As you all know, the day is the... Saying the word anniversary feels funny because it does not feel like an anniversary, but it's the 20th year after 9-11 and a chapter is just closed with the United States exiting. So I just wanted to read a brief paragraph from a two or three page statement that the Dalai Lama made right after the original 9-11 event. And here's something what he said. We must continue to develop a wider perspective, to think rationally and work to avert future disasters in a nonviolent way. These issues concern the whole of humanity, not just one country. We should explore the use of nonviolence as a long-term measure to control terrorism of every kind.

[01:07]

But we need a well-thought-out, coordinated, long-term strategy. The proper way of resolving differences is through dialogue, compromise, and negotiations, through human understanding and humility. We need to appreciate... That genuine peace comes about through mutual understanding, respect, and trust. As I have already said, human problems should be solved in a humanitarian way, and nonviolence is a humane approach. In this context, to punish an entire country for the misdeeds of an enemy who cannot be found may prove to be futile. Dealing with such situations as we face now requires a broader perspective. On the one hand, we cannot simply identify a few individuals and put the entire blame on them.

[02:12]

But neither can we target an entire country. For inevitably, the innocent will suffer, just as they did in the USA on 11th September. Basically, he... turned out to be right, in my opinion. Also, just interesting, I think many people can remember, I'm assuming that many people can remember where they were when they first learned about 9-11 as it was happening, because it was such an incomprehensible phenomena. We just had never seen anything like that, and we didn't have any reference for that. So, however we relate to that, I just wanted to mention, bring up 9-11. We're all involved in it some way. Being in the Bay Area, we're a little, you know, compared to some of the other countries, we have it fairly easy in terms of things that we take for granted.

[03:18]

So what I wanted to talk about this morning was... is three different kinds of mind, which are all interrelated, and a key to Zen practice. Open mind, beginner's mind, and ordinary mind. They're all just different aspects of really the same kind of awareness, in my opinion. So, open mind... is just a normal term that's not used particularly in Buddhism. It's just an everyday term that Americans use all the time, hopefully. I'm assuming, I would assume, that most people feel they have an open mind, particularly in the Zen community. But I mean, other than that...

[04:23]

I think most people like to think of themselves as being open-minded. But my experiences with myself and with others is that in a gross way we are, but in a subtle way we're not. We have our opinions and when we hear some opinion that runs contrary to ours or bothers us, it's very difficult to be open-minded. in a way, our opinions and our attitudes kind of protect us. It gives us a sense of who we are and some security. We know where we stand. Being open to different points of view, particularly when they're counter to what we really believe, is pretty difficult. Genuinely speaking, to really be genuine with that is pretty difficult.

[05:28]

And utmost, I think, is that it involves respect. Whether you agree with somebody or not, the respect for that person... Something came up on my screen. Hold on just a minute. Whether you agree with that person or not, is respect for the person who has a different opinion than we do. And an open mind, you know, mostly we talk about it in terms of relating to other people. But even in nature, open mind is possible, or closed mind is possible. We just came back from a vacation in Mendocino, and I love wide open spaces. in the mountains, but we couldn't go up there because it was so smoky. So we went on the coast up near Fort Bragg in Mendocino. And I don't particularly like the redwood forest.

[06:31]

I feel kind of enclosed with them. But that's what's happening up there along with the coast. So when we were on a redwood walk day, I appreciated the majesty of them. But at the same time, it wasn't my thing. So now I could see my own closed attitude toward it. So I kept trying to appreciate, just forget my attitude about it and just see it for what it was, not compare it with something that I like better. It kind of worked. And you can see this with... Even our response to COVID for BZC, you know, there's a committee working on how to reopen BZC. It's difficult because there's so much data coming in and it changes.

[07:34]

And people have different opinions about it. Some pretty emotional. So how do you stay open to everybody's opinion and yet try to find the best way? that works for the most people. It's a big responsibility. So I appreciate the leadership dealing with that. And my experience is I definitely have an open mind about it. And it's difficult. It's very difficult to make everybody happy because people think differently. But being open to different opinions is really key. And in Zazen, open mind is just... When we sit, everybody experiences going off on various stories, the past, the future, problems we've got, little fantasies we've got. We've all experienced that and continue to experience it. But just having an open mind, we don't need to go into our traumas.

