Dharma is where we met with even a hundred thousand million Galpas, having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept. I vow to taste the truth of the Tittagata's words. Good morning. Good morning. What is it good to be back. Maybe not all of you know. Greg and I were in Tassajara last week, and we just got back yesterday afternoon. So I'd like to start, I'm Linda, and is there anyone here who is here for the first time? Welcome, hi. Great. Thanks for coming. So coming back from Tassajara, well, being at Tassajara, sorry, my talk underwent some rearrangement very recently, so it's very fresh.

[01:15]

Yeah, that is, that has been a heart home for me in addition to the Berkeley Sangha for over 20 years. So going back, um, It was really special to be able to stay there for a week. We went as acting tantos, co-tantos for that time. The usual tanto was on vacation for a week. So we got to fill in and go to senior staff meetings and just fully participate. So it was a really lovely full week talking to so many of the staff and so many students. And Tassajara looks great. It's amazing. And the feeling in the valley, this year in particular, I've never felt it so full of love. I think I was really clued in because on the day that we arrived, or the day after we arrived, every morning in the work circle, they go around and do arrivals and departures.

[02:24]

And there were a lot of departures that day because a lot of people had done their three-month period and were about to leave. And just hearing from each person a little bit about what Tassahara had meant to them and feeling the responses of all the people in the community, you know, missing this person who's been such a vital part of getting the summer going. We got to be there for Fourth of July and Skit Night. It was amazing. If you can ever be there for Skit Night, I recommend it. Saw Myoju and... Yeah, she's really thriving. They're really thriving. Excuse me. And really enjoying the summer. So, going deep in and then enjoying all that's offered, which is just as it should be. the Sangha Week model that they have now, and I think there's a Sangha Week going down to Tassajara this coming week or in a few weeks?

[03:37]

Yes. Great. It's just going so well. It took a while to get that settled in, but this rhythm of old groups arriving and departing, and they have enough staffing this summer, so there are still areas that you know, it's doing Zen practice in a big, complicated temple, so there will always be challenges. I think I would worry if there were not, but it's just, it's alive and thriving, and I think that's up for me so much because the pandemic really hit Tassajara very hard. It got down to so few people, and then there were some difficult summers and small practice periods. I was looking through, there was a book of the photos taken at the end of practice period, and I was just paging through them, and all of a sudden there was one, usually the ones back in the day were like 50 or 60 people, very full photos, and all of a sudden there was one that had 14 people, and I'm like, yeah, I remember that.

[04:54]

I remember that one. That was hard. And we did it, and they continued it. So this feeling of continuing a practice place since 1967, same as Berkley Zen Center, through thick and thin, you know, the people who stayed, the people who dedicated their practice. So that was alive for me, returning, and it's really fresh again for me being here with all of you and reflecting on the many things that have, you know, been changing, especially in recent years in the Sangha and just how thriving it feels here. Deep gratitude to all of you for all the ways that you contribute to this community, to this samba, to this practice, to this place.

[06:00]

We do it together, always. So, one of the manifestations at Tassajara, of, wait, is this my new version? Yes. That's my new version of order. I've been in contact pretty regularly with the Tassahara director, Ashley. I think she's been director for about nine months now. And she'd only been at Tassahara for two years before becoming director, which for any of you who've been down there or know Tassahara, you know that's very early to be doing that. And she's great. but it just indicates that the continuity there has been a challenge. And they're really meeting it and being creative and really respectful of what's come before and wanting to hear about, well, how did it used to be?

[07:06]

If that's not it, what happened? And she asked me to offer something over a couple of days to the senior staff and crew heads because We talked about supporting the senior staff in different ways to do trainings and stuff. Ashley has a great, strong background in the work world where trainings were very familiar to her and she found them helpful. And as I was thinking about this, we talked about doing difficult conversations because I practiced with that and studied that a lot at Tassajara. You have better communication skills about all kinds of things. And I kept thinking, you know, my experience has been that trainings, per se, are not so helpful, actually, even when people enjoy them a lot.

[08:09]

And that really came home to me when I... And I love trainings. I'm personally really into trainings. I like learning, I like hearing new things, I like doing it with a group of people. That all lights my rocket. And we'd done one years ago, something about communication or mediation, something like that. And then I discovered this book, Difficult Conversations. And I was like so excited about it, like maybe 10 years ago, something like that. And at some point I was looking through old materials of Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center, and seeing, you know, what about communications and things like that. And then I found this whole outline that indicated that it was taken directly from the book, Difficult Conversations.

