Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Good morning. I am delighted and very grateful to be introducing our speaker for today, Rhonda McGee. Rhonda is, she told me this morning, a recovering professor of law.

[01:05]

Emerita. And she wrote the book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice, which I think many of us are familiar with and greatly appreciate. and did some work with the many communities, one sangha a few years ago, so many of you know her from there as well. Rhonda is a lay entrusted teacher in the Soto School, as are we, and she has the lineage of Upaya and Roshi Joan Halifax. Welcome, Rhonda, and thank you so much for coming. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It is a great honor to be with you all this morning.

[02:13]

I'm delighted to just share a few words. It's always you know, its own unique blessing to come into a sangha and be reminded of all the ways I've forgotten the forms. So already just like completely let go of whatever sense I'm holding of like, I've already got this. So really inviting your compassionate listening. which I can already feel, but your extension of the practice commitments, the ethics, all of the ground of who you are as a support for the field of what may come in the form of a few words here.

[03:17]

So may I ask that of you as we do this together. Thank you. Thank you. Deep bows. Really, really deeply grateful. And the talk, the title that I'm using today is establishing mindfulness and beloved sangha in a time of the muck. I might have said in a time of war. I might have said in a time of polarization. the reification of certain forms of patriarchy and, you know, sort of anti-LGBTQIA plus oppression. I may have said in a time of, again, revivification of some of the dreams of colonialism and empire, all of the intense inequalities that seem to be falling...

[04:23]

hard on these beautiful revolutions around technology. On the one hand, we've got sort of these amazing tools at our disposal. Mine is going to be here just as a time apparatus, but we do have these amazing tools that bring practically the entire repository of human knowledge and wisdom within a fingertips reach, and how many of us have felt something spiraling almost out of control, almost with every new iteration of these. So that tension, that reality is what, and all of those things that I've pointed to, not to mention mass incarceration, which is already still in the background, and again, supported by new forms. Not to mention the way that intersects with immigration and policy injustice, right?

[05:30]

I don't even know what to call it. So we've got, and we could add more, right? There's always ageism. There's always racism. There's always, always, always, right? So I'm just going to call that the muck right now. And just really invite us to... ponder some of the ways that our just basic core commitments come in as a support for whatever that looks like for you. It's going to look different in every moment for each of us here, right? It's sort of the blessing of our unique embodiments and the challenge, right? The blessing and the challenge. What does the muck look like for you? What does it feel like in your own body? As I say that really already the hand over the heart is that outward manifestation of a turn in my heart that is about compassion in the being with all of this.

[06:43]

Because no matter and to whatever extent we have been blessed as we all are here, to be supported by practice, to be in community, to have the time, the space, the freedom, the resources to be able to be together like this. No matter how many weeks, months, years, et cetera, we've been practicing the forms and we feel like we have these moments of what I'm calling the muck can really, really be hard. Maybe I'm the only one. Right? It's hard right now. It's just... And again, so I am naming that we who are here, no matter the degree to which we all, of course, are 100% uniquely in this moment. Whatever path we got here, however our embodiments are, 100% unique.

[07:46]

And yet, we have something enough in common. That we can all go, yeah, it's hard right now. Does that make, I mean, and again, there's something to me that's both beautiful about that, but also we know how challenging that can be. That our particular description of the muck, whenever, if we can find some words for it, we turn to another beautiful human being and we maybe want to have a, on this plane of, you know, meeting today in time, place. conversation about what's happening, what's going on, as Marvin Gaye gave it to us, what's going on, we will find ourselves often a little bit at pains to really feel like we are being, like my mug doesn't look like yours, right? Author of another beautiful book, a beautiful book anyway. I think books, music, all these things in the culture support us. I really do think that. I'll come back to that.

[08:47]

but there is an author, her name has escaped me at the moment, maybe it'll come, of a book called Your Blues Ain't Like Mine. We all have some blues at this time. We all have some purchase on the muck. It's not going to be exactly the same. And so this taste of being alive in the midst of all of this, having our own unique sense of what that is, and even with our closest beloveds, nevertheless somehow feeling, I'm not sure, does this person even get what I'm going through right now? Yes, I did become betrothed. But does this beautiful man get me right now what I'm going through? All right, I'll go out and walk on the ocean, place feet on the floor. Do the seagulls understand what I'm going through? Where can I find the sense that my particular blues, my muck, is something that somebody can kind of meet me and say, I see you, I get it.

