Recording in progress. Hello.

[13:06]

Surpassed, penetrating, and perfect dharma is rarely met with, even in a hundred thousand million kalpas, having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept. I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. Thank you all for being here. Full house. I want to begin by expressing gratitude to Abbot Linda for inviting me to speak with all of you this morning and also to my teachers. past, present, and future, for their incalculable support and guidance.

[15:15]

And also thank you to all of you for being here, without whom none of this would be possible. Well, I just forgot my Zagu for the third time in a week and a half. This is not an old habit, so it's mysterious. Something special is supposed to happen after the third time. In the last week and a half, I've offered two Dharma talks on the topic of equanimity. And this morning's talk will be the third. In preparation for each talk and in the wake of each previous talk, I feel increasingly able to see and talk about what I'm looking at. It keeps... turning. I keep turning it and it keeps turning me as I look at it. Equanimity is one of the four Brahma Viharas in early Buddhist teaching in the Pali Canon that is also taught in the Mahayana schools of Buddhism.

[16:29]

Though in my experience we speak of it infrequently in the context of Soto Zen, we speak more often of teachings like Dogen's Bodhisatta Shishobo, or the four embracing actions, in addition to Bodhisattva precepts and the perfections. The Brahma Viharas is often translated as the four divine or sublime abodes, or the four divine attitudes, or the four immeasurables. And they are loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. And they each contain the other three and rely on them for their complete expression. But still we speak of each of them in distinctly different ways. And today I'll be speaking of them from the perspective of equanimity.

[17:34]

The English word equanimity is modern and common. and I learned that its introduction into the English language goes back about 500 years, and the Sanskrit word that we translate as equanimity is upeksha, and that goes back about 2,000 years. And no doubt there's an equivalent word in every spoken language dating very far back, because it's a really basic and I imagine universal experience and concept. The Latin root, the English word equanimity, means equal or even. And in our modern way of speaking, we conceive of equal or even in a number of ways. One way is with respect to scales

[18:38]

with which we compare the weight of items. The two sides of what we call a balance scale are even, and we say the weight of the items is equal. Similarly, when we speak of the posture of the body, which we refer to a lot in Zen, specifically our sitting posture, we refer to the weight of the body as being equally distributed, and we associate that equal distribution of weight with our alignment and describe it as balanced or unbalanced. Dogen described it in his essay on the Fukanza Zangi or the Universal Instructions for Sitting Zazen as nose in line with the navel, ears on a plane with the shoulders, neither leaning forward nor backward. And he goes on.

[19:40]

We also commonly speak in terms of being even-minded or having a balanced view, not only in Buddhism but widely. What does a balanced view mean? In Zazen, or rather not in Zazen, in Zen, we sometimes call it being upright and describe being upright as being in alignment with the bodhisattva precepts, like patience and generosity, not stealing, not slandering, etc. Living in accord with wholesome and liberating values. In the last couple of weeks, while immersed in considering how best to talk about the mind of equanimity in the context of Zen, this school of Buddhism that focuses more on realization of the emptiness of all things than on cultivation of special advanced states of concentration, which the four sublime attitudes or the four immeasurables are described as being in the early Buddhist teachings.

[20:55]

And while considering all of this, I've been struck by the... significant experiential benefits of contemplating equanimity. It seemed as though in recent weeks that life has delivered me some rather surprising, though not exceedingly difficult, experiences, as though to say, how's your equanimity now? Do you see it? And to my pleasant surprise, I think it's not been too shabby Thanks to not only years of practice, I admit I've been practicing for quite a while, but also due to my recent immersion in studying equanimity. Not just intellectually, but experientially. I seem to have been calmer, more resilient, less excitable.

[22:07]

And I don't just mean visibly from the outside how I may appear to you, but inside, internally, where there can often be hidden stress and tension, activation. I describe the overall experience of equanimity in recent weeks as present with and spacious in the midst of some rather complex and surprising circumstances. I've been less fearful about the amount of time in a busy life that I have for really slowing down inside and being with each thing, each person. Enough to actually feel the connection and notice the intimacy that we speak of so highly and In Soto Zen, in this school, we say, menmitsu no kafu.

