Shall I go ahead and do the offering? Yes, please. an unsurpassed penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million having it to see and listen to to remember and accept i vow to taste the truth of the tathagata's words

[03:35]

Good morning, Sangha. It gives me a great pleasure to introduce my old Dharma friend and our long-time BZC practitioner, Karen Sundheim, this morning. Karen began practice at BZC on Dwight Way in 1976. Along the way, she also went to Tibetan and Theravada Buddhism. She had lay ordination in 1996. was Shuso in 2006 and received lay entrustment from Sojin Roshi in 2010. Karen is currently BCC's board president and has been involved in helping to facilitate our temple's reopening. She had a long career as a librarian and managed the Hormel LGBTQ Center at San Francisco Public Library. She lives with her wife, Nancy, and their cat.

[04:39]

Please give a warm welcome and your attention to Karen. Thank you, Ross. You're welcome. I'm going to start by, I want to tell Deb that the Wi-Fi is a little unstable here and just highlight Nancy's computer. which is equally, we have two wifi networks and they're equally unstable. But the other thing is that I have a, I'm sorry about all the paper shuffling, but it's very hard for me to use my hands. They shake a lot. So if there's a lot of rattling, just please be patient. That being said, though, those are not really an aside. Because what I really wanted to talk about was this feeling of instability.

[05:49]

So the Wi-Fi is unstable. My hands are unstable. But there's a lot of instability beyond that, that I'm feeling. And I think a lot of you are feeling. On a positive note, BCC is reopening and has reopened partly. So we're doing that tentatively, slowly, carefully. But, you know, there have been a lot of changes since the pandemic. Before the pandemic started, we had a different abbot. The sangha was a little different. So things are changing at BCC. And then looking out at the world, I have to say the country and the world seems unstable to me.

[06:53]

I've never seen the country so divided. terrible war going on in Europe. So I just want to acknowledge that and say that that's really contributing to how I've been feeling and I think probably a lot of other people. So I ask myself, is there a bedrock or what can What can I lean on? What can I count on? And remember, I asked Sojin Roshi this in the fall of 2020, which was the last few months of his life. And I asked him in one of the public dokusans that...

[07:59]

where he addressed questions of birth and death on Zoom, I said, what is there to lean on? You know, I want something to lean on. And he said, well, you know, the universe always looks out for you. I have always felt the universe would take care of me. And there he was basically dying. And he felt the universe took care of him, but I didn't really feel that way. And then he said, one of the kindest to me was, you can lean on me for a while. I thought that was incredibly sweet and caring. But all that being said, you know, Dogen's main teaching and the main Probably the main teaching in Buddhism is the teaching of impermanence.

[09:06]

Dogen said, if you don't understand impermanence, you can't practice. So really, there is impermanence with all that are going on. And a lot of the things we're seeing in the world today have gone on since time immemorial. I've been consulting, I've been talking to a lot of Dharma friends about, is there a bedrock? And one person in particularly said to me, how about leaning on the precepts? And that had never really occurred to me in that way before, leaning on the precepts.

[10:10]

But in that moment, when he said that to me, something came alive inside of me. These precepts are actually living, they're living, they're not a fence post. And so most of you know what the precepts are. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail. Have three pure precepts. Refrain from evil. Do what is good. And purify one's mind. And then we have the. Ten. Brave. precepts, which are, I'm not going to list them, but not to steal, not to kill, not to disparage others, not to praise.

[11:19]

So I think you're all familiar with this list of things. So I'd like to read something from Katagiri Roshi about the precepts. First of all, I'm going to read something he, a short paragraph on the 10 grave precepts. And in his book, Returning to Silence, he actually calls it 10 grave precepts. prohibitory precepts. So this is what he has to say. The word for precept in Sanskrit, sila, means to form a habit. Habit in the usual may last for only a lifetime and there is attachment to self or an object or individual desire involved.

[12:30]

Forming a habit of living in a way that is based on Buddhist teaching is the practice of spiritual life, and it is called vow. Vow is continually going on in the realm of eternity, beyond time and space, life after life. There is no sense of self-attachment, no desire, no self-interest. We have to put this vow into practice in our everyday life. There are so many vows that we take and we chant here at BCC. We just chanted a vow to taste the truth of Thagasta's words.

