Thank you to Abbot Huzan Allen-Sanaki for the invitation to speak today, Karen for making the connection, and of course to you all for being here. My heart goes out to you and joins with you in the sadness of the recent passing of Sogenbel Weissman, my Dharma grandfather. And of course, as Blake said, I'm Blanche's student. She's my ownji. And now I study with Vicky Austin and Gail Ronstadt. And so you could say I'm in a relative's house today. So we're in the same family. So for the last five days, the access to Zen Sangha has been in, well, this is our fifth day of our sushim. And Zazen always is, and Sashin, I would say, in particular, is a time in which we are with the Absolute completely.

[01:09]

Suzuki Roshi, and not always so, and wherever we are, enlightenment is there, says, in our practice, the most important thing is to realize that we have Buddha nature. Intellectually, we may know this, but it is rather difficult to accept. Our everyday life is in the realm of good and bad, the realm of duality. While Buddha nature is found in the realm of the absolute, where there is no good and no bad, there is a twofold reality. Our practice is to go beyond the realm of good and bad and to realize the absolute. it may be rather difficult to understand. I myself love that in Zen we begin knowing they were already perfect. We begin with some plunging, you could say, into the absolute.

[02:14]

And I think many of us are drawn to Zen because of the emphasis on the absolute. Perhaps for many of us, maybe most of us, however, in our daily lives, neither internally or externally does the world feel like this. So I, like all of you, have been in the causes and conditions that I brought about the current state of things in the United States. And so as a teacher, of course, I'm always trying to figure out what teaching supports us to be with what is currently. And just before we run into Sashim, for the weeks leading up to, of course, there's been an increase in violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and Desis. So hatred and violence.

[03:16]

So... I was looking for a way to how to offer some teaching that would support people. And I've pretty much been submerged in the Four Noble Truths. And so I picked one of those, which I think helps us as finding ways to respond to conditions, which is skillful efforts. So just as a reminder, because I'm sure you all know that Eightfold Path is the fourth of the Four Noble Truths. And it's made up of three groupings. One is what's called the wisdom grouping, skillful understanding or view, which is basically of the Four Noble Truths and karma. And then skillful or right translation. I go towards skillful. You could also say appropriate or complete.

[04:20]

So thought then is thinking. Gil says it literally means thought or thinking, but it's a very purposive thinking, which makes sense because then the wisdom aspect goes into the classically the second aspect, which is the sila or the ethical conduct aspect. I like to say the compassionate conduct. And that, of course, is skillful speech, action and livelihood. And then the third grouping is what's called the meditative or samadhi or the qualities of awareness, I'm saying, which is skillful effort, skillful mindfulness, and skillful concentration. So skillful effort is in the meditative aspect. And a lot of time you can think of the meditative aspect as the bridge between our wisdom, what we understand, and our intention. our understanding of the world and the values we have and how we want, the aspiration of how we want to do it.

[05:28]

And then how we behave in the world, a meditative practice is the bridge, both to have what we know to be true in our values, into our enactment, and then also when we behave in a certain way or speak in a certain way or live in a certain way, It also helps us when we sit down to, could be, to process, is that in alignment? So to simplify it, just for the purpose of this, of course, this much, skillful effort, then I would like to propose is the carefulness of how we use our life energies to respond to conditions internally. like in Sushin for the most part, especially Zoom Sushin, much, much more internal, I would hope, and externally in the world.

[06:29]

And the great thing I think about the Eightfold Path is that it's very much, it's very clear and it gives us both descriptors and practices about things, right? So in Skillful Effort, It shows us four ways to apply effort to meet and be with ourselves and our experiences. And they're broken down into two categories. One is what's called the negative or the unwholesome or the unskillful. And then there's the positive or the skillful. Sometimes I like to say useful. These days I'm also thinking maybe the holistic or the wholesome. And they are for, and two of them are for each. One is for when the negative arises. What hasn't arisen it, how can you prevent it?

[07:34]

And if it has arisen, how do you abandon it? And then when the skillful, in terms of skillful, how do you cultivate it to arise? And then how do you extend it? when it has arisen. So notice that's PACE, P-A-C-E, prevent, abandon, cultivate, and extend. And often there are other words to use it and some of those are very classic and I've framed it that way because I like the acronym PACE because it, in English of course, It means to do something in a slow and steady rate or speed in order to avoid overexerting oneself. And it comes from the old French in Latin, which means to stretch like that. Just take it easy and find ease in this way of framework for behavior.

