Good morning, everyone. Welcome. Good morning. I want to talk this morning about zazen, this practice of just sitting that we've just been doing. And I want to talk about the purpose of zazen. So especially as in the context of the teaching of Dogen, and the 13th century Japanese founder of our branch of Zen and Buddhism, what's important is the expression of zazen. So of course, just sitting as we've just been doing is challenging. And in some sense, the focus is, one instruction for zazen is to take the backward step and turn the light inwardly to illuminate the self. So we sit facing the wall. And that's not a wall to keep out anything or anybody.

[01:05]

It's a wall that is a kind of mirror to show us ourselves. Because as we sit upright, relaxed, sitting like Buddha, expressing Buddha as she is on our seat, sitting like Buddha, we face the wall and we see ourselves. Thoughts and feelings come up. Our own particular patterns and habits of greed, hate, and delusion, grasping, and anger, and confusion, and frustration, and fear, and so forth is part of what happens. So our practice is not about suppressing thoughts and feelings. But it's also about settling deeply so that we don't get caught up or caught by our thoughts and feelings. But the way to not be caught by our thoughts and feelings

[02:08]

is to actually be willing to feel what we feel. Dogen says, to study the way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be awakened by all things. But that doesn't mean we should try and get to forgetting the self. The actual practice is just to study the self. What is it like to be the person on our seat here this morning? So this practice, which I recommend for you people here this morning, I meant to mention, my name is Taigen Leighton, the teacher here. I recommend strongly doing this practice regularly, if not every day, several times a week. Even at home, just taking the time to stop and sit and face the wall and face yourselves. And it doesn't have to be 35 or 40 minutes or as long as we do it here. But even 15 or 20 minutes, just to stop and have

[03:12]

some rhythm in your life of facing yourself. But of course, facing ourselves, so I said the wall is a mirror. It's also a window. As we do this practice regularly, we realize that we're deeply connected to everybody and everything. All the people you've ever known are part of what is happening on your seat now, friends, family, loved ones, teachers, people you met at a party somewhere 10 years ago or something who you don't even remember. But in some way, we're all connected to each other. All of them are part of what's happening on your seat right now.

[04:12]

So the purpose of zazen is not just to study the self and have some realization of the self, although that's part of it. That's the starting point. When we start, when we become friendly with our own patterns of greed, hate, and delusion, we don't have to act out and react based on those patterns. When we actually befriend ourselves and forgive ourselves for being human beings, we can see these patterns. And the more intimate we are with them, we don't need to react. We have a wider space to respond based on deeper values. And so I want to talk about bodhisattva values. But this practice is not just about becoming a virtuoso meditator. Of course, zen means meditation.

[05:18]

So we start from this practice. But then how does the meditative awareness get expressed in your life every day, in our activity in the world? So the first purpose of zazen is to express zazen mind, zazen heart. And there are various teachings about that, about how to do that. And each of us has our own particular way of expressing Buddha. There's not one right way. And we live in a very complicated world with lots of divisiveness and difficulties. But as we do this practice regularly, how do we then learn to or see how to express that awareness in our everyday activity, in our lives in the world,

[06:20]

beyond when we're just sitting in the meditation hall, when we go out into Chicago, when we go out into the world? And also, how do we express that for the sake of family, friends, co-workers, all the people we encounter? Maybe especially the difficult people we encounter each week in our life. So there are various teachings about how to do this. And they all come out of this practice of zazen, of just sitting. But there are a variety of lists of teachings, lists of practices to engage in as we're out in the world to help us express this meditative awareness. So I want to talk this morning about the paramitas,

[07:24]

sometimes translated as transcendent practices, sometimes translated as perfections. But it's not about getting them perfectly. So again, just to say this, our practice is not about getting rid of thoughts and feelings. Our practice is not about having some dramatic experience. The purpose and goal of our practice is not about having some dramatic experience of the ultimate or the universal. Those things happen. And they can be wonderful and transformative and sometimes even helpful. It's not about having some great understanding of Buddhism, although it's possible to have some understanding. The point of our practice, the purpose of zazen, is just to express this deep, settled, calm, open awareness in the world for the sake of the world. And you've probably noticed that the world needs it now.

