I'm here. Let's see if I yell. Good morning. Good morning. It's been a long time since I have been in this seat. Many don't know I started out at Berkeley Zen Center. But I didn't start taking vows. But I would come here early in the morning, every day, early in the morning. I lived after 51st Street in Genoa. And I would drive my partner some wallah. Then after a while, I would go to Genoa. I understood she needed to rest so she could get to work.

[01:03]

And so Symbuala passed in November, 2022. And so her face is not here. Her smile. And I usually will be sitting here the first time I did a way of the mind seeking talk. Way Seeking Talk. How's it called? Way Seeking Mind. Way Seeking Mind Talk. The first one I did here. I remember Sojin Roshi sitting there. And it's just like, oh my God. It was so nerve-wracking. But it was good. I thought he was observing me and examining me, but he actually was taking care of me, watching to see about. Yeah, you know, I could feel that later. And then I would look over that far corner, Alan. Always when something went, like I did something wrong or whatever, his eyebrow go up.

[02:11]

And sometimes both eyebrows. funny when I got to a place where I had robes and I would get all tangled up in my robe and he would just be cracking up. You know, and that's what I needed. I'd crack up, he'd crack up. And the last time we were cracking up with each other was at the, I ordained in 2023. And I don't know, for some reason, I couldn't figure out how to get out of the Zendo. So I kept coming to the altar and bowing, then I came back here. I think I might have did like, it's all supposed to be three, I think. I think they did nine. And he was like, and I, he was shaking his head, and I just started shaking mine and laughing. And that's my last image. Cracking up together. And so, there are many faces of people I love in the audience and here and people that I haven't seen for a long time.

[03:14]

It's wonderful to see and to be here and, you know, I remember you. Don't. Don't think I don't. I got it. So, and friends and old friends. It's great. This is a wonderful place to be at a time like this in this world. This is it. And even if you don't know anything about what we're doing, this is a good place to be. This is good. We've taken time out of our lives to do something quite different than most people are doing in the world. And I don't label it good or bad with what we're doing. What they're doing is not bad and what we're doing is not superior necessarily. But I feel like it's a good place to be where we can breathe and talk together and be together in a moment. You can't get out there.

[04:18]

I mean, we could try. Even if we just got up and went to the corner, we could try it, but it would be a lot of disruption. What are you guys doing? Where are you from? It wouldn't be as simple as what we're doing now. So, changing right here, right, at BCC. BCC is becoming something else. You know, the world is becoming something else. We don't know what else. You know, some of our imagination is probably running wild. We probably could write a great novel right here with the mind of what might be going on. A very wild novel. Everyone write a chapter. I'll make sure it gets published. I know a lot of publishers. And then there's ourselves. You know, we are changing. Being reshaped by the things in the world.

[05:22]

We've always been reshaped. Things have always been changing and becoming something else. And a lot of times that's disheartening. Because especially if we're really attached to something that we feel is important, it's very hard for that to change. Things we don't want or we're not attached to it, we might even not notice that it went away, that it changed. We might have had a happy moment and then that was it. But the things that are difficult and hard, we remember, we keep remembering them too, those things that changed us. So I thought it would be good to bring my teacher in, Zenke Blanche Hartman, for a balanced life. And I, sometimes I like to say I curated it, but I collected her talks and put it in a book.

[06:27]

And so she did not write this book, and it was happening while she was dying. She was in the dying process in Naborgo. Interesting to create a book of an icon in the Western Zen world. And I mentioned it, and you know, that's actually, she also started here at BCC and Lou BCC. So many people out there just found that Kathy started here. This is exciting. There's so many Cs. But Cs for a Balanced Life. And in writing this book, it was, I'm not writing it, but collecting the talks, shaped me as I was reading, reshaped me, reshaped me with her teaching, her everything. She did get to see the book and was very happy to have it. You know, she's showing it off. She said, take a picture, take a picture. And I was like, wow, Blanche, I never knew you as that kind of person.

[07:32]

Because even the publisher said, I want to put her picture on the front. And I said, oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. She's not that. She's not going to want that. And so he said, no, we want to do the picture. Go ask. OK, for real. So I did. I went. I said, Blanche, you want to put your picture on the front? Oh, yeah. I was like, okay. It is beautiful. It's the perfect picture. She was right. It thrilled me actually. Her beast that way because she'd always try not to. We're suppressing even Our love for ourselves, you know, we just suppress it because somebody might find out. We love ourselves. Oh my gosh. And so it was really good to see her excitement.