[08:43]

We can just be there, just right there. Just being there, it may not be as exciting or stimulating as a particular drama. I think that's the problem. But being open to just being there, sitting still, when we're used to a level of stimulation. So we don't have that unless we start thinking and thinking and thinking. So I think that's part of open mind is just letting that go. and just being open to just the experience of just sitting still. Blake gave a talk a couple of weeks ago, a very nice talk actually, and talked about salsa dancing and how he enjoys salsa dancing.

[09:45]

And then after he had talked for a while, Deb asked him a question. Well, how about following? Following, I'm not a dancer, but I imagine that that means one person is leading, one person is following. So I looked it up on YouTube, Salsa Dancing, and I watched this couple dancing together and amazingly coordinated and in sync with each other. It was extraordinary. And I realized that they were equal, even though one's leading and one's following. They both are equal in terms of their sensitivity to what the other is doing. And so Blake's answer to how do you feel about following was, well, it's like listening. And I think that was a really good answer. Because, you know, in terms of open mind, to really listen to people in just the most ordinary way.

[10:53]

We use the term deep listening sometimes. And I, you know, and I kind of, I have some resistance to the term deep listening. Because why can't we do that all the time? Why do we have to make it something special? We should always be doing deep listening. which is just open-minded listening. But we always have our agendas, and that's part of how we're listening. So, moving on to a beginner's mind. You know, as we all know, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is Suzuki Roshi's book, which is probably been in print for over 50 years, which is extraordinary for a Buddhist book. And it's wonderful that they picked that to be the title.

[11:59]

Because a beginner is not an expert. So Buddhism can be overwhelming in terms of its breadth and scope. and profundity and reality. But there's tremendous amounts of material on Buddhism. So his book is beginner, starts with a beginner. So everybody can relate to that, hopefully. As we get older, maybe it's hard to relate to being a beginner. Although as we age, we go through different phases and we're a beginner at that phase. You know, as our bodies... start giving out. I can say that from experience. And the thing about beginner's mind is that we all have experiences being beginners. But as most, maybe, I'm just going to be a little presumptuous, particularly when we're younger, when we're kids, it's all beginner's mind.

[13:06]

We haven't been here before. And, you know, it's all new. I can remember learning how to do handwriting when I think it was in first grade. And what it felt like to try to make the letters that were like to what the teacher did on the board. And it was really hard. I'm not good at that. It was hard for me to do that. And I just felt lost, like I didn't know how to go about doing it. Well, eventually I settled on, well, if I just make all the letters hit the line on the lined paper, then that'll be some kind of evenness to it. So that was my progress as a beginner. But I remember the feeling of really not knowing how to do this and seeing a model of it done really well. So I think we've all had that kind of experience and continue to have that, hopefully continue to have that experience

[14:08]

if we're really open to all the different kinds of experiences that we can have. When I first started doing meditation was when Chogyam Trungpa came to the Bay Area in the early 70s. And I went to a workshop that he did, actually right down the street at Washington School. And I really liked him a lot. I really thought he was a really amazingly good teacher. So the first meditation I experienced had was that they were setting up Dharma Datus at that time. On Shotwell Street in San Francisco, they had a warehouse. And the very first meditation group meditation that I did other than his workshop, which was kind of experimental, was we had a schedule.

[15:09]

Nobody had any experience. Everybody was sitting in a circle facing each other. There was a timekeeper with a schedule. And that was it. Nobody had done this before. And there was no experts there. There wasn't even a senior person from Trungpa's entourage there. We just had a piece of paper with a schedule on it. And it was great. We made it work. Just by not knowing anything, by being beginners, there was a vitality in that and a freshness to that, which just worked for something as simple as sitting still, even, as a group. Also, the other thing about beginner's mind that makes me really trust in Zen practice is that it's not about accumulating something. It's not about how much you accumulate.

