Good morning, everyone. Good morning. You can mute yourselves for now, if you will. So this morning, my subject is the Dharma of listening and speaking. Some of you Those of you who are on the Berkeley Zen Center Listserv received our guidelines for participation in the Listserv, which I'll talk about later. And these were guidelines that had been framed and discussed widely over the last couple of months and they reflect a way to have a dharmic approach to speaking and to articulate that for our community.

[01:22]

But I wanted to step back and look at the context. I've spoken before a number of times about the teachings that I see embedded in the title of Dainian Katagiri Roshi's first two books. Just by reading the titles, you can find something to reflect on, but you should read the books. The books are really good. First, his first book was called Returning to Silence. And his second book was called You Have to Say Something. So returning to silence is stepping into the mind of receptivity, the open mind, the mind of Zazen.

[02:30]

And you could say it's, well, I would say it's hearing. Listening is a component of that, but listening is kind of the active component of hearing, which is just, if you take a moment, right now where you are, What are the sounds in your environment? Refrigerator humming. Sound of my labor breathing car going by. All of these are the functioning of our open mind. And in fact, All of our senses are in this receptive mode.

[03:39]

And our bodhisattva, bodhisattva essence is also in this receptive mode. If you think of the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara or canaan, kuan yin, She's often referred to as one who sees the cries of the world. So it's a kind of, actually, synesthesia to see the cries of the world. Since the cries of the world arise in her open mind, and she sees them. So that is returning to silence, and that's the fundamental training that we have in Zazen.

[04:46]

But we also know that Zazen and Zazen mind is not something that is confined to, well, you used to be able to say confined to the walls of the Zendo, but... We haven't been within those walls for 19 months now. So is Zazen confined to our Zoom screen? I don't know. But the full unfolding of Zazen is also in our life. And in our life, We're bound to have activities. So that activity is why it's incumbent upon us to say something. We have to say something.

[05:49]

We have to do something. We have to do our zazen with our bodies. It's an activity. So this is also the active side of our practice. And it is what completes this continuous circle of the way. The way that may begin at any one point on the circle and continues around and then continues again. We're always moving between returning to silence and having to say something. So in a sense, I think that what I'm talking about today is an extension of what Ron was speaking of, or at least a thread of what Ron was speaking of last week in his really fine lecture on ordinary mind.

[07:00]

He was talking about how we listen. and how we accept things, and how we fold all of these, all of our perceptions, all of our receptions, all of our thoughts into our ordinary mind, our mind that includes everything. I found a quotation from... Shinryu Suzuki Roshi that I want to read to you. This is from a lecture that he gave in February of 1967. And I'm beginning here with the functioning of listening. Because I think this is where we start. We have to be able to listen. Before we can say anything, we have to be able to listen. So Suzuki Roshi says, when you listen to someone, You should give up all your preconceived ideas and your subjective opinions.

[08:13]

This is really hard, actually, just to clear the decks and remove yourself and just see, just hear and listen to what's been said. Give up all your preconceived ideas and your subjective opinions. You should just listen to him or her. You should just observe what this person's way is. We put very little emphasis on right and wrong, good and bad. I think what he's suggesting is we have to ratchet back our habit of evaluation of right and wrong, good and bad. I think it's in the context of this listening.

[09:15]

He says we put very little emphasis on right and wrong, good and bad. In that moment, it's not like there's no right and wrong, there's no good or bad. We should throw this out and we should think that everything is the same. In the moment of listening to someone, try to set aside your evaluative mind. Just hear or see the cries of the world. Just see that person as he or she is, not filtered through your own judgments. We just see things as they are with this person and accept them. This is how we communicate with each other. Usually, when you listen to some statement, you hear it as a kind of echo of yourself.

[10:16]

You are actually listening to your own opinion. And, you know, this is, I can certainly own that myself. Just, I hear something. I evaluate it. And I apply a whole lot of my own standards and my own opinions. And I also, the practice is to try to set that aside. To recognize, I recognize the arising of that because of my self-centered ideas. And I try to set it aside. So you're actually listening to your own opinion. If it agrees with your opinion, you may accept it. But if it does not, you reject it, or you may not even really hear it. You may not even really hear it.

