Embracing Justice Through Zen Vows

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RA-04606
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This talk focuses on the vital role of acknowledgment and vows in Zen practice, particularly in addressing systemic issues such as racism and privilege within the Sangha. The discussion examines the interconnectedness of acknowledgment and justice, explaining that realizations of suffering and contributions within the community serve to ground practice and inform compassionate action. The speaker addresses the need for wholehearted generosity, emphasizing engagement in genuine conversations as a means to leverage personal insight in pursuit of justice.

Referenced Works:

  • The Avatamsaka Sutra: This Sutra includes a vow, examining the spiritual aspiration that all beings find peace within their existential sanctuary, relevant to the speaker's discussion on finding collective harmony and security within the community.

AI Suggested Title: "Embracing Justice Through Zen Vows"

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Transcript: 

The simple color of true practice of the true mind of faith, true body of faith. So shall we begin with some acknowledgements?

[01:06]

We'd like to acknowledge you. Would you tell us your name? Dhanan. Dhanan. Tom, Russell, Vanessa, Brent, Chris, Lucy, Oma, Christian, Gail. Timothy. Catherine. Oscar. Gloria. Angela. Linda. Andrea. Denise. Susan. Jean. Marie. Amanda. Please.

[02:18]

Charlie. Charlie. It's okay with me if anybody wants to take their mask off now. And it's also okay to keep it on if you want to. So part of what I want to talk about today is acknowledgements.

[03:22]

and vows and how to realize the vows that we make. How to realize the vows, realize something that's really important to us. So we just acknowledged this community and we acknowledge this living being. We acknowledge the life of each person here. We acknowledge the jewel of the Sangha. Someone asked me about... Actually, no one asked me, but I'm going to ask.

[04:35]

Am I speaking loud enough? Okay, so raise your hand if I'm not speaking. If I start to dip, please raise your hand. So someone asked me about how do I come to what when I talk in the assembly, and I say, well, many causes and conditions come together to make it come up. So, this topic of acknowledgement came up because I was talking to, a while ago, Eileen Oba. And... she was telling me that she's ready for me to acknowledge her departure. Because I didn't understand that she wanted me to publicly acknowledge.

[05:45]

Individuals have asked me, where's Eileen? And I explained, I told them something about my understanding of her departure. But now she's asked me to say something about community. So that's one of the factors which leads me to the vital role of acknowledgement. Acknowledgement of all the suffering in this world. It's very important to acknowledge the suffering of the world. And now we have so much strange and new forms of suffering that we never saw before. And so we want to acknowledge them because our practice is in response to this suffering. So Eileen was last here about a year ago during the last one-day sitting we had.

[07:02]

She, as usual, organized it. And she had been organizing the one-day sittings for about 20 years. And not only organizing the one-day sittings, but doing innumerable beneficial things for Almost everything that happened here, she was involved with and caring for. Her contribution has been so lovely for so long. I wish to acknowledge that she told me that the pandemic and the events set in motion around the murder of George, that those things really gave rise to some reconsideration of how she's living her life.

[08:12]

And she said that, and this is the hard part, that She didn't want, she didn't feel comfortable with this sangha. I think the discomfort comes around systemic racism and white privilege. and the consequences of that in terms of power. So this is a very painful thing to acknowledge, but I think she wants me to acknowledge it in public and I guess have it recorded.

[09:24]

I'm not sure, but this is what I'm doing today. Acknowledging her suffering, her great contribution and why she has departed. Her suffering is an example of the inexhaustible afflictions of this world, day after day. And practice is for the purpose of addressing all this suffering and bringing peace and harmony and justice to this world of affliction.

[10:26]

I am moved to say that the Buddha word is another word for justice. Realizing justice is another way to say realizing awakening. Justice is awakening realized. Based on acknowledgements like this, we may be moved to make great vows. Making great vows may move us to acknowledge our shortcomings in relationship to those vows. In our practice, we practice acknowledgement, which we also call confession and repentance.

[12:14]

We acknowledge beginningless greed, ill will, and confusion. For the sake of realizing justice, we acknowledge our ancient, unskillful actions. We don't do it just for the sake of acknowledgement. We acknowledge to ground our practice. And in the acknowledgement, in the acknowledgement that we have done things and because of our confusion and ill will and greed, we have done unjust things. We have treated others unjustly. We confess this to work to treat others

[13:25]

justly, to do justice unto others. We vowed to do that, and we acknowledged that we have a long, a beginningless background of not doing that. And you could say there's big and little examples of not doing justice to others. Not giving close, attentive listening to someone is an example of injustice. Respecting someone is an example of injustice. And again, why do we not do justice unto others?