[13:42]

Also, at the end of the lecture, we will chant the four bodhisattva vows. Beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. or I vow to save them. Sometimes it seems insurmountable. I hear somebody. I know there have been times when I've chanted this vow. Beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them or I vow to save them. There are times where I felt that that was just... How can I possibly do that? But one thing to keep in mind is that when we say I, I vow, it's not just...

[14:58]

individual little i that we're talking about you know i me karen is going to save all beings i don't know about that however it's also the eye of buddha the part of us is buddha that is vowing to save all beings So we are both flawed individual people, and we are also Buddha, making this vow. And we make these vows over and over again because we are flawed, we've suffered trauma, we've been conditioned, and we fall back into habit energies. over and over again.

[16:03]

And I'd like to read one other piece from Katagiri Roshi. And this is from the three pure precepts. The three collective pure precepts Refraining from all that is evil, practicing all that is good. Purifying one's mind are the teachings of all. The first two lines, refraining from all evil and practicing all good, are precepts. The third line, purifying one's mind, is having pure faith in the triple treasure. and Sangha is purifying one's mind.

[17:04]

Buddhist precepts are not moral or ethical imperatives or orders given by someone that people must follow. They are the ground of Buddha's world through which we manifest ourselves as Buddhas. We are already enlightened and the precepts are already enlightened words. Each word is Buddha's mind completely beyond our speculation. Precepts as Buddha's mind, Buddha's teaching, we can each behave as Buddha. But if we take them in the moral sense, we become moral people. It is very difficult to understand this with our usual mind. So we think we are obeying Buddha's teaching in the moral sense. That's all right.

[18:08]

Just keep going. Accepting the teachings, accepting the precepts as the Buddha's teaching. So working with a precept is a lifelong practice. They're not events posts. I remember when I worked at the library, I had to manage a desk which had all the international daily newspapers. of the day. And so we had, it was a very busy desk and there were a lot of people who came to read the daily newspapers in their own language and we had a rule that you couldn't take more than one at a time.

[19:24]

because they were so much in demand. But this one person who came from, I forget which country, it was a former Soviet bloc country, every day would take three newspapers. And every single day I had to say, you can't have three newspapers. There's a rule, you can have one newspaper. And so this happened day after day. And finally, once I decided to ask him, why do you keep taking all three newspapers? And he said, where I come from, rules are like a post. You just walk around them. So anyway, that's not what we're talking about. Although certainly walk around them. Sojin said about the second pure precept, do what is good.

[20:34]

He said, good is not opposite of bad. Good is practice. And practice is the middle way. So how do we do good and how do we live in the precepts? so first of all to understand what good is and to practice the middle way we practice zazen and i i believe that zazen itself is We vow not to be distracted. We vow not to be caught up in the five hindrances, anger, aversion, craving, our habit mind of greed, hate, and delusion.

[21:50]

And we keep returning. As I always tell people, it doesn't matter how many times you return to the breath after you become distracted. What matters is returning, coming back. That's the vow. Kinst, who's a teacher in Santa Cruz, a Zen teacher, she said, vow itself is serenity. So of course we're not perfect. And of course we're distracted. And of course our habit mind is active most of the time. Yet our vow is to come back. Our vow is endless.

[22:57]

Uchiyama Roshi said, our vow is never complete. Excuse me, our practice is never complete. Our vow is endless. Our practice is never complete. And then he went on to say that this of our incompleteness is repentance. So as most of you know that we do a ceremony every full moon called Bodhisattva ceremony, where we retake our vows. However, before we take our vows, we repent. We do a group repentance. And that's our awareness of how incomplete and fallible we are. Yet, continue. I remember Sojin sleep very often in the Zendo.

[24:24]

He fell asleep during Zazen. He fell asleep during talks. I've even seen him fall asleep during his own talk once or twice. And somebody asked him, Sojin, you're falling asleep. And he said, yes. But I keep waking up. It helps me, though, in... You know, I want to do good. And I think all of us here want to do good. But if we think about it too abstractly, it becomes huge when we think of all the problems in the world.

[25:30]

So I'm thinking about the little thing that Just doing little things out of generosity and taking care of others. Two little stories. When I think of the bodhisattva path and about awakening with others, first, Remember that about awakening with all beings, saving all beings, we're talking about ourselves too. So I'll tell a little story about myself.

