Would you like to introduce Rhonda? It looks like maybe, can somebody unmute Jose? Thank you. Good morning everyone. It gives me great pleasure to introduce us as a speaker today, Rhonda McGee, Emeritus Professor of Law, at the University of San Francisco Law School, run this 20 years at the intersection of the anti-racist education, social justice, Can I help you?

[01:44]

In mindfulness teaching, she and I met at UPIA probably about 10 years ago when we were both participating in the chaplaincy program. She is a storyteller and a thoughtful teacher of the integration of mindfulness into higher education and social justice. Rhonda is a student of numerous Buddhist traditions and a fellow of the Mind and Law Institute and the Center for Contemplative Mind. Rhonda's award-winning book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice, Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities to Mindfulness, was our guiding text.

[02:55]

Many communities won sangha process last year. And she continues to guide us this year. It was named one of the top 10 books released in 2019 by the Greater Good Society and received similar recognition by psychology today. and the editors of Mindful organization. I really look forward to what Rhonda has to say. It's been a while since we caught up, but I'm sure that like all of us, she's fortunate. So thank you, Rhonda. Excuse me, I don't think your mic is on.

[04:02]

A little closer to her mouth. Like this? Is this better, everyone? Everybody hearing me? Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. Deep vows of gratitude and appreciation to your friend and teacher who's on. And deep vows of gratitude and appreciation to all who have here gathered this morning here in the Zendo and online. Make sure I have a some timekeeper yoga because I'm a law professor. I can't probably go on longer than my work. Well, today I join you with a few words of reflection. A kind of a formal, evergreen theme of living with dying.

[05:07]

Really opening the door to this sort of fundamental existential reality of these bodies. So I have a few words to share and this is a theme I haven't really presented on publicly ever before. I feel called to offer remarks on this topic as a result of having recently, you know, born witness to what I call kind of the final stand of my own brother, my own dear brother Everett's passing. So my dear brother, he had just turned 60 years old this year, so he's just three and a half years. older than I am, and he had been living with cancer for a very long time.

[06:11]

When I say a very long time, it surprises people sometimes, but I believe he was first diagnosed with prostate cancer 20 years ago. And so it went into remission, came back, so he had a whole journey. And so just in the last six months, you know, that for its final days, we sort of had some reason to leave. He didn't have maybe much more than a year left. But nevertheless, when a few weeks ago, it became clear that, you know, the process of more active dying, right, it's all kind of a continuum to those things. So we got word that really, you know, that the process was coming to this different, more final phase. And I, living here in the Bay Area, from his niece in North Carolina, just sharing what the doctors had shared with her, which was that he didn't have much time.

[07:27]

Now, because the doctors had been saying he needed a late stage and not much time, We were sort of, even then, do the doctors really know. He's battled this for so long, for so long. But I actually had a feeling that this was kind of it. So I flew out to be with him. And fortunately, I was able to spend three of his last four days with him. And then I needed to leave, come here. A day after I left, he did pass. So I went back. for the final ceremonies, and we were witness to that. So all of that is to say, I have a little bit of trepidation to speak at all about any of this because . And I have another level of trepidation because I'm having my own experience, my brother, of course, had his. I have no, obviously, direct access to his experience.

[08:30]

I was only able to bear some witness to it And in that, really be brought into a kind of revivified engagement with some of the deep teachings that, of course, we meet again and again on this journey. We know that The Buddhist core teachings invite us to awaken to the reality of age, illness, illness, age, and death, right? These, again, also being here in these bodies. Breath to breath, moment to moment, as we practice,

[09:30]

we each in our own very weak ways, relationship with what those teachings and those invitations, this doorway of the Dharma really means to us. And, you know, as human beings, as again, trained as a law professor, academic mind can get very into, you know, what is death? What does it really mean? All those things. You can cognize. But there's something also, of course, constantly in our practices that's helping us to notice the difference between a thought and what we're holding in our minds and what we're experiencing in our minds, of course. And as we're experiencing the sense of the impermanence of this life, coming to know from the inside what it means,

[10:33]

this apparent body that seems so real and so lively, itself is also causes and conditions that are always changing. We know that today, however we are on these bodies, it was five minutes ago, five days ago, five months ago, five years ago, right? We know that we're in a process always of constant change in these bodies. So, you know, so I've been obviously working with my brother and I had our relationship in the midst of all that, right? So I can say that our relationship has not always been an easy one. But there's always been a lot of love. and we grew up in a Christian household. There were different ways of thinking about life and death, and different ways of, what I'll say, practicing for these realities.

