Good morning. I am so happy to introduce my dear friend, Reverend Lien Schutt. Greg and Lien and I all practiced together for some years at Tassajara and San Francisco Zen Center. And she is currently the guiding access to Zen and is the author of the book Home is Here, We have been having a reading group for some time about that book. So I'm really happy to have you. Welcome, Leah. Thank you, Linda Roshi. Very nicely. Great congratulations once again. Of course, I want to thank Linda Roshi for the invitation and for my root teacher. Blanche Hartman, Dayo Sho, and my current Zen teacher, and Gil Fronstow, my Zen and inside teacher.

[01:08]

And, of course, to you all for being here. I was just saying to Linda, besides the mountain seat ceremony earlier a month ago, to the date, was it the 4th? Oh, 1st, okay. I haven't been here since their wedding in the Zendo. So that's a long time ago. So, yeah. And, of course, Mel is my Dharma grandfather. So this is... As Linda Roshi was saying, I hear you guys have been studying the book, Home is Here. Thank you very much. And when I was here last month, I was asked to say something about it. Oh, this thing's making a lot of noise. All right. Can you still hear me? Okay.

[02:09]

So I'll start out by a little reading here. Or maybe just so I have a sense. Who's reading a book? I've read the book. All right. Thank you. Okay, here we go. This is from chapter one. For those of you who don't know, Homos here is practicing anti-racism with engaged aidful path. This is chapter one, the engaged four noble truths. We are complete and whole. The ring of a bell signaled it was my turn for Dokusan. An interview to discuss my practice with the Soto Zen master, at this 500-year-old training monastery in Japan. I picked up a small mallet and struck the cast iron bell of me, one time, letting it ring, and then a second time. I rose and hurried down a long hall of tatami mats, the woven straw flooring in traditional Japanese living spaces, passing through the ihai-do,

[03:20]

on both sides with rows of individual altars for deceased Sangha community members. They silently witnessed the swish of cloth as my long black priest robe rubbed back and forth around my ankles with each quick step. Three steps rose up. I stopped at the bottom and performed a short kasho. bowing with palms touching and elbows out. Then in one swift motion, I grabbed the end of my zagu, or priest's bowing cloth, laid it down on the top and folded it into a square. I dropped down and started my full frustrations as quickly as possible. Body crouched in child's pose, both hands outstretched and palms placed up on the floor. Then, with symmetrical precision, hands raised and down again before rising to stand.

[04:25]

I did this three times quickly, as is the custom, after which I refolded and slid the zagu back over my left wrist. One more quick ga show, and then I headed up those three stairs with sake, harada, roshi. the abbot of Ho Shinji Monastery in Obama, Japan. I entered the room ready to ask the central question of my life. I had come to Japan after leaving the predominantly great Convert Soto Zen Buddhist Monastery in Central California, where I thought I would spend the rest of my life. When I had asked to be ordained more than eight years ago, excuse me, after more than eight years of meditative Buddhist practice, I had felt a deep calling to live in this monastic. But this did not come to be. I left a California monastery after three and a half years there, heartbroken and confused about the racism I had experienced on both a personal and structural level.

[05:39]

The persistent... culture of the monastery made it unsafe and did not support me as a Vietnamese American practitioner. This was true for many other people of color staying there as well. The experience was a huge shock to my understanding of Buddhism. Buddhist practice was my sense of place in the world. As I made plans to leave that California monastery, and figure out how to practice as a newly ordained priest, I was contacted by someone who studied under Sakihara del Roshi in Japan. They urged him as he was an acknowledged, as an enlightened Zen master. I had only practiced Soto Zen in predominantly white convert settings in the United States, and I felt drawn to practice in Japan, the birthplace of this sect, of Buddhism. I'd been at Hoshenji for three weeks trying to process my despair from having to leave California due to the racism at my home monastery.