[26:34]

I was at the Berkeley Bowl shopping, cook for some sashim a few years ago, and I didn't have a helper. And I can't remember why that was, but as some of you who've cooked for BZC sashims know, it's quite a lot that you have to buy. And I wasn't feeling so well that day. I had various aches and pains, and I had something like 12 bags of groceries. I wondered, you know, how am I going to get this? And as I said earlier, you know, asking for help isn't something that I've always been comfortable with. And the Berkeley Bowl is a really busy place.

[27:36]

So I wouldn't call their best in the world. You know, you're kind of on your own there, you know. But I asked for help anyway. I said, could someone help me with my bags? That was the first time I ever did that. So the cashier called for somebody. And this young, young woman who's like 20 comes over to me and says, oh, you need help. And at first time, I'm feeling a little bad about it. you know, that I shouldn't be asking for help because nobody's offering. But I had to ask. And so she goes out to my car with me and then she asked me, well, why do you have all these groceries? What are you doing? And I said that, well, I'm cooking for a meditation retreat. And she said, wow, that's so exciting.

[28:39]

You know, I'm in sh... at... It was one of the Peralta colleges where they have a training for cooks. And she asked me a lot of questions and was so happy to be doing this. I mean, probably she was happy to get out of the store and get outside and do something else. But she was really happy to help me. And I was inspired because here's a young woman and she's got this whole career planned and I wanted to support her. So I realized that by asking for help, the person who helps is getting help too. So it felt like a really a mutual, enjoyable, you know, experience. And so that's a little thing. And then another incident that happened to me a number of years ago, this was in the 90s.

[29:49]

And I was the Sachin director at Berkley Zen Center. And I was also single. And I wanted to find a partner. But when you're in a practice position, at Berkeley Zen Center or any other practice place, it's not ethical to be looking at people who come in as potential dates. We're instructed to leave them to develop a practice. So I decided that I was going to look elsewhere, but I really wanted a Buddhist partner. I had been through, so you all know probably that I'm queer, but I had had two relationships where both of my partners really had a hard time with my Buddhist practice.

[31:04]

I mean, it was a kind of a deal breaker. They thought, you know, it's patriarchal. It's too, you know, what's all this bowing about? I mean, the bowing was enough to alienate a lot of people. So I joined, I started attending meetings of something called a lesbian Buddhist sangha. that was happening in Berkeley. So I thought, okay, I don't have any role. Maybe I'll meet someone. So there were all sorts of issues going on there. People argued all the time against the Buddhist teaching. They had a lot of difficulty with it. because as I said, it was seen as authoritarian and too many rules and too much this and that.

[32:12]

So one day we had a field trip one night to visit a teacher in the city named Rina Sarkar. And I'm not sure how many of you have heard of her. She's since passed on. But she was a Dharma teacher from Burma, and she was also a professor and she taught at, I think, the California Institute of Integral Studies. So she had a little monastery in her home, kind of a nunnery. They were all women there. And so a big group of us went to hear her. And they made us dinner. It was very lovely. And then Dr. Sarkar gave a talk. And I thought she gave a beautiful talk. She was seated, cross-legged on the floor.

[33:15]

And she smiled a lot as she gave her Dharma talk. And I really enjoyed it, but a lot of people just didn't like it. And anyway, so we were going home and I'm in this car with like five women. The front passenger seat and there were three people in the back. And. One woman behind me. Starts saying. I don't know what people see in this man called. And then there was this silence. And I started to feel very awkward, like I wanted to withdraw and I didn't want to engage. And then there was another deep breath.

[34:22]

And she said, again, I can't understand what people see in this man called Buddha. And I found myself edging towards the door. And we were on the Bay Bridge, so I searched about, but I was trying to escape the situation. And then she took another deep breath and said it again. I don't understand why some man named Buddha. So... Finally, I was watching myself and saying, why am I trying to run away from this? It'd be so much easier to engage rather than withdraw. Well, actually, the Buddha taught about the cause and the end of suffering.

[35:31]

And then there was a silence and she said, really? I said, yes. And she said, well, what did he teach? And then I spoke a little bit about the Eightfold Path, just very briefly. Actually, the Four Noble Truths, that was it. And we had a talk about it. And she asked questions throughout the whole ride back. And then we dropped her off at her home somewhere in Oakland. And she stepped out and said, it was really great to meet you. So I always think about this, you know, as a time where I had an option, you know, to engage or not engage. I see that it's about 10.50, so perhaps I'll stop and see if you have any questions or comments.