[09:13]

And I did not remember a thing on that. And I'm like, okay, and this is me, you know, I like this, not everybody does. And if you heard more and more, yeah, they don't, you know, we keep trying to do these trainings, but they don't stick. A couple of things landed for me. One was talking to Gil Fransdahl, one of Mel's deshis, Sotin's deshis, who leads the Insight Meditation Center down on the peninsula. He said, yeah, we've been working on diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings for a long time. We keep doing them. And they don't seem to have any particular effect. However, when I look back to how things used to be, I see a huge difference. So, the differences, the change, appears to be, it's not like it's going to be immediate. You know, it's like you hear something, and then you got it, and you can just do it.

[10:19]

I mean, Buddha talks about that as a model. It's like, first you hear the teachings, you know, and in the Buddhist time, of course, you literally hear them, not just reading, but you hear the teachings, then you have to engage with them, turn them over, question them. How is that? How does that apply to my life, my practice? And only then can you realize it, can you manifest it in your body, speech and mind. So it made sense to me that if it's just like a training, it might last a little bit and then it would fade off. But each time you're reminded, it would enliven that again and go forward. even though it didn't suddenly change. So the notion of practice, like how do we practice with these things? If there's some presentation, how do you actually take it up and practice with it?

[11:21]

And I thought, you know, I mean, it's really a question also about how do people change? How do people change? which has been a huge question for me in much of my life. How do I change? Because I have not changed easily in my life, and I have often been frustrated with my own inability to change in the ways that I wanted to. I can be very stubborn about, like, well, I really want to do this thing, and I really think that I should do X, whatever it is. But once I decide, like, this is the plan, then I immediately, like, don't you tell me what to do. And it's very frustrating when I really want to do it, but I don't know how to stop getting myself in a box that I react to. So that was my own thing. But it gave me this ongoing question about how do people change?

[12:26]

How do people actually change in the ways that they want to change? Not how do we change other people. How do we change ourselves in ways that we're agreeing on? I mean, if it's a group, how do we together want to change? How do we transform? So when I was director at Tassajara from 2017 to 2020, middle length long ago. One of the things I noticed was that people who were having conflicts with each other weren't talking to each other. It was having ripple effects, especially on senior staff. We can't talk to each other. So I started working with difficult conversations in various ways. You know, I'm basically the crew head of the senior staff.

[13:29]

We had regular meetings and I could introduce things. And so I did from the book, because I didn't know how to do this particularly, but I made things up and we repeated things a lot. And I got help from the senior staff in terms of, well, what about we do this? Or I think this might be good. And that was really alive, you know, that we were doing it as a group and we were doing it together. The other thing that was really important was that the director's office was right in the central area, so it was very accessible. This was at Tasahara, and my door was pretty much always open unless I was in a meeting. So once we were talking more about normalizing conflict, like conflict is normal because we're different people, and we often want different things, and we see things differently, but it turned out many people felt like, well, a good Zen student doesn't have conflict with other people, doesn't get angry, doesn't get frustrated, and definitely you're not supposed to say anything about it.

[14:40]

This is something to sit with. This is something to practice with without any particular guidance about what that might look like. And you probably shouldn't even be confessing it to your practice leader because that probably looks bad at you. And you don't want to be talking badly about your real feelings about, you know, someone who's also in the community that your practice leader also knows very well. So it's complicated, you know. And the more I normalize things and basically welcomed whoever, which this didn't come easily to me either, but I learned that the easiest response to someone who walks in your office and says, I've had it, I can't do this anymore. For example, the head cook, the Tenzo, in the middle of the summer. Yes, that happened. But others, too.

[15:41]

And the appropriate response is to say, great, come on in, what's up? And then I could just listen, you know, and I had some time. I didn't have to fix anything first, you know, just start with listening. And it took a while to get that in my body that I didn't have to go to my usual responses, that I could find some space in it. But the fact what worked was very reinforcing. It's like, oh, this is a better way to do it. Of course, there were mistakes that I also learned from. but I knew that things had really changed at Tassajara over time. When somebody came into my office and just said, could you help me with a mediated conversation? And I just went, oh, thank you. You're doing exactly what I hoped, which is that...