[08:26]

So this is a difficult time and a difficult time to practice. And the bodhisattva spirit is that that's wonderful. Here we are. We have an opportunity to make a difference in the world. So bodhisattva is a word that means awakening beings. And zazen is part of the bodhisattva tradition, which is about recognizing that personal liberation is not the point, that we're deeply, deeply connected to all those beings, not just to our parents and grandparents. And how many of you know something about your great-grandparents? Most of you, not all of you. How about your great-great-grandparents? Quite a few, but not everybody. But I think we probably all in our culture believe.

[09:28]

How many of you do not believe in evolution? It's OK to say that. Please. You all believe in evolution? So you all believe that your great-great-grandmother on your father's side has something to do with who you are here now, right? Does anyone disagree with that? Phyllis disagrees. No? OK. So we're connected with so many beings. So the point of our practice, the idea of the bodhisattva is universal liberation. This is not just a self-help practice. Now, it is personally beneficial to do this practice regularly, of settling, and calming, and relaxing, and openness, and awareness, and facing our feelings and our thoughts. But the bodhisattva idea is to, and we'll

[10:31]

do the bodhisattva chant at the end, where we chant to free all living beings. This is an inconceivable task. Maybe if it was a smaller group, you might think it would be easier, like to free just the people in your immediate family. How many of you think you could do that? Well, OK. So we have this difficult task. We live in this difficult world. So I want to talk about the 10 paramitas, or transcendent practices. Paramita literally means to carry across to the other shore. These are practices that we do to help all beings realize liberation. And often, they're presented as a set of six. I talk about them as a set of 10. There's four more beyond that. I'll just mention them all. I don't have time to talk about them all today. We did a practice period, a spring practice period in 2012.

[11:33]

We focused on these 10 practices. There's a few people here who might have been here then. Anyway, I'll just name them. So the first one is generosity. So each one of these is a really complicated practice, a lifelong practice. They're called perfections, but it's not that we ever perfect them. But just to look at generosity and how we give. And also, that means how we receive and how we help others to give. That's the first one, very important. The next one, ethical conduct, which involves our precepts, which is another list. We have many, many lists of such practices to help us be helpful in the world. So there's 16 precepts in our tradition. But I would say that they, in some ways, come down to being helpful rather than harmful, to including all beings, not just the people we like,

[12:37]

not just Americans or Chicagoans, but all beings. Not just the human beings, but how do we take care of the polar bears and the beings in the rainforests and, you know. Anyway, so and then just radical respect for everything, for everyone. So that's the second one, ethical conduct. And that's a whole very complex practice. The third one, which I want to talk about more today, is patience, which is not a passive practice, but a very active, dynamic practice. Then the fourth one is, and I can give the Sanskrit names, but the first three are dana, sila, kshanti. Virya is enthusiasm or energy. How do we support our own enthusiasm or energy for practice and for being helpful? The fifth is samadhi or jhana, which is meditation. But it refers, it's not exactly the same as the zazen we've been doing, although that's included in our zazen. But it refers to settling, calming, stabilizing,

[13:42]

finding an inner settledness that can be helpful in terms of responding to the world. And then the sixth, which is very famous, prajna, wisdom or insight, prajna paramita. There's a whole series of Buddhist scriptures named after this, one of the transcendent practices. It means not wisdom in the sense of learning or knowledge, but insight, seeing clearly. And then often those six are presented, but I'll mention four more. Upaya, skillful means. So I wanna talk more about that today. Pranidhana, which is vow or commitment, which maybe I'll say a little more about. Bala, which is powers using our ability to be helpful in the world. And the last one is jnana, knowledge.

[14:45]

So there won't be a test about this, by the way. But I just wanna mention these. Jnana is, you all have some body of knowledge. There's a lot of things you actually know. But the point of that is how do you use that knowledge for the sake of being helpful in the world? So those are the 10 that I wanna talk about today or that I wanna talk about a few of today. And I wanna talk about them in terms of how they apply to being helpful and respectful and inclusive in our everyday life and also in the difficulties in our world now. And some people think we shouldn't talk about anything but just sitting, you know, that it's enough to just be very good at meditating and also that we shouldn't talk about what's going on in the world. That's not, Buddhism shouldn't do that. Well, I respectfully and vehemently disagree.

