Good evening, everyone. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Welcome to Berkeley Zen Center. I'm really happy to be here with my old friend, yes sir, Chad Lee. I don't think we've seen each other since the pandemic. Yeah, they were over for dinner last year. Oh, right. You were here for dinner. Never mind. Can folks online hear okay? Yes. All good here. Okay, thanks. Okay, good. Well, I see a number of new faces here. I'm just curious, did you come from our announcement online or did you come from an announcement from this year? I saw it online on the website. Great. I also want to say how you got here. Great. Terrific. Well, welcome.

[01:47]

So we have a three-week class. My name is Hozan Allen Sinalki, and I'm the abbot of Berkeley's Ed Center. And we're going to have a three-week exploration of what is a good life in our respective traditions. And there's a lot of resonance between Sufi tradition, our Buddhist tradition and Zen tradition. And there are differences too. So I think each of us is going to do a kind of exploration and then we'll be open to questions and comments. And I think that one of the things that we have in common. Not so much in our Zen tradition, to be honest with you. But there's a lot of music in the Sufi tradition.

[02:52]

And I have been a musician for years. In the Zen tradition, I like to say, tend to sing one note that goes flat. But there's more music than that. But we're gonna start out with the song from Yasir's Knawak tradition, right? Yes. My name is Yasir Shadli. I'm originally from Morocco, from the city of Casablanca, which was spared by the earthquake. My family name is Shadili. It's a Shadili name of a Sufi order.

[03:55]

So I was born in the Sufi order of Shadili Qariqa order. So I was born in it. When I came here, It was like coming to the Amazon. All kinds of people. It's not like Morocco. Only Moroccans are there. When I came here, it opened many doors. From them, the food door. You can find Mexican food. There is burritos. I've never seen them before. They have sushi. What is that? And then you have American food, hamburger. French fries, Pepsi Cola, all kind of stuff. It's all there. And all kind of races, all kind of colored people. That was beautiful, the variety that I found here.

[05:03]

Then to share with these people where I came from and to learn from them. like jazz. We didn't have jazz. I didn't know what jazz mean. The only jazz I knew is when TV starting at six o'clock, they have cartoon. Then I can hear that music. I thought jazz was that. It was something different. Anyway, to make the story short, I was interested in learning all this music. I love James Taylor and his music, even though I didn't understand what he was saying. I loved the cause. It was wonderful. And many other things. And so I'm going to play a song from the Sufi Gnawa people. It's a sarcasm song.

[06:04]

It says that you guys are eating chicken and your wife is eating chicken. And I'm eating the bone, it's the leftovers. Oh my God. Allah Allah Moolana. Allah Allah is another way of saying it. Allah is my... I am the propriety of Allah. I don't belong to anybody. Only Allah owns me. And this is my destiny. And I don't do miskin. Miskin is poor guy. Miskin. And they... in these words. So I'm going to start with that song to share with you. That's his destiny, poor guy. And the song goes like this. It's more.

[07:06]

Bismillah. um um It's right by the court. You saw it already, I don't have to bring it.

[11:17]

It's called Gimbri. Gimbri. When it's smaller than that, it has another name. Sentir. Sentir. Sentir. And when it's bigger than this, it's called Hajhoush. Hajhoush. A log. They cut it in half and they carve it. And then, like a broomstick, they put it there. And then they cover the log with the skin. The skin shouldn't be thin from the goat or the sheep. It shouldn't be thick from the cowhide. Only place they use that skin is from the camel neck. That's the one they use. And this camel, not any camel, they died by sickness or something.

[12:25]

No, it should be a camel that they sacrifice to feed the whole tribe. It's a camel that is offered to feed the people who are poor. Sometimes it's the only time they eat meat and protein. So there is a ritual how to sacrifice this camel. The skin of that camel's neck is the one they use for this ajuj. The string they use from the guts. That sheep also should be a sacred sheep that is offered once a year In the remembrance of Abraham, peace be upon him, when he was going to sacrifice his only son, he sacrificed the sheep. So we sacrifice the sheep in remembrance of that day.

[13:26]

Once a year they do that. The guts of that sheep, they make it tight and they hold it on tight windows open like this. until it becomes strings. So the big string from a big guts and the small, medium one and small one, and then they put them on the gibri or the hashbouj if it's big, or the centir if it's small. And that makes the... Usually it's all organic, made by organic people. They are not into... technology. They are poor people, but they have this simplicity and connection with the divine presence in their songs. So they gather together and they play with the Gimbri different process.

[14:28]

They call it Lila. Lila means night. So they play in each color. They don't have written music that you can read. They have color. So if they start with the color red, they have to do seven songs in the red. And they know each one follows this one. It's a process, like a domino effect. When you finish the red, then you go to the blue. The red is sacrificed. Anybody who sacrificed the red. You go to the blue, it represents Moses because he was carried with water. He split the ocean. It's all about water. and the dancer will dance with that seven songs. If they feel moving, they'll have material that has colors they put on their heads and they with the blue. Trancing. Trancing. They get in the zone. Especially if they studied all year long, they have to pass their PhD and everything.