[08:35]

The book to, you know, she would take pictures, you know, I have one of those pictures with her smile laying in the bed. She didn't even sit up. A lot of times I would have to go and like just have her put her arms around my neck and I would pull her up. You know, I'm not strong. So she was very fragile. Then at that time, I would pull her up so she could engage. And my Dharma transmission started in her basically hospital room. You know, that's where it started. And the people, the caretakers, the nurses, you know, what are they doing? They had all these teachers. Everybody's rushing around. And we had these robes on. They had seen people from Zen Center, but they're like, what are they doing in that room? And of course, they never found out, and you never will be there.

[09:37]

So you've got to do the work. You're coming through that ceremony. And it was just, I knew my vowing was my last time vowing to her. Normally I had to do standing vows, but I did full prostrations. It took me forever, but I did them all because I wanted to do that for her, for what she did for me. I loved having her as a teacher, and I loved teachers, having teachers, and having any, but I was the kind of person who wanted a teacher. I wanted guidance. someone to say uh no yes of course she said that quite often no um what did you do what happened because i did a lot of things that uh she would say no to i think i wanted to share her essay beginner's mind and this book is the first one beginner's mind is zen practice in action

[10:41]

You know, so we all go, oh yeah, you know, I read Suzuki Roshi's book, yeah. That's a good one. I already know all about that. So, just listen to that. I already know all about Beginner's Minds. Doesn't that come up for you a little bit? How many times are we going to do Beginner's Minds? Suzuki Roshi, oh my God. And that book, which I didn't read in the beginning of my practice like it was suggested. I wasn't as a student. And I refused. I read it and I didn't understand it. Until I did a sashim, which is a seven-day retreat. And I knew everything in that book from then on, from the cover to the end. I said, oh, I get it. You can't, like, read this. And I feel like that's why Blanche, she didn't, I was telling everybody on Sunday that she didn't really like being called Blanche.

[11:45]

And every time I say that now, it's like she's sitting next to me and say, I thought you could, you know, I don't want to be called Blanche. So she liked to be called Shunbo, that's what she wanted to be called, or Zenke. And people kept calling her Blanche. So people did start doing Zenke quite a bit, but not as much. So in her essay, I'm going to read the I'll first read the sentence that I think I like the most. It is the mind that is innocent of preconception. Trying to define beginner's mind. It is the mind that is innocent of preconceptions, expectations, judgments, and prejudices. Beginner's mind is just present to explore and observe and see. as they are. To explore and observe and see things as they are. Innocent of preconceptions, expectations, judgments, and prejudices.

[12:51]

Okay, how easy now is the beginner's mind to you? How long is it going to take you to get there? How long? When we start practice, oftentimes we get in there and we want to make sure we know how to be still, we know how to be silent, we know how to count our breath, we know how to be loving, we know how to be non-dual, we know how to be, you know, all these things we need. And we can do it in 30 days. I think I can do it in 30 days. I'm gonna be that. I'm gonna be Buddha. It takes us away from this place called the Guinness Mind. And eventually you understand that you're in an A field that's unending. And there's no achievement, which is what I would tell my students all the time. I'm sorry, none of you are getting an A. And none of you are going to be achieved.

[13:55]

All these teachings, it's just not going to happen. So if you're disappointed, Sorry. This is where it goes. And you want to hope that you don't. That it doesn't end. So what if our practice had ended after, well, my practice ended after seven years. It would have been a real mess. Because how long college? You kind of go maybe seven if you do graduate school, undergraduate, graduate school. Seven years of Buddha, walking with Buddha, it's just like nothing. You look back and nothing. You don't understand it. You don't really know it. Really. So anyway, in Zenke's book, she talks about, starts talking about this child who is to, you know, describe more what beginner's mind is. And, or what she saw it as. Definition because this is ongoing.

