Good morning. It's so good to be sitting with all of you today, sitting for a full day together. I was going to say it's a delight. I wouldn't usually think of it being delightful just to sit together, but I'm definitely feeling some fizziness. around it and just deep gratitude for being able to have this space together and for all of us to be together and to share this space and this quiet and this day. So thank you all so much for being here. Today I want to talk about one of Dogen's fascicles from the Shobogenzo, the Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, called Bukyo, which means Buddha Sutras. So sutras is Sanskrit for sacred scriptures.

[01:03]

And although originally that only referred to the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha, around the beginning of the common era that the notion of sutras started to be expanded, widened, to include some Mahayana sutras like the Prajnaparamita sutras, the Heart Sutra, Diamond Sutra, the Malakirti Sutra, Lotus Sutra, Havatam Saka Sutra. And Dogen's going to take sutras to a whole other level in this fascicle. The notion of what constitutes a sutra. So, Buddhist sutras is concerned with the vital importance of Buddhist sutras in Zen, based on Dogen's understanding of the true nature of sutras. And it seems that this particular writing came out of a deep concern that he was experiencing about certain developments in China that he was also seeing in Japan that he felt were contrary to and actually undermining of the true Dharma.

[02:24]

So he was calling them out here because he felt that they were holding and expressing wrong views. For example, the view that we should abandon study and simply empty our minds. So I think that particular piece that, you know, Bodhidharma said, you know, a teaching, a separate transmission outside words and phrases, you know, or outside the... The sutra is not dependent on words and phrases. And Dogen absolutely did not believe that. And he was very concerned that this was kind of taking hold in different places. So that's the second half of the sutra. So I just kind of wanted to hold up these two sides because the first half and the second half are very, very different. I'm just going to talk about the first side today. and not get into the second side. But I think it's really interesting that out of his deep concern for what was happening in certain aspects of the Buddha Dharma that he was seeing in Japan, that where he went first was to really present his own view and his own understanding of why the sutras are so deeply important and significant.

[03:52]

in Buddhism and in Zen in particular. So, with that said, the sutra begins and the fascicle begins. In the Buddha sutras, there is teaching for bodhisattvas and there is teaching for Buddhas. Both are instruments of the great way. The instruments accompany the master, and the master uses the instruments. In the Buddhist sutras, there is teaching for bodhisattvas and there is teaching for Buddhists. Both are instruments of the great way. The instruments accompany the master, and the master uses the instruments. So I... It seems that the teaching for bodhisattvas and the teaching for Buddhas is picking up something from the Lotus Sutra, where the Buddha was teaching all the bodhisattvas, but a lot of Buddhas came to hear it too.

[05:06]

There's a whole host of Buddhas in the Lotus Sutra listening. And this tools accord with the master. Many years ago, I used to love to go to Hida Japanese Tools over on San Pablo. Some of you may be familiar with that place. It was quite a revelation to me, like 40 years ago or something. I don't know what kind of tools they have now. I haven't been in a very long time. But there are many knives and saws and carving instruments and What was really unique about almost all of them was that they had no handles. They had a shank, just the metal part that went down into what you do a handle around. But the idea was that, and I guess that's the way many Japanese tools came, that the woodworker would make their own handle.

[06:08]

They would make their own tool, essentially, one that would intimately fit your hand. So it might be made out of cloth or leather or wood, but it was made to fit your hand. And it would probably be adjusted over time and worked so that it was really your tool. Just as, you know, we go to the store, we get a pair of shoes, and pretty much always it's going to, to some extent, mold to your foot. And then the next time you go to buy shoes, maybe they were a nice, comfortable pair of shoes, and you go, it's like, none of these shoes fit me right. And you forget that they didn't start out that way. That they molded, they became part of us. So... Jogan is saying... There's teaching for bodhisattvas.

[07:12]

There's a teaching for Buddhas. Both are instruments of the great way. The instruments accompany the master and the master uses the instruments. So, you know, as Dogen so often does, there's not really a separation between the master and the tool. What is the master without her tool? Without her tools. Doesn't have a way to... express, to manifest, to create. And the teachings are an expression of the teacher, regardless of what that looks like. How do we know the dancer from the dance, the teacher from the teaching? Dogen goes on Due to this, at the very time that each of the Buddhas and ancestors of India in the West and China in the East, whether from a wise friend, whether from a sutra, brings forth the thought of enlightenment, practices, and verifies the fruit, there has never been any gap between arousing aspiration for enlightenment, practice, and the fruit thereof.