[23:10]

Often translated as careful attention to detail is the wind of the family house. But I think it is perhaps more accurately translated as careful intimacy is the family way. Because careful attention to detail tends to... call forth in our mind a misunderstanding that suggests a kind of hypervigilance. The family way, meaning the way of our school of Zen. The family way, in my experience, manifests from a certain equality or equanimity. And I think that the equality is the same as the equality referred to in the first character of the Japanese word sandokai. That title of that 8th century Chinese poem that we translate, Harmony of Difference and Equality, and chant every month for the memorial of our founder, Suzuki Roshi.

[24:29]

So that would mean that the san in sandokai, translated as harmony, but also sometimes as unity, sometimes as sameness, implies evenness or balance. Some people might think that mere contemplation or cognitive study of a teaching like the Brahma Viharas, specifically equanimity, can't possibly result in more embodied equanimity. The thing is, there's actually no mere cognitive or intellectual contemplation of a teaching. And this goes for all of us, not just Zen practitioners. Because the cognitive and the affective or our emotional assimilation and our physical manifestations and enactments are not separate inside of this human organism. We're actually not broken up into departments in that way.

[25:33]

But our ways of conceptualizing and referring to relating to things and ideas has a way of spawning all kinds of notions of separation. And I understand because it can be challenging to otherwise communicate in spoken language the multiplicity of functions within a singularity called life, as we call it. Life is our word, I think, for what Suzuki Roshi called, things as it is. In Zen, we have numerous practices. Zazen, our sitting practice, bowing and chanting, performing ceremonies, studying written teachings, face-to-face meetings with a teacher, and Samu, which is often translated as work practice, but Dogen used the term more broadly. to refer to practice in the midst of everyday activity.

[26:38]

So when we're cooking dinner or doing the dishes, we may not think we're working. But that is everyday activity, and we can practice in the midst of all of these activities. So you could say that we have numerous practices, or perhaps more accurately, you could say that we have these numerous forms and expressions of one continuous practice. which Dogen called Gyoji, and that each of these practices is inseparable from the fruits that they bear. To express the non-separation, Dogen used the word Shusho as different than Shusho, which means head student. Shusho means practice realization, what we translate as practice hyphen realization or sometimes practice verification or practice enlightenment.

[27:42]

Either way, shu shou means that our practice and the fruits or the verification of our practice are not separate. They are one activity. And each of our expressions of practice contains all of the others. For instance, though when I'm bowing and chanting I'm not sitting zazen, the cultivation of zazen immediately prior to bowing and chanting and for years prior to this morning's bowing and chanting have conditioned this morning's bowing and chanting and vice versa. Similarly, my immersion in the study of equanimity in recent weeks has conditioned my body, mind and heart and this morning zazen and bowing and chanting. Everything is like this. Not only our wholesome practices, but also our unwholesome habits of body and mind.

[28:49]

Because we're like this, only just contemplating equanimity in recent weeks has proven to be quite holistic to an extent that's actually really surprised me in a heartening way. So I'm sitting here this morning wanting to sincerely recommend it. The practice realization or the study realization has been more or less continuous which is not to say that I'm never distracted or that I never have strong or troubling feelings. It doesn't mean that I'm always at my best or that diluted views aren't arising in the mind. It's only to say that there is something unbroken and continuous that the teaching of Zen encourages us to recognize as such, to wake up to.

[29:53]

Sometimes what we call waking up to, occurred to me, seems more like diligently holding a taut rope, which is what the practice of a refraining can sometimes feel like. Refraining from giving way to old habits of body and mind, whose false signals and narratives have actually, we've actually started to see for what they are, perhaps, when we've been sitting for a while. But we still haven't totally overridden them, you know, re-patterned them. Our practice of zazen, its cultivation of equanimity, is a re-patterning activity. It re-patterns the nervous system. And just being together in this way, in a room like this, a group of practitioners, Being together, we are being re-patterned in this moment as we contemplate together equanimity.

