Good morning, Dharma brothers and sisters, bodhisattvas. Well, I've already had an altar malfunction, so hopefully that means it'll be smooth sailing from now on. My talk is entitled, A Yogacara Deconstruction of White Supremacy, or Understanding Yogacara Through the Example of White so-called supremacy. And my wish is that we would get a little closer to ending racism and also closer to understanding and being able to benefit from this rather difficult teaching of Buddhist psychology. So I want to start with a quote from the somatic therapist Resmaa Menachem from his book, My Grandmother's Hands. And by the way, I've asked, I asked Blake to post all My reference is in the chat, so you can have those.

[01:02]

Here's the quote. You have the power to stop intergenerational and historical trauma in its tracks and to keep it from spreading from your body into others. Above all, you have the power to heal, but first you have to choose to heal. So Yogachara is a system of Mahayana Buddhist psychology, or you could say, Buddhist healing. And we, in our Suzuki Roshi Sanghas, have been studying it on and off for quite a long time now. Rev. Anderson at Green Gulch was teaching it for years, it seemed like, and he wrote a book about it. And Sojin has done a few classes. And there was a Dharma group studying it. And I think the priest group was studying it for a while. More recently, Alan and I watched these videos, which are, if you want to do a super deep dive into Yogachara, this would not be the easy thing to start with.

[02:13]

They're called Emptiness and the Mind Perceiving It, and they're on YouTube, and I listed that in the references also. Anyway, we worked our way through most of those. And then Alan taught a class earlier in the summer. And Alan and I have been slowly working our way through the Lankavatara Sutra, which is a Yogacara text. So for me, what's always been missing in my study of Yogacara is a really good, straightforward and meaningful example to work with. Simple, but not too simple. Mary Beth, you put your hand to your ear. Does that mean someone can't, am I being heard okay? I mean, I'm assuming I would be, someone would have said something else. Okay, thank you. And of course, the difficult example that all of Yogachara is pointing to is the self. Our mistaken projection of an inherent fixed self or the self other divide.

[03:15]

So to me, this is sort of like learning to ride a bicycle without the training wheels or without anyone helping you. And then I was just thinking while I was sitting. There's another metaphor like building an airplane while you're flying it, I think, or something like that, and even more extreme. Anyway, it's like that. It's not difficult. I mean, I think it's really difficult to understand the teaching of no fixed self. It's not hard to have an experience of no fixed self, but I find it just very hard to wrap my mind around in any useful way. So I'm going to talk about three aspects of Yogacara teaching and use these lenses to look at our understanding and experience of race and society. The three aspects are mind only, the eight consciousnesses and the three natures. And so we may not have much, if any time for discussion, cause it's kind of a lot, but I'm happy to engage with anyone one-on-one through email or by phone.

[04:25]

And okay, no apologies. So the mind only teaching is one that we really need to get right side up and not upside down. Mind only points out that all we know of the world is filtered through mind. All our experiences of the world have come through our cognitive processes for us to know them. Everything coming through our five senses is only named and known to us through mind. And the mind only teaching is saying something more, that all our problems, our uniquely human problems are due to this truth. not only the truth about our cognitive process, but especially the way that that's not how things appear. Our perceptions seem to be unfiltered. So this teaching includes both that our experience is mind only and that our experience seems to not be that.

[05:34]

I look out of my eyes and listen with my ears, like right now, looking at you, and it seems to me like I'm accessing the world directly. I rarely experience that there's a cognitive process in between me and the world. So the example of white supremacy can help us understand what this means. Our so-called perceptions of what skin color means exist only in our minds. As we might've known for a long time, or only learned recently from scholars like Ibram Kendi, there's no particular meaning in the different shades of skin. There's nothing you know about another person based solely on their skin color. Ibram Kendi says, race is a mirage, but one that humanity has organized itself in very real ways. And in fact, Yogachara often uses the metaphor of a mirage. And I think that if you replace the word race in Kendi sense with fixed self or subject-object divide, it's really like a one-sentence summary of Yogacara.