[11:48]

And so what I was witnessing with my brother was a kind of way of being with his cancer, the diagnosis that is very Similar to how it is that we, in the West, are sort of counseled to deal with it, to be in the battle, you know the battle metaphor. He vows to anyone who is currently, presently moving through this aspect of the Bardo, this aspect of the challenge of these bodies in transition. know in a room this size, in this room, maybe right now, being in relationship with this kind of diagnosis. And we know that in this room, in this community, many of our beloved brothers and sisters are in relationship with these diagnoses that tell us that this thing that we've been taught to know is true, that all things are in place, is now a real reality to count for.

[12:59]

he noticed, he noticed, he vows, all those in the midst of this experience. I'll say, bearing witness to my brother in this very personal experience that I'm sharing, you know, he was very much good to being strong for his 20-year-old son, 23-year-old daughter. And so, yeah, being able to really acknowledge that this is happening now, not in the abstract, not later, but like right now, was hard for him, hard for us to have a conversation about. I don't know if y'all know anything about the difficulty that can tend to just having conversations. ...aspects of our real lives. It's just hard.

[13:59]

for all the reasons. And so, in the last six months or so, after, you know, there was a moment where he called me from North Carolina to say, Veterans Association is a veteran. Thank goodness. Because veterans healthcare in this country gets a certain kind of subsidy after them, let alone non-veterans. unless you're wealthy and unfortunate to have. So he called to tell me this hospital had said that they had reached a limit of what they could do for his cancer. This was some months ago. And then very quickly after that, he shared, but Duke Hospital, you know, in North Carolina, fancy Duke Hospital, had some other treatments. Right when we were about to like, have a moment where we can say, wow, alright, that's how we speak this life.

[15:02]

But also, there's no hope, right? So one of the writers I've been reflecting with over these last few months is the author, in addition, of course, to the Buddha, Stephen Jenkinson, A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul. A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul. He's been a hospice care worker, and he's had a lot of different roles that had given him, you know, close front row seat to the experience of passing a million people. And he talks about, the phrase he uses to describe what I think he, I was experiencing with my brother is a little bit of like, dying, not dying. You know, like, I know I'm dying, but actually let's not, let's not talk about it. relationship with me. I don't know what it was like for him. But with me, it was, you know, limited in terms of what we could actually say about this, say about this.

[16:08]

You know, of course it was in the air every time we talked. Of course it was in the air. And talking a little bit less, I would reach out and he wouldn't exactly respond right away. Another way I think of talking but not talking about this. I'm going to read something from the suttas, teaching of the Buddha on just one aspect of the experience of this fact of our lives. Again, we all know with each breath, We are reminded of, you know, this invitation to wake up. The in-breath is not the out-breath. The beginning of the in-breath is not the middle, it's not the in-breath. So we are awakening to intern this all the time.

[17:08]

And yet, and yet, this kind of invitation to bear witness to the passing of a great human story of a life, is so profound, and touches us in ways that are obvious and not obvious, and meets these teachings in ways that are obvious and not obvious. Life is swept along, as Sutta says, short is the lifespan. No shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger and death, Once you do deeds, I'm pointing to this particular teaching, as you know, when we reread these four short lines. Life is swept along, right?

[18:13]

All the worldly winds we know of. Metaphorical and little. Life is swept along. Short is the lifespan in the grand scheme of things. No matter how long we have in the grand scheme, it's short. And then, of course, then, within that, whether it's a conventionally short life, a middle-aged 60 feels short in a certain sense, but also 60 years is 60 years, my brother. By short, it's a lifespan. No shelters exist for one who has reached an old age. No shelters exist. We know this transition isn't going to come.

[19:14]

It is coming. And we know when the doctors say, it's coming now, right? It's reminding us to get ready, to prepare in some sense. And in a way, it's telling us no matter what your conventional age, you are in old age. So no matter that I think of my brother as being in probably young death, when the doctors say, well, this is your time, it's like, okay, old age is here for you. Seeing clearly this danger in death, one should do deeds of merit and happiness. So I'm pointing at this because I think for me, there has been this quality of How do we live in the presence of the awareness of this great change that we all are encountering? How do we live? How are we to live in relationship to the reality that our lives are impermanent? Whether we think death is not now and not right here, but we understand that it will happen

[20:23]

feel some spaciousness that can invite us into kind of this ethical question. How am I going to live in the time of that right now? How am I going to live? And so certainly in our relationship in the months preceding his passing, you know, there are ways that we, sometimes we have these conversations that touched on this question of how we live. And I know, especially now in retrospect, for him, It was very important to just sort of try as best as possible to be positively engaged, to move. You know, he liked music, so to move and to dance with his 23-year-old daughter when he could. My mom, who's, you know, 89, right? Go and meet her. There's a video of my brother meeting with my mom. maybe for the last time he was really able to stand about a month and a half ago.