[11:21]

That's really, ooh, that's kind of piercing to me. We think we're listening, and we're not. Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of this in his gloss on the precepts. He calls the precepts mindfulness trainings because they're actually practices that develop our awareness of ourselves and our ability to work with ourselves to get ourselves out of the way. So here he moves and is combining listening and speaking. So in his fourth mindfulness training, which is called Deep Listening and Loving Speech, Thich Nhat Hanh says, aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others,

[12:42]

because aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech, my unmindful speech, and my inability to listen to others, I vow to cultivate loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and to relieve others of their suffering. I would extend that to say, If I can do that, it's a great relief to me. It takes the weight of my own opinions off my shoulders. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I vow to learn to speak truthfully with words that inspire self-confidence, joy, and hope. I would add to that that words are like arrows.

[13:51]

That once you have released an arrow, aimed it and released it, you cannot call it back. Once you have said something, it moves towards its target. And sometimes the better we are with words, the more likely it is to hit its target and to wound. And you can't call it back. And once you have arrived at your target, it's possible that in time, there can be healing. I think that it's also likely that there will be scar tissue, or there'll be a scar.

[14:55]

The wound will be there, and that wound cannot be completely undone. So, this is what I think Thich Nhat Hanh is saying, means when he says that, knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I vow to learn to speak truthfully with words that inspire self-confidence, joy, and hope. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain, not to criticize or condemn things of what I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division, or discord, or that can cause the family or the community to break. I will make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small.

[16:00]

So, in a sense, these last... These last pronouncements are a reframing of the principles of right speech that we have in our precepts. And also we have as the third step of the Eightfold Path, right speech. So you may be familiar in our precepts, the ones we chant in our ceremonies and we chant in Bodhisattva ceremony. The fourth precept is I vow to refrain from false speech. In Dogen's commentary in that, these commentaries are lovely. The Dharma wheel turns from the beginning.

[17:10]

There is neither surplus nor lack. The sweet dew saturates all and harvests the truth. So, to vow to refrain from false speech is to allow the truth to germinate and grow. The sixth precept is I vow not to slander. Dogen's commentary there is, in the Buddha Dharma, go together, appreciate, realize, and actualize together. Do not permit haphazard talk. Do not corrupt the way. So this haphazard talk, this slander, is corrupting the way in Dogen's commentary.

[18:14]

Slander is, I'm going to come back to it because it's spoken of in a number of different traditions. And the seventh of our grave precepts is, I vow not to praise self at the expense of others. All Buddhas and ancestors realize the same limitless sky. When they realize their true body, there is nothing inside or outside. Nor a bit of earth on the ground. So this is the assertion of the wisdom of equality. That praising ourself at the expense of others, self-aggrandizing, et cetera, is a denial of the fundamental equality of all beings.

[19:30]

That equality is an essential, it's an equality of essence. It's not an equality of ability, it's not a quality, equality necessarily of intelligence or of skill or of athletic prowess or of a lot of other things that we usually use to weigh our worth. It's just saying that we are essentially all Buddhists. We are all the same of the same stuff and thereby worthy of deep respect and of worthy of making the effort not to elevate ourselves. So just to restate these principles again,

[20:38]

We vow to abstain from false speech, not to tell lies or deceive. We vow not to slander others or speak in a way that is divisive, causes disharmony or enmity. We vow to abstain from rude or impolite or abusive language. And the most difficult of all, we vow not to indulge in idle talk or gossip. That's really hard. Because it happens, it just kind of leaks out without us really knowing. I once heard a lecture of the Vipassan teacher, Joseph Goldstein, who was talking about speaking, and he said he tried this really, really difficult practice for a year.

[21:53]

And the practice was never to say anything about a person who was not physically present in the room. In other words, if that person wasn't right there, his practice was not to say anything about them. Just think about how hard that is. Think about how often we are speaking about people who aren't present. There's another set of instructions from the Buddha, which is found in the Abhaya Sutta, which is in the, it's in the middle length, the Majjhima Nikaya, the middle length sutras.