[06:44]

So it'd be like subject-object divide is a mirage, but one that humanity has organized itself around in very real ways. So here's what the Buddha said about 2,500 years ago in the Veseta Sutra. one of our earliest scriptures. And he's talking about all the different kinds of beings. And first he lists what he calls the generic divisions of living beings, including grasses and trees, moths and butterflies, fish and birds, and so on. And when he gets to human beings, he says, with humans, no differences of birth make a distinctive mark in them. nor in the hairs, nor in the head, nor in the ears, nor in the eyes, nor in the mouth, nor in the nose, goes through all the parts of the body. And then, nor in their voice, excuse me, nor in their color or in their voice. In human bodies themselves, nothing distinctive can be found.

[07:45]

Distinction among human beings is purely verbal designation. That's the Buddha, and in the more recent Buddhist language of Yogacara, it's mind only. Verbal designation, mind only. Okay, so I want to pause and breathe and feel how I'm feeling, and I invite you to do the same for a few, half a minute or something. So it's really important to realize that this doesn't mean that white so-called supremacy is not manifesting in the world. People bring it into the world based on these false imputations and projections through thoughts, feelings, words, and actions. That's how we create our world. And that unfolding process is what makes it appear to be in the skin color.

[08:46]

But the world of white privilege is all based on false imputations. It's mind only. And these false imputations arose out of a purpose, a wish by white people to channel resources and safety towards themselves, to justify the theft of land and labor from people of color. So one question that may be coming up for you has come up for me. What does mind only not mean? For example, we know that many people have been harmed and traumatized by being told that something that they report is happening is only in your mind. This teaching is not to be used to deny someone's experience. And it doesn't mean that any one statement is as true or false as any other statement. The world is round, it's not flat. But Columbus knew the truth that the world was round, so he went around the world and killed a bunch of people. That's not the kind of truth we're interested in in Buddhism.

[09:49]

Actually, part of why Columbus did what he did was because some earlier pope had said that was okay. And that's getting closer to the kind of truth we're talking about here, the truth of what's okay, the truth of who and what matters. If I'm going down the street and I see one person causing harm to another, this teaching doesn't say that I think, oh, this is only happening in my mind and walk on. No, I hope I would think there appears to be harm happening. Is there anything I can do to prevent it? If not prevent it, to mitigate it, to help heal, to keep it from happening again. There's nowhere in Yogacara teachings that says that they supersede prior teachings about the precepts or about the importance of compassion. Actually, it's said that this should only be taught to people who are well grounded in precepts and in the Bodhisattva vow to save all beings. So where I've ended up coming down on this is just that each of us needs to study this process and find out for ourselves when it is true and beneficial to apply mind only.

[11:03]

So what is enlightenment in the context of mind only? In the Lankavatara Sutra it says, as you become fully versed in the samadhi of the illusory, You will use your higher powers, insights, and masteries to help and protect all beings. For just as the earth supports everything that lives, so too do Bodhisattvas aid beings everywhere. The Samadhi of the illusory. To me, that's where we fully settle into and completely meet this reality that our own experience is mind only. So another pause to breathe. Just checking if anything is new here. In the Lankavatara Sutra, it also says, if practitioners are able to see how projections flow from their own minds, they will have their foreheads anointed by Buddhas from countless lands.

[12:21]

To me, meaning Buddhas will come close to us, Buddhas will touch us. And here with our various beliefs about skin color, what we've been taught, what we've taken in, we have an opportunity to actually see this How our ideas of what skin color means flow from our own minds, not from anything external. So how do projections work and how do we deal with them? That is explored more deeply in the teachings of the eight consciousnesses. The teaching of the eight consciousnesses is based on an earlier Buddhist teaching of the 18 elements of experience, the 18 dhatus. It sounds like a lot, but it's just three groups of six. So I'm going to share my screen and someone can let me know if it's working. Working. Okay.

[13:23]

Where do I put you guys here now? I didn't think about that before. Hey. and kind of look at two things. I look at three things. So, um, let's see here. This is a little, um, so here, uh, so here we go. These are the six sense organ or six. Whoops. I'm sorry. I'm in the wrong one. Darn it all. Um, here are the six sense organs. Eye, ear, nose, tongue, touch. And in this regard, mind is considered a sense organ. And we have six sense fields or objects, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, bodily sensations, and dharmas. And this, you can't see what this is. This is like the wheel of feelings. So this is like a chart with all the possible words for all of the feelings we have.