[14:30]

Because of our deluded, egotistical consciousness. So part of our vow is to cut through all the affliction Part of our vow is to cut through our greed, hate, and delusion so that we have a chance to relate to ourselves and others in a just way. We may wish to do justice to others, but unless we become free of our egotistical control, we're hindered in doing so. So I vow to cut through the afflictions.

[15:34]

I vow to save beings. So I have to acknowledge, practice justice with my afflictions in order to open to the reality of others and do justice unto them. So one of the pivotal activities of the Buddha way is acknowledgement, vows, acknowledgement, vows. They turn on each other. I vow to do justice to others. I acknowledge I didn't. I acknowledge I didn't. I vow to do justice. And the justice is we need to learn how to do justice.

[16:49]

Our greed, hate, and delusion interfere with us doing justice to ourself inwardly and doing justice to others outwardly. We need to learn to notice when we don't do justice to ourself, too. So the way to realize justice I propose today has two aspects. If I wish to if I wish and vow to work for justice, then there's two ways I might look at to do that, to realize that. One could be, we call, being wholeheartedly generous with myself.

[18:01]

In order to be a justice worker, I need to be wholeheartedly generous with myself, with my greed. And part of being generous with my own greed, hate and delusion is to acknowledge it. Part of being generous with my greed, hate, and delusion is to confess it and say I'm sorry. That's an act of generosity. It's a gift to myself and to others because it will help me do the same with them. So, again, one way to realize justice is to be wholeheartedly generous with myself and all biased views, all my prejudices, all my unexamined assumptions, all my fears, everything about me, to be wholeheartedly generous with that for the sake of justice and others.

[19:21]

The other way is to be wholeheartedly generous with others. wholeheartedly generous with self, with this consciousness, and wholeheartedly generous to other consciousnesses. Another way to say this, which is perhaps more familiar to Zen students, is One way is to sit wholeheartedly with yourself. Wholeheartedly sit with this body and mind. That's one side. The other side is to wholeheartedly converse with others. And this wholehearted conversation with others depends on being generous with them.

[20:36]

And the conversation, the genuine conversation, which realizes justice to others, involves initially a gift. And the gift is to give your world to the others. Give them what you see, what you think, as a gift. Not give it to them to get them to agree with your views. Give them your views as a gift. So that they can question you about it. And also so that then they can give you their gifts and you can question them.

[21:39]

Meeting each other face to face and giving our faces to each other. Meeting each other face to face and giving our worlds to each other. including giving our fear, giving our world to them, and our fear that they'll question us. But we need to give in such a way that they are encouraged to call our world into question. In this way we can get rid of our views without getting rid of them. we can become free of the enclosed egocentric consciousness, which, if we are not sitting with it and bringing it to conversation, interferes with justice.

[22:47]

But if it's cared for inwardly and interpersonally in this way, The hindrances to justice drop away. Another way which you've heard many times is a deep wish that this and other assemblies receive silence and stillness. Silence and stillness is another way to say wholehearted generosity. All this stuff going on with us, part of our work is to be generous with it. In other words, to be silent and still with it so we can listen to it and question it.

[23:58]

in conversation with others, may we receive silence and stillness in the conversation. So we bring silence and stillness to the conversation and we bring the conversation into silence and stillness. We have a body and mind, and we need to get that body and mind grounded. We need to get our feet, the feet of our mind, we need to get them on the ground.

[25:02]

And in order to do that we have to be generous with our feet and the rest of our body and mind. Our job is to ground our body and mind through generosity and respect and patience and gentleness. Moment by moment, ground the body and mind. Wholehearted generosity. Then we're ready to meet another and give the grounded body to them. Now, if they are not doing their work If they're not grounding themselves, it will be hard for them to give their body and mind to God. And we are grounded in that they're not ready to meet us.

[26:08]

Still, we offer our grounded body and mind to them over and over until they can also give us that grounded body and mind. We're patient and respectful of them not being ready to settle where they are. Without training, most people cannot settle Somebody has to show them and somebody has to show us. I guess I'm trying to show you and show me right now how to be grounded here. And if you're not ready, I'd like to show that to you and have it be something you'd like to try. And I've experienced and heard it's very difficult to generous present with God.