[21:25]

And then he went to her, and she's in memory care, so she's also at that stage in life where we know . My brother goes up to my mom and meets her and stands with her and sort of dances with her. So even though he's very frail by then, and mom is frail, that energy of movement, of making the most of the time we have, and some kind of joyful being in the time we have, is very much, I think, part of my brother's ethical commitment to how to be as best he could. He spent a lot of time with His children, his daughter and son. I know that was a part of his ethic of doing these that might bring some happiness. Yeah, so I think each of us in our own ways come to terms with these realities.

[22:41]

And yet when those last, last days came, When I was called to fly across the country and really bear witness, you know, they say we are preparing for this. It's still not easy. And in particular, it's not easy to bear witness to the pain, the literal bear experience of pain when the body is going through these changes. And my brother's death certainly involved pain, actual physical pain. So I do believe that sitting with him and seeking as best I could to allow him to sort of know he wasn't alone. Know he wasn't alone in those moments. This was a way in which these practices stood me in some good stead.

[23:49]

I brought the Dharma of a greeting card with me today as well. This is a card, I'm not sure what you mean. Produces these, but then it says, life is slippery. Here, take my hand. So just bearing witness to the sliveriness of that experience, this experience. And also being able to be there to offer my hand, which was a great gift to have the resources and the time and to be able to go and spend a few days with him. Not everybody can do this. I haven't always been able to do this. There have been people who have passed and I've cared very deeply and would have liked to have been there, but I didn't have the resources. I'm thinking of my own father when he passed when I was only 17 or 18. 17 when I got the words that he was passing, 18 that he did.

[24:50]

I didn't have the resources to go across the country. The fact that I could be there was a great gift that I appreciate. And the fact that I could be there with a kind of practice as a foundation felt like also a great gift. One that I feel a great debt of gratitude from the entire lineage of teachers and the community. In other words, I felt the sense of sangha supporting me at every step of the way. But literally being there and holding his hand, literally being there, not in an abstract way, meant that his pain kind of became my pain physically. And there were times when it was really harder than I was He's fully able to bear. And then I had to look at him and realize, well, if he can bear the actual physical pain, then I can bear my impressions of it.

[25:55]

I can be here with him. And I'll just share that he went into hospice from ICU once the hospital made us all aware that this really is the end. He can pass here or at home. He elected to go home. very clear indications that he wanted to be home. In fact, one of his last statements that he made was, I want to go home. So we took him home to his daughter's home where he passed a few days later. But that process terms and allowing him to be supported in saying, yes, let's go, even though That meant we'd have to bear with the pain at home. We weren't doctors. His daughter would have to figure out how to deal with all of that. We all, as a family, said yes. We moved him to the house.

[26:58]

And I'll just share with you, that day that he left from ICU hospital, Veterans Hospital, to home, was the most difficult day. Because although hospice is meant to be a support for comfortable death, Asbestos. For whatever reason in this case, there was miscommunication. The medicines that were supposed to be there when we needed them weren't there. And so there were hours of real pain, physical pain, very rare pain for my brother that we just had to figure out how to support him until the medicine arrived. Nine hours. And I had some reactivity to that. Not to, I mean, pain is it, but the reactivity I was working with was how could the hospital let this happen? The hospital knew, and we were promised this and that, and it all fell apart.

[28:02]

So my challenge was around bearing with that little gap there where they sort of let him fall, where they didn't hold him the way he was promised. be angry about that, be upset, because it seemed like you'd suffer more than was necessary against the promises of hospice. So that was where I really had to lean on, y'all, on sangha, on practice. And again, come back home to even this, though it feels like it might last forever, we don't know, we want this to end sooner rather than later, this is temporary. One way or another, this will not last forever. And it did not, right?

