uh looks pretty good okay i'll tell you what from the speaker view it's okay non-surpassed penetrating and perfect karma is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million kalpas having it to see and listen to to remember and accept

[02:17]

I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. We're here in the Zendo and also online on this, our very last Dharma talk of 2023. So I was asked to introduce our speaker today. My name is Susan and our speaker is Ross Blum. Ross has been a longtime resident here at Berkeley Zen Center. My feeling is that his dedication to this practice and to all who come through the gate of Berkeley Zen Center in the past and in the present and in the future is a great source of encouragement, and support and inspiration to many of us.

[03:19]

Ross is the one who arranges all of the Dharma talks and Wayseeking Mind talks throughout the year. He also serves our Sangha in many ways, both hidden and revealed. And his present position is as the Eno. The Eno is the person who oversees the running of the zendo, the temple, the forms, the practices, the doanryo, and he does that through training people and modeling the practice and giving us some correction when we need it in his kind manner in an effort to harmonize in the zendo. and encourage us all to drop the small self. So put your hands in Gosho and help me welcome Ross.

[04:21]

Thank you Ross. Thank you kindly. Well that's my talk for today. Good morning everyone. When I was back in my home here, around the corner, I received a text from our president, Karen Sondheim, who can't be with us today because she's not feeling well. She's, in her words, exhausted from something or another. I'm sure it was something good. Anyway, she wanted to say something, and I said, well, I was going to introduce you, and you can unmute. help people yourself. So Karen, if you're there, could you unmute and let us know what was on your mic?

[05:22]

Ross, I don't remember asking to speak. Well, I'm the Eno and I know that you wanted to... Okay. Thank you. I would like to wish everyone tranquil, refreshing interim after we close today and up until New Year's Eve when we reconvene. Please enjoy peace and rest and Happy New Year. Thank you for remembering. Today I am going to talk about birth and death.

[06:39]

There's a fascicle of Dōgen Zenji's in the Shōpo Genzo called Shōji, birth and death. I arrived at Berkeley Zen Center because of a death. Richard Baker was the abbot at Zen Center in San Francisco. and he had to abdicate his position as abbot. And as a result of that, a lot of people left during that upheaval, and death of the practice place, and kind of unknown about what was going to happen next. And one of the results of that, karmically, was Norman and Kathy Fisher, the two children, came to have a sabbatical at Zen Committee of New York, where I began practicing with Bernie Glassman 40 years ago, next month.

[07:45]

I only knew about Maizumi Roshi lineage, which was Bernie's teacher. I didn't know anything about Suzuki Roshi and this wonderful Bay Area practice back there. I didn't have a copy of Zenline Beginner's Mind, but it didn't resonate the way it does now. So the short story is that I became aware of this lineage through Norman and Kathy and was reborn here. That's how I'm looking at birth and death. The last few years I've been thinking about death, my own death. I don't know of any particular illness that I have that I should be concerned that I'm going to be leading you all soon. I just want to get through this another hour, 11.30, then I feel like I'll have closure.

[08:51]

I heard a taste show here years ago that Norman offered rather nonchalantly, in a conversational tone like I'm speaking now. Teisho literally means presentation of the shout. So the old teachers in China and Japan would give a shout, and they would, you know, this explosion, and maybe some people woke up, either from their drowsiness or something deeper. So Norman's Taisho was a simple statement that we die because we are born. Everybody knows that. But the beautiful thing about Taisho is that it arrives from emptiness, which is just the spaciousness and vastness and potential.

[10:05]

to World of Form in We Die Because We're Born. And Teisho stops discursive thinking. When we are thinking discursively, which has a place in our life, figuring out things, figuring out ourself, the stopping of that cuts through the separation of me thinking about something to just this. And the gap of self and other self and a feeling of separate self is extinguished. It isn't necessarily thunderclaps and lightning as we read in the In the scriptures, it can be as ordinary as we die because we're born.

[11:13]

So birth and death, which is a typical translation, is apt. Birth and death, they're joined together, one of these two things. But in our practice, we suffer because of the separation, this and that, we and you, hot and cold. So on the relative side of things, those descriptions have a place. And if we look into our discomfort, our doubts and questions about Why the hell is my life so miserable? We can look at this separation and dualistic thinking and feeling of separateness, which is why we came through the gate.