[16:45]

Turn to your practice leaders, turn to the seniors in the community when you need help. If you want some support, you can just ask for this. And this person had just come in, very matter-of-factly, no big deal. Oh, I should say that in the past, if you had a mediated conversation with anyone, toss off a quick and snap. That basically meant that things were horribly wrong with you, with the other person, and everything. It was like, Oh, you had immediate conversations. And you know, it's like everybody is working so hard to do their best. So it was sad, you know, that there was so much sincere and diligent effort and this piece of it wasn't in the right place. So when it became just normal for people to do that, and I think it still pretty much is, you know, which is great.

[17:46]

And I realized, oh, it takes just a few people who are willing to embody that, you know, who are willing to be there for it, which is another way of saying, you know, last practice period we talked a lot about the Lotus Sutra and, you know, everybody is in Bodhisattva training, everybody is a Buddha to be because of the nature to be Buddha. And we can do that now. Being Buddhist now, we can manifest that, and that actually has radiating impacts, just as negativity can have radiating impacts. So yeah, cultivating what is good, what is wholesome, whether it's in a very local way, a somewhat wider way, or a very wide way, all has and impact. So, don't discount yourselves and your effectiveness in the world.

[18:54]

And keep an eye out for it. Keep an eye out for like, how'd that go? So part of this is studying the self. You know, it's not to do something so much as how do we study the self. And when we're engaged in change processes, we are already, you know, we've already studied the self to some extent because there's some idea that's like, The self is feeling a little tight in certain ways, and wants to maybe grow in certain ways, or is open to the idea of change, or dropping off something, or letting in something.

[20:06]

Leslie James at Tassajara used to say, that's the big project, that's the main focus of practice of Tassajara, is studying the self. Blanche Hartman, who practiced here at Berkeley Zen Center before she went to Tassajara and became abbess of San Francisco Zen Center, said she asked Sojin back in the early days of Tassajara. I told this story before, but it's such a good one. She said, I keep hearing about people talking about Tassajara. What's so special about Tassajara? And he said, well, Tassajara is a place where everyone can see who you are. And you can too. And you're like, oh. She was down there very quickly finding that out. How is that, that we see each other, that we're related to each other, that we can do this dance together?

[21:14]

in the four foundations of mindfulness, one of the foundational teachings of the Pali Canon, of the early Buddhist sutras. There are a whole series, I forget how many, I'll say 17, that's such a good number, different places to place the mind, to place the attention. The larger categories are body and breath, feelings, positive, negative, neutral, mind, and then objects of mind, different collections of states of being or awarenesses. And between each one of those sections, it's an oral teaching, so it gets very repetitious and very long, and in between each section, There was one part of this sort of refrain that said something like, mindful and aware, a monk clearly observes whatever it is, the in-breath, the in-breath and the out-breath, internally, externally,

[22:45]

and internally and externally. And I never, I just almost kind of passed over that part about internally, externally, and internally and externally. Until I found this one translation with some commentary about it, more modern, that says it's, we internally is our own experience. So this is what we usually think of as practice. is paying attention to the self. We think of our self as being located in this mind and this body. And certainly when we're sitting in zazen, we're just staying with the breath, with our breath as much as possible, and the body, and the posture and all of that. But the externally is about other people.

[23:46]

It's how do we stay present with, you know, clearly observe another person. So just as we observe our own breath, we can observe another person's breath. And then, you know, this expands to all the different realms. If it was a conversation, I'm aware of what's happening in my body and mind while having a conversation. Can we also not just listen to the words, but can we also be present with another person in their embodiment, in their presence, in their feelings, in a conversation? So it's internally. And I think the order of practice by saying that is first we practice internally to get some grounding, and then externally. You know, place it on that same topic, on others, just like the Brahma Vaharas, or you cultivate it for yourself, you cultivate it for others, you give it all away.

[24:52]

And then internally and externally, simultaneously, you know, having that skill to be both with what you're feeling and with what the other person is feeling, what's coming up for them, to be able to have some space around it. There's so many practices within practices. Years ago, or actually I should say several times over many years, San Francisco Zen Center has developed a curriculum There have been, I think, four or five at this point. I think they were usually developed by one person in a small committee with the idea that everybody should really cover these, which is a beautiful idea, and none of them stuck, just like trainers, none of them stuck as a forum, as a curriculum.

