surpass penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million kalpas having it to see and listen to to remember and accept I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words Dev Center Saga, and welcome to today's lecture, Dharma talk, and other, I'm sure, expressions from our dear longtime student, Laurie Sinaki. Laurie has been a resident at BCC since 1989. She was a late teacher here for many years, and then in 2018 she ordained as a priest with Steve Weintraub, and received Dharma transmission from him in 2021.

[01:30]

She is married to our abbot, Hosanna al-Sanaki, who has been on medical leave since a health crisis last December. She and Hosanna raised two children here. One is Gempo, her jisha, and the other is Sylvie, who resides in Chicago and will be married here next month to Cooper. Laurie has held a number of positions over the years, including treasurer, coordinator and manager of family programs. She is currently co-tanto with Susan Marvin. Laurie, thank you for being here. Let's hear what you got to say. Thank you, Ross. Good morning, Gutsanga. Good morning. Dear friends. And thank you, Marine Layer. It's good to be here with you. It's, for me, one of the great joys of life is to be with people where you have shared values.

[02:38]

And so you could say that our shared value, one way to put it, would be to wake up. We're interested in waking up. And even if this is your first time or your first time meditating, your first time here, most likely, consciously or unconsciously, you were drawn inexorably to the possibility of waking up. Waking up to and in this present moment, this present body, mind, and collective. And I want to express gratitude for all the support I've gotten from all of you and many others, my family and many circles of friends, Alan's many circles of friends going out all over the world.

[03:41]

It almost feels, I don't know how to put this, you know, when Paul Disco was here, he said that the main, is this what it was? The main teaching of Paul Disco, of Suzuki Roshi was don't make two. something like that. Does anybody remember that? And so it almost feels like I make, just talk about how you've supported me, almost feels like making two, because what's been most supportive and meaningful and sustaining, life-sustaining, has been the feeling that this has been something that we're all in together. And so I haven't been in it alone. And that's been really That's made all the difference, I would say. So how am I? As Ross mentioned, I'm married to our abbot who's been in various facilities for the last six months.

[04:43]

I've been going back and forth to various places, various hospitals and things. And I often get asked that question, how are you? How are you? And, you know, probably because of some weird paranoid quirk in my personality, I felt put on the spot. I've often felt put on the spot. And, you know, how do I sort of encompass this incredible kaleidoscope of experience I'm having into words, you know? And I've become aware of the incredible compression and also maybe gross oversimplification that has to take place for us to put what's happening into words. And yeah, so I felt put on the spot, but over time, you know, as I tried to hear what people were really saying, I think that what people are really saying was, or is, you matter too, you matter too.

[05:47]

And that I can connect with, that's easy to connect with, and so I appreciate it. the fact that I matter too. And so it could be that this talk maybe is some answer to the question, how am I doing? How am I coping? How am I practicing with my situation? So here we are. Life and death are our old friends. really our constant companions. But still, even though death is our constant companion, it's still a shock when it comes to us in our life, manifests in our life. So right after Hozon didn't die when he was taken to the ICU,

[06:52]

you know, partly due to the shock, I'm sure, and this intense concentration of something, and trying to find where he was, you know, I just tried to look everywhere for where he was. And I was like catapulted into some different, like an altered state of some kind. It seemed to me like the way I phrased it to myself was a different world. the phrase that kept coming into my mind was the world beyond conditions, which I could not remember what that was a quote from. And in that place, my love for Alan, who's been Alan to me a lot longer than he's been Ozon, was so pure and unconditional. It was wonderful. You know, none of this sort of marital, squabbling, petty nagging and squabbling.