[22:59]

And it breaks things down in, in another way that I think is useful. It basically boils down to the basis of our speaking should be an evaluation of whether something is true, useful, timely, and spoken of with a kind mind or a mind that intends benefit. And I'm not going to go through this whole thing, but it's, in the way that Pali Sutras sometimes are, it's very methodical. So he says, in the case of words the Tathagata knows to be unfactual, untrue, unbeneficial, unendearing,

[24:10]

and disagreeable to others, he does not say them. In the case of words that Tathagata knows to be factual, true, but unbeneficial, unendearing and disagreeable to others, he does not say them. In the case of words that Tathagata knows to be unfactual, untrue, unbeneficial, but adhering, endearing and agreeable to others, he does not say them. So you get the flavor of this. And it's really interesting because a few years ago, I came on a little book. I can't remember how I came on it, but I think you'll find it. The title of this book is Guard Your Tongue.

[25:10]

And it's by, it's published by an obscure Jewish religious publisher. And the author is contemporary. His name is Rabbi Zelig Pliskin. And what this book is, is a commentary on a commentary, which is This is a very Jewish thing. Commentary. It's actually a very Buddhist thing, too. You could ask, what's the nature of the world? Well, it's commentaries all the way down, you know. So, he's commenting on the work, a work called the Chafetz Chaim. which translates as the desire of life. And this was a 19th century book by Rabbi Meir Tagan.

[26:18]

It's a masterful compendium on the ins and outs of what's called Lashan Hara, which is wrong and slanderous speech. And the title, Desire of Life draws from the lines of Psalm 34. It says, Who is the man who desires life, who loves days to see goodness? Guard your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceitfully. Shun evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. as usual, these are just beautiful words of the Psalms. I was looking at the introduction to Guard Your Tongue today.

[27:27]

I thought I'd read you a little story. This is a story about Rabbi Kagan, a businessman from Warsaw once handed the rabbi a list of the books that he wanted to buy. After taking a quick glance at the list, the rabbi asked him, I notice you ordered every one of my books except for the Chafetz Chaim. the laws of Lushan Hara, wrong speech. Why did you leave out such an important book? Man said, I would really like to buy that book also, was the reply, but I'm afraid to. You see, I come in contact with many people every day, and in my position, it's impossible for me not to speak and hear Lushan Hara.

[28:39]

Rabbi said, I'm fully aware of that problem. I've even spoken to my friend, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter about it. He said this, it's worthwhile for somebody to read your book on Lusha Nora, even if the only result will be a sigh when he completes it. So we are going to, it's like all of the precepts. Sometimes people are reluctant to do a precept ceremony or to have lay ordination because they have to take these bodhisattva precepts and they're concerned. I can't keep them. I can't keep the precepts on right speech.

[29:47]

I can't keep the, you know, what's it mean if I have, if I have a glass of wine, does that mean I'm breaking the precept on non-intoxicating self or others? The fact is, our response, the response to our are better expressed by a sigh or by a laugh, laughing at ourselves, than judging ourselves and berating ourselves for not being able to keep something. In fact, you cannot keep anything. the precepts, including these precepts on speech, are there to give us something to return to.

[30:57]

And this is actually the spirit to me of these listserv guidelines that we circulated. And They're going to be on the website if they're not on the website now. And they're offered, as the first sentence says, in the spirit of community harmony, inclusivity, and the expression of right speech. So I'm not going to go through all this, you know, point by point. But they're about, the first point is to avoid speech that's intentionally hurtful. In other words, you know that you are aiming your bow and arrow because you want to inflict a wound.

[32:13]

We're going to, we vow that's not the spirit. with which we are saying things on Listserv. I should also say that the Listserv is basically intended for the sharing of information and for needs and services, personal announcements or announcements of practice events. It's not really designed for extensive Dharma dialogue, but sometimes that happens. And when that does happen, that's okay. But these listservs, these guidelines are here to encourage us, to remind us of the spirit of our discourse. So to speak with the intention to connect, to support safety,

[33:19]

to recognize that there can be a difference between our intention and our impact, the intention and the impact of our words. Intention is not, intention is really important, but we should also recognize that we don't always know how things are going to land. This is where, Let me just circle back a moment and go to those four stipulations of the Buddha for speaking. The stipulation to speak when your words are true, useful, timely, and of beneficial intention. This sounds great. It sounds really... Oh, it's very simple language. It's very clear. Until you really think about it.