[15:50]

So I'm going to talk about a variety of ways in which these practices are relevant to things in the world. Patience is the third one. And in some ways, our practice of mindful, gentle, upright sitting, settling into facing the wall and facing ourselves, relaxing into what is it like to be present and upright like Buddha on ourselves. So the first thing we're going to see this morning is training in patience. So maybe just waiting, just in the level of waiting for the bell so you can get up. Some of you are here who haven't been here long, maybe were waiting for the bell and Belinda was not asleep, she was paying attention.

[16:55]

So patience is to be attentive and aware. It's a dynamic active practice, actually. Patience, it's not passive. So our practice is to pay attention, but also not to rush into trying to fix things or trying to, you know, we in our world today, many of us are very busy with all kinds of multitasking efforts and so forth. How to be just patient and watchful. And the ultimate patience is just to be patient with the difficulty in being patient. And the difficulty with that we can't figure out the solution to everything. That we can't get a hold of anything, actually. Because if each one of us is sitting here

[18:01]

as the dependent arising, the effect of all the beings we've ever known and maybe ever will know, then how do we, you know, define or, you know, we can't get a hold of anything. So the ultimate patience, which is equivalent to enlightenment in Buddhism, I love saying the Sanskrit word, some of you know, Anupatika Dharmakshanti. The patience with the ungraspability of anything. That we can't get a hold of anything. We can know a lot about many things, but to actually know everything that's happening in this room right now, it's impossible. It's inconceivable. Now, we could feel frustrated with that, but to be patient with that, to be patient with you don't know how to take care of

[19:04]

some difficult person in your life or with some difficult problem in your own heart or with, of course, the difficulties in our world. How do we be patient and pay attention? If we're paying attention, we may have a chance to be a little bit more helpful. If we're paying attention to our own fears, we may be able to see through them a little bit or to continue in spite of those fears. So courage is not about having no fears. It's about being willing to be present and face those fears and continue and live fully in the world right in the middle of those fears. So patience is tremendously important. And again, each one of these is a lifelong practice. And each one of these is connected with all the others. So patience helps us be generous.

[20:07]

Generosity, receiving and giving helps us be patient and so forth. I wanna talk about skillful means, which is a particular bodhisattva practice related to compassion. Skillful means is about making mistakes. Skillful means is how do we respond helpfully to the difficulties in front of us? The bodhisattva of compassion, there's an image of her on the wall back there and over here and various other places in our temple, listens to the sounds of the world and responds and specializes in skillful means. But that doesn't mean that skillful means is about having an instruction manual which tells us what to do in every situation. It's the opposite. It's about being willing to be present with what's right in front of us

[21:09]

and extend our hand and use the tools that we have at hand and make mistakes and trial and error. And hopefully, if we make the same mistake two or three or three dozen times, we'll start to be more skillful about how to respond in a similar situation. So the Lotus Sutra, which we talked about a few practice periods ago, talks a lot about, has a lot of parables about skillful means, stories about the difficulties of skillful means. How do we take care of ourselves and our loved ones and the other people we come in contact with and the difficulties in our world?

[22:11]

So patience is very important in learning how to be more skillful. But there's not some, again, there's not some ultimate skillful means because we're living in a world where things are changing. So my home temple at San Francisco Zen Center is called Beginner's Mind Temple, and Suzuki Roshi, my teacher's teacher, talked about beginner's mind. So when we don't have all the answers, we're open to hearing something new. We may have lots of answers, but we hold onto them loosely. We may have things we don't want to hear. Things we think we know. But if we're insisting on everybody else agreeing with what we think, we can never learn anything. So skillful means is very challenging.