[07:53]

It was just very pure. And it seemed to me that we always are living in both. At that time, it was clear that we're always living in both worlds. And it seemed to me that you all and the people who were around and not around, distant and close, were there with me. It really felt like we were all there together. And it made sense that there's no inside and outside. at that time. And so, you know, one foot in both worlds is how we live, how we do live, and then how we need to live, like somehow both. We live there, but we need to live there in an awake way, you could say. One foot in the ICU, one foot in the world beyond conditions. And eventually I remembered the whole, it's a Dogen quote, probably other places too, but in this case, a quote of Dogen's, I remembered the whole thing, which is, although there are many features in this dusty world and the world beyond conditions, we only see as far as our eye of practice can reach, only as far as our ear of practice can hear.

[09:16]

as our body of practice can touch, as our heart of practice can feel, and as our mind of practice can understand. That last part was me, not Dogen. So, what does it mean to these? And I have, for some reason, when I heard that quote, I never heard it as too contrasting things, the dusty world and the world beyond conditions. I don't know why, it just didn't flow that way for me. But, you know, the relationship between the two worlds, the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, is extremely fluid. They're not really two separate places, and yet we have to make that real somehow. We have to It can seem like they are, especially when you're not feeling, when you're feeling only the dusty world. It seems like the world beyond conditions is far away.

[10:21]

It's easy to wonder how our practice... is going to, will help us or support us during a really extremely difficult time, and to wonder if it even will. And I don't know the answer to that question, and I'm not sure you can know the answer to that question, because what did what, in a way, you know? But I have often remembered my first session was at Green Gulch, and it was extremely difficult for me, from the beginning to the end. no ease in there, at least like harder and harder and harder and harder until the very last period. And I remember in those days we would have this kind of social time afterward, like a dessert or something, you know, after the very last period of Sashin.

[11:25]

And I was sitting near this senior student, Dan Welch, who is no longer around. around our world, anyway, around my world. But anyway, he was saying, well, I don't think seshin's get any easier, which is not what I wanted to hear. But he said, but I think what happens is you learn to muster something. You learn in seshin to muster something. And so maybe I can say that sometimes I can muster something, sometimes in this period of time with Alan in this crisis. Sometimes there's something I can muster. Sometimes there isn't. Sometimes I get to the end of my rope. And that also, so getting to the end of your rope or not being... Oh, one more thing. So then the other thing that has come to mind is something I've thought about a lot over the years, which is this thing Thich Nhat Hanh said.

[12:30]

that during and after the Vietnam War, people would be escaping from Vietnam in these small overcrowded boats. And he said, if there was one person in the boat that could keep their cool, that would be the difference, that would keep the boat from capsizing. And so, you know, I've never been in that kind of extreme situation, but what was clear to me from that teaching was that to be a non-anxious presence is a really important thing if you can do it. If you can be a non-anxious presence in whatever situation you're in, that's important, or that can make a difference. And so for me, in my own little world, I've tried to cultivate somehow, train myself in being a non-anxious presence. Of course, in my situation, If you lose your cool, that's also an appropriate response. So I don't want to put forth however I've done this as being the only way or the right way to do it.

[13:37]

Freaking out or going into a puddle of tears or being beside yourself, all of that, those responses all would make sense given a really difficult situation. I think what I will say I've learned or I believe or I seem to know is that in that crisis situation, there's very little choice about how you are going to respond. That is not a situation where you have any choice. You're going completely on your training and your habit energy. That's it. And so sometimes I hear people sort of critiquing how another person is handling a crisis they're in or a difficult situation. That makes no sense. That is the least time you have any choice in how you're doing it. You know, we have way more choice during one period of zazen than we have in that situation. So yeah, I'm operating on my habit energy and my Zen training, my psychological training, my physical training, such as it is.

[15:08]

And this dusty world, so getting to this dusty world, is really this anxious world, this dusty, anxious world of being caught by conditions, caught by appearances, confused, upset, and anxious, and fraught, basically. It doesn't seem like as things go along very normally and seem to be predictable, but then there's all these variables that, you know, sort of behind the scenes, and then at any moment, boom, they can come out and you can be in a completely different situation than you imagined. That's this dusty world. I think many of us in our practice

[16:23]

feel a sense of connection beyond words, you know, when we're in this endo together. It's a really nice feeling that we're connected beyond words and that we're still connected through conditions and in a good way. So we are seeing each other, we're hearing each other, we're breathing together, we're moving together. And that's part of how we can touch this deeper connection that's beyond words. And maybe that's a way to bridge to like what I'm going to call right now, this even deeper connection that's beyond conditions, any conditions. So of course we live completely within conditions all the time and we have to take care of this. world of conditions and take care of ourselves. For example, the body.