[34:23]

When you really think about it. One can quite legitimately question. What is true? True. In my perception. May not be. exactly true in Laurie's perception. What is useful? Well, from whose perspective? All of this is a question, all of these things, the question of perspective and perception are critical and they lead us to question true, useful, timely. You know, I may think something is timely, but Carol Paul might not think it's timely, you know, or maybe timely for me, but it ain't for her, you know, and a beneficial intention.

[35:39]

That's the one that you can really check yourself. That's probably the closest you can get. is to know what your intention is. Is my intention to connect or divide? This is a fundamental Dharma issue. The essence of Dharma is about connecting, not dividing. But this is where we come to the fact that there may be a distinction between my intention and the impact. So we consider that. The guidelines go on to offer that we commit to avoiding harsh language. And I'm not gonna spell out all of that, but it might be. And suggest that we, the practice of right view,

[36:45]

is to ask clarifying questions rather than relying on our assumptions. This circles around back to Suzuki Roshi's quotation. Asking clarifying questions is a way of finding out what the other person is thinking rather than relying on my assumptions or my habitual understanding. The purpose of any kind of Dharma discourse, things that may come up and be discussed on the listserv, things that may come up in the Q&A for this talk, in our open discussions, in our forums, in all of our meetings, all of our many meetings.

[37:53]

is how do we deepen our practice? How do we create a context in which we can really continue this circle of returning to silence and saying something? One of the things that I've found really enjoyable Over the years is. And I do this. Like I did it today. This talk. Emerges. From a period of Zazen. And so it's really helpful. To. Inhabit. Zazen mind. before one opens one's mouth.

[38:55]

And I just find when I do that, what comes out is more measured. I can't say necessarily it's more useful, but it comes from It has the opportunity to come from the same place that one's voice does when one is chanting. It comes from your aura. It comes from your belly. It comes from the seat of your being. And we want to have the ability to speak from there. Also, we want to listen so that the things that we hear also go all the way through our body.

[40:01]

So I think I just, I think I wanna close by just me reading these verses that inspired Hafez Chaim. Just the verse from These few lines from Psalm 34. Who is the person. Who desires life. Who loves. Each day to see goodness. Guard your tongue from evil. And your lips from speaking deceitfully. Shun evil and do good. Seek peace. and pursue it, or you could say, hear peace and embody it. So thank you. And we have time for question and answer, and I'll turn it over to Heiko to be the master of ceremonies.

[41:12]

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for attending to our lecture. Please feel free to ask questions. I will call on you in order. We'll go with Christian Evans first. Go ahead, Chris. Thank you, Hiko-san. I want to extend my gratitude to our listener of Santa and some of its influencers that over the past months and years, there's less that's that's being shared that is contentious or partisan. Granted that 97% of Berkeley people vote a certain way, so it gets really comfortable to share something that you think is not political or contentious. But in fact, it is. If you intend to think that it wasn't political or constantly reinforcing a one-sided view,

[42:16]

But if the recipients have legitimate reason to think so, and they're not alone. But what I wanna focus on is that we have made tremendous progress in quieting the muddy waters so that we can see more of the lotuses that are among us. So I want to thank you. Thank you for that, Christian. I really, I appreciate that. And I, I appreciate your willingness to express yourself even in places where I might have a different view. And at the same time, I want to listen in the spirit that Suzuki Roshi was outlining. And in that sense,

[43:17]

context, I think there's room for everybody. So thank you. Thank you, Chris. Sue Osher, please go ahead. Thank you. Hosanna, I really appreciated your talk, and I loved the quote from the rabbi, speaking about Lashon Hara. I don't observe Yom Kippur anymore, but I really appreciate the timing. I want to talk about embodying the bodhisattva vows. I realized when you spoke that I missed the chant, the bodhisattva chant. I used to walk through the woods in the Adirondacks, chanting it or trying to remember it.

[44:19]

And it meant a lot to me. Also, I was trying to let the bears know and the hunters that I was there. But I just wonder if you have ideas about incorporating our bodhisattva vows. It means a lot. I'm not, well, wait a second. First of all, there was something you said in the beginning. What did you say at the beginning of your comment? Before you talk about the Bodhisattva vows. Well, one thing I said was I appreciate the conversation about Lasham Hara and... Right. Thank you. So... The thing that I like about this Guard Your Tongue book, just to say, is it just lists every one of these things that we think are so small and, you know, inconsequential.

