So to begin this evening, we are going to chant this portion of the Genjo Koa. Those who are on Zoom, please mute, but please do chant along with us. So this is in the book, part three, beginning with the third paragraph. does not fill your whole body and mind to think it is already sufficient. When Dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. For example, when you walk out in a boat to the middle of an ocean where no land is in sight and view the four directions, The ocean looks circular and it does not look any other way.

[01:15]

But the ocean is neither round nor square. Features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you can see at that time. All things are like this. Though there are many features, world and a world beyond conditions. You see and understand only what your higher practice can reach. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety. Old worlds are there. It is so not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet or within a drop of water.

[02:19]

I'm going to read the first paragraph again. When Dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient. When Dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. You could just stop here with these two lines. So in thinking and feeling into and deepening into this first part of this portion, reminded of being many, many, many years ago, a clinical psychology intern and then coming first into private practice and filled with psychological theories and about human behavior and I had memorized the diagnostic manual practically from cover to cover and I had very clear and very fixed views

[03:35]

on all diagnoses and who people were and how it should go and how people should live their lives, basically. And over time, of course, hopefully, and it did happen, I began to really feel into the fact that the impossibility that I was trying to hold this position, that there was Literally, there is no way we can fully know another person, their personality, their inner being, their inner workings, their context, the myriad experiences that form them, and beyond that and beyond that. So in coming to that realization over time, It was actually very relieving for me to come to that, to realize that everything I absolutely could not know, even if I wanted to know everything, I could not know everything about a person.

[04:49]

And that, so I didn't have to be in charge of a program that I actually wasn't in charge of anyway. There are times when indeed to actually be in control and take charge and direct depending on certain contexts, but primarily the work is to be deeply present with somebody and to be aware enough to help possible doors that people can look through or see or experiment with so they hear their own voice and they do their own growing in their own pace. There were two components of that, really. One was coming into, and I didn't have the term, so I didn't have the term not knowing at the time. But basically what I think is being described here in these first two lines of the koan, this part of the koan, is humility, is allowing oneself to be

[06:02]

to be perceiving and seeing as that comes through to us in our readiness, that we grow more toward that. And that Yasuttani talks about this idea of holding to or knowing, being in a position of knowing as arrogance, which I think is a very interesting way to look at it. And many of us do this in certain parts of our lives. We just know. things, we take that position when we actually can't. So this speaks to me of humility, truly humility in terms of hoping to keep oneself open, to receive and to perceive as readiness in us or grows in us. but that we'd be in a position of not knowing and humbleness so that we can be open to what does come, what is given, what arises for us.

[07:15]

So this is how this first portion comes up for me and this first portion comes up for you. This is reality as I see it. It's way too... Oh, sorry, thank you. I think this is just smart reality. It's always complicated. It's always more than we know. And so good to be asking to know, to see more. How about anybody else want to talk about this? If you don't. We can go on because we're going to get to it here. I'm going to read the second section, paragraph two. For example, when you sail out in a boat to the middle of an ocean, the land is in sight and view the four directions.

[08:24]

The ocean looks circular and does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round nor square. Its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. As far as you can see at that time, all things are like this. So through the Ganjo Koan, Dogen gives us examples of how the way we commonly perceive reality is delusion. In this section, when we're on a boat in the middle of the ocean, we think that the ocean is circular because that is what we can see, what we experience, although we usually can call to mind our wider knowledge about the general shape of the ocean and invariably it touches land. Encompassing the whole complex reality is not possible.

[09:28]

We can be quiet. and present to what is close to us, our breath, the world inside a flower, the voice of a friend. And as a way to begin, we can study our own limited views. At least this is helpful for me. As many of you know, I spend a couple of weeks each summer at a Girl Scout camp in the High Sierras, which I first experienced when I was a child. Now a volunteer, my camp partner Jay and I, most evenings lead a group of young campers and adult leaders up a dark path, a path I first knew in 1951, above where trees grow to what we call astronomy rock. We find our places laying on our backs on a big slope of granite, looking up at the clear night sky, stars, the Milky Way, planets, the moon, planes and satellites too, of course.