[23:20]

And I won't have time for discussion this morning so we can talk more about it. But I'll just mention the one after that, vow or commitment. So people ask me about anger often. That's one of our precepts is that we don't harbor ill will. We don't hold onto anger. But of course, there are lots of situations in our life that let us feel our own anger. It might just be something that you are sitting, something about in yourself, in your own body, mind, as you're sitting here this morning, you might have had a thought about something that happened yesterday or this week, and that you wish you had said something different, or you wish you had, anyway, you might be angry at yourself, or you might be angry at the government, or you might be angry at somebody who cuts in front of you in traffic, or there's all kinds of situations. One of the ways to use the tremendous energy of anger

[24:25]

is not to harbor it into hatred or ill will, but to transform it into commitment or vow or determination or resolve to try and see what's going on in a situation and to try and respond helpfully. And again, that relates to skillful means, and that means trying things. Or sometimes it means just sitting, not reacting. So this is the practice of active patience, just watching somebody in your workplace who's giving themselves and other people a hard time. How do you just patiently watch? And then at some point, you might have some way to respond. You might see some way to respond. So this is the practice of skillful means based on patient dynamic attention. But sometimes there's nothing to do. So responding skillfully in the world

[25:30]

is not a matter of running around trying to fix everything or problem solve. You know, if there's something you can fix, great. But often, whatever the situation in our everyday life, or in the world, we don't see what to do. And so then the practice of patience is to just pay attention. It doesn't mean to check out and ignore it. And people can use meditation as a way of deflection or a way of feeling calm and settled and ignoring your own problems or the problems of the world. And that's not the Bodhisattva practice. So this is difficult practice. It's difficult not because of having to get your legs into some funny shape or sit still for 30 minutes, but it's difficult because we start to see the difficulties of our life

[26:32]

and the difficulties of the world. And to be patient with that and really generous and kind to yourself and to all the other beings, it's difficult. That's the real difficulty of this practice of just sitting. And again, the purpose of it is to be helpful in the world. So I wanna say a little bit about things that are happening in the world. And what I say, I don't say in the spirit of partisanship. I don't think this is a matter of any particular political party or left or right or anything like that. But just to mention a few things that are happening in the world that we should be paying attention to. So I saw an op-ed piece that said that the front page of every newspaper every day should be talking about climate change and climate damage. And the mainstream media doesn't talk about that at all

[27:34]

or not often. So we have flooding on the Gulf Coast and in the Southeast. We have massive fires in the West. We're going to be having food shortages because the farmers in Iowa are concerned about climate and having lower crops. And that's gonna continue. So this is an example of something in the world that I feel responsible for talking about sometimes. That I think we need to pay attention to. And I think there are things we can do. So I'm gonna read from a recent article. I think there are copies out front from Rebecca Solnit, who's a great writer and activist and feminist and Buddhist. And talks about environmental launch. And in this article, she talked about the recent...

[28:34]

And again, there's some people who think I shouldn't be talking about these kinds of things because we should only be looking at what our practice is on our cushions. And I just think the point of our practice, the purpose of our practice, the purpose of Zazen is to pay attention to the world. So she talked about the International Panel on Climate Change, which is sponsored by the UN in their recent report on the climate crisis, which warned of unprecedented dangers that we only have maybe 12 years to really change how terrible this is going to be. Within the lifetimes of some of you, and certainly within all your children's lifetimes and their children's, this is... It's serious. Already, the effects are going to be very bad. The Arctic is melting. Again, just in our country, the fires in the West Coast

[29:42]

and the enhanced hurricanes and so forth and the storms. So Rebecca talks about how... Rebecca was here several years ago speaking. She talks about how some of her friends think that we're doomed and it's hopeless and that the future has already been decided. And she says it's not. It is some future reality, but she quotes from a Soviet dissident, Andrei Sakharov, who said, "'They want us to believe there's no chance of success, "'but whether or not there's hope for change "'is not the question. "'If you want to be a free person, "'if you want to be liberated, "'you don't stand up for human rights "'because it will work, but because it's right. "'You must continue living as decent people.' So that applies to climate as well. And we don't know the future. So just a few more things from Rebecca's article. Climate action is human rights

[30:42]

because climate change affects the most vulnerable first and hardest. It already has with droughts, floods, fires, crop failures. It affects the myriad species and habitats that make this earth such an intricately beautiful place, from the coral reefs to the caribou herds. Mentioning a few things she says. She talks about how it's not hopeless that we have the technology now. So climate damage won't be solved by all of us recycling or using better light bulbs or doing practices of our own. Not that those are not good things to do, but we need to change the world. We need a new Marshall Plan, some way of actually doing something positive.