[15:32]

If they pass, they want to get relief. So they do these activities. There is somebody who just passed their PhD and everything. So now they would have just kicked off. They do like this in the process, going, going, going. They call it Leela because they do it at night. And what goes with the Gimri is this metal castanet can, but a heavy one. You can hear them. And there is always six people that plays that. Seven to one plays the Gimri. And there is call and response. Those metals are so loud, you cannot think forward or backward. You have to be present. That makes them to be present now. It's called , the metals. They go with the gimli. And then the leader sings the song, and the other one, they do the chorus, call response. They keep doing this like that.

[16:34]

When the sun rise, then they always play the yellow. Yellow color means sunrise and also means ladies. When that comes, they pass around and they give people almonds and walnuts and chewing gum and M&M and all these little knickknacks to everybody. Yellow. Yellow is seven ladies. Aisha, Layla, Khadija. Naima, seven ladies. But these ladies are not human. They're not human. They're from another zone. We call them the genies. They're made from smokeless fire, just like electricity. So they invite this dancer that is not seen by the eyes here. And then she comes and she may enter anyone.

[17:36]

They dance and dance. covered with yellow. After they finish with the yellow, then they have breakfast, everybody eats. This is a process that they've been doing for a long time. That was it. What strikes me is that the Gimbri both the construction of it, and also how you play it, is really one of the ancestors of the banjo, which of course the banjo came from Africa, and it was brought by enslaved people. And just the structure of it, the way this instrument has a string on the, it has a short string

[18:38]

here on the side. It's just like a five-string banjo. And he plays it the way Yathir plays it. Show them the hand motion. Right. So he's picking up with his fingers and down. This is really like an Appalachian Mountain style. We see Everything comes from some place. Even though we think that Morocco could be very far away, music is right here in our own traditions, in our own cultures, and it's still alive. We were supposed to talk about a good life. We spoke a little about the life that I understand from what Jesse was just saying.

[19:49]

On the one hand it's very rich in traditions and in stories, legends, myths that are very beautiful and old. And also the there's a tremendous discipline, which I think is something he's going to speak about. And this is also something that we, there's a discipline to Buddhist tradition. There's a way, particularly even in the Zen tradition, there's a way that we do things. And I remember when Yasir came to speak here a number of years ago, he was, struck by the discipline of people. How you're sitting. How you're moving in this space.

[20:50]

And I think that's really akin to the kinds of discipline that you will find, say, in the life of Islam. But the frameworks that we have, just to point out to you and we can go more into depth, but we've got, first of all, let me start with a traditional. May all beings be safe. May all beings be happy. May all beings be well and in peace. This is an implication that flows through our whole tradition, and that speaks about the relationship that each of us has with all beings, with the universe, with not just living beings, but also trees, rocks, the ocean.

[22:10]

All of this is life itself. So we have these systems, we're talking about discipline. Yassir talked about the discipline as sort of like guide rails along the highway. And we've got all these systems in Buddhism, these ancient systems of practices, are designed to keep us on track. And many of them go back to the Eightfold Path. That goes back to the earliest sermon of Buddha, which was 2500 years ago. And this is the Eightfold Path that leads to a life of liberation. And we could say to a good life, it constitutes the elements of a good life.

[23:18]

Right action, right intention, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, mindfulness, and right concentration. All of these are the building blocks of a good life. You can interpret them as practices for monks and nuns, renunciates. It's also how we can live in a way that is integrated and in line with these human values. So that's one system. We have other systems. We have systems called the four embracing dharmas, which is giving kind speech, beneficial action, and cooperation.

[24:34]

We have four, it's called the four immeasurable, four kinds of love. loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. We have sets of virtues. And we also down, we have the union of wisdom and compassion. Wisdom is the vision of seeing things exactly as they are. And compassion is that, as we were invoking at the beginning, that all beings are free, are healthy, safe, happy, and so forth. So these are all tools.

[25:35]

And they overlap with each other. Basically, they're there to give us some guidance when we lose our way, which inevitably we do. So all this is really useful and fine. The question is, first of all, how are we in relationship to each other? How are we in relationship to our environment? And it begins with relationship to our partners, to our families, to our community, to our town and nation, and other nations, not just my tribe, not just my people, but recognizing the common humanity.

[26:39]

That's a good life. If you're, no matter which of these other sets of virtues you use that take you to the bottom of things, if at the bottom it's not about how you're relationship to each other, it's wasted effort. How are we in relationship? How are we in alignment? with life, even when things are very hard, even when we have violence and oppression, discrimination, disease, all of these things, for each of us, it's incumbent on us to find a way to live that is not mired in those hindrances.

[27:44]

And we can only do that, we do that by really embracing the spiritual oneness of all life. And I think that that's the perspective that we have in common and how we do it is a little different. So we do it here, as many of you know, our fundamental practice is meditation. And the content of that meditation is really seeing yourself. We often sit, usually sit facing the wall. And when you're facing the wall, what do you see? You also can see the bugs that are walking across the wall and the shifting lights and stuff like that.

[28:48]

But you encounter yourself and you encounter every difficult thought and feeling that is within us. And what our practice in that context of meditation is to accept ourself. to accept all those feelings as human and not be caught by them. Not to get rid of them, not to push them away, but not to take them as the truth of what one boils down to, to recognize there's something more, there's something beyond. to see through that. And that's the process of our meditation. And then the idea is that we extend this meditation into our whole life.