[12:24]

Now, when I told Sojin Roshi, the reason I came to practice was looking for romance. He chuckled and said, I don't think that's right. And at the time, I thought he was mistaken. Because that's what I really wanted in my life. The main thing I wanted in my life. I just wanted to be in a romantic relationship. And so, I was feeling separate and desirous of that thing. Relationship. So over the years, I... sat here and sitting here and conversed with people and engaged with people and was happy and sad and all the usual things that happened in life. And then my wife at the time and I went through a divorce. So from my happiness of no gap, having been in a romantic relationship for all those years, to suddenly want to

[13:31]

Uh-oh. I'm here because we're a romance, I thought. And I'm still here, and my romance went away. So what the hell am I going to do now? Well, I went into the Dokkasan hut, a corner building on the property, for those who may not know. And I went to Sojin, and I said, Sojin talked about what had just happened. which, of course, he was privy to. And he said, well, now you have an opportunity to practice being alone. Well, that wasn't what I wanted to hear, but that's the appropriate response of a teacher, a Dharma teacher, who is here not to be my friend and Pat Miller back, oh, I'm so sorry that happened to you, et cetera, et cetera, which has a place when we're with our friends. But a Dharma teacher is to bring you back to practice and to work on closing the gap and the feeling of separation that causes discomfort and suffering.

[14:43]

So I worked on that for some years. So, birth and death and suffering or discomfort, it's all about the first noble truth. Life is unsatisfactory, upsetting, some sense of separation and discomfort. Life is suffering. Well, that doesn't sound too appealing to investigate. Who wants to investigate discomfort and suffering? when you're living it, when I'm living it. Well, there's another way of looking at the First Noble Truth. And Kass, his translation, birth and death, he put hyphens in between birth and death, which views it as one thing.

[15:59]

birth death. So, in closing that gap of separation, birth and death, and seeing birth death, feeling birth death, was it sad that Richard had to abdicate? Have a seat? Well, in some ways, yes. In some ways, no. For me, the result of that death was my rebirth here. So, birth death, intimately related. We talk about them separately, but... It's not one Buddha bowl, and it's not two Buddha bowls.

[17:06]

It's just this. This Buddha bowl was part of a set of three bowls that I use for Ore-Yoki meals, four meals in this endo, and they were made by my former wife, Bika. One blossom. And I really cherish these bowls. And they were inadvertently knocked off the table at the server seat upstairs many years ago by a concerned resident of that apartment at the time, because a cat had jumped up on there and they were concerned that a cat would do something. Well, the cat can take care of itself. That person knocked the bowls on the ground, and she gave me back my bowls wrapped up in cloth, and they're in a sound of shit.

[18:11]

And so I opened them up, and there they are, two bowls, the inner bowls, all solid, cool, round circles, and this one. I can't eat out of this anymore, but it was during Rahatsu, and I made an offering to Buddha, because the resident upstairs didn't knock the bowls off the table. Buddha knocked the bowls off the table. Just as when Sochi was sending the Mukugyo, as a young student at Sakoji, and a spider was coming closer and closer to where he was meeting the makugiyo with his beater. And the spider dies, and he was talking to Suzuki Roshi about it, that he didn't want to miss the beat, and the spiders came and boom.

[19:24]

Suzuki Roshi said, You didn't kill it. Buddha killed it. So what does that mean? Buddha dropped the balls, or knocked the balls off. Buddha killed the spider. Well, Buddha represents the harmony of the horizontal and the vertical. It's all one thing, and it's many different things. Yes, Sojin had the striker. Yes, this person knocked the balls off. But the harmony of that The closing, the gap of that dissonance and upset is Buddha. Causing conditions. Not a personal thing. I'm such a bad person. Not a personal thing. Causing conditions, I think you're a bad person. You're okay as you are. I'm okay as I am. So, in that apartment lived Dolly Goodhose. Long time, sincere practitioner.

[20:26]

And she died up there. And shortly after she died, this bowl appeared in the community room. Now, I don't know if it was hers, but it was in the community room kitchen on the shelf there. I'd never seen it before. And so I took it. And now it's my computer ball. But of course, one of these days when I die, somebody will go through my apartment and pick out different things most likely to take in the mementos of Ross's this and Ross's that. And this bowl will be reborn in someone else's oryoki set, maybe? Who knows? But the moral of the story is things disintegrate and things reintegrate.