[06:51]

There was another American at the monastery, a white woman. Instead of being someone I could connect with, she had her saying things like, you're good for nothing. You're trash. She actually also had said, you should die. I blocked it out when I was writing this part. In his whispers, as we moved about the and tasks of the temple, I couldn't get away from her either. We were housed in the same nuns' quarters together. We had come to Hoshinji around the same time, so we had similar seniority. And we were the same height, so we were often paired together. And there were a lot of ceremonies. Her hateful whispers seemed to follow me all over the temple. The racism I had experienced in California had followed me all the way to Japan.

[07:55]

Entering the room for Dokusan with Sekei Harada, I barely sat down before blurting out the quintessential question of my existence. up to that moment. Why does hatred seem to follow me wherever I go, I asked. I don't know if that was some kind of commentary. Why does hatred seem to follow me wherever I go? I asked. Seka Harada didn't hesitate. No hatred completely. That's K-N-O-W. No hatred completely.

[09:00]

He answered. Then he grabbed the handbell to his right, and rang it vigorously, signaling the end of my interview. I scrambled out of the room, doing the frustrations and bows in reverse order. My mind raced to make meaning. Nothing happened. Nothing came. My mind had stopped. A koan in Zen practice is a story assigned by a teacher for you to work with. Various traditions have various ways of practice, but giving an answer to the teacher as part of the process is a commonality across sects. However, how the teacher accepts or rejects the answer is part of the mythology of this practice.

[10:01]

A well-known koan is, at this very moment, what is your original face before your parents were born? Many people think koans are paradoxes, but really they're stories to stop your mind, to bump it off its loop of incessant patterns of thinking, planning, and processing. Koans open us to an understanding that's beyond habitual thinking. Life also gives us koans. For me, racism has been a koan I've taught over and over. Studying race theory was one of my answers to this koan. Other answers for my life have included activism, and various jobs as a social worker focus on addressing the harmful results of racism. All of these were good answers.

[11:08]

In Zen, we like to say, the question is more important than the answer. Why? Because questions often come up at uncomfortable moments. arise when we're faced with circumstances in which our coping mechanisms aren't working anymore. At such moments, transformational change is possible if we stay open to all answers, especially unexpected ones. The system of white supremacy centers whiteness and makes itself subject. while juxtaposing people of color as other, fragmenting us all into the delusion of separateness. Aware of this dynamic and its harm to people of color, I had to be careful to not simply search outside myself for answers.

[12:13]

Like many Asian Americans and other people of color, at some point, I had to learn to value myself Reclaiming the validity of my own experience in any moment and in any condition. Buddhist practice over many years has supported me to return to knowing and trusting my wholeness. Completely. That moment with Roshi stopped my mind from its habitual looping to try to understand racism. All my intellectual theories and years of anti-racist work didn't address my suffering at this crucial point of my life. That moment stopped my frantic search to find some reason why hatred kept following me. What I needed was to attend to the hurt and harm from being the target of racism.

[13:21]

In Buddhism, we practice to be able to find settledness and clarity that's not dependent on the conditions of the world. To find such settledness and clarity, we have to attend to our own suffering in body, heart, and mind. The koan of... was not just something that I wanted to understand. What I really want, even now, is to heal from the hurt... and pain I've carried. Thank you. That's from the book. As I was thinking about this talk, I'm also realizing, of course, it's Easter weekend. So I was raised after I was adopted by... very devout Presbyterian.

[14:24]

So I have been baptized, so I'm safe on several levels. And so, and you know, I really love my child Bible with all his pictures. It was a great way to learn English too. So I did read it a lot. And not that I'm any expert by any means. But you know, in Easter, you know, of course, Jesus is resurrected, right? He arises from the dead three days after. So it got me thinking that in Buddhism he wakes up in his enlightenment experience. So I think in a way it's our reawakening into the fact that we can live life fully. Many of us live as or waiting for another life after the right job, the right partner, the right retirement, the right amount of money.