[27:22]

this great suffering, to generously settle with it. Yes, it is difficult. Suffering is difficult, yes. Suffering is difficult, yes. And settling into it generously is very challenging. But I think it's necessary. And I guess you do too. And then, if we do this, we have something really good to give to others. Not only ourselves, so that they can question us and help us be free, so that we can do justice to them. We need the help of others to do justice to others. We cannot go to someone. We need them to help us. We need them to help us.

[28:25]

so that we can do justice to them. We need their world to be given to us. We need them to question us. We need people to question us in order to do justice to them. If they can't question us, that will hinder the justice. If we can't question them, that will hinder the justice. But, before I question somebody else, or before they question me, which is quite a feat in both directions, feet on the ground, so that when they question me, I don't get knocked over because I'm not on my feet. Okay, I'm okay to start some questioning now? Amanda and Homa? As you're talking and I feel like I have quite a bit to say, I just want to share my experience.

[29:29]

Part of it is that I'm hearing the invitation and the suggestion and encouragement to settle down where you are, be generous with yourself, and Like step one, step one. And then I hear this before from peaceful practices. I hear also about being honest. So being honest with yourself, allowing things and allowing them to come up, not just, you know, I'm okay, you know, just being compassionate with, you know, each step, but really being honest about what's going on inside of you. What is karmically happening? What is your conditioning inside? For me, I guess I want to just express that, well, first of all, it's very painful to me not to be here. I miss her very much. I just want to express that.

[30:31]

And the circumstances... I'm troubled with it, you know, and I've been trying to grapple with it for me as a practitioner of this sattva, and I guess I've discovered that, first of all, it's owning my whiteness, owning that I'm a white person, and from what I hear, that's kind of... A really helpful step for me was to meet with a Sangha member, another Sangha member, another white Sangha member, and to be calm and collected and offer each other silence and space in order to do the study together. I feel like that was a really important part to me. another person because it helped ground me a little bit more i couldn't really find the space for it by myself i need to do that with others um and fortunately we've had so much training in the sangha that we can do that to each for each other we make the space for it and i think uh through this process of with with the other who

[31:45]

another white person, you know, kind of starting to see ourselves as a racial group because that's when institutional misconduct and hurt and trauma happen when we are, you know, we need to as a group, I think. And it's just too easy to look the other way when you're just dealing with it as an individual. The other thing is that I guess I realize that the institution's not outside of me. This is not outside of me. This is actually inside of me, that I am that. And I'm also responsible for the kinds of karmic conditioning, racial conditioning and activities that have really traumatized other people. They've really traumatized other people. I've been so hurtful to others. I don't think I could really let all that in if I did not have someone that I could be meeting with on a regular basis to really look at, well, what is going on here?

[32:53]

And what is the work that we need to do? And I don't think it's individual. I'm a very introverted person. I do a lot by myself. But this part of work I cannot do by myself. It has to be done, I think, socially with others. And to let in the larger thing, I think you have to deal with yourself, which is, for me, okay, I have a mixed racial background, but I'm identified as... And I need to come to terms with that and learn how to work with the practice, use the practice to be able to do that work. So that in a situation of perpetuating some of these traumatic trauma patterns, And I want this Buddhist teaching is not for me to go to sleep and feel okay. It's a work. And I guess I just want to offer that piece of being social with other people and using one another to support us to do that study together and to see whatever resources.

[34:17]

Also, we cannot do it just the two of us. We're actually with King's Mindful of Grace. We're using that resource. her work to look to do some study. So I feel like we have a lot of resources and a lot of, you know, we have this beautiful practice to ground us in doing this really important work. I just wanted to offer that out and I want to thank my, I want to thank Brent for meeting with me and helping me too. more closely and honestly. It affected my being on other people. It impacted my being, just being a white person. How that is. Omar?

[35:28]

When you mentioned to have our feet on the ground, what went to my mind was I need to have my head on the grass. Head needs to get on the ground because the head has gone so cuckoo. That's a common Buddhist practice, putting the head on the ground. It's called prostration. Put your head on the ground. Exactly. One of our ancestors, Suzu Kershi's teacher, had a callus on his forehead from putting his head on the ground. Yeah, so let's put our head on the ground. Yeah. And it helps to have your feet on the ground to put your head on the ground. Don't just do a dive. Put your feet then your head. You said my whole body is going to go on the ground. Yeah, your whole body. Usually we do a five-point grounded.