[10:36]

And we talk about what we're seeing. Everything we see is a reality we have been ignoring. We have been having our, what I think of as flat Earth lives on a round planet, circling around the sun. Our Earth is part of the Milky Way galaxy. The white band, so clear when you're at a place like the high Sierras. Crowded with all else that makes it up. The bright stars we see, the big ones, are much larger than the earth and very impressively distant from us. Are a thousand light years away. The light we're seeing at that moment. left that star a thousand years ago. The world above the Milky Way and our place in it, the stars, is the reality of all our days.

[11:39]

Our lives as if life is not truly this. Walking on the flat earth. Dogen is pointing out that our eye of practice must encompass a totally, completely interactive boundlessness that our perceptions, our words, even astronomers cannot but approach. So how do we do this? I'd love to hear if you can think of examples in your life where you kind of know that there's more to it, but you live as if, like we all do at Girl Scout Camp, walking on the flat ground, forgetting that We're on a planet going around the sun. Can you think of examples of that in your life? Yeah. One example that comes to mind when I'm just starting to get to know someone and I kind of get glimpses of what they're like and I realize that they're very different than me or that their thinking is just coming from a very different

[12:56]

basic experience than me. I just realized there's a whole universe in that person that I'm not familiar with. Wonderful. That you are... I think you probably didn't hear, is that right, on Zoom? Did you hear her? You heard her. That means yes. Wonderful. Thank you. Yes. The walk to work, because I'm walking to work where I have to do all the things that I do all day, every day, and yet there are flowers, there are all kinds of beautiful things when I'm walking and I just don't. Occasionally I'll catch like a moment of purple from these beautiful flowers and I'll remark on it, but I'm immediately just back to walking to work. very isolating to take that route and to not be able to stop to smell the flowers as it were.

[14:09]

Carol Paul has her hand up. Carol. Oh, thank you. Was that Julianne, the first speaker? Okay, I wanted to just kind of add on to that. It reminded me of, you know, when I meet... someone or maybe even know people, I have a story, you know, I made up a story of what they're like. And it can be quite elaborate. And then I get so completely different. And it just makes me realize, you know, well, first of all, that delusional state. of making up a story, and then there's always so much more to a person than I had imagined. So it's just a great reminder to let things unfold without putting a story on it. Thanks.

[15:12]

Thank you. I feel that way anytime I'm learning something new. Like if I were just going to Wikipedia, just read a random thing. It's just like, oh, the world is so much bigger than I conceived of a minute ago. And yeah, I think that's a really pleasant experience, actually. Mary. Mary. Well, thank you. I think this also applies to ourselves. that we are much more than we think we are, that it's similar to the jewel in the robe, the hidden jewel that you don't know is there, that metaphor that we have, that we see ourselves as oftentimes as a fixed thing.

[16:14]

That's one aspect of it. But another aspect of it is that I think we... as this transactional person in the world and don't necessarily always identify the depth, the emptiness and boundlessness that's in us that we participate in. We participate in. And touching that and being able to touch that, finding the sacred and the ordinary. I don't think it's something you can do. I think it's something that happens. Say, when you put yourself in a position where your accident from, the accident happens, that kind of enlightens the idea that it's not something you can actually do. It's something you put yourself in a position to experience. Thank you.

[17:16]

Can you hear that? Hearing that. Here's another way to maybe also approach this is a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh who asks, can you discern occasionally when you are in a place of presumptive knowing? Can you get it? Is what I think he's asking. Have you had the experience of recognizing it in the moment? when you're operating from fixed. You're presuming you know something that actually, yeah. Yeah. I think C. Gordon has had her hand up. Good, thank you. Okay, Cheryl. Hi, this is Cheryl. I was touched by...

[18:19]

Your story, Hannah, about laying on a rock looking at the sky. And what I feel when that happens is I just lose track of my body. You know, it's just my eyes and the air and what's above me. And another way I get that sensation is that when I'm moving in that kind of exercise, Myself changes. I'm different. The pull, the physicality, what I think about, the rhythm of it is really different than when I'm up walking around thinking about life. And it's also something I miss if I don't do it regularly, some form of swimming. That's it. Thank you.