[29:03]

After, again, the ninth hour, the morphine that was promised came. So he was given some medicine to help relieve that intense pain. All of this is to say, again, these abstract notions that we know we will die, we know that there is the first arrow of the actual pain, the second arrow of how we deal with that pain, there's all these teachings. And those moments are not easy. Those moments are not easy. But we are privileged beneficiaries of practices in a way that actually can help. I know that my brother, in holding my hand, and in fact, I held his hand for most of those nights. We just began with him. While other people were trying to talk to hospice and figure out where to talk, do we need to call an ambulance? We did call an ambulance. We were just like, somebody help this man.

[30:06]

I sat with him. He sat with me. So all of this is to say, yes, we die because we were born. Teaching given to us through our teacher and friend, Norman Fisher, delivered to us through one talk he gave here in December. We know we are born, we die, we know this. We're meditating, we're practicing, we're following the way to prepare us for all the many different ways that the reality of death will meet us in our lives. Our own death, the death of those that we love. And coming to terms with the strength, the capacity that we have to move through these inevitable

[31:15]

We do have the strength to move through them. We will shed tears. We will bear witness to our loving ones shedding tears. We will bear witness to the way that their love inspires them to kind of make people say that I don't know what was going on in my brother's mind, but I know he didn't really want to die when he was dying. I know that he was putting up a fight until he couldn't. And so, yes, we are taught to let go as the fundamental, I think, realization of what liberation can mean, what equanimity can mean in the face of all these painful realities. It can be as we breathe in and out, practice letting go. in the moments in which we're called to let go, we may or may not find ourselves easily opening up a hand.

[32:24]

We might be in this fierce last dance, I believe my brother was in some measure. And yet, in permanence Israel, and so on that morning when I, my own partner, sort of tap me awake to let me know that I received a message that my brother had passed after I'd come back here. That sort of hearing, taking that message in and realizing then that one way or another, that struggle had found its resolution. That was that invitation. Really deepen that practice of letting go and to honor the forces of life and death that are beyond any of our, you know, precise choosing.

[33:30]

It's just surrender of what living with dying really means. And so, dear ones, life is slippery. We have to kind of wake in those sleeping moments when we need an extra bit of support. This is why we practice, this is why I practice. And know that we are able to offer a hand of support to those who are in the active basis. This journey that we as mortal beings, all of us, will experience. Know that we can bear witness to the suffering of our beloveds.

[34:38]

We can take their hand, even when they are failing, and know that they are supporting us in some way. Through all of this, loving the preciousness of this life through which we meet people who touch us in ways that we greet when they pass. The preciousness of this life within which we are if we're fortunate, right, going to bear witness to loss, if we're fortunate because we met those that we care about and we've been touched by love. And so do us. Just a few reflections on this great

[35:44]

unknowable question of how actually it is that each of us in our own ways will continue to live with that. We know we're here because we benefit all the time, every moment of our lives from the passing weather beings, whether it's through the food that we take in, the fuels that we burn. There are so many ways that our living depends on dying. So we're living with all of the time. And yet, and yet. So can we bring this quality of love and compassion to our experience as we meet whatever moment, whatever version of living or dying we are, in a certain sense, privileged to encounter. And I put it that way because, again, if we can encounter this,

[36:46]

That means we are still here. And we can still make the most of the moments of our lives. As we are experiencing these things, knowing that we can be present to the love, the invitation to bring, compassionate witness to bear on our own suffering, on the suffering of others, the Brahma Viharas, Compassion. Sympathetic joy when we see it, because it is there even in these moments of pain and grief. And that's going to move through and flow with these changes as they come and go. So these are the thoughts I wanted to share with you all today. Thank you for those moments.

[38:05]

We have time for some Q&A. If you're in the Zendo, please raise your hand and I'll pass the mic to you. And if you're online, please raise your digital hand. And we'll call on you either in Zendo or Gen-san online. We'll call on you. When you say Q&A, we really mean just reflections too. They don't really have to. Discussion, conversation. I had a question, Rhonda. Certainly those last days of your brother's life were intense and challenging. The months, maybe years leading up to it where the discussion or the topic was in the air but not openly talked about.

[39:09]

So what I'm wondering is how did you deal with that and maybe what you learned from it? feel like you didn't deal with it. But yeah, what was that experience like? Because I feel like that feels more common, more every day, you know, something maybe, maybe that can help us prepare for those intense, challenging moments. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So, yeah, I think, and I'll just say that reflecting on what it was like and then I'm aware that, you know, I'm experiencing this in other relationships right now. So this is a very real experience and I think maybe more common than we realize that we are in relationships with people that we love, that we know, friends, loved ones who, you know, in some way are navigating more alive

[40:13]

more present processes that tell us all the day is coming. For me, you know, it was many things, but what's coming up for me right now is just that I always, it helped remind me always to remember the most important things with my brother. And so in those times that we did talk, I tried very hard to keep in mind the most important things. Mindful of the fact that this was going to be the last time. And I think, again, this is, of course, the deep teaching of these experiences. Any moment can be the last time for any one of us, any time, right? We believe we have forever, but of course, uncertainty needs uncertainty. We are not promised.