[31:03]

The Brahma Viharas are skillful means. And skillful means can be understood as a practice of continuously cultivating the mind ground, if you will, or transforming our karmic consciousness. Skillful means The use of them is not like tools that we use in a kind of a game of whack-a-mole. You know, that we play with our hindrances and our afflictions that rise up in consciousness as recognizable problems. The practice of skillful means actually runs much deeper than that and can function at very subtle levels in addition to manifesting as our recognizable attempts to transform behavior. About a week and a half ago, I offered a talk on equanimity to a group of residents at Green Gulch Farm, and afterwards I realized that I neglected to mention a few important points.

[32:12]

The first being that the intimate relationship between equanimity and the other three Brahmapiharas is very important. In this teaching, it's understood that equanimity in the absence of loving-kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy is indifference, which is aloof or cold or suppressed, possibly dissociated, without care for feelings, one's own or those of others. And each of the four Brahmaviharas is said to have a near enemy, and the near enemy of... equanimity is indifference. The near enemy of loving kindness is attachment or desire. And the near enemy of compassion is pity. And the near enemy of sympathetic joy, they say, is a comparing mind, which is not so obvious as the others, but you can, if you reflect on it a bit, you can see it as

[33:25]

the basis for the potential arising of jealousy or envy. Sympathetic joy is joy in the happiness of others, delighting in others' good fortune. If we start comparing, we might start to feel like, well, what about me? So it's important to see that each of the four includes the others and that together they rest on an intention of goodwill toward all beings without exception. And it's this without exception that I think we tend to attribute to the impartiality of equanimity. You might say that equanimity is dispassion toward all passions, toward Traditionally, what they call the Vedanas, the positive, negative and neutral feelings that arise in our consciousness.

[34:31]

But this dispassion is right here with the feelings. An impartiality that doesn't reject the feelings. In the practice of Zen, we train ourselves to see this coexistence, if you will, again and again to turn our attention toward it. And in so doing, we're cultivating the body-mind and transforming our karmic consciousness. I'd like to return to the reference that I made earlier of balance, the reference to balance, the cultivation of balance, which I tend to think is immediately accessible with reference to our thoughts and our feelings and our physical states.

[35:34]

Again, in Zen, we emphasize attention to the body, attention to being upright and balanced with reference to both our physical and mental posture. And in my experience, we are actually cultivating equanimity in our sitting practice. Specifically when we are practicing what we call shikantaza. Only just sitting, we say. Not trying to cultivate any special experiences and not trying to get away from what arises in the mind and not entertaining any of it. Letting thoughts and sensations come and go without reaching for them and without pushing them away. Equanimity is not a superficial attitude, you know, like a persona. It's not a mask that we wear on top of our tension or grievances to hide the feelings, you know, in order to appear unaffected.

[36:42]

It's not suppression and it's not stoicism. It's not cold. If we're only posing as equanimous in order to, I don't know, appear in one way or another, we're actually creating a kind of split in ourselves and generating stress within ourselves. Equanimity has no judgment on any feelings that we might be experiencing or that others are experiencing. It doesn't take sides. and it doesn't ignore sides. It doesn't divide, and at the same time it doesn't deny differences. It's a quality of unobstructed presence, I would say, that remains intimate with obstructions. It functions as a spacious accommodation, a field of equality or evenness.

[37:47]

and that one might experience as harmonizing. But because it doesn't divide or attempt to exclude anything, it acts as a kind of, I was thinking, a natural beta blocker. The body-mind state that we call equanimity seems to have a chemical and neurological correspondence in the body that lowers blood pressure, reduces the heart rate, block stress hormones. And if I understand correctly, that's what medications called beta blockers are meant to do for us. If equanimity is not working in this way, I think it's probably not real equanimity. It might just be suppression, which psychologically speaking is only pushing down the mental formations that cause stress, pushing them into the unconsciousness. from which they will rise up again under better circumstances, more optimal circumstances, you know, when we're not looking.