[14:27]

And of course, dharmas are much more than feelings. It's all of our thoughts and stories and impulses and just anything that happens in our minds. And then we have six sense consciousnesses, seeing consciousness, hearing consciousness, smelling consciousness, tasting consciousness, touching consciousness, and mind consciousness. And I guess I was in a little bit of a, of a Armageddon mood or something when I picked this graphic, which you probably can't see, but it is a city with a mushroom cloud in the background. But of course, people's minds have also created innumerable beautiful things. So that's true too. So these are the 18. And the point of this actually is not that they, to see them as separate, but more like to see how we only have an experience when the three come together.

[15:30]

So there's only seeing when you have an eye, a sight, and sight consciousness. So it's really the merging that it's about. And to be aware of how it's really the merging. When we have a moment of experience, it's when these three come together. So last week during Sashin, I noticed during the first period, our furnace was going as it was cold and it's rather loud in the attic where we were sitting. And what I noticed is whenever my mind wandered, I didn't hear the furnace. And then when I brought myself back to my breath, the sound of the furnace popped in suddenly. And then my mind would wander and it would go away. And then when I brought my mind back, I'd hear the furnace again. So it was only when the hearing consciousness came in, the ear and the sounds were always there, but I needed to have the hearing consciousness to actually hear something.

[16:32]

And then of course, to get the name heater at all, I'm already involved in all of this over here. That's even though it's really fast, it's a beat later than the hearing itself, the pure hearing. So here's how we get from the 18 to the eight. And if I take an even more time on this and do and done it in, uh, um, PowerPoint. I could have made a cool animation, but I didn't. So, um, go down here and we take, take these 10 away. 18 minus 10 is eight. And then we have the eight, the eight sense consciousnesses. I mean the five, sorry, the five sense, the five physical sense consciousness. So you take away all the physical organs and fields and objects, that business.

[17:34]

and you are left with the mental fact, the mental parts. So the consciousness goes with the five senses. And then mind, which is in the yoga chara is called manas. And then this dharma has turned into the alaya storehouse, which is actually the eighth. So the order is a little confusing here. The sixth the mind consciousness the seventh manas and the eighth alaya Okay, let me look at my notes again, oh Right and so, you know the five sense consciousnesses are sort of like the realm of Zazen, right? I mean, of course Zazen encompasses everything here but our effort is to tune in to a you know, by tuning into our breath and the physical sensations of our breath and other sensations inside our body and letting sounds come in, listening to sounds, that's where our attention, we try to bring our attention more here to this pure sensory experience.

[18:52]

And you know, all of this, everything I'm saying is a simplification, The other thing is so, and also racism isn't happening here at all. Nothing racism over here, it's all over here in these three. And in Yogacara, so in Yogacara, these three are the important ones that are always referred to. what they talk about mind as the thing that splits between subject and object. It seems like we can't think about things until we have that split between subject and object. And then the Aliyah is sort of like, well, it's somewhat analogous to the Western idea of the unconscious mind. It's described as full of seeds of everything that's ever happened to us. in the same way that the eye organ connects with sights, the mind organ connects with things in the alaya storehouse, which is, you know, thoughts, feelings, ideas, and impulses and such, stories and all that.

[20:08]

So another point about the alaya, it's seen as a container, but it's also very porous, very susceptible to ideas and images, so-called seeds, that are shared in our society. So each of us has seeds planted by experiences from our families and our personal lives, and also we have seeds that are being planted and watered in our storehouse consciousness all the time by others, by our community and our society. So taking white skin privilege as an example, it starts with an event in the visual consciousness, when my eye consciousness detects a skin color, my mind organ digs down into the alaya and pulls out information corresponding to that, whatever is in there, planted in there, all the different various elements of meaning, imputations, projections,

[21:11]

which give rise to consciousness of beliefs, feelings, thoughts, words, and actions. So we impute the meaning of the experience onto, we impute the meaning onto the experience of color based on whatever we have been taught and however we have interpreted our experiences. So I'm gonna close the graphic unless there is a clamoring for keeping it open, because then I can see you. So I wanted to think of an example, a specific example, but one that was not sort of in the ruts of what we already struggle with around this issue. So what popped into my mind was an imaginary example of what if there was a imputation that people with white skin lacked empathy.