[26:00]

And I think part of it was because they came out of a small group who wasn't so embedded in what was going on. And I tried to. I had a kind of a different approach when I was president. And I, you know, there was a request and I'm like, okay, how can we have it about basically people skills, you know, emotional intelligence? I mean, some people were very concrete, like what texts should we study? That was pretty easy. forms and ceremonies, that was also pretty straightforward. We do that pretty much really well. It's like, you know, being together in the world is, I mean, it's complicated. People are complicated. Relationships are complicated, and how do we, how do we get more skillful with this?

[27:02]

You know, more and more I appreciate how skillful the Buddha was as a teacher because he met each person or each group often with very different things. You know, he met the moment with an appropriate response. And how do we meet the moment? So, there's also thinking about this. How do we meet this moment? that we're all living in right now in the world. It was nice getting largely, it was really helpful to get largely away from the news and all of that for the last week. But it was still in my heart and it came in in various ways. News about the flood in Texas And Greg and I had been, when we were traveling and teaching last year, Greg and I visited a beautiful section of the Guadalupe River, and it was this deep.

[28:15]

It was about, I don't know, 12 inches deep. And imagine that. And of course the response. But it's like, where do you start and where do you stop with that? And it's been a question for me and the board and some of the senior leadership here about what should Berkeley Sun Center's role be? What should our relationship be to the world? And I'm not going to tell you any answers about this because I think this is an ongoing question, an ongoing process. of appropriate response and how do we meet this. But some members of the board and I, as a Biden teacher, will be meeting this coming week to talk about some of that.

[29:18]

What's an appropriate response, which could take many forms for a sangha, for Berklee Zen Center, not just individually. But as a Sangha, is there a role and what could that be? And I've been thinking about what are the most important things to consider as we think about that, as we reflect deeply on that. And of course, I mean, it's the Dharma, it's the teachings. I think first of all, the bodhisattva vows. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Beings are numberless. Suffering is unimaginable. These are impossible vows.

[30:21]

It doesn't stop us from making them. Knowing that they're impossible has often given me the space to do what I can, to not expect to finish this. There was a Jewish sage, I guess about a hundred years before the start of the common era, Hillel. And he said that the task is not yours to finish, the task of healing the world, but neither are you free not to take part in it. The task is not yours to finish, the task of healing the world, but neither are you free not to take part in it. And as Sojanalva said,

[31:26]

You know, the really interesting question is how. How do you do this? How does it manifest? To what extent? What does it look like? How does it change? How do we meet? So beings are numberless, I've got to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. Yep, it resonates deeply. more deeply than usual now, and greed and hate too. Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them all, mine, and for me this comes up like, well then what's, in this context, what's right speech? How do we engage in right speech? Dharma gates are boundless.

[32:30]

I vow to enter them. Dharma gates are like the way deeply into practice. Dharma gates are often like about, well, we're this big. Dharma gates are like this big, and you have to get yourself smaller to get through them. So you just say, you have to go through the small door. It's like the things that don't come easily to what our minds think. These Dharma gates are boundless. We vow to enter them all, like all the sticky places, and yet we know they just keep arising. They're endless, and we keep going at an appropriate pace, with appropriate resources. Buddha's way. is unsurpassable. I vow to be kind. I vow to be that for myself, for my own freedom, and for the freedom of all beings.

[33:37]

And in the midst of the so muchness of the world right now, One of the questions that keeps coming up for me is not exactly what to do or what to think or what to read next, but how do I orient? How do I choose? How do I decide? What's guiding me step by step along the path? Suzuki Roshi so often talked about what's the most important thing? And he said that a bunch of times, and there were a few times he said the same thing, but a lot of the time it was something different. It was what was most important in the moment. So for me, it's helpful to orient around what's the most important thing, why and right now, and how do I, you know, is this the moment to say, like, enough, I need a little nap or a little walk.

[34:57]

Or is it time to keep going? And this is always changing. But like driving a car, you learn over time how to attune it. And this is practice. This is continuous practice. I'd really like to hear any questions or comments. I think I'll end now. Patrick, you can wait for the microphone to arrive. You went on speaker view.

[36:05]

Yes. Ready? Yes. I'd rather not ask this question with the microphone in front of you. And I'd rather no one was here except you and me. And I look forward to that kind of conversation. What's the most important thing? That's the most important question, right? What's the most important thing for me? What's the gap? There seems to be always a gap between me and you, between effort, and getting over after, to getting right to it and getting very elusive. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yes. Okay. Help me get over again.