[21:33]

And that continuity of life and practice is what liberates us. Because the disintegration of a marriage and the reintegration or the rebirth of this is profound. Now, I would not have checked off on a box, how do you want to learn about awakening, blessing when suffering, and nirvana? I wouldn't have checked off, get a divorce. But that's what I learned over those years. And when Sonja Roshi and Suzuki Roshi, what is nirvana? He said, and I hear there's a book out now with that title, Following One Thing Through to the End. So, when Suzuki Roshi said, you get to practice being alone now, or at one now, that's what I did.

[22:44]

It was the hell realm. I remember being the fukudo, sounding the mukugiyo, and like, what can I do to get rid of this discontent and keep the beat? There was no spider, just my mind that was distracting me. And I looked at the little designs on the hashiki and kind of kept focused on them. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's a beat. And I got through that. When I was at Pete's, working over the counter, and in this dark lament, I would go to the bathroom and cry, and then I would go out, back up to the counter and say, next in line, please. One source of suffering and discontent is looking at time discontinuously, relative time.

[23:50]

So if I would go into the whys and wherefores, why am I so upset? Why am I so happy? That's kind of picking up little bits of time and creating a story, Ross's story. But in continuous time, it's just the flow of one thing to another. Sanuki Roshi says, in this way, our life is momentary, discontinuous time, and at the same time each moment includes its own past and future, continuous time, just the flow of life.

[25:01]

In this way our momentary eternal life will continue. This is how we actually lead our everyday life, how we enjoy our everyday life, and how we have freedom from various difficulties. I was sick in bed for a long time, and I was thinking about those things. I was just practicing Zazen in bed. I should enjoy being in bed laughing. Sometimes it was difficult, but then I laughed at myself. Why is it so difficult? Why don't you enjoy your difficulties? I read that. It reminded me of... is coming up to Sojin Roshi once and saying, just being alive is enough. We're alive because we're born, and that's enough, just as a baseline. And then we start thinking and separating, and then we come to Berkeley Zen Center to figure it out. So Dogen writes,

[26:04]

because a Buddha is in, or at one with, birth and death, there is no birth and death. It is also said, because a Buddha is not in birth and death, a Buddha is not deluded by birth and death, which is a many and relative perspective of things. So, if we're at one with the separation and duality of birth, death, hot, cold, good, bad, attractive, ugly. If we're at one with that, we don't see any difference. It's just what's in front of us. And we do not suffer. But if we are separate from it, then we have this opportunity to pick and choose and judge. So have those two go together. Well, they go together in the circle of Buddha.

[27:06]

The aura or halo around Buddha's handphone sculpture there is a way to kind of remember that as all together and more closer to home. You know, the mudra that we use, lightly touching thumb tips. You hold everything together, the dark and the light. Years ago, I was in New York City on the subway, and my friend and I got in the car, and there was nobody in the car. It was kind of odd. And then it started getting warm, and then it started getting hot. The air conditioning was not working. And we looked down at the other car through the window of the door, and it was crowded.

[28:09]

There's some smart people. Get to the cool place. So my friend said, let's go. I said, no, I'm sitting here. So, you know, upright posture, breathing, inhale, exhale. Eyes lowered. You can use all that anywhere. Suzuki was doing it in his bed, and I was doing it in Subway. And then the heat went away. There was no longer any hot or cold. How did that happen? We breathe in and we take in the universe. A little gap between we exhale and let go of the universe. So we birth or we are birthed by the phenomenal world. and we express our offer death, letting go of the world in our exhalation.

[29:17]

And as Soja Moshi said, if you want to know about birth and death, practice Azen, because we're practicing for our death every moment with this inhalation of accepting and holding on to things and letting go of all things. And if we don't let go, if we do not exhale, we will continue to suffer. And the closest that we come to that in respiration is when our breathing gets short. So this is a somatic practice. It's not about figuring things out in our mind. It's about bringing the zazen focus. into the hara, where we hold our mudra. And if the breathing is round, full, in the cycle, then the gap of inhalation, exhalation, being born, dying, becomes one continuous flow.

[30:29]

And I've heard it said that people who practice sincerely and have this kind of experience, when they die, they don't struggle so much. Perhaps so. But I'm taking it on faith that there's something to this, because after 40 years, my birthing of problems that have caused me much duress and discontent from time to time have been extinguished or understood and incorporated in a different way from this continuous practice. When Sojomoshi died January 7th, 2021, Hosan asked me to come down and sound the Densho bell, which is hanging right by Susan. So I bowed, lifted the striker off the beam, had the clock that's in front of Margo beside me, and ding, ding, to start the rounds.

