to not make a hard look, how to not hold on to it as some precious,

[08:41]

oh, I'm angry about this or that, and get ourselves up about it. We have those patterns of reacting. And sometimes this precept is translated as not get angry. But again, Abhigyama Buddhist psychology teaches us we do have positive, negative, and neutral responses to things. I like vanilla ice cream, positive response to it. I don't have to go out and try to buy all the vanilla ice cream in Chicago for myself. I like chocolate, but I don't like chocolate ice cream for some reason. It's just me. I know a lot of you like chocolate ice cream, and that's me. But, you know, that's not that I want to destroy all the chocolate ice cream in Chicago. How do we not react in some extreme way? So, to not get angry means to not harbor ill will very, very quickly.

[09:51]

How do we become so familiar with our patterns of negative response that we see through them and don't make them into a thing? So, you know, one way to see this is to not take things personally, even though, of course, we have strong habits of taking things personally. How do we see through those habits? This is where, you know, the intersection of self-practice and Western psychology is very helpful, because Western psychology, therapy, whatever, you know, helps us, also allows us to see through these patterns, to get to know our own patterns and to not react to them. So there are antidotes. There are practices that we can do to help not harbor ill will,

[10:54]

not overreact to negative responses to the ends. So there are these antidotes. And these are practices we can actually do and think about and sit with and help with. So one of the most important is patience. This is one of the—we have this list of 16 precepts. We also have these six or ten transcendent practices that are implicit, and one of those is patience, tolerance, forbearance. And that means for ourselves to be patient with our own impatience. The way to study patience is to see when are we becoming patient? When do we want to lash out when we have some negative response? How do we be patient? You know, there are all kinds of everyday examples of negative responses.

[11:55]

Somebody cutting a head in line or somebody cutting us off in traffic. You can get very upset and angry. You know, this can—uncontrolled, this can turn into rogue rage. It can be very destructive. Rogue rage is an example of harboring our will. Now you will be patient and tolerant toward positive, negative, and neutral responses. This is natural practice. We can focus on patience, tolerance, forbearance. But again, just to really study when we do become impatient, because that happens, you know? Just as we have negative reactions or aversion to things, but positive reactions. How do we study our impatience?

[12:59]

Somebody cuts in line, cuts ahead of us in traffic. It's very easy to get upset. Of course, there are lots of other examples, but those are everyday examples. I used to think, well, maybe that person is rushing to the hospital because somebody cuts them into the hospital. And I try to think of—I try to make excuses for those people who I might respond to with anger. And seeing that we don't really know the whole situation, what's going on for them. So patience is very helpful in terms of not harboring our will, not turning our negative responses to some reactive development of anger, will, and hatred. There are other antidotes. One of them is the practice of insight.

[14:03]

This is the sixth part of it. Sometimes translated as wisdom, but it really—it also could be translated as just to see clearly, to look in, to look into what's going on. And this is very important, not harboring a will. Where is our anger coming from? What is the situation that allows us to have these negative feelings of anger? And then, is there some way in that situation to respond positively, to be helpful? So this brings up another part of the skillful means. How do we skillfully take care of our own anger and the anger of others in the world? Of course. And not react, not turn into a harbor of ill will and hatred. These are very practical aspects of our practice, a basic, fully subtle practice, that all become clear in Dzogchen.

[15:09]

A skillful means, knowing, trying to respond helpfully to some situation that has provided us the opportunity to see our own anger. How do we respond skillfully? What does skillful mean? Well, you know, sometimes we can think about situations like we're over the age of thinking about what would be a skillful way to respond, as opposed to trying to have a car race with the person who cut us off out of anger. But there's not so—skillful means is also a matter of patience and immediate response. What is skillful? What would be helpful in a situation? How do we respond? How do we do something helpful? Sometimes we don't know. In fact, most of the time, we don't know what to do.

[16:17]

We respond helpfully to some situation that has allowed us to feel anger, hardware anger, or greed, start grasping. How do we pay attention to these things? And sometimes skillful means means just sitting silent, being still. Pay attention, though. Dzogchen is not just self-seeking. Dzogchen is—and patience is not passive either. Patience is observing closely our own feelings, our own responses, our own reactions, and what's going on in the situation around us that allows us to feel anger, to not turn it into harbors of ill will. So this is—all of this is challenging. Sometimes this is—these are practices because it takes time to actually become really familiar and intimate

[17:23]

with our own patterns of aversion and negative response. So Dzogchen says to study the way is to study the self. Studying the self means to get to know our own karmic, ancient, twisted karmic patterns, evidence of reactivity. And the more intimate we are with them, the more we can not react. We have some—Dzogchen gives us some space around these positive, negative, and neutral responses. Some patience will do things. And then we can just pay attention. So Dzogchen is just gently sustaining attention. Patience is about just gently sustaining attention. So we see what's going on with us and with people around us.