[17:25]

The body is like the essence of conditionality, right? And they always tell you in caregiving to take care, they're always telling you to take care of your body. You need rest. You need water and food and exercise and time in nature. And you need support from your friends. You need all of that. It's really important. It's really important. I find sleep when it comes to be very wonderful. When we were in Marin for a long time, three, four months or something, I used to take a nap, often took a nap at Carol Paul's house. Thank you so much, Carol. And you know, a nap for me is like, it can be like this huge reset, like even just 20 minutes. It's like, it's like starting a new day or something. It's like, and that's really great. So I concur and yet concur with this thing that we have to take care of ourselves and yet i think that one of the hardest things for the body is stress from the mind and heart right anxiety worry regret fear all of that sadness grief that is stressful on the body so it almost feels to me like

[18:45]

the two things are kind of like always neck and neck, you know, like you've got this stress and in this intense, difficult situation, and then you're dying to patch it up with, or not even patch it up, but you're bringing all this, you know, fresh energy, water, exercise, time in nature, support from your friends, you know, but then the stress is there. It's like, they're kind of like this. So I want to, I feel like there's something I need that's more than that. And I'm going to tell you about. So one of the ordinary things I did to take care of myself was I was commuting a lot. And so I had created this sing-along playlist. to sing along with in the car. You know how I was like haphazardly pulling songs from my music library, you know, at some moment, quickly sticking them in this playlist and then I could sing along on the drive.

[19:47]

And some of them were songs like, I don't know how some of them got on there, like they aren't even songs I know that well. And one was a song I don't know, hardly know, but made it on there. And it's a Sam Cooke gospel song. And he says, Jesus gave me water, Jesus gave me water, Jesus gave me water, and it was not from the well. And I was just like, whoa. Where is the water that is not from the well? Or in our case, you know, Buddha gave us water, Buddha gave us water, Buddha gave us water, and it is not from the McColumee River. I had to look up. I did not have, I'm ashamed to say I had no idea where our water was coming from. So we have to take care of ourselves. We have to take care, we have to get fresh, clean water from the McCollumney River. And we have to take care of the McCollumney River. We have to take care, and we have to take care of each other.

[20:50]

Like so many people did, we have to come forward when someone's in a crisis or in a terrible situation. And I will say that we also need to drink the water that is not from the well, not from the McCallumee River, however that is for us. I was going to say that, I should say, I need the water. that is not from the McCollumee River. But they let me sit up here and tell you guys, so I can say to you, when I'm sitting up here, I can say I propose that you need that water too, the water that is not from the well. By the way, it's a fantastically beautiful song if you want to check it out by Sam Cooke. I mean, it goes on. So,

[21:52]

Oh, and I also want to say, of course, we're always drinking that water. We are always drinking that water, but it's hard to realize and be aware of that. So I wanted to bring up one more dharmic element to this thing about the world beyond conditions, and then I hope we're going to have plenty of time for conversation. So last summer, I was getting ready to teach a class in some Pali suttas, and I was trying to pick sutras I was going to teach, and one of them I was considering is called the Anathapindika Sutta. It's the sutta that was spoken to Buddha's great lay patron and follower, Anathapindika. He's mentioned quite a bit in the Pali Canon, and in this sutra, By the way, it's given to Anatha Pindika on his deathbed. And I just want to say that I was doing this way before Alan had a health crisis, so it had nothing to do with that.