[08:41]

So I would say that because a good part of my sangha are made up of AAPIs, not surprisingly, and other people of color, I brought in the way-seeking mind as a metaphor for how we can know that we are home. It's a way-seeking heart and mind towards home, you could say. In part, of course, because of the perpetual foreigner stereotype and hatred and violence that white supremacy has placed on Asian Americans. So we're often asked exactly where do we come from or even told to go home or to have a virus describe who we are, right? So No, no, I also was inspired because people see this.

[09:50]

Oh, I need to go back to myself here. I was trying to see the gallery, but now I have to see what I'm holding up. Ah, can people see that? I have arrived. I am. Coligraphy, not an original. So this was given to me actually in a retreat a while back. And I framed it and put it right by my entrance. So whenever I go in and out, I see it. And so in terms of how to work with pace or these four efforts, which I also thought was, if we're talking about energy, that works really well for retreat, right? For a four-day seshin or five-day seshin. So in terms of how I place that, I'll say that to prevent has to do with, or in aspects of being with home, of seeking home is first we arrive, then we unpack, then we redecorate, and then we settle in or relax.

[11:06]

And then because it's a five day, I'm like, oh, what am I gonna do with the fifth one? Right? And I thought, well, if you've done all that, then what is left? Living. And when I think about living, I will say the first thing that came up is living by vow. Living by vow. This is the bodhisattva way. Because what is the purpose of working all the steps of effort or going to sushin except to learn or to really clarify? what it is to live. And of course, we are gonna be chanting this at the end, but the four bodhisattva vows are the most important of Zen. And we've been chanting your version because I knew the students would be here. So of course, beings are numberless. I vow to save them. That's the San Francisco Zen Center version.

[12:11]

And yours is, I vow to awaken with them, which I really like. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to be coming. So on this fifth day, I wanted to talk about, well, these vows are really vast. And they're really aspiring. When I hear them, I want to aspire to that. And yet, how are we going to do it? How are we in this still last day of Sushin, but already some of us, I'm sure, are thinking, how do we take this back into the world? So I also think that being an idealist And responding to this, my thing is, you know, save all beings, go, go, go, help people. And I also, my profession is social worker.

[13:12]

And so the sense of helping people is a huge aspiration. And yet I often feel I and other social workers I know and other people in the helping profession, we often get burned out. And so today I also kind of want to frame the skillful effort as teachings on pacing for the Bodhisattva. teachings on pacing for the Bodhisattva. Now, Shaogu Akamura, in Living by Vow, this book, talks about, of course, these four Bodhisattva vows. And actually says that they are actually based on the four noble truths. Imagine, that just goes perfectly with what I've been obsessed with. these last few years. And he says that this is the old version here, right? I vow to enable people to be released from the truth of suffering.

[14:19]

I vow to enable people to understand the truth of the origin of suffering. I vow to enable people to peacefully settle down in the truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering. I vow to enable people to enter the cessation of suffering that is nirvana. And of course, he says that's an important thing to know because, of course, the Four Noble Truths are accepted teachings in all the sects of Buddhism and are fundamental to the teachings. So for me, the first one is if we are to arrive, right? Beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. So to arrive is to be open to accepting the truth of suffering.

[15:29]

The first number of truth is the heart is I'm always running away from it, trying to distract myself. And when we come to practice, when we're ready to sit down or lie down or stand or walk, that's what I'm meditating, this is that our commitment when we come to Sashim is that we're committing to seeing how suffering is worthy of our undivided. attention, and care. Suzuki Roshi, and again, not always so, but in the chapter called Ordinary Mind, Buddha Mind, says, The point of my talk is to give you some support for your practice. There's no need for you to remember what I say.

[16:32]

If you stick to it, you stick to the support, not the tree itself. A tree, when it is strong, may still want some support, but the most important thing is the tree itself, not the support. I am one tree, and each of you is a tree. You should stand up by yourself. When a tree stands up by itself, we call that tree In other words, when you practice zazen, in its true sense, you are really Buddha. Sometimes we call it tree and sometimes we call it Buddha. Buddha, tree, or you are many names of one Buddha. When you sit, you're independent from various beings and you're related to various beings. And when you have perfect composure in your practice, you include everything. You are not just you. You are the whole world or the whole cosmos and you are like a Buddha.