[09:59]

Because there's something, it seems, about each of these forms, these bodies, that does desire to be met well. It does desire to be seen. to have that I see you moment from the culture of Ubuntu, South African, spiritual, philosophical approach for these at all times, Ubuntu, right? I mentioned it in my, the inner work of racial justice. This is what Bishop Desmond Tutu and other South African teachers have expressed as this quality of, I am because you are, and because you are, I am. Or because you are, we are. So it's this deep expression of the reality that whatever this thing is that we're in the language and practice of Buddhism the self that we're seeking to know and of course ultimately to forget and

[11:15]

to be one with all the things, as Dojin said. Whatever that self is, through the lens of Ubuntu, however we're sort of formed in it, it's a co-creation. It's something we're forming in relationship with others. And therefore, even as we are seeking to transcend the restrictions of this self that needs to be seen, needs to have someone understand, I'm trusting that as we're all here in this practice community, some part of us believes we can sort of transcend all that and somehow experience true liberation, freedom from all of that. But along the way, we might want a little bit of human kindness. We might want a little bit of, again, I see you. I see you. So that dance is what establishing mindfulness and beloved sangha community in a time of the muck is inviting us to inquire about right now.

[12:36]

What is it like for you? Recently, I've had a really interesting last six months or so. Actually, last, I would say, year and a half. I've spent a lot of time last year traveling out of the country. I traveled to Europe a couple of times. So to Italy, to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. to Sweden, giving presentations and being in connection with folks around the world, around these themes of bringing an inner dimension to addressing some of the hardest problems of our times. This is one of the the briefs that a person who is a recovering law professor might get.

[13:37]

You don't get to just talk about greed, hatred, and delusion. You sort of get invited to say, all right, whatever you're discerning about that, how might it support us if we are training doctors, lawyers, and other professionals in Europe in a time of war? This is a conversation I was having in Stockholm, Sweden. Or how might it support us if we're establishing a kind of engaged mindfulness program in the Netherlands? How might it support us? Ultimately, I was invited and attended the first ever conference on mindfulness sponsored by the United Nations. This was in Geneva, Switzerland, in December. How might it support us in this difficult work of resolving conflict at that national, international level that, of course, I mean, not a moment too soon that we try to figure out how to bring these different dimensions in.

[14:41]

So as a law professor, I get invited, as that recovering law professor, to sort of be in connection with folks who are really, yes, committing to some form of personal practice. Ideally, in my view, humble view, also some form of community of practice, because we know these, let's paraphrase, holy friendships are not half of the holy life, but all of it, right? So we need to be in connection. We need these communities. But really, then to, from the place of our personal and interpersonal and communal commitments, to be thinking about the broader dukkha suffering in this world at this time and whether anything more might be done from the seat of these practices, anything more than just my personal practice, my best right here in the community.

[15:45]

Is there a way that we can somehow take some steps that could actually help sort of gently decelerate some of the things that seem to be causing more harm than is necessary, whether it's in the climate realm, right, the technology realm, the war-making realm, whatever. Is there a way? And so to be in Switzerland in that conversation, and then this year to be at different universities, so again... though I'm not full-time at my University of San Francisco anymore, just at University of Vermont and University of North Carolina, Greensboro, with folks on campuses trying to think about how do we keep doing this with our young people? How do we inspire them? I mean, you can imagine, there are young people in the room, I'm sure, right? And we are in relationship with them, right? How do we keep folks feeling that there is some good possibility

[16:52]

on this planet. There is something that we can keep doing, right, that can alleviate and can turn us, right, because at a certain point we realize just as, you know, our blues may not be the same, our muck may not be the same, this desire to live with more of what we might call flourishing, well-being, thriving, liberation, is something that we find ourselves fortunate to be orienting toward, not only again for ourselves. This is not, again, as we start to dissolve the sense of the self, we realize that whatever it is we're trying to do here, it's always already that Ubuntu, that I am because you are. It always, always already is. seeking to help support a liberation that is beyond whatever this small self is.