[16:11]

It's about where you're at right now. And I think we're constantly, I'm very subtle, very domestic, acceptable. Venues, always wanting to accumulate something, gather something that will make us feel good or, you know, give us some kind of satisfaction. But just not accumulating, in a way, it's more like letting go than it is accumulating. As a beginner, just be there. And that's why I trust Zen practice so much and the teachers, the good teachers that teach it. It's not about how expert you can be. It's about basically how we can just be present genuinely.

[17:12]

I would just like to read... Oh, no, that's a little bit later. So now I'd like to move into the main... The gist of what I wanted to say, which is ordinary mind is the way. So ordinary mind. There's some question about whether beginner's mind... That phrase goes back to the Chinese and Tang Dynasty times... I was talking to Hozan about it this morning. It's a little unclear, but it likely does. But ordinary mind definitely goes back to Tang Dynasty and the case in the Muman Khan as an example. Ordinary mind is the Tao, or ordinary mind is the way. This is my favorite case out of all the ones that I've looked at. and it's pretty well known to lots of people, a very popular case, but don't take it for granted because there's a lesson in it.

[18:39]

It's quite good. I'll use, and I don't want to assume that everybody's familiar with it, so I'm going to use a Yamada Cohen's translation of how he translates, or how in Japanese, and then they translated it into English. So here's Yamada Cohen's description of the case. Basically, it goes back to the Tang Dynasty, but shows up in the Mumonkan, which came out in more or less the 1200s, really at the same time Book of Serenity did, and also when Dogen was active. Joshu earnestly asked Nansen, what is the way? Nansen answered, the ordinary mind is the way. Joshu asked, should I direct myself toward it or not?

[19:46]

Nansen said, if you try to turn toward it, you go against it. Joshua asked, if I do not try to turn toward it, how can I know that it is the way? Nonsense answered. The way does not belong to knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion. Not knowing is a blank consciousness. When you have really reached the true way beyond our doubt, You will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. How can it be talked about on a level of right and wrong? At these words, Joshu was suddenly enlightened. And Sojin didn't like the phrase blank consciousness for not knowing.

[20:53]

Other options are, you could say, not knowing is ignorance or not knowing is confusion. But blank consciousness bothered him. I'm not quite sure why, but it did. So I've been going through these cases for probably five years, Book of Serenity mostly, with several people right now, Andrea and Ellen. And you take one line at a time and try to unwind that line. And knowing that it's intellectual, it's not koan practice in a Rinzai fashion where the teacher is challenging you to get it on the spot.

[21:59]

It's an intellectual pursuit, but I find that actually it's helpful. I can't tell you why exactly. There's an accumulation of some kind of familiarity with the point that they're trying to make over and over and over and over again, which is that we have a mental image of or we rely on our ideas for our consciousness rather than just being present without knowing, without any conditions, just being there. And the cases are the call-ons are really all about this in various formats. Somebody will ask a profound question about Buddhism and the teacher slaps them. You know, you think that's kind of rough stuff. But it's rough because the teacher is trying to wake the person up And let go of your ideas about Buddhism and Zen being profound this way or profound that way.

[23:02]

Just be here now. For real. But there's hundreds of versions of this in the three major koan collections. And each one has a little bit different twist to it. So... You know, how do I direct myself towards it? How should I direct myself towards it? And if I don't know, if it goes away from me when I do that, how should I know it? So why should it go away from you when you direct yourself to it? And the reason is, and this is all just my reasoning, I suppose you could say. That as soon as you're moving towards something, you have an idea about what that something is. That's how you move towards it. You're trying to bring it into focus.

[24:05]

And if you have a preset idea about it, all of our conditioning and past frameworks and habits are all at work because this is our reference points. when we're approaching something, just to do it with an open mind. And if we have an idea about it, we may have a good, we may embellish our idea, but it's still going to be an idea. Even if it's pretty stimulating, it'll still be an idea. So how do we go beyond ideas and dogma? to just actually being who we actually are without qualification. So, you know, Joshu is playing the straight man here.