[22:16]

So that's why they were able to do all these things, enslave people and steal their land and so on. And more importantly, that that trait, that lack of empathy is somehow in the white skin. So what if that was the thing rolling around in all of our Elias doorhouse consciousnesses? Let's imagine that that's been an idea that has stuck. And I think once we start with that, once we take in and believe that projection, we could build a case for it based on evidence and all kinds of things that have happened for the last 400 years. And so to play out the process again, experience of the eye, seeing the pinkish beige skin, giving rise to a moment of seeing, a mind organ creates the separation between the thinker and the thought of, and digs down into the Elias storehouse, comes up with lack of empathy, projection onto the person and directs the responses accordingly. And we respond as individuals and then individuals in groups create group responses and pass laws and create a structure based on all on imputations.

[23:25]

And I as a white person would keep finding myself in that box and a whole range of thoughts and feelings might come up, doubt, anger, and so on. Now, there's a danger here of making this all sound too mental, too frontal cortex. Actually, the alaya very much includes the reptile brain, all of our survival instincts, and our limbic brain, our sense of emotional safety or unsafety. It controls very elemental, quick, basically instantaneous responses. It's as quick as a clutched purse or pulling out a gun. It's whether or not it feels safe to go into a room and sit with your back to a bunch of strangers. It seems immediate, but the point is, it's still based on a cognitive process. Pause to breathe, my notes say. So what is enlightenment?

[24:35]

in terms of the eight consciousnesses. Here it's called transformation at the base. And the base is the alaya consciousness, the eighth consciousness. Somehow through study, training and practice, we transform the contents of the alaya and our relationship to it. And I think a big part of this transformation is what I'm talking about here. Seeing that these objects of mind are in here, not out there. That the things we're seeing, hearing, experiencing are happening in here, not out there. And with that transformation, the alaya becomes, it is said, the womb of awakening, the womb of Buddha. It's the means by which we wake up. And this means we have everything we need right here to transform this whole situation and the systems of racism which are causing so much pain and harm.

[25:37]

And it has to happen at this really deep level. And it is actually happening all the time. The Aliyah is in a constant state of transformation and we just need to keep learning how to more effectively engage with that process. And I really feel like we must do this. It's imperative to save our species and our planet. We need to get underneath these things somehow. And that's why I think to have this very meaningful and concrete example to work with is so important. So to say more about what this transformation means, the yoga charns develop the teaching of the three natures. Getting deeper and deeper into it here. So I don't have a graphic for the three natures, apologies. The three natures are the imagined nature, the other dependent nature, and the realized or perfected nature.

[26:45]

And it's important to remember that all of the natures are not the nature of the world out there, but rather the nature of the world as processed through our cognitive apparatus. because that's the only world we know and the world where all of our problems originate. This world that's funneled through our cognitive process. We only know our subjective experience, especially in terms of knowing in the sense of names and categories and beliefs and that kind of knowing. So the imagined nature is all our imputations about what skin color means. They're erroneous, but it's still a nature. It's real in the sense that we really do imagine it and we take actions and create social structures based on the imputation.

[27:47]

Some people more than others. It's real in that sense and it really influences our choices. So even though it's imagined in terms of what it's based on. And then the other dependent or the interdependent is the way things actually are. All the different ways skin color appears among different people, everything that's involved in that, all our imputations and the results of those. how our experience is conditioned by cognitive apparatus and all the myriad causes and conditions that form the basis for our experience all the way back to the Big Bang. It's this huge interactivity that gives rise to our present moment experience. That's the other dependent. In a sense, this is the Buddha nature perspective, right? The enlightened perspective. It's hard to talk about because language always forces the subject-object split and makes things seem more fixed and solid than they really are.