[17:59]

So having been there and then also with a group of young activists recently at the Garrison Institute who were trying to figure out how to bring an inner dimension to social justice work. And really, we spent four or five days. What does that really mean? How do we cultivate caring community? And one of the things that that group, you know, put together, call themselves a conscious change form, right? They're going to do some change work consciously with these practices, figure out how to, in a right, thoughtful way, bring our spiritual work into the world. And again, that can look like 10,000 things. No one right, thoughtful way, right? So the effort was to bring some 80 or so young people together, folks who were interested in this conversation, and explore what it might mean. And I just want to share that for that group, there was a consciousness about the challenge of what I mentioned at the very beginning, which is how we connect across these differences.

[19:07]

And of course, my work, the inner work of racial justice, is one tiny drop in a bucket of like, Well, there's racial difference. That's part of it. But really, that intersects with all the different ways that we come into the world socially, the lenses. How do we connect? And so this group said, well, we probably need to be explicit about some of the hopes and dreams we carry. In some iterations of that kind of conversation, you hear agreements about how you're going to be. A meta-conversation. If we're going to come together, then we will. Does that make sense, like, as an approximation of an effort to be intentional across the meetings of different beautiful minds? And recognizing that right when you meet is where you can get into trouble. So this group said, we're not going to call them agreements, because that sounds maybe, to me, actually, I said, to me, it's agreements, which is what, five, ten years ago, everyone was saying we...

[20:11]

You know, we sort of step up, step back. We kind of try to use I statements, right? All the different ways. Try as best we can to be nonjudgmental. Different ways that we sort of try to hold a mindful space for being. This group said we'll use the language of touchstones as opposed to agreements. because touchstones kind of reminds us that we're all part of a natural world and we're all kind of works in progress and we're touching into something for a little bit of grounding. But it's kind of put some distance between the more kind of institutional almost agreement sounds a little bit to me legalistic, a little bit like, you know, if you don't do this right, I might hold you... accountable in some kind of way. I mean, it just seems like it's bringing that adversarial model, like you either write or not.

[21:17]

So touchstone's a little bit more humble, right, to the degree of stone of the earth, right, that you miss, the humility. And so the stone, this group, checking my time here, The stones that this group identified, and I'm just presenting these as just an example of the kinds of things that folks, young folks, folks, activists today trying to do, take this work into the world, have recently put together. And as I say these, you may be thinking, I'm inviting thinking, might those help me and my work, my space, my sangha work? So the first, tending the soil. And I think of tending the soil as kind of what we're doing here, as a form of tending soil. When we come together, we practice a kind of radical presence, inner to outer, and we do that on a regular.

[22:24]

That's tending the soil. We cultivate compassion and care for ourselves and others. That's tending the soil. We are mindful that We can only move at the speed of trust and repair when there are breaches, as breaches happen, like conflict happens. So that's the sort of thing I think tending the soil is meant to point to. Secondly, stories are sacred. So we are just mindful of the temptation. We hear a story that sort of, this I think comes into consciousness in Buddhist language around right speech and right listening. being there to hear someone's share, but then holding that with respect, right? So recognizing the sacredness and listening and communicating with another. So you could say also privacy, confidentiality, the sanctity, right? But it's just that idea of rightness in relationship to how we communicate with each other.

[23:29]

Third, everything is an invitation. Try things on. Not everything's going to work for everybody. Were the 10,000 beautiful flowers radically differentiated? Of course, not everything is going to work for everyone. Why should that be a problem? We know that in advance. Third, share the space. And again, this is again that form of stepping up if we tend to hang back or stepping back if we tend to... Fill the space, creating space. We're all co-stewarding how we are together. Honoring complexity. Complexity. How do we relate to the idea of complexity? Sometimes that can seem like, oh, we're about to do something hard. I love complexity because it's where I get curious, like, what's really here? It's like something juicy could happen. But it's this idea there are multiple truths, multiple perspectives, different ways of knowing.

[24:32]

We're all in an ecosystem that kind of, I think, needs all of us. Just like this broader ecosystem that we're in. Flowing like water. The Buddha's teaching around how do we get through the flood. To me, flow like water. The Eightfold Path, not getting stuck, not stretching beyond what you can do. No, water doesn't really stretch, it finds. So just flowing as well as you can. And water sometimes congeals and pauses. But not static, not stuck. And then recognizing that we're just planting seeds. Isn't that, there's something in the spirit of like, Okay, we give ourselves a break in that. We're not perfect. We are all co-learners on a journey.