[17:37]

So when you sit, you are an ordinary human and you are a Buddha. Before you sit, you may stick to the idea that you are ordinary. So when you sit, you are not the same being as you are before you sit. Do you understand? We come to practice and we hear that we are whole and complete, that we're Buddha. And yet it's so hard to know that. And the first day of Sashin, it's really hard to know that. Aches and pains, hindrances galore. So many practice discussion is like, you know, I always say, There are five of them, but you usually have a favorite or maybe two. And oftentimes I hear, I have them all, I have them all. And so it's really hard.

[18:42]

In Zen, we start out with this as a skillful means. Know that this is true. And yet what comes up for people is, mine, mine is really painful. And mostly it's in offering that, we're saying that your suffering is worthy. And in fact, we start out, I say we start out by really being with our individual sense of that. And that is in how we locate it in our bodies, in our posture and in our breath. Just keep focusing right here. What is your experience of it? What is your experience of it? Because until we, and whenever I say sit down here, I do not mean that you can't have other posture of zazen. So until we sit down and make the commitment, we have been running away.

[19:46]

Thich Nhat Hanh says, by the way, And they talk about, I have arrived, I am home. It's a song that they practice. It goes where he says, our practice is to always arrive in the here and now. We have been running and we have not arrived. We have been looking for something. We have been longing for something and we haven't found it. And so we continue to run. Maybe we are looking for some conditions of happiness that we don't have. Running and searching has become a habit and we are not capable of stopping. We hurt. Harm has happened in life. And we want to get away from it. It's very hard for us to be with it.

[20:51]

And so we start out by offering the sense that your experience is like Buddha in the sense that it is worthy of undivided attention and that this suffering is also similar. While it's individualistic to you, it is also similar to others' suffering. that we all together suffer, even though yours has its own unique footprint, you could say. So just really coming to admitting that it hurts. And this is similar to wayseeking mind talks, you know, and the way we do it. I did pop in on jeans because I know her and I'm just surprised that it was an accidental thing that I noticed last night.

[21:57]

I was just double checking my entry today. And the way we do it at Zen Center is, you know, you say something about yourself, your history, your family, and then there's a sense of how do you come to practice. And that may include other things. Practice by that we meant to the temple or the place where you're at, the Sangha where you're at, but also perhaps other ways in which spirituality or sense of awness has touched you. And then also perhaps what is your question or what is up for you now around practice? And I remember that one of my dormant sisters said to me that the first time, and she's from back East, And one of her first time that she did wayseeking mind talk, someone came up to her afterward and said, A, how come, where is your suffering?

[23:00]

Where is your suffering? You have not told us anything about what you're suffering from. And the Stama sister was like, I realized that I was taking, being, My Northeastern self, right, you know, I don't suffer. I just push my way through everything. I effort my way through life and I don't show where my vulnerability and where it hurts. And in some ways, I think this is a vow is to say we are vulnerable. We hurt. Sometimes I like to say that. When we come to practice, to be a bodhisattva is you wear your heart on your sleeve. Is that the idiom right? Or the saying? You wear your heart on your sleeve. We're willing to say, ah, I am a tender being and I feel the hurt and harm of the world, including my own part of the world.

[24:07]

So this is the first day. Second day, we unpack exactly. What is my individual hurts and harm? Because if you've been running or turning away from it, we have to get closer and closer to it so that we have a clearer sense of what we're knowing here. Oh, I forgot to say. So the first is to arrive is to prevent. So we prevent ourselves from being to the unwholesome person that can arise. So we focus, we keep focusing on what the unwholesome is running away in this case. Now next, we want to abandon the unskillful or the unwholesome that has arisen. And in particular, I talk about what has arisen that you want to abandon is what is extra.

[25:14]

what Charlotte Jokoback would say is the false suffering. The true suffering is say you hit your toe and it hurts and the false suffering is you said, who put that table there? Especially if you have a roommate, you're saying, why do they put it there? Or I'm so stupid, I didn't see that or I hit myself. I hit my toe. So, we see to the root of our delusion that there is a separateness. And that delusion is often about defining things about me, right? Or the sense of self. By that, it's a self can be about me or about you, you, myself, and I, or you and yourself, or us and them. And that is solid and enduring. So we keep saying, what is extra? here. Dharma gates, delusion are inexhaustible.