[36:34]

Right knee, left knee, right hand, head. But then you can also spread up and do the whole thing and roll back and forth. Now let's get the whole body grounded. Yes. Yes, thank you. So here's my question. My question is... When we're talking about genuinely, genuinely, yes, I read the vows. I hear the vows and here and there. But in actuality, in my being, I have about the relationship of pain, suffering, and great compassion. so that uh separate the words that on this is not integrated all of this pain suffering great compassion must is a must integration for us at least in my mind i think to even proceed

[37:59]

If this is not being integrated, we're talking all kinds of stories. Great compassion, the relationship between compassion and suffering is non-dual. Great compassion is not the least bit separate from the suffering. I don't see that. Yeah, you don't see it. But we approach this great compassion doesn't have suffering as an object, which is completely integrated with it. We approach it... Great compassion is the complete integration with suffering and complete... Integration with all suffering is freedom from suffering.

[39:02]

And we approach complete integration with suffering through partial integration with suffering. I have doubt. Partial integration? Yes, so your doubt is a partial integration. And through that doubt, we can approach total integration. I can see that. I can see that. I think you see a lack of total integration. I think you see that. I see a lack of... Yes, yes. You see that. Okay. You see that. And I'm saying to you, okay, now that you see that, I'm saying to you, that that lack of total integration is your path to total integration. And when I say that to you, doubt arises in you.

[40:08]

And that doubt, you don't see that doubt as total integration. But total integration is total with that doubt. And if you don't see that, then you use, I'm saying, just use the doubt, which is an example of not total integration. That will be your path. When you don't feel you've realized something, that's what you use to realize it. You will proceed to integration through non-integration, And part of non-integration might be, in your case I think it is, non-integration is that you doubt that non-integration would be your path to integration. Yes. You doubt that.

[41:10]

But I'm saying again, that's your path. Great compassion is completely integrated with your doubt Thank you. So that I need, when you said that, then I need to change my path. See, if I change, I must change my path, right? Okay, to what? To realize that it's already fully integrated, right? To realize this is already fully integrated, I must change my path of doubting. No, no, no. You can still doubt because doubt is an example of what is integrated. The doubt is integrated. So, if you want to realize it, then you need to use the lack of integration as what you take care of.

[42:14]

By taking care of the lack of integration, And the doubts, you will... The complete integration, since it is complete integration, it's already in your doubts. It doesn't shrink away from your doubts. It's completely integrated with your doubts. It's completely integrated with your lack of integration. But if you don't take care of your lack of integration, then your... ...from where the integration is. The integration is right in the lack of integration. But we might look someplace else for the complete integration other than the lack of it. But the lack of it is where it is. The lack of what is is its own self. is in the lack of it. So then we have to take care of it, and that's the grounding. We need to put our feet down into doubt, fear, a feeling of lack of integration, a wish for integration.

[43:18]

That's all that we need to take care of, and we will discover complete integration without going anyplace. And we need to be in conversation, like right now, in order to be encouraged to deal with what looks like a lack of... Susan? brought up a lot. I am living here. And I didn't realize until I was listening to you that I had really pulled away from the song for the last two years. And not really understanding why. Why did I not want to tell this story? I just didn't understand why.

[44:19]

And it's interesting because when I pulled up today, The first thing that popped into my mind is, will I ever see diversity in the world? And then my next thought was, Susan, you chose to live here. You've been part of the SACA for 20 years. This is what it is. So I just want to acknowledge you for acknowledging your work because it brought some healing for me. And I just want to share with the SACA that, yes, It has been difficult. I think the most difficult thing for me to see Black Lives Matter sign. Painful. So painful. You know, because for, it was, what would come up for me is like, really? It took this to be acknowledged as communities of color? Very thinking. And a lot of things played into getting me for including for the first time in 20 years to sit with family.

[45:30]

And so I just want to acknowledge you because I don't think I'm alone. Thank you everyone who's spoken. Thank you everyone who's listening. I want to start by saying, as I sit here, even in a group where it looks like everyone is I never know that I'm not what other people would call it. And that's because there have been long history of needing to pass or haven't passed.

[46:35]

So I assume there may be someone here who understands or is protecting or whatever. So I want that to be out there. And I also want to acknowledge how hard it was for me to come here today. um the dread started rising and it wasn't because people have been unkind or people are going to do but the more dangerous and specific ways that i think that we're all aware of or more openly so this has always been and i want to say a bit about conversation the importance of conversation and the importance of understanding that even when we're silent, conversing, even when we are not speaking to one another, our bodies communicate at all times. And we may have culturally different body languages, but I think that there is something intrinsic that we understand.