[31:46]

Positive and there is now the technology, which there wasn't 10 or 15 years ago, to actually use non-fossil fuel sources. 98% of the energy in Costa Rica is generated from non-fossil fuel sources today. Scotland closed its last coal-fired power plant two years ago and overall emissions there are half of what they were in 1990. Texas is getting more of its energy from wind than from coal. About a quarter on a good day and half on great days recently. Iowa already gets more than a third of its energy from wind because the wind is already more cost-effective than fossil fuel. More turbines are being set up. So these are just examples of how things are possible and how it's worth our paying attention to and contacting congresspeople and so forth. And just to add one little bit,

[32:50]

part of the work we need to do is to imagine not only the devastation of climate change and the immense differences between two or three degrees of warming and 1.5 degrees, but the benefits of making a transition from fossil fuel. The fading away of the malevolent power of the oil companies would be a profound transformation politically as well as ecologically. So I just, you know, I feel responsible to say something about these things. There's many other issues we could talk about, of course. The, our collective karma in this country of slavery and racism, which affects every one of us in lots of ways. The inequality, income inequality. The way in which our government and or some of our government wants to deny healthcare and women's rights.

[33:55]

But I'll just close with talking about, I think one of the biggest problems is, as an old peace activist, is the militarism of our society now. This is not about the people, the soldiers, the people who enlist to try and protect our country. I have nothing but respect for them. But, well, our bipartisan governmental collusion with Syria, for example. There's all this talk now about this Syrian journalist who was tortured and killed by Syrian government, apparently, or by the Saudi government. I meant to say collusion with Saudi Arabia, excuse me, not Syria. Our collusion with, our bipartisan collusion with Saudi Arabia, our current president

[34:59]

talked about how we can't, last week, I don't know what he's saying today, he keeps changing, but that we can't stop our, that Saudi Arabia must be innocent of this because of all the money they give to our weapons companies. I mean, he said this explicitly. And so what I'm talking, when I mean militarism, I don't mean military people. The military people are actually looking at climate damage as a real problem. But our collusion with Saudi Arabia, bipartisan, includes that our tax money is currently going to genocide in Yemen and massive famine and cholera in Yemen that the Saudis are doing with U.S. weapons. And our president appreciates how much money is coming into the U.S. weapons company

[36:02]

and says that that's it for America. And I respectfully disagree. But this didn't start with the current president. Anyway, these are things I just want to say as examples of things in the world that, and of course, it's not just out in the world, it's in Chicago, too, and the gun violence but that Bodhisattva awareness, patience and skillful means and commitment, we should pay attention to. And there are things that can be done in terms of lobbying Congress, in terms of when there are mass marches. I like to go out on the streets. I'm not saying, I'm not telling anybody else what to think about any of this or what you should do. I'm just saying that our practice, the purpose of our practice of Zazen is to pay attention to our own greed, hate and delusion, to what's happening in the world.

[37:03]

And part of the purpose of Zazen is that we can find our own settleness and uprightness and inner calm and from that place, and it takes a while of practicing to realize that we can be helpful, not just in our own life, but in the world around us. So this sitting practice, just sitting, facing the wall, facing ourselves, is very deep. It's not about just sitting. Purpose of this is how do we express Buddha's heart, Buddha's love in the world? And that's not easy. In fact, there wouldn't be Buddhism if it were easy.