[25:14]

Joshu is about 20 years old and Nansen is in his 50s. But Joshu is already sort of a brilliant young student. So he's being the straight man. And if you try to turn... If I don't try to turn away towards it, how can I know that it's the way? And then Nansen answered, the way does not belong to knowing or not knowing. So just think how much... of our identity or our experience is based on the feeling that we know something. And we become proud of what we know, especially if we're more expert in a particular discipline or functioning. We become proud of our knowing. We know a lot. We know more than other people do. And it could be very, very subtle, especially within Zen practice, it could be very subtle.

[26:18]

But... There's plenty to know in Zen practice, or to think we know, and have some pride in that. Yeah, I've been around a long time, you know, I sort of understand this. So it could be that we understand something, but what non-Zen is getting at is not knowing something. It's more being something. And then he answered, the way does not belong to knowing or not knowing. So we set up a duality there between you know or you don't know. So he's trying to go beyond that duality. This is, you know, classic non-dualism in a Zen koan. You know, how do you go beyond, or I wouldn't even say beyond. I don't like the word beyond. It just bothers me.

[27:22]

So knowing and not knowing, How do you not depend on knowing something or not knowing as your reference points? What if it's just not a matter of how much you know or you don't know? Who are you then? Knowing is a delusion. And I think the reason he says that is because, you know, we think that this is reality. But it's our idea of reality. It's not necessarily reality. It's our idea of reality. And not knowing is confusion or ignorance. Yeah, we can... Not knowing... Not knowing is still linked into knowing. We're still...

[28:23]

in the framework of knowing something. So what about when we're not in the framework of knowing something? How does that feel? When you've really reached the true way beyond all doubt, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. How can it be talked about on a level of right and wrong? So it's interesting about doubt. I don't, you know, I don't notice that I have a lot of doubt. I have some skepticism sometimes, but I don't have a lot of doubt, although, but then if I look at it more carefully, I realize I do. I doubt my own being. So I think it's, I forget who says it, that

[29:31]

One of the great teachers said something like, to have trust in the teacher, trust in the teaching, and trust in yourself, which is, I don't know if trust is the opposite of doubt. It's not necessarily, but rather than doubt, have confidence. I think confidence is a better word. Have confidence in the teacher, which I really, genuinely did with the teachers that I've mostly liked and so I stayed with Sojin for as long as I have because I trusted him and I had confidence in his his I don't know what to say I had confidence in his being so so Confidence in... He didn't take the easy way out.

[30:37]

He wasn't a formulistic teacher. In some ways, yeah, well, in some ways he was. He had the same kind of shtick over and over again sometimes. But he had a quality of being real and being human also. So having confidence in your teacher, having confidence in the teaching, and then confidence in yourself is all related to doubt. And if we doubt one of those three, we have a problem. So, and then my full yawn is kind of a minor league

[31:39]

a minor league in terms of being known, Tang Dynasty teacher, Zen teacher, who I really like a lot. And he said, you know, when I finally cleared up my doubt, then everything was clear. I didn't really understand what he meant. I still don't really understand what he meant. But I have some inkling to it. Because I have no doubt in the teacher or no doubt in the... and the teaching, but I do doubt myself. So how does doubt work in terms of really being able to be present right now, right here? And we're talking about the subtle kinds too, not the gross doubt, but the subtle doubt. At these words, Joshu was suddenly enlightened.

[32:41]

Or at least he had a realization experience. Let's just put it that way. And then there's a verse that goes with this that... Oh, just one thing I wanted to add that I forgot to say. In terms of knowing and not knowing, there's a story about Suzuki Roshi that working on is helping with other people edit a book... about Sojin Roshi's lectures and his memoir, it came on this little story, which is that at Tazahara one day, Suzuki Roshi loved to move huge rocks down at Tazahara's dream. And he'd move them into place in the gardens and even the memorial site where he was eventually buried. was a rock, a big rock that he had moved up there with the help of many other people.