[26:24]

I vow to end them. You know, I was at Tassajara when Mel did a practice period there. Not his last one. This is, I don't know, 2003 or four, something like that. And I will say, I also did one with Reb and I thought that that would be the hardest one because I heard Reb was so into forms, right? And even though I'm a form queen, I just thought, oh, it's just gonna be really hard, right? I'm gonna get corrected left and right. And then I did practice with Mel, and it was one of the hardest practice periods I ever did. I ever did. And I was in the Doan Ryo, right? And two things.

[27:29]

One is that, so that Eno was a student from Berkeley Zen Center and known Mel for a long time. So after lunch every day, right, when we were doing work, the Don Rio, for those who don't know other people, hit all the bells and all the Han and lead the ceremonies. And also at lunch, we use these wooden things called clackers to, you know, say when it starts, when it ends, certain things, right? And so after lunch, whenever we met for many, many days, The Eno would say, Mal told us we did the clackers wrong. Right? And so we said, well, show us. Show us how, you know? And then she'd go. Next day, Mal told us the clackers wrong. Well, tell us how it is. Okay.

[28:33]

Next day, Mal told us the clackers wrong. Well, show us. And then finally someone says, I don't understand. I don't understand. Right? So then the Eno was like, I don't understand either. And the other thing was, right? Now, this is my take and my remembrance. So this is just to make the point of the story. I'm not saying this is a truth. right, is that in the rep practice period, you always knew when rep was coming. There was a lot of up in circumstance, right? This is my take completely. Mal never knew when he would show up. Never knew. So one day, you know, we're practicing the makugyo, and he comes in.

[29:33]

And he's like, you know, like, raw, taking a turn. And he's like, nah, nah. Right? So then we're like, finally, show us. Right? And so he sits down. And by the way, Rick Thane was a head douan when I first came to Tassajara in the summer of 2002. And so there are two ways for those who don't, so the Makugyo, sorry, some of my students don't know these things. The makudo is the, it's that one thing, looks like a fish, that you hit with a padded striker to make the sound to lead the beat for chanting. And so Greg had shown me the, so there are usually two ways of doing it, two schools of doing it, two styles, and one is the up and down, and one is the, you know, the turn, circle, circle, right? And so since Greg turned me, I was the circle.

[30:36]

I don't know if it's changed, but that's how, right? And so, you know, Mel was watching me, you know, and I was like, and he was like, no, no, no. I'm like, okay, show, right? So he goes and he doesn't, I tell you, I didn't see any difference, right? But then he finally said, you don't hit the makugyo. You don't hit the makugyo. It's like riding a horse, right? You work with the horse. You just find a rhythm that works with the makugaya. So you're in relationship to it. And I think this is our most serious delusion, is that we keep forgetting that we're in relationship. with things, with objects, with our emotions, with our suffering, with our lives, and others' lives, of course.

[31:38]

So the extra is the separation. Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them. Shohaku Okamura says that actually, these are different quarters than the Four Noble Truths. Here, This is actually talking about the fourth noble truth, whereas the first two talk about first and second. So the fourth noble truth, of course, is the path. All those things I named off in the beginning, the three sections. So they're the Dharma gates. And in our practice this week, So then it's day four, technically. It's settling in. So again, the Eightfold Path gives us descriptors and practices for how to settle into our life in a way that can reduce suffering and in service of the ending of suffering.

[32:51]

And I... At this point, I don't think I need to go through the whole thing. You all have a sense of it already. And so day three is, of course, the last line. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Our fourth line is really the third of the fourth noble truth, which is that the cessation. as possible. Or in my case, I have been reframing the four noble truths to be what I call much more engaged and in a very much a restorative way. So in this model of it being restorative, the first noble truth, again, because my experience is very hard to admit to, is that hurt and harm is part of life. Not just that, just a little bit more clear, right? And the second are what are the causes and conditions that are the root of suffering.

[33:53]

And the emphasis is much more on the conditions in the sense of what are the systemic aspects? What are the systemic aspects? And also in that these are the ways that I've learned to react to suffering. My suffering is the ways I've learned as what is worthy of my attention of suffering and how. am I supposed to respond to? For instance, racism. We're all taught what deserves our attention or who in the schema of race and white supremacy is worthy of attention and what kind of attention and whether their suffering is worthy of our attention or not and to what degree. we're taught explicitly or implicitly our location in the system of white supremacy.