[15:34]

These are good practical things for sure. We don't throw those out. Many of us are often, we think we need that before we can live fully. Or, of course, in Buddhism, we turn away from suffering or dukkha, don't we? So we run away from it, from experiences that we don't think of as living, or living well, perhaps. So we turn away from the life that actually is, don't we? I was talking to Lee, who had practiced here with access to Zen for many years and then moved to the East Coast for a job. And we stayed in touch.

[16:36]

You know, she's had practice discussion. And, you know, we talk about a lot as what motivates her. And... Part of the thing that she's learned is that she was raised to be very aware of what job she can get, and it's always driven by doing better, doing better, right? And so recently she had... She doesn't like where she is in the East Coast very much. And she's thinking about going back to London to live there. She got laid off recently, so one of the ways that she worked with that was to move... back here and did a three-week intensive. I talked to her recently. She had gone back to the East Coast. And she was talking about how, you know, her mind after she got back was like, oh, I was, access to Zen and California is my home.

[17:41]

But, you know, on the East Coast, this is my home. home now and my work home. I came here for her work. And so, you know, I want to go back to London maybe. And then she goes, then I thought, oh, wait, the thing that goes is living. Where do I want to live, right? Or the living part. And so she's like, oh, I should just maybe stay here and figure out what work will help me to live here. And she went on for a little bit, and then I was like, wait, wait. I'm so glad you had the insight. It's the key, and yet you went back to what work will it do so I can live here, right? So I think this is... We have to be very careful. To me, in many ways, when we come to practice and when we commit to practice, we really say, oh...

[18:44]

I'm committed to living this life right here and right now. Now the bodhisattva vow is that we say, I'm committed to living right here, right now, and I'm committed to making conditions for all to live right here and right now fully. That's the piece. I think right now, because things are so difficult, You know, I've been teaching this precept series as a response to what happened in Minneapolis on our second series. And I know there's a lot of people keep going, how do the precepts help me? How do the precepts help me? And they want to be told what to do. And my thing is, what we think, we think we practice,

[19:46]

to change ourselves. And that, I think, is a result of practice. We think we practice to change the conditions of the world. And that's possible. Sorry, I got ahead of myself. I think, I come to practice often, to think, oh, I'm going to be different, or the world will be different. But what we practice... is to understand conditions and then what is it that we can do to change conditions. So to me, if we focus on understanding conditions and then doing something about conditions, that's where our practice supports us to have the energy and the wisdom to do that. So in some ways, we come to really clarify what is it that supports us to live fully and create conditions for others to live fully.

[20:56]

So I will say that since 2017, I've been working on a restorative model of the Four Noble Truths. And it actually started because I was at a Gen X teacher conference in 2017. And it was right after another round of conduct in a lot of practice centers. And so that was a big theme of the conference. And afterwards, you know, I thought, oh, and they brought in the right use of power, which we have also studied. And I love it, you know. A social worker, you know, Cedar Barstow was its creator. And being a social worker, I was like, yeah, all right. And I love it. And I thought, but then after I thought, wow, I have been in practice circles.

[22:01]

And when things go wrong, often we bring in some outside model, right? to help us. And I'm not saying those are bad, mind you. I'm not saying that at all. But I thought, what is it? What is it in... Because I go to the teachings when I'm like, eh, right? So I thought, well, what is it? So I had to think that I could work on to engage for a noble truth or the for noble truth. And I really thought of it as how can I make it a restorative model versus one that, for me, You know, my experience is we actually don't talk about the Four Noble Truths. It's implicit, of course, in our practice, but we don't actually talk about it a lot. And so my experience a lot was I just memorize them and have a sense of them. But I wanted it to be something that really spoke to my need in practice, which is also to have a sense of understanding about oppressions, because it's the suffering.

[23:06]

that to me impacts so many of us. Notice I said oppressions, right? The book is very specifically about race and the ideas that actually it can go across different oppression systems. So in the engage for noble truths, harm and harming are present. That's the first noble truth. Of course, the first noble truth usually is in life they're suffering. So, however, as a restorative model, we start out by saying something is not, have hoped for it, aspire to it. Harm and harming has happened. To me, in fact, that's the hardest part. I mean, honestly, the person who is the hardest, right? To acknowledge that there's hurt and pain or when there's misconduct, system, then some harm and harming has happened. To me, the hardest part is agreeing to that.