[08:36]

Arousing the aspiration for enlightenment depends on sutras and teachers. Practice depends on sutras and teachers. The fruit of enlightenment is one and intimate with sutras and teachers. Again, due to this, because of the master and her tools, due to this, at the very time that each of the Buddhas and ancestors, each and every one of the Buddhas and ancestors of India in the West and China in the East, without exception, whether from a wise friend or whether from a sutra, so the wise friend or teacher, good counselor, through different translations, corresponds to Kalyanamita. which is Sanskrit for spiritual friend.

[09:38]

So for Dogen, goodness or virtue is practical. It's based in practice. So a teacher, a wise friend, is someone who can offer practical guidance on living and manifesting Buddhist values and Buddhist principles in daily life. how to actualize the practice throughout the totality of our lives, nothing left out. Dogen really held up the example of the old Tenzo that he met when he first came to Japan as a young man who was clearly very senior, he was very old, but the old Tenzo held so firmly to his responsibilities as Tenzo. And at first, Dogen kept asking him, well, why don't you stay for dinner?

[10:42]

You don't have to go back tonight. This is a lovely conversation. Let's have tea and go deeper in the Dharma. He said, no, no, I have to get back. People are expecting me. He said, can't someone else do that for you? And he said, others are not me. It's my responsibility. He said, well, shouldn't you just be like studying and taking it easy, you're like 80 or something. And he said, what would I do? What would I do if I didn't work? And that was a seed for Dogen of a real manifestation of practice, which at first he couldn't see, but he could feel the Tenzo's practice. He could feel it in his embodied presence. And it really was a significant part of what seems to have shifted things for him in that way. Whether from a wise friend or whether from a sutra, whether from an embodied teaching or whether from a written sutra, or however they're brought together.

[11:55]

brings forth the thought of enlightenment, practices, and verifies the fruit. There has never been any gap. This gap is between, as he says, arousing aspiration for enlightenment, practice, and the fruit thereof. Arousing the aspiration for enlightenment depends on sutras and teachers. Practice depends on sutras and teachers. The fruit of enlightenment is one and intimate with sutras and teachers. So this never been any gap and one and intimate. The intimate, the translation for intimate here is shin or close, love, affection. So it's... It has a warm feeling. It's not just close in proximity, but it has this very warm feeling, is one and intimate with sutras and teachers.

[13:00]

Again, the non-separation of the teachings and whatever form they appear in and the teachers. And in Gyoji or continuous practice, Dogen says, and this is how it opens, on the great road of Buddha ancestors, there is always unsurpassable practice, continuous and sustained. It forms the circle of the way and is never cut off. Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment, and nirvana, there is not a moment's gap. Continuous practice is the circle of the way. So again, for dogma, practice is not just It's not just something of the mind. It's not just the mind transforming. It's not just words and phrases. And it's not even just sitting on the cushion. It's total engagement of full presence, moment after moment, regardless of sitting, standing, walking, lying down, working, sleeping, all of it, all of it.

[14:15]

And Dogen goes on, wise friends or teachers or good counselors are always well-versed in the sutras. Well-versed means they take the sutras as the land. They take the sutras as their bodies and minds. They take the sutras as provisionally established for the sake of others. They take the sutras as sitting, reclining, and walking. They take the sutras as their father and mother. They take the sutras as their Dharma descendants. They take the sutras as practice and understanding. It is for this reason that wise friends investigate the sutras. Wise friends are always well-versed in the sutras. Well-versed means they take the sutras as the land. They take the sutras as their bodies and minds. They take the sutras as provisionally established for the sake of others.

[15:24]

He's talking about the relative teachings, the ultimate teachings. They take the sutras as provisionally established for the sake of others. They take the sutras as sitting, reclining, and walking, as their mother and father, as their Dharma descendants, as practice and understanding. It is for this reason that wise friends investigate the sutras. When there's no gap between aspiration, practice, realization, enlightenment and nirvana. Can't say where one begins and the other ends.

[16:31]

And they're not the same and they're not different. So how do we hold these together? He goes on, wise friends washing their faces and taking tea. These are the old sutras. So Dogen goes through a whole series of references. to koans, the stories in the koans. And I'm not going to go into all of them because that's a whole piece in itself. But what he's doing is sort of riffing on all these things. He's associating with it's this, it's this, it's this, it's this. He's pulling all these in like... like going out in a field of wildflowers and just plucking ones here and there and then making a bouquet out of them. You don't have to name them, but it's just like each one could bring something forth. So wise friends washing their faces and taking tea, these very mundane activities, mundane and yet in Zen often deeply ritualized.