[34:57]

And we wake up to knowing that yes, why that construct, they're really, very clearly how we're all conditioned, taught by family, culture, systems of oppression. So, Buddha's way is to redecorate. In the sense of the third noble truth is then that it's possible. And in this framing of the engage, that it's possible to know that I have agency, that I can unlearn or relearn what I've been taught. And that all of us then can do that and in fact, have the responsibility. And I think that's part of practice.

[36:00]

We come and what is healing to us is that we say, oh, wow, I had that belief that led me to act that way or speak that way or behave or live my life that way. And here's a chance for me to say, oh, does it fit me anymore? Does this house that has been built that I'm told that I should inhabit, or that has confined me, perhaps locked me in, even though it was supposedly for my safety, or I'm told that's for my safety, or lock others out that I'm told was for my safety. Is that true now? And is it the way I want my life to be? Is this the habitat I want to be in? Is my habitat now open and free and have, am I willing to have new things or to redecorate, to see what is extra here that needs to not be here, to see what is it that I want to bring in.

[37:13]

So it's to cultivate much more clearly what is important to me and is in alignment with my values now. And that, and the, One word value, I'd say, or the main value of Buddhism, of course, is non-harming. What here is non-harming? Sojan Mal Weisman, Be Yourself Completely, Part 2, says, Shikantaza means just doing. And this was the practice of Suzuki Roshi and his lineage. Just doing. When we sit zazen, when we sit in meditation, it is just doing. We don't sit meditation in order to get something. We don't sit in order to accomplish good health or to make us more intelligent or to gain some kind of advantage. When we sit, we just sit. Sitting is just sitting.

[38:15]

In the same way, eating is just eating. And walking is just walking. So in Sashin, that's what we're doing. One thing at a time, clearly. In our busy life, we have many goals. So we forget just walking, just eating, just sitting, and so on. When we bring just sitting into our daily life, in the midst of our life, based on accomplishment, so we can be completely whole in our activity, this is Zazen. In Zen, we are always dealing with the absolute side of our nature and the relative side of our nature and how to make ourselves whole, all one, to resume our original nature, which is not dual. So to me, this is how we can take what we've learned in Sashin. I'm speaking much more to the students now. about skillful effort.

[39:17]

And the last is to extend. How are we going to extend what we've learned about the last four days? And one more day, that everything that's happening is wholeness and completeness. Doesn't mean that there is no you in that, and that there isn't an individualness and a uniqueness. to your experience. And how is it that it's being held by the unity of us all? Not that we're all the same. Let me be very clear. And the familiarity, or similar, excuse me, similarity of our experiences is the unity, not the specificity. Or as Suzuki Roshi would say, a couple more paragraphs from that ordinary mind, Buddha mind.

[40:23]

You may say that it's not possible to be ordinary and holy. When you think this way, your understanding is one-sided. In Japanese, we call someone who understands things from just one side a tanban-kan, someone who carries a board on his shoulder. Because you carry a big board on your shoulder, you cannot see the other side. You think you are just an ordinary human, but if you take the board off, you will understand. Oh, I am Buddha too. How can I be both Buddha and an ordinary human? It is amazing. That is enlightenment. When you experience enlightenment, you will understand things more freely. Won't mind whatever people call you. Ordinary mind? Okay. I am ordinary mind. Buddha? Yes, I am Buddha.

[41:28]

How do I come to be both Buddha and ordinary mind? I don't know. But actually, I am Buddha and ordinary mind. Buddha, in its true sense, is not different from ordinary mind. An ordinary mind is not something apart from what is holy. This is a complete understanding of ourself. When we practice Zazen with this understanding, that is true Zazen, we will not be bothered by anything. Whatever you hear, whatever you see, will be okay. To have this feeling, it is necessary to become accustomed to our practice. If you keep practicing, you will naturally have this understanding and this feeling. It will not be just intellectual. You will have the actual feeling. Thank you very much for your attention.