[25:33]

So that comes back to tending soil. The beginning, the first of the touchstones. We are cultivating a kind of soil, kind of way, a community, touchstones, within which when we drop a seed, it may... take some healthy root. You know, so it's related. It's like we come together with certain kinds of ways of being in mind so that as we share, as we do something together, as we have a teaching, it can find its place in that humble soil and kind of work whatever magic it might in time. So this group came up with these. And then also talked about having community of care practices and accountability efforts and all things. And then in the conversation that some of us were having, a last one came into my mind or an additional one.

[26:40]

I won't say last, an additional one. And that is to, as best we can, try to lead and lean into a sense that we all already belong, as opposed to like lead with... What are your beliefs? What are mine? Are we already first on the same? Only if you believe this 10-point thing can we feel that we belong. Sort of reversing that, trusting that the universe has somehow called us all into these forms for some reason. Like, we don't know what the tree's purpose actually, you know, this tree is, but we trust. We don't know what all our different experiences are meant to help us. us formed together, but we trust. So we lean into that sense of belonging. That doesn't mean we don't then seek to learn and to touch into the touchstones. But it does mean that we are sort of, well, the spirit of agape comes up for me. That quality of love that I think is at the root of belonging. Not easy to cultivate.

[27:44]

Yeah, just love. I'm thinking of Maya Angelou, who I saw... But she talked about agape is that spirit of like meeting a person and having a sweetness, a honeyness in our voice. Hey, honey, how are you? And it was hard, right? We don't get to say honey, right? Can we say honey these days? Is that politically right? Is that correct? But my answer, give her, right? You can say that her articulation of what quality of honey in our voice when we meet each other. Oh, yes. Are we having trouble hearing? Okay, thank you. And that's a good time for me to pause and see if we can... What's coming up for you all by way of questions, by way of reflections? And just in final, as you're gathering thoughts, thinking what's alive in you, what the muck looks like, what any of these touchstones...

[28:50]

sort of suggest for you as relating to your practice or where you're struggling. I'll say lastly, again, that quote of Maya Angelou's, she kind of ended it by saying she thinks of the quality of this sort of sweet honeyness that we might bring into communities that we're trying to work and learn together and build solidarity or build trustworthiness for people creating something new. Part of what that agape form of love, that sort of non-transactional, just we all already belong kind of sweet honeyness. We might call it metta, right? Metta in action, loving kindness in action. She said it's the kind of thing from within which we can feel that we're not going to deny our humanity with each other. We're going to sort of let down a little bit.

[29:50]

Don't know what I'm talking about, the training that we get that, like, we cannot actually be fully human because we cannot, like, that. And that can lead to inhumanity. Like, seeing some folks are just, I can't take that in right now, and therefore I'm going through the world a little bit, and a little bit at distance from my soft, broken heart, my vulnerability, my ability to see yours. And so Maya was saying that. This quality that whatever all of this is trying to say, is there this sort of, from the place of practice, from the place of deep metta and compassion, ha, of letting go, there can arise this like just resting in the we all already belong that has a quality of sweetness to it and humanity, just, right? All of the things of humanity that are not always sweet. but that we are here to sort of try and turn from, you know, muck to lotus, right?

[30:55]

No mud, no lotus. No mud, no lotus. So may those three words support any reflections, questions, additional teachings that may be in the room. I did. Yes. And my apologies if my mic has gone down and it's been difficult for anyone. I'll try. This way. Ice cream cone. So Rhonda, I just want to share with you and our group heartfelt appreciation and some teaching that that I think is really valuable, and the idea about everyone being welcome, I think is something that I feel like this group already has down, but it's really good to mention it, because that's why I'm here.