[19:25]

Cecilia? I was just saying about presumptive knowing and I've just had a moment. I'm trying to hear you, sorry. I've had a moment of presumptive unknown and it was when Gensan was speaking about walking to work. I immediately assumed he was going to say, I just immediately assumed it was something about not having to drive, but actually it was something completely different. So my mind was presuming it was something about not driving, and I was thinking, oh, how nice to go to a walk. It was the opposite thing. We couldn't hear any of that. I'm not surprised. It was presumptive unknown. Cecilia was talking about what she calls presumptive unknowing. that she assumed when Gensan was talking about work that he was talking about walking instead of driving, correct? Yes. Yeah. And so we do.

[20:27]

We think we know what another person is going to say or what it must be for them, and we sure don't. Thank you. Yes. Can you unmute us just for a second? I found that I've really appreciated OF, LIKE, WORKING WITH THIS CONCEPT IN REGARDS TO CONFLICT, BOTH IN TERMS OF SUPPORTING MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS I WORK WITH IN NAVIGATING CONFLICTS, BECAUSE I'LL OFTEN SIT WITH TWO KIDS WHO ARE MAD AT EACH OTHER AND HAVE THEIR OWN STORIES, AND USE THAT IN MY OWN CONFLICTS, AND IT'S SO... CAN YOU HEAR THIS ON YOU PEOPLE? NO, IF YOU COULD RESTATE, THAT WOULD BE GREAT. YES. I CAN TALK LOUDER. OKAY, THAT WOULD BE, I DON'T KNOW IF THAT WOULD HELP AT ALL. I was saying that I found it really interesting to kind of play with this not knowing in terms of both in seeing students who are navigating conflicts between each other and then trying to seeing how often each of them has their own completely different story of what's happening and how powerful it is when they can actually hear one another's and then trying to apply that when I'm in conflict with someone and I have my own story of like they because this xyz

[21:42]

and being able to try to apply that and be like, okay, I'm going to be curious about, I have no idea what's going on and how often it's really different than I expect. Thank you. Did that come through? Did you hear that? Oh, good. Yes? Okay, should we go on? I just, before we do go on, There's a quote also from Nishijima, this territory that we're discussing. As you proceed forward, you gradually realize the inadequacy of your attainment. As long as you think your grasp of the Dharma is sufficient, you are still able to do it. The so-called matter of transcending Buddha is attaining Buddha, proceeding, and seeing into Buddha anew.

[22:53]

That speaks to me of holding open, being able to unfix a view. Sue Oh has her hand up. Hi, Sue. Hi. Thank you. I started thinking as you were talking, there's something about wanting to be right, you know, having to be right. And somehow I found myself so wrong, you know, but I had to get back on the treadmill and try and find it. It was very exhausting. But I've forgotten, you know, I mean, that's still in there listening, especially to the stories about the arguments with kids that Karen was talking about. You know, I don't know that my arguments are any different than the kids.

[24:00]

And letting that go or something shifts in our understanding of ourselves as we get older, I think, or at least in my case. where that right-wrong softens, maybe drops away a bit near other people. And I don't have to attain any particular place so much, if that makes sense. Thank you. I also wonder if connected with the rightness and wrongness is that there's... a sense of safety almost or security and a sense of being in control when you stay with a fixed view i'm right this is my position i know this is true there's some illusion of uh control i think as well i agree i mean that that's really the next step for this um

[25:09]

I thought a lot about this today on a hike I was on around politics, having to be right, looking for safety and protection. Yeah, thank you. Just one more story before we come. I love this from Suzuki Roshi. I found this. I've read this or come across this before. He's speaking of the Genjo Koan and he says, if we know the truth, we think something is missing. In Japan, the famous writer Fumiko Hayashi always said, this work is not all my ability. This is a very interesting statement. She wrote and wrote.

[26:10]

and at last she became a very famous writer. People say she is a good writer, but she says, this is not all my life. People say she is good, but she says, I am not a good writer. I cannot express my feelings yet. There is more I want to express. Something is missing in this sense. through when you are unable to explain yourself through and through it is good when she says that is exactly what I wanted to say she may not be such a good writer Jake Van Ackeren's got his hand up.