[33:43]

It's taking all day to go a certain number of feet. And he's down there in this dream bed one day with several of his helpers working on this, moving this enormous rock. And somebody is standing up on the bank saying, what are you doing down there? And Suzuki Roshi called back, I don't know. I can just imagine that. It is a perfect example of not knowing. I don't know. But he was very meticulous about it at the same time. So at the end of Ordinary Mind is the Way, there's a verse in which Muman, And Mumman writes a verse for every case in the Mumman Khan. And his verse is, the spring flowers, the moon in autumn, the cool breezes of summer, the winter's snow.

[34:55]

If idle concerns do not cloud the mind, this is our happiest season. I'm just curious. How many people are familiar with that verse, having read this case? Could you just put your hand up? I'm just curious. About half. Okay, thanks. I'll read it one more time. The spring flowers, the moon in autumn, the cool breezes of summer, the winter's snow. If idle concerns do not cloud the mind, This is our happiest season. So now I'm going to sort of veer off into territory, which is taking a chance, sticking my neck out, because I haven't heard anybody else discuss it or have a take on it like I have. So I'll just tell you my take on this. And I don't know why.

[35:56]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't know why it hasn't come up in other commentaries. It strikes me that it's interesting that after the ordinary mind is the way case, which is very all about non-duality and not knowing and not knowing and not not knowing, it's all about open mind and non-duality. There's one problem about, well, that's easy to say, but what is it that prevents us from Being able to see that, to be able to, I won't say understand, embody non-duality or be aware of non-duality may be a better way to say it, along with duality. And the reason is just was obvious in all of our experiences.

[36:57]

Our minds are constantly working, churning out ideas, thoughts, plans, judgments. I like this, I don't like that, I'm going to move over towards this kind of food, I don't like that kind of food, I wish I had more of that kind of food, that kind of stuff. And we all do it. So the case is very non-dualistic, but Mumon is going at just this one line, if idle concerns do not cloud the mind. So he's conditioning this whole case on that, which is... pretty bold, and I think it's absolutely appropriate to mention it's kind of, it's actually kind of prosaic if you think about it, because the case is so vast, you know, it's vast like outer space, even though we're saying it's ordinary. But the verse is saying, yes, this all, you know, this is your best moment right now.

[38:03]

as long as idle concerns don't cloud our mind. And this is just basic Buddhist meditation, idle concerns clouding our mind. So the combination of those two emphases is really interesting to me. And I don't see anybody else commenting on it, so I don't know why. Maybe they don't want to get down in the weeds and pick it out, be picky like I'm being. I had a Shosan session with Sojin in the last year or so, actually. I forget when it was exactly.

[39:09]

And this relates to ordinary mind. And my question to him was, what is ordinary mind? And he said, good question. I felt, that's good. And then he said, holy. Oh, shit. I don't understand. Holy, you know, like Christianity kind of holy. Come on. You know, holy. And I said, I don't understand. He said, I know. That was it. It was totally unsatisfying Shosan exchange. But then working on helping to edit his book, I came upon a... Actually, he has a whole lecture which will show up in the book about Ordinary Mind is the Way.

[40:09]

He goes off on a lot of tangents within it, but it's interesting. But still, it will be in the book, hopefully. And as part of the material that was associated with that from the original transcript, He said that when he was in elementary school, or anyway, in school sometime, the teacher told him that the word holy comes from the word whole, and it means wholeness. So it doesn't necessarily have a religious or deity kind of meaning to it. It could just mean wholeness, you know, sort of like holistic. holistic you see holistic health you know use a little bit of everything take from every direction so that's kind of how he was saying the word holy but I didn't know that and kind of irritated me because you know holy has this kind of meaning that we associate with you know the holy pope you know the kind of

[41:26]

a deity involved somehow. And then in his talk, he says something like, holy and ordinary go together. And what we call, if everything is ordinary, everything we do, at the same time, it's holy. So that's kind of like this is your best season each thing is your best season if you can see it like that so that's what he meant when he used the word holy so ordinary and holy go together and Suzuki Roshi also said you know we are we are ordinary people and we are also Buddhas.