[37:19]

I think I'll talk about you and me. Okay. The closer we get, the more we recognize our differences and the farther apart we feel simultaneously with feeling more intimate than we could ever be. I think it's easier to think about in a way in creating something and of course we're creating our life moment by moment but if it's a movie or a song or a painting, there's always this feeling inside, this sense of what wants to manifest. And the thing, there might be an occasional, yes, suddenly the gap closes, but we don't live there. But we might want to live there all the time?

[38:28]

Yes. We do want to live there all the time. I think living there all the time means that the gap is always there and always included and is not a problem. The gap is the relationship. How can conflict be included within relationship? How can gap be included in my deep hunger, the wholesome longing for awakening. Awesome. Right. Thank you. Thank you, Patrick. Rich. Thanks, Linda.

[39:32]

I think my question is similar to Patrick's, maybe coming from a different angle. The studying of the self that we do, I worry that, well, there's this tension between how I think about wholeheartedness and self-awareness. And this, I worry that the studying of the self sort of can include the wholeheartedness, the self-consciousness of action, right? There's a worry that I can't, not that I can't, but this self-consciousness can sort of overshadow full expression, reaching behind myself for a pillow in the middle of the night. And maybe that's the gap that Patrick's talking about. Maybe it's a little bit different, but maybe you could say something about it. Thank you so much. You're all going to help me fill in the parts of my talk that I had wanted to include and didn't quite get to in any particular moment?

[40:39]

Thank you. Yes, exactly. Because so much of it has to do with the quality of mind with which we bring to awareness. Very often when it's, you know, that distance that you're talking about, you know, added separation from self, which is usually judgment. I'm great, I'm not great, oops, this is good, no, this is not. That self-consciousness, which is, you know, language is just, it never meets it, but maybe we can use self-awareness as being different from self-consciousness. Even though, anyway, the way they're colloquially used. To be self-conscious is to be this kind of object in the world that's trying to connect in ways that feel safe enough and belong and watch out for danger and my performance is intimately tied to all of that, which is a painful place to be when we're stuck in that and I'm really familiar with that.

[41:45]

And then when that's not there, the difference, the difference between being fully with when you could say there's no self there. There's no ... I mean, the self is all of these things. You could talk about the small self, not big self, but small self is not protecting, worrying, trying to figure stuff out. Is that? Yeah. It's a good start. We'll continue. Thanks. Thanks. You have a question online. Great, sure, and then I'll take the question online. Thanks for your talk, Linda. I was wondering if you could say more about conflicts as dharmagates and how that might relate to some situations you are in. And I guess part two of that question is sometimes something difficult becomes a dharmagate and sometimes it feels like it stays a closed door.

[42:53]

and how do we deal with that as also a dharmagate? Thank you. Why do you keep throwing these juicy questions? So why is it a dharmagate? It's great. Because it brings up parts of our... We have an experience of conflict. Once we become aware that there is a conflict, a lot is going on. Every moment is a dharmagate. because there's something happening that we could be aware of. And often when there's conflict, there can be like the, you know, I'm going to, or, you know, or lots of possibilities. And all of that, especially conflict, it's like, that's very juicy in terms of the body, body, feelings. you know, especially if you can get out of the thoughts, but just like, how is that for me?

[43:58]

Oh, this is interesting. Can I be curious about how this comes up? And to be able to stay with that experience, like, because I've always been pretty conflict-averse, conflict-avoidant, came by it honestly, family, you know. Serious. So it was work for me to learn how to even just stay and look like I was present, even if I wasn't. But I got better at that. And after a while, I could stay present with a little bit of what I was feeling. And repetition is super helpful. That's why we repeat things so much in Zen and all practice. Just keep doing it, not necessarily when you feel good about it, just keep showing up for zaza. So this practice, this repetition, it's like, I really don't like this, and it's really uncomfortable.

[45:02]

There is suffering here for myself and maybe the other person too, often the other person too, and I'm not going to die, and I can get better at this. All of this is skillfulness. Our awareness is skillfulness. Being able to stay with an object, that's a skill that we develop. Being able to stay with sensations in the body, whatever it is. So everything's a dharmagate. Some of them are just ones that we're like, with. And can we open all the feelings about what's going on. I haven't tried this, but I really should now that I'm thinking about it. Oh, how can I make reading the news a Dharmagate? How can I stay with that and let some clarity percolate out of that? That was an experience, not the content.