[18:23]

And then skillful means is, okay, what would be helpful? And sometimes it's trial and error. Sometimes it's really important to make mistakes. And sometimes it's said to make—not make wrong mistakes or to make helpful mistakes. But we can't always control this. This is not a matter of something we can control. This is a matter of awareness. And it takes time. And we get impatient with our own—we can get easily impatient with our own patterns of reactivity, our own patterns of harboring ill will, holding resentment. And these practices are about seeing if that's not helpful. Again, to really feel the influence of it and what is our pattern of reacting to anger.

[19:33]

And how do we then feel the anger, not try and deny it or get rid of it, but just feel it and not react. But maybe respond in some way that might be helpful. It might help the situation. This is a challenging practice of how we take care of the world and our environment. And, again, sometimes it's just a matter of paying attention as these patterns arise. So I confess that my own anger often happens in response to politicians or situations in the world. I try not to name people because we don't speak of the faults of others, but we don't— but that doesn't mean—that precept doesn't mean we don't pay attention to what's going on.

[20:38]

So what is the situation that allows us to see, for me, my own reaction of anger against politicians who— and others who encourage cruelty, who actually, you know, their election policy is about intensifying cruelty against some other people, who are then disqualified from being humans. I get upset about this. I really do. And yet, for me, one of the ways I've tried to work with this anyway, to respond to politicians promoting cruelty or promoting warfare is not to blame individuals,

[21:41]

but to see patterns and systems in the world. And I'm part of that, you know. Each of us has our own pattern of anger, and then we go to war with somebody because we don't like something they said or whatever. We don't like their opinions or—no. So this is the challenge. There is a commentary I found in the Mahayana commentary about the precepts that says it's a transgression of the precept about anger. If you don't get angry when it's appropriate, so that's a whole different spin on it. But then what do you do with that anger? Again, it's not about harboring your will. It's not about promoting hatred. It's not about, you know, say, those people over there are subhuman and we should wipe them out or whatever. This is difficult.

[22:45]

We live in a world where it's very difficult to practice this precept of not harboring your will. There are lots of encouragements in our culture, from our media, from our government, politicians, to promote harboring our will. Well, don't get angry with your friends, but those people over there, gosh, we have to keep them out of the country or whatever. So how do we practice with that kind of anger? Again, it's the same antidote, patience, but paying attention, seeing if there's something helpful we can do. For example, contacting your representatives to encourage ceasefire when there's a vicious war going. And not succumbing to this other precept of speaking for the faults of others.

[23:47]

Again, that doesn't mean that we don't pay attention to what's going on around us or in the world. But how do we not turn that into name-calling and make that a whole situation, make that a harbor of your will? What makes you do that? This is challenging. We live in a challenging time, a challenging world. So there's all those kinds of situations which can help be no will, hatred, an exaggeration of anger. But again, to see the whole situation, this is challenging. This is a practice. This is seeing, I would say this is the sixth part of the practice, to see what's actually going on. And there's a couple of names. What can we do that might be helpful? And part of our basic practices, we don't know the outcome.

[24:50]

We do things trying to be helpful, but we don't know, we don't necessarily know the outcome. We send ripples of kindness, caring, and awareness into the world, but we don't see the results. But they make a difference, our caring, our kindness, and our awareness. So, in addition to these societal situations that can allow us to feel our own anger, you know, we have misunderstandings and different differences of opinions with people around us. This is just part of the way the world is. And, you know, we can, and maybe we can get angry at somebody who has a different opinion than us. But, again, that's not helpful. So, in these personal situations, there are also practices that can help.

[25:54]

It can help us from changing the reaction of negativity, reversion, or even anger, not into a hard-to-reveal world, but just, okay, what's going on here? How do we pay attention? So, one of the main practices about this is listening. Listening to others. Trying to, you know, we can share our perspective on things, but also listen to other perspectives. In fact, the total wisdom of the Buddha, the unsurpassed, perfect awakening is to see all of the different perspectives of all of the different beings. To really, not just listen to, but actually appreciate all of the different viewpoints. Of course, this is challenging. None of us, you know, have the capacity to, you know, hear the viewpoints of the trees outside.