[42:28]

Reverend Leanne, we have... Perhaps there was a scheduling thing, but we do have 15 minutes for Q&A. Would you like to do that? Oh, yeah, sure. But I just thought we'd chant first. Also because I want my students not to stay for the Q&A and they need to go. Wonderful. Good sangha, everybody. We will begin chanting as soon as... Ross Blum, the Doan, does the clunk and Reverend Leanne puts her hand in Gosho and then we will do the clunk and then we will chant the vows, the four vows, one time through and I invite everybody to unmute yourself and we can all do our best to stay in time with each other. I will post the vows in the chat. Right now, and then once again, I'm sorry to repeat myself, but I'm trying to be inclusive and clear.

[43:39]

Reverend Leanne, put her hands in Gassho, and then we will go ahead and listen for that clunk. My students, you're allowed to chant this time. to play with them. The emotions are so very comfortable. I have no hope to win them. The heart of the heart gets over my goodness. I have no hope to win them. Wonderful.

[44:41]

Thank you. I invite everybody to mute themselves except for Reverend Lien. And for those in session or need to go, please do that. And then we will do Q&A for 15 minutes, if that sounds good to people. So if you have a question, and I want to thank as they leave, and you can pass on the word, I want to thank people who rarely are here for coming to our Zendo. And for those who rarely come or are here just happen to come into the gate, I want to welcome you as well. So we'll do some Q&A, and please raise your digital hand, and I will call on you. And please ask a direct question. There are people, and so we provide space, so leave space for others as well.

[45:43]

Please raise your digital hand, and I'll call on you. I see a human hand. Okay, let me put the speaker. You're still spotlighted. Or maybe I should just go ahead and do this. And raise a raise of a human being hand. Anybody? Okay. Hozan, please just give me a second so that I can spotlight you as well. And that's for everybody. Just give us a second so we can spotlight both. And you're on. Thank you for taking a human hand, I hope. Thank you so much, Leanne, for a very fine and challenging talk. I wanted to just share with you very briefly a gloss on the first Bodhisattva vow that has been really essential to me. I've spoken of it a lot. It's from the Platform Sutra.

[46:46]

where the sixth ancestor, his version of that vow is, sentient beings of my mind are numberless. I vow to save them all. And that really opened the door for me in thinking about, first of all, how to meet the suffering that I experience. and the various beings of my mind, and then to also recognize that other beings as well are beings of my mind. So I just wanted to share with you, there's a whole ordination ceremony, as you probably know, in the Platform Sutra, and it really looks at things just in a very useful angle. So I just wanted to share that. Thank you. Can I push back to it?

[47:53]

Of course. You know, I will say that most of you probably don't know, but I actually do combine insight practices and Zen, which is to me, suffering and how to support people to work with suffering as people experience that's very concrete suffering. That is the interaction between themselves and what objects in the world and people in the world. And that, I think, that's where I spend most of my time. I invite Bob McKinnon to lower your hand, unmute yourself, and ask a question.

[49:06]

Hi, thank you so much. And one of the questions I had was, you're speaking about duality, and then you mentioned how we add something on, something to the fact we add on to our suffering. And... In terms of, you know, you're talking about white supremacy and how, you know, how they must, I assume that they must be suffering to lash out. And how you see that cycle, how that manifests itself. And in terms of duality and how they add extra to their suffering.

[50:23]

Oh, I'm sorry. Are you done with the question? Yeah. Well, first I would say that we all extra our suffering. And so one way, as Charlotte Jokoback frames it, true suffering, things that happen in life. And then we all have false suffering. So suffering for us is a dualistic. And so we all have extra suffering and that's what we're, well, in essence, we're practicing to see what is the clearest and the one that needs the most attending to at this point. I think for me, I'm always finding out, oh, that's extra two to the suffering. Oh, that's extra two to the suffering, right? And so in essence, the extra is not so much, well, many of us experiences, what is the extra?

[51:29]

Oftentimes the extra is just the lack of this. It's just the lack of this. And then to be more practical, This is why, to me, the second noble truth, the way that I'm framing it as a way to work with, trust me, I do not think that I'm saying, now this is what the four noble truths really are. I'm not saying that in any way. But to me, what's useful to understand is that we all are conditioned to to think about things, one in a dualistic way, and the flavor of our dualism is dependent on the conditions we are raised in. So as a person of color, I am raised in a different condition than you are raised in. And what really matters, our condition, and by that I just mean our surroundings, so that's huge, our surrounding is huge, and the things that we're taught in bigger and bigger surroundings.