[14:58]

Remember just what I said, it doesn't end in seven years. And she's talking about a child named Indigo that I guess was living at City Center. And I think this child must, the way she would sound like what the child was doing was probably about maybe at this time. And they had taken an object off the table. They were looking at it and, you know, biting it, hitting it on the table. And she was watching Indigo do these things. and um and she enjoyed it and saw that you know she saw that as oh this is what it looks like how it how it feels and and before someone says that's a spoon you know they're like doesn't matter i can still check it out you know and then maybe twice two three times it's a spoon

[15:59]

But she loved talking about that. I loved the way she tells that story in the book about India. And I could just see it. And I feel like babies especially have such a direct experience of life. You know, they're looking at you, but they really like look at you who you think you are. You know, they're just looking, you know, until you say, I'll message you. They'll be like, you know, you don't care. They might even do that with, ma, it's mom. Dad. You know, just trying to look. I didn't ask you for it. I'm looking. I'm trying to experience the world, the things around me I don't, haven't seen before or met before. So when I first came to BCC, actually my very third city, I came in and this Zendo was exploding with people.

[17:02]

Like it was like, I said, uh-oh, wrong day. It couldn't even be new. It was packed. We couldn't even get in that door. And Sojin already began to talk so late. Oops, Zend. He begins to talk and he's crying, like full on crying. Why did they just show up at the center? And he's crying. And people are crying with them. And I'm just trying to figure out what's going on, really. But anyway, I said, I've got to sit down. I need a seat. There are no chairs. So I was right in the corner. I saw this little space back there, right in that corner. I remember it's like a little space. OK. Like I'm sitting on that, I have my lavatona. So there was that space, but that is a great space, blah. I sat on it.

[18:06]

And I guess probably, you know, someone, whoever's at the door said, excuse me, we can find you a seat if you like. And I was like, I got a seat. What's the problem here? And he said, well, maybe you could sit over there, you know? And I was like, well, I like this seat I'm sitting on. It feels good. You know? And, you know, people behind us, like, it was three rows back there. There were three rows. I was row four. That's how many people were in here. And I just would not budge. I would not budge. I knew this is a seat. I'm going to sit here. Okay. I learned Oriyoki. I go too. Oriyoki is our ceremonial way of eating. And I go, and it's like, never, never, ever sit on the meal board.

[19:08]

Oh my God. That was like years later. Sit on the meal board. And I was like, and that still comes to my mind. You know, my preconceptions made me sit there. You know, it's a table. It's a space. I can fit. I don't care. The other person has a problem. So it was becoming a whole thing, you know, and I just never forget it. So for me, that was a chair, was a mill board. Like you see in front of you now, that wood in front of you. It's beautiful. It's a perfect place to sit. You know, you can cover it. Those who have difficulty sitting, crossing their legs. When I first started practice, I didn't, and now it's just harder for me. So that was, to me, also an inability to have beginner's mind.

[20:13]

Why was Sojin Roshi and everybody else? Kobanchino Roshi had just died, had drowned, trying to save his daughter. And everyone knew this beautiful person. I felt like the way everyone talked about him and the way people were... I didn't get chills. I never met this person, but I know this person through people's grief. And he died trying to save his daughter in water somewhere. And trying to save her, I guess, decided to go with her rather than let her die by her. Never forgot that story. I read everything Covencino after that. And I really loved his teachings as well. And how he walked as a priest and as a teacher. Everyone kept giving him a zendo, giving him a temple.

[21:14]

And he would just move up. So then he never would just say, okay, I'm just going to be here forever. And just, oh, thank you. And off he went. That's very interesting. But it was a hard story and a hard day to be in at the Berkeley Zen Center and I never will forget it and how the chant and just the way it was held, you know, and the grief. And I knew this to be a place for me to be. I didn't know anything about Zen. You know, I just was watching people hold each other. And that was the most important and still to me, it's the most important. Hold each other and care for each other and look like you feel like that too, not fake it. You know, I'm going to be loving and kind. And then you're kind of like, I don't know what that looks like for people, but it might not be that for somebody else. So you have to really have a beginner's mind even on that, how to be loving and kind.

[22:16]

Not loving and kind, that means you've got precepts. You know, perceptions, you hope you have precepts, but perceptions. of how loving and kind looks, how being happy looks. Which brings me to the question I've been asking, because we're changing so much today, is what would we be saying or how would we be thinking of today's actions and experiences with the beginner's mind? You know, how would we talk about anything on the news. Every time there is a big, you know, situation, tragedy or whatever, I used to ask my students to tell me about it. And sometimes they would tell me about what they read. Because we weren't there, right? About what they read about it.