[45:35]

And it has a very vernacular commentary, which are just stories, you know, so-and-so said such-and-such, and you begin to see how pervasive. It's like what the Buddha was saying, you know, if you know something to be untrue and untimely but endearing, you know, and welcome, etc., it parses this completely. So it's really interesting. The book is called Guard Your Tongue, and I think I don't know if it's, I don't know if the text is available online, but the book is available. It may not be cheap. I'm not sure if we do, we chant the Bodhisattva vows. We're going to chant them at the end of this lecture. Are you talking about the Bodhisattva vows or Bodhisattva ceremony? I think the ceremony. Oh, okay.

[46:37]

But the vows, too. I mean, that's where I am. It struck me your comment about the importance of embodiment. It's like that's where it just became part of my being so many years ago. Well, what I would say is we'll come back to it as soon as we're back. You know, we will reinstitute the Bodhisattva ceremony. It hasn't gone anywhere. Bodhisattvas are all waiting and they're very patient with us. Thank you, Susan. I will ask Matt, and then we have a question in the chat. Matt, please go ahead. Thank you so much. This is such a helpful talk. And I just had two thoughts from the Islamic tradition. Can you hear me okay? Yeah, yeah, great. This is a issue...

[47:37]

that's discussed a lot in the Islamic tradition. And there are two stories that I thought of. One is some followers of the Prophet Muhammad were told by him, don't backbite. And they said, well, suppose what we say about the person is true. He said, if it's true, it's backbiting. And if it's false, it's calumny. So making that distinction. And the Hazrat Ali said once, I wish I had a neck as long as a giraffe. So I would have that much time to think about what I was going to say before I said it. That's great, Matt. Thank you. I found this so helpful today. Thank you. Thank you. It's good to see you. The Chafetz Chaim is very much like those stories. You know, it's totally in the same screen. It's parsing. those distinctions. If you say one thing, it's this problem. And if you say something else, it's this problem.

[48:40]

It's wonderfully detailed. You would enjoy it, I know. Thank you, Matt. We'll take this one question from the chat. Blake asks, how do we apologize when we have not used beneficial speech? How do you apologize for anything? You have to risk, shall I say, lowering yourself. But really it's not lowering yourself, you have to risk leveling yourself, placing yourself at the same level. And that's scary to us. I would say, I mean, one of the things, again, and I've talked about this quite a bit, do zazen before you apologize.

[49:45]

Settle your mind and bring up the thought, how do I want to be received? Instead of just kind of plunging in, You know, how do I want it received? What is my intention here? My intention is to connect. If my intention is to connect, then not just to redress a grievance. And we have a better chance of a fruitful outcome. But there's a risk involved. So take it and get support, you know. Talk to your friends, talk to your teachers. Thank you. Thank you, Blake, for that question. I'm going to call on Taryn. We don't hear from Taryn so often. Please go ahead, Taryn. Hi.

[50:46]

Hi, Taryn. Good to see you. Hi. It's good to see you. The question I had was when you described kind of the metaphor of speech as an arrow, where once you've released it, you can't take it back. The reaction I have to that is to think, oh, I need to make sure I think really carefully about what I said. for that reason. But I also notice in a lot of my life and conduct that I am more prone towards not saying something because I keep thinking and thinking and thinking and that not saying something is also a form of speech. And there's moments where I'm like, I probably should have said something, but I didn't because I thought about it until it was no longer timely. So I was wondering what you would say about that tension. Well, what I would say about it is that both of them have the same root. which is, well, they both can be reached, they both can be corrected by the same practice at root, which is to recognize our conditioning, our habitual mind, which also includes

[52:03]

the various circumstances and conditions of our life, you know, where, which might involve, one aspect might involve gender, race, you know, different things that socially can serve to silence. But fundamentally, then you have to think, do I want to be, Do I want to be controlled by my habits, my conditioning, or do I want to live by vow? So to identify the vow is our practice. Once you've identified the vow, then you have a much clearer way of distinguishing whether to speak or not. rather than habitual, either habitual doubts, which would lead to silencing, or habitual urgencies.