[52:37]

And so the other thing is that, for instance, my partner's father just died. And so I was in Tampa where we were pretty lax about COVID. And, you know, and someone even got mad at me for putting up, you know, we were passing on a path and I went to put up my mask and step over. So we, you know, keep six foot apart. And they were like, you think that will protect you. Right. And I was like, wow, usually I'm the one mad at people not wearing masks, right? So one, I was like, oh, wait a minute. I had a moment where I could understand, I could get close to their anger. Not that I believe in that, mind you, but it showed me that for one thing. And then two, I will tell you, I was there a whole month to support my partner. It's a very complex relationship with her father and he died very suddenly. So there was a lot to take care of. So, you know, and it's very intense time.

[53:41]

And so like we were thinking, oh, I'd love to go see a movie, do something, right? And they allow you to go in the theater, right? And so we are like, should we go? And then we're like, what, what? Why would he even think of that? right? But at first, it was like, oh, possibility, right? And that desire for wanting to go, like, going to the movies is one of my all-time favorite things to do. In fact, you know, my first summer at Tassar, I was like, I have found my people. Because at lunch, we either were talking about Buddhist things, or we were talking about some new movie, someone who on their day off had gone to see, and, you know, had came back to tell us all, this is summer, right? So, So it was just a very clear sense of being conditioned by the environment, right? No matter what my beliefs are, and this is why it's an endless, illusions are endless, and it takes carefulness of attention and a stick-to-it-ness of the clarity of our purpose and intention.

[54:52]

Does that answer your question? yes thank you um i have one question in the chat that i'd like to get to if that's okay with you yes of course um how do you understand i'll read it twice how do you understand just sitting in the context of the conversation on being careful in meditation instruction on being with traumatic experiences especially systemic oppression how much is enough How do you understand just sitting in the context of the conversation of being careful in meditation practice on being with traumatic experiences, especially systemic oppression? How much is enough? Okay. Well, I'm not 100% sure I understand the question, so let me make a stab and see. Well, first of all, We think of, so there's a couple of ways to think about just sitting.

[56:00]

So just sitting is a sense of our completeness as we take the position, right? This posture itself is Buddha, right? To know the completeness of ourself, which includes the completeness of our experience in this moment, be it mind, emotion or sensation. And so when you have traumatic responses, the reaction often very much bodily is very strong. So in some ways why meditation and mindfulness in particular has become very useful is that it helps us to have a much more flexible sense of our window of tolerance. And so in our practice, in essence in our practice is we irregardless of traumatic trauma, is that we're here to just stay with how things are.

[57:03]

And especially during retreat, we start to see that what I'm capable of, right? It's much more, not just bigger, but also just much more flexible. And so in Sashin, you know, we often are much more sensitive. And so things reverberate more, but then we also bounce back easier. That's the stability that comes from just sitting. It isn't like, you know, just sitting isn't like, just sitting is actually like, oh, rising and falling, coming and going. By that I don't mean that's what we're thinking all the time, but this is our experience. And of course we have to have tools for how to work with that when that's not easy to know. And so then, perhaps if I understand the question correctly, then the, when there is trauma, then it's about holding, giving more space to how even, not even, how bodily and emotionally you can be more flexible to hold what's going on.

[58:17]

That the, to be immobile or to be that still point isn't necessary about holding still and to care what is the tending to that in essence has a wider earth for instance and part it's because it's um online in large part right obviously and my song goes small people don't know how to do oreoge for the most part right um so We sit for 45 minutes and we walk for 45, which is very fair run. You know, and I actually had somebody who was like, oh, right, what is this? What is this? And part of it is, again, that this sense that I'm talking about. And, you know, like at City Center or Zen Center, we do yoga now, right? Because we know that we need to stretch and move some because it's been... it's really hard on the body, but you can't do yoga online.

[59:20]

I mean, of course you could say do this, but so much is dependent on yoga, you know, and I know this from Vicky, is, you know, Vicky comes and she just moves you, you feel like a millimeter and all of a sudden you're like, oh, oh, wow, right? It feels better or I understand what she means, right? But you can't do that online, right? And so... I'm not going to do some kind of body practice to support people because I can't really help them negotiate it. And since we do hurt more and things are harder to be with, you know, our knees hurt, our back hurt, other parts are tight, it doesn't make sense to happen. So then the walks are longer so that the body has a chance to really move. Does that answer the question?

[60:14]

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