[23:17]

I have my thoughts, too. Okay, so I'm not out of this great work. I'm in it, too. I have my thoughts. But what if we were to look at today's situation with beginner's mind? And what are the possibilities? If you have some, I would really be interested in some of that when we do Q&A, we want to share. Good. So... It's difficult, though, because we're so, I think, that beginner's mind, not so much far away from where Indigo was in 11, 12 months, because everyone's going to tell you what it is, right? And you're going to say, that's what it is. You know, this is not a bowl. But is it a cup? People, it's not a cup. It could be a vase.

[24:18]

I'm going to drink from the vase. you know, to some people that they would have a handle. You know, so, practice now, this beginner's mind, and to look and see, you know, what are some of the possibilities that everything, that some of the things that are being destroyed, What does that mean? What are the possibilities? So I do read things. So recently I think there was a TV program. Maybe it was a news program. And people obviously liked it. I didn't watch it. It was a late night show or something. And it was canceled in a way of some censorship. That's what they're saying in the news. And then

[25:21]

The people who have been experiencing this as news people are creating this incredible network on news that we've never had in this country. Never. And I can't wait to hear some of what they're going to say and what they're going to bring. But yes, they were censored. And then what the censorship brings. What does... immigration, deportation, you know, what is that? We know the horror of it. It's horrendous. It's horrendous. And everyone, in case you don't know, can be deported, in case you haven't gotten that part. They'll just figure it out, what you need to be deported. You know, don't write the wrong thing on Facebook. Don't, don't, don't, don't. What is happening?

[26:21]

What is the possibility? We feel we know, especially if you are very astute on the political realm, psychological realm, sociological realm. We got all of that down. I know how to do that. But what's happening on a spiritual level? What would beginner's mind, Zen practice, possibility say about what is happening now. We can make that a project in the moment. It's kind of like, well, I don't think I want to be in beginner's mind. I don't know what's going on. And I don't like it. And that's where we, how we are. We always want to know. It's very important to know, you know, ahead of time, for what reasons. to protect ourselves, to keep from being injured.

[27:22]

You know, I had a friend would call me about, you know, what happened in the news, you know. One day it's something's, you know, or the right's been taken away, you're gonna lose this money, you're going this. And I had to really, I said, I really thank you for trying to keep me included, but I don't need that every day. you know, of that kind of because right now, and I don't think she understood, I think I censored her, right? But right now I'm trying to stay within my single silence of Zen so I can hear and see the possibilities. Because even if it happens, I better be able to meet the possibilities that will come forth for me and for others around me. And so to be over here, In the chaos, I can't. And so I invited someone Sunday, Sunday where I did a talk at Green Gulch to join me.

[28:26]

Those who feel helpless, I need you. I need you to join in this kind of place where we know we see what we see, but are we willing to be different than what we think we see? Roll it back when you get the recording. you know and that there is this place in which we see everything and the darker it gets the more we see the more we see and we're amazed we're like oh and then every time it's amazing isn't it how much you can see in the darkness And what do you have in your basket? Meditation, yoga, eat right, both the doctors, you know, have all kinds of things. And to survive. On a spiritual level, I was just going to say Zen.

[29:31]

Say the word spiritual. There is really discovering. Taking the time to discover. something rather than having a beginner's mind. And because even when you start, say, eating right, which I did, I was eating right, found out, and I was eating all these almonds, almonds. Can't do almond, almond milk, almond nothing. Almonds. Oh my gosh. Pineapple. Always pineapple in my smoothie. Can't do it. I thought it was right. It's not right for me. It's right for someone else. So every recipe is not for you. You know, so when I get sick, it's a possibility. I'm eating so well. I'm eating so well. How could that be a problem? You know, ginger. All kinds of things. And maybe it's only for a moment. I have to go, oh no, but you know, and go into this whole thing.

[30:34]

Never have ginger for the blessing. I don't think I can do it. I think these things we're holding on to in our lives and in this world are things that are quickly slipping out of our hands. They've always been out of our hands, but now we really see how much they were out of our hands. And I think I am sitting here not to necessarily be a teacher and influence you, but kind of join in this movement of a wickedness to be as you were born. We were awakened, you know, in birth. When I was awakened, I was awakened. And we know. But it's hard to accept. It's hard to say it's possible. Because we've been taught that it isn't. It isn't possible. It doesn't matter.