[17:43]

Dogen wrote a whole fascicle about washing. and taking tea, very ritualized in Zen, tea ceremony. These are the old sutras. That the sutras give birth to wise friends, that the sutras give birth to wise friends, means not only Huangbo's 60 blows nurturing his descendants, and Huangmei's three strikes transmitting the robe and bequeathing the Dharma, This is the fifth Chinese ancestor to Hui Nung, the sixth ancestor. But also seeing the peach blossoms and awakening to the way, hearing the sound of the bamboo and awakening to the way. Again, that's the sound of the pebble striking the bamboo and seeing the peach blossoms as moments of awakening for the person realizing in that moment with those

[18:49]

particular prompts or triggers. Seeing the dawn star and awakening to the way is Shakyamuni's awakening. Looking up and seeing the morning star. These are all sutras growing wise friends. Teachings of the sutras giving rise to the ancestors. There are skin bags and fists who get sutras by getting eyes. There are wooden ladles and lacquer buckets that get eyes by getting sutras. So it's just playing back and forth, back and forth. And musically, it just feels like, you know, just riffing on one thing to another. It's like quoting. It's like doing little quotes from this or that, pulling in, you know, like rappers. You're going to drop a little bit here, drop a little bit there.

[19:50]

knowing that it sounds like he trusts that his audience picks all these things up. They're well-versed in the sutras. These all have meaning. It's like this, it's like that. So Dogen started this fascicle with the intimate relationship of sutras and teachers. and sutras and teachers and the path of practice, and keeps widening our view, and then he goes to yet another level. Sutras are all the worlds in the ten directions. Buddha sutras are all the worlds in the ten directions. Is there anything left out? I don't think there can be.

[20:53]

There is no time or place that is not a sutra scroll. Wise friends use the script of ultimate truth. They use the script of conventional truth. And what do we use of the word script? You know, like the writing, but like what you use to write with, but of course... It's not just the written word. They use the script of ultimate truth. They use the script of conventional truth, not bound to either one, not judging either one, just making use for the benefit of beings. Or they use the script of heaven above, or they use the script of humans, or they use the script of the beasts. or they use the script of the path of the Asuras, the jealous gods, or they use the script of the hundred grasses, all phenomena, or they use the script of the myriad trees. So at this point, everything is just cross-pollinating, getting sutras by getting eyes, getting eyes by getting sutras, way beyond linear cause and effect, everything, everywhere, all at once.

[22:14]

It says in the Avatamsaka Sutra, the mutually unhindered total interdependence of all space and time. The mutually unhindered total interdependence of all space and time. So in the Avatamsaka Sutra, there's a lot of rather psychedelic imagery to invoke this. You know, all these visions of bodhisattvas rising out of the earth and jeweled stupas and just completely visionary. So that's in the visionary realm. And Dogen is using words in the same way to just point and touch and point and touch. We're not settling anywhere. There's nothing to hold on to. I think of this Dogen as a teacher with his disciples, his students, or whoever he's speaking to, as that koan about the hen and the chick pecking from each side.

[23:34]

The chick, when it's ready to come out, pecking from the inside, and the mother hen pecking from the outside. And this is another form of tools or instruments. this pecking, he's throwing things out. You get it? You get it? You awake? It also occurs to me that, you know, I have tended to think of scriptures, as sutras, as things that were written down, as things that are in written language. But of course there was no written language in the time of the Buddha, not for hundreds of years after that, and it was eventually written down. So particularly in the time of Shakyamuni Buddha, the teacher and the teachings were not separate. They were one and the same.

[24:36]

They weren't portable, even though some of his senior students would be passing that on to others, you know, sharing the Buddha's words. But it's still, it's like... So even there, you know, it's like here's the non-separation in the body of Shakyamuni Buddha of teacher and teachings. And yet even in his own time, the teachings were going out in other people. They were being transmitted warm hand to warm hand just throughout the... The Sangha. Sutras are all the worlds in the ten directions. There is no time or place that is not a sutra scroll. Pointing, always pointing beyond what can be expressed to what cannot be expressed.

[25:42]

Somewhere in my 20s, no, I'm not sure, when I was in my teens, I was introduced to Ntozaki Shange, a wonderful poet and writer. And she had, I think, a prose poem or a prose play called For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enough. And there was one line in there that really went in deep. She said, a poem should happen to you like cold water or a kiss. A poem should happen to you like cold water or a kiss. And that came up for me when I was reading this fascicle, because it has the same feeling, like Dogen evoking, like, can this happen to you? Can these words happen to you?