[29:54]

So in a lot of zendos, after you've finished a period of meditation, you go to the door and you turn towards the altar, towards the Buddha, and you bow to the Buddha. Then you turn and you walk out. In this sendo, our teacher had us do something different. When we get to this, we don't turn and bow to the altar. We face the threshold, and we bow to the threshold, to the outside, and say, here I come. I'm bringing what was in me in this period of Zaza, bring this out into the world. Because if it stays in here, it's not alive. If it enters our life and our relationships, then... So that's just a brief introduction.

[31:05]

Maybe you have some thoughts about that or some... simply to expand on. In our Sufi tradition, the target makes you move. You cannot just hold on the arrow and study the arrow and the other line that holds the arrow and the wood. You can study all that and keep your eyes only on the arrow and the string without knowing the target.

[32:07]

In the Sufi tradition, there is movement, there is meditation toward the goal, the target. So you have to move. Study the arrow and the bow, they are not moving. As soon as you finish studying that, you go, 20 minutes later it fades away because you didn't move. Meditation with movement toward the A target. That target comes from the inner, what we call Iman, faith. You have to have faith that there is something. That something is beyond our mind or capacity to know. You only have faith that's there. Because we, the deduction, we say this whole universe could not come from nothing.

[33:17]

Something caused this. What causes all this? We say Allah, it's simple. Other people, they say, well, who created Allah? And who created the other one who created Allah and go along like that? That's called infinite regression. like somebody who wants to shoot but waits for the general to say, fire, and he shoots. But if the general has to wait for his general to say, say fire, and the other one and the other one, that guy can never shoot. The infinite regression, it has to start somewhere. That's the one they are targeting, how to get there. Plus, that one created us with this intelligence, what we can do. must be more intelligent than us. This intelligence and this wisdom has to be infinite. And Allah in this journey doesn't speak present, time or future.

[34:30]

He speaks past, means everything has been done. So this movement I did like this, Allah is not behind I can say, oh, I didn't know he was going to do like that. If he doesn't know that, it's not worth to be Allah. Allah has also created this that I'm doing. He created it way before I was born. So then start working with this process. If you can imagine using imagination, that all the people you see are really puppets. And there are strings held by each one cannot move except by Allah's moving these puppets. But you're the only one who doesn't have strings.

[35:32]

You pretend, even though you do have strings, you pretend I don't have any strings. So everything that moves around, they're puppets, moved by Allah to see how we're gonna respond. And the response is the whole, the whole... Shaban. Shaban. Is that an Arabic word? No, she said it. The whole thing is about the response. How do you respond? So Allah can bring somebody who is an idiot and that this and that, to see how you're gonna respond. If you know that this one is just a puppet, then you respond correctly. They're going to test me with this. So you respond accordingly. So everyone that comes to you, Allah has actually sent them to you to see how you're gonna respond.

[36:35]

The whole life is about how you're going to respond. If you respond not correctly, you maybe have anxiety, grief, you can be laziness, or you can be stinginess, or cowardness, all of this can happen. You don't know how to respond. So we know that everything, like tomorrow, is already known. Also, if you take a paper and you design a creature from your imagination, with the pencil, you draw your... That creature must exist somewhere. You cannot draw something that never existed. Because Allah cannot be surprised and say, I didn't know that. If he is surprised, he is not Allah.

[37:39]

Therefore, we are surrounded by this energy called Allah, who knows everything. So when Allah created the creation, he didn't need it. He didn't create it because he needs it. He created it and he divided into sections. He divided ahead of time, to have a good life. He also created their actions and their words and everything to have a good life. Another section, He created them to be miserable. And they do everything to be miserable. This is like that. And Allah created all that. So we are in between. What do we do? We say, oh Allah, if He created me, please put me with these people. Don't put me here. That's the... response, we have to respond to Allah like that. Because you don't know what Allah can do to you. If you are like this tomorrow, you can remove all the stuff you have and you become different, easily.

[38:46]

Since we don't know this, only Allah knows that. So we have that target called Allah. So we move with our prayers toward that target. Because why? In the beginning, when we were born, There's an ending. When we finish this life, we have to go to another life. The other life is like a door. And then that door opens, we move to the other life. To go through this life and to have a good life is to know these things. Allah created two sections, the happy ones, the miserable ones. Make a dua, we put our hands like this, like what he was doing like that when I was doing. What do we do? I want to respond to Allah. Why do that? Because Allah has endless power, endless wisdom, endless knowledge, no limit to what Allah can do.

[39:51]

Therefore, we know that Allah created us and created our movement. The movement you do, was created ahead of time. Then we asked if He created us and created our movement, make our movements to be good movements, that our hands will be hands that take care of plants or animals or healing or giving, those kind of hands. Don't make our hands to be the hands of assassins and killers. That's the actions of these. He created two houses. One he called heaven or paradise, and one he called hell. But they are similar to the people that go there. Nobody will be wronged, will say, oh, Allah, why did you put me here?

[40:57]

No. Everybody, Allah, Are you, am I just to you? He said, yes. It will be just. Everybody will be just in their places. Then we ask Allah again, because this is the response. Oh Allah, you created these two houses. Put me in this good house. You ask Allah. Because sometimes you can be good, good, good. And one night you... You are full moon and you are lunatic and you make a big volcano eruption from your body and anger in your head and you shoot somebody. After you come down, you don't know why they do that. You never know. So we give that power and we ask, Allah put me in this place. We see ourselves like that, then we act accordingly, because we know Allah is watching what you're doing.