[27:17]

I think I've been thinking about this some, and I think there's a tendency for us to want to belong to a tribe, to a group, you know, beginning as children. You want to fit in with the good kickball or really good at baseball, and it goes on and on. We get older and you identify strongly with a political group or an environmental group. And I heard a talk recently by an environmentalist who's also a hunter. He travels in both groups. And it was fascinating to hear him say how when he's with his hunter, buddies that they've got very fixed views about what the environmentalists are thinking about all this and some of their their hunting and the non-meat eaters and all that and that other group the vegetarian group or that group opposed to hunting they have all these other very fixed views about the hunters and so i think that's part of us too it's individual but it's also there's a certain group thinking that takes hold

[28:38]

Did your comment? I love this. It's a great... I'm finding it more and more interesting to think about the composure that's underlying and not that what I'm thinking or perceiving is being misperceived or not, which is also important, but am I holding it with kindness? and true awareness and patience and not wanting to because I find myself reprimand myself and punish myself when I recognize these presumptive perceptions and then realizing that that's an indulgence that's just correcting and then also holding the ambiguous in with it and that I might have to correct again what my perception is because My view of the ocean is going to shift as my position and perspective shifts.

[29:48]

And am I holding that all with composure and with kindness and with patience and not wanting to be right or wrong, even in my own self, but just to be clear. Oh, there was another presumption. There was another misperception. Let me adjust. Because I'll get caught up in the correction. Letting that go. Thank you, Paula. Something came up as you were speaking of that. Just before we go, excuse me, just a second. Are people hearing now? As we're turning the mic towards speakers in the hall, are you hearing online? Much better. I'm thinking of time when I realized a change in my view. Either I had a limitation, or new information's come in, or I've had an aha moment, and sometimes those ahas are like, wow, I was really deluded here, or wow, I was really not seeing the things as they actually are.

[31:03]

But the feeling I think that sustaining is the one of wonder as opposed to self-criticism. And I'll give you a simple example. Many years ago I was in the museum and I was looking at these ancient bronzes and I had never really explored ancient Asian history. And you know, as I thought, Oh, bronze is okay, they use them for this, they use them for that. And the more I looked at them, the hundreds, I'm like, why am I looking at all these? I suddenly realized that I was looking at an immense, complicated culture that took thousands of years to develop all the different things that were required just to make these forms. And it was like, wonderful. So trying to place it historically or understand how that fits vis-a-vis where I come from or my culture.

[32:07]

And so I criticize myself for my Western arrogance or my male arrogance or my whatever. So this is, you know, this is at a kind of an ordinary thinking level that we experience and Dogen's kind of one other step into the beyond where he's talking about things, everything connected tight from here to forever. in time and spatial present, you know. So I think what we can do is, what I can do is try to see where I'm not seeing.

[33:19]

Pause and watch and take in the flowers or the whatever is present or here. other points of view, see how that might be like me, all those ways we can in our perceptions. And that's, I think, important and approaching and a kind of a Buddhist thing to do. And Dogen is far out. Far out. So, so amazing, amazing that he was riding in a boat and exploring Chinese and forming his own centers in Japan and having students and thinking and writing these things and talking these things.

[34:31]

It's amazing. I'm also appreciative of the metaphor of the ocean that he keeps coming to based on his own experience of sailing from Japan to China in what in the day was a very perilous journey and his own experience of naming the ocean as circular and then over time coming and deepening into his own understanding of it as so much more. I love that he's speaking from his own experience. It isn't just what he's putting up, but it's deeply experiential. And seeing the ocean in a stormy night is very different from the experience of seeing it in the daytime in the calm mirror kind of.

[35:36]

situation and so on. So I love the course that he has used all the way through, especially of water, as being infinite, virtually infinite in variety, beyond the beyond of the beyond of what we can begin to comprehend. It's wonderful. It's lovely to know we're not going to be... I find it... very satisfying to think that we just keep trucking, that we just keep opening, hopefully opening, expanding, seeing a little bit more and we'll never arrive, but it's a great, potentially lovely journey. That feels very exciting. How are we doing? Do we need to stand up and stretch, or are we okay? Okay, so we're going to do a stretch. Because it's 8 o'clock, so we're, yeah.

[36:38]

Okay. Two minutes. Is that good? Do we need the chant books again? No, unless you're chanting, meeting the house. Right, yeah. Good. Good. Quick, quick. Okay, I'll be stretched down a little.