[42:32]

So really, Suzuki Roshi was saying the same kind of thing, only with different words. I think of it like some kind of equality. That if you believe in God... there's a right and a wrong in the universe. And God determines what's right and what's wrong, and there's scriptures that will tell you how God feels, apparently. If you don't believe in God, where's the authority? Where's the universal authority about what's right and what's wrong that's absolutely trustworthy within different spheres, a human sphere, We have our human sphere, which is right and wrong. In order to get along, murdering somebody is wrong. Helping somebody is right, generally speaking.

[43:34]

So in a human sphere, but in a universal sphere, you know, up on Neptune, that may not be their issue. So... In a universal sphere, there's absolute equality. Who's to say that one thing is more important than the other? So I think that's what they're getting at in that verse. And that's how I would describe it, is the equality of each thing being alive for what it is. rather than ranking it as being more or less useful, more or less this or more or less that. So to close, I just wanted to read Suzuki Roshi's... Hopefully I can find it here.

[44:45]

Suzuki Roshi did his own translation of the case... which is a kind of idiosyncratic translation. It's not literal. It's his own... It's his way of teaching us at the same time as translating the case. And I just think it's terrific. So I just wanted to read it to you. This is Suzuki Roshi's take on the translation of Ordinary Mind is the Way, or how he would translate it. One day... Nansen allowed Joshu to meet him in his room. Joshu asked Nansen, what is the true way? Ordinary mind is the true way, said Nansen. Is it something to be attained or not to be attained, asked Joshu. To try to attain it is to avert from it, said Nansen.

[45:46]

When you do not try to attain it, How do you know the true way? asked Joshu. To this question, Nansen's answer was very polite. The true way is not a matter to be known or not to be known. To know is to have a limited idea of it. And not to know is just psychological unawareness. If you want to achieve the absolute where there is no doubt, you should be clear enough. and vast enough to be like empty space. Hereby, Joshu acquired full understanding of the true way of Zen. That's my favorite version of this case. I can't improve on that ever. So we have some time for questions or comments or disagreements also. So please speak up if you want to. Blake, will you call on people?

[46:49]

Yes, I will, Ron. Christian, please unmute yourself and ask the question. Thank you, Ron. Hi, Ron. I trust in Sojin. So where Sojin and I disagreed, opened up dialogue with loving intentions. So that's his memory that's a blessing for me. Now, I trust you, Ron. So I What do you say on how to keep our collective minds open and resuming in-person practices in our zendo? And thank you for your holy tesho. Thank you. Could you focus on a little bit more? Like there's a problem there where people have different feelings about how we should reopen. The committee that's responsible for making the decisions is trying to weigh all those possibilities.

[47:55]

So I'm not quite sure what your question is. I mean, what's the best way to do that? What do you think is the best way? Oh, I think that the way they're doing it is pretty good. I've been in on the discussions, and they said, well, you know, we read this, you know, especially with the Delta variant coming up. Things are changing. We thought it was going to be this, but now it's that. And Fauci said this last week, and so-and-so said that. But we also know that the people in the Sango are really hurting for not being back in person. So I think that my feeling is they're erring on the side of caution, just to be protective of people. That's more important than the fact that has a priority over satisfying people who want to get back into action.

[48:57]

And I think it's, I sort of, I relate to that attitude of wanting to protect people physically actually. But if I was, you know, it's an enormous position of responsibility. That's what I think of. And really kind of basically the bottom line is Hoson and how he feels about it. Think about the responsibility there. And when I think about the responsibility that that person or those few people have to call it, I just feel respectful of their process, having known that they really are thinking about this way and that way, and they're really not closing anything off. Thank you. What's your friend's name, by the way? Mello. What is it? Mello.