[38:54]

Equanimity welcomes everything, you might say, without emotional reactivity, but also, again, without pushing away the emotions and without indifference. It bears repeating. It actually enables responsiveness as well, I would say. I'd suggest it's the basis for what we call an appropriate response in any given moment. It's like reaching for a pillow in the night, I thought, without waking yourself up. Or like reaching for a glass that has fallen. without the need for a big emotion or a story as an impetus to reach for it swiftly or accurately. It's an underlying readiness to respond with care on the basis of an underlying evenness, which is a way of saying that

[40:06]

a mind that's not constantly rigidly leaning toward what it likes and away from what it dislikes. This absence of clinging, you might describe it as being, clinging to a point of view is what enables the body to be nimble and swift and flexible, the body and mind together. So what makes this balanced, caring, compassionate impartiality possible? It seems to me that it's the absence of being pushed and pulled around by our likes and dislikes. It's not falling into rumination and not getting wound up by anticipation, but remaining present-centered, upright. When that's the case, I'm able to clearly see that life is not cut up into various separate pieces, to see that everything is intimately related, to study what I see carefully enough to recognize that everything depends on innumerable forms and expressions for its existence.

[41:27]

And in seeing that, more and more, I'm able to see the senselessness and reacting against so much of what arises in my own consciousness as though it were a foreign entity which causes me and others a great deal of suffering and that we see play out on a mass scale in the world at large. This is not just an intellectual understanding that I'm sharing with you. It can be deeply assimilated in ways that are really powerfully transformative. When our physical bodies are in a state of balance, that's when our muscles are able to be most relaxed overall. Neurophysiology shows that when our muscles become excessively tense, then throughout the nervous system they send threat-related signals to the brain.

[42:32]

As a result, experientially, we feel tightly bound and often psychologically cut off from connection to the greater whole of life. Conversely, when we're more relaxed in the musculature, there are many changes that occur in the circulatory system, nervous system, and respiratory system. resulting in the subjective feeling of spaciousness. Studies show. When we're relaxed and at the same time alert, awake, attention becomes less narrow and less selective than when we're stressed and vigilant. Attention spreads outward and can include and accommodate more of the present field of experience. And from a neurophysiological perspective, there's an optimal zone between tense and collapsed or tensed and drowsy, which I think I'm postulating corresponds to the equanimity that I've been speaking of and that we cultivate in our Zen practice.

[43:48]

This whole contemplation brought to my mind Vimalakirti, the greatly awakened householder bodhisattva, who is depicted as outwardly involved in myriad activities and relationships while continuously inwardly free. It occurred to me that the spaciousness of equanimity is like Vimalakirti's room. You know that 10-foot square room? For those of you not familiar with the Vimalakirti Sutra, there is a 10-foot square room in which, or rather, that accommodates, that Vimalakirti lives in, and that accommodates 84,000 guests. Bodhisattvas and gods and other disciples of the Buddha who've come to visit Vimalakirti. In that room, that apparently small enclosed space,

[44:55]

some very mysterious, unbounded, immeasurable space with no barriers. Among Vimalakirti's guests were a wide variety of visitors with many different feelings about Vimalakirti. And if we consider this teaching symbolically, as I have, we could say that Vimalakirti's consciousness was totally unobstructed, enabling him to engage in a wide variety of skillful means for the benefit of a variety of advanced but still suffering beings. And that room represents his consciousness. One of the most powerful teachings in the Vimalakirti Sutra is that the ordinary world is not an obstacle to awakening. And that our experience of space depends on the conditioning of our mind.

[45:59]

And that space is inseparable from what manifests in space. In astrophysics, there's something called a black hole. Black holes are in a way like Vimalakirti's room. And that they contain an enormous amount of compressed energy within a very small volume. But from the outside to one who's not trained to see them in that way, they look like an absence of content, like vacuous. But whole worlds are there. And whole worlds are also within equanimity. And the ordinary world is no obstacle to equanimity. That's what I wanted to share with you this morning. I welcome anything you'd like to say. You can go ahead and call on folks and I'll bring the microphone to where you choose.

[47:12]

Greg Roche. I have to wait for my sleep night for one second. Thank you very much for the talk. It's really encouraging. And I want to thank you for making me think of my teacher, Sojan Roshi. He used to forget his Zagu all the time. I'm so relieved to hear it. So maybe that is the wind of this house. Thank you so much for your talk. It really struck me. In particular, I think at one point you said equanimity is sort of being intimate with obstructions.