[31:35]

It's happened. Our inter, our museum, we were or interrelationship. And because we talk about that a lot, we often think it's about us and people. But it's more, right, more than just us human beings. But I've been using the word inter-awakenedness. It's more important and deeper of what the interrelationship's about because if we're in an inter-awakenedness, then there's that possibility that You might see something, you might see something, you might see something. And together, being totally new, it doesn't even fit in a Zen doll. And then we would be afraid. Oh no, is that Zen practice? So you have to be really, you want to be at the root of your practice, but you also want your practice to be in beginner's mind.

[32:35]

In beginner's mind. I don't know everything in Zen. I don't know all the ceremonies. I've been 25 years, and still, there's something new. Oh, Zenji, can you make the Pura Nirvana ceremony? What? I've never done that. They had to sit in this big old chair. Like, hmm. Okay, let's do it. Because what's the word? Yes. Suzuki Roshi said. Yes. And then you're like, okay, let's see. There's no no in practice. It's yes. And it was powerful. It was powerful. Mainly because I didn't know what I was doing. Not that I became something or something, because I sat in a big chair. But it was just that opening, that beginner's mind, the willingness to do the ceremonies. It's how many years, the first time in a Zendo. And Zen Center.

[33:38]

Okay. Welcome. This is important to know and to see and remember it this moment. And if you come back or if you stay 10 years, remember. Try to recollect. I do try to recollect my childhood a lot. Try to recall it. And I do remember things. And I go, oh, now I get it. You've done it. Now I get it. So anyway, I really don't engage you. Perhaps you even have some idea, you know, or something you want to share where you didn't have beginner's mind and then found out something Then you wish you had a. I'm not bored. You would have listened.

[34:40]

Okay? We can open it and keep listening. I'll break the ice. One of the most moving things that happened to me is to hear Blanche talk about . And that's about all I wanted to say. It really, really moved me and actually spurred me on to be with her and come here and find my way. Thank you.

[35:47]

Morning. My name is Joe. Have you ever heard the story about when Sojin went to Citizen Shino? Is it a long one? No. They're doing Orioki, and I guess Pochino didn't really worry about forms. He didn't teach anyone anything. And so Sojin's just furious. Just like, this food is taking forever. He just gets up, takes a pot, and just starts handing it out. And then he was like, what am I doing? What am I doing? I thought of that story because you mentioned Covencino. But then I thought, actually, maybe that has something to do with it. Sojin had this idea. I know how to do oryoki. This is taking too long. And he flipped it and tried to take control. So what I'm wondering... When it comes to beginner's mind, there's one thing like, okay, I feel I can access that in Zazen. Or just sitting, breathing in stillness. In activity, I find it harder.

[36:47]

And usually it's only in those sojourn moments where I done messed up. That's when I realize I'm not in beginner's mind. How do you find beginner's mind in activity? Is it only by messing up? Is it only by realizing... I'm not in it, you know? Well, messing up, you might kind of see it as a gem now. It's precious. It's not only by, it's just by seeing, you know, and it's messing up, but you actually are opening your eyes or even heart in some ways. So when we say mind, we're saying heart. And so you begin to see mostly yourself. It's a really interesting thing too. I remember when Simboala was dying with my partner, she wouldn't talk about death with me. That was difficult. And then she decided to tell her nurse what she wanted for her service and things.

[37:55]

Talking about it and the nurse told me, I said, oh no, that service is only for priests. You know, she can't have that one. You know, but she can't get that. Zen Center's not going to do that. And so I said, okay, I won't say nothing. We'll just go along. I did ask Zen Center. And guess what? She got a priest goodbye, priest ceremony. I was like, wow, if I get one, you know, because it probably wasn't going to happen for me because I wouldn't be asking for one. and maybe I won't get one. Who knows? We don't know where I'll be, whatever. It's not, it was important that she had that ceremony. And I asked for it and they said, yes. I felt, I looked at myself like, what do you know? Suzuki Roshi, the phrase, it's not always so. And that has really helped me to see myself. No, I messed up.

[38:57]

But, oh. is to see that mind that's so tight, so fixed, so judgmental. Like, I was really having a time with the guy who was trying to get me off that meal board. And I didn't even know him. It was my first moment. And this is not going to be a good place for me. And it could have turned into anything, right? But because I already had a practice, too, before I came to Zen. You know, it didn't get into something that could have been very harmful to the room or people around me or to myself or the person who was trying to help me do what the practice was. A practice I didn't understand. So Zen really will show you that, you know, what you think you know, you know, while you are practicing and doing the forms and People learn the forms, police the forms.