[28:52]

The other dependent is everything we are trying to connect with in our practice and to realize. Now, the third nature is really interesting. It's translated as the thoroughly established, the thoroughly realized, or the consummate nature. So one way to think about this is the second nature is what is, what really is things dependently co-arising. And the first and third are about our perspective on what is. because you might think like the consummate nature, the enlightened way to see things is just to see the other dependent, right? That seems to be the way we've been taught and thought about it. In which case, why is there even a third one? Why aren't there just two sort of like the conventional truth and the ultimate truth that we often talk about? But there's more to the consummate nature than just seeing the other dependent or the interdependent.

[29:56]

And this is the interesting part to me. It's when we see that the first one, the imagined, does not reach the second one, the interdependent. This is when we see that the imagined nature is not in the interdependent. It doesn't touch it. So, for example, enlightenment is not to say, oh, I don't see skin color anymore or something. I mean, that's not really available to many of us at this time, but instead it's when we say, oh, I'm noticing a difference in skin color and my mind immediately gives rise to a bunch of imputations and projections. And look at that, I'm sticking them on to the situation and the person, even though they're not in there in the skin color itself, they seem to be in there. So Buddha's enlightenment really goes beyond seeing things as they are to seeing the tension between how things are and how they appear and to engage with that.

[31:01]

Both the mirage and how we organize ourselves around it. We can't just switch to not having any imputations about skin color or anything else. but we can and we have to, we must wake up to what we're up to with regard to our projections of skin color and where that process is actually taking place. One more pause to breathe. So my last remark, I couldn't decide which way to phrase this, so I'm gonna give it to you both ways. If we can't transform something as sort of obvious and in a sense scientific as our projections of skin color, if we can't see how we're doing that and transform that, how can we go on to do something with

[32:19]

the subject-object split and general othering and understanding how we really exist, not as a fixed inherent self. That's one way to say it. And the other way to say it would be, if we could, if we could do it with this very concrete, and it's in play right now, it's in the air, it's everywhere you look, If we can do it with this, maybe we can take the training wheels off and go the next step to do it with, for one thing, everything that we project onto another person, and also onto ourselves and our separation. Thank you very much. And I see that actually there is time for questions. So please. Please be thoughtful when you think of your question.

[33:23]

Good Sangha. If you could raise your blue hand and you'll be called on. And you can also type a question to me, maybe put a question mark before them. I see that Peter has his blue hand up on my daily bomber. Do I call on people? Click. You're, you're muted, but thank you. Running back and forth between the chat and the blue hand. Yes, please, please. Um, uh, Peter Overton, please, uh, step forward and, um, unmute yourself and ask a question and Lori, feel free to call on people and we'll just go back and forth. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much for this presentation. It's really, well, it raises a really simple and somewhat dumb question, but which of these minds, or consciousnesses, is the one that sees, I guess, which of these minds is involved in noticing that we are, this difference between

[34:47]

what we imagine is happening and what we can see also and observe is really happening. Yeah, that's a good question. I guess it would be... Which is taking a step towards untangling this process, in this case, you know, our problem with white supremacy. Yeah. Well, It all, I think it's all happening in the three. I mean, we can't, if we're gonna have a conversation, we're in the three, right? We can't get out of the three. So there might be, I don't know. I mean, I don't know doctrinally what, how to answer that question, but I think that it's some kind of, maybe a direct seeing of the three, like the merging of the three instead of their being split apart or something. I mean, we've all done it because we've all changed our minds, right?

[35:53]

In fact, they're changing all the time, even in millions of different ways. In fact, I was just reading an article in my Yes magazine that if there's 25% of the people towards a certain movement that will flip everybody. That's all we need, 25%. I would think we're getting close here. Thank you. Jake, I see yours, blue hand. Not seeing you. Jake? There. Okay. Okay. Good. Thank you, Lori. What a very deep, rich presentation you've made. I'm wondering if you could integrate what you've said about mind with cultural and systemic racism and how that

[37:01]

It's so powerful in leading racism and keeping it before us. Yeah, well, seeds in the alaya consciousness that are constantly being watered. I mean, that's, in this version, that's, you know, it's all people doing those things, people making choices. I mean, it's systemic, yes. But systems, you know, it's conditioned. It's a conditioned process of conditioned people making conditioned choices, you know? So it's, I mean, I'm not minimizing it. It's a big deal the way it's become systemic and people sort of are doing things that they wouldn't maybe do on their own, you know, just on their own consciences. Their consciences wouldn't necessarily lead them to do something, but they're able to do something because of these seeds that are saying it's okay.