[48:21]

And I was curious if you would say a little more or maybe in the weeks of you studying this, there's an example that illustrates that because I just am aware that my body-mind often defaults to indifference when facing obstruction, kind of this attitude of, oh, this doesn't matter, and therefore it's not so obstructive, like constantly. I'm really working with that right now. So I was really struck by this other approach of intimacy with the obstruction rather than just trying to get it out of the way. Yes, thank you. There is an example that comes to mind I had an experience while I was at Green Gulch recently that Tonto had generously lent me his room for practice discussions. And at one point I was meeting with a student and we had been talking for some minutes and were intimately engaged in conversation when someone bursted into the room. And I could see that he was a bit shaken.

[49:26]

And I registered this person and what... the surprise in their face, of course, they didn't realize anyone was in the room, and the attempt to briefly explain and inform me that they were leaving something outside the door. When I reflected on it later, what I recalled is that it just taking in the tone of the person who I was sitting with and quickly making some kind of sense of what I picked up on, as well as the person who came to the door, and then noticing my state. I chose very quickly, again, in retrospect, I can talk about it in this way, to immediately re-enter the conversation that we were having rather than make a big thing about what just happened. And we continued. And once I felt things had smoothed out a bit and I sensed his ease, there was a pause. And I said, I'm sorry for that sudden intrusion. And he said, I really thank you for the way that you just...

[50:29]

continued. So it was a learning for me because I didn't plan any of this. But in retrospect, that to me is a certain experience of the equanimity that was there. Thank you. Welcome. And we do have three hands online. I don't know how we are doing for time. At what point do we have to stop? Oh, great. What time do we usually stop Q&A? Just so I have a... Great. Okay, let's... Okay. Shall we go to someone online? Justin... Libby? Justin Roshi. Hi, Libby. Thank you so much for this rich and deep talk, which I will be thinking about many times in the future. Very quickly, could you repeat the four Brahmaviharas and their near enemies? I want us to take that in. They are loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.

[51:35]

And their near enemies are attachment or desire. It goes with loving kindness. The near enemy of compassion is pity. The near enemy of sympathetic joy is a comparing mind. And the near enemy of equanimity is indifference. Welcome. Anyone else online? I see Marley or... I can't see very well. I'm sorry if I... There's two people. Do you see Hacks on over... Oh, here we go. Okay. EJI, please. Thank you. Thank you so much for your talk. Powerful talk. Very powerful. I have recently... I'm hearing the echo. Maybe that's my phone. Okay, sorry for that. I do hear you clearly. Okay, great. Humility has been something that I've been looking at on and off for a few months.

[52:46]

And I know how important humility is for equanimity. Growing up in You know, growing up in... Wow, I totally lost my track here. But basically growing up in a poor African-American community, going to university, getting degrees, working in major topics like IBM and what have you. And so what I'm looking at there is a double consciousness. And I was... born and raised Roman Catholic. So there was a certain equanimity in being in the liturgy and the mass. I still enjoy peacefulness of the ritual of the Roman Catholic mass, which is my family grew up Pentecostal. So here I am living in a Pentecostal community in a Roman Catholic church, and now I have a wonderful opportunity to experience Zen.

[53:49]

What I, and just to make it quick, In my great grandmother's church, you know, there wasn't a lot of equanimity in what I was seeing because people come, shout, sing, dance. And I know even when I'm in those situations, I sometimes will start crying or I'll have all these emotions. But I realized is that after all that's done, it allows me a deeper experience of equanimity. So I was thinking about that in terms of, you know, the post-traumatic slave syndrome, And, you know, EGI at Equal Justice Initiative and living in a society where I'm constantly having to search for my equanimity. So I just want to put that out there if you have any comments about that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, I want to say that equanimity is not a particular affect. You know, I'm sitting up here and I'm this way. This is kind of how I am. But one can be more expressive and still be experiencing equanimity and one can cry and one can sing and dance and in the midst of equanimity.