[46:06]

Thank you. And online, I can't put... Oh, hello. Hi. I can't quite read it from here. My name is Sean. Hi, Sean. Hi, thank you for your talk. I was a little bit distracted because I was trying to compose my question and also listen to the responses at the same time. So you may have answered or touched on this already. So I apologize if you have already. So, you know, I recently had just been experiencing just kind of uncomfortable situations. I just found myself feeling really awkward and uncomfortable. And then I came home and just happened, coincidentally happened to open the book, Not Always So. And there's a point in the book where it says, wherever I go, I meet myself.

[47:06]

And so there was this... this notion of clinging to the idea of self and trying to improve. And then today in your talk, you mentioned, what did I write? Studying self. And so I was wondering if you could speak to those, how those two kind of coexist, you know, the idea of trying to improve or to better the self when there is no self. Yes. Well, Suzuki Roshi did say, mostly, almost always, he said, you're perfect just as you are. And I think once he said, and you could use a little improvement. So the way I understand that is, I mean, for one thing, perfect in Buddhism is generally understood from the more absolute side of things.

[48:07]

My understanding is it means it is. This is what is. This is what is arising, but it's free of value judgment. It's not perfect in that sense. It's just that the universe is happening exactly as it is. Here's a really innocuous example. A five-year-old's crayon drawing is perfect. exactly as it is. It is a full expression of everything happening in that moment. And it's hard to see a lot of life or ourselves as being perfect just as it is. So when we study the self, it's like, well, that's our, you know, The five skandhas are form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, mental constructions and consciousness.

[49:11]

So seeing these things, it's like, is there really something there? I'm a self, but is it my body? I think I was kind of made for Zen and Buddhism because when I was a kid, I used to wonder, if I lost certain parts of my body, would I still be me? Like at one point, would I cease to be me? I kind of came up to here, but then I wouldn't be alive because that wasn't, you know, like down here. But it was kind of a puzzle to me. I'd lie in bed and kind of wonder about that sometimes. And that's, you know, it's like, what is the self? When you start letting go of things, you know, like you're not the same person today that you were when you were four, but you're also not different. So what self? Who's the real Sean? It's not like these questions have answers, but they're to help us take reality a little less at face value, which is filtered through our ego and our self-protection and our needs and dislikes, and to try to be as much as possible with

[50:33]

another way of being that I think we all intuit, even though we can't really name it, that brought us here. You know, something brought us all here this morning. And whatever that is, that intuition about what's possible for a human being to see the world differently and to belong completely in the largest possible sense. to be at home in the universe. Thank you. And I like also what you said about repetition, which is just showing up. Thank you. Okay, great. Yeah. No, go ahead. Okay. Last one. Great, last one. Thank you, Linda.

[51:40]

This is a very timely dormer talk because the HEAR Committee is meeting today at noon, which stands for Harmony, Ethics, and Reconciliation. It's been around a long time. So I love your aspiration is to have a song go where people just talk about conflict directly when it comes up and not say, oh, we need a HEAR Committee intervention and make a big deal out of it because people tend to avoid going to the HEAR Committee because they think it's going to be some a big court thing or something. But you and Greg have a unique perspective because you were here for many years, now you're back. I hope we're going away from conflict avoidance and just saying, oh, let's have a mediated conversation right now in the kitchen because we just had a conflict. So do you think we're moving in that direction here where people just talk about conflict right away or not? I really don't know. I was really talking about Tassajara, my experience, which is so much closer and more evident at Tassajara because you're all living together.

[52:44]

You can't get away from each other, so eventually you're going to start noticing some things. That's why you go to the monastery is to voluntarily put yourself in a little laboratory. I also became aware at Tassajara, and of course here too, whatever role you have, role that every person, you see through your own experience. I mean, a few people have said that they're having challenges with somebody, but mostly it looks to me like people are really getting along. So I have absolutely no idea because mostly what I said before is, if they want help with something, they'll ask, Otherwise, people aren't going to say, oh, this person did a terrible thing to me, generally. You're not just going to diss on somebody around here, basically.

[53:48]

I would love to know more about the experience of the people here. I experienced this as being an amazingly harmonious community. Tell me if you think that's so, or tell me if you have different experiences. I look forward to hearing more about the Hear Council. Thank you.

[54:15]

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