[22:57]

And it's also spoken by Buddha's disciple, Shariputra, not by Buddha himself. So Shariputra comes to see Anatha Pindika on his deathbed, and he opens with this kind of courteous inquiry. How are you doing? I hope it's not too painful. I hope you're not having too hard of a time. And Anatha Pandika says, ah, I'm in so much pain. And he describes in detail the pain he's in. And so Shariputra says, well then, householder, you should train yourself thus. And I just want to say, he says, train yourself, which is different from you should feel a certain way. I think that we tend to judge our practice based on how we're feeling sometimes. we think that we're not doing a good job practicing patience if we don't feel patient. We think that we're supposed to feel patient. And nothing could be further from the truth.

[23:59]

There wouldn't even be a practice of patience except that we are constitutionally impatient. That is what we are. So when he says, train yourself, he's not saying, we're not trying to feel a different way or paper over what's happening or pretend, you know. to feel something we're not feeling, but we are trying to not do or say anything when we're feeling certain feelings. That's the training. Just don't do or say anything and just be with the feeling as it is. That's the practice. So he says, make sure I said everything about that. Oh, right, so partly because the inflection point is not the feeling. We're not trying to change the feeling. That's not where change can happen. Also, partly because feelings are changing all the time by themselves, so you don't have to worry about that.

[25:03]

We're trying to change the next step, which is what we do, what we say, and to some extent what we think, which, if we're mindful enough, can be a very different thing from how we're feeling. How we're thinking about something can be a very different thing than how we're feeling. And there's an inflection point in there where you can stop that train of habit energy, which is going to be based on how we're feeling. We feel good, we go away from that. I mean, we feel good, we go towards that. We feel bad, we go away from that. That is just very quick for us. So that's where we're trying to get in there with a breath with a pause, just a moment of presence, a moment of just being present with what's happening. So he says, then householder, you should train yourself thus. I will not cling to the I. My consciousness will not be dependent on the I, and so on.

[26:10]

Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind, sight, sounds, all the whole litany of Buddhist categories that we're familiar with. I will not cling to them, and my consciousness will not be dependent on them. Of course, I think we could be together on this, I don't know. It's not the I will not cling part that caught me by surprise. There's something, it just has stayed with me, this one phrase. My consciousness will not be dependent on. Because as we know, clinging, you know, Sojan was all about don't cling, don't cling, let go, let go. But what's this about my consciousness and all my dependent? Because wait, isn't that exactly what these early Buddhist teachings say? That your consciousness is dependent on, you know, contact between eye and sight gives rise to consciousness. Contact between each of these, you know, mind and thought gives rise to consciousness. So our consciousness is exactly dependent on conditions.

[27:14]

It seemed like that's what they're saying in these old, teachings, these early Buddhist teachings. So I think he's saying in this case, I could fault the translator maybe, but I think they're talking, they're pointing to what we would call here big mind or Buddha nature. Big mind or Buddha nature is not dependent on conditions. Train ourselves to join the mind that is not dependent on conditions. Train ourselves, not, you know, Beat yourself up if you don't have that experience. But train yourself. Because there is a mind, big mind, that is not dependent on conditions. So it's kind of, you know, in a way it's like finding the Heart Sutra right in the middle of the Pali Canon, honestly. Because it is. That's what they say in the Heart Sutra. You know, there isn't, it's phrased differently, it's like these things aren't, don't exist or something.

[28:19]

But that's what it's pointing to. So getting back to love, Unconditional love. So there are these two worlds. There's the dusty world, the fraught, anxious, dusty world, and then there's the world beyond conditions. And then they're sort of interwoven, or we're interweaving them, or we're learning how to bring the truth of the world beyond conditions into the world of conditions. I think that's what all religions are pointing to. How do you bring the truth of the unconditioned into the world of conditions?