[54:59]

Okay. Thank you. Shall we go to someone in the room? Doshin. And then Sarah. Hello? I hear you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. I'm wondering what you mean by there are whole worlds in equanimity. The whole world is here. It was like what I was just saying. There are feelings. There are all kinds of things going on. There's the description that I just shared of in response to Hax's question. And so the whole world is here. And whole worlds, you know, is a reference to Dogen's Genjo Koan. But there's so much more than meets the eye, than meets the perceptions.

[56:06]

And equanimity might appear in any number of ways, or it might appear like this. But within equanimity, there is so much going on. It is... continuous activity. That's what I meant to convey. Sarah, up here, up in front. Sarah, right here up in front. Our doam for this morning. Oh, Sarah is your sister. I'm so sorry. I was wondering how you knew. I don't know. So, I just want... Thank you for your talk. You're welcome. You gave me a lot to think about. But I find in certain situations, and I'm thinking of one that happened recently where I was, you know, sort of present for a rather serious accident, that I actually sort of fainted.

[57:10]

You know, I stayed very steady in that situation and... where a lot of people weren't very steady. So I'm sort of asking you about that since you sort of said don't fake it. But I actually found that it was quite useful. Thank you. I didn't mean to say don't fake it. Only that faking it is, that kind of faking it is not exactly equanimity, but it's still skillful. Faking it can be quite skillful. Some people say fake it till you make it. I don't really like that expression, but... Faking it is interpretive. It was like you were doing your best to remain calm and helpful in that situation, even though inside you might have been on the verge of overwhelm. So that was intentional practice. And I don't want to suggest that that is a wrong way of being. I mean, I was very aware that I was actually faking it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, maybe that awareness was, that's the equanimity.

[58:13]

Thank you. Yeah. From a more, from a less relative perspective, I think that's the ultimate nature of equanimity is that awareness. I leave it to you. Well, thank you for an incredible talk. You're welcome. Mind-blowing. Thank you. I like how you talked about black holes, which I never thought of in such a way. Are you an astrophysicist? No, I know nothing. I know nothing about that. Yeah, I'm a psychologist, and in the old days, we were trained to have kind of fake equanimity, like just be free-floating attention, non-reactive. Ideally, it becomes who you are as a person over time, or not just as a therapist. But I was reflecting when you were talking about the balancing, about judges, And judges, I don't know if they're trained to be impassive or indifferent, but it seems like what's missing is the love and compassion part, whereas therapists are supposed to cultivate those aspects too.

[59:21]

So I guess the question is, what's the role of a judge in terms of equanimity? Because they're sort of trained to be making judgments all the time. And do you think that's something... people in that field cultivate or should cultivate? Well, one way of talking about equanimity that I can imagine with reference to being a judge is the spacious accommodation that allows you to hold multiple views, multiple perspectives, and process that without being constantly pulled in to one of you or another, but to have a kind of impartial spaciousness that allows you to consider each one and then to make a decision to the best of your discernment about presumably what is true. Thank you. That's helpful. You're welcome.

[60:24]

Oh, Marlee online can ask the next question. Thank you. Hello, and thank you so much for your talk. You're welcome. Hello. This talk has meant so much to me about my current state and what I've been working with in my practice as... as I've had physical problems, which meant that I couldn't participate as much in the, let's say, the ritual environment of Zen or extended Zazen. And it's become so clear to me lately that these near enemies, right, that equanimity, it's so easy to think you'll are aiming at equanimity and instead you are trying to wrap yourself in this blanket of calm where things won't be too much or too little.

[61:42]

But I have slowly been, you know, whacked into awareness by a life that it seems like equanimity is much more having you know, being there for that pain, that pleasure, and both can be more vivid when you're really aware of what's going on in your moment by moment. Yes. I'm hearing your reference to the intimacy of this practice, and I also want to acknowledge as I listen to you that this also relates to the previous question, EJI? humility. He was speaking of humility and I think there's an intimate quality for me internally when I experience what I call humility and it assumes a kind of the privilege of a basic safety.