[42:11]

All the time, wherever you are, Allah is there. More than that, he's closer to you than your jugular vein. In jugular vein, we cut people down, but he said, I'm closer to you than that. So that's the target that makes you move. in this life. And whatever comes to you, Allah is watching how you're gonna respond. So everyone who's not aware of this, they can be, any wind blows on them, they can fall. But discipline is to have first, you have to have faith. There is such thing as Allah, we call it. infinite names, infinite names. Then you have to believe that Allah didn't leave us like this on their own. He sent a representative that we call prophets and messengers.

[43:14]

They were all on the same foot. Adam and Enoch and Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and for us, the last one, Muhammad. Peace be upon them all. So we follow that kind of teaching. But there are 124,000 prophets that came to this planet. Some, they came a long time ago. Buddha came in 2,500. Yes. Long time. And then we studied. So he studied the planet. But if you tell him about the moon, he says, what moon? Moon is the closest moon. But the same light.

[44:16]

The same light. The same light. According to the place where they were and how much they shared with the people around them. So this one doesn't deny the other lights. So we have to believe in all the 124,000 representatives of Allah. We believe in them. We don't believe in them because they're all guided to how you respond. So in the response is the good life. How to respond is where the secret of a good life is. You have to have faith and then You do good actions. Then, speak with each other, exchanging truth. You give me some truth, I benefit from it. I give you some truth, you benefit from it. Now we have more truth to move on.

[45:23]

Then, . Then you have to have endurance and tolerance. and patience. Once you get there, those attributes, you should hold on them to reach that, that we call Allah. Since Allah is infinite, these targets are never finished. You see a horizon, you say, if I get to that horizon, that should be the end. You come to that horizon, another horizon appears, and you go from horizon endless horizons of that journey told Allah. Until we go hereafter, then Allah will give us power to be able to see this mystery creator, Allah. And to be able to see you power, like giving power to a blade of grass to carry the Himalayan mountains.

[46:28]

He has to give it that power in the hereafter. So to start the journey, you have to be connected. Mutasir. Mutasir is connected. So when I go to see... Handsome? Handsome. Is that handsome? Ozan, not handsome. Ozan. Ozan, handsome. He has pictures of his teachers. You have to be connected. We also have connection with your sheikh. Some other one they have connection with what they call gul. You have to have a connection. This connection gives a good life. If the connection is going from one to [...] the place where it started. So my teacher was number 40, and he was connected with his teacher, the other teacher, the other Shaykh, [...] the other Shaykh.

[47:39]

Prophet Muhammad, all connected. If you're doing it on your own, you don't have any connection, then you can meditate and everything when you go out, it fades away because you are disconnected, you're not connected. That's why teachers are very important. His respect to the teachers, I see their pictures, means he's continuing that connection. The connection that the Prophet Muhammad left his pay upon him and all of them, is he gave the connection to be connected with the one, with Allah, five prayers. Every day you do this prayer to connect or reconnect. After that, in the dawn, For example, it was done at 5.40 in the morning. Then around one o'clock, time to do the next prayer, because it's fine.

[48:41]

You don't feel it anymore. And you give it another. As if something, you play this thing that you hear it and it turns. Tap. So you don't let the tap fall. You hit it. It turns, turns, it's starting to hit it again. It starts to go around, around, around. Between noon and sunset, there's another prayer. He just keeps on turning. Sunset, another one. Before you sleep, then you go to sleep. You repeat that. It keeps you connected. This is a simple connection. that the billions of Muslims are trying to keep. There are levels and levels according to how much capacity and how much love people have. With the sheikh, they don't have to wait.

[49:43]

They're already turning all the time. Their prayers is a prayer of getting to a horizon. Every time they're moving to the next horizon, next horizon, we know there are endless horizons. So when you do two, horizon, four. Next horizon, eight. Next horizon, 16. It keeps on building up with new knowledge and new things you can see because you are moving. You are moving. You are moving. Well, that's a nutshell. Just a little bit of here and there and there to get an idea. May Allah bless you and forgive. Thank you very much. I'm just wondering if, first of all, people need to know where the bathrooms are. Just the one that's open right here. Quarter from left. Diagonally across the courtyard.

[50:45]

If you need to use the bathroom, please do. I have some questions. um we from online land um we can't we have a good view of yourself but we can't see shake yes sir it's obstructed by the microphone a lot of the time That's good. That's better. Thank you. Good. But you can hear okay, right? Yeah, audio is good. Good. So one observation, just a connection, is that in our lineage, the Dharma, the truth is past also.

[51:55]

person to person. And just to say, so, in the way we think about it, I'm the 93rd generation from Dhanu Buddha, and whether these are, whether this is actually real people, they're purportedly real people, and a lot of them we have history for. And through my teacher and his teacher and his teacher, And so we know this pretty far back. And that's important. That's a family feeling of connection. But one of the questions that came up to me, and then I want to open up to questions from you. So when you're talking about these different kinds of people, different categories of people that Allah... assigns.

[52:56]

Can you move from one to the next? Change your position? Is that part of what the objective is of your spiritual life? Yes. Even that move is already programmed by Allah. Already written. So that's... It's interesting that is resonant with the complicated idea of karma in the Buddhist tradition. Karma is and it's actually volitional cause and effect. So karma is not about accident. It's like there's something, some thought in your mind that generates an action, a karmic impact, either positive or negative.