[38:13]

So... I'm thinking if in dealing with racism, we have to look at fundamentally our system of laws and to Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, this is not, I mean, you know, this is not to say that's not important at all. In terms of personal racism, yeah. Well, the people who are going to change the laws are people whose minds are conditioned by seeds and watering, the watering of seeds that would make them want to do it differently. So there's no magic to changing the system, it's people changing their minds, changing their systems, you know? I mean, I think, yeah, the laws passed changes it, but that also, that's a watering of seeds, laws, water seeds, you know, everything is all watering seeds.

[39:15]

Right. Thank you. Thank you. Laurie, Ross Blum writes, you said that if we encounter an act of violence on the street that isn't quote, just in our mind, end quote, unlike racism, which is, how is witnessing the breaking of a precept not also in our mind? I guess, I mean, I guess that those words in that frame are in, if the words breaking precept, that's in our minds, that is in our frame. I think that it's like the mirage, you know, that we organize around ourselves in important ways. Let me think a minute. Again, you have to decide for yourself how this is gonna be liberating and transformative.

[40:22]

It's not just a matter of these concepts lining up in some perfect way, but whether they open the door of your mind. I've been joking with Alan about Santa Claus. Is Santa Claus real or not? Well, yes and no. There isn't a guy up in the North Pole making presents, but there's all kinds of Santa Claus in our world, millions of Santa Claus. So it's not unreal, and it's not real. Jeff Taylor, I invite you to unmute yourself and ask a question. Thanks for a really nice talk, Lorraine. Hi, Jeff. Nice to hear you. So there are a couple of things for me, right? In talking about what it is that we believe about the world, which may or may not have any intersection with what really is going on in the world.

[41:26]

It's just what I believe. And in stepping away from the seed metaphor for just a second and talking about how our experiences can tend to reinforce something that really isn't happening. And we could point at dozens and dozens of experiences. If we're going to talk about dismantling systemic racism, if we're going to talk about changing minds, I think that we need to take a look at that which is relational and that which is about the experience. So I see a rope in the dirt and I decide it's a snake and I react like it's a snake and it's not. It's just not. And you're walking with me and saying, no, Jeff, it's a rope. And you go over. and you shake the rope and because we're friends and we have a relationship and I'm having an experience, something changes. Don't really know what that is, but something will shift. I think one of the things that we witnessed in this most recent election is how minds are not changing.

[42:28]

And that because we have a segment of our population which is wholly ensconced in an echo chamber that tells them something that's not real and they believe it, The solution to that is something relational and something experiential. And I think that's where our task lies. We live in a very deeply racist country and it has become more racist as many of us are so divorced from reality, the experience of what is true no longer penetrates. They're not available to it. And so our koan, my koan is how do I work with somebody who thinks it's a snake even after I shook the rope? Who is that person? What's my relationship and how do I work with that? So that I get in the way of that feedback loop with something that's a little different based on something relational. Yeah, two things. So one thing is that there's so many different, I mean, this is a great time for us to be alive because we have these terrible problems and there's so many different angles that people are taking to try to get some leverage on them.

[43:40]

One thing that I really like this book, My Grandmother's Hands, because he really talks about the nuts and bolts about how minds change through processing of trauma and feelings. So that's one angle. That's a very personal angle. Passing the laws and such is another angle. When I think about the people you're talking about, I like to think about what I want for them, which is the exact same thing I want for everybody. And that's what I think about. I want the exact same thing for them that I want for everybody, which is food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, access to healthcare, a reasonable job with reasonable hours and reasonable pay, a chance for your children to thrive and learn basic things. I want that for everybody. And I want that for people who disagree with me too. I'm going to inflect that just a little bit. And I want to inflect it towards you're dealing with systems of racism and you touched on one side of it, which is passing laws to protect and to make sure that we enforce a standard of behavior that seems reasonable.