[47:36]

So I intrinsically understand. But if you're feeling awkward, it's okay. I get that. I may not be able to read you or teach you, but I get that. And it's the practice of sitting upright in the flames. It's like being in hell, but knowing that. Now, for me, I am married and that running away would hurt more. It would hurt more. It would be such a loss to not be able to sit with my teacher, to not be able to sit with people I felt I could build some bridges with, but that time has made me afraid of it. Because they really scared for it. I don't really know how to do that. And as it has been said, you can't do it alone. And I think there's something about knowing versus learning. And as adults, sometimes it's embarrassing or not acceptable not to know.

[48:39]

To have to constantly remember to be generous with ourselves, that we are learning. That's how we come to know. And then watching kids, they know how to know, you know, by playing that sort of game. There's so many vectors, many ways that we can go forward. Trying to be on the right path all the time, you know, it kind of screws things up. You've got to be willing to fall off, you know, or being okay with falling off. And climbing back up on it and laughing. And maybe crying, too. I guess I'll just let it go there. But the conversations are constant. And just be aware we're conversing even more so. I see an opportunity for us to be with this conversation and to bring this conversation to our silence and stillness.

[50:12]

Just let this conversation be present in your silence and stillness the rest of the day. I personally give you my feeling that we have just this responsibility before us and it is in that immensity it's easy to shake or maybe want to run away or I can't do it. Those thoughts may arise but they need to be taken care of too in order for us to be present with this responsibility. It does seem to be so great But as we said, beings are numberless.

[51:23]

We vow to save them. Afflictions are inexhaustible. We vow to cut through. And Dharma gates are boundless. There's no place where we can't enter into the truth. We vow to enter them all. And then the Buddha way, which is the way of justice, is unsurpassable. We vow to become it. We vow to become justice. But it's so huge, this job of becoming justice. May we be able to meet again and again for the welfare of the world.

[52:27]

And Charlie, I'm so sorry you made all this effort with this equipment. I'm sorry I couldn't bring myself to wear it. I'll see what I can do. Maybe so. Thank you, everyone. May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Allah's way. Beings are numberless. I vow to see them. Delusions are inexhaustible. So now please Have a lovely lunch.

[53:45]

You'd like to thank? And to Eileen for conveying her message. Thanks for the people who told us about their pain. Thank you, Eileen. Yeah. Thank you, Eileen. Uh, Maggie? Thank you. They are probably teachers and virtuous and leaders and dedicated.

[55:27]

Our course should be given to such beings as beings and birds. This realization teaches us that our daily food, journey, clothes, and actions of life. The answer to that is the incarnation of God. I'm grateful I'm acceptable in a set of things. I don't see that human beings, even though some might be a fool, won't be compassionate. Yeah, I hate to say this, but I can't help it. I was born in the end, so I don't have to do that. We sincerely bow down with humble recognition for her and for me, that he or she is the merciful avatar of God. Excuse me, sir.

[56:38]

Please. I'd like to begin with further acknowledgements. Acknowledgement of all the careful and generous effort that went into making this possible. So, Amanda, thank you so much for organizing and arranging everything. Betsy also helped a great deal.

[58:14]

And who else was on your helpful crew? Brent? Everyone. Everyone. Thank you all for your great efforts to make today's possible. And also, I wanted to acknowledge the message of Angela's socks. So you see the turbulent seas, and in the middle of the turbulent seas is the Chinese character for her. It's the character for harmony. And so may we realize harmony in the midst of these turbulent seas in which we're living.

[59:17]

If things calm down, may we realize harmony in those waters. But for the time being, pardon me, If the waters calm down, there still is the job for realizing harmony. And if we realize harmony in calm waters, we might be ready when the waters get rough again. But right now we're certainly in rough water, and it could get rougher, or it could calm down, but our act of being devoted to harmony among all beings is still being called upon. Forever? Without end. Without end. So I'm going to go to Sweden in the middle of this month.

[60:32]

And then I'm going to go up into the mountains and go swimming in lakes. So I hope to be back to maybe have another one day sitting in the latter part of September. In the meantime, I hope we all continue to work inwardly with great generosity and calm and work outwardly in conversation also with great generosity. Generously listen to others, witness them, let them be who they are and offer them who we are.