[29:21]

And I'm saying today, unconditional love is what's on the line between the two worlds. Like the Metta Sutta says, even as a mother at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child, that's kind of the most conditioned thing. A mother's love for her only child, that is super conditioned. That's the love that we experience in the dusty world. It's the love of someone and not the other person. It's the love pointing this way and not pointing this way. It's the conditional love. That's the normal love, which, you know, in its most wonderful is like a mother's love for their child. But how do we grow that? They're pointing to like, so with a boundless mind should one cherish all living things. We should have that feeling towards all living things. That is really, that's pretty inconceivable.

[30:22]

And it's training, right? It's we should train. ourselves that way. So how do we do that? If we live in the dusty, anxious world, always completely subject to conditions, experiencing conditions—in fact, experience is the experience of conditions, right? And then we have this world we can touch, maybe in zazen, maybe just as an act of faith, maybe we've had that experience from childhood, many different things, this world beyond conditions. And then on the line is love, unconditional love. You know, how do we live? I think that our experience, we're always going to be completely within conditions, but where? So it is to... Let me see how I had put this in a good way.

[31:28]

All right. So, you know, examples of this kind of abound in our Soto Zen life, you know. We're trying to live in an unconditional way. We're trying to respond in an unconditional way to our conditions. You know, like, even during one period of Zasana, you know, it's sort of like, okay, I'm going to be present with my body and breath. And then my small self is like, why? That is so boring. There is nothing in that for me. And then it's like, well, let's just try it. Let's try it for a few minutes. See what it's like. And then, so there's, we're going back and forth between the our vow to be present in our bodies and with our breath and our habit energy, which is like, I need to know, I need to get some stuff and I need to get away from some stuff and let's do that. So the training is just to sit with that and then not, the art of it is not to have too much of an agenda to succeed at that.

[32:44]

That is the tricky part. You have to put aside, big mind has no agenda. My sense of big mind is big mind does not even need to save all sentient beings because there are no beings and they're all saved anyway. So to join that mind in a period of zazen is to really see if you can just be with everything, including that part of you that doesn't want to be there in a really non-agenda way. That's what we're all trying to do, and that's how we touch, that's how we can touch the unconditioned just in one minute of zazen. I think that's about it for my talk, and I hope to talk to you all, hear from you all, what your take on all this is. Thank you very much for your listening. a little feeling of ease when I heard you say you didn't feel alone in the crisis you were navigating.

[34:11]

So I just want to express gratitude to share that with us. I have a question about caregiving, I think. Because I notice that when someone close to me is in pain or suffering, and really in it and really not feeling not alone, like they're really feeling alone. That can just be a very charged moment for me and I think I can get caught up in wanting to provide care but also wanting to make their bad feeling go away because it's bringing something up for me. It's so true, yeah, it's so true. And yeah, I'm just interested, I guess, to hear you speak to that tension and, yeah, maybe how to hold that when we're talking about the two worlds as well. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I spent so much time right there, right there, yeah.

[35:13]

Well, I think the first thing is to then be with yourself with that. It's always the, it's hard to catch the first thing. You know what I mean? There was this, there was a great post from Anne Lamont about current events. I won't go into the details, but she said, I realized I needed to look at this moment. I'm sad and pooped, you know, like, so it's very elemental. So like, okay, I'm doing that thing. I want him to feel better because this is not comfortable for me. and not like I should get this comfortable for me. Like maybe you could get there maybe, and maybe this would even help you. Oh yeah, this is me and my, I had this, I don't, this may be, I was thinking this was too personal to share, so I didn't share it at the beginning. But the first thing that happened when Alan had the cardiac arrest was that I, my mind concentrated so hard around the idea that I did not want to call Alan, Alex,

[36:26]

and tell him that his dad had died. Like at that point, I thought he was gonna die. And I just wanted him, Alex, to come to the hospital and we would hold hands and we would stand by the bed. And like, it's kind of what you're saying. I didn't wanna make that phone call, but I also didn't want it for him. I didn't want him to have that experience, but my real focus was on don't make me do that, you know? So, and maybe that's pointing to actually we're not so separate as we think we are, is kind of the same thing in a way. I can frame it the way I'm talking about it makes it into my feeling, but really it was just, no, not that, you know? Yeah. Thank you for your question. Thank you, Laura. Greetings, everybody out in TV land. Nice to see you all.