[36:58]

Thank you, Karen. I have to say I was just dying to hear the rest of that story. Thank you for your lecture. Open it up for questions. It is my duty to remind everyone that this is a time for brevity. Silence is okay. Questions only, no expounding. Save your expounding for a follow-up email. Karen's email will be in the chat. So I invite everyone now to think up a question, and it's first come, first served. Raise your hand and I'll call on you. Stan, go ahead, please. And unmute yourself. Hi, Karen. Hi, Stan. I always love your lectures. I'm just wondering, would it have been possible not to engage the woman in the back seat?

[38:11]

I mean, in fact, even not saying anything, it seems like you were engaged. Actually, I was cringing. So that's what alerted me to... That's what told me that I needed to do something else. That she really wanted to know something. She was actually, you know, I took it as kind of mudslinging, but in fact, what she was really doing, I think, was asking. But it took me a while to realize that. It's wonderful that you did. I think even the cringing is a kind of engagement. And then you took it to the next step. Thank you.

[39:14]

Thanks, Dan. I will call on Lori now, if you would unmute yourself. Hi, Karen. Hi, Lori. It seems like. stories you told, the one in the bowl and the one in the car were about choice, you making a different choice in a way. And, you know, what do you think about, we don't talk that much about choice explicitly using that word in our practice, but somehow I feel like it's very important. And I wondered how you If you have any thoughts about that. Well, thank you. I try to observe and so often we're presented with situations where we don't know what to do.

[40:28]

In both of those situations, the Berkeley Bowl and the car, there was some confusion in my mind. And I had to go with my gut, partly my gut, and also I keep going back to what Jakku Kintz said about stillness, you know, place of stillness because cringing isn't stillness. And cringing is a feeling that I often get, and I don't really like it. It doesn't feel very... It doesn't seem like the Bodhisattva when possible. So I'm not saying put yourself in front of danger or something like that. You have to have common sense.

[41:31]

But because these were little things, I was able to do them. They were small. I mean, it doesn't take to have a conversation with someone in a car that's going to be limited. It seems like there has to be some kind of pause where you remember that you could choose differently or something. You know what I mean? It's like there's something that there's a little open. Think, oh, I'm going to come from stillness or I'm going to do. Even though I'm confused, I'm going to make a different choice. Both situations were painful. And I think the pain woke me up. I thought it's easier to talk than out of the car while it's moving. It was just easier, ultimately. And then in the bowl, you know, I was in a lot of physical pain and feeling overwhelmed.

[42:33]

You know, I'm in my 60s. It's not like I thought, you know, why? Why suffer? Thank you. I see Rondi or Charlie. It's me, Karen. Good morning. Very good to see you. I don't have a question. I just have a comment that you are a tremendous, engaging teller of stories. I feel like all of the stories that you told this morning belong in the New Yorker magazine. I mean, They're just terrific, and I want to thank you so much for them. That's it?

[43:34]

That's it. Coming from you, Charlie, that's a compliment. Thank you. I see Ryushin. Thank you. Oh, yeah, you just go for it, Karen. You're doing great. Ryushin, please go ahead. Thank you, Karen. Thank you for a very accessible and really helpful talk to me. I think you partially answered this question in response to Laurie's question. When you were talking about cringing in the back seat, I thought about an instruction that Sojin once gave us at a senior meeting when we were spending lots of time talking about practice discussion. And he, I don't know if you remember it, but he... kind of almost puzzled or almost exasperated at a certain level with the conversation. And what he said was, when you don't know what to say, just dig a little deeper.

[44:39]

And I wanted to see what your experience of digging a little deeper in situations where maybe you're uncomfortable or you don't know what to say is. Well, that's really, I brought that up because cringing is a terrible way to feel. I think when I cringe, I somehow have this feeling that I should be doing something else, engaging in some way. So Sojin's saying dig deeper. is very helpful. I hadn't remembered that, but asking questions when someone says something that's uncomfortable, asking questions is helpful.