[24:11]

I know often when I have brought up a racist incident, usually it's like, some way you have to prove it to me. Or no, that's not it. Do you know? When it happens, I go, did that really happen? In this day and age, we think it shouldn't happen anymore. And somehow I know we think it shouldn't happen in spiritual community. But spiritual community are made up of people, and we are conditioned. And so the second noble truth usually is, you know, what's the origin of dukkha? In the engaged version, it's understanding fully the causes and conditions for the arising of harm. So how to be with experiences of harm and harming? Right? Because we condition a lot to decide a lot the value of what is harm and harming.

[25:15]

Right? Do those people deserve it? Isn't... How come... It's happening to them. What have they done? We put the responsibility out there. How will we condition what familial culture or systemic structure promoted, reinforce, or perpetuate this? You know, in Zen, my understanding is if there was any sin in Soto Zen, it would be that we think that we're separate. I'm not sure. So when we think about hate, greed, and delusion, the delusion in Zen, for the most part, is that we think we're separate. However, in Theravon Buddhism, the main delusion is that you don't understand what is wholesome or unwholesome. You can say what is right or what is wrong, what is ethical or not ethical, skillful or not skillful.

[26:25]

This is why I... I started out meditation in the insight tradition, like many of us. And so for me, the insight practice gives me a certain kind of clarity, and they do have much more ways. This is how you can practice in a very skillful way. I understand that in Zen, as a response to all that, do it like this, and only certain people can achieve enlightenment. mostly certain monks in certain ways, right? So I understand the response in Mahayana that we don't point things out in a clear, clear way because then we should conceptualize it. However, when there's so much difficulty that we have as we're sitting in wholeness, then how, when we don't feel whole, when we feel broken, fragmented... How can we work with what is here?

[27:27]

So to really understand fully the second noble truth is really important. And you know, I think it can be misunderstood the sense of commonality. that sometimes we think, oh, if I can find a commonality across everything, then that makes it okay. I think we have to be very discernible with wisdom. I remember when we were at Tassajara, I got there, I don't remember if we were in the same van, but we certainly arrived at the same time. In 2002, April, at Tassajara, Doing one of the practice periods, the Iraqi war began. And I remember Linda Ruth, you know, you know, for those who've been to practice periods, they're often trying to decide what actual news they should tell you.

[28:41]

know, they want you to have a subtleness as much as possible. So she did tell us, and then she invited us, those who wanted to, to do night sitting after that day in which we were told about it. And there were two of us in the Zen Deaf. I'm from Vietnam. I remember the Tet Offensive. I'm old enough. And then another woman, and then Linda Ruth, and I really felt supported by her being in the Zendo. And in that time, the insight I had is that, you know, the difficulty is that for many of us, when we are aggressive, it's because we don't feel safe. And so I understood that the president at the time, and perhaps the country, people in this country, don't feel safe because it's one of the first time in which war has landed on the continent.

[30:00]

Take it way back. War was brought to this continent, to the people here, much earlier. But as a... sense of Americanness or United States sins. And so I understand that on a certain level. But what I understood also is that whatever fear I have and whatever blame I might put on others, be it an individual or a group, the difference is I don't have the power. I don't have the same power. to retaliate, what is evil in a mass way, right? And I think this is the difference. This is why we have to understand systems of oppression, because it's about power imbalance. So the commonality is our humanness, but the commonality is who has the power to make the most impact in society.