[62:51]

I think when we're beginning this practice we need to feel basically safe enough to open up to what's going on inside of ourselves and to know that we are resourced to face and to be with what arises. And these near enemies, they come to our rescue and we feel often afraid in some way, and they help us to defend ourselves. So I just want to express understanding of that tendency. I think that's why they're articulated, because they're so common. And one of the ways, you know, in this tradition we... support ourselves as we come together you know whether online or in person to connect and to know we're not alone in these experiences so thank you for sharing yours okay thank you kristin you're welcome um

[63:57]

Like a few other people, I was really struck by the near enemies of the Brahma Viharas. I had an experience recently where I was feeling a lot of compassion for somebody, but they showed me that they were receiving it as pity, which was not what they wanted. And so I was curious. I recognize that the reasons for that came largely from their own experiences that had nothing to do with me. But I was curious if you had any advice for skillfully expressing the difference between those. Hiri, in my association, is a kind of looking down, you know, feeling with, but kind of looking down, kind of expressing care from a little bit from on high, as though above it or outside of it. So we have to watch for that in ourselves. And sometimes we do it rather unintentionally, almost, again, to protect ourselves, kind of distance ourselves a little bit. And compassion is about the withness. You know, we feel with. others. So we don't need to set ourselves apart in order to express care.

[65:00]

It can be subtle, but sometimes it feels very striking and obvious to the person who's receiving it. Thank you. You're welcome. I think we're at time. Yeah, we're at time. Thank you all so much. Things are numberless. I have ought to awaken with them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Things are numberless. I vow to awaken with them.

[66:20]

Illusions are impossible. I vow to end them. Karma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. The day is unsurpassable. I don't know what I'm saying. I don't know what I'm saying. I don't know what I'm saying. Thank you. Good morning.

[67:46]

My name is Ben, and I am co-Saturday director, so I'm director this morning. Welcome to Berkeley Zen Center, and a special welcome to those who might be with us for the first time. Also, welcome to everyone joining us online. Luminous Heart Penelope Thompson will offer a way-seeking mind talk this coming Monday at 8 a.m. in the online Zendo. BZC is offering a four-week practice period, Aspects of Practice, themed The Roots of Goodness. And this begins September 19th and runs through October 17th. It starts with an opening one-day sitting on September 19th, which is available for both in-person and online participation. And there is also a four-week class beginning Thursday, September 24th. You can check out berkeleyzencenter.org for details. Next Saturday's Dharma Talk will be given by Jerry Oliva. And a couple other announcements. Sangha members who identify as black, indigenous, or people of color are welcome to meetings held on the first Monday of each month from 6.30 to 7.30 p.m.

[68:57]

via Zoom. For more information, see the links for recurring activities. And as a reminder, the Zendo is a scent-free environment. Please refrain from wearing scented body care products or clothes laundered with scented products when you're coming to the Zendo. If you want more information about Berkeley Zen Center or about membership or our programs, you can check out the bulletin board, our website, or you can speak to me during tea.com. There's a donation box out in the courtyard. We're about to go out and have tea and cookies. Please consider making a donation to support the temple. We're solely supported by member dues and donations. And one other quick reminder. In August, we didn't have our early morning Saturday program, but we're back to that now. This starts at 6 a.m., and there's opportunities for... kinhin and zazen, but also a longer service and oryoki breakfast, which we eat in the zendo. There's opportunities to be a server or to help in the kitchen.

[70:00]

And there's a work period. It's really lovely taste of monastic practice that happens every Saturday, which is quite precious. So if you want to come, all are welcome. There's training available for any activity that might be occurring. And if you have any questions, you can come see me during tea. Finally, I need two volunteers to help clean teacups after tea today. If I could please have two volunteers. Oh, wow. Finn and... What's your name? Miles. Finn and Miles. Let's go with you today. Thank you very much. Okay, let's please maintain silence until we're off the Zendo porch and enjoy our tea. Good morning, Sangha.

[71:06]

It's good to see you all. Thank you, Christian, for a wonderful, wonderful talk this morning. Good morning, everyone. I appreciate. Bye-bye.

[71:18]

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