[37:28]

Anybody out there have a question? Maria Theresa raised her hand. Go ahead, Maria Theresa, and then Gyampo. Thank you very, very much for this talk. I've missed you. It's wonderful to hear you. It's wonderful to... hear your sharing of this very, very heartfelt, incredible experience you've gone through. And I'm very interested in the course that you said that you're preparing to teach. I'm sorry, that was last summer. I was preparing to teach. I gave that class last summer. And I didn't end up using that sutra. But thank you. Is it possible? I mean, is it recorded? Is that something that one can... Yeah, if we remember to record, it should be on the website. It was last August. Fantastic. Poke around for that, yeah. Thank you. I will. Thank you.

[38:33]

Preston? I'm wondering about love. Yeah. And I guess like how you would describe the quality of the love or the perspective of the love that you experience toward your children, your family, and how is that similar or different than a love that's more boundless or unconditional? You mentioned something about the direction of the love, the language love. Is there more to the difference? Well, so I think, so from my own experience as a mother, because I had this sutra coaching me, probably partly, so then you have this really intense, so like the first time, I always liked the sutra before, but then after I had kids and I heard that line, it was like, no way in hell!

[39:45]

right? I was like, this feeling, this brand new feeling I've never felt for anybody before, I'm supposed to feel that towards every living being? It's like, no way. So I mean, it's a, you know, oh, snail climbing on Fuji, but slowly, slowly type of thing. So but you know, I think you have these choice points. So you love your kids so much. And then you want what's best for them. But then they have friends. And so you can grow into those, or you have nieces and nephews, or you have, you know, you can sort of grow it in a very natural way to, you care as much about Omar, almost as much about Omar as you do about Alex or Casey's, you know, all of them. And it can grow in a very natural way, classmates, teachers. So I think there's a way that it can grow very naturally. And I also think that it could also not do that. And at that point you could, want them to be better, want more for them.

[40:49]

You want to make sure they get more than the other kids, or at least this much, and you don't care as much about the other. So I think there's some choice points in there. And it takes, and again, it's back to the training, I think. Training and mindfulness, remembering, because actually the feeling of love is really good. The feeling of love, unconditional love, feels really good. But somehow we don't want to go there. We're biologically, neurologically, or whatever, set up for this conditional love. The self and other is very biological, you know. So you have to work with that, you know. But I'm sure you've had that in your life, too. It's kind of the intensity of the maternal love that catches you by surprise. And I can see how that could become something that would just be for those kids. And, you know, I want to go to play.

[41:52]

I want my kids to be in a school where they can be the best. They can do the best. They can get into the best school. I don't really care about these other kids that much. And I can't because biologically, that's not important, you know. So that's why we have the practice. I think the practice is there to coach us through these kind of choice points so that we can open, you know, open towards the unconditional, open from the conditional to the unconditional and notice when we're not, you know, and again, not beating ourselves up and stuff like that, but, oh yeah, I'm seeing that. I'm seeing how I kind of, And then your kids are competitive, right? So, like, how do you let them be competitive and have that be okay, because that's natural, you know? But then not, like, jump on that and become the one who, like, you care more about whether they get that goal than they do, you know what I mean?

[42:53]

So I think it's tricky. I think it's a really good question. And I think it's training. I'm hearing two different things. Can you describe that maternal love at your... the word feeling, which I'm guessing is an intense, warm, fuzzy, like, adoration. And then you also mentioned, like, wanting what's best. So, like, there's a feeling and then there's also... Kind of merging. The feeling is more like it's a merging. And maybe that's another word for what I felt with this unconditional love. It is kind of like merging, you know. We're not two, you know. We're just one lovely thing, you know. And then the other side is Say again the other part? The feeling and then that, I guess, the really deep desire for the happiness and joy of your children. And safety, which is very scary because, as we know, the world is fraught. Yeah.