[49:59]

Mello? Hi, Mello. Thank you, Christian. Ross Blum, please unmute yourself and ask a question. Hey, Ron. Hi, Ross. You spoke of gross doubt and we should practice subtle doubt. Could you say a little about the difference as you see those two doubts? Oh, no, I didn't say practice it. I said be aware of it. I could have said practice it, but what I meant was be aware of it. It's... There are gross doubts and subtle doubts. It seems to be much harder to be aware or self-aware of the subtle doubts because we're so used to it, we don't even notice it, maybe. We just take it for granted that's who we are. Could you give an example of a subtle doubt that you have?

[51:04]

It's too convoluted psychologically. I don't know. I can't unconvolute it. It's a lack of some confidence, I think, based on my whole life growing up in a certain kind of way. And being in touch with that kind of doubt is important. It's subtle. And I think that The subtleties of our habits, our habits that are really subtle, psychological habits that are subtle, if we can tune into them, that's good. I don't know what you should do with them, but just being aware of it. I think when you're aware of something, you begin to experience it more. I agree. That's a good start.

[52:08]

And a good finish. Thank you very much. Thanks, Ross. Ellen Webb, please unmute yourself and ask a question or make a comment. My question was actually somewhat similar to Ross's, so I won't repeat that. But I wondered if you could read the last line of Suzuki Roshi's translation or whatever interpretation of the koan, which includes the word doubt, I think. Okay, let's see. Oh, yeah. If you want to achieve the absolute, if you want to achieve the absolute, where there is no doubt, you should be clear enough and vast enough to be like empty space. So I think that that's how I read that is the way I read Foyan's doubt, that even though they've had... realization experiences, there's some question about... Are they really on the... Are they... Sorry.

[53:30]

Okay. There's some question about do they really have it right or... I don't know their experience, so I'm just fumbling around. I can't really tell you how they feel. I don't know. But the kind of doubt that he's talking about, I think, is there's no question. You're just aligned with the reality as is. It's not a matter of maybe I am, maybe I'm not. It's just there's an alignment there happening. I don't know what that experience is like. So I don't want to speculate on it. But that's how I try to understand what they're saying. Because, you know, Kohen Yamada talks a lot about, no, excuse me, Yamada Kohen, talks a lot about people having a Kensho experience and then being caught on their Kensho experience.

[54:37]

and clinging to it. So I think it's something like that where they have some realization, but there's still some uncertainty. There's still some question. And when that goes away, there's a difference. That's what I think he's talking about. But... I don't personally have that kind of experience, so I don't know. Maybe one more? Yes. Sandeep L., please unmute yourself and ask a question and make a comment. I love how you interpreted trust in yourself, the teaching, and the teacher as confidence. What do you think the role of faith has along this path?

[55:44]

And is there a equivalent between confidence and faith? That's a hard question. It's too hard for me to answer that. But My feeling about faith is... I would call it trust, actually. That you trust something, you have faith in something... But for me, there's an important distinction that it's trust that... It's trust that's not dependent upon some kind of verification, and it's also not dependent upon a belief system.

[57:07]

I don't know how to articulate it. But for me, all I can talk about is my experience with faith. And I have great faith in Zen practice. It doesn't mean that it's perfect or that there aren't problems with it. But all in all, I think it's a really good road to be on. And I just have faith in that. And... Various teachers, the best teachers that I've seen, I have faith in them, even if they have glitches and problems. So it doesn't depend on them being perfect. It doesn't depend on God existing or not existing. It's more of a confidence in something that doesn't have to be proven. You don't have to prove it anymore. It includes. It's got enough give in it.

[58:09]

The faith has got enough give in it that it doesn't have to be exactly perfect. That's the best I can do. It's tricky. Faith is tricky because faith means different things to different people. How about yourself? I think what came up for me while you were speaking was... Faith has a component of fearlessness and surrender. And I think if you're embodying that, then you're definitely embodying confidence as well. So, yeah, I mean, I'll sit with it. It's got me, my wheels turning. Good. That's the most we can ask for. All right, thank you. Okay. Thanks, everybody. I realize I'm sort of a little bit loose when I stumble through this, but that's just the way it is.

[59:15]

Sorry. But I'm happy to talk to everybody. Thank you.

[59:19]

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