[41:15]

We hope, pray that we will, make it through this day and our strength and our loved ones, but we know. So that reminder that this could be the last conversation was something that I, you know, in that situation with my brother was very, very present. And I will share, as I have with my relationship with my brother was not an easy one, you know, in many ways. Let's just say, for example, our politics were very different. If you can just imagine, just guess what my politics might be, it probably won't be too off. And then guess what the absolute opposite might be, it probably won't be too off. That's kind of what we're dealing with. My brother, my actual bio-brother. Yeah, y'all. I have a feeling that we know something about these sorts of like, right? We're navigating these. So therefore, You know, and I will say that in our last conversation, he was sort of chiding me for my politics, my little conversation with him.

[42:17]

I see you're working for them, you know? I'm like, really? Isn't this going to be the last? He's going to give me a hard time all this. So I think it's just, you know, and I think humor is sort of like, it feels like it's a heavy aspect of our lives to bear witness to these . It's like you're still being yourselves. nothing fundamentally changes. It's like you're still in these struggles, they're still doing them, you're still doing you, even in these precious last moments. So I just, I think that's really what's coming to mind that, you know, we still continue to do each other. But for me, it's like all the way through the last, you know, 20 years in which I've known he's at cancer and therefore at some point, You know, over those 20 years, he's been doing him and I've been doing it. So we've been in this dance. I've been like, I love my brother even as he is. I love my brother. His perfect imperfections, my perfect imperfections.

[43:23]

So this, I think, is the deep teaching. I have my preferences. I have my politics. I have my own sense of right and wrong. And all of that really, really, you know, it doesn't completely drop away because I, you know, people have all kinds of, you know, not so good jokes, you know, not jokes you don't want to share about. We're not supposed to joke about any of these things. Well, okay, his vote won't cancel your vote out now. I was wrong with a joke about these things. But in fact, you know, it was life, living with time. And so all of these years, including these last six months, was pervaded by being on our highest and best. And then we're just being human beings through this. And I think that is, that for me is, you know, continuously wanting to be at my highest and best, even in the face of real challenges with actual human beings who are doing.

[44:35]

But can I nevertheless bring this quality of love, this quality of meta? Because the person is going to be who they are. But who am I in relationship to them is the question. Can I bring love? Can he know no matter what, no matter his views about who I vote for, sharing with me all those views and thoughts, his judgments about me, does he know if he needs me he can pick up the phone? and that I'll be there if I can. The answer is yes, then we're there. That was what it was like for me. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. I was hoping you could talk a little bit more about the reactivity. that you were in when he was really dying. It's really helpful to hear that you had the sangha and you called upon that.

[45:42]

And then I'm wondering along the lines of what you're just speaking to, you know, just that mundane and the pain and just the reactivity, actually, having had a lot of up- I'm having, at this stage, yeah, it's from when I'm young, but at this stage, a new reckoning with it around seeing people aging and just how to get out of my own judgment around what's going to happen to me. So, yeah. Thank you, my dear. So, can we all just sort of breathe through this? in ways that are obvious and not obvious. This is a hard one, right? There's probably reasons why culturally we don't talk that much, that directly all the time about these realities. So deep compassion to all of us, to you as you're sharing, my dear, that this is something that you've struggled with and gone through, maybe you're going through, reactivity around these experiences.

[46:54]

In, for example, those moments when I felt like a lot of judgment about how hospice had failed, that was my story. Like, this is not supposed to happen. And I had the support for this is not supposed to happen because the doctor, nurses, everyone had said, well, there will be a nurse there. When you get home, the medicine will be there. There will be a nurse there. The bed will be there. The bed wasn't there. The bed wasn't. Nothing was there when we get to the house. Like nothing that was supposed to be there was there. And then hours later, so I had a justification for having a feeling of like something not how it should be. But you know, having a justification doesn't help when you come to terms with like, this is how it is. Like this is how it is. So I was in that and then like wanting to not add to his actual pain by him. And I wasn't alone.