[54:04]

Yes. Is there something like that? This is like studying like that, but compared to Allah, it's something else because Allah has infinite knowledge, that infinite knowledge. makes you understand that Allah knows what everybody is going to say, can talk, can be, before they are even created, ahead of time. That's the greatness of Allah. If you don't know this greatness of Allah, then you have to study differently. You have to think differently. One is beyond our mind, but we have faith. We are following something beyond our mind. You can't say something because there's no respect in something. One is unique. You can see everybody. It doesn't matter what they believe.

[55:07]

They still have two legs. How many legs do you have? Two. Two. Yeah. So it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what people, whatever. colors and everything, they still have two legs. You have to look at them as creation of Allah. But Allah, because he's the creator, is not creating everything and then he said, I'm tired, I'm going to take a break Saturday. I'm sleeping. No, he's a creator, he's infinite creativity that when you say words, Allah can take those words and create from it another you. Whatever your intention, you're thinking about something, it creates you and the world. There's multi, multi-universe. Only in Star Trek I saw this, that thing floating.

[56:12]

Is that where your spiritual source started? He said, this is something we believe. Universities, because in one show they show Captain Kirk and all the other ones in that flying thing. Enterprise. That flying saucer. The spaceship. No, no, you said spaceship. The Enterprise. And suddenly this Enterprise, another one showed up here, another one. And all of them, they have different Kirk and different spark. And all of them have the same thing. But that's an idea that exists. Because they cannot do that movie from something that Allah will be surprised. Oh, I didn't know that. That is impossible. Therefore, whatever you think, Allah will make a person just like you that lives on another planet that you are there too. So when you meet Allah and you say, no, I didn't do that, Allah will show you, you,

[57:19]

He created you in another place and you did that there. Allah is creating as we speak. He never stops from creating. That is the great power of al-Khalaq. But why would Allah make people miserable? What would be the reason for that? Why would Allah make people miserable? and then people happy, and decide that even before they're born. Why would he do that? It doesn't make sense. Allah is not like us, to bring Allah down and ask him questions, why are you doing this? A human being, yes, you can ask somebody, leader of a country, why did you do this to this? But what Alan is asking is, he made people miserable. How do they go from the miserable group to the happy group? Yes. Can they and how do they do that?

[58:20]

Allah can do that for his wisdom, but he cannot be questioned that he's wrong because Allah has endless wisdom. So he may make somebody, to your eyes, look like he's doing bad, but to Allah, he's putting him there for a reason and move him from here to there. And there is a, now the prophet said, there's a Quran, the word of Allah, and there's the hadith, what the prophet said, what the prophet said. And he's saying that before- Excuse me a second. I think online, because we're hearing some voices. So please mute yourself if that's you. I think we might be hearing audio feedback also, a little bit. Oh, well, that may be. Yeah. To finish that one, I just want to finish what the prophet said, and then you can take a question.

[59:28]

He said that before a person is born, an angel writes on that person. their longevity how much they're going to live even that person doesn't know that and they wrote on that person it's called destiny they wrote from that person how much air they're going to bleed how many how much you count air by pounds pound of air and then you also prescribe how many gallons of water or liquid you're going to drink and how many food you're going to eat. Because when you eat and you're going to drink, Allah is not saying, oh, I didn't know they're going to drink this. I didn't know they're going to drink this. That's impossible. Allah knows everything and created everything before we are here. Therefore, they wrote at the end what kind of intelligence this person is going to have to acquire their living.

[60:37]

Some, they give them intelligence. And some they give them their minds to be handsome. Don't look at me. Some people musicians. Some people musicians, et cetera, all that. Allah gives them so they can acquire their living. Some they're written on them, to acquire their living in a bad way by stealing. That already known by Allah, and then at the end, whether this person is gonna go on the right or on the left. All that, and the person is not aware of it. You come, and all that is already established. So a person- I'm worried. Well, I'm wondering then- I'm worried.

[61:39]

fate is decided before they're born, they can't make choices. Like in Buddhism, through mindfulness, you can feed loving thoughts and let the aggression move through you without feeding it. But in Islam, You can't make any choices. It's all predestined. It seems like that. But if you do it five times a day, can that change your fate and you can go to heaven instead of hell? These are two knowledges. Knowledge downstairs or horizontal speaks like that. But Allah's knowledge is different. Know what you're going to choose, what you're going to do.

[62:43]

If he doesn't know, it's not worth to be Allah. That's the difference between our knowledge and Allah's knowledge. Allah's knowledge is infinite. In the infinity of knowledge, do you think Allah doesn't know that what you said you never heard before? Do you think Allah didn't create what you're going to say and where you're going to sit in your movement? Do you think you did them yourself? Allah doesn't know anything. So there is two knowledges. We don't mix them. We say Allah's knowledge belongs to Allah. Our knowledge is the one you're speaking with. Yes, we pray and everything, and we say in between, that's what I say. There's two groups. One group is living in bliss. One group is living in misery. But we are to say, oh, Allah, don't put me in this place. choice put me in this place knowing that Allah knows already and even when you do this and you say that he created that for you because Allah's knowledge and power is infinite until you absorb this idea of infinity power with no limits wisdom with no limits then you get the idea that we are

[64:09]

very different than Allah. So to work on yourself without thinking about Allah is great because you work. We pray and we know this our prayers, Allah is aware of it. You can't just pray and Allah said, oh, I didn't know he's gonna pray. You can't draw something and Allah would say, oh, I didn't draw these creatures there. They can't make star trek and Allah is surprised. whole thing. Only we can be surprised because that's who we are. But Allah is not like that. He is not a physical body. He created physicals. And he's not, he can't die. We die. He can't. He's always. And he's surrounding us even here. When we have that connection, you You continue with that connection, then you feel you are surrounded by Allah all the time.