[31:45]

Once a minute, boom, boom, boom. And we had a computer set up so people could hear online what was happening in here. It's a traditional thing to sound 108 bells, what a teacher does. And we've done that for students who aren't teachers and teachers who are not students. Anyway, within a little bit of time, Uh, cold was birthed at my feet. I started feeling cold. Where'd that come from? Oh, right. It's wintertime. I'm sounding bells, and bells are sounding me. And here is this cold. What to do? I went from no separation of just... to... I'm uncomfortable.

[32:54]

I am uncomfortable. They're a separation for you. So I looked over to support cushions, those squared cushions that you see. I can put one of those down and get my feet warm. And then I thought about Soji Roshi being in Tassajara in a huge snow storm. And there was no food, and he fashioned, along with Reb, some snowshoes out of tires and climbed out of Tassajara to bring food back to the students there. 14-mile trek in the snow, probably cold, on his feet. And I thought, well, if my teacher can do that, I sure as hell can stand here for 108 minutes and have cold feet. And as you might imagine, after a while, the cold went away.

[33:56]

And that was that. Dung Shami, okay. Ardunshan Liencheng, Chinese, Dozan Ryokai, is the founder of our Sōdu Temple practice from China. And there's a story in his record that speaks to this. A monk asked, how does one escape hot and cold? Dozan responds, why not go where it is neither hot nor cold? Said the master. Students perplexed. What sort of place is neither hot nor cold? Asked the monk. When it's cold, you freeze to death.

[35:00]

When it's hot, you swelter to death. In other words, when you feel hot and cold, you're separate. And of course, if I'm cold, I'm gonna put on. a jacket. There's nothing wrong with putting up a jacket to get warm. But the deeper question is, where is the cold and where is my response to that cold? Sojiro, she said, The greatest suffering is not understanding birth and death and developing stories from discontinuous time. What is the story of continuous time? Dogen Soji, birth and death, isn't a straight line as we think birth and death.

[36:08]

It's more of a circle, an all-inclusive circle. that you can see in a Tibetan Wheel of Life, how our life is going around in a circle. So it's all included no matter what's going on. It took me a couple of years to feel settled here. I was missing New York. I was missing the seasons and the snow and the cold, and I didn't miss the humidity and the heat. But nevertheless, I was in New York. And there was a training here in the Zendo some years ago, and something came up, and I raised my hand and said, Sochi Roshi, you know, in New York, we blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he said, forget New York. So that was...

[37:12]

That was a thing show. That was a way for me to be present and not be separate. And where half of my being was in New York and half of my being was here. Probably three quarters of my being was in New York and a quarter was here. But nevertheless, that was that. And in this... cutting off my discursive thinking and desires to be elsewhere, Manjushri's sword cuts through delusion, and comes back up, and something is birthed, because birth and death go together. They're not separate. Death, and what's the result? Birth. And if a Kiyosaku or a stick or a sword is a little bit too hard on the sensibilities. A well-placed word or two, like forget New York, has the same effect.

[38:19]

It's a call from emptiness. Thanks, Mike. This was a meditational word for a few days. Haitians typically are thought of as an expression of non-duality from a Zen master, and they take other forms like plum blossoms. So I received this card today of plum blossoms on a branch, Japanese plum blossoms. Nice little reading inside, thank you very much. the person who presented it to me. And I woke up to something when I saw these plums this morning, and a memory of being in Candy Hand, which is walking meditation here in wherever you're doing it.

[39:36]

I happened to be doing it during the five days of the Sheen walking down this aisle here. So I'm walking down that aisle upright, and my eyes are lowered as directed. And I happened to catch a picture out that window frame. And that picture was the plum tree, which used to be there. The temple saved after it. And some blossoms running around. and I composed a poem of this experience. Logging for the snowflakes of my ancestral home, there in the Zendo window, a flurry of plum blossoms. Dogenzenji has a fascicle of Chobogazo called Baika, Plum Blossoms, and one of my favorite lines in that fascicle is, Plum Blossoms are the plum tree's offering, and the blossoms represent awakening.

[41:10]

Well, where is home, ancestral home? So as you often said, or asked that question, where's home? Where's your home? Office. Over there on Oregon Street or back in New York. Well, for a practice place, home is here. And he would point to his Hara breathing center. You're always home if you're connected somatically into your body. Not up here thinking about, I don't want to be in New York. Now I love New York. It's my favorite place on the planet. However, here's a pretty favorite place too. Suzuki Roshi says, mind follows breath into the body. So it's bringing the mental activity above the neck. into the body. Or as Paul Disco said, Japanese Zen is from the neck down.