[38:21]

And one more piece into this second section around interbeing or relationship between. So Okamura says, Dogen says we cannot be certain. is an objective true reality of water that exists outside of relationships between beings that are viewing and the water being viewed. So that's an interesting thing for me to sit and hold. And in that light, Hannah and I had a lovely relational experience. We were talking about this section. And I was reminded of here at BCC and in Berkeley.

[39:24]

I moved up here from LA, where in the springtime there is not oxalis, but up here there are, in the springtime, this gorgeous, bright yellow flower that carpet. And I just find it too beautiful for words. It's very exciting for me to see Oxalis coming in the spring. So that's a cause of celebration for me. Oxalis as flower blooming all over the field. So then I come to Berkeley Zen Center on a garden. And the assignment that's given to me is to remove the weeds. Oxalis being named a weed. So now I'm in two different relationships with Oxalis. I prefer my version. But that's a second view that Oxalis is a weed that can choke other flowers in a garden.

[40:28]

So I'm telling this to Hannah. So we're talking about weeds and we're talking about flowers, Oxalis. And Hannah said... With my granddaughter, Ida, Oxalis is food. I mean, kids love to pick it and chew on it, and really, really, you know this. Maybe we like to pick it and chew on it. I mean, she can devote herself to picking and chewing with Oxalis, so there it is. I'll give you another. If you have chickens, oxalis is poison. The oxalic acid is toxic. Oh, okay. There are four of them here to reduce. Anybody else have an oxalis? We fight the oxalis every spring and completely carpets our yard and we have a lot of succulents, so we need to remove them.

[41:29]

And there are sites devoted to what... do with oxalis. There are oxalis recipes and the oxalic acid isn't great in large quantities for humans either. In quantities like kale, you can certainly eat it. Sue Oh has her hand up. I have an oxalis story. I guess it's It's not round, or it is round, or it may be. When I was in Sunday school in Berkeley as a kid, and sometimes we snuck out during, we had a break, and we'd sneak out and smoke somebody's cigarettes, you know, in the back. And other times we'd be eating, I discovered sour grass in Sunday school. I learned a lot in Sunday school, maybe not what they intended, but so I discovered sour grass.

[42:36]

Yeah, I liked it. Thank you. So let's go to the third section. I'll read that third section. There are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions. You still understand only what your eye of practice can reach. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety. Whole worlds are there. not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet or in a drop of water. To me, a really focal sentence is, though there are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand what your eye of practice can reach.

[43:49]

So in relation to this, Uchiyama says, as long as we are human beings, there will be no time when our delusion is completely eliminated. Because for us, to live means constantly to make a choice. What should we do, this or that? Therefore, we are always living in the midst of delusions based on discriminations between this and that. Within the midst of such delusions, the essence of the Buddha way is to realize that discriminating thoughts are nothing other than secretions from our mind. Then we can open the hand of thoughts and carry out the life driving in accordance with our scenery, which changes moment by moment.

[44:58]

So, just as a possible prompt here, a question, how can we deepen, actually, how can we deepen into the eye of what practice can reach? How do we deepen? How does that happen? Another way to ask that is what might be skillful means that you have come upon. in practice for opening your eye, for receiving, for being more unfixed? What have you found that's helped you, supported you in practice?

[46:10]

Joel has his hand up. Joel. Hi, thank you. With that, I find that what really helps is when I notice that I'm holding a fixed view, which happens a lot, and then it's possible to just drop it. So that's, for me, what I found really helpful in opening up and expanding. what I'm seeing. Joel, could you say the first part again? I couldn't hear. Right. So what's helpful for me is simply saying that I'm being narrow. I have a fixed viewpoint. I'm right. Someone else is not right. And if I notice that, that's what helps me just drop that.

[47:16]

And then say, oh, wow, there's a whole bunch of stuff out there that I'm blocking for myself. And so that's what helps me in that process. Thank you. Did you all hear that? Yes. Hi. I have kind of actively forming, so. Okay. Maybe you can bear with me for a moment, but I think part of what is useful for me is avoiding situations that I think look binary to me. I try to avoid getting into situations where I have to be discerning or make decisions and only invest my time in activities that are, that feel wholesome to me.

