Do you have any feedback on this morning's discussion that you'd like to offer? Yes, Linda? It made me uncomfortable in a way that put forth about the reality of the birds right now. of refuge and... Oh, I see. When you wholeheartedly... The wholeheartedness made you feel uncomfortable, that talk? Oh, good. Well, I'm glad it was a good uncomfortable.

[01:11]

It's also an uncomfortable uncomfortable. It's an uncomfortable uncomfortable? Anything more about the uncomfortableness that you'd like to tell us? Just when you talked about Jerry just now, that kind of highlights the discomfort of time, the time that we have in our lives and I have in my life. And what am I doing with it?

[02:17]

It happens that... I've been involved in family things, a wedding and so on, and so I've been away from practice more. And so, you know, you can't, I couldn't help it. But anyway, I don't know. There's a limited amount of time that I have, that we have. And that's the question. What am I doing with it? Can you hear that, Christine? Well, how was today? Did you feel that you were wholehearted today? I did. No, I actually feel separate because I got, you know, we had family members here for weeks on end constantly and kind of

[03:28]

taken in by trying to watch and be aware, but also taken in by all the emotions. And then, yes, it took actions that I wouldn't necessarily... So I feel today was, I was feeling kind of a sense of grief and a sense of separation. Did you feel, did you feel wholehearted about the grief? It doesn't necessarily... It doesn't necessarily... Well, I think I was feeling it very much, but I was also having the question,

[04:32]

well, what shall I do with this? Like, now, how do I do this? Or how do I do this? Well, according to the schedule for today, we only have about another, you know, 40 minutes here together. After that we're going to be in groups all around the Bay Area. So now while we're here all together, shall we enter into wholeheartedness?

[05:36]

Like, you know, for the next 40 minutes, not think about the rest of our life. Just be here together right now without thinking about this evening. And think about the memorial ceremony that's coming up. In the next 40 minutes, just be here now, as they say. Together, supporting the other people to live our life right now together and let go of past and future. My tea is indescribably delicious.

[06:50]

It's hot. Fortunately or unfortunately, it wasn't tea. It was delicious, though. Ralph. I'm struck by the liquid words. What you did was just striking as well. You used the word plunge, immersing, entering deeply the immersible ocean. It's all this liquid stuff. It sounds downright Baptist.

[07:51]

Did you grow up in a Baptist church? I did in the course of Methodist, which was much more detached. Not so much water. Not so much water, I don't care. But I've been thinking about that all day, that plunging. So I was quite taken when you did that. Can you say something about the place of wisdom water? I hope this is respectful. Yes? So one person is almost here. One person's almost here. Well, a whole bunch of other people are totally here, right? I just want to say that I think one of the great things about the Baptist Church is their water. I think it's really great that they bring their practice into the water. Yeah, I think that's wonderful.

[08:54]

And that they stay under for a little while, right? And Yeah, and we also, and in, it's kind of a universal thing, this thing, putting water on people and putting oil on people. It's kind of a universal thing to do and somehow relationship to cleaning ourselves, soothing ourselves. Transformation. Transforming ourselves, yeah. And Welcome. Would you tell us your name? I'm Linda Ridley. Lily? Linda. Linda. And? I'm Bob Ridley. Bob? Okay. And are you friends of Jerry? And how long did you know Jerry?

[09:56]

15, 20 years. 15, 20 years? We took all of his work, so we went and finally passed away. Did you know that he was, you know, had maybe some heart problem? Did you know that? No, but we put together from talking to people. He had symptoms of he was all of a sudden getting very tired during exertions. We probably didn't know what was going on and didn't know it. For how long? Probably a couple of months. Oh, yeah, he didn't tell me about it. He was coming here regularly. But now that you mention it, I do sometimes remember him kind of like maybe seeming a little short of breath. Well, I know there was one bike ride he had to discontinue. The leg he was going with was not incredibly strong, but he had to discontinue that height. And we would walk him with it once, and either the walk kind of wore it out.

[10:59]

He had a bathtub. He'd be pausing for breath and holding his chest. It seems like, you know, something he wasn't recognizing. Okay. Well, he was... Just during the last year or so, he was very active with us here and over at Green Gulch, very regular, very enthusiastic. So we want to honor him today. Actually, it's kind of funny. He came here the best thing at our wedding, and he came over to Green Gulch, and the very week afterwards, I believe, from that time on, he came every week. Wow. He got very involved. I mean, except within a year or two, he would have been a monk. He knew about receiving the priesthood.

[12:03]

I remember him just before his death. He was very enthusiastic about that mission. And last summer we were looking at some vows of a great bodhisattva named Samantabhadra. And I think maybe it was Tara. Is that right? Did you say something about Buddha? Did you say that? Yeah. That a lot of people think of Zen as, you know, like, yeah, kill the Buddha. And, you know, what is Buddha? A piece of shit. Or what is Buddha? The fence around the garden. This kind of response to questions about Buddha. So it's kind of surprising. who come to Zen to hear somebody talk about paying homage to innumerable Buddhas and that we're talking about, thinking about that there's innumerable Buddhas in every particle of dust, in every particle of your body.