[42:26]

American Zen is from the neck up. I was thinking about inspiration. taking in the universe and expiration, exhaling. And I was thinking about expiring, and what expires when we die? And I thought about parking spots. I don't drive a car, I haven't driven in years, but we have parking meters. And we plant ourselves somewhere in our parking spot, on this chair. wherever, and we put money in, we invest some time in the meter, and I'm going to park here. And then the meter expires.

[43:28]

Well, now, what happens when the meter expires? I want to stay here longer, or I've got to go. So if we practice exploration and letting go, then when it's time for us to go, I believe we'll have an easier time of it. And if we resist, and we want to put more money in the meter to stay around longer, I think we're going to suffer. I think I'm going to suffer if I try to do that. And it's interesting about wanting to stay around and wanting to get the hell out. When things are good, I want this party to continue going. And when this party is not so good, I want to get the hell out of here. So that's our mind wanting to be comfortable and joyful. That's completely natural. We don't really have a choice.

[44:32]

Einstein's last words were purported to be... I have done my share, it's time to go. Someone told me once I should blow my nose, you know? After 67 years, I still haven't learned to do that. I learned how to do it. I just like to do that. Another Teisho for your contemplation of how things that are separate and how we think about death and birth. A Sangha member was at a rug shop some years ago, and Sojiro, she came in, he was

[45:44]

rather fond of rugs. And the student said, you know, I'm going to die. I don't need to buy a rug. Now there's a practical place for that. Of course, you know, I'm not going to be here very long, probably, so what I want to buy something is to accumulate something. So that's discontinuous time. Soja Roshi, who was considerably older than this person, said, you know, I'm going to die, and I'm going to buy a rug. Because the only time that we have is now. So I'm thinking about, I'm going to die. I might do something differently. I might hold back. But living full on, moment by moment, is the teaching, is the teaching. I don't know what happened with the students' understanding about the practice and all that, but nevertheless, that story really resonated for me.

[46:49]

There's a koan, Sun-Faced Buddha, Moon-Faced Buddha, and that koan basically is speaking about whether you live for one day or a thousand years, it doesn't matter. You live fully and that's what counts. So how do we live fully without worrying about how many more years do I have? What is birth, what ideation is birth thinking about death? Oh, my God, I don't want to suffer. Well, neither do I. How much time do I have left? All those things. These are kind of the perennial issues that come up for people. And when Soji was asked, has your ideas or understanding about death changed since you've been diagnosed with terminal cancer?

[48:02]

He said, no. We're all gonna die. Everybody does it. What can I do about it? Just continue living my life fully. And that's what he did up to the end. In the end is the beginning, because with his death, I feel his presence even more here. I hear His words even more deeply now. I feel encouraged and inspired to continue to practice forever with His depth. And people who wonder how that'd be, well, I don't know how it works, but that's how I feel. I had lunch with Jerry Oliva. Hey, Jerry. Some years ago,

[49:05]

and we were talking over lunch saying, let's continue supporting this practice at Berkeley Zen Center for the rest of our lives. I said, yeah, let's do that. That's what we do. And we stumble, and we get up, and we continue supporting the practice here. In the Heart Sutra, it says, All dharmas are marked by emptiness, integrating into form and disintegrating into emptiness. Fran Tribe was the first president of Berkeley Zen Center many, many, many years ago. Her memorial stone is in the back garden. She and her husband Al were long-time, old-time practitioners who supported the practice.

[50:10]

So she was in the hospital near the end of her life. And a friend of mine, I visited her with a friend, and then my friend visited her alone sometime after that. And I remembered that Hearing about that conversation, I contacted my friend, and I said, you know, what did Fran say? I want to put it in my talk. And she wrote me. In the hospital at the end of this life, she said, the Skandhas are coming apart. and she cried. Her tears seemed to be less about the loss and more about the understanding of Skandis in a deep way in the beauty of realization.

[51:16]

So is death sad? Yeah. In closing, one more story around sojournation, and he was talking about conducting memorial services and funerals. And he said, these ceremonies in death, it's not awful, it's awesome. It's awesome. Life lived, A life dies, and it continues. That is awesome. And to return to Karen's question to me during Rahatsu's question about how was it for you with Sleeppeak, the temple cat who I took care of for a while, five and a half years, and died.