[32:04]

If that wasn't here, I wouldn't be here. So thanks for noting that. And then also your travels out into the world to work with... other sanghas, like young people or this group or that group. And that's something I feel like we can grow in, you know, not just this group, but other sanghas to actually consciously go out, whether it's going to a senior facility and making sangha or... a childcare center or where, you know, people might be low income or, but anyway, I really love that example of being conscious. Yeah. Sort of moving away from just making a meal to making a community. And so I really appreciate that. And then the last thing I wanted to say is I really appreciate the openness in

[33:10]

to using culture, art, writers, leaders with culture, you know, and people who are mixing it up who maybe did that because they have the spirit of creativity in them that can't be stopped, but also that might have been all they were allowed. You know, some of these people could have been... senators and presidents and stuff like that. I'd vote for any of them. But I just really want to appreciate the wholeness that that feels that we can get teachings through our great musicians that we've had all along and dancers, et cetera. So I just want to thank you for being you and doing it so creatively and warmly. And for recovering so well. In progress.

[34:11]

Recovering law professor in progress. Thank you. Deep bowels. And just to say that the piece in which you were just appreciating the bringing in culture, openness to culture, I heard you sort of, in your words, a gesture toward recognizing that some of those... I'm going to call them teachers who are known conventionally as artists, writers, musicians, creators in different fields. Yeah, they might have found a different way of expressing or leading, but those ways weren't always open to them. So they found the door, right? They created a door. James Brown, for example. And I've been using this language of soulfulness to describe that. actually, and I've kind of been my current work in progress, a book that, in fact, will go to the publisher in November of this year.

[35:14]

It's got the working title of We Are the Mountain. And in it, I do talk about this sort of, this that I think is a part of what feels alive in me, which is to be thinking about how our heritage is, all of our heritage is, no matter our backgrounds, whether we would call it soul flourish or not. There's those teachers who are creative thinkers, artists, dancers, without whom we wouldn't be here. Our people would not have made it through. Y'all know what I'm talking about. Everybody's people have had some things to get through, right? And I think recovering those teachings in some way is a part of what feels like dharmic, right, to me right now. And yes, I sometimes use that language of soulfulness to describe that. But whatever we call it, it's leaning more into those beautiful teachers who, as James Brown said, when asked what soulfulness was, it's the creative response.

[36:23]

I'm paraphrasing him, but he basically said it's the creative answer to, I can't. So the world telling you I can't? How about I do this? How about I show you this, right? So we all, and again, all our people somehow or some way or else I truly believe we wouldn't be here. So that quality is in all of us. And may we find that we need that right now, right? In all of the different ways that despite all of the beautiful manifestations of what humans can do, we can literally go on the other side of the moon. And yet it's hard for us to find a caring way to respond to. someone in dire need of health care in our communities. Right? So what is that? And maybe soulfulness sometimes can help us find new ways to disrupt some of the received rationalities that keep causing so much harm in the world.

[37:24]

You have a questioner online. Okay. Let's go to online. Your hand, yes. Ella, is that? Paolo. Paolo, yes, hello. Sorry, my vision. These glasses need a little bit of an uptake. Paolo. Oh, and you're muted, my dear. Can we unmute? Is there a way to unmute? Okay. Okay. Hello, Rhonda. It's you again. I feel like that was a happy accident. Feeling inadvertently muted in general. I don't know. Talk about putting your finger in the pulse or something.

[38:30]

You see, the way in which you approach this topic is... is incredible because so many times I feel like we traded old stereotypes off times for new stereotypes and having grown up in an environment that really was cosmopolitan and truly all inclusive where we honored and celebrated our differences and try to whitewash them while recognizing the universality of our shared experience. I feel like In many other places, that's just something that's not found even very well-intentioned. Otherwise, I want to use communities and help me recognize this morning that that's been one of the most difficult things of what I think I've been experiencing. Oftentimes, if you are marginalized or alienated, there are particular groups, there are communities oftentimes I catch

[39:37]

catchy there where at least that experience is shared and there are people to share your beliefs with. And then there are folks who are marginalized or alienated and there isn't a given community. You belong to certain communities or class issues. And there's just no one there to share that with. And when you do try to share it, you often times end up having to explain yourself much more when you communicate. Hello, excuse me. Can you lean in? We're hearing you most, well, some of the words. Leaning in a little bit will probably help. Yeah, thank you. Okay. Thank you. I apologize. There's so much. It's remarkable. There are communities, and there are oftentimes creative communities, oftentimes either the linchpin being, or the painting, or writing, or activism, where people of various stripes, who are marginalized, or are alienated, or don't quite fit into the given boxes, whatever they are at the moment, who meet over that shared experience.