[31:07]

bigger and bigger ways. So that takes us into the third noble truth. Individual and collective agency for ending harm. That's the engaged version. Of course, the classic version is the ending of suffering as possible. There's an end to suffering. So here I'll tell another story. We were at Tassahara sense, is that for the first year, there were no small groups during the practice period. Like, you know, there were no one day off, there was no other meeting. And then at the time I was, at the time I consider myself much more of an artist, and I'd been talking with someone who became the shika, who was also an artist, so she had come to me at the end of the summer and said, oh, let's start a women's group, you know, and we would just make art together.

[32:21]

So we did ask for permission, and then we made an announcement in the circle. This is now doing practice period, right? And then at the same time, maybe because of that, I don't remember. I know someone came to me and asked me to do a people of color group. So we did have that too. And then I think that was a queer group too, but that part I can't remember so much for some reason. Probably because I was so busy with these other groups, right? And so these announcements were being made, you know, as different groups started to say, hey, we're going to have a group too. And then there was this... male gentleman who had come up. So he had just come for the practice period. He was in there long term. And he won. So the people of color group, and we called ourselves people of color then, could only meet in the dining hall as opposed to somewhere else doing time off because one of our members

[33:29]

was in the kitchen crew. So those who've been in Tassajara know the kitchen crew is on a different schedule. And so that was the only way in which this person could join us too. So we had our meeting. So, you know, table that says for people of color. And this person had come up and said, oh, I want to join your group. And we're like, I'm sorry, this is for people of color. And he said, oh, well, my father is a black Italian. And we're like, what is a black Italian? And he said, oh, he was a farmer. He worked outside a lot, so he got really dark. So he's a black Italian. And I said, sorry, that's not the definition that we're using as a person of color. And I will say somebody in the group who was wondering about their person of color-ness, in part because they were racially mixed, let him in.

[34:34]

And I was like, not the group for me if this is what you're going to do, but that's okay, that was fine. Soon after, at the circle, work circle, that person said, I want to start a men's group. And They made another announcement a few days later because nobody had joined. What are you going to do? What are you going to do in the men's group? Because in the women's group, we're like, we're a men's group and we're going to make art. And so he's like, oh, we're going to build a robot and then we're going to blow it up. We're going to build a robot and then we're going to blow it up. My memory is there were never a men's group. So maybe that speaks something for the rest of the people, right? Now, I went into and talked to the practice leader about this person just pushing up a lot of space.

[35:43]

And the person listened to me, and then they said... You should just put up with it. You're the senior here." And they were very frustrated with me. All I was asking was for them to talk to this person, because I felt this person was not understanding these, you know, safety boundaries, really. But they were very frustrated because they felt I had to be the one. Now, on one level, you know, now that I'm a teacher and I can understand people's like, do something about this, do something about this, right? And as a teacher, you're like, oh, how do I support the one and support the whole constant, right? Go on, basically. And so here's something that's in the book that I only touch on and I think is really important.

[36:52]

And so when we understand agency, we need to understand both personal agency and organizational agency. And I think this hopefully will be helpful too, because often when I bring an issue to someone in power, the responsibility gets put back on me. So... reframe that is to use the up and down power. So do people understand when I say up and down power or should I say something? Okay. In the right use of power, broadly, the understanding is that in any situation there is power differential. And depending on changing, the power differential can change in an instant. For instance, I'm a female person. And so in the system of sexism, I'm in the down power, right?

[37:59]

You agree with that? As a person in the system of racism, I'm in the down power. But right now, I have the mic and the teacher seat. So I'm in the up power, right? So it can change. When I leave here, it gets a little stickier, depending how you treat me. Outside the very, this structure, this organization, and the container this is, gives me the power. And it's clear. It's clear. This may be partly why we, not myself, I like Zen, right? Some things are very clear. And that clarity can help. Of course, when does it help and when does it hinder? And yet, we carry these understanding about power differential because we're conditioned. So understanding how we are conditioned is a big difference.