[26:53]

can the sutra happen to you? R. H. Blythe, who was Aiken Roshi's teacher, once said, it is not difficult to talk about Zen, but what is difficult is to speak by Zen. come from that place. And he wrote a lot about Zen and he wrote a lot about English literature and the juxtaposition of the two and his language is rather like koans in the way that he tries to use the English language in creative ways. And at one point he was talking about it The it of just this is it.

[27:55]

You know, ultimate reality, awakening. And Blythe says, and it is there when I lift my hand and when I don't. And when there is no hand to lift and when there is no lift to hand. And even though I couldn't make any sense sense of that it happened to me happened to me like cold water or a kiss that I there was nothing to hold on to but it opened something it opened I literally had the physical experience that the top of my head had been unscrewed and just kind of floated off and I was not in the least, I could say I was pleasantly confused in a very positive way.

[28:57]

It was just having that urge to know or to hold on to or to figure things out just completely alleviated. And it felt completely true. And also very funny. Not like a joke kind of way, but just like, whoa. So, these are some of my own experiences with this way of being that didn't necessarily, that came before I encountered Buddha Sutras. And one other one in the realm of music was with a violinist named Stephen Nachmanovich.

[29:58]

And I think I first met him through a friend, and he knew that I played upright bass, acoustic bass. That is, my friend did. And I guess Steve was a virtuoso level musician. touring solo improv violinist and he really wanted to play with a bass player and for some reason I said okay because I was the only one he had access to at that point so I said okay and I played classical mostly and some more pop stuff in the meantime, but not, you know, some world beat music and this and that. I had no idea how to do improv, none whatsoever, but I had some trust. So he comes over, and I'm feeling a little nervous, and he starts playing, and he starts using the bow in...

[31:08]

really non-orthodox ways. He's not playing notes, really. He's using the back of the bow. He's playing with his bow and violin. Then he reaches over and he starts doing it on my bass. And I'm like, okay, I can play with you. And we had a great time. And we did basically the same thing when I visited him once in... Venice Beach, I guess, where he lived, and we were walking around the neighborhood. And he was just talking. And then he started scat singing. He'd have like some little phrase, like Buddha Sutras or something like that. Buddha Sutra, Buddha, [...] Buddha Sutra, Sutra. You know, he'd just go on. We'd both start playing together. And it was very, you know, that came up for me. You know, all of these... Not so much... Yeah.

[32:10]

Ntozake Shange was an introduction to what could be done with language. The felt sense, the rhythm. And I was writing a little bit of poetry at the time, but it was like, oh, here's another way to be. Here's another way to write. Because I could see it. I could feel it. I could hear it. And... with Blythe against something different about being with words but as a musician with Steve Nachmanovich who wrote a book called oh damn I forgot it's all about it's all about improvisation it's called Free Play it's called Free Play Improvisation in Life and Practice I think But what I realized in working on this talk was that each of these were teachers for me.

[33:22]

And they were communicating a very different way of being. And particularly playing music with Steve. It's like I was suddenly doing it. It's like, I can participate in this. I would never have been able to do that if he hadn't been so warmly welcoming and free and not really having any ideas about outcome or anything else. And probably, you know, my practice up to that point, it was just like, okay, I can let go and jump in. But the teacher and the student and the sutras, the medium of words, the medium of music, whatever it is, it's like, oh, this is like coming together to explore different ways of being in the world, different ways of being in the body, different ways of being oneself, different ways of being with others.

[34:28]

Dogen goes on, these sutra scrolls, they were of course all scrolls then, these sutra scrolls spread through all times and circulate through all lands. Opening the gate that teaches humans, they do not forsake any human of all the earth. Opening the gate that teaches things, they save the beings of all the earth. When they teach the Buddhas and teach the Bodhisattvas, it is all the earth and all the realms. In Tibetan Buddhism, there's what are called termas, and these are various forms of hidden teachings, and they're part of Vajrayana Buddhism. It could be a physical object. It could be a text.

[35:35]

It could be a ritual implement that is buried in the ground or hidden in a rock or a crystal, hidden in an herb or a tree, hidden in water, hidden in the sky, or hidden in space. So these are teachings that are held to to be hidden there. And the word that is used literally means hidden treasure. And it sometimes refers to actual objects or scripts, you know, things that you can read. And sometimes there are things that are written in secret scripts that only the person who finds it can receive, can read, because they're not in a conventional script. really the teachings are about the ones that are hidden in the mind. So we also have these teachings hidden in our own minds that we have not yet found, that we have not yet actualized.