[39:58]

I've seen people, you know, move people over here, trying to get them to do the form. And then I've watched people just do what they do. I mean, I was asked when I had a sangha, what forms did I use? What I was trained in. I said, but there's a few extra things, and they said, what? I said, I just allow people, they think they're doing what we do at Zen Center, but it looked good, it worked, and they started doing things that just don't do at, you know, at City Center where I was, and I was quite wonderful, and just allow extra vows in places that you don't do them, so what? You know, I just allow them, and it became the form of that sangha. Now the Sunday don't even know what those are. I just allow them to happen. So when they go to other places, they're like, that's not the way in their mind, right? And then they're like, no, that's not the way.

[40:59]

So this when we get, that's when we're in trouble. Like we are now. This is what's happening now in the world. This is the way. This is going to be the way. We're not doing that. Like none of those things are. So they're going to have to learn connection and we're all going to be, you know, rolled up in it while they're learning, you know, because we're all together here, right? On the planet, no matter who we are, no matter what we've experienced, I think we're getting it now. Yeah. Thank you. I like the story. We have one question from online. Okay. Could you read the question to me instead of the person? Would you read the question? I don't read. Ask him to unmute and speak it. Before you speak, person, it's hard for me and difficult for me to speak to someone I can't really see and engage.

[42:12]

And so I'll listen and then... I'm going to ask you to mute and then I'll answer it so I won't have a conversation with you. I just want to let you know because that has happened to me before when the questions aren't read. Okay. Go forward. What's the question? Thank you so much. My mic is on. Wow. What a wonderful gift and a wonderful treat. I was actually going to show up at the Zendo today, but I had some other things to do, and so I turned to the Zoom app. And I had such wonderful and beautiful experience of Blanche in 2008 and 2011 when she came to the Gay Buddhist Fellowship in San Francisco and listening to you and having a sense of your uh experience i wish that i had more contact it's bit it's difficult to find sometimes those who can lead you through um and your experience and and and my experience with blanche i could see very well how that could how that could occur so i just want to share that i did

[43:37]

to, because I loved hearing Blanche. It was such a wonderful experience. So that's just the question that I have. Also, you know, the whole, also the connection with New Orleans. I studied at Xavier in New Orleans and such a powerful experience. You're welcome. This is why we have heirs in this tradition. It's this practice, the Buddha way is ancestral, ancestral, ancestral, ancestral. This is ancestral wisdom that a lot of people say, well, we don't do ancestors. They say, yeah, Buddha. He's not here. He's gone. He's an ancestor. And we do do them. And we do chant them, you know, from various places and countries and continents. So the heirs, I think, tighter, and this is definitely an opinion, tighter in the way that a teacher's teachings were passed on.

[44:45]

So usually if you're a student of a teacher, the teacher moves on and then you continue those teachings. So I always hope a lot that my teachings, our appointings, our sharing is in the vein of Zenke. At the same time, you know, she said, you're really Buddhist student, not mine. And so she allowed that. And there's this way, like even if you don't write your own teachings, your students write your teachings like I did here. And that's so others can see what the teacher from the past, just like Buddha. taught. So I think she's accessible to you. There are many students. I don't, I forgot the number of heirs. I'm actually the last of her heirs.

[45:46]

I was squeezed in, in the end. And I was just talking about that on Sunday too. And that it's the heirs. um all of them were pretty uh feisty outspoken and you know have their own minds and definitely struggled with beginner mind probably maybe that's why it's her first essay yeah or this which was always kind of my work you know having preferences so she always would um have me study uh faith in mind and trust in mind which is a premier Zen state. And it's also on the back of my first rocket suit. I just laughed when I saw the quote from that. Basically don't have preferences. You need to make your way much more, you struggle more, you know, with having things unique a certain way.

[46:52]

Have I, you know, gotten rid of them? No. No. Sometimes I think I'm worse. As I get older, you're like, no, because you're worried about whether or not that's going to work for you when you get older. And so, but I do recognize it. And when I'm struggling, I'm pretty sure it has something to do. My thinking that I, what I know, I'm having preferences, you know, and I mean encountering others, you know, being in relationship with other people. And so the work is not to be perfect and to be able to, you know, walk in the world without any kind of, I guess, work, you know, things that we need to do. Work is a bad word for it. I don't like to call it a worker. Let's say a walk. You know, each of us have a walk.