[61:38]

For there are questions of us to help us become free of our limited ideas through generous conversation. That's my prayer this afternoon. Yeah, the invitation. So the... I guess it was 11 years ago... that Brett pointed out we had a closet full of cassette tapes, and said nobody's listening to them, so go ahead and take some home if you want.

[62:47]

And I said, well, wait, maybe we should do something with those. So now we have this audio archive, which is accessible on . I've actually built a whole platform for audio archives. I've taken care of the archives of more than a dozen different Zen centers. Over the last 10 years since then, about another 10 cassette tapes have shown up from people's garages or from the basement at Green Gulch. So the NOAA Board meeting a couple weeks ago, well, previously they'd asked me to make a proposal to take care of the rest of those. reviewed and unanimously approved. So at my recording studio, I'll go ahead and digitize all of those and make them available.

[63:50]

And so there's a couple of invitations. First of all, you all continue to be invited to listen. And if you weren't aware of that, they're accessible through RebAnderson.org. But With the number of cassette tapes we've found now, we'd like to reduce the number of duplicates that are in there before we digitize them to reduce the cost. So we have one of each. So there's an opportunity for volunteers to help look at the photos of each tape and type in the title and maybe the location if it says Greenbelt or something. Photos. We've already got mid-dates in there, but we need to sort out, for example, today there are two talks, in the morning and afternoon, so those are not big buckets. So, if nobody volunteers, we'll go ahead and get it done with my staff, but it's a chance for the Asanga to help out with the archive.

[64:59]

exciting for me i find it exciting to go through the talks and look at them and then uh when the when the digitization is done and all of the tapes are there uh uh including all the digital talks they'll have about about four thousand of them so having this this metadata uh searching um and so that's uh I don't know if the imitation is clear, but basically it can be done from home or anywhere. We are photographing the tapes. We'll put all the photos in our web interface. And then there's probably 20 or 25 days. to go through the photos and figure out what the tapes are. And we can start as soon as a couple weeks from now. So if anybody's interested or if you have any questions about the archive or if you have a box of tapes in your garage, feel free to talk to me afterwards. Or if anybody's interested, I can maybe clear it up.

[66:04]

Are you happy? Thank you. Yes, Angela. Today, since this morning's talk, and everybody's participation, those who use their voices and those who had concern and loving thoughts for our friend Eileen, Um, I just wanted to thank her for her invitation, um, to, um, uh, unskillfulness, um, which I sat with today with Eileen in my heart, um,

[67:11]

my unskillfulness, uh, my, which you helped me today and don't recognize breaking it down. Um, my fear, um, my sticking points and I forget the third I'm admitting, um, but compassionately thank Sangha for offering this environment to practice intently today on caring for unskillfulness, fear, sticking, pain. You're so appreciated, Eileen, and will always be. Thank you. Yeah. Any other offerings?

[69:44]

Yes. I would like to say that I had a great time with Eileen removing the trees from this property a few years ago. It was a big project. And we worked really well together. When she said a year ago that she was leaving and expressed this pain, I felt that pain, just like I felt the sort of joy and the success of removing those trees that we hear. Her presence here today is still a part of this sangha. It's as if she's never departed. These acknowledgments today that... kind of re-established her here in the Sangha. I don't know that she'll ever go away, right? She seems to... In me, she'll always be some sort of presence here. And the pain that she felt that she gave us is a gift.

[70:50]

These are turbulent times. And the gift of that pain has refocused my attention on the turbulent times that we live in I'm aware that I'm a white guy practicing Buddhism and there aren't a lot of Asian teachers in this synagogue or in this area. I'm also aware that Buddhism isn't an ideology that can just programmatically inequities in the world. It doesn't seem to work that way. I do make full use and welcome the practice of of giving this generosity to the feeling that I don't have a program, a Buddhist program, to address the wrongs of the world. I mean, there are things, like the Buddhist peace fellowship and the organizations I belong to, and they can do things, and they are programmatic, but the teachings themselves signify that kind of practical, you know,

[71:58]

...way of addressing social ills. And I can be generous toward that recognition that it's not here in the teachings. At the same time that there's so much in the teachings that the Sangha, for me, helped really come alive. There is something I read in the Avatamsaka Sutra that it is a vow, a gatha. We wish that all beings ascend into this unexcelled sanctuary and find rest and security in this unshakable. And I find that here and share it with the Sangha members.

[73:01]

Thank you for creating this space for that. And Devin? Always gets a part of it. That's the part of it. sentient beings are numberless. We bow to faith then. Afflictions are inexhaustible.

[73:56]

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