[43:55]

Thank you. Thank you. I saw both your hands go up at the same time. So we go... Rich and then Ross. The Mac is weird because it doesn't say the time. Hi. Hi, Rich. Thank you for breakfast, by the way. That was delicious. I appreciate, always great to hear you respond. I appreciate you sort of acknowledging that there's not a right way to respond to crisis in particular. And it brings up this question for me. this ongoing question of sort of navigating or balancing or addressing the tension between wholeheartedness and self-awareness, right? So Sarifuja goes to this late person who's on their death bed and the person is complaining about how much pain they're in. And Sarifuja offers, like, suggests that they use it as a practice opportunity, which seems somewhat cold, but also, you know,

[45:01]

uh, skillful, given who that person is. But in that moment, you know, how, what do you do? You're taking care of those on, right? You're not thinking about how this, or like, I'm trying to get to that, like, particularly this as a question, is that like, it's like being, dealing what you're feeling wholeheartedly, but also sort of seeing through that No, it is. Right. Not dependent on conditions. Well, yeah, those words wouldn't come, but it would be love. Remember unconditional love. Remember that you love this person, you know. And, you know, because I do love him, and I, you know, we've been married for 34 years. It's pretty easy to access, even if I'm irritated, you know.

[46:02]

So, yeah, I don't know if this is answering your question, but I understand. And I think a lot of people have trouble with the early sutras because they do have that kind of coldness, you could say. Like, it doesn't seem very empathetic, you know. And it's not necessarily how we would want to talk to somebody. However, in the sutra, you know, the sutras, one of the things I tried to bring out in the classes, the sutras are sort of like koans in that they're an enlightenment moment for somebody. lot of the time. So in the sutra, he is able to do something with that instruction. And it goes on where he says, why hasn't anybody ever given me this instruction before? And Sariputra says, well, you know, and again, we have to be aware that there may have been rewriting going on, you know, like, so this is not something to get fixated on. But Sariputra says, well, We just give that to the monks, basically.

[47:03]

We give this, this is for the monks. And Anatha Pindika, you know, entreats him to please, this could be valuable for everybody, please share this with lay people and monks, you know? So in that sense, it worked for him, you know? And I think for some people, it wouldn't work. And maybe that's where the intuition comes in of like, does this person just want some empathy? And, you know, and that sometimes happens with Hozan, you know, like I want to say, you know, what about practicing with this feeling of this feeling of it's hard, you know, his situation is super hard. And so sometimes he's not up for it exactly, you know. And so it seems like sometimes it's just saying, yeah, I'm really sorry, this is nobody, you know, everybody would spend some time not being up for this, you know. And different people are different, you know.

[48:05]

Some people are more available to an instruction and feel the love coming through that, and some people are not. And I think it's an intuitive thing, you know. That's the best I can do. Thanks. Lori, could you have people use the mic or could you repeat the questions? Oh, yes. Anything. Oh, I'm sorry. They are using the mic, but maybe not close enough to the mouth. So Richard's question had to do with he pointed out that Shariputra's response like, well, you should train yourself thus then. You're in terrible pain on your deathbed, but I'm going to tell you how to practice with this. And it seemed kind of cold. Thank you. Thanks. If I've heard you correctly, it sounded like we're conditioned to think about ourselves as the best for our children and all that. We don't have that kind of universal or let others come forward as well.

[49:11]

And before we had Bridget's lovely breakfast this morning, the chant is recited as Desiring the natural order of mind, let us be free from greed, hate, and delusion. So it seems like there's a conflict there, a contrast between... I'm still up here. Yeah, is that the natural order? I know, and that has been something that has puzzled me for a long time, and finally, and I'd like to hear how other people feel. I have come to accept, maybe there are two natural orders, I don't know, but... If you look at the neurology and the neurobiology, I mean, we became altruistic in the presence of an enemy. We learned how to cooperate. Humans learned how to cooperate with other humans in the presence of an enemy. That actually enhanced our ability to love each other. The fact that there's someone that's not love, you know, that there's someone on the outside.