[38:10]

In the Lotus Sutra, it says, Buddhas appear in the world just for the sake of liberating beings and relieving suffering. So if everybody was already totally liberated, there'd be no need for Buddha. There'd be no need to come and sit Zazen. You might do it just because you like it, but. But here we are. And we have something, when we're willing to stop and be upright and face ourselves, and one of our chances to relax completely. We can make a difference in our own lives, in the lives of the people around us and in the world. And how to do that is, you know, it's not obvious. We don't know. And not knowing is actually a wonderful resource that we're open to trying new things,

[39:13]

that we're open to hearing other viewpoints, that we're open to trying to talk with others. And our society is so divided now that we need to do that. So again, just patience. Patience with not knowing what to do, not knowing how to be skillful, but paying attention. So I've talked about a lot of stuff. I'm not going to go into all of it. We have a little bit of time. If anyone has responses, comments, questions, other perspectives, please feel free. Or for newer people, just basic questions

[40:15]

about the sitting meditation. Maybe one question is Phil Jackson, Phil Jackson. Basketball coach, yeah. Yeah, how did he go into Zen and try to teach to his students? Wonderful example of Zazen in the world. So yeah, when he was in Chicago, Michael Jordan and yeah, he taught all of his players to do this practice of just sitting. I don't know where he first, I think he read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, actually. The book by my teacher's teacher, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. If you read one book about Zen, that's the book I would recommend. But Phil Jackson's books are good too.

[41:16]

But that's an example of showing how this kind of patient dynamic awareness can be helpful in all kinds of realms. He's won championships because working together, settledness, attentiveness, knowing how to, I don't know so much about basketball, but knowing how to work together and do teamwork. All of that is related to these 10 practices I was talking about. So thank you. Other questions, comments? Yeah. How by using practice as one potential, such a contentedly individualistic notion

[42:19]

of how climate would change personal practices. Knowing that this is global markets, international trade, the topic nations that aren't about and not nearly. Economic systems and. Glass or plastic. Right. So whether what you do individually in terms of not using styrofoam, for example, or plastic, it does make a difference. But the responses that are gonna make the change that we need are going to have to be collective because it's such a huge problem now. So one of the ways is to work with groups that are working on this. So it's not about individual, it's not an individual activity. So we work together, so work with groups

[43:23]

like 350.org or Greenpeace or whichever environmental group appeals to you. There are people now trying to encourage divestment from fossil fuel industries by cities, by big companies. And that's happening in Chicago, that work, there's something in front of the city council, a bill in front of the city council about that. So there are a number of cities that have already done that. So there is that kind of activity that you can plug into. So maybe what I should also mention, the first three of our 16 precepts are taking refuge or returning to or relying on or working with Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. So for new people, Buddha means the historical Buddha or people who are awakened, but it also means just the reality of awakening in the world. So I was going to quote Dogen about Zazen.

[44:27]

He says, when one person sits Zazen, even for a short time, all of space awakens. And he mentions grasses and trees, fences and walls, tiles and pebbles. Now that's this inconceivable statement that I've been working with in my practice for decades. But to think of all of space and all of reality awakening, the first time you come, so you're here for the first time. Is this your first time sitting Zazen? Yeah, so just your sitting, even though you may have been uncomfortable and it's hard to sit still and so forth, makes a difference to, Dogen says, fences and walls, tiles and pebbles, earth, grass, and trees. Our willingness to be present and upright affects many things in the world. So Buddha is about that awakening of things in the world. Dharma, the second refuge, is the teaching,

[45:30]

and it's also truth or reality itself. So we sit to become more in tune and more in communion with deeper reality, deeper level of reality. And that's kind of an endless exploration too, and because things are changing. But yes, that's dharma. But the third one is what you're asking about, and that's Sangha, community. So our society doesn't have a lot of contexts for community. This Sangha, this ancient dragon, Zen Gate group is a Sangha, is a group of people practicing together. And all of you here, even if you're here for the first time, are now part of that. And we work in various ways to take care of it. But Sangha also means communities in the wider sense. So each one of us has a variety of other communities that we're part of. How do we, and Sangha is a refuge,

[46:34]

is a support for awakening of all beings when it supports us to pay attention and to be helpful. And again, there's not one right way to do it in terms of climate or anything else. How do we see what draws us to be helpful? So being self-righteous about one's own strategy towards helping with whatever can be very damaging. How do we try and see other ways of, new ways, other people's ways of helping and responding? But Sangha also means to work collectively. So help others, yeah. Yes, Donald is it? Yes, hi. Can you say more about how Satsang is studying the self