[13:25]

There's innumerable Buddhas. And we're talking about this bodhisattva thinking about how in every person there's innumerable Buddhas. And Jerry was, Jerry was really got kind of . And we discussed it in class quite a bit. And then about a week later he sent me a picture of, you know, on the computer, he sent me a picture of like quite a few like thousand Buddhas. He found these in a particle of dust. I got that picture. Huh? I got that picture. Yeah. David Weinstein, do you know David Weinstein? Yeah. That he loved it. Yeah. So Jerry was struggling with an opening to new new possibilities, you know, sometimes very enthusiastically and sometimes, no, no, stop this.

[14:29]

And then opening up again. Just like us. Any other feedback on this issue of being wholehearted? Being wholehearted, anything more than being completely present and with the vow, with the Bodhisattva vow? Is it anything more than being completely present? No? It's nothing more than being completely present. And completely present is not something you do by yourself. So if you think you're completely present and you don't think you're completely present together with everybody else, or if you think that your complete presence would also be expressing veneration for innumerable Buddhas,

[15:47]

and you think, oh, that's something I'm not involved in, then that would show you that you weren't completely present. Complete presence is also complete openness to all beings. But the and also all beings being open to you, that's what complete presence is. Complete presence isn't something I do by myself. And I was talking to somebody about this and she said, so it's really important to practice with a group Right? And I said, well, yes. More important than practicing with a group is the practice of the group. The group practice is not a bunch of people practicing with a group. It's the group practice. It's the practice that the whole group is doing. When you're practicing the group practice, that's being completely present. And when you hear about the group practice, and that seems to be something in addition to what you're doing, that shows you weren't really wholehearted.

[16:53]

You were thinking, I by myself am wholehearted, and this group may or may not be wholehearted. Rather than, my wholeheartedness is our wholeheartedness. Just like now, in this group, we can all be wholehearted. And we can say to each other, since we're together now, we can forget about the past and future and just totally be here together. And when we leave here, we may think, oh no, I have to remember past and future because I'm with people who don't support me to forget about past and future. But here you know everybody supports you to forget about past and future. you know that's okay with everybody here, right? So you can dare to be here because everybody here is supporting you. And when you leave, if you dare, it lets you know that everybody is supporting you.

[18:01]

You dare to receive that support Any other feedback on this? Stephen, did you have your hand raised? Yes. I wanted to speak to that thing just now about... Hello. ...supporting everyone else. I have to admit, this morning I had some fear about coming here. I had some trepidation at the hour o'clock when I was sort of being a little tired and questioning whether I'd come or not. And I remembered you were talking about the president and all people and all beings everywhere. I think it was Thursday he was here. And I was caught in this space of thinking about me coming here and me practicing in here. What would I do with this sort of thing? Grab your car? Right. Rather than being mindful of

[19:05]

it was me supporting everyone else here and everyone else supporting me. And it sort of reminded, when I was reminded of that, it made it a lot easier to get out of the car. Right, good. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, if I'm driving, like if I'm driving from here down to Los Gatos or something, and I think, okay, now I've got to drive this car, I got to me drive the car down. It's pretty tiring. But if I'm not, if everybody, if I think about everybody supporting me to do this car driving, also that changes the way, I don't think everybody's supporting me to like beat the other people down there. And I don't think anybody's supporting me to compete with the other drivers. I think everybody's supporting me to flow harmoniously. That's the way you all want me to drive, right?

[20:09]

To harmoniously flow with the other cars. And not to be angry at the other drivers. That's what you're supporting me to do, right? So it's... And also that I'm supporting you by driving the car. And I'm... It's much... It's... You could say easier, but anyway, it's... It's... it's not stressful. You're lifted up. So I hope you can drive that way home, that you feel everyone supporting you, and you drive home, and know that we really want you to drive harmoniously. Try to find the harmonious path through the traffic. The way that you know, feeling the support of the other cars and supporting them.

[21:12]

Drive in a way that you feel would encourage them. That's the way all of us want you to drive. Drive, try to drive without leaning into the future. Try to drive where you are rather than where you're going. Carry wholeheartedness into the road, into the path, into the challenging path. Welcome. Would you give us your name, please? Hedda. Hedda. Welcome, Hedda. We're getting ready to do ceremony for Jerry. Thank you for coming. Oh, you brought a picture.

[22:16]

Oh, that's great. She brought a picture of Jerry when he was... Wonderful. Did you pass that? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So this is going to be something. Yes. It looks just like him. Thank you for bringing this. Where did you get it? Elsie was always talking to this picture, saying, you're a great little child. Elena, would you please put this on the altar? And here is, yeah, and here is, wow, here's a, so Jerry's like about a year older than me, born in 1942.

[23:23]

Here's a picture of him. in around 1975. And here's... Wow. He's younger. I know. Here's more hair. This is Jerry, too? Yes. Wow. This... And here's a more recent one. This one expires, huh? This is 1980. And this is, oops. When's this one? And this is a recent one. So this is, anybody who didn't see Jerry recently, here's a picture of Jerry recently. And this is 80. But this looks younger than that one, doesn't it?

[24:25]

Huh? No? University professor. Oh, this is a university professor, this is a university student? Anyway, here's three pictures of Jerry. Okay, so... And he's been all over. And he's been all over, yeah. Yeah, he's been to where? Where's he been? Jordan. Jordan. He's been to the Holy Land. Egypt. Cairo. The Middle East. Guatemala. Thank you for bringing these.

[25:36]

So could we set up for the ceremony?

[25:45]

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