[41:01]

Mm-hmm. And... I found that those spaces are harder and harder to find, oftentimes even with well-intentioned. There's such a similarity in their experience. I mean, it's hard for me to communicate the way that I would like natural right off the bat is inappropriate, is vocally intense. If I'm telling a particular story with a little bit of heat, I'm seen as angry, but sadness is seen as this. And I see that with other people. Oftentimes, they grew up in a community that was a neighborhood that was very African-American influenced, and I miss. And just right off the jump, the way that you come up, and then there's projections. And I'll wrap it up with this.

[42:03]

It's reminded me of experiences of many of my friends where, you know, as African-American kids, they never quite fit into our Caucasian world. And then back home, they no longer fit in. And you end up in this liminal, another realm, not having, sharing the blues, having people get it makes a world of a difference. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I recognize that the hearing, the technology was a little difficult for us here. But I think we maybe got kind of the gist, this affirmation that, you know, given our particular embodiments, it can be hard to find a place where if you share, even if the blues isn't exactly like yours, it's okay. And sometimes the energetics are such that if they're sort of outside of what we see as the acceptable range of expression, it can be read as this person's angry, this person has this... Right?

[43:20]

An instance like that came up at one of these gatherings that I was just at. Because it's not uncommon that, you know, as is here... The folks who come together are disproportionately well-resourced, plugged in, technologically savvy, got to this, that, and in this time and place that we live in, disproportionately white often, academically inclined, right? Trained in certain kinds of ways of presenting oneself. And... I'll say again, disproportionately white. So one of these gatherings, there was really only like maybe out of the 60 or so people, one other black woman who came as a participant, raised her hand, shared something. And it was really just a share about a request for a full group conversation as opposed to a one-on-one or a dyad.

[44:29]

Often when you get into something, it's like, okay, we've had a talk. Everyone go into your dais or small groups or your pods. And her feeling was that something had been shared from the podium that was so powerful and just so alive with all kinds of interesting possible ways of being in relationship to it that a large group conversation such as we hadn't really had yet might be a good idea. And so many things happened in response to her requests that... Other than a large group conversation. But it was a lot of reactivity in the room. And I will say again, there was a colorism thing where she is a darker skinned black woman. And there's probably a sizism thing where she was not a small black. You know, the kinds of things that maybe socially we have been trained to kind of react around without actually ever really figuring out or even knowing that we're doing that. And then folks who have been met with various different kinds of slings and arrows because of their identities are then sensitive to any sign that here comes another one, right?

[45:43]

And then it becomes this reverb in the space. It's like we cannot get out of our own way no matter how we try. Here we are again stuck. So I thank you, Paolo, for really opening the door to just a little bit more of that invitation for us to lean more into the sense of the, I want to call it almost the sort of given generosity. And I say that as a black woman who grew up in really, you know, historically... I say impoverished circumstances because it was like the legacy to the South, the tobacco belt, North Carolina, you know, my folks historically, the bottom of the cast there and all the different things that came with that, right? Different types of deprivation and abuse and, you know, dysfunctional ways of being in reaction to all that.

[46:45]

I still think of the universe as fundamentally so incredibly generous, right? I mean, it's just like, The both and are true. We have these different relationships to deprivation, privileges, and we are inheritors of this incredible gift of being alive together. And so, yeah, when I hear you, Paola, just mentioning the challenge, you know, for me, these practices can help us rest more in that sense of the generosity. It's not going to happen overnight, necessarily. It does not happen overnight. We cannot... And some of us have easier access to the sense of generosity because we've been privileged. And we think it's like, oh, I'm so deeply practiced. Well, also your life is sort of a little bit more easeful. So it's sort of how do we give space for what is here? If somebody has an energy and they're working with it and yet they've raised their hand and they're trying, can we just...