[48:20]

Does that make sense? But it's what I think partially Kitna Han talks about in terms of what we consume. Yeah, that's a huge part of it. But I mean, just in terms of, you know, my livelihood, all the choices that I make about how I live my life, I just, try to avoid situations where I'm stuck in this binary duality. Can you give an example? It's okay if you can't, but I'm just curious. Well, I think part of it, I think about my job as a book finder, trying to avoid Well, trying to make things that feel like I'm going forward in life or like doing something positive.

[49:27]

I don't even know what positive is, though. but I don't see it now. Hi. When you read opening the Hand of Thought, can I read one of my favorite things that he wrote about thought? Yes. Can you guys hear me? Okay. It says a present day person inspiring to find a true way of life will meet all the problems of modern society. Human progress is by no means the same as advancement of natural, nor does it follow the path of the development of material civilization. Human progress lies in each and every human being becoming an adult. Becoming an adult is nothing other than each one of us becoming a bodhisattva, where we see every encounter as our child and discover our order in life through looking,

[50:43]

after each of our children. When this becomes a world of bodhisattva adults in which we watch over one another and care for and help each other, then humanity will have come age and we may rightly say we have progressed. I propose that a bodhisattva protected and guided by Zazen and living by vow and repentance must be the true ideal human being for the coming age. So that's a book by Uchiyama called Opening the Hand of Thought. Really wonderful. Another thing that's coming today, I'm in graduate school and one of my professors is Charlie McCorney, who you mentioned.

[51:48]

And I was meeting with him earlier today and he shared something that came to mind because of the idea of sight, but I think it also has a deeper meaning that he's been thinking field in the practice of bowing and how in a full bow, there is a point when you're at, you know, on the ground where you are not. seeing or perhaps are seeing darkness or perhaps have your eyes closed and sort of what that transition and progression is like and it's making me think that in this context of only seeing and understanding what your eye of practice can reach is I think one thing that's helpful for me that I aspire to at least is seeing the not seeing as a type of seeing, right? Like when you're at the lowest point of the bowel, that that too is a seeing, there's something that is, can be thought of in that way. Do this sort of not making a binary of this not being so, but being able to see the absence of something as, yeah.

[52:50]

We can take that into ourselves and practice with it. Thank you. Are there people that might want to share how you work with opening? It's really simple and we do it all the time, but taking a deep breath is the thing that gets me to open up. I often find that in moments of conflict or uh moments where i'm pulling tightly to a view that there is some sort of contraction in my chest and so noticing that and taking a deep breath um like the contraction in my chest feels like it's because of the fixed view and so when i take the deep breath it feels like it's breaking the fixed view a little bit so the body informing the mind and the mind informing the body is a cycle

[53:59]

I would like to just say briefly that a combination practice that I do actually daily and sometimes daily is it's like setting an intention so when I first start to sit or when I get up in the morning if I remember to do it then It's a prayer, really. May I see that which I do not yet see. May I open to that which I do not yet see or know. And I'm assuming when I do that, it's not going to be in my timetable. I'm pretty sure about that. But it feels like it sort of points me in... a direction. Thich Nhat says we set our gyroscope, we point ourselves to the north star, and in our practice, in our attention, and we fall off the trajectory often, often, often, and then we notice, hopefully we notice that we're off, and then we put ourselves back on the

[55:35]

trajectory again over and over and over and over and over. So that's my particular practice. The other way of going at that is that I will sometimes in a situation, if I can remember to do it in the moment, is to ask myself, saying, what am I not willing to see or know? And that helps me, too. It sort of brings me up short from getting too fixed. Sometimes it helps. Anybody else want to add practices that they work with? Yes. I've found both that talking to others is really helpful, especially if I'm starting to get kind of an inkling that I'm stuck with something. Lately, I've been noticing a lot of just time.

[56:38]

Like sometimes when I think that I might, I can't really see out of it yet. And often time passing. I've like seen it happen enough times now that I'm like, okay, I'm stuck in this thing and I think this is true. But if I give it some time, I might, something might shift it and kind of like not make sure. It's like, I'm not sure what's going to shift. Often something does. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty risky to tell this story, but I guess I'll tell it anyway. Hold it to you. I think that we kind of put ourselves in, I mean, why don't we say it in harm's way, but not in harm's way, in the in a possibility of catching some experience like you do here at Charlie.