[39:03]

So one way I thought... We can think about what is... So the other thing that comes, if we are going to really understand agency and effectiveness for change, is to understand our responsibility and accountability. This is what has supported me, and when I've talked with others, I've supported them. So see if it works for you, not just in here, but as you go about your life, to live fully. support you to live fully. If an oppressive incident has happened, if in that experience you are in a down power position, either individually, whether it's happening to you directly or as a group, then attending to yourself

[40:05]

as a first response is important. If you're in the up power position, the organizational or the structure or the container responsibility. For instance, if a racist thing happened here, even though I'm a person of color, as in the teacher's seat, I hold the organization. On a certain level, Linda even holds it higher because I'm the guest. So then our response is how do we hold the container? I don't go, oh, take care of me. It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, and it might take a moment because I can connect to that downpower position person's hurt and pain about race more. So I'm not saying, but then I go and see my responsibilities to the organization. And so if you're in a power position, when someone comes to you and says something is a misconduct, oppressive force, it isn't to question them if they're the power person.

[41:20]

It's to say, how can I support you? How can I validate your experience so that you feel safe enough to share it with us all? And then how do I get the support of the organization Do something to affect change or as a response. Does that make sense? I think that's a really useful way. And I really appreciate this up and down power as a way to kind of hold that. For me, it also helps on a personal level because sometimes, you know, when we're taught to take care of the up power position, many of us kind of go into that. Because when it's asked, you know, and then, of course, we're all compassionate. So when it's asked, sometimes we just move into that without thinking, and then later it hits us. And so it's just a way to really touch in. Because when that kind of harm happens, the impact of the hurt and harm is different, isn't it?

[42:25]

All right. I will also say, I should watch my time. I wanted interaction. Ah, I'm going to hurry now. All right. Collective agency. I myself think we're fortunate in Zen because we, you know, Sangha is really important. We do nothing, especially at the monastery, right? We bathe together, we eat together. Well, the nuns got to sleep. on the side, but the monks still sleep in the zendo. So there's a lot of collective kind of practices. To me, this is why Zen is so hard. It's community practice all the time. Whereas, you know, I still go to inside retreat. I retreat. Just me. I'm just practicing. You know, it's my concentration I'm working on, right?

[43:31]

And that's okay. You know, there's... I'm not saying it's wrong, but as a practice in general, the way it's been formulated in convert settings here, to me, insight and my more individual focus, whereas in Zen, of course it can be, but we're put in containers where we have to interact with others over and over and over again. And so at some point you've got to remember the collective. Usually you don't want to, but you do. The fourth noble truth, of course, is there is a path, and of course it's the Eightfold Path. And in the engaged version, I like to say the Eightfold Path empowers wholeness. How can we practically engage with the eight aspects in a restorative way? Do people know what the Eightfold Path is, or should I name them? Raise your hand if you know what the Eightfold Path is.

[44:34]

Or maybe raise your hand if you don't. Okay. Maybe? Masamangos? Just say them quickly. All right, the Eightfold Path, there are three sections. The wisdom section is skillful view or understanding. Very specifically, the understanding of the four noble truths and karma. That's the part that gets... in that convert setting, and karma, the accountability part of Buddhism. Then it's also skillful thinking. However, skillful thinking, samyak sankhapa, or sama sankhapa, is always purposive in Buddhism. Sure, it's about how you think, but your thinking drives you into your beliefs. So these days, a better translation is motivation or attitude.

[45:37]

Sure, it's based on your thinking, but your thinking drives you to the second third of the Eightfold Path, which is the ethical conduct. Skillful speech, skillful action, and skillful livelihood. I like to call it the compassionate connection because it's the interactive part. And then classical third grouping is the samadhi or sometimes the bhavana, the meditative, and that's skillful effort, skillful mindfulness, and skillful concentration. And I really appreciate Gil. He talks about it. Yes, those are the three sections, but really the meditative qualities is the bridge between the wisdom, aspect and the ethical conduct, compassionate connection conduct. Meditation as a tool is so that we, when we're meditating, we go, am I enacting my values?