[50:14]

So, I mean, that's just To me, I've come to accept that that's our biology. And... A survival instinct. Yeah, survival instinct. Those were the societies that passed their genes on, the ones that figured out how to do that. So, it is going to always be a tape that's running, I think. I think every religion has gotten to this, though. It's not just Buddhism has gotten to there. There is something deeper for humans. There's a way to connect. And maybe other animals and plants also can do this. Connect with a different thing, a bigger thing, big mind, Buddha nature that is not run that way, that is not conditioned. Because that's the conditioned, right? The conditions of my neurology are doing this to me, are pointing me in this direction, you know. It's like your signature on your emails, it's bigger than us.

[51:16]

Yeah, way bigger. Thank you. Dave's, oh, you had your hand up earlier, and then Clay, and then Dave, and then I don't know, I have no idea what time it is. Okay, one minute each, folks. I'll make it quick. So does Big Mind care? That's a good question. Your question. I know. My question for Susan during her lay entrustment ceremony and Susan's answer, which I thought was really good, was, well, it holds everything. I don't think it can have an agenda. As soon as you get the agenda, you know, like that's, but, you know, that's a good question to explore. It holds everything. And maybe it loves everything. Maybe it's love. But it's not the kind of love that has an agenda.

[52:19]

Good question. So then we've got Clay and then Dave. Clay. Hi, Clay. Hi, Lori. Thanks for your great talk. Thanks for just telling it like it is around how we respond and react and all that. And one of the things you said, sometimes we say things in a very spontaneous way that are really capture something. And you said something like, how do I do this in a non-agenda kind of way? And that very much captured my thinking about like, oh, yeah, that's a good way for me to look at my life and my agendas. And you had said that right after saying something about, well, the unconditioned world or emptiness doesn't have agendas. And also in Zazen, we're supposed to sit in a particular way and have this posture and do this breathing. And sometimes I'm not really up for that. So how do I do this in a non-agenda kind of way, I believe is what followed there.

[53:25]

I just wanted to follow up with that and see if I sort of had that right or if you had anything else to say. Yeah, right. So the way to do that is to join the big mind that has no agenda. and just be with that. And all this other stuff is also happening. That's the thing. And it's so catches our attention. The conditional world is so impactful and present and catches our attention constantly. It's just, how can we join? Let that, because we don't want to have an agenda for that. We don't want to start with an agenda. I think you were also saying that agendas can kind of hold us up. They can kind of interfere with our just natural wanting to do something or ability to do something. Yeah, yeah. They usually come from anxiety, honestly. The agenda is usually coming from some kind of anxiety, I think. I agree. Some need to control. Yeah, exactly.

[54:26]

Please, let me control. I can just control a few things, please. Thank you, Clay. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Recently Transmitted. How was your ancestor worship festival? It was fun. It was really fun. Thank you so much for your talk. I love that talk so much. And I was thinking about something about the direction of the relationship between the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, because for me, Part of how we stay in the dusty world is trying to get out of the dusty world. Yeah. It's like the more I'm fighting the dusty world, oh, let me get to the world without conditions. Yeah. And where's the door? Where's the more I'm just lost, you know? Yeah. I was thinking what you called love. It's like the love is just, I am the dusty world. Like it's just dust. Yeah. And then that's the direction.

[55:32]

It's not to get away from it. Yeah. And that that's when the world without conditions opens up. I think that's right, yeah. And I wonder if it felt to you like that's what you were saying by love. Maybe. I mean, there's some kind of door. Yeah, it's the time, you know, there's this, it's probably a bad translation of the Kabir poem, the tiniest house of time. It's like something just this. That's why they always say just this, right? Just this. tiny, tiny moment of time that I'm in right now. Yeah, and maybe loving that, maybe finding a way to love that.

[56:13]

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