[44:54]

But the other side of that is how do you relate to those people inside of that system? And it's a much larger kind of question. It's a much larger sort of how do I relate to groups and how do groups relate to groups? How do we inflect that? That's true, and I think part of it is where the mind only comes in is a kind of feeling about people as being very fixed in what they are. And yes, people seem very fixed until they change, and then it flips, it can flip really fast. So if we're keeping up with this mind of fixing people in a certain way, that's just mind only. You know, so I don't, you know, even if I can't get at the way it really is, I do know that they're not that. They're not what I think they are. And my track record for fixing things is really not great. Well, we can do it.

[45:55]

We can do it. That's all I know. We can do it. Someone's going to, you know, we're going to get a bunch of good ideas and creativity and more and more stuff until the 25% or whatever. And then, I mean, it might not be that fast, but it could be. This is our work. This is our work. Ken Powelson, I invite you to unmute yourself and ask a question. Actually, it's more Katie. Hi, Katie. Hi. But Ken and I had a similar question, so maybe he'll chime in. But I was wondering, and I know from your activism and how you live your life that you've thought about this as well. but I was wondering if you could connect what you're saying to power and privilege, because, you know, once this, once racism is systemic, then there's, you know, it doesn't matter what some people believe. It doesn't matter for a long, it didn't matter for a long time what enslaved people thought, or it didn't matter as much.

[47:01]

And so, you know, just kind of thinking about It probably mattered to them, though. I mean, it probably mattered to them, don't you think? Yeah, absolutely. And as I was saying that, I was thinking about slave rebellions. I was thinking about resistance and, you know, all these kinds of things. And just your everyday experience, how they dealt with difficulty, you know, like that Sweet Honey and the Rock song, you know. How did they do that? How did they do that? Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah, I guess I wonder, you know, if we're thinking about dismantling racism, just it seems to me that there is that individual level and that's where the Yogacara teachings really resonate for me and a relational level but about people. But that there is this kind of other emergent level where which is based on the same thing, but, you know, has created power, has created coercion, has made it so it's, you know, changing the laws is not simply a matter of a certain number of people changing their minds, for example.

[48:15]

So I was just wondering if you could speak to that. I, yeah, I mean, we might, yeah, I think it's, Let me think a minute. It's kind of like a big con or a racket or something that, you know, it's still, I don't know how it can be anything other than people who can stop it, honestly. And individual people doing their individual acts and joining, not just individually, all alone, but joining together. I don't see why we're making these structures into something that's sort of disembodied from people. I mean, but I could be wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe those structures are more true because that's more of a codependent arising version than my version, which includes people who are doing stuff, which is not very interdependent. So I just, people, people,

[49:22]

want access to resources and they'll do stuff to get that, some more than others. And that's, we're never gonna, that's just, you know, we are working with, and that's part of what this is, working with human nature, how to bring out the best. That's what our practice is really about, really, is to how do we bring out our best selves and quiet those other parts that are so scared and want security and safety no matter what the cost. Yeah, it'd be great if I could influence a whole bunch of people, not even on this call, but hundreds and thousands through this talk or something. Yeah, that would be great. Whatever you can do, whatever you can think of to do and whatever you're already doing and whatever we're all already doing. when I was thinking about power, how power operates, it doesn't necessarily need to be anything other than mind only, but it is an amplification and a leveraging, not just of ideas, but also of fears.

[50:39]

It's fear, it's a lot. Yes. All of that combining And creating kind of repetitive, like the enforcement of a law creates coercion. It's a very precise application of fear and creating this persistent condition. So to change that system is not just changing people's minds, but is also supporting people so that they don't feel the same fear to give them the resources to feel that we're all together supporting each other and changing these systems. We really do need to be working all together to support ourselves as we make these changes, I guess is where that takes me. Yeah, yeah.