[65:16]

That makes good life, because everything you see is doing it. Then when he comes and tests you, puppets coming to you, somebody suing you or this and that to see how you're going to respond. If you blame it, you'll be the blamer, or you can be the person who... or you can have sadness because you're putting it on yourself, ignoring the one that created you. But when you turn, oh, help me. We say that all the time when we pray. You we are after, and you we need your help. That's the position. What comes to mind is some Buddhist teachings.

[66:19]

Certainly the teaching of the relative and the absolute. The relative being what we do in this mundane world. The absolute being something, a reality that is all-inclusive and beyond our understanding and perhaps beyond our power. So we're working with this dynamic tension. The relative and the absolute do not exist separate from each other, penetrate each other. So in some schools of Buddhism, in early Buddhism, you have the idea that the Buddha is proposing that we practice in such a way that we can world of birth in it.

[67:22]

We can leave this cycle of rebirth because that is the realm in which there is suffering. And we can, with proper practice and proper insight, we leave this wheel and we leave it in our bodies in this world. And then when we die, there's our nirvana, which means the final extinction. So that's, that's view. If you start looking at other aspects of what they say is, oh, this was actually a provisional teaching because the Buddha never dies, and is all-powerful and eternal, and is over this universe that we live in.

[68:25]

It's very close. And we cannot, and the Buddha is not a thing. Allah is not a thing. You can't attach an identity to these beings that we have faith in. And so, how this all plays out, so we have this really difficult teaching in Buddhism that everything is perfect just as it is. And of course, some of us admit, this doesn't seem so perfect. What went on in Morocco two weeks ago, that doesn't seem so perfect. The fires in Maui, that doesn't seem to perfect. The war in Ukraine, that doesn't seem to perfect. What the hell are you talking about? And this is a spiritual position that we're actually being asked in faith to wrestle with.

[69:32]

And I think that there's some similarities and parallels Even though the actual methodology and the theology, if you will, is different. Other questions? Thoughts? I just want to translate his answer for her. I want to translate. You have free will. You can make choices. It's not that you have no choices. It's that Allah knows what you're going to choose. Whatever you choose, you're making choices in your life. I want to be a better person. I want to get rid of these bad, we call them knots, bad habits or whatever. You make, but what he's saying, what he meant to say is, Allah knew before you were going to make those choices, but you're still making them. That's, I'm translating into English with all the stuff he just said. That's what he meant to say. Thank you.

[70:34]

Good life is to have Sometimes you feel you want to scratch something in your back that is too far from your hand. Good life is when my wife comes and say, scratch me here and there. No, not there. Scratch it right there. That's good life. That makes a good life. You know, another metaphor for a good life, I think, is One of the Theravada teachers said, it's kind of like you're lying in bed, clicks off. You're not hearing the buzzing of the refrigerator anymore. In that moment, there's a good life. I was reminded of our old abbot.

[71:40]

Everything is a test to see what you will do. Yes. Nothing more, I mean, just that. Exactly. So how you respond. Because this earth is created to test. It's a testing ground for all of us. We are tested. That's why I give that that everybody is a puppet and you don't have any strength. You're the only one free. in this world. And then the puppets, they come to you differently. How you respond is where the ball game is played. How you respond. Yes, sir. All right. So what he's saying is that Allah is not creating suffering. It's just the nature of the form, ground that we live in is nature, is suffering. Because since I was a child, I always question, you know, Okay, show me Allah. And then the other one was wife who are suffering. Now baby is born with no limbs.

[72:43]

I had a brother that was born that physically mentally disabled until 22 he died. Miserably, he had a miserable life. So I'm not saying that Allah did that, but I also want to know why. Just compassion. That's right. To learn compassion, that's one thing. The other thing is, In this realm, we can see things like this physically with our eyes and our head. That's what we see. But beyond that, there is other sight. I'll give you an example. When we used to go to the beach to swim, we put in the beach, we put sand, not castle, sand high, like a little mound, and we put our clothes on top. So when we swim, we always look at the clothes. We don't want anybody to steal them. Because it happens to me, they stole my clothes and I had to go home just with my, all the way walking like a mile.

[73:50]

Then I knew that's why people put them in the thing. But I always look at my clothes. Inside our soul, And when you pass, that soul starts to look at where they live. So that body is only closing for that soul. And sometimes Allah gives somebody like this to give them a high on the other side. He said, you did all that, I want to, I plan all that so the other people can bring the compassion out of them. If somebody is stingy, by character, Allah wants to change them. He gives them something that makes them generous. It can change them. Because Allah at the end, he will go out of his way to put people in paradise. It's not like Allah is mischievous and he loves punishment and hell. And plus hell is not something that is a big hole with fire and they have some with a fork throwing people in there.