[36:43]

So like the true place of concealment is within the mind. It's within the essence within the essence of mind. Dogen goes on, holding up a flower and blinking the eyes, breaking into a smile, are an old sutra directly transmitted by the seven Buddhas. So holding up a flower and blinking the eyes, that's Shakyamuni transmitting to Mahakasyapa. He's lecturing the assembly, silent. And then he holds up a flower and Mahakashapa smiled. Buddha's like, you got it. You got it. He says, this is, this, this, holding up a flower and blinking the eyes, breaking into a smile, are an old sutra directly transmitted by the seven Buddhas, the seven Buddhas before Buddha.

[37:55]

So before this moment, it already existed and is now being manifested freshly, new. It existed. It didn't exist. Dogen again. Eventually, the transmission of the Dharma and the bestowal of the robe. This was the arrival of the time when all the scrolls of the vast writings are entrusted, striking the mortar three times. sifting the rice three times, ara sutra holding out a sutra, a sutra directly succeeding a sutra. So he's talking about dharma transmission, the recognition and conferring of teaching authority, of acknowledging disciples' awakening are entrusted. It's the dharma entrustments, the ceremony of entrustment. And he's saying this is not singly or individually.

[39:01]

It's not like one sutra at a time or one teaching at a time. It's like, or even just the ones you've talked about with your teacher. It's all sutras of all times are entrusted in this moment. All the scrolls of the vast writings are entrusted in this moment. You get it all. You get all of it. Dharma eye is now open. In sum, the Buddhas and ancestors' one movement and two stillnesses, as well as their holding fast and letting go, are themselves the rolling up and unrolling of the sutras of the Buddhas. Because they study the lack of any limit, they receive the sutras and bring forth the sutras through their nostrils. They receive the sutras and bring forth the sutras before their father and mother were born.

[40:04]

They receive the sutras and bring forth the sutras by means of the mountains, rivers, and the whole earth. They receive the sutras and bring forth the sutras by means of the sun, moon, and constellations. Or they keep the sutra and bestow the sutras by the self before the kalpa of emptiness. or they keep the sutras and bestow the sutras by the body and mind before the face. Such sutras they reveal by smashing dust motes, they bring forth by smashing Dharma realms. That's the Avatamsaka Sutra again, again just bringing in all these references. So even though That's the end of the first part of the sutra that Dogen goes on to give a very strong critique of what he sees as real degeneracy and mistaken views within Zen at the time.

[41:16]

Even this is not outside the Buddhist sutras. Nobody is outside of what the Buddha Sutras are a stand in for all of it. We are completely interdependent beings. So within this total field of enlightenment, there is space because it exists for difficult things, painful things, wrong views, suffering, all of it. And there is space for calling it out. There's space for both of this. I don't know that I would have had that particular interpretation prior to recent developments. I always thought that Dogen was going a little hard at it when he'd get, like, ranty.

[42:21]

But I feel now that he's He's willing to engage completely, calling out, but also standing in relationship because there's a larger field that everything is held in. But in this particular corner of the field, which is very relative, he's going to call it out. He's going to talk about it. And I found that very encouraging, not in any specific manifestation. I don't know what that looks like in any given moment but it broadened my sense of what could be possible in all forms of speech in the world we currently inhabit. So in the rest of our day together are many more hours of sitting and walking and eating and resting and caring for the temple and caring for one another.

[43:39]

Let the sutras happen to you. Let the space of the zendo happen to you. Let the silent, still presence of other people happen to you. Let other beings happen to you. Let your breath happen to you. And let the unimaginable wonder that is your own mind, your own being, happen to you like cold water. or a kiss. Thank you very much. Do we have time for one or two questions? Does anyone have a question? Ben. Thank you, Linda Roshi.

[44:57]

Maybe it's not a question, and I always try to make sure I have a question and not just a comment, but I'm breaking my own rule. Just what you said about when Dogen gets critical or zealous, it just struck me in my very limited understanding. I feel like he found something so precious and completely trustworthy. And that he had just such firm faith in. And so when he saw that people might be missing it, he didn't want that to happen for them. He wanted that thing that was so pure and true for him to be available to others, maybe. It just came to my mind when you made that comment. Yes, I think he really did not want people to be misled by the Dharma. to have this faith in the Dharma, and then to be misled into wrong views.