[47:36]

and how that relates to awakening and liberating? Yeah, well, that's the question. That's the question. So studying the self means being willing to face ourselves with our own lives. With all of our regrets, all of the stuff that, stuff as a technical term that we don't like about ourselves, our own grasping, our own anger, our own confusion. When we do this practice regularly, thoughts and feelings arise. We don't try and get rid of those. We also just try and observe and let them go and they come up again. But we get to know, we become intimate with ourself. Over time. So, there are branches of Zen where they emphasize reaching some particular exalted awareness or mental space and I don't, I don't think that's the purpose of Zazen. That happens when we have dramatic experiences

[48:38]

of openness and awakening. And some Zen context, they walk around with a stick and hit you if you close your eyes or move. And you know, just to kind of force you to, you have to get some dramatic experience. That's not, I don't think that's very helpful. I've tried those things. But patiently, patiently, getting to know yourself and getting to know not just yourself, but all the selves that are part of yourself and the people in your life and how you respond to them. We have a wider sense of then, of how to respond and be skillful. And then how that applies to the wider world. Well, you know, whichever, you know, I mentioned the climate and some other issues, but whatever problem is happening in the world around you that you feel drawn to, to try and look at how you might be helpful.

[49:42]

That's good. So Sangha is also that we can't each do everything, obviously, even in terms of taking care of this space. We have different people doing different tasks and different positions, just to take care of this little storefront temple. But when you see something that you want to respond to, see who else is working on it and see how you can plug in and help and pay attention to that and see how it feels to you. And watch out for self-righteousness on anybody's part. You know, hope, but keep looking for, from the place of settledness that we start to develop in zazen. And we don't always feel that way. Sometimes some periods of zazen, your mind's racing or you're very sleepy or whatever, but doing it, doing this regularly over time, we develop a kind of deeper settledness and calm

[50:45]

and communion with something deeper. And that's a tremendous resource for ourselves and for the people around us, even if they aren't practicing in the same way, that's okay. How do we respect everyone? And then see how we can be helpful and increase helpfulness instead of harm. So that's what I was trying to talk about today, but thank you for asking it again. Yes, Chris. I did want to make a suppose, I have a suspicion that in both of these examples, maybe it would be helpful to see or to be aware of. Which, I'm sorry, which examples? For example, one of the world issues of climate change and so on versus the individual role in that. And also, finding a way to think at an individual level

[51:47]

or necessarily contrasted with the context of society at large, I think that maybe, for me anyway, it's been helpful to notice that the line between individual and society is arbitrary one. Good. I feel like a lot of times that to liberate yourself is to liberate the society in some way, even if you don't necessarily see it. I really think that there's some sort of, perhaps viral element to influence interaction that really, it's impossible to not influence the people around you even if you don't notice it happening. Yeah, I love the phrase that you brought up before about walking through the fog and you don't realize that your ropes are getting wet, but then they're soaked through and you're like, how did that happen? But that does, over time, this sort of somatic effect just sort of happens.

[52:48]

I think that that's true with actions as well, perhaps. I mean, strictly speaking, I suppose actions are the only thing we really own. Those actions that we do in service of trying to have skillful means inevitably affect those around us and there's sort of a connection there that I think we inevitably sort of feel as we sit more and more in these situations. Yeah, thank you, Chris. That was well said. The one thing you said that I really liked was particularly wanted to notice the idea of awakening as a virus that is contagious and that our kindness, our simple kindness and helpfulness, people around us start to resonate with.

[53:50]

So yeah, so this happens on a personal level and that is connected to whether or not you're campaigning for some particular social issue, it does affect. So part of the solution to how we make the world a better place is just changing hearts and minds, our own and those around us. That's a part of it. So we're a little over time, so we can continue this discussion informally later and next week and for the rest of our lives. But before we close with the bodhisattva vows, which we chant, before we close with the bodhisattva vows, which we chant, before we close with the bodhisattva vows,

[54:40]

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