[53:15]

Does that make sense? It does. Thank you. So, to boil it down, I think Dogeni says, our dharma eye... Well, let me not quote Jogen because I can't even quote it. I can't quite get it. Basically, we will do what we are trained to do. And if we're training ourselves in our habits and our fears and the oppression we may experience, that's one thing. If we're training ourselves in the Bodhisattva way, that's living by vow. Thank you, Taryn. Heather, please go ahead with your question. Good morning, Hazan.

[54:18]

So this idea of great speech is a lifelong journey for me and probably many of us. And I feel like there's an arc that I'm riding along learning my relationship to it and at this stage in life some of my strongest right speech muscles come from having used wrong speech muscles and learn from it and my question is about you know I'm raising middle school age kid I supervise people who are younger than me I'm around people who are at a different stage in their life who may want to say things that wouldn't fall in the right speech category and I'm if that even is a category I'm wondering how you've thought about

[55:29]

in a way mentoring people along the path when words can be so important in manifesting oneself at a particular stage of development? I guess first I would empathize with them because I was once like that and I have not, I don't think I've eradicated all traces of that. and to learn from them. And so I think another expression that I use is something that we talk about a lot in the chaplaincy training I'm involved in, coming alongside. So it's not so much here's what I've learned. It's like walking alongside someone, having a conversation, and trusting their Buddha nature to open up the relational aspect that allows for deep communication.

[56:43]

Does that make sense? We have a lot to learn. I mean, I've got a young person living back in the house again. And not surprisingly, he's got a lot of opinions. But there's really a lot to learn from him. Yes. I appreciate that a whole lot. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Heather. Someone at Preston's house has a question. Please go right ahead. Hosan, what does idle speech mean to you, and why is it discouraged? Idle speech, I think what they're talking about is basically, well, it's talking about speech that is about me.

[57:54]

It's self-explanatory. It's self-reinforcing speech. It's speaking so that one can hear and verify oneself. There's another kind of speech that I learned about that seems like idle speech, but it's not. When we were in Japan with... Being a practice period at Rinsoen, Suzuki Roshi's temple. This was led by Paul Disco, who some of you may know. He's a long time Zen practitioner. And Paul had spent a long time in Japan and was a fluent Japanese speaker and also just really immersed in Japanese culture. And one point we were at the temple,

[58:58]

The temple is about a half mile uphill from a little crossroads town, which has like a literally crossroad and a little convenience store or market. And what Paul said is when you go down to the market, just watch the old ladies. in the road or outside the market. Just watch them basically saying, how are you? Good morning. Nice weather today. And just watch them. And as they're doing this, they're bowing to each other. And that's not idle talk. That is talk to create. That's talk expressing relationship. So I just want to make sure that, you know, you don't throw the baby out with the best water.

[60:00]

Does that make sense? Thank you, Preston. Now, we have three more questions at 1117. Would you like to take a few? Okay, so we're going to end for today. Thank you all for your questions. No, no, no. Take the questions and end. Oh, okay. Didn't hear you. Thank you. Okay, well, then we have Joel. Please go ahead, Joel. Bye. Halisan, thank you so much for this talk. It's a great talk and helpful very much. One thing that really struck me is when you were quoting from Suzuki Roshi of when you listen to totally let go of your opinions and all of that, and very hard to do. And I was realizing... It does take practice. I realized that often when I hear speech, I hear speech as an attack.

[61:07]

I experience it as an attack, often very early in what someone is saying. And it's very hard for me. And what you were saying in Suzuki Roshi is realizing that's just my opinion. My opinion is this is an attack. And that puts it in a very different perspective. And at the same time, to actually do that, it just seems, takes tremendous strength. And because it's maybe, okay, what they say is, in my opinion, an attack, and that is simply my opinion. could also be that they're wrong because it's their opinion so to leave both possibilities open and available it seems necessary in a sense to really say okay that's just their opinion I can hear it maybe they're wrong maybe the right um so it takes a tremendous strength

[62:19]

Like I think of Suzuki Roshi's thing about the tree that can just stand up without a support. So just that really struck me. So anything you can say about that to find that kind of strength where that actually would be possible? Yeah, I mean, the thing is we are not standing... We need to stand on our own two feet, but we're not standing alone. And we stand up because all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are helping us stand. Otherwise, you couldn't do that. And the idea in listening is Listen now. You know, open yourself now, which is not to say never have an opinion about something, but get your opinion out of the way now so you can really observe and hear.