[46:03]

I see Cheryl, I'm back. You spoke earlier about practice being continuous. You spoke earlier about practice being continuous. Like eating a hot dog. I don't eat hot dogs. Okay. There you go. Okay. You spoke of practice being continuous to enlightenment with no gaps.

[47:11]

But what is a gap? What would be considered a gap? Ah, the idea that there could be a separation between them. That from your aspiration to awaken... that there's this period, and now this is over, and there's practice. It's like it's discrete. You can mark one. It's like time. We can look at our watch and mark off time in seconds or minutes or hours, but there's actually no gap in time between one moment and the next. So he's talking about there's... Rather than like, now I'm practicing, now I'm not. It's much more fluid. And he's pointing to, I think, many things in here, not elevating one over another. It's like, oh, I haven't started this yet, or I'm backsliding, I shouldn't be here.

[48:15]

It's just meeting each moment again and again fully. So the... The gap is the creation of some space between, some division. This ends and this begins. Thank you. Behind you, Gary. Linda, thank you for your really well put together and organized talk about something very profound. thought about it and the ways that you were describing it from Dogen. I think it's, you mentioned humor and it's just kind of funny and well there's a, Muhammad Ali maybe had been the first one to say if you're not laughing at yourself you're missing the biggest joke of them all. But it's really funny in a way to me and my limited understanding of this is that they were

[49:20]

In Japan, in the era that you speak of, they were like, we're gonna eradicate all these sutras, and we're gonna eliminate the written word, I guess was one form that they were focusing on, and we're all just gonna go to our minds and try to... And then Dogen's comeback was, everything's a sutra. The eyes of Buddha are everywhere. You cannot eradicate this. By the way, to me, that's really funny. Like that was his comeback. And he said he took it. You mentioned smashing dharmas. Like he took it to the next level. And very grateful that that happened in the history of Zen. So I don't know if there's a question in there. Oh, the Tibetan thing, terma, how do you say it? I saw it in the rainbow. You know, when you were saying the rainbow is enough.

[50:22]

And I love how you use the Dogen and you brought it back to our minds. The hidden, like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow type of, and that there's things in our mind that we haven't uncovered yet. Yes. And there's very deep sutras in there that the more we practice, maybe we have the opportunity to uncover them in gratitude. Thank you for your talk. Thank you. Last question. Judy. Thank you, Linda Roshi. Two things. I'm thinking of how this relates to Thich Nhat Hanh's beautiful poem, Call Me By My True Names. All right. And Dr. King's Love Your Enemies sermon, where he talks about what's really important about that teaching and nonviolent direct action is that the goal is redemption.

[51:40]

So you view the seeming enemy as is you're not there to defeat them, but to redeem, and we might say to wake up together. So I'm thinking about what you were saying about what often can be called Dogen's rants, and how do we relate to them. And I was thinking of the relationship of calling out and calling in in these difficult times, as something around when you see harm being done and called to interrupt it, how do you stay in intimate relationship with the one harming, which has got to somehow have something to do with being and not knowing. And so I wonder in light of what you were bringing forth, how you...

[52:45]

see that. I think we're always in intimate relationship with everything in the universe, actually. But we may not be aware of it. That may not be something that is always accessible to us or always sort of... It may not be an implement that we can use at that moment. But I think... Being grounded in the sense, it's like in a long-time relationship or marriage or friendship, whatever it is, there is an underlying abiding love and commitment. That does not mean you won't have fights. And in moments of fighting or feeling betrayed or disappointed or hurt or whatever it is, the love may not immediately be necessarily accessible. You may have lots of strong feelings.

[53:49]

But I think if someone like... But some reminder is usually enough to be like, well, yeah, of course, I'm just mad. So I think keeping practicing... remembering that there is no separation. It's like, what is a way in this little fragile blue-green planet? We're all completely interdependent. Some of us, we have relationships with people that have one form or another, or we don't know them yet, but we're still, you know, in mysterious ways that we have very limited senses. We think they're very amazing, but our senses are actually quite limited. But remembering that this is so, although it is not always obvious, it is so. And I think coming from that place, if we can remember at various moments when we're trying to think about what to say or when we bring a person to mind or bring a situation to mind, like how do we hold this together?

[55:03]

Just having that question. I think can be very powerful. I have no idea what it looks like moment by moment for you, for the situation, whatever it is. But I think practicing that question and as you say, holding and not knowing and moving forward as best we can and then seeing what happens.

[55:27]

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