[75:01]

It's not like that. When they put somebody in their head that they created, because Allah is the creator, he created from everything that that person did, a planet. When they take that person to that planet, let's say that person is a sociopath and murderer, and he was never caught, and he killed a lot of people, enjoy killing. They put that person in the planet, First they enter, the air is so hot, billion times hotter than this air. So this air, the air speaks back. So why are you complaining? I am yours. What do you mean one of mine? You created me. I created you? How? When you were strangling this person, I was created. Start with that. First.

[76:01]

Then there's rivers, boiling water, drinks water. This water is boiling, it's burning everything inside. You created me, don't you remember? No, how? When you did this and this, I was created. And this whole planet is created by the deeds of that person. He's out of touch with what that person created. And the opposite is true. You find some beings in this heaven, They welcome you and everything. So who are you? I am that broken glass that you moved so people don't step on it. Because Allah is the creator, forever created, all the time. That's what is there. So we cannot say those people that are tsunamis and volcanoes and all these people that pass, you realize doing that.

[77:02]

And Allah is so infinite, so great, you cannot bring Allah and ask him question, why did you do that? That's pure arrogance and ignorance of who Allah is. So the first step is, who is Allah? First, and give Allah a position of infinite grace, infinite mercy, infinite love, Everything, the attributes Allah has, they're infinite. They don't have any limits. He is asking us, not asking questioning Allah. You can have a conversation with him, right? You can have a conversation, of course. That's what we do like this, we talk to Allah. Oh Allah, make this gathering. Bless people. I want to be with them.

[78:05]

Don't put me in the people like gangs and killing each other and all this. You can be in those groups. They'll affect you. It's called peer pressure. You can see we are in a good place. Thank God. Alhamdulillah. You brought up the concept of blaming Allah. Well, why not? I mean, I'm pretty sure that Allah can handle it, right? If we said, he did it. He said, yeah, I did it. And you say, well, I don't like that. He's like, well, that's just what it is, bro. And then you go on your way and you accept it or you don't accept it. And who cares if you accept it or don't accept it? Except that you don't feel great, right? If you're at odds with your creator. But the idea of not blaming Allah for something that he did, I feel like Allah can one handle it. And two, it would be disingenuous to say that Allah is responsible only for goodness and not for evil.

[79:10]

Why couldn't he be responsible for evil? No, he's responsible for everything. Even when you were talking and you were doing like this, he created this, what you're saying before you came here. He created that place in the city and created you say all these things. That's the greatness of Allah. Therefore, he created the people that like to be in the miserable place. It's not like he forces them. There are this quality inside that tastes good when they do bad. Like kleptomaniac, they feel, ah, even though they have everything, they steal. They can't help it. It's there. But Allah gives them choice not to do that because they know. But if they keep on doing it, And then we have in our bodies 72, like, Christmas lights. In each light there is an attribute of yourself.

[80:14]

One light, one small light has kleptomaniacism. Another light has stinginess. Another light has greed. And on and on and on and on. And it's generally, you try to turn off all these lights. It's the same thing that the Buddhists do. right action, right thinking. That's turning off all these ones. If somebody comes here and they have little Christmas lights inside out of the 72, and then a kleptomaniac example passing by and their light is shiny because they're going to steal something, that one sitting doing meditation, that light will go poof, they'll get up and they'll flip you. It can fire them. And the positive also, if somebody is close to Allah, they can fire others to feel that presence. It will be like when a car is dead because the battery is dead.

[81:17]

You bring another car that's a good battery, and then you hook them up with those jumpers. That energy that goes from this battery to that battery is not seen. but it makes that battery alive. So this certainty of Allah and all these things cannot be acquired or acquired by reading or anything. It has to be from someone that has that certainty in their heart and their presence without talking. That energy goes just like the battery with the other one. Charge. No talking, even that person could be talking about something with no value. It was, if you go to Iraq, and there's a picture of a green dome in Baghdad. And underneath that green dome, there is a saint of his time.

[82:21]

His name is Abdul Qadr Jilani. He was a Sultan. He was in the presence of Allah, always connected. And when he was teaching, everybody sits and they listen, thousands of them. And one day he sits at his place, sits, and he was teaching, but he was teaching knowledge, book knowledge, of all the sayings of the prophet. He said this, and that, and the do's and the don'ts, don't do this, do that, all the rules and regulations. Thousands of them, they were sleeping like this. But he continued, he was full. He didn't touch on the scene, the people are bored, to stop himself, because he was so full of himself. You have to be aware, the people close their eyes and they're bored, stop. Don't keep going, because you think you're important.

[83:24]

He kept on going, going, going. Then his father came, and then the son get up and let his father sit. And he didn't speak about, the academic hadith who said that in the Koran, in the verses, nothing of this. He said, yesterday I was fasting. Everybody starts crying. These two words, yesterday I was fasting. They're crying, he was fasting yesterday. Then I made a fish to breakfast with. They're crying again, he was cooking. Then fast, the cat came and ate that fish. And they were crying again. It had nothing to do with the Koran and the Hadith and the Prophet and the prayers. Nothing. He was speaking from his heart to their hearts. They understood it very well. They all were listening. He was speaking about something totally different.

[84:25]

But the cable of his heart was in the other people's hearts. These are the people that we try to connect with. So you're number 94? Three. And I'm number 41. From the prophet to my sheikh, who's 40, and I'm 41. There were some other hands here. What was all mine? Let me just, Hannah. It sounds like I'm wondering. the idea of human nature, if there is an idea. Is there some sort of intrinsic capacity or an inclination toward Allah that's natural? Is that seen as somehow more natural than inclination towards bad deeds?