[48:01]

The whole family was in its highest states of reactivity because we all had gathered. So there are more than 10 people there all going through this. And so I actually was that person, you know, in that moment trying to know the feelings of rage and sadness and heartbreak, you know. For him, hearing him moan and sort of scream out, you know, and seeing tears come to his eyes when he didn't. Just, you know, so like the bare, bearing witness to the bare realities of that. And then trying to let go of the story of like, this shouldn't be like, this is the way it is. How can I just be here with him? You know, giving him as much love and support. Other family members, as much love and support. Can we just be this? And then when I must, like there were times when I would put his hand down and then go out and check in with his daughter and see, what do we know?

[49:04]

Is anybody on their way? Is there a nurse on their way? Can we call some, you know? So there were times when the lawyer in me would go out there and be like, can we check in and try to do something? So it's not that we don't take and do the things that we know we might do to try to right or wrong, but it's can we do those things and not get stuck? It's not that we're not going to feel rage. It's can we feel the rage and not get stuck in it. At least this is my humble way of approximating it. It's not like I'm going to ever get to a point where I'm just like easily not getting, not having, you know, a way of feeling something. When my brother's yelling out in pain, I'm going to feel that. I'm going to be mad that he's, you know, unnecessarily not getting the morphine that we were promised. I'm going to have something. but I'm not stuck in that right now. It's not like, you know, that happened. And so in that, the practice for me was not denying what was happening, but also not getting stuck in it.

[50:10]

And I can be with you right now, and an actual smile comes to my face. And even then and now, one thing is clear, the kind of experience that we're going through, we went through, It has something in common with what so many people have gotten. It's not a sort of a thing that my teacher might say that this is a doorway to common humanity. It actually is a doorway to the reality that human beings suffer. Lives end. We get dropped in the process sometimes. Somebody promises something, it doesn't happen. How do we navigate that? Can we bring love? Can we like feel it and not deny it, but also not get stuck? That to me, that's what letting go was calling force for me, the teaching of letting go. And I believe I'll have to rely on that because I know because it's a fact of life, because I'm at a stage in my life, there will be, there is death and loss and grief.

[51:25]

And there will be people who will suffer more than I think they should suffer or I was told they would suffer. And, you know, there are some that come from my law mind. I was a personal injury tort law professor for many years. So I know very much about how you name this as a problem that needs to be rectified by a lawsuit or a claim or this or that. And I also know that that doesn't change these realities. The adversarial mode doesn't avert the need to come to some deeper terms with the reality. Thank you for that question. Thank you for that question. How do we come to terms with the underlying reality? Whatever else we do to call people and do this and share and write a letter.

[52:28]

Underlying it is someone we love this past. It felt very hard. And I'm here and alive with you right now. I'm here and alive with you right now. Thank the heavens that we're all already in. We're here and alive together. about practice here at BZC, please speak with today's Zazen instructor, Preston Evers, who's just in the back.

[55:50]

A few announcements for the week. Tomorrow morning, BZC will host a beginner sitting at 4.30 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. Please contact Helen Chang if you would like to attend. Raising their hand right there. On Monday morning, Dean Bradley will give away Seeking Mind Talk over Zoom at 8 a.m. And on Friday afternoon at 5.40 p.m., Jean Selkirk, our sewing teacher, will give away Sighi Maite. Next Saturday, Hozan Roshi will deliver the Dharma talk. Beginning on October 12th, our visiting teachers and residents, Greg Fane and Linda Gallion, will lead our fall aspects of practice period with the theme, Ordinary Bodhisattvas, the Brahma Vaharas in Action. This theme... Thursday evening classes, as well as in Saturday Dharma Talks and the Way Seeking Mind Talks. ASPEX opens and closes with one-day sittings on October 12th and November 19th. Most programs will be in hybrid format.

[56:52]

Visit the website to register for ASPEX and the classes. Each of these requires separate registrations. A recurring announcement. A group has been meeting for BZC to consider ways to address racism. If you wish to participate, please contact Karen Sondheim. For more information about our programs or membership, please see the bulletin board outside in the courtyard or visit the website. And you can also make a donation out on the bulletin board or on the website by clicking the generosity tab. If I could get two volunteers who have time to stay after tea The teacups. I have one. One more volunteer. And another. Thank you. Those in the Zendo, if you could please maintain silence until you're off the steps and then feel free to socialize with one another. And for those online, feel free to unmute and greet one another.

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Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Have a great week. Take care. Thank you. Same to you. Good to see you, Ron. Okay. Bye, Ron.

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