[51:41]

I mean, we have to feel, Some of us think that this way to get the most safety is if everyone has access to the things they need. And some people think that will never happen, therefore I better get my own so that I have it at least. I mean, that's kind of a simplistic way to think about the two different ways to think about it, but. Or they think that some people are not included in the everyone. Exactly, yeah. Which makes it easier to think about. You don't have to, it's not so complicated. You don't have to think about so many different people. Thank you. Thank you. Nice to see you guys. Heiko, I invite you to unmute yourself and ask a question. Thank you. I have been reading recently in Scientific American, a very interesting article about

[52:43]

using people having fear and using their ability to claim resources to empower themselves and to other groups. This was happening about 8,000 years ago when, according to this article, when farmers started staying in place and hunter-gatherers who were masters of tools were on their periphery. The record shows that the farmers ultimately dominated the flintknappers and the toolmakers and buried them in disrespectful ways. Other cultural things showing in the record that the scientists found enslaved them. I think Katie hit it. It's the fear that people are going to lose what they have or the power of having what they've got that makes them feel good, that they want to hang on to it.

[53:47]

So I think it's really important to recognize that it's a human thing to other, and that it's not necessarily a white thing at all. You know what I mean? I think we all understand that. But the world in which we live is full of things that say, just for example, farmers are better. You know, it's inherent everywhere we turn, there's that 25% or greater reminder that farmers are better, okay? Or so-called people in power are better and they look white in our culture. So I think it's really important to say to all of us, we have this trap to fall into, each of us. And whether it's monas, whether it's external symbols, of power and good things that we would consider good that influence us to follow in paths that have inherent racism built in. So we are all guilty.

[54:52]

I think that's the deeper part of the Buddhist. If you go deeper into the Yogacara, it's really about this self-other split period. Any kind of thinking of the other as other, you know. But again, It's, you know, we need some training wheels to get there. I don't find it that easy. I mean, I feel very fortunate that I have not been born in a situation where it makes sense to me to do really hurtful things to, you know, violently hurtful things to other people, because it's conditioned, you know, it's your condition. So I feel really lucky. And it freaks me out when I hear what people have done to other people. It just freaks me out. So you might agree that having a jet airplane to dominate another culture regardless of their race is the problem we're dealing with. Yeah. You're right. Just one example. Blake, should we just have Linda and then be done maybe?

[55:53]

Is that okay? That sounds great. Linda Hess, please step forward. Good morning, Lori and everybody. So hi, Lori, that was a gorgeous presentation. You know, did you like my graphic? The graphics were great. I will discuss later how you determined on those particular ones and how much creativity was there. But it it was hard to put that much content. It was. And I think you did a really good job. And then, of course, it it's much more difficult than anybody could ever present in 25 minutes. So the discussion is reflecting that. So here's my bit. Even though you said at the beginning that this doesn't mean there's nothing real, this Yogachara teaching, it just takes us there.

[56:55]

You know, it takes us to the, to the, edge of the unreality cliff, you know, nothing is real. Or nothing. But that's why this example to me is so good. Yeah, okay. That's my whole point, in fact. Well, I guess I just. It's real and it's not real. Yeah, and then, I just want to say where I. Please, please, sorry, I didn't mean to. Yeah, yeah. Because we're old friends. We are. I just want to say where I went with it, that the question, the challenge we have with this teaching is, as I thought about it this morning, not to figure it out. We can't. We cannot solve it with the mind. But for me, to real recognize that the Bodhisattva vow, whatever it means, is deeper than the question of real or unreal.

[58:03]

So we, it reminded me of Gandhi, who I don't always bring up as a good example, but he just said, there's all this, says this in the text and says that in the sacred books and says that in the tradition, fine. I have a touchstone and that is, is it in, is it harmonious with ahimsa or nonviolence? If it's not, I'm finished. So we have a touchstone and that is the Bodhisattva vow. And it's, instead of deciding whether our perception of the situation is real or unreal, I mean that, that's a valuable exercise. We just, it's like jumping off the hundred foot pole. We jump, We finally take a step based on a vow, which we cannot really understand. That's what I wanted to say. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, to bring it back that some kind of faith that what seems to be a big obstacle keeping you from doing that is just mind only.

[59:12]

Right? That's where the mind only is. It's what's impeding us or what's conflicting, constricting us or scaring us or, you know, I think. Anyway, I guess we have to bring this to a close. Thank you everybody for spending this morning with me and listening to me and hope I didn't offend too many people.

[59:40]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