[45:45]

I know for myself when I'm in a situation like that, I have a physical constriction or resistance that I really have to open up to in order to access anything else. And I'm curious in what your experience with that process is, if there's anything else that you'd like to share. Well, I do experience it as a physical thing. Sometimes I sense that it's a kind of stinginess. Like here was this woman going, repeating herself in the back seat in a sort of aggressive way. And I had heard so much of that same kind of talk for years because, you know, in the 80s, feminism was kind of the idea of a male patriarch was just not acceptable so on the one hand i understood what this woman was complaining about and i felt like i was in a minority of people who you know there weren't a lot of lesbian for a long time and uh but i felt this stinginess come over me and one of the

[47:11]

precepts that we practice is do not be stingy. But how do you not be stingy? Comfortable and how to think clearly in that moment. So I try to practice the. I try to practice generosity whenever possible, but I need. You know, that flag comes up of stinginess, cringing, withholding. I don't know. Does that answer at all what you're saying? Yeah, very much so. I really deeply appreciate the example of the living body. Thank you. Thank you. Ryushan, thanks so much. Ajayan, please unmute and ask your question. Yeah.

[48:15]

Thank you very much, Karin. I'm meeting you again here and listening from a gender diversity community as a person. For me, it's a new experience, listening, especially from a gender diverse person. So thanks, BCC, for arranging, for making the wonderful sharing experience today. Yeah. I would like to ask you that a second. experience you had in your car, a person asking about, is Buddha a man? Something like that, if my understanding is right. So, for my understanding that Buddha is not either a male or a male, he overcame such a gender duality. He became arahant, so that he became the gender neutral person. In the modern sense, we can say that Buddha himself is also a gender neutral person.

[49:16]

So what was your story end up with? Did you answer him? So what is your reply to him? Just wanted to know that. Well, I didn't go that far. In this case, in the car, I only wanted, I thought I would answer the most basic question with Buddha's most basic question. which I think is the truth of suffering, I would have liked to have gotten more onto that subject of gender neutral. But it almost seemed... You know, she kept talking about that man. And so I just went where... I went in that moment. But I think that, I mean, the subject you're bringing up is extremely important and certainly appropriate.

[50:23]

You know, each situation has various options about what's appropriate to speak about. So, you know, I didn't really see this woman again. One thing I want to say about her is that of respect for her she was an older woman who was a dedicated political activist and she gave a talk once and she was uh very active in the 60s and she was also early gay lesbian liberation activists which was no fun you know We see these parades today that look like a lot of fun and games, but truthfully, back in the 60s and 70s, it was no fun. My first partner who grew up in Chicago came out in high school and she was beat up regularly for just stating the fact that she was a lesbian and she didn't know any other ones.

[51:39]

and came from a particular time period and Ajayan, I think what you're saying is really appropriate and certainly I think she would have been receptive to that. Thank you. Thank you, Adana. That was fabulous. Karim, you're up next. If you would unmute yourself. Hello, Karen. Thank you for your speech. It was this that stuck with me while you were telling your story that when you went to the nunnery, the person who was giving the speech was smiling, but some people liked it. A few people didn't dislike it in that moment.

[52:41]

Why did that moment of her smiling and people not being happy and you being okay, what was the situation there? That is the part of the story that stuck with me, what that situation meant to you. She was smiling and talking about the Dharma and what she exhibited joy and That's an important part of our practice, and we don't always see it. She was kind. She was patient. She was generous. She was knowledgeable and did joy. And I think, you know, when the Sangha, this particular Sangha met the following week. And the teacher there asked, well, what did you think of Dr. Sarkar? Almost everyone in the room said that they were under, that they weren't moved, that they didn't see what she had to teach.

[53:46]

I was the only one, I think, who said that I thought she was a wonderful teacher expressing the true Dharma. Does that answer your question? I think so, yeah. Yeah, I think it was her joy. Yeah, maybe you were in the same wavelength and felt the Dharma coming your way. Well, I said to the group that I felt the expression of the Dharma. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Karim. Joel, you're up. If you would unmute, please. Hi. Thank you very much, Karen. Back to the car. I was very interested because the issue of speaking when triggered is a very difficult one for me.

[54:55]

So obviously, you were triggered to some extent. And then you spoke very skillfully. And it was great. So there must have been a moment where, I forget exactly the word, where your triggeredness changed into some place from which you could speak. So is there anything you could say about that transition would be very helpful? Well, you know, I felt the cringe. I felt myself being stingy. Not afraid, but unwilling. What first came up for me was unwillingness to put up with this woman ranting from the backseat. Right. But, you know, we had a long trip.

[55:57]

It was 45 minutes from... Back, we were dropping people off in different places. And I had quite a while to cringe. And she had a long time to rant. So, and nobody else was saying anything in the car. I don't know what was going on with them. They might have been forever. But just my own suffering. You know, I was suffering too. And I didn't want to suffer. And then I, you know, there's a point where some of these mind states that are uncomfortable, I realize that making a change can't be worse than what's already there. And so I just thought, well, you know, I'm going to say something.