[85:29]

So yeah, or if there's like a human nature. Very good question. We call that fitrah. Fitrah, every human being is born with fitrah. It's a gift from Allah to every human being. That fitrah is the light. Everybody is born with it. So when we see something wrong, moral compass says it's wrong. We see somebody stepping on a baby, everybody reacts. inside. That's an example. This fetal light is in there. Either you increase that light or you cover it. When it's covered, they call sin or wrongdoing. Every action goes up to this big giant funnel. so huge that this Milky Way, they look like little dust inside that funnel.

[86:36]

This funnel has holes like the beehive holes. In each hole, there's a soul there. And what we have here is a light beam that goes from your body to that place in that funnel. We call Barzakh in Arabic. So when you do a deed that is good, In that funnel, you can go up. In the open funnel, all the souls there, they have light. Not like this light. It's another kind of light. We just say word light. That light of the soul is so powerful, it feeds the sun and the other planets. When you do bad things, like some people, murderers, then that place in the funnel, that place where you are, goes down.

[87:38]

The more down you go, the narrower it is and there is no light. Because they themselves fit in that place because they are like that. The only selfish, narcissistic think only about themselves, so they have that place there. If they change and they do good, they start rising. Every time you do something, it rises like elevator in that beam of light. Those who have that light in their hearts, when they see, they can see the beam of the people. If the beam is a big one with light like this color and goes up, you see that person does good. If the beam is covered by their behaviors, that beam becomes dark, blue, and dirty. They say, that person, you have to be careful.

[88:39]

As of holy people, they put that beam only a little bit. They call it a halo. But the halo actually is not just stopping here around the head. It's going all the way to that place where the souls are. When we finish our journey, That place in that place. If you pray for your father, mother, grandfather, they pass. If you do good deeds by giving charity in their names, you can move them up, that connection. You can move them up, up and up and up. And that one will be like a horn in the mouth of the big angel called Israfim. is holding this barzakh and waiting for Allah to give him to blow. But when everybody finish from this earth, from A to Z, when the Z is there, nobody is coming after this, no beams are coming, the last one is here, then our bodies will be on this earth, and there is one seed, when we came, we came from...

[89:59]

But next one, the womb will be earth. And the seed of our bodies, it's like the seed of a plant, is hidden in the coccyx, in the tail bones. It's called ajwab. In that place, you'll be on earth. And then this rain, we say rain, but it's not like this water. When it touches this ajwab seed, which is planted in earth, now we're going to be born from earth. Everyone will resurrect, we call it the day of resurrection. Since everybody's born once at a time, once at a time, now they're going to come up, standing up. Then Israfil will blow on that horn, that is really Berzach, all the souls will fly out of that place, like you can see when the kids play with bubbles, those bubbles. And each bubble will know its home. Straight to your home.

[91:03]

Now this body is not like this body. It's going to be eternal body. It's never going to die again. Because it's the opposite. If this life has death, the other life doesn't have death. That time, that's called Resurrection Day. When Allah is going to be justice. And they're going to send everybody to the home they created themselves. So in the meantime, are they in the heaven and hell? And is that waiting? Who? People have died. Their soul is in the barzakh, waiting for the day. In the funnel. So they're not yet experiencing the home they created for themselves. No, they can see it. Allah will give them a light. We give them a beam, just like an iPhone, and they can see. Either they regret, I wish I didn't do that, look what I'm waiting for.

[92:06]

It's gonna be very terrible for the people that didn't care. And the other one is gonna be so happy. It's like a wedding day, just can't wait to get there. And do they have an opportunity to change the road they set once they're in the final? They can't? change whether it'll be in heaven or hell. You can change your position. Once you're in a funnel, can you change your fate or no? You can change if other people are praying for you. If you don't have anybody, then you're there. No, you can be your actions. For example, let's say you open the school. Everybody benefits from the school. You made a well. Everybody's drinking from it, the birds, the animals, all that. Increases you. So the top ones, we say the 124 prophets and messengers, they're in the highest place with a lot of light. And that light is the one that gives food to the sun.

[93:08]

Because we are so great, more than the sun. May Allah forgive us. I think we should sing a song tonight. We will eat. Back next Thursday. To be continued. You have to come next Thursday. Think of your questions and bring them next to you. Yeah. We're going to do a song that Jessica and I actually recorded quite a long time ago. Just seems like appropriate for this moment. We have a special guest sent from quarters in Japan, Ikeda Roshi, who is going to speak to us at 5.45 here in the Zen Do and also online.

[97:52]

He is a Zen teacher and he's also been a chaplain in a penitentiary in Japan, and also working with high school students, teaching them kendo, sword, the art of the sword. So please come tomorrow, tomorrow evening, 5.30, and we'll be back here at 7.50. I mean, thank you. Thank you. I'd just like to check the BCC members who are pretty sure they're gonna be here next week. Could you raise your hand? Thanks me for the class. Just because we might need some roles. We might need to ask you to step into some roles. But you're going to be here again. I'll be online this week. I'll be online.

[98:54]

I'll be online. I'll be online. Thank you so much. I'm going to put Gimson in charge, but I'm going to make an email to the people who are here. can do stuff, which is basically just...

[99:12]

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