[27:03]

Some of us maybe can do that. But, anyway, there's some, and all the different people in our world, in our sangha, in our city and country. So, how do we listen? How do we have, give ourselves the opportunity to see other perspectives? And some of them, some of the perspectives may be really helpful. And help us to see how we were getting caught up in some perspective that was not so helpful. This is a process. This is lifelong learning. This is a practice. It's a practice. And, again, skillful responses, skillful means, the formal practice of skillful means, is about listening, often about silence and stillness. And then, at some point, we might say, oh, maybe I could say such and such. Maybe I can listen to that person.

[28:07]

Maybe I can share. Or there's this other perspective that maybe includes my perspective and the other perspective. This is all the extended practice of Bodhisattvas. And everybody here is involved with Bodhisattva practice. That's what it means to be a Bodhisattva in this realm of zazen, together. So, we sit, facing the wall, facing the wall, facing ourselves, silently, stillness, which is possible. Our mind may be whirling around. The mind may be racing around. But also, we can come back to breath, to posture, and just pay attention. Not just to the others around us with different viewpoints, but also to all the different viewpoints on our own seat.

[29:07]

Seeing it. We have asked that you pay attention. So, okay. So, maybe that's enough for me to say. What I wanted to talk about. Practicing the language. Having space around language. Listening. Respecting. So, respect. I didn't mention that word. That's important. To respect all the different viewpoints. That's from where somebody is sitting. They may have some very different response about what to do in the room, and what's helpful. To do the vote for, or whatever. It's, you know, we have to try and listen. To where people's fears, and people's awareness of the situation. So, okay. Maybe I've said everything I wanted to. I would really like to open this up to discussion.

[30:13]

And we have a bunch of people online. And a couple of people here that know it. So, maybe you can help me. People online have some comments. Questions. Raise your hand, or you can go to the raise hand function at the bottom. So, Eve has her hand up. And I'll throw my name on the stack too. But Eve, you're first. You know, and I'll just say that please, you know, make your point. And allow time for others. So, thank you. Eve. Yeah, thank you very much for the talk. And, I mean, I was thinking. I mean, sometimes anger, you know, can be a sign that, like, you need to set a boundary. And, you know, frankly, sometimes I feel like women in the workplace have a problem with that. But, I guess what you're saying to me, it's like, okay, somebody, you know, there's rotten food.

[31:19]

You don't, you know, maybe you do feel angry about it. But then, like, you throw it out, you don't eat it. And then if somebody's giving you rotten food, you know, maybe you do feel angry at them. But then you just, you know, you can let go of the anger and say, okay, if this person's giving me rotten food, maybe I shouldn't eat with them. You know? Target is muted. Oh. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Tiger. Hold on. I did it. Don't unmute, please, Tiger. It looks like I'm muted. No, it gets through this microphone. That was my fault. Okay. So, I was just saying that I appreciate what you said. And, yeah. And I asked if you had something else or, you know. Okay. There's somebody else. Yeah, I'll give priority to Todd because my question was really similar to Yves.

[32:25]

So, go ahead, Todd. Hi, guys. Thank you. I used to definitely have a lot of problems with anger and road rage and driving too fast. And I had one epiphany one time when I started to think about other conditions that cause people to behave a certain way and thinking about the history of slavery. And I even thought, well, on the deeper level of no self, no other. And the end of your verse of dogging about our body and mind dropping off and others is when I have to go to that deep level sometimes when I'm rushing to work. Someone pulls in front of me and I'm in a rush and they're going really, really slow. It actually helps me to go to that deep, pedantic level of there's no self, no other. That's me. That's or at least my brother or sister. But I thought when I was thinking about slavery one time about the power of environment, how we're all what, 99 percent the same genetic DNA. What I heard one time, I wondered to myself if I grew up in Alabama in eighteen hundred, I would hope I would have been against slavery.

[33:33]

But I don't know, because if that was my upbringing around me and that little space, that little thought of scaring myself about that made me think about. I thought there are things in current events in the future that the power of environment on the way people behave. Right. Everything in the whole world is part of what we is, how we are. We're impacted by everything. Of course, our culture, our society, our history. So important to study history and to understand this. I mean, I'm angry at politicians who have tried to erase this. They're coming from their own positions. But anyway, thank you. Yes. How do we see our patterns of reacting to everything? Thank you.