[47:55]

Sometimes we have a deep groove where we keep walking the same place and that's okay. You know, that's life. And so to get in this practice and especially Zen to me, to feel you know better than others. And that happens a lot if you're in your first year or second year of practice and you start learning everything. And then you, you know, you're like sitting at the dining table with your friends and your family, you're going, oh no, they didn't say that. Oh, that's not right speech. You know? Oh no. You know, you have all the, you know, because, and I always tell people, well, I can't do it anymore because my eyes are open, you know? So, so that, that just means your eyes are really closed to other people and to, and not having the capacity of judgment and suspend your preconceptions and prejudices and things like that and to just listen and to not internalize it.

[49:06]

You don't have to become what they think and maybe that person isn't what they think and maybe tomorrow they won't be that person that they think. I have seen people around over the years who know me change and it's just amazing. I haven't said anything I'm just living my life, I'm just walking, and I'm not saying I walk it perfectly, because I don't. Because if I did, and if we did, we all did, I don't know why we're sitting here. We are here because we are ready to walk in a certain way, even though we're human beings and things happen. Things happen. Thank you for your talk, Mary Deeb.

[50:07]

It's good to see you. Fond memories of Blanchett City Center. I would like to leave you there. You have another name, Earthlyn? It's beautiful. Sharing yourself with Earth, sharing itself back to you is what comes to mind. So I'm having a crisis and a struggle with my own 12-year-old daughter, and so your sharing of His name is Kobayashi. Am I saying it correctly? Kobachino. Kobachino. Thank you. The story of him trying to save his daughter and going into the water. And you had mentioned that maybe he was... He exchanged himself for her in a way. And we hear that in Buddhism. He exchanged himself for others. And I'm thinking about your... you're talking about beginner's mind, like, he probably never thought that that possibility would occur, that he would have to jump into dangerous water to save his daughter's life.

[51:14]

Like, beginner's mind. Like, he wasn't expecting that. He probably had no one about it. Yeah. At all. But in Buddha way, it's like, no one causes a condition or conditions arose to that point in time that he had beginner's mind, and he probably, he just jumped in without thinking to say where. Or maybe he was thinking, what do you know? Yeah, true, my beginner's mind, thank you. So I'm just thinking about, am I a human being? I am, but I'm also an intra-being, and then I'm thinking about the tears when you came in and everyone was crying about it, and the waters are coming out of people's eyes, intervening with the waters that took his daughter and took him. So thank you for helping me this morning. It's not really a question, but much gratitude for your ship, your Dharma talk. So it's more like being in that moment. If we live our lives in the moment of discovering what's right in front of us, just as things are, you don't really know how you're going to respond.

[52:27]

Yeah, he probably didn't know the possibility was going to be they both would lose their vibes. But was this way, I think, in that story? We're not there, we don't know. Actually, a similar, like, yes, a couple of weeks ago happened with an actor, Malcolm Jamal Warner, who was in the Cosbys, saying things in the ocean. His daughter, he died. Their daughters live, and I don't know what is going to be on her mind, because I'm sure he was coming after her, and he didn't survive. He got caught up in a rift. And so, I think this is why, to me, like this, what's going to happen in the next moment? Tea or lunch or what? What's going to happen next? We think we know.

[53:30]

We think we're going to get up. And this is why the old folks, if God says it so, like I'll see you if God says so, you know, like it's not in our hands to get up. And so if we were walking like that all the time, like sometimes I'll get up in front and that's it. You know, sometimes I look like I'm being mindful, but sometimes I forgot what I put to the next step. And that's good. That forgetting slows me down, which I didn't think. I said, this is taking awfully slow. That's what it felt like coming in. It felt like, when's this going to end? Rather than, this is so enjoyable, bowing and offering, which I did. I enjoyed offering the flowers and I got all into picking them out.

[54:31]

I said, now that is not what we're doing here. We are not doing that. Oh my God, there's Mary Jane. That's not it. It was just offer. Make the offer. And so it's all the time. It's every minute. It's every minute you see your child. Every minute you see your child. Not as you think they are. They really will teach you to change. So I think we're, I think that's it. Yes. Thank you.

[55:11]

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