[56:59]

feels about it. Because, you know, being stuck in a negative state within oneself, stinginess, cringing, anger, you know, it's not pleasant. We don't like it. And then I think about the joy of Dr. Rina Sarkar. I'd rather be joyful, you know? Being... Letting go of stinginess is joy. Thank you very much. It's helpful. Thank you, Joel. Oh, sorry. I was on mute. Thanks, Joel. Susan, please go ahead. Good morning, Karen. Hi, Susan. Thank you for your talk. So listening to you and kind of as a follow-up to what Joel was saying, you know, you talked about cringing and discomfort.

[58:08]

You described it physical. You talked about thinking about it, making a choice. But I guess I want to posit what you think about. To me, it seemed like you dropped body and mind in that moment. And something shifted. And, you know, that phrase is kind of problematic, but Sojin said it's not so literal that dropping body and mind means dropping the I don't like. So I wonder, you know, you're telling the story in retrospect is what we do, but there's a moment there where the shift to me, as I heard it, came from dropping body and mind. I just wonder that. Well, you know, when we chant or when we say drop body and mind in our practice, that seems like a really big deal.

[59:13]

You know, dropping body and mind. And here, it's a small thing. And I think what I wanted to emphasize is that practicing the precepts, it's small things. And we practice the precepts as, you know, we're these, we're also these struggling, cringing, you know, sentient beings, and we're also Buddha. So, It's just small things like that. Yeah, and you also said earlier, it's also remembering.

[60:16]

Yeah. So in retrospect, I often tell that part, but to me, as you told it, that's what struck me. Oh, you remembered. You came back to... to something, to letting go of what you didn't like. And then the choice came forward, not so much from the mind, but from the space that opened up in that moment. Does that make sense? Yes, it really does. It is like returning because we think, you know, Sojin always said, you know, Zazen, you do Zazen on the cushion and Zazen permeates all your activities. So being in the car and remembering, sometimes it's hard to do that when we're out in the world and caught up in situations, but yes, remembering to come back. And when I came back in that moment, after the cringe, it wasn't so hard, you know?

[61:27]

Just to respond to this woman, it really wasn't hard. There was space. And I didn't know how she was going to take what I said. But I didn't want to leave her alone. I felt bad. Here were two of us all by ourselves, you know, in a negative state. So. Thanks, Karen. Thank you, Susan. Susan, you are going to be our last question today. I'm sorry to those of you additionally with your hands up. Please go ahead, Bob. Thank you, Karen, for your share. And that part about coming... I love the way you talked in the beginning of the story about how overwhelming the things in the world can be and how overpowering they can be.

[62:37]

And to what you could do, what we can do. And when we do what we can do, which in this case is, The message I got was to reduce your own suffering in the car and in the packet and in the hole. And also not only take a chance and wake yourself up and also wake other people up as well. Because what I heard, it's inspiring to me to hear these stories. it reminds me that we've got to take the risk if we want to reduce our suffering. And we got to, and often we wake other people up as well when we do it. We don't even realize the outcome of the story.

[63:43]

Instead, we tend to cringe and not, And nobody gets anything out of it. And so I just want to say I really appreciate that because those stories inspire me to realize that when I get overwhelmed in the world and I maybe watch too much news or it's like, what can I do? How can I wake myself up and somebody else up? The situation in the car, the woman, you couldn't probably see that she was maybe asking for information. And deeper, and you felt enough suffering for yourself to allow yourself to take the chance.

[64:48]

And I think that that's an inspiration. And if you would like to comment further, that'd be nice. Thank you. I really like how you pointed out that both instances, we woke up together. It's not just an individual thing. In the Berkeley Bowl, It was with this young woman and in the car, two of us woke up together. I really appreciate that. And that's something that's important to remember. You know, we're not alone in this. In our vow. So thank you very much. Thank you. It helped. me tremendously.

[65:50]

So I can go out in the world when I get overwhelmed and say, I got to take a chance. Thank you. Well, thank you, Karen. Thank you, everyone. Speaking of vowels. It is time for us to take your lead, Karen, and chanting the four vows, which Ross has posted into the chat for reference. Thank you. Things are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable.

[66:54]

I vow to become it. I am welcome.

[67:11]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_95.66