[46:39]

That's another way to understand my view of the world and the values that are embedded, the wholesomeness of it, the purposive is towards the wholesome, not the unwholesome. So As I meditate, am I living these values, or what I've done, is it within my value? The meditative quality is the bridge between understanding our action, or do our action go with our understanding, our values? Of course, in Soto Zen, the six Paramitas is what is our guide, the bodhisattva. Ramitas, dana, generosity, sila, ethical conduct, kashanti, tolerance, virya, energy. And I really appreciate Daryl Wright's version. It talks a lot about what is the energy of your life.

[47:41]

Not just skillful livelihood, sure, there's a lot in there about the right jobs, but really it's about how do you use your energy towards life. towards fully living. And then the jhana or jhana or the meditative aspects and then wisdom. So in summary here, and I had hoped for Q&A, but maybe I'll have to be in the garden. I apologize. Let me just close this off here. the chapter. The day after the mind-stopping meeting in Japan, Sekia Harada Roshi offered me another chance for a dokusan interview. I rang the bell, did my bows, and went into the practice discussion room, ready to share about how his answer had affected me.

[48:45]

Before I could open my mouth, Roshi launched into a lengthy 30 minutes story of Shakyamuni Buddha's life and enlightenment along with the histories of other early Buddhist ancestors. Then once again, he rang me out of the room. We never spoke about my question again. This event impacted me deeply, and I continued to turn it over for many years afterward. When I remember my dokusan with Sekiharada Roshi, this last part has always puzzled me. I often wondered what was his point about it. In writing this now, I have an understanding of what he was teaching me. The Buddha and ancestors were searching for the same things as you and me.

[49:50]

an end to suffering. The positive would be, how do we live fully, right here and right now? I think Roshi was saying that there can't be spiritual bypass. He realized, and after that initial exchange, I too realized that I was looking for a way to explain away the hurt and pain by wanting to discuss it. Discussion Theory isn't wrong. Activism isn't wrong. But we can't use these things for spiritual bypass. We can't use Buddhist practice or any methods such as race theory or activism as a way to skip over the condition inherent in the first noble truth. Experiencing the hurts and pains of our lives. Trying to get away from them via any method is to try to skip over or bypass, fully experiencing our life as it is.

[51:01]

Our practice is to get closer and closer to know it completely, because in doing so, we can actually then have more clarity on how we can heal. In Pali, the first recorded language of Buddhism, Yonaso Manasikara usually translates as wise attention. It can also be translated as attention that takes the whole into account. This is what Seke Harada Roshi was pointing me toward. The practice of investigating dukkha, which sees it in context, in totality. and not just the hurt and pain of the moment. Then the rest of the Engaged Four Noble Truths offers us descriptions and practices to reconnect or reconnect to the wholeness of life.

[52:05]

That our existence is seen, relevant, healable, and valued. That's what the expansion of understanding suffering is. We understand more That's the bodhisattva way, right? You don't just bring them along. How do we bring them along? By understanding what would give them, support them. What are the conditions for a fuller life? And to do that, we have to know what is their understanding about their suffering or how they suffer. Maybe they don't have to understand it, but we have to understand it. To me, what I'm awakening to, if we're talking about dukkha, understanding dukkha, is where I understand I make myself more available. Not just to understand, but to have the access so that others can present to me their lives, what keeps them from living fully and what can support them to live fully.

[53:21]

Acknowledge it by seeing it. I give space for it to be shown and seen. I hold it as relevant, healable, and valued. When we remember and access the context that validate us and support us to thrive, to remember that all beings want the same things, to be free from suffering and the causes of suffering, this is what connects us all. Denying the systems of oppression exists is to deny reality as it is. Learning to negotiate these things with self and collective determined agency is the practice of engaged liberation. In practicing collective liberation, this is what I wish for us. That we may come home to a sense of wholeness, grounded in what is safe to all.

[54:23]

May we then aspire to spread that out, to work together to strengthen safety and care for each other. This is the work and the liberation of understanding, practicing, and developing and engage for a new person. Thank you very much.

[54:44]

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