[63:34]

Yeah. Anyway, it's a start. It is very difficult. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you, Joel. We'll go ahead with Dean. Please go ahead. Thank you, Alan. I appreciated that your talk to me felt like it was less about what people should and should not do and more about what our practice calls us to do. So I appreciate that approach. And there were a couple other things that it brought up for me is that, you know, we're a lot of different cultures. Even in the United States, there's different cultures and we deal and engage with things differently and different things mean different things to us. And, you know, that you talked about our practice is not to be committed to the opinion, but our practice is about working with someone or working with people, our fellow Sangha members, to try to

[64:48]

maybe think about how our speech actually lands on someone. I know that there was talk about free speech. And what I sort of started realizing is there's, for me, there's free speech and there's costly speech. And I have to make a choice sometimes between which of those I'm going to move forward with. And it's been a... not necessarily an easy shift or an easy way to think about things. But that's how it's helped me a lot. But the other thing I wanted to bring up is my godson, who's 17, has been in a fair amount of trouble lately because of his speech. And one of the things that we have talked about is who wants to be that guy? Or you know, that person. And that's one of the ways, because I don't think, I'm not sure what you're saying.

[65:53]

Who wants to be that guy, that person who says something that is costly speech because I'll be damned. I'm going to have my free speech. I'm going to say what I want. And one of the things that came up while talking to him was, well, you can say it because you believe it's true, but you need to be prepared. for the impact it's going to have. And it's, it's talking about practice with him and the vows didn't really go so far because that's not what he does. But when I said to him, do you really want to be that guy? The one who says something and people are like, wow, don't want to go near that. And that had an impact on him. And I use that now in my own mind is, is when I'm, you know, other than trying to not speak so quickly, but to think about what I'm saying and to use that as well. So it's been a big, a big, very big, helpful thing for me in getting past the, you know, it's true, so I'm okay with saying it concept.

[67:00]

So thank you. Thank you. Well, that's one of the things that, that is clarified in the Chafetz Chaim and also You know, the Buddhist text about so-called truth is not enough, but I really like your distinction between free speech and costly speech. And maybe this is too abstract, but this is a tension in our society, and it's a creative tension. It's a good tension that there's a tension between freedom, which is... seen as individual freedom and justice, our collective, you know, whatever our attempt at the agreed upon social values are. This has been a tension. This is what it was argued about in the Federalist Papers from the beginning.

[68:03]

And it's not something we even want to get rid of. but we have constantly to observe it. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dean. We have our last question. Ross, please go ahead. Good morning. I really appreciated Joseph Goldstein's tact of not speaking about someone not present in the room. I know for myself that I can get in sort of trouble either praising or blaming others in that venue. And at the same time, I believe that he probably took moments to quote his teacher, who may not have been in the room. And it reminded me of a bumper sticker that we had here some time ago, What Would Mel Do? or Sojin Roshi, I think he was named after that. I have copies of that, by the way. Uh-huh, which are available if anyone wants them.

[69:05]

I've got a little stack of them. So my question is, for you as our abbot, what comes up from that bumper sticker? What would Mel do? What would my transmitting preceptor do in this case? How do you work with that? He's not here and he is here. Yeah. I actually think about it all the time. I'm very interested in bringing to mind what I think he might do as a point of departure. I feel obligated to you to that position, to that action, but to really think about it and recognize that the essential things that I think many of us learn from you were the accumulated wisdom of so many years of practice.

[70:23]

And to respect that and to also feel that I carry some responsibility to that. So I think about it, you know, and this is, you know, one of the things Lori and I have been doing is we've been reading aloud from the manuscript that Ron and Kika and Sojin assembled of his lectures. And that really keeps his voice fresh. And I feel that I wanna study that along with, or as Sojin used to study and lecture from his teacher, I think this is gonna be a, this is just a deep spring for all of us.

[71:31]

because all that wisdom is there. Right. And I don't, just as I didn't expect him to be perfect, I don't expect myself to be perfect, but I feel obligated to go back to the same sources or to try to understand what the sources were. that he came from. So I think, yeah, thank you. And I think this is where we have to end for today.

[72:11]

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