[34:34]

Dylan, you have something. Yeah. So my question is similar to Eve's, and I think it's about exploring the the distinction between. I think it's easy to say not harboring ill will means, you know, it's easy to misinterpret that to continue having a like being being not able to draw boundaries. If there are. If you see enough evidence that, you know, your proximity to somebody needs to change. And that can be I mean, that can be on the national level where like, OK, I'm not going to harbor ill will against a certain politicians. But that doesn't mean I'm going to vote for him or, you know, or I will vote for somebody else instead. But also on the interpersonal level where, you know, you cannot harbor ill will.

[35:41]

And I think and also make a decision to make a change and [...] stick to it. And I feel like I'm particularly like I'm noticing that I'm susceptible to like, you know, because because I want to be compassionate so much that I actually will do this sense of do this way of almost attempting to control somebody else by being like, well, if I show enough compassion or if I act a certain way, then inevitably they're going to change to the way that I want them to be. And so then the behavior that I'm finding distressing or harmful is going to change. And so if I just keep doing that, then eventually, you know, that person will change to be the way that I want them to be. But that that's that's that's violence almost in some way. And that I have to you just have to I have to accept that people are that I can't I can't change other people. And that, yeah, once you give once you receive certain data that you have to make a change.

[36:45]

Thank you. You raised a really important point that I didn't mention. That we had one of the impulses we had is to kind of control. To control others, you were talking about to control ourselves, to control the world. And, you know, there's must have this insight that. Ultimately, there's nothing we can control. I mean, of course, we all have areas where we where we are able to act. And, you know, everybody who showed up today, you know, had control to, you know, go on Zoom or show up here or whatever. So, of course, in the everyday activity, there are things we can take care of. But our sense of wanting to control things is. Kind of. Kind of clobbering a world.

[37:49]

It's ill will towards. That which we can't control. So how do we know the difference? No, it's the same. Same, but. Yeah, but we can still express kindness and try to listen to the other person's perspective. But if we're trying to listen just so that we can change their mind and control their opinion and get and convert that to our opinion or perspective. That's that's kind of. That's kind of now. So this is very subtle. This is why, you know, bodhisattva practice is a practice is a lifelong practice or a practice of many lifetimes. How do we take care of the world in a kind, open hearted way without trying to push it around according to what we think it should be? This is subtle and difficult. Thank you very much. I see Chris has his hand up. Yeah, thank you. I and Dylan, I.

[38:58]

When you said what you said, so my. Thoughts of, you know, it's not being patient patient is this sort of. To me, this expectation that if I just wait long enough, it's going to change and be different. It's going to be the way I want it to be, or that person is going to be the way I want them to be. And they're going to not be. You know, upsetting me or making me angry, but it's so it's to me, it's working on not being a matter of being patient, but a matter of being tolerant and accepting. Of what. That is. And the other is the. Is the, you know, harboring. And I've, you know, for my life, thought of harbors as being safe places, right? You harbors where you go to in the storm. So I think it's sort of a.

[40:00]

You know, maybe a harbor is not a good place to be, and we should leave the harbor. And be tolerant. Thank you. Yeah, you brought up a couple of really important points. I think partners are great. You know, depending on what we're harboring, you know. So, so harbor kindness to find a refugee. We are all refugees. We are being here. We're taking refuge. So. There are different kinds of partners. I can say more about that, but I want to get back to. We're talking about patients and the practice of patients is not passive. I, we think that way. I mean, I think patients. As you described it, patients can mean sometimes. If I just wait long enough, things will happen. Things will work out. Everything will be okay.

[41:04]

That's not the practice of patients. That's what we set for practice. Practice of patients is what we set for practice. Includes. Requires paying attention. Looking at a situation. And then responding. What is our response? And sometimes, as I was saying, sometimes we don't see any, any helpful response. Sometimes we might see, oh, well, that might be helpful. We might try it. When we learn by what happens. But. Yeah, patients and patients and. And sitting in, we're not passive. We pay attention. What does that mean? So I'm going to. Pay attention to all the. Monthly my thoughts and so forth. Breathing posture and. What's going on, but in the world also, yes. Paying attention.

[42:06]

Patients is. Pay attention and then to respond. How do we respond? Helpful. And there's no, there's no manual instruction manual that tells us the answer in every situation. Patience, tolerance, forbearance, whatever you want to call it. It's not just waiting for something good to happen. Sometimes that does happen. That's great. But what is our responsibility? We have an ability to respond. Our responsibility is key. And that requires all of the stuff. Awareness, caring. Thank you. Kathy, did you have a comment or question? Yeah, yeah, I, I was thinking another aspect of this. Is that sometimes when we're getting in touch with our own anger. We tend to cut it off.