[52:27]

It was awful. And it was awesome. She and Rocky are buried beneath the chairs by my apartment near the Dokosan hut. So when you go by, in your heart, outside you can bow to those sweet cats who enriched my life and enriched those who touched them. Thank you very much. And... We've got a couple minutes for questions or comments, online or in person. Hey, Ben. Hey, Ross. Ross, thank you so much for your talk.

[53:31]

You shared a couple of deep experiences of loss, like for instance with your divorce and practicing with that. Do you have any words or guidance around how to practice with sort of where the loss or the suffering is something I do, some mistake I make, some failure I make? A mistake that you make? That's a loss? Uh-huh. Well, I thought I had it. I'll come back. There's big losses that occur where we're not the cause. So we have to sit with them in some way. And then there's trouble we cause ourselves. And is there a different way to deal with that? Yes. My Ukrainian grandmother, who came over in the early 20th century, offered me two teachings.

[54:48]

One was her maldo bread, which people have eaten from time to time here when I made them, her recipe. And the other saying, which is kind of old-fashioned, but it seems apt for this, if you watch the pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves. And my take on that is, if we take care of this person, the so-called other will be taken care of. And it doesn't mean that there won't be any discomfort, any suffering and tragedy and all of that. But in the taking care of this person, as I did in the midst of those things, I mean, who caused the divorce? Who caused the, I mean, is this a blame thing? Who caused the situation in the Middle East? Well, it's ancient, ancient Tango Karma, which we did in our book.

[55:50]

We recited our Bodhisattva ceremony. So I believe the best investment is watching pennies. Thank you, Ben. I'm conscious of the time. It's time to go. I don't see any virtual hands to give the onliners an opportunity, but we'll continue to practice forever, so I'm bound to run into you here or there. There's a celebration coming outside, I heard, so let's go to it. Beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them.

[56:50]

Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Thus way it's unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha sway I vow to become it. Beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. Delusions are inexhaustible.

[57:53]

I vow to end them. to become it. Thank you. Good morning everyone.

[59:34]

Good morning. Welcome to Berkley Zen Center. Welcome to everyone online and a special welcome to anyone joining us for the first time. My name is Joe and here are some announcements. If you have any questions about practice here at BCC, if you're new or newish or just have questions, please speak with today's Zazen instructor, which is Ikushin Jerry Oliva. So as was mentioned or alluded to earlier, we have our winter interim break starting now until New Year's Eve. Informal Zazen will be announced. So that announcement will probably come over our listserv. So please sign up for the listserv if you want up-to-date information and you haven't joined yet. That New Year's Eve sitting will be on the 31st from 8 PM until midnight. followed by a bonfire and refreshments. Again, keep an eye out on the listserv or check the website for more details on that.

[60:37]

But that's on New Year's Eve from 8 p.m. till midnight, and you can drop in and drop out. A regular Zazen schedule will return on Tuesday, January 2nd. And then on the first Saturday of the new year, January 6th, we'll have Sojin Roshi's annual memorial. So please make sure to come to that. Also, after today's program, we're gonna have a small celebration for Abbott Hozon's birthday. So please stick around for tea and cake. And as you probably know, Sojin Roshi's new book, I believe is available today at the bookstore. So a couple of reasons to hang around and to chat with folks. For more information about any of our programs or membership, please check out the bulletin board that's in the courtyard or our website. And to make a donation, there's also a donation box in the courtyard and a generosity tab on our website. If I get two volunteers to help clean up and wash teacups after we're done with the tea and cake, you don't have to know what you're doing, we can guide you.

[61:47]

Maria Theresa, thank you. Yeah. One more, please. Thank you. And those in the Zendo, if you could please maintain silence until you're off the Zendo steps. I encountered Helen on the way in, and she said that she will be at the library. She's able to do it. So the library is going to be open today from 1130 to noon for browsing. If you have any questions, Helen Chang can help you out. And so for those in the Zendo, as you're leaving, please maintain silence until you're off the porch and feel free to socialize. And for those online, please feel free to unmute and greet one another. Thank you all. So happy to see you, everyone. Good to see you, all you far-flung people. Take care. Good health. Good to see you. Thank you. Happy New Year. Hi, everyone. Wish I was there for the celebration.

[62:52]

You will, everyone. Hope everybody gets well soon in case some of you are home for the reason I'm home. Good health to everyone.

[63:08]

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