[57:44]

That's pretty yeasty situation. And I think it can be here. Something happened to me during the Sajiki ceremony on Saturday. I was... really paying attention. And Abbott Hoson said, open the gate of the most excellent Dharma to all the disembodied, lost, forsaken, hungry ghosts in all worlds. By feeding the supposedly departed, we are feeding ourselves. When we are filled When they are filled, we are filled. The living so-called and the dead, that is the dead so-called, are living mostly in the living.

[58:47]

This ceremony is a form of communion. And I felt for the first time in my life of my beloved grandmother who I lost about 83 years ago was available. That he was, his words were creating a bridge. And I wasn't as cut off as I had felt for all these many years, but present, present to that connection. And then, I don't know if you remember, the details of the ceremony, of course, were big for me since I was trying to organize, but there was an offering, and then chanting the gate of sweet dew, and then Hozon read the names of those who had died.

[59:49]

We gave him the names of all the people we'd done memorial services for in the past, since last Sujiki ceremony, and also anybody turned in, and then he invited us to speak names not included on the list. And so I spoke my grandmother's name, never before spoken. I mean, I had never spoken Alice May Martin before. I just know from my genealogy work, that's her name, and brought her into our ceremony. not just dead, but in my life now. And, you know, we're kind of, this is a dangerous place. You can get hit like that. You know, if you're kind of hanging out in our ceremonies and in the Zendo during talks and ceremonies. So that's what happened to me the other day.

[60:54]

A whole broadening. That ceremony's for us. really did it for me. All the dead, all the dead, connected to all the living. Whiskey to tell you about that, but there it goes. What else is up for people around this? Yes. Two things. For me, during the Sijiki ceremony, when we all sort of went, ooh, together, that was just magical. That was just like, there was a different set of people. A set of people or beings is very nice. Yeah, I loved it too. And then, I'm struggling with sort of,

[61:59]

set notions of myself and I'm not finding ways yet to break out of those patterns. And, um, just reminding myself that I don't have, I can't, you know, I can't force, I can't force getting over something I can. I just have to go through it. That's sort of just a fact of madness. Say those words again. It's just a fact of the matter. The fact of the matter. Even if I have a practice, you practice. It's not just going to get me over the hill. I still have to go through. This is our life. Could people hear that on Zoom? Are we finished?

[63:14]

We did have the radical idea, Penelope and I. Oh, we can talk about that for a minute, but that if we were finished at 8.30, we could finish at 8.30. Didn't we? We did. So we would love to hear anything yet to be heard. And if not, and nobody would tell the powers that be that we did this. Some of them are in the room. So we were going to, oh, we did, we did, we were a little tempted with one other thing and I think we'll, We'll send an email around to everybody. You can tell us who's in the class.

[64:19]

Are you familiar with something called slowed down bird songs? Who's familiar with that? So we hear what birds sound like. And if you slow down the speed of the recording, what you hear is much more complex than our ear hears. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And the birds are producing that complexity and they're receiving that complexity. And we have not a clue. So there's some cool stuff. Real conversations going on. So we would like, we were We thought for a moment, how could we possibly bring that here and let you hear it, and it seemed beyond our capacity. So anyway, you should be finding an email which would give you a link to hear slowed down bird songs.

[65:31]

And if you go to Department of Ornithology at Cornell, you can get more of this kind of thing. I first started to view this link. It's so delicious to hear. It's just so moving to hear the slowdown sounds that I used it, I have to say, kind of like a fix now when I'm not in a good place. I hear three bird calls, and it's just enough to change me around. It opens my view. So we hope you like it as much as we have both been. very touched by this. Last will and testament, anyone? Online, any last wills? We can't, for whatever reason, we're not seeing the gallery view, so it's hard to tell. Maybe there's only four people left.

[66:33]

No, no, no, no. There's 19 people today. 19, but they're off screen. 19 online. Anybody who wants to add something before we stop? Okay. Beings are numberless. I bow with them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I bow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them. In ways unsurpassable, I vow to become it. Thank you everybody. Thank you.

[67:34]

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