[43:08]

We tend to not be able to see it. You know that there's a bit of a process in just recognizing your own anger and. And then getting in touch with. Okay, what caused this? What's related to this? Where did this come from? And sometimes we're angry at things that we don't feel legitimate to be angry at. Like our mothers, for example. But, and it takes a while to come to terms with that. And feel validation in your reactions. You know, kind of make them, look at them closely. Decide for yourself the degree of legitimacy. But that, that acceptance of your anger. I think is an important step before. Some people are angry and not aware they're angry. And they're acting out their anger.

[44:09]

And so to become aware of it. And also aware of, okay, where did this come from? You know, maybe it was a mistaken process. Maybe it was a valid process. But to work through that. I think is part of what allows you to then deal with what you're going to do with it. What's constructive action. Yes. Yes. Thank you very much, Kathy. Right. So the first thing is that sometimes we're not aware of our anger. So again, we have to pay attention. We have to see, we have to feel what we feel. So I've sometimes mentioned as a practice to use the mantra or the koan. How does it feel? To actually pay attention to what we're feeling. What we're thinking. How we're responding. During Zazen in the world. How does it feel?

[45:11]

And oh, there's anger here somewhere. What is that about? Why am I angry? Yeah, so we have to identify our anger. Grasping, reading, where we can not turn our anger into. So yeah, this is, this is why we sit and pay attention. Study the self. Get to know what it feels like. Thank you, Kathy. Vicky. Thank you. Some things that came up or the complexity of my thoughts about patience. Because I feel like I'm a patient person. But as I really deeply consider that more fully. Sometimes I'm using patience. As like another, another version, another way to kind of close down. What I was hearing when you were speaking is. When just to keep open and keep working with things when we feel anger.

[46:16]

And so I'll tell myself this is patience. If I just kind of shut down a little. Because I don't have a big reaction. And yet I see that. That's actually not patience. But there is sometimes when. You know, it's more genuine and I use patience as like a pause. To just open up. Because I know when I get angry, I feel tight and closed. I close down and it's just like, you know, it's habitual. It's a reaction, but it's not, it doesn't come out into the helpful zone. You know, so it's really beneficial to me to sit here and listen. You know, keep working with it and remind myself. That I can, you know, the thing is to just don't tighten up and just close off. But to really start listening, use those other things that, that, you know, tighten up. Like reopen the ears, maybe not the mouth. But, you know, and that give myself, you know, there's fear in there too. Like maybe I'm feeling like I can't deal with what's going on.

[47:20]

And yet, you know, I'm there, I'm here. So, you know, just keep listening and get curious about what I can, what possibilities are there. You know, so it's been a very beneficial talk to me. Thank you. You're very welcome. And yes, thank you for adding that. We, again, it's not about shutting down our anger. This is, this is kind of subtle. This is why this requires long periods of practice to actually study the self as though this is. Or, you know, another Zazen, common Zazen instruction is to take the backwards step that turns our light inwardly to eliminate yourself. Communally see what's going on. Not to shut down. And yeah, we can hear patients that shut it down. That's not it. How do we keep paying attention in the middle of all this stuff? It's not straightforward or easy. It's, it's, it's practice and requires continuing practice.

[48:25]

So, Gifsu, did you have something to add? Yeah, I did have just, this has been a great discussion and offering. Thank you, everyone. One of the things that came up for me as we were talking was about working with a teacher. And the depth and pervasiveness of reactivity is so stupendous that I found taking refuge in my teacher, in the Sangha, in people in my life to help me and support me, but also hold me accountable for such reactivity. Because Zazen itself can be a little bit of a spiritual bypass, but usually other people will let us know right away when we're veering around. So, that's just a comment. So, thank you, everyone.

[49:26]

Thank you, Gifsu. That's very important. We are blessed in Ancient Dragons Endgame Sangha that we have several teachers who can help us see when we are being reactive. And we have many other very experienced practitioners. So, Sangha is very important in this. It's not just paying attention ourselves, but paying attention together with each other. So, thank you for that. It's very important. And yes, this has been a great discussion. And it doesn't end. Practicing with anger, practicing with blasphemy, all of these are lifelong practices of bodhisattvas. So, with that, thank you all very much. We will close with the four bodhisattva vows, which we'll chant a few times, and then we'll make the announcements. So, thank you.

[50:22]

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