[47:52]

be that generosity that somehow called our uniqueness into the space? Can we then extend that generosity, which can sometimes just be like just a silent holding of the space so that some version of the truth can be spoken there? Can we be more able to just be a space where whatever needs to be said can be said? We don't necessarily have to do anything with it. Just cultivating more of that. There's so much more we could say, and I know we're getting to the time. Yes, my dear. Thank you. I'm EJ. I had the wonderful experience on Thursday evening of being at the Newman Center at UC Berkeley with a group of young men, very spiritually in-tuned young men, which...

[48:55]

caught me a little bit off guard. Wonderful, wonderful. But the topic, just to continue with what you were saying, the topic was divine mercy. I'm like, divine mercy. The topic was divine mercy. Apparently, there's this particular saint that was acknowledged by one of the most recent popes. And so I said, I have to look this up. What is this? And you're from UC, you're from... the Jesuit school, and I've been spending a lot of time with 272 and also Father Greg Chisholm's work that they did. In fact, I woke up this morning studying, and it's very profound of how the Jesuits carried on. And it's like I'm looking for an answer, which is what you're saying. I'm looking for an answer. The answer is divine mercy. The answer, we say compassion a lot here in the Buddhist world, but mercy, the definition of mercy is that I'm not going to hold you to what you deserve.

[49:55]

Right. Hallelujah. Hallelujah, amen. Because how can we do that? And it works on both ways. There's internal divine mercy, and then there's divine mercy on the outside. When a person... who doesn't look like you or who comes from a different culture that may not sit or may not walk or may not park their bicycle in the right place and be called out for it, you know, that's where the divine mercy is. It's like your rules are your rules. But if we want to, it's affirmative action in a sense. But it's divine mercy. It's something new that I've learned. So thank you. And it's kind of like what I was hearing you say around compassion. I think so, right? And also, again, that Maya Angelou invitation to just... feel that kind of honey sweetness that you're not looking for who deserves the honey sweetness. It's like, can I give it to myself? Can I just be that? And it's, for me, the word generosity comes to mind. We are inheritors of this magnificence of this generous earth.

[50:59]

And from that place, a quality like mercy... that resonates. And again, as this recovering law professor where we were taught more to think more about justice, just desserts and sort of elements of a cause of action that entitles someone to a certain kind of just response or not. But there's always been this idea or ideal of mercy in the kind of certainly Judeo-Christian culture context within which the legal system emerged. And we might interpret it differently through other cultural lenses. But I hear us basically talking about the same, in that group that you were with, talking about the same quality. And many people that I'm aware of actually have had a hard time speaking about practicing leaning into that in traditional institutional spaces. I'm thinking of

[52:01]

Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow. I happen to have had a chance to be with her at this event as well. We had a whole good conversation. I facilitated a conversation with her. So she's the author, former also recovering law professor. So you're going to see a pattern here. Polly Murray, a name some of you know, some of you, fantastic, amazing trans woman, trans, well, She, at the time, the language of trans and they obviously hadn't emerged in our culture. But I think if you look at her history, although her life, the pronoun she used was she, I think today every indication is she had decided to be called Paulie as opposed to Anna Pauline, which was her name of birth. And there are so many indications that she was... really wanting to express herself in a much more fluid way. But she was the founder of really the modern civil, the 20th century civil rights movement, right?

[53:06]

She was that unnamed person behind the civil rights movement. She was, you know, the first in her class, I believe it was, at Howard Law School. But because she wasn't a male student, her work got... put in the hands of Thurgood Marshall and others who took her arguments to the Supreme Court. Because she wasn't white racialized, her work got put in the hands of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and helped give rise to the anti-discrimination law we have that allows women's rights. In fact, she was a co-founder of the National Organization for Women. She became a law professor finally, eventually, and she became finally, finally an Episcopal priest. And in fact... was recently sanctified in the Episcopal Church. She was an amazing person. We all should know her. We all owe her some measure gratitude for our being able to be in this room just as it is right now. But we mostly don't know her. And I think she would probably be okay with that because by the end, she was sort of like, you know, the answer isn't in academia.

[54:11]

It isn't in law. It's in... finding places where we can be in our mercy, our tender mercy. It's in we all already belong. We all deserve love. It's in we're all, you know, she would use the language God's children, right? She was a priest. But we all are children of a magnificent, generous universe. How can we be, even in the muck, mindful of the grace? of that reality. Beautiful ones. Thank you.

[54:50]

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